Last Labyrinth Read online

  ‘News travels fast,’ I said. ‘Who told you?’

  ‘Who would tell me?’

  ‘Mr. Thapar must learn to hold his tongue.’

  ‘He was only seeking my medical advice. He wanted to know if you would be terribly upset if he disobeyed your orders.’

  ‘Disobeyed my orders?’

  ‘Don’t look surprised. You are not a pharaoh or something. Anyway, I told him not to upset you and do what you had told him to do.’

  ‘I should think so. Anyway, I don’t see how this is any of your business.’

  ‘I am your doctor.’

  ‘You are welcome to look after the body.’

  ‘Those detectives are for the spirit, are they?’

  He seemed worried but he smiled and I was happy to see him smile.

  After K was gone Geeta and I sat in silence. She looked at me warily. It was in situations like this, when she was bothered, that she totally disarmed me. She looked so innocent and vulnerable. I wondered why she was so bothered.

  ‘What made you hire those detectives?’ she said.

  ‘To trace those shares. Why else? Don’t start worrying now.’

  ‘I am not worrying about this thing the way you imagine.’ She was annoyed. That put my back up. Havildar brought in tea for her. She took it slowly, in little sips, a frown on her pretty face. She was quite a sexy woman. She used to like sex a lot, too. Until a year ago I used to be quite jealous about her. At parties I did not mind her talking with men but I resented if she laughed too much or became too chummy. From out of this resentment I picked quarrels with her. She took such quarrels in her stride. I think she understood what was taking place. But now? Now, I thought, she too was at a loss. She didn’t understand what was going on and that bothered her.

  2

  ‘Hello, Bhaskar.’

  I sat drinking by the pool at the Intercontinental in Delhi. I turned to find Aftab standing behind me. I was reminded of my dream. As usual, he carried his black box. It was our first meeting since my illness, since Anuradha ditched me, which was how I usually thought of it. That morning we had had another meeting of the Plastic Manufactures’ Association. I wondered if he was staying at the same hotel.

  I watched him with irritation. I did not understand what it was about him that annoyed me. Or, maybe, I was only transferring to him the anger that I felt with myself. It would have been better all around if he had stayed away.

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘Sit down.’

  He smiled his half-face smile.

  ‘How was Europe?’

  ‘Ha! You make fun of me.’

  I took a large swallow from my glass. ‘Not at all. It is always a pleasure to meet a true lover of Europe.’

  ‘Between you and me, we have not been to Europe...’

  ‘I didn’t think you had,’ I said contemptuously.

  ‘We just went up to the hills and spent some time with Gargi.’

  ‘That deaf-mute.’ I was behaving like a cad but drink and despair drove me on.

  ‘Gargi, of course, cannot speak.’ He was embarrassed.

  ‘You believe in her mumbo-jumbo, don’t you?’

  ‘I suppose it can’t do you any harm.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask Gargi to help you out with your business?’

  He took out a cigarette and knocked it slowly against the case.

  ‘Why bring her into this?’

  ‘I won’t. I have had enough of her and all of you.’

  Aftab kept quiet. A young English girl climbed up to the diving board. I thought of the astrologer and his prophecy. I suppose I was never going to get Anuradha. That was that. I did not want to think about her. I felt very drunk. The girl dived off the board, her legs exactly right. I drained my glass and ordered another.

  ‘Som, you are drinking much too fast,’ Aftab said.

  ‘It’s better than taking drugs.’

  ‘If you are trying to insult me you are mistaken. I am beyond the pale. And so, in a way, are you.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘I mean it. Only a man beyond the pale can recognize another.’

  ‘And you have recognize me?’

  ‘Yes. I at least know what I want...’

  ‘What’s that? Drugs? Indolence?’

  ‘A peaceful death, that is all I want. You don’t even know what you want. You are being torn apart by your own doubts. Your doubts are the wolves that are going to eat you up.’

  ‘Doubts and wolves. Fine. Very fine. You should take up poetry like your grandfather.’

