‘We need to see it before we can do anything… No, I’m not going to promise you that, but it’s in your interests because nothing’s going to happen until we see it… yes… yes…’
Eventually one of the cameramen took pity on her and posted a VHS through the letterbox. The production team crowded into Iqbal’s suite and closed the door. With the curtains closed and twenty people inside, the heat was stifling. At first Leela did not want to watch. Tve seen it,’ she said. Then she gave in and sat down cross-legged at the end of the bed, holding her mother’s hand. Vivek put the tape into the machine and pressed play.
A gaunt Indian face appeared on the screen. A hand reached forward to adjust the frame. The quality of the image was low, but Gaby could see he wore glasses and was quite young, in his early twenties perhaps. He was hunched in his seat, knees drawn up towards his chest. It was impossible to tell where he was located. Interior. An apartment?
He didn’t look much like an international terrorist.
This is personally for Miss Leela Zahir,’ he began. His voice was thin and uncertain. ‘Anyone else watching this who is fortunate enough to know her, please would you pass it on? It is important. So, um, thank you, Miss Zahir, for your attention. I hope it reaches you because something might happen to prevent me explaining in person and I want you to know how sorry I am. Of course I don’t claim responsibility for everything bad in the — sorry, forget that. I know I have associated your good name with — oh, I should say first that my own name is Arjun Mehta. I grew up in New Delhi but I am presently NRI in America. Sorry. I am doing all this in the wrong order. I want to say first, before everything, ever since your first movie I have been such a big fan of yours. I saw Naughty Naughty, Lovely Lovely eight times and of course I saw all the others also, most of them more than three but less than seven times. You are my heroine. You are the kind of girl I would like to — in my dreams only of course — I’m not — I’m only — I mean, all this must sound strange, well — crazy really, to you. I’m not crazy. My online poll scores indicate not. And I’m not a terrorist. Oh, this is going badly. I’m sorry. That’s what I want to say. I’m so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you, because you mean everything to me. But I was going to lose my job. I made a bad decision. Virugenix is a top international company, and all I wanted was a chance to show my capabilities and instead they told me I would lose my job and Darryl Gant, who is head of Ghostbusters and if you ask me a very difficult man, an angry man, Darryl Gant wouldn’t listen. How could I tell him? If I lose this job, I have to go back to my parents in disgrace. Although of course I’m a much bigger disgrace now. What will happen to them? And my sister also, who is going to marry this fool of a Bengali and run off to Australia. I tried to tell him. I offered to work for nothing. But they still said I have to go because of first in and first out and being foreign national and all. I meant to cause a little disruption, just a small problem, because then I could step in and solve it and be the hero. But instead I am here and they are calling me terrorist and FBI most wanted and I’m scared, Miss Zahir. I feel I can tell you this. You’re an understanding person. It shows in your eyes, especially in Home of the Heart. You know what I’m talking about because you are sensitive and also beautiful, this I can tell from your performance. I used your pictures and your songs without permission because they are irresistible and — and I’m sorry. That’s all really.’
He reached forward and switched off the camera. The screen went blank, then started showing old news footage, material the journalist had dubbed over when copying the tape. Everyone in the room started talking at once. He was damaging the film industry, this sisterfucker, besmirching the image of India. The maniac. The pervert. To Gaby the speech seemed sad, pathetic even. The boy had the haunted face of someone who knows his link to the world is extremely tenuous.
The only person who had said nothing was Leela Zahir. She was still staring at the screen, watching tanks move through a Middle Eastern town. She looked as if she were about to cry. Feeling someone watching her, she glanced up and managed a forced little smile. Gaby found it hard to know what was more depressing, the boy on the tape or this girl, this famous movie star who was so love-starved that some weird fan s devotion could touch her like this. Suddenly her situation was obvious. What kind of a life did she have, shackled to that bitch of a mother, shoved around by this team of idiots?
‘He looks quite sweet,’ she said tentatively.
Gaby shrugged and pretended to do something with her phone.
As the arguments progressed, Leela announced that she was feeling overcome, and asked her mother if she could go to her room. As she scuttled out, hiding behind her hair, she briefly took Gaby’s hand and squeezed it. Gaby felt a sinking sensation in her stomach, the sensation she always felt when someone made an emotional demand on her. Oh, God, the girl wasn’t going to drag her into her mess, was she?
Iqbal ordered most of the crew out of the room. Gaby sat down on the bed but took no part in the discussion, which was mostly conducted in Hindi. Through it all, Rajiv Rana, still in the torn remains of his costume, paced up and down by the window, murmuring, ‘Shit, oh shit.’ ‘Salim-bhai,’ he burst out at one point, ‘you must tell Baba none of this is my fault, OK?’ At the end Iqbal told her what had been decided. ‘We will,’ he said, ‘be releasing immediate press statement. Leela Zahir pleads with the terrorist to give up to proper authorities forthwith and if he is her true fan to stop using her pictures to damage international commerce. He is copyright infringer and criminal and must be giving up right now.’
‘With respect,’ said Gaby, ‘you’ve employed me as a press officer, which means that perhaps my opinion on this would be of some use?’
‘Please, this is no time for insubordination. Mrs Zahir will write the words and you will read it out — unless girl is willing, for once. Go and tell them outside we will have the statement in one hour and afterwards they will please to disperse.’
Gaby was too astonished by the way the man was treating her to be properly angry. Without a word she left the room, went back to her own and locked the door. Then for the first time in as long as she could remember she started to cry. She allowed herself five minutes, then took a series of deep breaths and went into the bathroom to repair her make-up.
Some time later Mrs Zahir caught up with her in the bar and handed her a piece of hotel stationery She had changed and was now wearing an understated late-afternoon ensemble incorporating patent-leather boots and a top with an appliqué elephant picked out in gold on the front. Her eyes were unnaturally bright, her face grim. There was a red mark on her cheek, as if someone had slapped her.
‘Leela is too fatigued to speak to her public,’ she snapped. ‘However, I think this captures the tone.’
Written on the paper in large faltering loops of purple Biro was a press statement. At least that’s what Gaby supposed it was. The grammar and spelling were appalling. It made very little sense.
‘You don’t seriously intend to release this to the media, do you?’
‘What did you say?’ smiled Mrs Zahir sweetly. ‘You have such a strong accent, my dear. It is sometimes hard to understand you.’
‘I have a strong accent?’
Mrs Zahir was peeping through the curtains at the mayhem on the front lawn. ‘What? Yes, you sound foreign. Now if you give me the paper back, I will go and speak to the international press.’ She put an emphasis on the first syllable of ‘international’, drawing it out so far that the mob of reporters waiting outside seemed to take on the luxurious allure of a bubble bath or a box of chocolates.