“We found it by her body,” he said gruffly. “It’s not entered in the log. You can have it.”
I looked stupidly at the foolscap volume, spattered with her blood. Priscilla’s scrapbook.
It was the only thing of hers that I’d ever have. I clutched it as a drowning man clutches a floating plank from his unsalvageable ship. “Thanks, Guru,” I managed to say.
And then, for the first time since my father’s death, I wept.
Katharine Hart and Lakshman
October 14, 1989
KH: I’m really sorry to bother you again, but it was important that I see you alone. Without — the others.
VL: Of course. How can I help you?
KH: There’s something about Priscilla’s life here that’s not very clear to me. That bothers me.
VL: Yes?
KH: Well, I may as well plunge right in. In one of her letters to me she mentioned that she’d met someone she was quite — attracted to. Someone in a position of authority here.
VL: And?
KH: I wondered if it might have been you.
VL: Good God, Mrs. Hart! I’m flattered, I suppose. But I’m overworked, overweight, and married. It couldn’t have been me.
KH: I’m sorry if I’ve been impertinent in any way. Rudyard — Priscilla’s father — doesn’t know about any of this. Nor does the journalist, Mr. Diggs. I’m not trying to embarrass you, Mr. Lakshman. I just want to understand everything I can about my daughter’s death.
VL: I wish I could help you, Mrs. Hart. But there was nothing between us. If you will permit me to say this, sometimes it is best not to assume we can know everything. Your daughter led a good and admirable life. She worked for others; she was popular and well-respected. She died a tragic, senseless death. You know the old Greek adage, the good die young. That was all there was to it.
KH: But there was more. There was something else, something that might explain why she was there, in that out-of-the-way place. Perhaps it had to do with some aspect of her life we don’t know about.
VL: Perhaps. But does it matter what we do not know? Any attraction she may have felt to anyone did not kill her. Communal passions that she had nothing to do with, did.
KH: I suppose you’re right.
VL: I am, Mrs. Hart. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do. I wish you a safe trip back home.
Gurinder to Lakshman
October 15, 1989
Why the hell did you saddle me with that bunch, yaar? Bloody demanding Americans. They want this, they want that, they want to see the exact spot where we found her, what are the details of the police report, why did the postmortem omit this or that. I’d already given the journalist Diggs more than enough of my time. Then the fucking Harts on top of it, it was all too much.
And that mother of hers! Went on and on about the missing scrapbook. She knows it exists, she says. Well, ma’am, perhaps it does, I respond, but it’s not up my fucking ass. No, I don’t really say that. But I finally have to show her the whole pissing inventory in the bloody logbook of every item found at the murder scene. No scrapbook. That quieted her.
We’ve already spent more time on this visit than on everything to do with all the other riot victims, dead and injured. What is wrong with us, that we give so much importance to a bunch of foreigners? I’m glad they’re leaving tomorrow, I tell you.
That bloody Hart, with his patronizing airs, as if he knows India so well from having tried to sell his bloody Coke here. What has he ever done for India, or for a single Indian? We don’t need your pissing soft drinks, I nearly told him. We’ve had lassi and nimbu-paani for a thousand years before anyone invented your bloody beverage. Just as well we kept you out. The frigging East India Company came here to trade and stayed on to rule; we don’t want history to repeat itself with Coca sucking Cola. We don’t need you, mister. We can get pissed on our own, thank you bloody much.
And Diggs. Poking around the bloody embers of the riot like a bloody commission of enquiry. All for some thousand-word piece in which he’ll use two sentences of the two hours I gave him. I liked him at first, even took him home for a drink last night, told him some things I haven’t told anyone from the press before. Off the frigging record, of course. Feeling a bit ashamed of my garrulousness now. Why are we so sucking anxious to oblige these bloody foreigners, Lucky? Some flaw in the national character? I wouldn’t have given an Indian journalist a fraction of the stuff I gave this man, and he won’t even use it. Maybe that’s why.
Anyway, you?ll want to know what I told them. I told them what seemed to have happened. The Muslim bomb-chuckers, running away from the house where I’d fired at them, came back to the Kotli to seek refuge — all except the motherlover we’d caught. They found Priscilla there — or she found them, it’s not clear. They killed her to protect themselves.
Of course, none of them will admit it. They swear her body was there when they arrived. And of course we didn’t catch them there. When the interrogation of the other fellow revealed their use of the Kotli, we went there the next day to look for evidence of bomb making, and found Priscilla as well. The others weren’t there; we rounded them up from their homes on the arrested bugger’s evidence. At least one of them, the municipal driver, Ali, looks like he’s capable of anything.
And in case you’re wondering, I didn’t offer them any speculation on why she might have been there.
I see you don’t want to talk. Just one thing. I’m glad you listened to me and shut up about your precious Priscilla. The last thing you needed for your career, not to mention your marriage, was an article in the New York fucking Journal about the slain American girl having an affair with the district buggering administrator. The dung would truly have hit the punkah then, Lucky, and you could have kissed goodbye to your future. You might as well have resigned and run off with Blondie the way you nearly did.
Okay, okay, I’m sorry I just don’t get it, but I know she meant a lot to you. So does this country, Lucky. You’ve got work to do here. The riot’s over. She’s gone, as she would have been gone anyway. It’s time to turn the page.
Ram Charan Gupta to Kadambari
September 25, 1989
How very interesting, young lady.
So our do-gooding district magistrate is having a little fling on the side, is he? With this white woman, you say? That could be very useful information indeed, my dear. Tuesdays and Saturdays? My, you are thorough. Very diligent of you.
You are a good girl, Kadambari. A good Hindu girl. Here’s a little something for your trouble. No, that’s all right, my dear. I insist.
Mohammed Sarwar to Lakshman
October 14, 1989
Well, I got more than I bargained for on this visit. A full-scale riot. Two people killed on my street. And firsthand evidence of police excesses committed during house-to-house searches in the Muslim bastis. My uncle, Rauf-bhai, is the sadr of the community. He’s helped you manage this riot, keep the peace. Even he wasn’t spared, Lakshman. His house was broken into and trashed by the police search team. They took the TV and radio, poked holes in the mattresses, smashed some furniture. I live in the house; my research notes were picked up, scattered, trampled upon. Randy Diggs, the New York Journal-wallah whom I know from Delhi, wanted to meet me, and I couldn’t even invite him home. How ashamed I feel. Of everything. Of everything that we are.