Read Online Mumbai Noir by Altaf Tyrewala - Free Book Online Page B

“Aaraamnagar,” and smiled back mischievously. Rahman, confused, turned back to the handlebar, twisted the accelerator, and made his mind speed through all the possible ways he could broach the subject of Rahim without arousing this lady’s suspicions.
    Ramdulari made Rahman stop in the center of the field. She reached over and killed the engine, her breasts spilling onto Rahman’s frail shoulder. Rahman protested, but she shut his mouth with a kiss, unlocking their lips as soon as she had locked them, shying away and waiting for her “Rahim” to take it from there. What she heard instead was a loud, alarmed, “Lahaulwillaquwat!” and looked up to see a red-faced Rahman, his eyes bursting with furious tears, his lips trembling, glaring at her with an agitated mixture of distress and shock.
    “Y-you can sp-speak?!” she asked, on the brink of tears.
    It was the second time in as many days that Rahman had been slapped with that question. But he didn’t realize this then. Instead, he stuttered and gesticulated in a confused attempt at coherence, “Rahim a-and y-you … you a-and Rahim … ?!” Before Ramdulari could figure how to react, he said, “Please … request … get off … please!” And she did. Standing alone, cold and bewildered, she watched the man she thought was mute rev the auto up like a raging beast and lurch into the darkness. She didn’t know what had just happened. Her heart squeezed so tight that she didn’t know if she ever wanted to know either.
    How could he not tell me? shrieked Rahman silently. How could I not have figured it out? He used to be able to read Rahim’s mind. Rahim had admitted it. That’s why, perhaps. The sly chutiya, he had made that admission to make me overconfident, so that I’d think I could read his mind, when in reality he hid things in its little corners that I’d never be able to reach. Unless he allowed me to. And now Rahman had found out that Rahim never did allow him.
    For nearly an hour Rahman drove around like a crazed bull, missing ramming into cars and buses by mere millimeters. When he was spent, the fuel gauge nudging E , he killed the engine, glided down the sandy incline to the far end of Khoja Gully, braked hard behind the dead boat, muttered, “I can’t take it anymore,” and stared at the backseat, urging himself to step inside his ammi. And as he lifted that seat, he saw inside—scrunched up in a fetal position—Rahim, decayed almost to the bone.
    Khoja
    The stench was unbearable.
    But Rahman, curled up on Langdi’s backseat, was getting used to it. He inhaled long and deep. He didn’t even care anymore about how Rahim had died. In fact, what he felt in greatest measure right now was rage. A suppressed implosive rage. At the betrayal. Not only had Rahim hidden the most important part of his life from him, he had now snatched away his last refuge, their mother’s womb, the only thing—the only thing in the whole world Rahman had coveted as his own. Not to be by-twoed.
    Rahman pushed the auto, its fuel tank run dry, to the same turning where he had found it last week. He stepped back and looked at it one last time, leaning on the pavement, waiting to be found again. And when he peered above it he saw a sign that read, Khoja . Lost.
    Who am I now ? he wondered aloud.
    Rahim?
    Rahman?
    Neither of the two?
    Rahim alone had been proof that Rahman was real. With him gone, who remained? The Rahim Rahman pretended to be? Or Rahman, who no one knew—or would believe—ever existed.
    Rahman wondered. Louder and louder. Not caring if anyone heard. He was done with being mute. He spoke all the way back to his little hellhole. And once inside, he continued to speak. For all the years he hadn’t spoken. About all the things he always wanted to say, but never could. He spoke. And he spoke. And he spoke. Through fits of hacking cough. Through day and night. Through hunger and a raging fever. He spoke.
    Until there was a sharp knocking on his door