“Come on, it’s OK,” Shockie said.
At first he was appalled that Taukir would risk searing himself into the man’s memory with an argument, but later he was grateful: Taukir had behaved as any rude Delhiite would, and besides, they were disguised.
Now, getting back into the car and reversing it, Shockie said, “Next time be quiet.” This was already the worst mission he’d ever been on, he decided; his mind swarmed with images of the police, of torture, of life coming to a sudden end in Delhi. The only way out was to park close enough to Shingar Dupatte so that the nosy, rude proprietor—and his son—were killed. “You guys get out now and I’ll park. That guy is going to come after us again and ask us to move.”
They did as he instructed, and Shockie maneuvered the car in front of a framing shop.
Within the shop, he caught sight of oil paintings of mountains—things yellowy and oozy with paint; a golden Ganesh; a Christ on a cross; a Rajasthani village woman. It was like a flashback a man might have as he dies, all the odd significant objects swirling into view over the heads of humming, commercially active humans.
He parked, jumped out, and walked away. He pressed a small jerry-rigged antenna in his hand and activated the timer, set to go off in five minutes. The proprietor of the framing shop looked at him but Shockie smiled and waved back—as if he were a regular customer—and the man, seated fatly behind a counter, one of those counters that have a money drawer, looked confused and then smiled and waved back.
Shockie walked away from the central square. “Don’t look; keep moving,” he told the other men as he came across them in an alley. After a while they made it to the main road.
But the market—the market was noisy in its normal way. There was no disruption, no blast, nothing. “Shit,” Shockie said. “But let’s wait.”
They threaded their way through the dark alleys, sweating, bad-breathed, anxious, melting in the heat. “It must be the cylinder,” Shockie said finally, realizing the bomb had not gone off. “Let me go back and get it,” he said. “Something must have gone wrong.” He was ashamed. The eyes of his comrades were on him. Failure was failure—explanations solved nothing. His bravado had been for naught.
“We’ll come,” Meraj said.
“You should have helped when it was needed,” Shockie said. “Now what’s the point?”
“What if it goes off when you get in?” asked Taukir.
“Then do me a favor and say I martyred myself purposely.”
The car was still there when he went back. For effect, he entered the framing shop. “How are you?” he said, bringing together his palms for the proprietor.
“Good, good. Business is fine—what else can one want?”
The proprietor was fair and doggish, with worry lines contorting his forehead. He had a serious look on his face, as if being surrounded by so many frames had made him conscious of being framed himself, of being watched.
Shockie went back to the car. As he turned the ignition, there were tears in his eyes. Instinctively preparing himself, he put a palm over his dick.
So this was how it would end. Pulling the gears, he backed out of the spot.
“I know what went wrong,” Shockie said, when they were back in Taukir’s house.
“What?” said Taukir, now feeling much closer to Shockie.
Shockie pointed to the yellow wires that he’d clipped from the contraption in the bonnet, picking them up in a loop the way one may pick up a punished animal by the ears. They had frayed in the heat.
“Let’s just go tomorrow and try again,” Meraj said irritably. He just wished the mission to be over.
“We can’t,” Taukir said. “The market is closed on Mondays. But Tuesday is a big day because it’s the day after it’s closed.”
“We better send a message back to base,” Meraj said sleepily. “The election is in four days.” The bomb in Delhi was meant to be a signal to the central government about the elections they were organizing in Kashmir.
“Tell them that it was a wiring problem,” Shockie replied. “They’ll understand.”
But Shockie was chastened. They were all chastened and disappointed with each other. Like men who have failed together, they wanted nothing more than to never see each other again.
On Tuesday, Shockie went alone to the market. But there was no pleasure in it. It was all anticlimax. And he could see the faces of the framing shop owner and the owner of Shingar Dupatte, how they would react when the bomb went off; and he felt sad, the way one always did when one knew the victims even a little.
CHAPTER 4
After the blast, Shockie returned to Kathmandu, retracing his steps, reading the news whenever he could.
The Times of India featured a picture of a blasted stray dog.