Читать книгу Max O'Brien Mysteries 3-Book Bundle - Mario Bolduc - Страница 20

Max and Jayesh went through the Palika Bazaar followed closely by bhikharis, a whole family of them in rags with hands outstretched. When the two men reached the limits of their territory, they turned back. They emerged at Connaught Place, and more beggars followed in their wake. Jayesh ignored them, the same as the others.

The two men stopped under the arcade of the Regal Cinema. Nearby, next to a column, a shoeshine boy called out for customers in a tired voice. Most people paid no attention to him, but one man stopped, rolled up his pant leg, and put his foot on the small wooden box. The shine began without a word. When it was done, the customer tossed some coins on the ground, but the shoeshine boy didn’t seem at all insulted. He fell upon the coins scattered on the pavement amongst the passersby, before returning to his spot by the column.

“Dalit,” murmured Jayesh, “untouchable.”

Max turned to him and Jayesh explained: “If the shoeshine boys touch the leather shoes, which are made from cowhide, they’re impure. That’s why that guy threw down the money instead of putting it into his hand.”

Jayesh was a Vaishya — merchant class, third rung on the Hindu social ladder — and this explained his father’s occupation. Even in America, Siddhartha Srinivasan respected, in his own way, his place within the caste system.

While Max was speaking to Juliette on the phone the day before, Jayesh was at the Kasgari Mosque impersonating a CBI investigator: “Just a few more questions about some things we need to clear up.” He’d met the “second-in-command” of the imam Khankashi. He was told the imam had kept in touch with David because both of them were on the same wavelength, especially about Kashmir. The imam would never openly acknowledge such a thing. Genghis Khan had supported the separatist movement from the beginning, while still keeping his distance from Pakistan. It wasn’t easy. The brutality of the Indian forces, especially in Srinagar, played right into the hands of Pakistan. Pervez Musharraf’s government would have welcomed this son of Islam safely home from Hindu territory with open arms. Khankashi was an idealist, though. He professed to believe in a multi-ethnic India, as Gandhi and Nehru had imagined it. An India where Hindus, Parsis, Christians, and Muslims could live in harmony with respect for one another.

“So, you’re thinking bluff?”

“Of course. The usual sitar song to put people to sleep while the Islamist killers of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen build up their arsenal, courtesy of the Pakistani secret service.”

“Sufis and jihadists fighting side by side … pretty weird, no?”

“I’m telling you, showbiz. Whatever. The imam shouting from the rooftops that Muslims are second-class citizens, worse than untouchables. From time to time, some Dalits get roughed up, but Muslims get exterminated … with the government’s blessing. No problem with putting Hindus first in everything in this country: schoolbooks get ‘revised’ to showcase Brahmin heritage.

“In a situation like this,” Jayesh went on, “Genghis Khan has no choice but to walk the straight and narrow, and for years the Vajpayee government has been longing for him to step out of line so they can put him away. So what does our holy man do? He cites proverbs from the Mahatma and yet he still rips into the BJP and the Islamists every chance he gets — James Bond included. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if one day we found Khankashi stuck away in the country eating bread and water while he weaves the cotton threads of his charkha, like Mahatma. It would be just like that asshole to slide back into the old passive resistance number!

“David’s association with the holy man had tongues wagging among Bhargava Hindus, without a doubt; not that he made a point of publicizing it, but it was no secret either. I mean, tea out in public in Old Delhi. He had to be doing favours for the imam on the q.t., in the guise of diplomacy.”

Max came back to Vandana’s theory that James Bond had probably used David as an example to other diplomats that they had better play in their own sandbox. “Maybe, but if so, why didn’t they claim the attack? Terrorism has a marketing scheme all its own, but it’s been a whole week and nothing. Old news. There’s been Afghanistan, then Kashmir and the worsening situation between India and Pakistan took centre stage and stepped back into the general melee.”

