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SHO-Dhaula Kuan, New Delhi
Tel: 28653200, 27641000
Set into the text of the notice, a photograph: blurred, blackened, and smudged by the antique printing press of some police office, and barely recognizable even when it was on the wall of the train station, but now, transferred onto the computer screen, reduced to pixels, just an abstract idea of a man's face: a small creature with large, popped-out eyes and a stubby mustache. He could be half the men in India.
Mr. Premier, I leave you for tonight with a comment on the shortcomings of police work in India. Now, a busload of men in khaki-it was a sensational case, after all-must have gone to Laxmangarh when investigating my disappearance. They would have questioned the shopkeepers, bullied the rickshaw puller, and woken up the schoolteacher. Did he steal as a child? Did he sleep with whores? They would have smashed up a grocery shop or two, and forced out "confessions" from one or two people.
Yet I bet you they missed the most important clue of all, which was right in front of them:
I am talking of the Black Fort, of course.
I begged Kusum many times to take me to the top of the hill, and through the entranceway, and into the fort. But she said I was a coward, I would die of fright if I went up there: an enormous lizard, the biggest in the whole world, lived in the fort.
So I could only watch. The long loopholes in its wall turned into lines of burning pink at sunrise and burning gold at sunset; the blue sky shone through the slits in the stone, while the moon shone on the jagged ramparts, and the monkeys ran wild along the walls, shrieking and attacking each other, as if they were the spirits of the dead warriors reincarnated, refighting their final battles.
I wanted to go up there too.
Iqbal, who is one of the four best poets in the world-the others being Rumi, Mirza Ghalib, and a fourth fellow, also a Muslim, whose name I've forgotten-has written a poem where he says this about slaves:
They remain slaves because they can't see what is beautiful in this world.
That's the truest thing anyone ever said.
A great poet, this fellow Iqbal-even if he was a Muslim.
(By the way, Mr. Premier: Have you noticed that all four of the greatest poets in the world are Muslim? And yet all the Muslims you meet are illiterate or covered head to toe in black burkas or looking for buildings to blow up? It's a puzzle, isn't it? If you ever figure these people out, send me an e-mail.)
Even as a boy I could see what was beautiful in the world: I was destined not to stay a slave.
One day Kusum found out about me and the fort. She followed me all the way from our home to the pond with the stones, and saw what I was doing. That night she told my father, "He just stood there gaping at the fort-just the way his mother used to. He is going to come to nothing good in life, I'll tell you that right now."
When I was maybe thirteen I decided to go up to the fort on my own. I waded into the pond, got to the other side, and climbed up the hill; just as I was on the verge of going in, a black thing materialized in the entranceway. I spun around and ran back down the hill, too frightened even to cry.
It was only a cow. I could see this from a distance, but I was too shaken up to go back.
I tried many more times, yet I was such a coward that each time I tried to go up, I lost my nerve and came back.
At the age of twenty-four, when I was living in Dhanbad and working in Mr. Ashok's service as a chauffeur, I returned to Laxmangarh when my master and his wife went there on an excursion. It was a very important trip for me, and one I hope to describe in greater detail when time permits. For now, all I want to tell you is this: While Mr. Ashok and Pinky Madam were relaxing, having eaten lunch, I had nothing to do, so I decided to try again. I swam through the pond, walked up the hill, went into the doorway, and entered the Black Fort for the first time. There wasn't much around-just some broken walls and a bunch of frightened monkeys watching me from a distance. Putting my foot on the wall, I looked down on the village from there. My little Laxmangarh. I saw the temple tower, the market, the glistening line of sewage, the landlords' mansions-and my own house, with that dark little cloud outside-the water buffalo. It looked like the most beautiful sight on earth.
I leaned out from the edge of the fort in the direction of my village-and then I did something too disgusting to describe to you.
Well, actually, I spat . Again and again. And then, whistling and humming, I went back down the hill.
Eight months later, I slit Mr. Ashok's throat.
The Second Night
For the Desk of:
His Excellency Wen Jiabao
Now probably fast asleep in the
Premier's Office
In China
From the Desk of:
His Midnight Educator
On matters entrepreneurial:
"The White Tiger"
Mr. Premier.
So.
What does my laughter sound like?
What do my armpits smell like?
And when I grin, is it true-as you no doubt imagine by now-that my lips widen into a devil's rictus?
Oh, I could go on and on about myself, sir. I could gloat that I am not just any murderer, but one who killed his own employer (who is a kind of second father), and also contributed to the probable death of all his family members. A virtual mass murderer.
But I don't want to go on and on about myself. You should hear some of these Bangalore entrepreneurs-my start-up has got this contract with American Express, my start-up runs the software in this hospital in London, blah blah. I hate that whole fucking Bangalore attitude, I tell you.
(But if you absolutely must find out more about me, just log on to my Web site: www.whitetiger-technologydrivers.com . That's right! That's the URL of my start-up!)
So I'm sick of talking about myself, sir. Tonight, I want to talk about the other important man in my story.
My ex.
Mr. Ashok's face reappears now in my mind's eye as it used to every day when I was in his service-reflected in my rearview mirror. It was such a handsome face that sometimes I couldn't take my eyes off it. Picture a six-foot-tall fellow, broad-shouldered, with a landlord's powerful, punishing forearms; yet always gentle (almost always-except for that time he punched Pinky Madam in the face) and kind to those around him, even his servants and driver.
Now another face appears, to the side of his, in memory's mirror. Pinky Madam-his wife. Every bit as good-looking as her husband; just as the image of the goddess in the Birla Hindu Temple in New Delhi is as fair as the god to whom she is married. She would sit in the back, and the two of them would talk, and I would drive them wherever they wanted, as faithfully as the servant-god Hanuman carried about his master and mistress, Ram and Sita.
Thinking of Mr. Ashok is making me sentimental. I hope I've got some paper napkins here somewhere.
Here's a strange fact: murder a man, and you feel responsible for his life-possessive, even. You know more about him than his father and mother; they knew his fetus, but you know his corpse. Only you can complete the story of his life; only you know why his body has to be pushed into the fire before its time, and why his toes curl up and fight for another hour on earth.
Now, even though I killed him, you won't find me saying one bad thing about him. I protected his good name when I was his servant, and now that I am (in a sense) his master, I won't stop protecting his good name. I owe him so much. He and Pinky Madam would sit in the back of the car, chatting about life, about India, about America-mixing Hindi and English together-and by eavesdropping on them, I learned a lot about life, India, and America-and a bit of English too. (Perhaps a bit more than I've let on so far-!) Many of my best ideas are, in fact, borrowed from my ex-employer or his brother or someone else whom I was driving about. (I confess, Mr. Premier: I am not an original thinker-but I am an original listener .) True, eventually Mr. Ashok and I had a disagreement or two about an English term-income tax -and things began to sour between us, but that messy stuff comes later on in the story. Right now we're still on best of terms: we've just met, far from Delhi, in the city called Dhanbad.
I came to Dhanbad after my father's death. He had been ill for some time, but there is no hospital in Laxmangarh, although there are three different foundation stones for a hospital, laid by three different politicians before three different elections. When he began spitting blood that morning, Kishan and I took him by boat across the river. We kept washing his mouth with water from the river, but the water was so polluted that it made him spit more blood.
There was a rickshaw-puller on the other side of the river who recognized my father; he took the three of us for free to the government hospital.
There were three black goats sitting on the steps to the large, faded white building; the stench of goat feces wafted out from the open door. The glass in most of the windows was broken; a cat was staring out at us from one cracked window.
A sign on the gate said: