You are shocked by me, he said. You are horrified by me and you haven’t even heard the bad part yet. You are frightened by what I have told you and there is only one question in your mind. You loved my child. My poor confused child. You loved my child and you are asking, without words you are asking, I see in your eyes in the dark that you’re asking. How much did my children know.
As for your beloved, in everything I have told so far he is free of all guilt. He was not born, or a little boy. As for the others, they grew up in a certain social stratum, the stratum of big city big business, and they knew what it took. Without greasing the palms, nothing got done. They knew about my Don Corleone, yes. But he was a well-liked guy. For them all this was normal as it was for everyone else. They liked the movie world also. The movie stars at our home. The ease of being with A-list women. As if they also had stepped up onto the silver screen. This was pleasurable and if the dons were there too, so what, it was a known thing. Nobody cared. In the time of Sultan Ameer nobody judged. But when Alankar took over, then I shielded them from my involvement. The less they knew the better for everyone. This was a different type of individual and I kept my family away. My business was my business, I accept there are criticisms to be made, I neither justify nor defend my choices and actions, I only state. Your boy was seven years old in 1993 and twenty-two in 2008 when we came to New York. I must say that of all three of them he was always the most self-absorbed. His war was within himself, I see it clearly now. His cannons trained on himself from then until. Until. So to keep things from him was simple. The things I needed to keep from him, I don’t think he knew. Also the oldest boy, my damaged boy, Harpo they called him, it could be a cruel town, yes; for him too the great question of his life lay in his head, a question with no answer. Him also I absolve. There remains the question of Apu. Apu who was Groucho then. Apu, to be frank: I think he knew. He knew but he didn’t want to know and so, the drink the drugs, to deafen himself and blind himself and make himself unconscious. I never spoke to him about the dark side. He didn’t ask. “If my father was a dentist,” he said to me once, “would I care how many fillings or root canals he did today, on whom? So, I think of you like that. You’re the dentist when you go to work but at home you are the father. That is what your family needs from you. Not fillings but fatherly love.”
I told him very little. Only the surface things which everyone knew. Bribery, corruption. Small potatoes. But I think he guessed the big potatoes. I think this was why the debauchery, the drink, the women, the drugs.
Back home he was not that much of an artist. He had the lifestyle of the artist but not the work ethic. He was a bohemian but in Bohemia they make beautiful glass. He made very little of anything except making love and let me say though you will find it vulgar, excuse me, the drugs do not make one a better lover except in one’s own estimation. So probably he was ineffective also in that department. When he came to America he cleaned up his act. (A snap of the fingers.) Just like that. By this I was impressed, he was a new man, and so everything began to work for him. His talent came out and everyone saw it. I saw it for the first time. I never suspected he had so much talent.
All three of them shared this ability: to close the book of the past and to live in the present. This is a fortunate gift. I myself am closing the book of the present and living mostly in the past.
But there remains the matter of the buzzing in Apu’s ears, the voices, sometimes the visions. He had a long history with hallucinogens. You could say if this is how you understand things that they made him more sensitive to what is unseen, that they revealed to him the pathway to the visionary world, opening, what are they? The doors of perception. Or you could say that that is all nonsense. You could say alternatively that he suffered damage. That he too was damaged in the brain, in the heart of himself. Three sons and all with damage in the brain, in the heart of themselves! This is not an equitable fate for a father. This is not just. Nevertheless it has been my fate. Apu saw visions and heard voices. So he was crazy too.
So I think he knew what I did but also he arranged with himself to un-know. This is why he went back with his woman and did not think about it first. He went back home and died. I think when he died he would have known what killed him and why. He would have known it was the consequence of my actions. This I also understand. The message was sent and I have received it. The darkness is gathering. There is not long before the end. This is why I speak tonight. So that everything can be said.
There are two things to talk about and they happened fifteen years apart. 1993, 2008. These are the dates.
In December 1992 Nero was on the Kipling with Zamzama Alankar again. The mosque built by the first Mughal emperor Babar in the northern city of Ayodhya had just been destroyed by Hindu activists who claimed that it stood on the mythological site of the birthplace of Lord Ram, the seventh avatar or incarnation of Vishnu. There were riots in Mumbai. First Muslims rioted then the party faithful of the Hindu extremist Shiv Sena attacked them in return and the police, Zamzama said, were openly partisan, openly pro-Sena and “anti-us.” These riots were in the process of dying down but Zamzama’s rage was volcanic and knew no bounds.
Last straw, he shouted at Nero. Camel’s back is broken and now the camel must be shot.
It is not wise to get involved in this matter. Focus on your strong points. Business is good.
It is not a question of wisdom. It is a question of necessity. And to destroy a holy mosque because of the rumored location there of the origin point of an imaginary being, this is what is unwise.
They do not think he is fictional.
They are incorrect.
Alankar had had contact with concerned persons from a neighboring country. The neighbors felt strongly that action must be taken.
A plan has been formulated, Alankar said. A major consignment of arms, ammunition and RDX explosive will be sent by the neighbors, by sea to the Konkan Coast in the first week of January. The landing place is Dighi. It will be necessary for you to arrange the suitcases for the coast guard so that a gap will be left in the water through which the consignment will come on speedboats.
For me, Zamzama? This is not my kind of business. Politics? No, no, no. You must not ask this of me.
Yes, yes, yes. Your house is so well fortified, isn’t it? I have seen it, the motorized heavy metal gates, the alarm systems, the security guards. Your family must feel safe there. Do they feel safe? They must. Do they sometimes go out of doors? Of course, they are Mumbaikars, they lead a full life. A happy family. Congrats.
We are old associates, you and I. This is not a way to talk to me.
You have become so successful, so wealthy, well done. How unfortunate if your workers down tools. How tragic if by chance, a fire.
So there is no choice but to do it. Very well, it will be done.