The Selector of Souls (65 page)

“With enough power to make mountains fall to pieces,” says Mr. Kohli.

The path returns to the entrance and the sign bordered in red:
Glass House
. A few stones still weigh Vikas’s pockets. He looks around. By this hour there are so many in the park, that throwing stones would provide public amusement. But laughter still rings in his ears—the yoga-laughers?

He follows his father to the exit, glances back, but can’t see them.

What is there to laugh at?

T
HAT EVENING
, A
NU STANDS AT THE PERIPHERY OF A GAUDY
hubbub, in three-inch heels and a sea-green sari with a goldthread border. She’s feeling strange, and not only because her midriff and arms are bare. She’s here at the invitation of her school friend Shalini and the encouragement of Purnima-aunty. She sips a gin and tonic, hoping it will help her adjust. She smiles uncertainly at strangers.

The men gathered beneath the chandeliers argue and bargain—Vikas would call it “negotiation.” They don’t seem to like each other, but are united in favour of deregulation and freedom from taxes.
Former schoolmates, they trust each other to keep agreements and secrets.

She gazes around at the collection of Delhi socialites. They look better on page 3 of the
Hindustan Times
where she can enjoy their plumage minus their mocking tones. Women who live from the outside in.

White-gloved servants sail between them bearing silver trays arrayed with toothpicked canapés.

Shalini comes toward her, trailing several look-alikes. “Do tell us, Anu, what was it like being a nun?” She smooths her shaded buttersilk sari and tosses burnished curls. “I’ve always wanted to know.”

“I don’t think I can describe it,” Anu replies. Apparently she has been invited as the conversation piece du jour.

“Aren’t they all lesbees?” says another, dabbing her lips with an organza serviette.

Anu says, “No more or less than in the general population.”

But Lip-dabber’s attention has already wandered to someone far more important. She waves over Anu’s shoulder.

Shalini says, “I used to tell Sister Imaculata that Catholics are the only group that wants Indians to increase population. Are they still preaching against contraception, Anu?”

“I don’t know about other Catholics,” says Anu, “but I have come to feel contraception is better than abortion, infanticide or starvation.”

“Infanticide? Starvation?” Lip-dabber’s attention has returned for a nanosecond. “Only in the villages.” A turmeric stain spreads across the organza.

At least she didn’t say, Such things don’t happen in India
.

Anu takes the opportunity of doing a khisko, as Rano would call it, sliding away to another group when Shalini turns to greet a new arrival. There a woman in a halterneck choli is talking about email attachments and downloading. Esoteric terms circle Anu like mosquitoes. Someone clicks a remote control, Anu can’t name the song.

She helps herself to a lamb kebab that melts in her mouth. Vikas would have sent it back to the kitchen saying it was undercooked, overcooked, too hot, or too cold.

A tall unctuous man appears at her elbow, leering as if she has veered from nun to prostitute. He vanishes as soon as Anu mentions having a twelve-year-old daughter. Anu moves to a new group now orbiting Shalini.

“A toast to the CIA,” says her hostess, raising her glass of champagne. “All their satellite technology and they didn’t know.”

“They knew, ji,” says a gangly young man. “But what could they do about it? And when Pakistan set off its bomb yesterday—the CIA couldn’t stop them either.”

“They must have known and approved Pakistan’s bomb,” says a man sporting aviator eyeglasses, “How else could Pakistan have tested a nuclear device just seventeen days later?”

“Abdul Kalam says we can have small nukes with no problem,” the gangly young man says earnestly. “He’s a nuclear physicist, he should know.”

“Does he?” says a greybeard. “How many physicists said Chernobyl couldn’t happen.”

“Oh, nuclear power is far off, now the US has banned dual-use technology. We can reverse engineer aircraft engines and even Pentium chips, but where will we get uranium?”

“Canada, ji. Canada,” says the greybeard. “Uranium comes from Canada. And aluminium for centrifuges. Our first nuclear plant came from there in 1955.”

“The Canadians will stick with NATO on sanctions,” says the gangly man. “NATO is America anyway.”

“No problem, ji. We’ll find thorium deposits—one ton can give as much energy as two hundred tons of uranium. Kashmir has thorium,” says the man with the aviator glasses.

“Poor Kashmir,” Shalini says in a tone of obligatory acknowledgement.

“Nuclear weapons hold all creation hostage,” says Anu. “I cannot believe so many religious leaders are silent.” Father Pashan would be writing, speaking and protesting. Purnima-masi is writing to women’s organizations. Mrs. Nadkarni says other activists are protesting too, but not very many, not enough, and no NGO has been formed yet.

“Because they see how much confidence our bomb is giving us. No one can call us an underdeveloped country now,” says Shalini. “Besides, if we Hindus die, we’re all coming back in a few days. Muslims won’t, Christians can’t either. Oh, are you still Christian, Anu?”

“I no longer have a religion.”

“You can’t
not
have a religion,” says Shalini. “Every Indian has to have one. And separate laws for Hindus, Muslims and Christians. Thanks to the British and dear old Mahatma Gandhi.”

“It doesn’t matter what religion I or you profess, there will be pain, violence and loss if there is nuclear war,” says Anu. This brings a great guffaw from the gathering, as if she has said something quaint.

Anu falls quiet, sidles away. Maybe they can’t imagine the suffering if they survive a nuclear blast and shockwave. Haven’t they heard of Hiroshima? Any nurses who survive will have to care for people dying lingering and painful deaths from failing immune systems, radiation sickness, internal bleeding, pulmonary edema, organ decay, cancers, birth defects … these future events are densely contained in the birth-moment of the bomb.

She approaches a group of shapeless women, sitting in the corner, arms folded under their shawls. They are the kind she and Rano used to call the Orange Juice Brigade because that’s all they ever drank. A few of them remember her, and expect her to be as they knew her, or to have become like Mumma. She calls them aunty, sits down, discusses the Star TV shows they watch, and dutifully exclaims over their jewellery. It’s restful, the only comfortable place at the party. As she exchanges small talk, her mind also moves to the call she just had with Rano.

Rano had news—she is finally pregnant. How Rano cried, Anu cried. How Rano laughed, Anu laughed. “It’s a designer baby! The egg donor’s IQ was 160, so she’ll be intelligent.” Yes, it’s a girl, so Rano won’t have to worry about tying a turban on a boy. There were many embryos to choose from. “Chetna is responsible—she brought us luck!”

Words failed Anu, but because it was Rano, the word outrageous didn’t come to mind. But she should have said selecting one soul over another is unjust even if you let technology be your selector, even if you choose a girl. She should have said that if a missing—or present—Y chromosome is now a disability, some could decide that having one blue and one brown eye like Father Pashan is imperfect, or being born under the sign of Gemini is grounds for embryo selection. A few decades hence, physically different but reasonably able people like Mohan will simply not exist. People like Bobby, too. Everything is in the vedas, even eugenics—utilitarian arguments for violence have been around longer than
Mein Kampf
.

But she didn’t object—couldn’t—in the face of Rano’s happiness. And Rano had also said that yes, Anu should come and visit for a few months, or as long as she wants. And that it was up to Chetna if she wants to return to India for awhile or forever—she’s old enough to make up her own mind.

Anu had faltered, then. She should have said she wanted Chetna back, right then. But she still has no job and cannot afford to go to Canada or send Chetna a ticket. When you leave your ex-husband Christ, he doesn’t have to pay you maintenance—he’s out of this world. Her savings amount to nothing. And she won’t ask Mumma or Sharad Uncle to lend her money.

Now, sitting with the older women at the party, Anu has a moment of clarity.

The Bomb could end all New Delhi’s neverending cocktail parties any minute
.

She never belonged among socialites, and never will. And she will not let Chetna become remotely like any of these women who can’t
see bangles they’re not wearing, as Damini would say. Anu yearns to be with Chetna. She must know her. She was the one who named Chetna. Vikas didn’t. Names change what they describe—for better or worse. She must begin with that being she created, reclaim her daughter, support her, stand behind her, bring her back from Canada, induct her into the Women’s Survival Society, give her whatever she can.

Anu will help Chetna become someone who lives her life from the inside out.