  He made no comment. The ice tinkling in my glass was the only sound. An age seemed to pass.

  I let out a drunken chuckle. I knew I was being ridiculous. I was insulting him when, in truth, I didn’t want him to leave me. He was at least someone who knew her, who saw her every day, made love to her, when he got up to go I took his hand, pushed him back into the chair.

  ‘Don’t leave me alone, for God’s sake,’ I cried.

  Aftab sat down.

  ‘Would you like a game of chess?’ he said indicating the black box.

  ‘I hardly know the game.’

  ‘It will help pass the time.’

  ‘Very well.’

  It was a fine set, made of ivory, very old. I took the white pieces. My King was slightly cracked. It was obvious very soon that I was no match for him. He moved his pieces swiftly, intuitively. I was fascinated, until I remembered my loathing for Benaras, for Lal Haveli.

  ‘You have to be more careful,’ he cautioned me.

  ‘I heard someone has taken over your company.’ I had again started to bait him.

  ‘No. Not yet.’

  I castled my King.

  ‘What if they do?’

  ‘I can always play chess.’

  ‘Then, there are the other distractions, of course.’

  The pool was nearly deserted. It must have been getting late. Aftab spoke after a long time.

  ‘The trouble is people like me are never taken seriously. Isn’t that so, Som? Come on, admit it.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘We are so obviously incompetent, so... so dispensable. Who will take our confessions seriously, our pleasures, our sorrows? If we cry we are clowns. If we don’t we are scoundrels. Isn’t that so?’

  He did not wait for my answer.

  ‘And yet we suffer like anyone else. We dull-brained, disorganised bastards suffer the same as anyone else.’

  He took my King’s Bishop.

  ‘Well, I suppose you do,’ I said.

  ‘But you don’t really believe that. I can see it in your face.’

  ‘I don’t think you can see my face.’

  ‘No, I cannot see your face. I have lived by other lights.’

  ‘What lights?’ I said. It was altogether a crazy, drunken exchange.

  ‘You know the old law: God compensates you for whatever He takes away from you.’

  ‘What have you been compensated for. Or with?’

  ‘How caustic you are! You should have been glad to see me after such a long time. Ah, well, it does not matter. You don’t mind if I smoke, do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Now, then, what were we talking about?’

  I didn’t bother to remind him.

  ‘Yes, I was telling you how God has compensated me. He has taken away everything from me. Yes, everything. Health, mind, balance. But He has given me Anuradha.’

  ‘Anuradha!’ I cried in anger. It hurt me to see him take her name. ‘Anuradha! You don’t much care for Anuradha as far as I can see.’

  ‘There you are, Som. Just the thing you would say. How can one describe one’s love to a man who hates so much?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Forget it. Do you believe in God, Bhaskar?’

  ‘You know I don’t.’

  ‘In your anger you have exposed your Queen.’

  I moved a piece in front of her. We went through a series of moves in silence. Instead of Begum Akhtar they were
playing an old song of Sehgal: Jangal upvan tribhuvan dhundha, par kahin na uski ter mili.

  Aftab spoke at last.

  ‘Do you believe in God, Bhaskar?’

  ‘You have already asked me that.’

  ‘Oh yes. And you said you don’t.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘God is like having a third king in a game of chess.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Do you believe in the tantras?’

  ‘What tantras?’

  ‘You have to sacrifice before you are given. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘That is what you insist on doing. I know you want to believe.’

  ‘Believe?’

  ‘You want to have faith. But you also want to reserve the right to challenge your own faith when it suits you.’

  I was suddenly interested. Not as much because of what Aftab was saying as by his manner. His whole bearing had undergone a change. He was neither laconic nor self-conscious. I had never seen him like that.

  ‘Am I not right? Don’t you want to have your cake and eat it, too?’

  ‘What is wrong with that?’

  ‘It destroys you.’

  ‘I don’t see how.’

  ‘Ah, time will tell. Time will tell. I am afraid you are going to lose your Queen, after all.’

