The Kashmir Trap (14 page)

F
ine
was hardly the word for it. Adoor Sharma had on a stylish grey
lunghi
and a shirt that was just a bit too small so that it squeezed his waist, slicked-back hair, and his tattooed arm was holding a canvas bag. This was your local thug, Indian-style, the kind who flexes his muscles only around those weaker than himself; now, for instance, as he was harassing some poor girl. She was about sixteen, or less, a pearl, a flower of a girl. Each time she tried to get away, Sharma grabbed hold of her sari.

Yet, despite appearances, there was nothing original about this imbecile. Max and Jayesh had parked on the street and paid a boy a few rupees to watch the car. They were in a part of town even the most daring tourist guides didn't know about. Young girls, children, their faces made up with kohl like adults, but still not able to look older, stood in a row or crouched like beggars in front of Hindu temples. This wasn't a place for charity, though. It wasn't begging bowls or mango leaves they held out to passersby, but their own underfed, emaciated bodies that would probably grow no more.

Max was disgusted. Behind every victim there was a family to support. Selling your body for a few rupees was better than picking through the garbage with the sacred cows.

“They live in the
basti
, the slum over there,” shouted another boy they'd recruited for car-watching duty.

Street children? Not exactly, since the whole slum was on the street.

And there was Adoor Sharma, turning away from them.

“Pimp?” guessed Max.

The boy shook his head, no. Mama and Papa were the pimps. Max imagined the
bachas
in the chaos at the end of the day drowsing under filthy sheets while their parents counted out the rupees on the packed earth.

Holding a piece of ripped cotton, the sari of the young prostitute, Sharma moved on to business. A few slaps to show who was boss. She let out a cry of fear to which no one responded, except Max. Sharma never saw it coming. His shirt came apart under the impact, and the blow to his legs floored him. Not such a tough guy now. More like a wet rag. The threat of a fight had stirred the group and their clients, who were all watching, except the young girl, who had fled. Jayesh seized Sharma by the face with one hand and hauled him up. He stood there, trembling and frail.

“We want to talk to you,” Jayesh said in Hindi.

Sharma's terrified face looked from Jayesh to Max. This
chootia
, this SOB, was quite a coward. He stammered, “I haven't done anything, I swear I haven't.”

“Of course you haven't. You have an excuse. You're still sick, aren't you?” said Max.

All of a sudden, the watchman seemed to grasp what the two were after. “I had a fever!”

“You haven't been to see a doctor, though, have you?”

“You don't go to one when you're sick, just when you're rich!”

“Poor you, with your fever, all alone in a corner.”

“I might've been contagious.” A sly smile crept over his face as his confidence returned. Sharma had fooled the police, and now he could do it with these two. He straightened. The second time he didn't see it coming either, as Max doubled him over with a heavy blow to the stomach. From his knees, he grimaced and moaned like a dying man. The customers and hookers dispersed as they realized this was only going one way.

Jayesh forced Sharma to stand up again. Max got closer,
oh-so
-close, and fear returned to Sharma's face.

“They needed someone inside the house to tell them when David came and went, so they paid you off with a whore or some
baksheesh
.”

“No, never. I had nothing to do with it!”

“Why don't we ask these girls, say the one you were just beating up? Maybe that one over there? Malaria or no malaria, I'm sure someone saw you around that day.”

Sharma's eyes darted around, and Max knew he'd struck a nerve. That night, instead of guarding the house, the fool had come down here to play the tough guy, then got back in the wee hours, just as the boss was leaving for work.

“Okay, so I come down here at night, but nobody ever paid me.”

“You tell that to the police?”

“I didn't want trouble. I don't want to have anything to do with all that.”

“All that what?”

“You know, the war.”

“You think the attack had to do with the Pakistan war?”

“I think nothing. I just hear what people say, that's all.”

“Like your friends in the RSS or the Durgas?”

“They're not my friends. I don't know any of them. I don't get into politics.”

“Maybe someone promised you a job as watchman at a ministry, or chauffeur, maybe.”

“I haven't done anything, honestly.”

