‘Answer it, Malti, please. It’s for me,’ I manage to get out, and, amazingly, she has the presence of mind to respond.
‘You’ll have to speak. I’ll explain everything later,’ I add, as she is saying hello, her head slightly raised. ‘Oh, and by the way, please let me borrow your voice. Literally say whatever comes into your head.’
‘Jaya, is that you? Hello?’
‘Sorry, wrong …’ Malti has just said when I take control. ‘Yes —’ I change track, speaking as her — ‘what is it, Ravi?’ For I immediately recognise him. As recently as last week I was a fangirl, remember.
‘Jaya, if it is you, get out now! They’re coming. They’ve tracked you down, see. They think you might be in this woman. The killer could be the next person who walks in, even a doctor.’
I try to pass on all my ‘strength’ to Malti, the one whose murder is being thrown about as though it’s an irrelevance. ‘So it’s “they” now, huh? Excuse me for mistaking you for one of them, Ravi. It’s one never-stopping merry-go-round with your loyalties.’
‘Jaya, there isn’t time. But think about it. Why would I call to warn you? I don’t know if you were around earlier. A man answered, but this is my third call.’
‘So who are “we” now, and who are “they”? Do share, because we’re avid to know, both of us who’re about to die.’
In another familiar move, Ravi sidesteps my question. ‘Jaya, can you make it to the airport? Drop a glass, press a button, anything. Get an attendant into the room, and use them to reach the airport or to leap into someone else …’
Malti must think this is drug-induced, that she is hallucinating. But how does Ravi know where I am, not to mention my current state?
Have they finished Shivani?
‘And at the airport, enter anyone flying to Calcutta. You need to get home, Jaya, to have safe havens amongst your friends. Then we can talk about “we” and “they” and every question you have. Also, there are allies in Calcutta you already know —Inspector Somayya, for example. She’ll believe you. She’ll take you to the Chief Minister, who’s going to need all our help to turn the tide that’s coming to Bengal …’
His aim must be to disorient and overwhelm me. Out of necessity, I yell, in Malti’s voice, ‘I’m dead, Ravi, you fucking joker. Sorry you have to hear this, Malti. There are no further sides for me. If there is, it’s only with Malti, the one you’re asking me to discard.’
‘Oh, but there are. I wish there was time. I wish I could come in person. If you were dead, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But they’ve tracked you from Jatin’s last tweets, to the runner who reported where he was taken, to Prashant’s arrest today. They smell a rat, and are trying to pinpoint where you are. They set off to talk to Prashant and will surely turn up at the hospital. This Malti is bedridden, right, and I’m sorry I can’t think of a way to save her, but you’re vital. We need every last fighter we have. Shivani’s still with us. She told me about you. There is so much for each of us to do, and I can tell you more, only not now …’
Then, showing he hasn’t changed much in ten days when it comes to weighing up means and ends, even though — apparently — he now plays for some noble opposition outfit, Ravi counsels me, through the ears of the very person whose death he is effectively forecasting, ‘to abandon this Malti, because her fate is sealed. The hit squad won’t leave her alive, on the off-chance she might be harbouring you. Plus for what she’ll reveal about one of theirs, Prashant, who also won’t make it through the night, if he isn’t dead already.
‘This woman won’t feel much, Jaya, because she’s heavily medicated, right? But the war has just begun, and you’re one of our heroes! What you’ve achieved in these few days is extraordinary, including the rescue of this unfortunate creature. Those tweets through Jatin were a masterstroke: God knows how many lives you saved with the cancellation of Mind-Reader. But, do you see that our stealth is our strength, which is why we need to keep moving. If they’re an army, we’re guerrillas. If they’re zombies, we’re ghosts. We’re not just going to let them take over the country. This war is for our people, all our people, for our country as we love it, but unfortunately we can’t save everyone …’
Ravi pauses when he (finally) hears my laughter. ‘Jaya, I’m squandering valuable time. I can explain all this later to the best of my abilities, but if you’re curious, you have to make it somewhere safe, out of that hospital room. Look, even if you can’t get to Calcutta tonight, can you come over to me? I’m in Delhi; here’s my address …’
‘Ah, so we’re finally getting to the exit of the maze, the point of this entire charade. It’s all been a delaying tactic to hold us in place until your killers arrive, or to have me self-deliver to your doorstep. Boy, you took us down some entertaining paths. No one can spellbind quite like you, Ravi. The very person who blackmailed me into joining Mind-Reader a week ago now congratulates me for ending it. A general of the army that recruited me now insists we are fellow “guerrillas”! Presumably you’re still hale and hearty, Ravi, but somehow you and I are fellow ghosts. We’re fighting a war for “all” the people, but of course we can’t save every Tom, Dick and Malti.