“But getting back to Genghis Khan,” said Jayesh. “Whatever his Islamist reputation, especially among the papers loyal to the BJP, he denounced the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks of September 11 — against the spirit of the Qur’an, he said.”

“I bet that put a chill on his Islamist buddies in Pakistan,” guessed Max.

“Precisely.”

“Yet the Indian cops are sure he’s hiding out in Karachi.”

“They have no idea where he is, so they dream up any old thing, as usual. I think he’s still in Delhi and laughing his ass off.”

“So, a fake ‘moderate,’ is that it?”

“That’s what the Durgas are saying. They’d do anything to get their hands on him. Bhargava would love to finish him off personally.”

“And where exactly is he? How do we get in touch, talk to him?”

“No one knows but his closest cronies.”

This was just getting better and better with both suspects disappearing into thin air: Genghis Khan to his lair and James Bond into clandestine retirement. One thing was certain, though. Dhaliwal and his team were going to have to treat this one with kid gloves. If they did tie the attack on David to his contacts with Khankashi, it would make waves that might drown them all, even Bernatchez and the High Commission. For instance, if Dhaliwal could prove that David had “privileged” connections with Muslim officials — already suspected of financing or protecting Kashmiri terrorists — Canada would be in hot water, just when its businessmen were about to break into this new market and important contracts were to be signed at the Montreal conference.

Was Bhargava the culprit? It was a sexy hypothesis, but it couldn’t withstand serious scrutiny. Hindu extremists didn’t give a damn about world opinion. Their country’s “Hinduization,” as they put it, was domestic business, a religio-nationalist delirium that knew no diplomatic scruples. What was it Vandana said? As recently as March, Prime Minister Vajpayee had crossed his arms while fascist groups in Gujarat staged pogroms against Muslims for two months without denouncing or forbidding them or even sending in the police. A government like that was not going to bother about a diplomat — Third Secretary to boot — being friends with the imam of a mosque.

Nope. The answer had to be somewhere else.

Summer 1984. Max was living in the U.S. under three different names and passports, still a Canadian citizen according to two other passports he hardly used anymore. Now he was in Hy’s Steak House in Toronto, specializing in T-bone, filet mignon, and surf ’n’ turf, sitting on a leather seat worn in by an army of clients every day at noon in the thrall of red meat. Philippe sat facing him; he was soon leaving for Bangkok with his small family. David was six and mischievous-looking in the photo his father had thumbed a million times. Philippe looked up with that winning smile he often showed. Max smiled back, but for different reasons.

“I found Stéphane Kavanagh,” Max said. This was the man who’d ruined their father. Philippe’s smile vanished, which surprised Max, who had also never heard his brother raise his voice. He was normally so calm and collected.

“Stay away from that guy!”

“He put us out on the street.”

“Ancient history, all of it. Forget it!”

“Forget it? He’s living a totally normal life as though nothing happened.”

“DON’T YOU LAY A FINGER ON HIM!”

Max didn’t get it. Since finding the piece of garbage, he was determined to clean his clock, and his own brother, who’d suffered as much as all of them, was telling him to sit on his hands. Max’s thirst for revenge had grown over the years and kept him awake at night, even in his cell, and now Philippe was telling him to forget it. He didn’t realize that vengeance was Max’s food and his fuel.

Deathly silence followed. A pall fell over their farewell dinner. Philippe was perturbed and only pretended to wrestle with his steak. Finally, he pushed his plate forward forcefully, the noise of clanging cutlery turning heads.

“Look, one wrecked family is enough. We don’t need two.”

“Who says he has a family?”

“You found him already. You knew where he was and didn’t tell me …”

Philippe had made his own inquiries at the same time as Max. Stéphane Kavanagh had a teenage daughter.

“I don’t give a damn about his family!” Max yelled.

Philippe looked around nervously as though searching for help. It was a reflex, an indication of deep discomfort left over from childhood.

“What is it, Philippe? What’s going on?”

