Three Bargains: A Novel (42 page)

“You think you’ve covered all the possible angles, shielded yourself from every possibility, made sure you’re unbeatable.” Avtaar Singh laughed derisively. “But there is always that one small opening, one possibility you haven’t considered, and in that unguarded space the dagger darts in and slays you.”

The car came to a stop outside Jaggu’s home. He clicked the door open, eager to put some distance between himself and Avtaar Singh.

“I took a tour of Jeet Megacity a short while ago,” Avtaar Singh said as Madan exited. “Actually, it is truly stunning.”

Madan stood flabbergasted at the gate as the car skidded away. Avtaar Singh had seen Jeet Megacity, walked up and down, admired every corner, when Madan had not even entered the place yet.

His immediate instinct was to run behind the car and flag it down. He wanted to hear more. Soak up what Avtaar Singh had seen as he gazed up at the tall towers; bask in his impressions as he considered the land, altered beyond recognition. Madan gave himself a mental shake, and wondered how Avtaar Singh had gained access to Jeet Megacity. Regardless of all the safeguards and barriers he’d put up, Avtaar Singh had found a way in.

“Are you okay?” Jaggu hurriedly undid the latch of the gate. “What did he want?”

“What he always wants,” Madan said, reassuring Jaggu that he was fine. “More than he deserves.”

“Forget him for now,” Jaggu said. “I thought of someone who might know something about the baby.”

Kasturba Gandhi Hope and Healing Center was a boxy building with high walls as long as its name. Jaggu turned into a parking spot near the entry gate. They were going to see Feroze, Avtaar Singh’s old goon with the eyes that missed nothing. Feroze, whose name was known to every prostitute at Champa’s and who had arranged the same for Jaggu and Madan that first time. Feroze, thought Madan soberly, who had beat him up and left him for dead.

“Because if Pandit Bansi Lal needed help getting the child out of Karnal,” Jaggu had explained, “he would have asked someone he knew, who would do it for money but keep his mouth shut. That’s Feroze. I’ve seen him off and on over the years, we’ve greeted each other from afar. But I heard recently that he’s moved into an ashram.”

“He’s found God?” Madan had asked, disbelieving

“No, not that sort of ashram. It’s the type of place you go when you’re sick and you have no one. They give you a bed and take care of you until the end.”

In the car all the way to the ashram, they’d tried to recall Feroze’s last name, but it did not come to them.

“More than his name, first we’ll have to see if he’s alive,” Jaggu had pointed out when they arrived.

They walked now into the deserted foyer, where informational posters on AIDS and hepatitis B lined the walls. There was no one by the desk in the corner, and they walked through to the central courtyard, visible on the other side of the inner doors.

Outside, people in white kurtas milled about, some playing a game of cards under the shade of a large tree. Madan and Jaggu spotted a nurse standing off to the side. “Excuse me,” Madan said, “we’re looking for a friend of ours, Feroze—”

Before he’d completed his sentence, she bellowed out, “Feroze, visitors!”

Jaggu and Madan’s gazes snapped in the direction she had shouted. A man sitting cross-legged on a cane chair, a newspaper in his lap, looked up at her call. Slowly he uncrossed his legs and stood up. His skeletal face peered vacantly ahead as he shambled toward them.

Madan and Jaggu met him halfway. “Jaggu?” he said, his pale eyes cloudier with age.

“Feroze!” Jaggu embraced him eagerly, caught up in the relief of finding him.

Feroze began to cough, and Jaggu stepped back. “Sorry,” Jaggu said.

“No, no it’s okay.” Feroze waved his hand. “I’ve become too fragile, as you can see.” He studied Madan curiously, but said to Jaggu, “How come you remembered me after such a long time? I used to see you running in and out of your cinema. You forgot your old friend then, ha?”

Jaggu fidgeted uncomfortably and moved back, nearly stepping into Madan. “We’ve come for some information,” Jaggu said.

Again Feroze peered unsurely at Madan, trying to place him.

“Okay,” said Feroze. “Let’s go to my room. This is the first time anyone has come to see me.”

They followed him to a small room in the east wing of the building. A metal bed, a cupboard and a wooden writing desk and chair were the few fixtures in the sparely furnished room. Madan pulled out the chair and Jaggu and Feroze sat on the bed.

“Nice place,” said Jaggu, looking around.

Feroze laughed bitterly. “Yes,” he said. “It’s the fucking Oberoi Hotel. So what do you want?”

“You still haven’t recognized him, have you?” asked Jaggu.

“Who?” Feroze said. “Your friend?” He turned to look at Madan again.

“My very good friend,” Jaggu affirmed. “From many years ago, when we all used to roam the streets together. He was our leader, though you fancied that you were.”

But Feroze wasn’t listening. “No,” he whispered in disbelief, leaning forward, looking closely at Madan.

“Hello, Feroze,” said Madan. Feroze fell back as though Madan had hit him. “Don’t worry, I’m not here for revenge. I need to know something.”

“Madan,” Feroze squeaked out. “Madan, Madan, Madan. You’re harder to get rid of than this disease that’s eating me alive.” He shook his head, incredulous. “I can’t believe I’m here to see this.”

He leaned toward Madan again as if to ascertain Madan’s undeniable presence. “When you turned up alive in Karnal, I got into so much trouble. I thought those were my last days. Now I wish they were.” He dabbed the beads of sweat on his upper lip with his kurta sleeve. “Sorry,” he said, “with this sickness my body temperature goes up and down.” He took in a ragged breath, but couldn’t seem to stop talking.

