House of Stars Read online

  Everyone tries not to look at him. Except that old woman. ‘Are we supposed to watch while this man bleeds to death?’ she says.

  ‘Sit down,’ says the leader.

  She doesn’t. She gets up and walks over to the man.

  ‘SIT DOWN,’ says Salim, raising his gun.

  ‘Young man, I am eighty-two years old. I’ve done enough living. I have no family. No money. My arthritis is agony. You can put a bullet in me anytime.’ With that, she kneels down beside the injured man.

  That old woman is the bravest person in the room.

  Salim looks at her for a long moment. ‘You remind me of my nani,’ he says. ‘She was an old hag like you.’

  ‘I hope she’s proud of you. Seeing you on television killing people.’

  I think she’s gone too far. But Salim starts laughing. ‘You are exactly like her,’ he says. ‘I hated the old bitch.’

  When the old lady touches the security man, he gives a gargled scream. Of all the ways to die, being shot in the stomach is the worst. It’s certain death, but it’s slow, very slow.

  There is nothing the old lady can really do for the security man. But she sits by his side and holds his hand and talks to him. And that is a lot.

  Diya

  I’m so tired. Being frightened all the time makes you very tired. All I want to do is lie down and go to sleep. But I don’t dare. Beside me, the young mother, Malini, is struggling to manage both the toddler and the little boy. The toddler has fallen into a broken sleep. He keeps waking up and whining in a thin voice. The little boy keeps bombarding her with questions.

  ‘When will we go home? Why are they keeping us here? Who are these men?’

  I try to keep the boy occupied. His name is Manu. His mother is trying very hard not to burst into tears. She knows she shouldn’t cry, or it will terrify the children.

  ‘We are going to be out of here soon,’ I say.

  ‘How soon?’ he wants to know.

  ‘Just a few hours.’

  ‘You’re lying,’ he announces. ‘The man with the gun is going to kill us all. I don’t mind dying. My dadaji died, and my mother said that he is now in a place where he gets everything that he ever wished for. I want a horse.’

  ‘We are not going to die,’ I say. ‘The police are going to come and save us.’

  ‘Will they have guns? I want a gun.’

  Malini is very close to hysteria. ‘I came in here to buy diapers,’ she says. ‘We had run out. We really need diapers. The children need to be fed.’ Neither of us dares to ask for anything. We sit there on the floor, struggling to keep the children quiet. Hoping that Salim does not look our way.

  Manu is fidgety and restless. He is fascinated by Salim’s gun. Salim sits a little distance away, deep in thought, turning the gun over and over in his hands. He comes out of his reverie and looks up. When he notices Manu staring at his gun, he smiles and gestures at the boy to come over.

  His mother notices too late. She tries to grab his arm, but he ducks and runs to Salim’s side. She thrusts the toddler at me and scrambles to her feet, but another man with a gun steps between her and Salim. She sits down, trembling, watching with her hand over her mouth.

  Salim takes the gun and puts it in the little boy’s hand. ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’

  The gun is heavy. Manu struggles to hold it.

  Malini clutches my hand. She is shaking. ‘Make Manu come back. Please, please,’ she is whispering under her breath.

  Salim strokes the gun. ‘I call her “ammijaan”. She gives me everything I want.’

  ‘A gun can’t be your mother,’ says Manu. ‘You need a real live mother.’

  ‘Why?’ asks Salim.

  ‘To love you,’ says the little boy.

  ‘That’s what they say,’ says Salim. ‘They teach you that your mother loves you. That every mother loves you. Mother earth. Mother India. But the truth is that mothers don’t love their children equally.’

  ‘My mother loves me!’ says Manu.

  Salim smiles a slow smile at the boy, then looks over at Malini. ‘Really? Let us see.’

  He gets to his feet and comes towards us. I’m still holding the toddler. Salim leans over and grabs him from my arms. Malini gives a despairing wail and tries to get her child back. Another terrorist fields her, laughing, and holds her back.

  Salim walks back to where Manu is holding the gun. He takes it from the boy’s hand and puts the gun to the toddler’s head. He turns to where Malini is kneeling, breathless with terror.