  ‘I am in love with your wife, you know,’ I said, making the next move. I clowned even though my heart was bursting.

  ‘Yes, yes. Check.’

  His Queen was attacking my King.

  ‘I am serious, Aftab.’ Why was I so insistent? Did I expect him to become a go-between and bring her back to me? ‘Everyone loves her,’ said Aftab. If I was being ridiculous he was exasperating. ‘I don’t love her like that,’ I nearly shouted but thought better of it.

  ‘Tell me: Why can’t you run your company?’

  I wanted to humiliate him, to make him whine. I was ashamed of what I was doing and yet I could not stop.

  ‘I don’t know,’ was all that he said.

  ‘Anuradha is no doubt cleverer than you.’

  ‘No doubt,’ he said, readily agreeing. ‘The Queen always is. Check.’

  I studied the board. There was no way I could save my King. I surrendered.

  We sat back in silence. The swimming pool was deserted. A lone African, in full regalia, sat at the bar.

  ‘If only I were not so tired,’ cried Aftab, pathetically, his mood suddenly shifting.

  ‘Tired?’

  ‘If only I could start life again.’

  I understand what you mean, I wanted to say, but I was too bent upon insulting him. I said, ‘I don’t think you will do any better even if you started again.’

  ‘Better? I was not thinking of that. What is the time?’

  ‘Almost midnight.’

  ‘I must go,’ he said starting to pack in the pieces.

  On the spur of the moment I wanted to say to him, ‘Please take me with you,’ but my pride prevented me. I said ‘Give me a fag, will you. One of your hand-rolled jobs.’

  He carried them in a slim gold-plated case. He was a dandy where such things were concerned.

  Smoke soothed my nerves but a moment later opened up all the wounds. I could see the room, the coloured ventilators, and Anuradha lying naked on the peacock-carpet, her make-up smudged with perspiration, her mouth open, dry and hot, uttering such deep-throated cries that I had to cover it with my hand lest she might be heard.

  ‘Anuradha asked me to give this to you,’ Aftab said.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  I stretched out my hand mechanically. Aftab stood up.

  ‘When do you leave?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning,’ Aftab said.

  I took a moment to rev up my courage, swallow my pride. ‘Can I come with you?’ I managed to say.

  For a moment, he was too surprised to speak. Then he shouted. ‘No. No. Never.’

  He stalked off towards the lobby.’

  ‘Damm you,’ I cried to his disappearing back.

  I sat back, turning Anuradha’s package in my hand. It was curiously heavy for its size. I tore it open. A shining object fell to the floor. I picked it up with unsteady hands. It turned out to be a little silver Krishna, flute and all. A brief note in her hand said, ‘I got this from Gargi. You must always keep it with you.’

  I sat by the pool, drunk, sleepless. The bar had closed or I would have got another drink. I had whisky in my room but did not have the energy to move. I poured the silver Krishna from one hand to the other. He carried her perfume. That was the only gift that Anuradha had ever given me. I couldn’t possibly throw it away. Like Aftab I, too, had wanted to start life all over again. What would have I done with it, though? What indeed?

  3

  Today, Mr. Thapar came to see me. After he was gone I wandered back to my room, mesmerized, staring in disbelief at the detectives’ report that he had left with me. Geeta passed by on her way to the bath. She came to me noticing, perhaps, the look on my face. I handed the report to her. It was a mistake but I had been too off-balance to guard against it. The fact was that I had been caught totally by surprise.

  I watched Geeta’s face. She paled but said nothing.

  ‘Isn’t it funny?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t see what is funny.’

  I laughed.

  ‘You have got to have a sense of humour, Geeta.’

  ‘I don’t see what humour has to do with this. Anyway, what do you plan to do?’

  ‘I will have to go to the mountains.’

  ‘Yourself?’

  ‘I think so. It could get complicated.’

  ‘Everything is so complicated as it is,’ she said at last and went on to the bath.