“When we got back to Gorapur, Pandit-ji was going on about your appearance in the hospital, your clothes all dirty and torn, like a tramp off the streets. ‘But where is he?’ Avtaar Singh kept asking like a child. ‘Why didn’t you bring him to me?’ We didn’t know what to tell him. All we could say is, you ran off. Suddenly Avtaar Singh got up and walked out. Like he’d had enough. He just went. Left us both in the office with our mouths open. And no one saw him for a few weeks after that. Sick, Minnu memsaab said. Can you believe it?” He shook his head, knowing only they would understand the improbability of this. “Even a cold first asks permission from Avtaar Singh to visit him. When has Avtaar Singh ever been sick?

“But maybe he was sick,” Feroze reconsidered. “After he came back, it was like he’d become an old man. He would forget things; he would look at you but not see you. With you gone, everything changed with him. We’d come to his office in the evening, but he never talked and debated like before. Soon he only called us for work, and that too didn’t have the same masala. Just business-type work. My shiv was used solely to peel apples.”

Madan felt Jaggu’s worried gaze on him, but he kept his face blank. He ignored the roiling beginning inside him, brought on by Feroze’s accounts, and forced himself to concentrate on Feroze, who enjoyed having an audience.

“Pandit Bansi Lal did manage to take his cane to me, though, but that was nothing compared to what I was expecting. And here you are again. Why?”

Jaggu and Madan looked at each other. Would they really get a name, an address, an actual spot on the map of the world?

“I saw Pandit Bansi Lal in Karnal the day I disappeared,” Madan said. “Did you by any chance—were you helping Pandit Bansi Lal that day? Did you know anything? About a baby?”

Feroze smiled. “I had a feeling my long memory would pay off someday. How, I was not sure, but I had a feeling.”

Jaggu put his head in his hands and gave a frustrated roar. Madan almost mimicked him.

“You know something?” asked Madan.

“What do you want?” asked Jaggu. “We’ll give you anything.”

Feroze pursed his thin lips. “Look,” he said. “I may live a year, maybe two, but not longer than that, I’m told.” He paused, and, when he saw no sympathy forthcoming, went on. “Sometimes families of people who are here, they make a donation for a better room, one with a TV.” He pointed to the floors above.

“You want us to get you a better room?” asked Madan.

Feroze nodded. “You look like you can.”

“Feroze, Feroze, Feroze,” said Jaggu, imitating him from a short while ago. “You tried to kill this man, beat him and left him for dead. I think you owe him, rather than the other way round.”

Feroze refused to meet their eyes, saying stubbornly, “I want a better room.”

Madan and Jaggu stepped outside his room to talk. “He did try to kill me,” Madan whispered.

“Yes,” agreed Jaggu. “On the other hand, if he has any bit of information—”

“I know,” Madan said. “Good thing I brought my checkbook.”

An hour later Madan signed the final papers in the accounting office, and they helped Feroze move his few things to his new room. It was a better room; there was a rug on the floor and a tray with a jug of water on the table and, of course, the TV. Feroze was ecstatic.

Jaggu scowled at him. “Your information better be good,” he said, irritated that Feroze had managed to weasel the money out of Madan.

Feroze sat down on his new bed and began to laugh. “You motherfuckers are still so stupid.”

“Feroze—” Jaggu warned.

“You think such important things would ever be shared with me? There are only two people on earth who know where that baby is: that ass Pandit Bansi Lal, and the man who knows everything . . . Avtaar Singh.”

“I’m going to finish you right now,” said Jaggu, lunging at Feroze. “Do you think this is some kind of joke?”

“Wait . . . wait,” said Feroze, throwing his hands up, his bravado gone. “Look, my job was to take Pandit Bansi Lal to the hospital in Karnal and bring him back. In between, he told me to make myself scarce. I know that Avtaar Singh told Trilok-bhai he would take care of the baby, it would be Avtaar Singh’s responsibility to clean up the mess. It was the last conversation between them. What Avtaar Singh and Pandit Bansi Lal did with the baby . . .” Feroze shrugged.

Madan poured himself a glass of water. He ached for both of his lost children. For his child bartered from hand to hand, an inconvenience cast away into the arms of strangers. And Avtaar Singh had sat there wasting Madan’s time rambling on about progress, growth and fables about kings. What future had Avtaar Singh consigned to his child?

He knew there was no other way to find out. He would have to ask the man himself, and he knew now what Avtaar Singh would ask in return. How much was Jeet Megacity worth to Madan? What could it give him, now that he had nothing?

S
LOWLY, MADAN SLIPPED THE LAST BOLT OUT AND THE
front door creaked open. Out on the veranda the lights were on, and the grass of the front lawn glowed with a pearly sheen. The downy grass was cold against his bare soles and cushioned his tired feet. Stars dotted the sky and he watched the dawn take its time, turning the sky orange, and then cream. The shredded leaves of the palm trees shivered in the high breeze, but the ferns stood unmoving against the wall as he walked the length of the lawn. A dog yowled at the fading of the moon, and footsteps shuffled by beyond the wall, morning walks in progress, neighbors hailing neighbors, “Ram, Ram.”

He heard the squeak of the door and Swati came out, but she did not disturb him. She watched him for a while, then went to sit on one of the wicker chairs and, taking some of her sewing from a plastic box, turned toward the light and began to work.

Madan joined her, taking a seat on the stool at the sewing machine. “Let me show you something,” he said. Deftly, he slipped the fabric between the needle and the raised base plate of the sewing machine. He adjusted the hand wheel until the needle pierced the fabric, and firmly pressed the foot pedal, guiding the cloth on as a row of stitches appeared along the hem. Madan raised the needle when he came to the end and then, raising the presser foot, pulled the neatly sewn edge out with a flourish. Swati put her hand to her mouth, gasping in awe, and she clapped.