“Did you meet them at a demonstration? Was that it? Or some looting, perhaps? Say, you do the restaurant, and I'll take the butcher shop. You rape the old ones, and I get the young ones!”

“Not me, I didn't do it!”

“I bet you've got your membership card with you, photo, engraved swastika and all, plus Bhargava's signature.”

Jayesh picked up the cloth bag Sharma'd dropped and inside found a wallet with banknotes: American and Nepalese.

“Hey, hey, now you've got me real interested! So you did the safe, too, eh?”

Sharma tried to get away as his fear turned to panic, but Max and Jayesh were too fast for him, and had no problem wrestling him down. Things just picked up where they had left off momentarily. No one was coming to Sharma's defence, and no one was going to ask them to take it somewhere else. Each was in his own world and had nothing to do with anyone else's.

Even panic was not enough to risk telling the whole story. A nod from Max, and Jayesh kicked Sharma in the head. He crumpled to the ground. Overkill? Maybe. No, Sharma was still moving and conscious.

Max bent down. “You know something, and you're going to tell us right now. Got it?”

Blood from Sharma's nose spread fast and dark against his grey shirt. He raised his eyes to them.

“Who did it?” asked Max.

“I don't know. I swear I don't, but Mr. David was scared.”

“Scared of who?”

“He never told me anything, but I could see he really was frightened. He was always looking behind him. He was nervous.”

“What of?”

“I don't know.”

“A trip he was taking?”

Suddenly, Sharma's expression altered — surprise, even astonishment this time. The watchman looked away, but it was too late. Max noticed the shift. The trip — even the cops didn't know about it.

“You know where he went, don't you?”

Sharma hesitated, and the terror showed again on his face. Then resignation.
These two aren't from the government, so I'm okay.

“One morning, early, when I went over to go on duty, I heard him on the phone to a hotel. He was reserving a room.”

“What hotel? Where?”

“In Srinagar, the Hotel Mount View.”

Max was perplexed.

“The strongbox. That was you?”

“Yes, I knew the combination. That is … a cousin of mine sells them.”

“So you took the money.”

“I was certain the police had already searched everywhere, but when I looked inside …”

“When there was no one else around.”

“Yes.”

“What else was in there besides the tickets?”

“I just took the money.”

“No documents, other things, letters?”

“I'm telling you, I just took the money.”

 

I
n
prison, Max had received pictures from Philippe, taken when he was on duty in the Moroccan Sahara, pictures of him with local dignitaries appropriately costumed. In one, taken in a
souk
, for example, you could see merchants selling him baubles and grinning from ear to ear. Then, more serious, as befits a “diplomat,” he was seated at a mahogany table with officials in European dress, as well as dusty-faced rebels with Kalashnikovs over their shoulders. Philippe's piercing gaze reigned over all — people, situations, insoluble crises — and everywhere he went, he got respect. He inspired people to be on his side and work with him, to feel that serene strength backing them up. His warmth didn't smother or suffocate, but reassured. Max had experienced it as a boy and understood why everyone reacted to his brother the same way.

Philippe had just finished a three-year stint in Rabat and was on his way back to Ottawa to await his next year's posting: Ankara, Turkey. In the meantime, he'd be Mr. Average Suburbanite with his young wife, Béatrice, a translation student who'd wound up at the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo a few years earlier. She was expecting to teach English to the offspring of the “Japanese economic miracle.” Then the two had fallen madly in love, and after a lengthy engagement, got married in Rabat. During the long vacation, Philippe had brought his bride to the North Pole to introduce her to Max. She was the very model of an ambitious diplomat's wife: refined, elegant, fiercely intelligent, and ready to sacrifice all for her husband's career. Philippe was beyond doubt a superior being, and so was she, forming an elite duo that, before long, would be unstoppable.

By his side, Béatrice was more like a guide than a shadow. In the thick of things, Philippe didn't have time to stand back and assess every situation with regard to long-term ambitions. Béatrice directed from the wings, and, with exceptional mastery, steered him away from errors of judgment that might hurt his career.