T
HE MORNING AFTER THE NEVER-ENDING COCKTAIL
party, Anu takes a betel-spit splattered staircase to the basement level behind the Ritz Cinema in Connaught Place. The stamp dealer sits cross-legged on a red carpet in his shop. A precarious pyramid of shelves loaded with stamp albums looms behind him. As a shortcut to trust, she introduces herself as she has not in many years, as the daughter of Deepak Lal.

“You’ve come at a very good time,” he says. “Very auspicious release this very day, from the Postal Service. I show you, I show you …” He opens a velveteen box to display first day covers for the latest stamp. Swami Rudransh’s baby face with its rupee-sized bindi grins up at Anu.

She declines. The stamp dealer looks slightly offended, but offers her Coke.

Anu cups her palms about the chilled bottle as he verifies the health of any relatives and remote relatives he can associate with her. By compliments and inquiries, he tries to place her. Only then does he hunch over the stamps in Anu’s mother-of-pearl inlaid box. He remembers the stamps better than he remembers Dadu. His tweezers hold them over the square of the light table before him, then up to the naked light bulb, one by one.

The rarest three: the one with the Indian flag was the first issued after Independence in 1947; the one with the emblem of the Ashoka lions; and the ten-rupee stamp issued on the first anniversary of Independence, to commemorate Mahatma Gandhi after he was shot.

Dadu said, If you are ever compelled to sell or trade them, be sure it is for something vital
.

“Independence stamps,” says the dealer. “Why you wish to sell?”

“For my daughter’s independence.”

“Huh!” He names a price.

Anu shakes her head and doubles it.

“If I had so much money to pay for three stamps, why would I be sitting in a shop like this?”

“So no one thinks you need to pay taxes,” says Anu.

He smirks as if she has read him. He draws one of the stamps toward him on the light table. Then the second, then the third. The tip of his tongue passes over his lip. “I must show them to another expert …”

Anu gently sweeps the stamps back into the box. She writes on a scrap of paper. “Send the money to this address by five p.m.” she says. “Or I will show them to another dealer.” And she rises, shouldering her bag.

Back on the radial road out of Connaught Place, shapes of taxis look solid and safe—but too expensive. Anu takes a scooter-rickshaw home instead of the bus.

Delhi is full of shadows, as if asuras dance everywhere. Vikas’s demon eyes follow her all the way. She must stop feeling as if she will meet him—it’s impossible in a city of fourteen million.

In her room at Sharad Uncle’s she throws herself on the bed and allows herself ten minutes of tears and a mental lashing that would have made her mother proud:

Why don’t you ever accept what you’re given? Always, always holding out for better things. Always expecting the impossible. Now maybe you’ve lost your chance to bring Chetna home
.

But that evening, a cycle-courier rings the bell at Sharad Uncle’s gate. He passes a thick brown envelope through the bars with Anu’s name on it.

S
HARAD
U
NCLE HAS SHOWN HIS NEW LIBERALISM BY
allowing Anu to go to Toronto. He’s even driving her to the airport, using two handkerchiefs as pads on his steering wheel. “Tell Rano we are thinking of emigrating to Canada,” he says, wiping his forehead with one of them.

“To live with her?” says Anu.

“Oh no, no—no need to trouble Rano,” says Sharad Uncle. “We have our three sons—all in Canada.”

“I can babysit my grandchildren, save them the cost of daycare,” says Purnima-aunty in ultra-practical tones. “Rano has her work, her house, her responsibilities.”

Rano will soon have a baby girl who will need babysitting as well. With all her talk of equality, Purnima doesn’t believe in living with a daughter, even if her daughter and son-in-law would willingly have them visit.

“But you have servants to look after you here, you have a house, and investments. Why do you need to go to Canada?”

“Our sons should have an opportunity to do their dharma,” says Sharad Uncle. “And now we’re the right age, we can get Canadian social insurance. It won’t cost them anything more—not to worry. Why should strangers benefit from the taxes they’ve paid all these
years? Nowadays you go for a few months or years, come back.” He beams as if the world’s problems have been solved by better transport and digital communication. He pulls up at the fringe of the crowd of passengers, families, workers and porters outside the international terminal. “Anu, you have your ticket?”

“Yes, uncle.” She has a deeply discounted ticket, courtesy of her old boss Mr. Gurinder Singh at Adventure Travel.