  ‘Go on, Mother. Choose. You can have only one child. This one. Or this one. Come on, choose. I’m going to kill one of them. Choose!’

  He moves the gun from the head of one child to the other and back again, in a hypnotic dance that we all watch in silence. The toddler is shrieking in distress. Malini is frozen, staring from one child to the other. Then she stumbles forward and touches Salim’s feet. ‘Please!’ she whispers. ‘Don’t make me choose. I beg of you.’

  ‘Choose! NOW!’

  Malini crouches there at his feet, unmoving. Then she gets up with a convulsive movement. She grabs the screaming toddler and holds him to her chest. Manu stares up at his weeping mother, betrayal on his face.

  ‘See?’ says Salim. ‘We are all Mother India’s children. But she loves some of them more than the others. To some of them she says, “This land is yours.” To others she says, “Live within your aukaad. Put your head down.” When she shares the roti, she doesn’t break equal tukdas. And her children grow up and grow angry. They say, “We want our fair share.”’ He puts the gun in Manu’s hand. ‘When you don’t get your fair share, you must take it.’

  Manu stares at the gun and then looks at the man who had handed it to him. Salim smiles encouragingly. Struggling to hold the gun steady, Manu puts the barrel against Salim’s stomach. A sudden stillness descends on everyone. Nobody dares to move. The terrorist nearest to Salim starts forward, but Salim shakes his head, stopping him.

  Manu speaks into the silence, his voice trembling on the edge of tears. ‘You are a bad man,’ he says. ‘You made my mother cry. You made her afraid!’ His finger is on the trigger.

  Salim does not move. He keeps talking in a calm voice. ‘You’re angry. Good. Now are you going to shoot me?’

  Manu doesn’t know what to do. He holds the gun there, his lower lip trembling, tears heavy in his eyes.

  ‘Go on. Are you going to shoot me?’ Salim’s voice is gentle, coaxing.

  The other terrorists are standing around, tensely watching the situation. Everyone’s fingers are on their triggers.

  Malini whispers, ‘Don’t. Please, Manu, don’t. Look at me! Don’t!’

  Manu turns his head to look at his mother. She shakes her head, pleading with him with her eyes. Manu makes his own difficult choice. He drops the gun on the floor.

  ‘Good boy.’ Salim picks it up. He points the gun at Manu and pulls the trigger.

  Malini’s scream rocks us all. But the gun does not fire. Salim holds it out again. ‘Safety catch,’ he explains to Manu. ‘You have to pull that down before the gun will fire. Understand?’

  Manu nods, bewildered. Then Salim raises his hand and slaps him so hard across the face that the boy goes sprawling.

  Malini reaches for her son. Salim turns to her and grabs her by the hair. He slaps her face repeatedly. Her head jerks back and blood spatters from her mouth. When he lets her go, she drops limply to the ground. Then he simply walks away.

  In that moment, everyone sees him for what he is. I think we all realize that there is not much hope of us getting out of here alive. A deep silence of terror spreads across our little group.

  Manu crawls over and puts his arms around his dazed mother. He tries to wipe the blood from her mouth. His little brother cries and cries.

  How can people terrify little children? How can they look at another human being and pull the trigger? How can they kill and then carry on as if it is a perfectly normal thing? Humans. We are the m
ost terrifying animals that walk the planet.

  Kabir

  Some freedom fighter. Terrorizing little children and their mothers. If everyone was scared before, now they are petrified. All waiting for the worst. But the worst is a very long time coming.

  In movies, everything happens really fast. Eighty-four scenes, three action sequences, four songs, and it’s all over in two hours. The hero beats up the bad guys, and everyone gets to go home smiling. In a movie, the hero would be on the roof by now, rappelling down to save us, bazooka on his shoulder. But real life isn’t that way. And Salim was right. In real life, heroes end up dead.

  We sit and sit, waiting for something to happen. Manu cries himself to sleep, clinging to his mother. The little kid falls into a fretful sleep. So does the angry old man, his head nodding and lolling about on his chest. The rest of us find it impossible to drop off, with every screen in front of us showing the hostage drama and blaring out updates. We follow our situation on the news across twelve different channels.

