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?”
24.
He interrogated me all night, perched on his stool. What could I say? I was lucky. That was my only word. I was a lucky man. He wanted to know more. He said a man like me should have died many times. He had been following my progress since Ballia, since the killing of Shiv Kumar. How had I done it? I didn’t know. What knowledge did I have of the Chaddi Baniyan gang? I didn’t, I said. It was all concocted. That gang, he said, knew certain things. They practiced certain austerities, sacrifices. I am not them, I said. But Sunil Rastogi, he smiled, you’re a killer of men. He made me go back. He made me tell the story of my life. From birth to there. This is why I tell my story to you so well, Sunny Wadia. It has already been rehearsed. Yes, he would not let me rest. All night the interrogation went on, the night rolled and spun. I recall nothing but his voice. As day rose I was brought a special drink, thick and pungent in a clay cup. He drank it with me too. He went back over certain points. What had I thought at the moment of crisis? How had I made a decision? I didn’t know. I didn’t know. He seemed to be searching for a key. When the daylight filled my cell, he left. I lay awake, frozen in the light, with visions of my life. I did not see him until the next night, when he returned with lanterns and food. He sat on the same stool. “I have decided,” he said, “that you tell the truth. You are a vessel.”
25.
His phone is ringing. One moment, Rastogi says.
He steps away from the stool, answers the phone.
“Hello?”
He smiles.
“Yes.”
He looks back to Sunny.
Manoj will be here soon, this will all be over for you. Let me finish my story.
26.
Where was I? Ah, yes, Himmatgiri. He sat before me and smiled. “I’ve decided,” he said, “that you tell the truth. You do not know from where this magic comes. You do not know why you cannot die. But you have come to me for a reason, Sunil Rastogi.” He left his stool and came close to me, crouched down and retrieved a chain that hung inside his clothing. On the end of that chain was a golden ring and inlaid in that ring was a stone of such bright green it was all I could see. He said, “You’ve traveled all your life to be here, and now you are a servant to me.” I found myself trembling. I could not disagree. “But soon,” he said, “you will leave.” “Where will I go?” I replied, blinking back tears, for I was moved by his faith in me. “West,” he said, “to the place you were born. You will follow fate, fate has carried you everywhere.” “Yes,” I whispered. “And once there,” he went on, “you will forget everything until you see a face; that face will guide your hand. You will seek out that face and deliver a message.” I asked him, “What message will I give?”
27.
In the godown, with those words, Rastogi gets up from his stool, pulls from his pocket an ivory handle, and with deft fingers reveals the killing blade within.
“He said first you will deliver the message of pain.”