Riot (29 page)

Cindy, one thing you've got to promise me, OK? These letters are between you and me. DON'T show them to anyone else, not even Matt. And don't breathe a word about them to my parents if you ever run into them — not that you would, of course. Tell them, I mean. It would just worry them, and it's not as if anyone in America can do anything about all of this anyway. My letters are just a way of sharing everything in my life here with the one person who understands. Assume they're like the phone calls I'd have made to you if I was still in NY, OK? Tear them up when you've read them, as if you've just put the phone down.

Anyway, what does Kadambari think she's warned me about? Lucky? Well, in a small town like this I guess I should have realized that people would begin talking sooner or later. It can't do Lucky much good to be the subject of gossip among the likes of Kadambari. And I don't know how seriously to take her warning to be careful. Does she mean the Kotli's not safe or that I'll be found out? I don't want to ask Lucky because I'm afraid it'll worry him. And because I don't want to do anything that'll jeopardize our meeting there. It's the only place I love in Zalilgarh, and I'd rather die than give it up….

 

transcript of Randy Diggs interview with
District Magistrate V. Lakshman (Part 3)

October 13, 1989

Oh — they're here? Well, their timing isn't too bad. Mr. Diggs, it turns out that Priscilla's parents, the Harts, have shown up to see me. Ah, you know them, do you? Would you mind very much if I asked them to join us? They'll have the same questions as you, and I suppose I could kill two birds with one stone, if that doesn't sound too callous.

What's that? Yes, of course you can tape it, if they don't mind, naturally.

Do come in. Mr. Hart, Mrs. Hart, I'm pleased to meet you. [Scraping of chair.] I'm Lakshman, the district magistrate here. I believe you know Mr. Diggs of the New York Journal? He was just asking me about the events — the tragic events of two weeks ago. Would you mind if he remained here for our conversation and recorded my replies?

You're quite right, Mr. Hart, you're both interested in the truth. Indeed. The truth. You know, that's my government's official motto: “Satyameva Jayate.” “Truth Alone Triumphs.” It's on all our letterheads — and on this visiting card I've just given you. Truth Alone Triumphs. But sometimes I'm tempted to ask, whose truth? There's not always an easy answer.

Please do sit down, Mrs. Hart, Mr. Hart. Some tea? No? A soft drink? Ah, I'm afraid we have no Coca-Cola here. Would Campa-Cola be acceptable? No?

I do hope you have been comfortable in Zalilgarh. Yes of course, Mrs. Hart, I realize that comfort is not what you're looking for here. Forgive me.

You've seen the Center where Priscilla worked? And spoken to her project manager, Mr. Das? Good. Been to her home? A rather simple place, I'm told. No, I've never been there, Mrs. Hart.

Yes, I knew Priscilla rather well. Or perhaps I should say, my wife and I did. Priscilla was a fairly frequent guest at our dining table. She was such pleasant company, you know. Such pleasant company. And Geetha and I took pleasure in helping her feel welcome in this little town. She seemed to cope with her loneliness rather well.

No, I'm afraid I haven't the slightest idea why she was where she was when she was — killed. Forgive me, I feel a sense of responsibility, really, not merely because I'm in charge of law and order in this town, but because I've been haunted by the thought that perhaps — you see, I think she first heard about the Kotli from me. I was talking to her about the town, and I believe I mentioned it was the one place worth visiting for, shall we say, touristic reasons. I've been there myself sometimes and the sunsets over the river are spectacular. I fear she may have taken my advice.

Yes, of course I can arrange a visit for you there. I'll do so immediately. And you too, Mr. Diggs, if you wish.

I'm afraid we're — none of us is very sure what happened. It seems a group of Muslim troublemakers chose to use the abandoned ruin as a sort of storehouse to manufacture some crude homemade bombs the day before the riot. The day of the riot itself she seems to have stumbled across them, or they across her — no one knows. She was, as you know, stabbed to death. I'm truly sorry.

