The bomb had only killed fifteen and injured thirty. He wasn’t sure how to feel about it, except to say to himself, “It’s Indian propaganda. It was much bigger.”
Ayub passed a phalanx of dozing ambulances. But when he got to the lip of the hospital complex and hailed a rickshaw, he realized, with the despair of a man who has almost escaped, that he had no money. Someone had taken it from his pocket when he was lying in the mud, bleeding.
Mansoor came again in a few hours with his father, who fussed over Ayub and had him moved to a private room (Ayub had come back to the ward). “They’ve started making arrests already,” Sharif told Ayub. “The Indian Mujahideen has taken credit.” It pained Sharif to have to talk about yet another group of Muslims responsible for terror. He really did feel, as they moved Ayub to his room, that the world was closing in on him and his family, that it was bad luck to be back here again.
Ayub was frightened to hear about the arrests. “Did they say who did it?”
“You think there’s a reason?” Sharif said, mishearing. “They hate everyone, especially themselves.”
“You’ll appreciate this, uncle,” Ayub said, settling into his new bed, now echoing Mansoor’s statement to his mother. “I fought for the rights of people arrested for terror but I’ve never been on this side.” Suddenly, seeing his body, the whole injured extent of it, he was comforted. “One understands how the victims must feel about terrorists. They’re looking for revenge. They don’t want to listen to reason. What happened is so irrational that it makes people irrational.”
“Which is exactly what the terrorists want,” Sharif said. “How’s your eye?”
“It’s OK, uncle. One eye is nothing.”
“Better than the brain, I suppose.” He smiled weakly, saying the wrong thing as usual. “I should have had you start work that day itself—then you wouldn’t have had time to do shopping.” Sharif smiled again.
“I only went because I had to buy gifts for my family. They all like brands. Maybe this is a lesson for me not to buy brands,” he said, smiling.
“My missus called your parents,” Sharif said, remembering what he’d been told to say. “They said they’re coming. I made a booking for them through my travel agent.” He didn’t mention how surprised Mr. and Mrs. Azmi had been to hear their son was in Delhi, how they hadn’t heard from him in weeks.
“They’re both becoming blind,” Ayub said sadly, his eyes curdling with tears. “They won’t be able to come.”
“They didn’t tell me that.”
“They’re very polite.”
Seeing them now in his mind’s eye—seeing the disappointment they would feel if they ever discovered he was a terrorist, his heart crumpled. I hope the train crashes and they die happily, he thought.
When Sharif went out to make a call—he was always making calls on his mobile—Ayub said to Mansoor, “I have to tell you something. Close the door for a minute.”
Mansoor lowered his big head and shut the door.
Ayub said, “I’m going to be arrested.”
“What?”
Ayub craned his head toward the door. “I don’t want your father to know.” Now he told him a story he’d thought up earlier. For all his pain, Ayub’s ability to fabricate hadn’t gone away; it had got better with desperation. He said he had enraged so many policemen over the years with his activism that they had vowed to take revenge on him; one had come by and threatened him with arrest.
“Which one?” Mansoor asked.
“I wish I knew his name. He was a sub-inspector with the Delhi cadre. But he said they can take me away under POTA anytime.”
“But I have a connection,” Mansoor said, thinking of Vikas Uncle.
“The connection won’t help. It’s a deep issue. I’ve revealed too much corruption in the police.”
“We can go to the press,” Mansoor said.
“Mansoor bhai, you have to trust me. This is the one time none of this will help. You saw how the press reacted to our rally—why will they come help us? And a Muslim injured in the blast? They can easily pin it on me. Religious, young—they don’t need evidence.”
“I was also injured in a blast.”
“That’s different. You were little.”
Mansoor paused. He was wondering at this story.
Soon after, Sharif came in and asked Mansoor to accompany him to the photocopier in the hospital complex to make a copy of Ayub’s prescription. Mansoor, nodding to Ayub, went out with him. He had assured Ayub he wouldn’t tell the secret, yet he wasn’t sure why he should keep it from his father. Still, as he walked with his father, he became aware of how burdened Sharif had become, a neckless man sunk in the worry suit of his body. Mansoor decided to help his friend.
Going back to Ayub’s room—his father was now on the phone talking to a business contact in the lobby of the hospital—Mansoor said, “What do you need?”
“Honestly? Thousand rupees.”
“That’s easy. Here’s six hundred.” Mansoor’s pulse raced. Would he be arrested too?
“You don’t need to worry,” Ayub said. “They won’t do anything to you. Their issue with me is personal.”