‘At least show the dead some respect, Ravi. You want a nutshell version of why I can’t trust you? Because everything with you continues to be top-down, on a need-to-know basis, with others as mere counters to your ends. You call me a hero, but still I haven’t earned the right to ask the most basic questions. Again and again, even in my fucking afterlife, I’ve just got to let myself be used. Again and again, “foot-soldiers” such as Arati, Malti and me — who, by sheer coincidence, happen to be women — have to obey men like you.’
‘Jaya, please, listen to me! If Malti is strong enough to carry you, take her. I’ve nothing against her, but my priority is your survival. I didn’t want to get into the how and wherefore when there might be assassins fifteen minutes away, but if you can be satisfied with a nutshell, it’s not just the ruling party and its Hindu nationalist supporters who’ve been given these powers. That’s what they believed until recently, even last week, but, as you and Shivani and many others have personally, traumatically experienced, the Shaktis have been distributed a lot more widely than that. They take many forms …’
‘Stop, Ravi, wait. When you say “been given”, when you say “distributed”, what do you mean? Who’s distributing?’
‘Malti …’ says Ravi, for the first time addressing her, rather than speaking past and through and about her, as he’s been doing from the start, ‘… and Jaya, will you believe I’m not evading your question if I say we genuinely don’t know? Of course, some of the Hindu nationalists are certain it’s their gods, and part of me wants to yell equally ardently, “Computer scientists!”, but, at least for now, that too wouldn’t be founded on solid proof. Black magic on an industrial scale, I guess would be the unhappy medium. But the truth is, we’re only beginning to map the scale of this, hoping someone soon will stumble upon a source. There are diplomats hesitantly asking abroad: is anyone else encountering such forces, is it a rogue intelligence outfit, or have we been selected for some pioneering trial? There are dozens with Shaktis undergoing brain scans. For now, no one I’ve met knows where the masterminds are based, and from the available evidence it’s impossible to be certain of their aims. All that I feel confident of claiming — and you, Jaya, have experienced this first-hand — is that they intend to provoke battle, and are arming with their gifts a huge range of people. There’s no one type of person being picked, not in age or sex or background. There are Shaktis in the living, and in those like you who should be dead, so that, miraculously, your wisdom and courage and experience aren’t lost to the rest of us. Every magical belief or article of faith — in ghosts, superpowers, gods, the possessed — is suddenly coming true, as if to inflame people, make anything feel possible. The first gifts were made to the ruling party, who, even if they didn’t understand what was happening, even when their corporate allies denied involvement, seized the chance to try to remake the country by spreading the Shaktis as widely as possible, so that tens of thousands would be irreversibly implicated by their vulnerabilities as much as their greed. But now numerous others are popping up, unknown to the nationalists, uncontrollable! This wasn’t part of the plan! Who’s pulling the strings? Where is this script going? The only common thread seems to be people, or I should say spirits, that are up for a fight. Does that much sound familiar to both of you?’ And a chuckle comes through in Ravi’s voice.
‘Malti, Jaya, if I yak on any longer, I’ll knowingly be sabotaging you. If you’re going to get Malti out of there, Jaya, you’ve made your task twice as hard. You know the rules: don’t let your carrier be isolated. And be prepared to leap, or fight, at the very next knock. Use whoever comes in against themselves.
‘Trust only yourselves for now. You can make up your mind about me later. Although remember, Jaya, only yesterday Shivani did the very same thing for you. Doesn’t that put us on the same side? Have you never heard of infiltrators or spies?
‘And, back when she was about to jump, who do you think saved Shivani?’