No, no, there was no robbery or any other kind of assault. It looks like Priscilla simply had the misfortune to go to that place at the very moment her assailants chose to use it. The killers probably thought she'd report them to the police. That they had to kill her to ensure her silence.

No, we didn't find out till nearly twenty-four hours later. It was such an out-of-the-way place that no one really gave the Kotli much thought. Our energies were focused on the town, and particularly the Muslim quarter. That's where the worst of the rioting occurred. I've been telling Mr. Diggs the details of the story.

What happened is that these fellows brought their bombs into town and began throwing them. We put a stop to that fairly quickly and caught one of the perpetrators. He didn't mention Priscilla in his confession, but he did tell us about their having used the Kotli. It was in a routine follow-up visit to the Kotli that the police found — the body.

No one has confessed to the murder. The bomb makers all claim they never even saw her. Eight lives were lost in the riots, Mr. Hart, including one of a boy who worked in this office. Not one of them is linked to an identifiable assailant. That's how it often is in riots. A confused clamor of hatred, violence, weapons, assaults. In the end, no one is responsible. Or perhaps a whole community is responsible. People pull out bombs or knives, then melt away into the darkness. We are left with the bodies, the burned and destroyed homes, the legacy of hate and mistrust. And it goes on.

I'm sorry I don't have much more to tell you. Perhaps you ought to meet the superintendent of police. I'll ask him to receive you. I'm afraid our rules won't permit him to show you the actual police report, but I'm sure he'll tell you what it says. I'll give him a call and urge him to cooperate fully. We know you've come a long way on this very sad errand.

Would Sunday work for you? Good. I'll try and arrange the appointment and get word to you. No, that's all right, we work seven-day weeks here these days. And of course, we'll organize a visit to the Kotli.

Your daughter was a wonderful person, Mrs. Hart, Mr. Hart. She will be greatly missed here in Zalilgarh.

 

letter from Lakshman to Priscilla

September 18, 1989

My dearest, most precious Priscilla,

For the first time in my life I genuinely do not know how to say something I must say to you. I cannot bring myself to say it directly, to your face, and so I must say it in this letter. We are supposed to meet tomorrow, Tuesday. I won't be there.

Priscilla, forgive me, but I must end our relationship. I love you but I cannot leave my wife, my daughter, my job, my country, my whole life, for my love. I just can't go on giving you the hope of a future together and returning home to the reality of my present. I believe it is more honest to tell you that what you want cannot be.

I cannot bear the thought that in writing these words I am hurting someone who has been nothing but good and loving to me. I cannot bear the knowledge that I am depriving myself of your love, which has fulfilled me in ways that nothing else in my life can ever compensate for. In writing this letter I know I am losing something I was lucky to have found in the first place — a good, lovely and loving woman, a chance of a different life, the second chance that comes to so few in this world.

Then why am I doing it? A dozen times in recent weeks I had decided to leave my marriage. Yesterday I told myself my decision was final, that I couldn't live without you. Then last night I couldn't sleep. I kept imagining what my departure would mean to Rekha. I knew how Geetha would react — I was sure she would collapse in incomprehension and grief; she simply would not be able to deal with the shock. But Rekha would suffer the most horrendous trauma. I kept thinking not just that she would suffer the pain of a broken home, but of the small daily losses she would suffer — that she would not have her Daddy tucking her into bed at night or reading her an Enid Blyton story, that she would miss her Daddy at breakfast every day, that she could no longer turn to Daddy with her homework, with her questions about the world, about words, about life: the hundred small interactions that make up the texture of a father-child relationship. And I realized, then, that I could not deny these to her and still feel myself a worthy human being. That having brought her into the world, I had a responsibility, an obligation, to see her through those difficult years of growing up, secure in the environment of a predictable two-parent family structure. And that if I failed to fulfil this obligation in pursuing my own happiness, I would in fact find no happiness at all.

One day she will be grown up and gone, and none of this will matter. But today, now, I cannot do it to her. This is when she needs a father most. But you, understandably, want me to make the break now or never. I respect the way you feel, my precious Priscilla, but I cannot do it now.