  Two of the terrorists keep an eye on us. Salim comes and goes. He is on the phone a lot. I wonder who he’s talking to, where the real power behind the acts of terror lies. Don’t ever believe that acts of violence are random. Every act of terror is a move in a great game. The one that is played across borders by men who hold the fate of nations in their hands. They use fear to make us do what they want. We are just the stupid pawns. Hostages. And hostages are dispensable.

  I’ve been watching the terrorists since I heard the first gunshots. Four of them know what they are doing. Two of them are extremely awkward. Just out of training. Holding the guns like they are too heavy. Holding them all the time. I know. I used to do it too. In time, you learn that a gun is damn heavy. You learn to keep it beside you at all times but try not to heft the weight around. It tires your arm and ruins your aim.

  I look at our little crew of ragged morning shoppers. There is no way we are going to be heroes and take on the terrorists. Salim has given the right advice. Don’t be a hero. Sit tight. Keep your head down. And hope like hell that someone is making plans to rescue you. I follow his advice. I wait quietly. Next to me, Harish begins to fall apart again.

  ‘It’s not fair. It’s not fair that we die now. It is not our time.’

  ‘Calm down, Harish.’

  ‘I will not! I don’t want to die.’

  ‘Nobody does. Nobody. Not the man with a bullet through his gut. Not the soldier facing guns. Not even someone riddled with cancer and screaming in pain. No one wants to die.’

  His eyes focus on me. ‘I’m scared.’

  ‘We all are. But are you going to let these shits see you scream and be terrified? Are you?’

  ‘Swine. Bastards. No,’ he says.

  ‘Good,’ I say. ‘Calm down. Breathe.’

  His chest heaves, but he struggles to get back in control. I slide down to sit beside him. We sit huddled knee to knee. It comforts us. I try to distract him.

  ‘If this was an ordinary day, what would you be doing right now?’

  ‘Playing with my dog. The poor bastard. The doctor said he has to go on a diet as well. He’s just a mongrel I picked up off the road. But he’s smart. I hide this ratty old toy, and he finds it. Every time.’

  I keep an eye on Diya as he talks about his day. She just sits blankly in a corner. Not moving, not speaking. Her hair masking her face.

  ‘He waits for me, you know. Sits at the door and waits until I get back from college. He’ll just keep waiting . . .’ He nearly starts to fall apart again.

  ‘I don’t know what’s worse,’ moans Harish. ‘Waiting to be killed or being killed. It’s killing me!’

  I can’t help laughing at his choice of words. He is very offended. ‘You can laugh. You don’t mind dying. You’ve got a death wish. Telling them you don’t have a religion. You’re mad, you know that?’ He turns his back on me.

  He is right. I wished for death because it’s been such a long time since I’ve had something worth living for. And I’ve turned my back on what I’m told is worth dying for. But then I saw her, and I began to have the smallest of dreams again. A tiny flame. A little wish.

  After about an hour of us sitting around, taking his advice, Salim comes back into the room. He seems to be charged. He claps his hands and says, ‘Up! Everybody up!’ We all get to our feet as quickly as we can.

  Harish has fallen asleep. He lies sprawled in great slack-jawed sleep. I’m not surprised. Terror tires you out so much, you can sleep like the dead. He doesn’t hear a thing. The rest of us get to our feet. He lies there, snoring. I shake him as hard as I can, but he doesn’t move.

  Salim stands looking down at him, greatly amused. ‘Time to wake up,’ he says. Then he fires his gun between Harish’s legs. Harish convulses and wakes up, stunned and uncomprehending. I grab his arm and haul him to his feet. He is trembling.

  They get us to stand together. I can feel Harish shaking beside me. Everyone is wondering what the hell is going to happen to us now.

  ‘Smile,’ says Salim. One of the men takes a photo of us on his phone. ‘That’s for the press. You guys are going to be the headlines.’ He grins at us. ‘You can sit down now.’

  I’ve been watching Diya from the corner of my eye. At the exact moment that the photo is taken, she turns her head so her hair hides her face.

  I can hear Harish behind me. He’s crying, snivelling as softly as he can. He clutches my T-shirt urgently. ‘Stay in front of me, dude,’ he says. ‘Please don’t let anyone see me.’ He has wet his pants.

  We all sit down. I try to sit in front of Harish and cover as much of him as I can. I’m so busy doing that, I don’t realize Diya has taken the opportunity to shift closer and sit next to me. I only know it when the smell of lemons suddenly washes over me. I turn my head—and there she is. I can’t stop staring.

  ‘Oh man,’ whispers Harish urgently. ‘Please don’t let her see me.’

  Diya holds my gaze as she asks, ‘Earlier—before all this happened—were you following me?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. I can feel my heart thumping.

  ‘Why?’

  What can I say to her? ‘Because you are beautiful.’ It is the truth. Well, at least half the truth.

  She frowns.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.’ She looks like she is going to tell me off. Then her face softens.

  ‘You tried to shield me. I’m not going to be offended. Thank you.’

  I can’t think of a thing to say. She’s sitting right there. ‘Sure. Anytime.’ Of all the stupid things to say! But my head and my tongue short-circuit around her.

  ‘Anytime?’ she says. ‘I wasn’t planning on doing this too often.’ She smiles. I smile back. A girl who can smile when the world is going crazy. My heart beats faster.

  ‘What do you think is going to happen to us?’ she asks.

  Go on. Answer. Heart, calm down. Breath, come back.

  ‘I like to say we’re heading for a happy ending but I’m not that sure,’ I say.

  She indicates Salim, who is strutting around, talking on the phone. ‘He scares me.’

  ‘He’s a dead man walking,’ I say. ‘He scares me too.’

  The television sets are all still on, making a bank of talking heads behind Salim. Suddenly, something changes in the tone of the blaring voices—a ripple of different expressions and tense voices. The same news echoes from one screen to the other, carried on different lips in varying degrees of excitement.

  ‘We have breaking news. The terrorists have just made their demands.’

  Diya

  I don’t know why he risked himself to shield me. It was a kindness. Kindness always makes me afraid. It means you have to open yourself up to the other person. Give them something in return.

  First, I thought he was one of my father’s men. But he doesn’t seem the type at all. Then I thought he was just some cheap roadside boy trying to harass a girl. He wasn’t. I can’t figure out who he really is. His clo
thes are crumpled and worn, and he smells stale, like he has slept in them. But he seems decent enough. He is too shy to meet my eyes, and his ears turn bright red when I thank him. When he steals looks at me, I find that his eyes are a startling grey. I’m about to ask him about himself, but then the announcement comes on.

  ‘Just a few minutes ago we received a phone call and some photographs.’

  Our photograph flashes on the screen. There we are. A bunch of terrified people staring into the camera. Faces that are stunned. Faces that are pleading. Faces that are blank with fear.

  ‘The terrorists have demanded that a plane be put on standby with full fuel tanks. They have demanded safe passage to the plane and safe passage through Indian airspace. They said they have thirty-six hostages in their custody. They will release all safely on the completion of their demands.’

  The cacophony of the announcement descends into speculation about where the plane will go. Experts analyse the kind of plane, the fuel load, the possible destination. Everyone agrees that the aviation demands have been made by someone who obviously knows what he is asking for. Then, the first politicians begin popping up on screen. Fingers are pointed at our neighbouring countries. Finger-wagging denunciations are made. There is talk of expelling ambassadors. Debates rage and pronouncements are made.

  Midway through the news report, the angry old man gives a snort and stands up. ‘You really think the government is going to do this? Fly you out free and safe from India? You are mad. And we are all dead people.’

  Another woman screams at him, ‘Why not? The government will give him a plane. They will!’ Others join in to shout him down.

  Mr Bhonsle spits out a single word, ‘Fools!’ Then he sits down again. People begin to cry louder. Some beg to be released.

  They have the prime minister on and get his reaction. ‘Our government will never give in to terrorist blackmail.’

  They have the leader of the Opposition. ‘Our government would never let innocent people die.’

  They have a lawyer. ‘The police have failed us. They have failed in their duty to protect innocent civilians.’