imperceptibly as a magician. He remembered David, oh yes, because he was the only Westerner in the hotel, in fact the only client who hadn’t stayed shut up in his room, especially with the curfew.
“Where exactly did he go?”
This brought a fresh round of nodding and rupee-ing. They’d never find it, he said, without someone who really knew Srinagar the way he did, having lived there all his life. Oh, the horrors he’d seen. More rupees to help him bury the past.
The capital sprang back to life in the daytime, but still a life under military occupation. Armed men looking for possible terrorists patrolled the squares, streets, and markets constantly. David had probably taken this same route and passed the same patrols. He’d no doubt laid out the rupees, too, and that was exactly why he was remembered. The old man walked steadily in front of them, as if he’d done it hundreds of times, as he surely had. He was right — the city was a labyrinth, and, for an hour, they went through narrow streets and narrower ones, even alleys and inner courtyards, as well as false dead ends that actually did lead somewhere, into dark ways apparently designed for throat-cutting, then to a square a little more sunlit than the others, where Shabir pointed to a rundown three-storey building painted sickly green like the rest of the neighbourhood.
“I brought him here,” he said with great authority, as though fearful of not being taken seriously, “He went inside here.”
How many apartments were there? Quite a few, judging by the number of windows, some of them covered but showing silhouettes. David had given Shabir a generous tip. Jayesh got the message loud and clear, so out came the roll of rupees. After David went in, which apartment did he go to? Why? To do what? Max had to resign himself to the fact that Shabir didn’t know. They had no choice but to knock on every door and show everyone the picture of David, risking a few rounds from a Kalashnikov instead. While Shabir waited outside, the two went in. A chubby type, poorly shaven, wearing just an undershirt, who had watched them from his window, emerged at once from a ground-floor apartment.
“Are you here to look at the studio, is that it?”
Then they heard him fumbling for keys as he went back inside. Then he headed upstairs before them without bothering to close his door. He was painfully heavy and slow, and used the handrail not just for direction, but for support. He couldn’t get up the stairs otherwise.
“I have to warn you,” he said, coughing, “I can’t rent it until things are settled, what with this bloody business and all …”
Max pretended to understand, explaining he’d just arrived in Srinagar and was at the hotel for the time being, so he could wait a few days. The fact that a stranger had showed up didn’t seem to surprise the caretaker: he probably wasn’t the first to visit. Since things had broken down with Pakistan, the city was crawling with foreign reporters.
“And when do you suppose this ‘business’ will be over?”
The man shrugged. “They’ve got other things to worry about, and they say I’ve already had my commission so I’m not short.”
“They?”
He, as if noticing him for the first time. “You’re not with the papers.”
“We just got here from Delhi.”
“Well, you’ll have to work it out with them, if you want the place right away.”
“With who?”
“The Srinagar Reporter.”
Max remembered seeing it on billboards when they got into town. It was a daily, like The Times of India, but focused on Kashmir. The concierge slid the key into a lock at the end of the third floor in the back, and opened the door. When he turned on the light, the studio was tiny and disorderly. To the right was an unmade bed. To the left were a table, a cupboard, and a sink. The place had the relative luxury of running water despite the outward appearance of the building. At the end, a half-open door revealed a wash basin and toilet.
The caretaker was standing in the middle of it all with arms folded to show he was ready for questions or criticisms. Max showed him David’s photo.
“He may have come here to see someone — possibly you?”
The man looked defiantly at both of them. “Police?”
“Do you recognize this guy? His picture was in the papers last week.”
“Never seen him here.”
Max put the photo away. So, they were going to have to go door to door. They got ready to leave.
“Strange that a newspaper would rent a place like that,” Max said before they got to the corridor.
“Owners.”
“The Reporter owns this building?”
“Yesss. They wanted to pull it down, but they changed their minds. I don’t know why. Meanwhile, they rent. That’s how Ahmed got the apartment.”
“Ahmed?”
“Ahmed Zaheer.” He pointed to the furniture and items scattered round the place, “This is all his.”
“And where did this Ahmed go?”
“To Canada. To die.”
29
The Srinagar Reporter occupied a modern block on the southern edge of town. The windows of the editorial office overlooked the road to Jammu and Delhi a little way off, which symbolized accurately their basic political stance. The daily was “secular and progressive,” and, as their highly vocal and visible publicity claimed, an “All-India Publication Promoting Respect & Understanding Among Indians of All Castes & Beliefs.” Deepak Vahsnirian, editor-in-chief, was a sort of Indian Walter Cronkite who spoke in a low voice punctuated with sighs of limited dramatic impact, a gentleman, or trying very much to be one. Any minute now, Max expected him to get out a pipe and start stuffing it like a character in some British film from the fifties. Vashnirian prided himself on being a man of conviction, “not an easy thing in this country, even less in this city.”
A Hindu himself, he hired a number of Muslims, and not necessarily as sweepers and cleaners, he hastened to add. He, of course, was a member of the Indian National Congress, “India’s great party,” chased from power by the narrow-minded nationalists of the BJP.
“Still, those of the Congress weren’t always up to the standards of their illustrious predecessors, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru,” Jayesh put in, referring to the state of emergency proclaimed by Indira Gandhi in the 1970s.
Vashnirian’s complexion darkened, and Max frowned. This really wasn’t the time.
“We aren’t here for politics, Mr. Vashnirian. We’d like to talk to you about Ahmed Zaheer.”
“How much does he owe you?”
Max and Jayesh exchanged glances as Vashnirian came round his desk to face Max.
“Oh, you’re not the first, you know, and you won’t be the last, but you’ll not get a single rupee from this newspaper, no more than any of the others.”
Zaheer