I realized, too, during this tormented night, that I could only make you unhappy too, because my guilt at abandoning my family — which is how I would see it — would corrode my feelings for the person for whom I had abandoned them. When you evoke that kind of love, you want to be worthy of it. I could not have abandoned my responsibilities to my daughter and felt worthy of you.

In other words, dearest Priscilla, I was — I am — torn between two kinds of love and the prospect of two kinds of unhappiness. I chose my love for my daughter over my love for you, and the unhappiness of losing you to the unhappiness of shattering her. That is my choice, and I must live with it. I never thought either would be easy: this one is killing me.

I know you will think this proves I never really loved you. That you were a sexual convenience at worst, an escape from a loveless marriage at best. You know that's not true, Priscilla; you've seen what happened the first time I tried to leave you. I still love everything about you, no less than I ever have. I can't bear the knowledge that you are no longer mine, but I want you to be happy. I would do anything for you, short of destroying my family.

In pain, and with love,

Lucky

 

letter from Priscilla Hart to Cindy Valeriani

September 19, 1989

Dearest Cin, what am I to do? It's over now, he's written me this awful letter, and I've been crying all night. I suppose Mom was right when she said that I see things in people that they don't see in themselves. I saw so much in Lucky — a good man in a bad marriage, someone capable of love who had no opportunity to love until I came along, a man who hadn't seen his own unhappiness fully until he met me. With me I think he realized for the first time that he hadn't truly known love in his life and that he could find happiness loving and being loved. Happiness, of course, at a price. A price that in the end he was not prepared — with his upbringing, his sense of his responsibilities, his inability to escape from Indian society — to pay.

On one level I feel bitterly angry with him. I feel used. And I can't believe a man of his intelligence would be so blind and conventional. And cowardly. In my tears last night, there were moments of deep rage at the way he dumped me. “You two-faced jerk!” I screamed at the letter he'd written me.

And yet, I can't bring myself to hate him, Cin. There's a part of me that wants to, but I can't, I still love him so much. I'm in terrible pain, but I don't want to regret a minute of the seven months we had together. “Had together” — I don't even know if I can say that of a relationship where we were only together two evenings a week, except for those occasional dinners at his home where I was beginning to feel more and more uncomfortable. But yes, “together.” Because I loved being
with
him, Cindy. I saw in him all the things I wanted in a man — not just his looks or his voice, but his earnestness about the world, his desire to make a difference, his easy confidence in his own authority, and his command, quite simply, of India. The India I'd come back to rediscover as an adult, the India that had changed my life so profoundly a decade ago. Loving Lakshman filled every pore of my being; it gave me a sense of attachment, not just to a man, but to this land. Does this sound hokey to you, Cin? I hope not, because I can't explain it any better.

What hurts is that it must have meant so much less to him. I suppose at the beginning he just thought of me as an easy lay. Our relationship must just have been a sexual adventure for him those first few weeks. I know he came to love me afterwards, but I realize now that I'm not someone he would have started off falling in love with. He was attracted to me, sure, but he began it all, that first evening at the Kotli, as just an affair. Through sex he found love, and in love he found confusion, uncertainty, fear. Whereas I loved him from almost the first moment and felt nothing but certainty about him. The sex was just a means of expressing my love, a way of giving myself to the man I loved. I'm not sure that he ever understood the difference.

He used to quote Wilde about hypocrisy being just a way of multiplying your personalities. That was part of Lucky's problem — he had multiple personalities, and they didn't match. The district administrator, the passionate lover, the traditional husband and father, the closet writer who fantasized about a masterpiece he could write one day on an American campus — all of those were him. I couldn't hold on to all of them at the same time. And so I lost him.

But then I borrowed a copy of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” from him, and I came across the actual quote. And guess what, Wilde wasn't talking about hypocrisy at all, you know, but about insincerity! Was Lucky trying to warn me that his love was insincere? I think about these things and it drives me crazy!