  At lunch, unexpectedly, K dropped in. I sat in a cane chair on the verandah overlooking the beach. Geeta sat beside me. The beach was empty except for two men and their wives trying to set afloat a small sail boat. The boat was painted a bright post-office red with a white band running along the rim. I had a headache. Geeta went up to meet K. He waved to me as he came up. I realized Geeta must have asked him to drop in.

  ‘So you are at last laughing again,’ he said.

  I grinned.

  ‘I want to give you the good news,’ I said. ‘Maybe Geeta already has.’

  ‘She hasn’t. What is it?’

  ‘They have located those missing shares.’

  ‘Who have?’

  ‘The detectives.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘They are lying with Krishna.’

  ‘What Krishna?’

  ‘The god, man, the god, who else!’

  K was dumbfounded.

  ‘No less a man than Krishna is holding the shares of Aftab’s company.’

  ‘It is ridiculous. Where are they?’

  I gave him the report.

  After he had glanced through it, K looked at me and at Geeta and then back at me. He said, ‘What is next?’

  ‘Next we get hold of them, what else?’

  ‘Can’t you do without them?’ Geeta said, her voice barely audible.

  I made no reply.

  ‘Have you bought them? Actually bought them? Have you?’ said K.

  ‘Mr. Thapar is negotiating with the secretary of the temple.’

  ‘What do you think of all this?’ Geeta asked K.

  ‘I have no head for such things.’

  ‘I did not mean the business angle.’

  ‘I don’t think I am interested in any angle.’

  There was a new distaste in his voice.

  ‘You can’t take this attitude when Som is ill, K.’

  ‘Oh, can’t I?’ K said with unexpected vehemence. ‘Som doesn’t think he is ill at all. Just look at him. Smiling away like a king. Just hear him laugh. He can’t sit still, he is laughing so much.’

  I had been watching the couples trying to put the boat out to sea. Every time they did it the boat came back after a few fl utters. In fact, they were
doing it all wrong. The sails were wrong. The ropes were wrong. I did not think they were ever going to put the boat out. But, then, they did not know it.

  As I watched them quite an unconnected thought entered my head. I thought of how people’s lives run smoothly, successfully for years and then they do something unusual, take a wrong turn, make a stupid decision, and everything goes to pieces.

  K sipped the coffee which Havildar had brought. Geeta looked at him, trying to figure him out. I was myself astonished at his bitterness. I hadn’t slept well and I hated being dragged into arguments as Geeta, I felt, wanted to do. For the moment I had developed an allergy to arguments. All I wanted was silence.

  ‘But why?’ K burst out suddenly, incoherently.

  Geeta started.

  ‘Why? Why?’ K repeated.

  I could hear Havildar talking to the gardener in a shrill voice.

  ‘Why what?’ Geeta said at last, more nervous than ever.

  ‘Why these riddles?’

  ‘Riddles?’

  ‘There is something going on here. Something more than the buying and selling of shares. I think you know what is going on. So does Som. So do Aftab and Anuradha. Poor Thapar probably is the only one who does not know. And I am another.’

  ‘I certainly do not know what is going on,’ I put in.

  ‘Anyway, I want you to leave Anuradha alone,’ K said.

  ‘Leave Anuradha alone? I wish she had left me alone.’ I burst out, trying to control my temper. ‘In any case,’ I continued, ‘this has nothing to do with her. We have bought all the other shares and we are going to buy these. There aren’t two ways about it.’

  After a long silence during which all of us seemed to watch the couples with the sailboat, Geeta said, ‘K Som wants to go to the mountains.’

  ‘He must be out of his mind,’ K said. ‘And why does he want to go to the mountains?’

  ‘To get those shares.’

  K turned to me.

  ‘Why can’t Thapar go?’

  ‘I want to meet Krishna personally,’ I laughed. ‘That’s why.’

  K addressed Geeta. ‘Do you realise what his going to the mountains means?’

  She nodded. K flared up again.

  ‘No, you don’t. He is going to die climbing those mountains looking for those shares. He is going to die, that’s what it means.’