“My money,” Mohit repeated. He felt again the accusing glare of Hasan’s widow.
Darkness came with its accustomed quickness. The men rinsed their plates in streams of water coursing off the corrugated iron and entered their room, five square meters of packed dirt and a rough, splintery platform on which they slept. A murmur of other tenants came through the woven mats that served as interior partitions.
Standing, taking a few steps — the movement had stirred something inside Mohit. He looked at his bare pallet for a long moment, then turned back to the door.
“Where are you going?” Sohel sounded surprised.
“You are right.” Mohit acknowledged Sohel’s gratified expression, just visible in the murk. “The dacoit who robbed Hasan’s house — perhaps he simply took advantage of the opportunity. Perhaps it was organized, somehow. Either way, he took what is mine.”
“But... how will you find him?”
Mohit hesitated. Men drifted through Bhatiary by the tens of thousands, and missing fingers distinguished someone no more uniquely than missing teeth.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. A sense of resolution grew within him, at first faint and now increasing. “But I have nothing else to do.”
Sohel reached out to hold his arm, a light, hesitant gesture. “You are — I am sorry to say this, but you are behaving oddly. I know, the shock, Hasan’s death, your money, yes. Please.” He paused. “Do not make this worse for yourself. I should not have suggested absurd theories.”
Mohit grunted and pulled away. He felt Sohel watching him as he stepped back out into the rain.
It’s my life, he felt like saying. It’s not the money, it’s my life.
When Mohit first arrived at Chittagong, he would sometimes spend a few takas gambling — a casual wager on a kabaddi match, or maybe a numbers bet, bought from the same fellow who sold Bangla Mad moonshine. He stopped after seeing another Ghorarchari, a few years older, lose his entire savings on a national cricket test. The man disappeared two days later, either just ahead of his Thuggee creditors or a few unfortunate steps behind. Conveniently, the fasting month of Ramadan had just begun, and Mohit foreswore all games as well as the usual food and drink. He was not often tempted after that.
But he knew where to go. In the jammed lanes of Bhatiary no one had privacy or secrets. Organized vice was run out of a shack alongside the “cinema,” where members of the same gang screened Bollywood DVDs on a television screen before roughmade wooden benches. Along with others too poor to pay the admission, Mohit occasionally loitered in the lane alongside, underneath a bedraggled string of colored lights illuminated when the generator was running. Sometimes a gap might appear in the blackout plastic tied to the walls. When the police were absent, pornographic videos slipped into the schedule, their indistinct soundtracks both fascinating and embarrassing to the eavesdroppers.
Tonight Mohit ignored the moviehouse and went straight to the entrance next-door, which was overseen by a well-fed thug who nodded him to the door.
“I would see Chauhan saheb,” Mohit said.
The man’s gaze, which had wandered away, flicked back. “Would he know you, then?”
“No.”
“Well.” The man shrugged.
Yesterday Mohit would have retreated; yesterday he would never have come this far. Now, in the dark, his future demolished as thoroughly as one of the broken ships themselves, he found himself not just emboldened but reckless.
“It is about the men who died,” he said.
The gunda frowned. “Dead men,” he said. “So many of them, no?”
“The cutter, Hasan.”
“Ah.” After a long pause, the man stepped back and pushed open the door with one hand.
“At the carrom table,” he said. “Don’t interrupt the game.”
Inside benzene lamps cast dull light on a scattering of tables and perhaps twenty men. Several sat along one wall, drinking tari from unlabeled, recycled bottles. Rain pattered on the metal roof, eased, came down hard again. A roistering group in the corner laughed loudly, arms around each other’s shoulders. Mohit smelled sweat and oil and faint, bitter smoke.
A battery-powered lantern hung above the carrom table, spotlighting the meter-square surface and its black and white stones. As Mohit approached, one player flicked his striker, and a piece flew across the board to land cleanly in the pocket. His opponent grunted. Two more stones went in, and the men gathered around the table made noises of appreciation or dismay.
Chauhan would have been unmistakable even if Mohit were straight off the bus from Ghorarchar. Short and broad, he stood at brooding ease, arms crossed, watchful. But it was the obvious respect of the others around him — distance, deference, careful glances — that made his status clear.
The match ended when one player ran five consecutive tiles, then pushed back from the table with a broad smile. The loser looked away and scratched under one arm.
Mohit stepped forward. “Chauhan saheb, ektu somoy hobe?”
“Apni ke?”
“I am Mohit Kadir, a gang laborer for Syed Abdul Farid. I have... an inquiry.”
“Ki?”
Chauhan did not sound impatient or aloof, as Mohit had expected from someone whose name was always mentioned in low and wary tones. The carrom players were setting up another round, while spectators drifted away. Two men in polo shirts appeared at Mohit’s side. He tried to ignore them.
“You have heard of the explosion today, and the death of three workers. I was there, and I later visited Hasan-mia’s house.” Chauhan said nothing, and Mohit explained his arrangement with Hasan. “But a thief had already arrived, taking by violence all of Hasan’s worth.”
“We know.” Chauhan nodded once.
“They said he was — that he had a bad arm, and missing fingers.” Mohit swallowed. “I wonder... do you know who he might be?”
Chauhan’s gaze narrowed, though his voice remained quiet. “Why would you ask me?”
“He might have come here, to spend his new riches.” Mohit paused. “He might have done similar things before, and boasted of them. Perhaps rumors started. Perhaps you have heard something.”
Hilarity rose from the party in the corner, and one man lurched off the bench to land on the dirt floor. His mates thought this even funnier, hauling him back up and reseating him. His shirt was now crusted with a swath of mud, which he didn’t notice.
Chauhan looked at them for a moment, then back to Mohit.
“Do you know who that is?”
“I’m not sure... perhaps I have seen him on the beach.”
“He will be taking Hasan’s place tomorrow, as senior cutter on the ship. The sorrow of Hasan’s family means great opportunity for him.”
“But his hand—” Mohit stopped. “He is not crippled.”
“No, of course not.” Chauhan frowned.
“I’m sorry, saheb. I do not follow your meaning.”
“Life is complicated, that’s all. Actions and results may not be what one would expect.” Chauhan sighed and took a glass from a shelf beside him. “We don’t know the dacoit. He has probably fled, gone back to the country.” He drank, replaced the glass, and regarded Mohit, who had not responded. “Your ghush is surely gone also. You will not recover your money.”
“Five years,” said Mohit softly. “Five years breaking my back for it.”
Chauhan shrugged. “You are still young.”
Another downpour rattled the roof. Two men came in, soaking wet, and a draft fluttered the lamps; the carrom players settled themselves and began again; Chauhan’s attention moved on to other matters.