Diana and I were dressing the next morning as I described the steps I’d taken when a knock sounded on the door. I reached for my trousers, while Diana deftly pleated her sari and tucked it in at her waist. Tossing her pallu over a shoulder, she opened the door.
“Captain sahib, Papa-ji requests you downstairs,” Gurung said. “Not you, Bibi-ji.”
Diana frowned. “Not me? He specifically said that?”
Gurung nodded, downcast. I straightened my cuffs and reassured her. “Probably about the case. Tell him I’m coming.”
“Oh!” Diana said. “I remember. That row at the temple upset Papa terribly. He’s asked Dastoor Kukadaru to visit this morning, our family priest at the Mazagaon fire temple. Jim, everyone listens to him. Perhaps he will intercede for us. Get the other families to see I’ve done nothing wrong.”
The house was hushed as I went through to the study, where two men awaited me. Burjor’s family priest was a short man with a squarish face. Greying mustache, beard neatly trimmed; small wire-rimmed glasses hid his eyes. He wore a close-fitting white hat, loose white robe over white trousers, and closed Indian slippers, which tapped on the tile floor as he approached, his hand outstretched.
Burjor introduced us awkwardly, without meeting my gaze. “Ervad, this is my son-in-law, Captain Agnihotri. And this is our respected priest, Ervad Kukadaru.”
To break the silence, I said, “Ervad is your given name?”
“Only a title,” the priest said with a thick Gujarati accent, each syllable weighted down with lead. “Let us speak privately, Captain. Join me for a walk?”
His curved shoulders stooped, Burjor let us out. As I caught his gaze, his face squeezed in an unspoken plea. So that was it. Before the priest lent the weight of his influence to our cause, he’d want to ascertain what kind of man I was.
We went down the wide front stairs under boughs of pink bougainvillea while I sought about for a suitable opening. What could I say, I who sorely wanted him in my corner, not for my own sake but for Diana’s? She’d lost so much from our union. How could I make amends? Yet this was unnatural territory for me, the complex terrain of social customs. How to proceed?
The short, sturdy priest glanced around the verdant yard and said, “Come. I will say a prayer as we walk around this home.” Stretching out his arms, palms upward, he intoned a prayer in a language unknown to me.
As he walked in slow measured steps, his deep voice filled the air with a strange melody, half spoken, half sung. I kept pace, puzzled as he headed straight for the trunk of a coconut palm. Only then did I notice that his eyes were closed!
Reluctant to interrupt his chanting, I caught his elbow and steered him around the obstacle. This was apparently satisfactory—he neither slowed nor changed his attitude. In this way we walked down the row of palms to the stable. Sunlight twinkled the fluttering leaves above us. Tiny red petals of gulmohar floated through the scented air.
Our path was up to me. I calculated to save his slippered feet and white trousers, taking us around the grassy perimeter and through the trellised garden. I thought perhaps to guide the priest along the treed side of the house. However, before we reached it, his chanting ceased.
He stood, gazing around at beds of fragrant herbs. Bees hummed past us in the quiet green as he eased onto a nearby stone bench.
“Come,” he said, patting the seat.
I sat beside him. He said, “I can help Burjor-ji. Would you want me to?”
“Of course.”
“Hmm. But first, I need an assurance. Will you tell me the truth?”
Why the emphasis on truth? Some presentiment warned me to caution. “If I can.”
“If you can?” He frowned. “You wed Diana far away from us, so I will ask you now. Will you be a good husband to her?”
“As long as I live,” I said lightly.
“This is a serious matter, young man,” the priest snapped.
It was a curious habit I must have picked up from Englishmen—the more important the matter, the more flippant we got. I gave him a half smile in apology.
Clearing his throat, he said, “Two years ago when you examined the deaths of Adi’s wife and the child Pilloo—”
I interrupted him. “What does that have to do with it?”
“Who was responsible?”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am. Very serious.”
I pulled back, discomfited at this change of subject. “Why d’you need to know?”
“What if I say—the man who was accused has asked if I will bless his home with a Zoroastrian prayer. Should I do it?”