“You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“Who do you think he had his family with?”

Philippe didn’t need to say any more.

Solange.

Max had been content just to find the guy. Philippe had gone deeper into his life and stumbled on a marriage certificate with Solange’s signature. She’d started a new family with Gilbert’s banker. The rest was easy to figure out. She’d used Kavanagh to push the king of Roxboro over the edge to ruin. On purpose.

“She did it to punish the three of us.”

Now it was Max’s turn to push away his plate.

Solange.

No wonder Kavanagh had shown such interest in Gilbert after Solange left and urged him to “expand” the business and stretch his investments beyond his means. He’d done it simply to please his mistress. Now, though, it seemed she and Kavanagh were scraping the bottom of the barrel. In fact, the whole family was, Philippe told him.

“I don’t give a damn if they’re having problems!”

“I didn’t say you should, Max.”

“Then don’t start in on me tonight, okay?”

“Look, promise me you won’t do anything to them. Don’t be like her.”

Promises. Here we go again. Max had had enough of them. He got up and rushed out of the restaurant. He didn’t want to give his brother the opportunity to make him soft, to turn him into a man without convictions, or memory. Philippe was too down to try to stop him. He probably despised himself, cursing his magnanimous spirit. Max felt as if he’d lost his one and only friend.

Philippe was right. Kavanagh wasn’t doing so well. He was working as a cashier at a plant nursery, earning barely enough to support Solange and their daughter.

Max sat in his car for hours watching Kavanagh through the store window, surrounded by climbing plants in clay pots. What should he do: listen to Philippe or his own tortured conscience? One day, Solange came to pick Kavanagh up from work. Max hadn’t seen her for centuries, and it was like staring at an old photo. Missing her? Maybe. Love? Definitely not. Philippe was right, though. You couldn’t hurt all three of them. No point lowering yourself that far. Then Solange started laughing, the same laugh as that night when she’d tried to order them to follow her and they had clung to Gilbert instead. A defiant laugh that still carried a chill. He started the car. He’d made up his mind.

Tricky business, ruining a rich guy. A poor one like Kavanagh would be child’s play, a no brainer. Max could do it with his eyes closed. In the end, Max didn’t have the stomach for it. A touch of shame at the last minute? No, more like doing as his brother had asked him. Ruining Kavanagh and tossing Solange out on the street wouldn’t be worth losing Philippe’s respect. Still, he had to justify what he was doing — or rather, not doing — to the one who had been most affected.

The Melchior Residence on Viau Boulevard. The small pension afforded by Castor Bricoleur wasn’t enough to cover Gilbert’s costs — uniformed nurses, meals in his room, a huge garden — but Philippe (and Max, too, though discreetly) sent the necessary amounts.

Gilbert was sitting in a wheelchair looking out the window, as always, as Max knelt down and told him what he’d found out about Kavanagh, Solange’s cruelty and vengeance. Gilbert listened religiously without reacting. He no longer had the slightest idea who Stéphane Kavanagh was or what he’d done. He didn’t even recall owning a hardware store or dreaming of dominion over the northern suburb. Even having loved a woman named Solange and wanting to give her the moon escaped him. No, Max’s retelling of their misfortunes was for Max’s ears alone, to put an end to it all, to close the book on it. For good.

Why was this painful episode coming back to him here and now, a bare few metres from David’s home in India? Perhaps it was the bougainvilleas at the entrance that brought the greenhouse to mind again, and with it his mother’s laugh, followed by his determination to put an end to it once and for all. Jayesh’s Maruti was parked diagonally by the wall that encircled the only unlit house in the street. Max would love to get his hands on the things that Walkins had taken from the High Commission and then handed over to the Indian police, but even Jayesh with his roll of rupees couldn’t buy him that. But David’s residence, now that was another story. This was an open book.