Tokyo and Rabat had been remarkable turns. Of his class, now scattered around the globe, Philippe held the most promise. His finesse, his intelligence, his gift for languages — one year in Tokyo and he was already speaking Japanese — as well as his innate flair for negotiation and human interaction, put him far ahead of the others.

Lost in his “zoo” up in northern Ontario, Max had no idea about Philippe's transformation, or the refinement he'd undergone. Still, nothing had changed between the two brothers. Except Béatrice. The first time he met her, Max saw that the young woman was ill at ease with him. She'd have preferred Philippe to keep his distance, but that wasn't going to happen, so she never accompanied her husband again to Temagami. Philippe often brought Pascale with him on the long drive. These were the happiest moments of Max's incarceration, with Philippe's travel stories and their chats together, all three of them. Everything seemed so easy, simple.

Now, Max found himself reliving the nightmare of Pascale's disappearance, of his return to Montreal in 1980, of the parole conditions that prevented him from packing his bags and going to look for her. He wanted to search every single city and country and house, to walk the streets of the world to find her and bring her home with him and restart their life together. He could forgive her; anyway, it wasn't her fault. It was his for not being there when it mattered. He'd let her down.

“Maybe you should give her the benefit of the doubt,” Philippe had said when he was asked for his opinion.

Max hadn't expected this answer. He wanted to send her name and description to every embassy and consulate in Europe. “People have to renew their passports from time to time, don't they?”

But then what? Max knew her. She was probably travelling under an assumed name, and fake IDs were easy to get anywhere.

And, anyway, the benefit of
what
doubt? He knew she was gone and wasn't coming back. Getting her home would take more than his brother's fine and empty sentiments.

“That's what really hurts, her going without saying a word.”

Philippe was right about his pain, though. It just got worse and worse. He had no hold over any of this, like a small boy who doesn't get to have a good cry.

“What could you have done, anyway?”

Max had no idea. Maybe things would have turned out exactly the same. At least …

“She's gone. That we know, and I'm sure she had reasons we can't even guess at. The fact is, she chose to go, and all you can do is rail at the way she did it.”

Ever the diplomat. Philippe was discussing this like some inter-tribal conflict in New Guinea: what you do is get each side to consider the other's perspective. The problem with that was they were talking about a ghost. Max was out of arguments and walled himself up in silence. There was nothing Philippe could do to help. Max just had to muddle through on his own.

The next day, instead of reporting to his parole officer, Max crossed the U.S. border at Windsor after an all-night drive, flashing fresh fake papers prepared by Antoine, though Mimi was against it. “You'll dig yourself in deeper, Max. What you need is just the opposite. You need to make yourself look squeaky clean. How can you be any good as a con man with your face plastered over every police bulletin board in the Americas?”

He had a beard now, but it did nothing to hide his suffering, and anyhow, he didn't give any more of a damn for her advice than for his brother's.

Detroit, all lit up, was still a depressing sight. No use hanging around here, so he kept driving till he couldn't keep his eyes open and stopped in some quiet, nameless burg with deserted malls and fast-food places. Still, the motel was full up. Finally, he got a room at the far end of a long row of different-coloured doors and slept a deep, dreamless sleep. He ditched the car in a vacant lot and went south on a Greyhound. His convalescence was definitely over and his new life — his American new life — was underway, but first he had to visit the guru Guvani.

Already Max could pinpoint when it happened, the precise moment when things fell apart between him and Pascale: similar, but not identical to a host of little things he'd not noticed at the time. One day he'd found Pascale searching for information on one guru Guvani, who followed in the footsteps of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, a Tantric Buddhist all dressed up in red and who had a hankering for the lifestyle of a maharajah. In the 1980s, he was expelled from the U.S. and fled to Poona in India, where he'd founded his very first ashram in 1974.

Guvani appeared to fall right into step behind his mentor and his competitors, even recruiting the same consciousness-deprived people who'd become jaded toward Western faiths. Guvani even cultivated the same look, minus the red, which he replaced with green, and the
used-car
-salesman smile. At first, Max had thought Pascale was after the guy's money.

