Authors: Ashok K Banker
BLOOD RED SARI (22 page)
Powar picked up speed as they approached the door to the stairs.
‘Nahi,’ she said firmly. She had no intention of being carried down several flights of stairs by the man. ‘Lift se chalo.’
Powar let the door to the stairs swing shut and turned and ran heavily to the lifts. There were more nurses and doctors here. Interns. They stared at them as if trying to recognize them. Nachiketa realized they thought they might be celebrities of some kind, either criminal or Bollywood or political – there wasn’t much difference between the three anymore, was there? – and were hoping to recognize one of them. A Dubai don’s moll, maybe? A Bollywood producer who had refused to pay extortion money to gangsters? A politician’s son who had shot a socialite in a snack bar because she wouldn’t serve him a hamburger with beef? Any of the above.
Powar tried to reach the lift call buttons but couldn’t do so without banging Nachiketa’s head on the wall, so he jerked his chin at the intern standing nearby. ‘Bhaiya, button dabaoge?’
The intern reached out and pressed the button.
They waited for the lift to come up.
Nachiketa was suspended sideways in space. From her angle she could see all the way back up the corridor down which they had come. The doctor and nurse were coming out of her room, both looking dazed. The doctor said something to a ward boy nearby – the same old dude who had grinned at her like a madman – who turned and began pushing a stretcher towards the room. Other doctors and nurses were turning and looking at her, then back at the room and at the doctor–nurse pair, as if trying to figure out if the action was over or just beginning. She realized it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes since the German had entered her room. It felt like an hour.
The lift arrived with a young man in a wheelchair pushed by a very overweight middle-aged woman. Powar exclaimed in Haryanvi, then used his elbow to hold the door of the lift open. The woman stared at them.
‘Hattey kattey ho, utar jao. Isey bithana hai,’ Powar said to the young man in the wheelchair. The man looked up at him dully, then at Nachiketa. She smiled at him without thinking about it.
When neither the young man nor his mother responded, Powar propped Nachiketa with one hand against the wall, reached out and grabbed the collar of the young man’s kurta and shoved him out of the chair. He went stumbling but found his feet with surprising ease. He stood, looking dazed. His mother stared at him then at Powar, trying to understand what had just happened.
Powar put Nachiketa in the wheelchair, slapped at the mother’s wrists to make her let go of the wheelchair’s handles. The mother realized what he was doing and tried to grab the wheelchair again. Powar slapped her hands away – they were immensely thick with heavy rolls of fat, and wobbled gelatinously when he slapped them. She made a sound of Punjabi outrage. Powar rolled the wheelchair into the lift and the doors rolled shut, leaving the woman standing and making her noises of indignation.
It was quiet and peaceful in the lift. Muzak was playing on a speaker somewhere. She recognized the song, the title song from the new Aamir Khan movie, the one in which he was a …
The lift doors opened again. They were still on the same floor. The Punjabi woman was holding her son by the shoulders. The contrast between mother and son was like an image from a burlesque film. She was so much bigger in size and proportion that he resembled a belan she was about to roll over chapatti dough. The boy saw the lift doors open and looked directly at Nachiketa. She smiled at him again. The mother’s head started to turn but the lift doors shut again.
This time Powar jabbed his mitten at the lift buttons and the lift began to move downwards. Downstairs in the lobby, everything seemed as normal and chaotic as usual. Nachiketa couldn’t make out if there was more activity because of the shooting or if nobody even knew it had taken place.
Minutes later, Rajendra Powar was wheeling her out of the hospital’s emergency entrance and down the wide concrete ramp. It occurred to her that she needed to tell him where to go.
Some place safe. Some place where men won’t come after me and kill all my friends.
Where on earth could she find a place like that?
‘Aapko gaadi chalani aati hai?’ she asked him, then realized it was foolish question. Jat men probably grew up driving tractors from the age of six. When he nodded, she pointed in the direction of the parking area. Advaita had gone to Nachiketa’s office building and picked up her car for her, leaving it in the hospital parking until she was ready to leave. She had remembered to snatch up the keys and dump them in the manila envelope as well. Now, she took them out and used the remote to locate the vehicle. The familiar beep-beep of her Civic came almost immediately, a few cars to the right. Powar wheeled her there at a half-run, taking the keys from her.
He had just placed her in the car and strapped her seatbelt on her instructions when her cell phone rang. She fumbled and pulled the Blackberry out of her pocket. It had miraculously survived the fire, buried in her blouse pocket as it was, smothered by her when she crawled under the table. She looked at the screen. An unknown number flashed on it, with a Kerala code. She recognized the code and thought of the only person who could be calling from Thiruvananthapuram.
‘Drive,’ she told Powar who shut her passenger side door and went around the car.
She clicked with her mitten-encased hand, glad that her BB was set to be answered with any button. ‘Hello, Lalima?’ she said. ‘What the fuck is going on, woman?’
SHEILA TRIED NOT TO
let herself be intimidated by the Burj. Driving up the entranceway itself made her feel like a character in some Hollywood film.