Two years ago, Manek Aslaji had been tried for causing the deaths of Adi’s wife and his cousin. He’d been acquitted, and I had brought the perpetrators to justice. Now the priest was asking whether Manek was responsible. He was innocent, but I’d promised Adi my silence.
I said, “Only you can decide that.”
“So you did not exonerate him.”
I spread my hands, feeling a flame in the pit of my belly. “I cannot speak of it.”
“Why?”
“I gave my word.”
His dark gaze narrowed on me. “And this word of honor, it cannot be broken?”
I wanted to say, that’s right, it is absolute! But was it, really?
I sighed. “If there was good reason I suppose, I would break it.”
“Yes?”
“If it were life or death,” I snapped. “My word is not worth someone’s life.”
He absorbed this. “What about, to save the Framji family much pain? Would you do it?”
Drat the man. He’d put me in a fix. I said, “I’ll ask them. If they agree, I’ll tell you.”
“No, no,” he tut-tutted. “If they are responsible, that wouldn’t work. Tell me now.”
I shook my head, my gut knotted. “Can’t do that.”
“Would you not like to help?”
“’Course I would. They’re my family! They took me in, gave me—everything.”
“And it costs them a great deal. But you can easily solve that.”
I searched his face. Light reflecting on his thick lenses obscured his eyes. “How?”
He spread his hands. “Leave. Walk away. It will take a while, but eventually things will go back to how they were.”
His matter-of-fact tone stabbed me. “Leave Diana? Live without her?”
A fire flared inside me, consuming the tissue around it. My throat closed. Could I survive without Diana? With dismal clarity I knew that in fact, I could. I could return to the States or go to Canada, Australia even. It would not matter where I went.
“She’d be furious. After all she’s done so we can be together, all she’s given up?” I remembered Diana’s crumpled face two years ago, when she’d admitted to lies of omission. Drooping, her eyes dull, lips pale, shaking. God no.
I said, “Can’t do it. We’ll sink or swim together.”
He swayed, rocking in his seat. I pulled a breath into my starving lungs, wanting to rail, to call him out as a coward. Could he not restrain his flock? He was shilly-shallying, an excuse to avoid intervening.
Instead, I tried once more. “They are good people. Good Zoroastrians. If it is in your power to help, then do so. Ask me a price that I can give, and I will pay it.”
“Hmm.” He sat back, a hand tapping his white robe, then said, “We are building an Atash Behram, a cathedral, you might say.”
“I’ll contribute all I can.”
“Tsk.” He waved aside my interruption and went on, “Would you, ah, break the law if I asked you to?”
I felt as though he had plowed a fist into me. This was Burjor’s holy man, the revered high priest? I said grudgingly, “I’ve bent some laws in my time. But no, I would not commit a crime for you.”
“But you withhold information when it pleases you,” he said in an easy, reasonable tone. “Have you told the police everything about the tower deaths?”
I looked away. Adi and I had decided to keep some matters between us.
He smiled. “So, you have a code of your own.”
Now he became amiable, saying, “All right, Captain, listen. I have already told Burjor that I will help. The family will come to Mazagaon tomorrow and attend a boi ceremony at my fire temple. On Saturday I will perform a jashan here, a blessing. This shows I favor the Framji family. It is decided.”
“Already decided?” I remembered Burjor’s pained look as we had left the room. I’d thought he was pleading with me to help. Had he been asking my pardon? “So what was this for, your questions, demands?”
He patted my knee, then clutched the bench to push himself to his feet. We made our way back to the house without conversation.
At the entrance, he said, “When I send for you, come alone to Mazagaon fire temple. At ten o’clock that night. Now goodbye.”
Mazagaon was to the east of town, near the dockyards I knew well. I’d borrow Gurung’s bicycle, I thought, then remembered Diana’s cautioning words.
“But I cannot enter,” I blurted.
He chuckled. “Who said anything about entering? Now, mind, not a word to anyone. I may have a job for you. A discreet one.”
Damn, I thought. That was what he wanted. He’d been assessing me for some doubtful task of his own.