Why abandon Bay Street, Wall Street, and Rodeo Drive for a secluded ashram in Ohio's Hocking Hills? Then again, why not? We all need a fresh start now and then, Max figured. Eastern philosophy was one opportunity. Pascale had other ambitions, though, or rather none at all outside of “transforming” what she called her “life connections.” She subscribed to the guru's publications, listened to his meditation cassettes, and even got a small woven rug — probably made by kids at some hole in Rajasthan. She sat on it every Sunday morning and chased away evil thoughts.

At first, Max wasn't concerned, especially since she was as effective as ever. Meditation had given her a clearer grasp of things, and that was a plus in their line of work. He soon lost his illusions about that, though. He realized she was hiding things. Instead of visiting friends in Europe, for instance, she went to Ohio. He found out Guvani had taken a liking to her (“There's nothing to worry about,” she said, “He's above sexuality, not like Rajneesh.”). That probably accounted for the lecherous smile and the habit of scratching his crotch.
Ah
, thought Max,
the old priest bit
. It worked every time, generation after generation, whatever the religion. It would be just a matter of time before he whipped off his apple-green
dhoti
and frolicked in the fields with his Vestal Virgins.

Then there were the fights and door-slamming, and making up, too. Misdeeds confessed to and half pardoned, swept under the little Rajasthan rug and saved up for the next round. Max had taken Guvani for their next pigeon, and now it turned out he was the pigeon's pigeon. Max was furious. They were after the guy's fortune, but no, he'd taken advantage and stolen what was most precious to him: Pascale, “his” Pascale.

Once in Ohio, Max wanted to see this ashram up close and confront the fraud. At least they spoke the same language, so they'd understand each other perfectly. Instead, he found a modern,
up-to
-date man, not the sandalled refugee holding court in the luxurious living rooms of bored do-gooder ladies. No, this Guvani was as simple as they come, a diminutive person with too much of a tan for these parts, and his smile was definitely not lecherous. It bore the same fatalism he was to see on many Indian faces later on; millions, in fact. He wasn't rich, either. Max could tell not only from the way he lived, but also as he rifled through his bank accounts and investments. Max had called on a few of his contacts for this. No dice. This guru had nothing, or almost nothing. It was the students who profited from his teaching, not him. Possibly the carpet-seller or the cassette-maker … who knows?

Brad Wyles — in charge of rooting out victims of esoteric or religious cults — whom Max met in New York, confirmed it. This was Wyles's life-long mission, and he'd like nothing more than to nail Guvani, but the guru was literally above suspicion. He'd gone over the man's early life, as well as his connections in the U.S. and India, with a fine-tooth comb. He'd even sent fake devotees to spy on the ashram and offer him money, cars, yachts, or (more discreetly) investments in tax havens, and they'd been sent packing. He had nothing. He wanted nothing. Even the fanatics clinging to his parka (well, it was winter after all) made him want to get rid of them. Ironically, that just whipped them into more of a frenzy … Pascale most of all.

Max was like a rabbit in the headlights of this UFO. He was paralyzed, unable to do a thing, least of all use reasoned logic. Pascale would listen to no one, nothing but her own impulses. She was plugged into her own soul with an ardour that literally scared Max. Then one day, the fervour simply disappeared. The prayer rug joined its secular fellows in the back of the closet, preceded by the meditation cassettes. The cure was as sudden as the onset of the disease. Max was just too happy to bother asking why, and their lives picked up where they had left off, in a way. Guvani was gone from their conversations and lovers' quarrels.

In the summer of 1980, when Max got out of prison, Guvani still reigned over the ashram in the Hocking Hills. The master was a little stooped, the smile still resigned, and his modest means the same. His advice was the same as Philippe's. Why go looking for her? Just respect her decision, that's all.

Later, Max did pick up Pascale's trail, when he found out she'd been living in India for years. Perhaps her separation from the guru was just strategic and temporary. Perhaps she'd just wanted to cover her tracks and make things hard for Max, and he'd fallen into the trap. So maybe the man's naïveté, his candour and blindness, had actually been a smokescreen to hide what she was up to after all.

“A swindler like me. The best of the lot.”