22.
Even a man as stupid as Sonu wished to know why. I had to come up with something. So I regaled him with the story of my life. Told him I was a dreaded criminal lying low, whose deeds had not yet been found out. But now I was getting nervous. I had been here too long. So for a small percentage of the ransom fee, I would commit the perfect kidnapping, leave the money with his brother, and hit the road. After hours of coaxing, he was convinced. From that point on I had to keep him close. Tell him nightly stories of my deeds as he arranged with his brother to pay my bail, until finally it was done.
That was three weeks ago. And now here we are, Sunny Wadia, face-to-face. And now the question you must be asking. What happened in that jail? When you appeared on TV, what happened to me? What is the real reason for my being here? Would you believe me if I told you that it was your face? Something in your face spoke to me. Something in your face left me transfixed. From that very moment, I was compelled, beyond my own reason, to escape and meet you in the flesh. You, Sunny Wadia, you were all I thought about. I had to get to you, and I had no understanding why. Even as I spent these weeks stalking you, working out a plan, waiting for the right time, the deeper reasons evaded me. I didn’t even know what I would do when I had you. Then the chance came. You and your friend, alone in that Bolero, in the middle of nowhere. We took it. We shot your friend. Crashed your car. Put you here. I pulled the blindfold off and looked into your eyes. I understood why I was here. I remembered those four lost days.
23.
How could I have let them go, those days that were stolen from me, those days that stole my life, where before I was beholden to no man and after I was a shell. How could I have not inquired? Why did I run like a beaten dog back home? I tell you, Sunny Wadia, it’s because those days were black holes. But now, here they are, there they were, the fog blown away, days resting before me plain. I felt the hand in the forest pull the rag from my eyes. I felt my body released from the rope and tree. I saw men around me, all wearing black, each carrying swords, carrying guns, armed, as they say, to the teeth, each with dark-ringed eyes and long black hair bundled high on heads, secured with sharp chakrams, with many more chakrams around their forearms and necks, like acolytes, like monks. Something was blown into my face, and within seconds I couldn’t move or speak. Somehow I had no desire to scream. Now I found myself carried through the air by many hands, carried through the forest, and I lost sense of time. I lost sense of space. It felt like hours or minutes had passed. It felt like I had been carried one hundred miles or remained in one place. We reached a camp, a series of barrack-like buildings with watchtowers and barbed fences inside the forest, in the cleft of a ravine. I was carried through the gates and placed in a small room with a mattress and a blanket and left there at dawn. The sun rose and I watched its shadows on the ceiling, then I watched it fall again. A whole day had passed. At no point in time could I speak or move. Sunny Wadia, I was scared. I had never been so afraid. Not to be able to scream, not to move, this is unbearable. A nightmare. But even worse, not to know what was in store for me. To my relief, my limbs began to regain their motion at dark. First my fingers, then my toes. I wiggled them back and forth, delighted in their motion. But joy was short-lived, replaced by a new fear. I recalled the ghostly girl running through the woods with her skin cut out, running without noise. I still could not speak. Would that be my fate? I tried to calm myself. You’re Sunil Rastogi. The luckiest man alive. With this lodged in my head, I stilled my wilder thoughts and comforted myself with one more simple truth: I was a man and not a girl. This eased my soul. Now I listened for some clues as to where I was. Funny, the day before, during my paralysis, I hadn’t heard a thing. Only birdsong and animal call. I had wondered if this camp was deserted, if I’d imagined everything I saw. Now I heard human voices, the bustle of enterprise. Slowly I got to my feet. Unsteadily I crept to the metal bars that gave me a dim view of the world. I saw those black-clad men all around in lantern light, wielding their weapons, and beyond the fence a procession of female bodies, being taken from one of the barracks and loaded onto a truck. Not dead, you understand, but enslaved. The handle of my door turned. I was caught in that pose, peering out.
“So you’re the one,” the voice said.
That’s when I saw him. This giant of a man.
“The one who will not die.”
What was I supposed to say in reply? I froze. I felt like I was caught. He stepped in, wearing a long black kurta, his hair streaming onto his shoulders, his eyes like coals ringed with kohl, tilak of red and yellow slashed down his forehead, I had to look up to see him, crane my neck. I was captive to him and the glistening of rings on his hands. Himmatgiri. He was flanked by two of his men. One carried a wooden stool, the other a lantern. He gave a signal and they turned away, left the stool and the lantern and us alone, closed the door. I noticed as he stalked the room that he had a gentle manner, a feline grace. I felt like he knew me. He came close. I was dumb, still holding the metal bars. I could smell a strange metallic sourness on his breath. “How is it,” he said, placing his hand on my head, “that you will not die?”