The Towering Inferno
, she thought wryly. She didn’t try to look up and see how the building looked from right below. She left that onerous task to the Bangladeshi who was more interested in damaging his upper spine than in what she had to say. She had to repeat herself twice before he heard her. ‘Hahm, hahm,’ he replied dreamily. ‘Aami apeksa karaba,’ he added as she began to walk away. ‘Apanara samaya niye.’ Of course he had no issues waiting and had plenty of time on his hands. She wondered if he would have been as patient if she had asked him to wait near Howrah Bus Stand. But as she walked away and looked back before entering the atrium, she thought he looked sweet standing there and staring up, like a child looking at a mountain. That sense of wonder, that simple amazement at humanity’s achievement was what differentiated him and her. Where she and her fellow Kolkatans saw only a rich man’s monstrous monument to greed, he saw something extraordinary and inspiring. She made a mental note to ask him his name later.
The lobby was like something out of a science fiction film set. The ceiling went up so high, she couldn’t see the top without craning her neck, so she didn’t bother. She walked across a polished floor so sharply reflective she could see herself walking upside down in it. There were vaulting flights of glass flying this way and swooping that way, and she thought that the architect must have been an Ayn Rand fan, Howard Roark by way of Hafeez Contractor. There was an artificial body of water outside with vaulting fountains that weren’t switched on at the moment, and the glass picture windows, rising several dozen yards high, had water cascading down on one side, which produced a dreamy surreal effect. She found herself wondering what it would be like to sit on those lush calf-leather upholstered sofas on a hot afternoon, sunlight streaming in through that cascading waterwall, and read a book while sipping hot Earl Grey tea.
Yeah, sure, and you’re wearing a Sabyasachi outfit and flirting with a Tollywood star. That’s so
you
, Sheila … not.
The security officers wore suits, or maybe they were just security guards but wore suits. They looked neatly groomed, well paid, and hard as nails. Not the usual uniformed backwash from standard security agencies. They tapped her name out on a touchscreen computer – shades of
Die Hard
– and politely told her to ‘take Elevator P to the penthouse suite, the last one on the right’. She was glad they guided her to it, because there turned out to be about two dozen elevators, and even though each one was neatly marked with which floors it went to, she would have spent ten minutes searching for the right one. ‘P’ was in an alcove by itself with a lobby and reception desk with an attractive Chinese Indian woman – dressed like a hostess in a swanky Chinese restaurant, in a dark red gown with beautiful gold embroidery and a slit all the way up to her lovely waist – behind it. Sheila admired the leg the slit revealed for its muscle tone. The hostess indicated the elevator door and pressed the button for her.
‘I love your gown,’ Sheila said.
‘Thank you,’ replied the hostess politely.
‘The embroidery is fantastic. From back home?’
‘No, actually, it’s done right here. China Town.’
Sheila nodded, raising an eyebrow. That was impressive. She had no idea there were still Chinese artisans that good left in Kolkata. The old Chinese Indian population had long since dwindled, their traditional leather tanning and restaurant and beauty parlour businesses long since sold out to other communities. That was why she was meeting the Hakkadi here rather than in Chinatown.
The elevator arrived and the hostess held the button while Sheila walked in, feeling very down at heel and embarrassed about her crumpled sweat-stained shirt and faded jeans. The doors closed and she was treated to an orchestral symphony for about thirty seconds before they opened again on the most glorious view she had ever seen of the city. She had expected a typical penthouse suite with glass picture windows, an extension of the luxurious interiors she’d seen in the atrium lobby, but this was far more extravagant. There was an entire garden here, with pathways and fountains and marble statuary. At one end was a dining space with buffet tables and white-liveried waiters and gowned hostesses, a bar, several Jacuzzis and a heated infinity swimming pool, and at this end, where she stood, was an atrium with marble tiling and all-white decor, so bright and gleaming she was afraid her Converses would leave footprints. There was another lift and a marble spiral staircase that led up somewhere. A hostess who could have been the sister of the one in the lobby downstairs greeted in traditional Chinese style, then added a delicately performed namaste as well. Sheila was aware of herself speaking the Hakkadi’s name, and of being escorted by a marbled, covered pathway that led around the garden and directly to a lounge area not visible from the lift. This was also done entirely in white, with gold piping and flourishes. About thirty distinguished and very wealthy looking men and women and couples lounged around, drinking, talking quietly, eating finger food and generally being rich and self-indulgent. Sheila felt certain that if she went around and looked at every face in the place, she would have a list of stars and celebrities and a Who’s Who of influential people whose names or company’s names were more famous than their recently exfoliated faces.
The Hakkadi was seated on a luxurious white couch that seemed to extend sinuously around the entire room. She realized it was meant to represent a Chinese dragon, right down to the magnificently carved head at the end, but all in white, with gold touches. Seated by the head, resting his hand on its flaring nostril, was the Hakkadi, looking as handsome and suave as ever, surrounded by a half dozen people she vaguely recognized. One was definitely an
Indian Idol
winner and host, a Chinese Indian singer. Another was a Chinese Indian badminton champ. She didn’t recognize the others but they all looked very glamorous and rich. The hostess bent strategically so her slit side was in view of the Hakkadi and whispered to him. He looked up and saw Sheila.
‘Sheila,’ he said, standing up. ‘Sheila Ray. I should shoot you at sight.’
ANITA WAS TAKEN ABACK
by the woman’s tone and by her use of the name ‘Lalima’.
‘Um, excuse me,’ she said. ‘I’m not Lalima. I’m a friend of hers. My name’s Anita. Is this Nachiketa Shroff?’