The two of them climbed out of the car, and though the sentry box and the entrance gave the impression of constant surveillance, Jayesh had found out the guard had been sick for a week with malaria. The police had emptied the house, and it was no longer of interest, so Max and Jayesh would have free run of the place.

The kitchen door was locked, but Juliette had given Max the key before he left Montreal. They couldn’t turn on the lights for fear of alerting the neighbours, but Jayesh swept the place with his flashlight beam unnecessarily, as the immense moon cast a glare over the room, enough for them to make out the contents of the house. They could tell the police had been through every nook and cranny, leaving no drawer, closet, or cupboard untouched.

Max had never been invited here, or to Philippe’s home. And it felt strange being here tonight, as though he were an intruder, a stranger, yet one who recognized certain objects, like a trinket that once belonged to Philippe. Here was David’s privacy spread out before him, and his presence felt almost indecent. Especially now that he knew certain intimate things about the couple, like Juliette’s pregnancy.

On the wall behind the sofa was a collection of photos, again both familiar and foreign: David and Juliette in one another’s arms, so obviously in love. Then there were older ones of David as a teenager standing in between Béatrice and Patterson. Some, even older, were of Philippe and Béatrice at the award ceremony for the French high school in Bangkok, or of David shivering by the pool at their house in Ottawa. Then, there they were, all three of them, on a ride at a fair in some country or other. He couldn’t tell. Max felt himself being overtaken by an immense sadness. His nephew’s life, like his brother’s, had unfolded without him. Béatrice’s orders at the funeral home on O’Connor had been respected by her son. Max had no longer existed, had just disappeared, completely obliterated and shut out of the lives of both his nephew and brother.

Yet Philippe had always been there, discreet but faithful, despite the Kavanagh episode, often showing up when Max least expected. You thought he was on the other side of the world, and then suddenly he’d be there at the penitentiary with the right words of encouragement, as usual. Max asked for nothing, but Philippe gave him everything. Why was that? Out of love, but also out of guilt, Max figured. Philippe mistakenly felt responsible for what had happened to their father. Perhaps he’d promised himself never again to make the same mistake. Two brothers united forever like the folded blades of a pocket knife.

One day, when he was in Ottawa for a meeting of the Asian bureaus — he was posted to Ankara at the time — Philippe received a message from a Turkish businessman who absolutely insisted on meeting him at the Château Laurier. Max waited with Pascale in Room 506. He was proud to introduce his wife and apologized for not having informed his brother of the wedding: “It all happened so fast!”

Philippe had hugged Pascale and welcomed her into the family. And into a normal life. Almost.

“Hey, look at that, yaar!” Jayesh exclaimed as he crouched next to the stairs, facing the wide-open safe beneath the lowest step, its door wedged under the bottom of the banister. Max knelt down for a look while Jayesh swept the inside with his flashlight. Documents such as insurance policies had been removed from their plastic sleeves, so had a copy of the lease on the house, various expired passports belonging to David and Juliette, a marriage certificate, and an airline ticket.

Max took a closer look. The latter was for David via Paris on Air France to Montreal. That would have been for the conference. The dates matched. He took a closer look, especially at the cover it was in — a sort of wax-paper envelope — where David or someone else had scribbled some notes. But the ink had run because of the paper, and the words were illegible. Maybe they had been jotted down quickly while on the phone and copied somewhere else later on. Using Jayesh’s flashlight, he could make out one word, Tourigny, and some digits, perhaps a phone number.

There was something else inside the envelope: a coin that rolled out onto the floor. Jayesh trapped it with his foot.

“Rupee?” asked Max, coming closer.

“Yes, but Nepalese.”

Kathmandu again.

Next morning, the bellboy with the Texas accent brought breakfast to Max’s room sporting the smile of one who expects a huge tip. On the tray were a teapot, toast, porridge, and the daily edition of the Times of India. Page one had an account of the previous night’s clashes in Kashmir, as well as the latest Bollywood gossip and releases from the international press.

There was a photo of David: DIPLOMAT DIES.