Chapter 13: The Trail in Bombay

The photograph changed: everything.

Not the investigation — the investigation had been: moving, following the trail from trunk to letters to archives to Bombay. What the photograph changed was: the family. The Rawat family. The understanding that Amma had built over sixty years of marriage — the understanding that Grandfather was a: collector, a soldier, a man of brass lamps and regimental dinners, a man whose life had been: orderly, documented, contained within the walls of the Rajpur Road house — that understanding was now: cracked. Like the leather folder. Like the: walls of the house that Rajan Negi's team was: opening.

Amma did not speak for: two hours after leaving Mrs. Daruwala's office. She sat in the taxi back to Colaba — the taxi navigating the: specific choreography of Bombay traffic, the buses and the autos and the: pedestrians who treated the road as: an extension of the footpath — and she: sat. The silence was not: anger. It was: revision. The interior work of a woman rewriting: history.

Meri and I: waited. We waited the way you waited for: someone you loved to process something: large — with patience, with: presence, with the willingness to be: there when the processing was: complete.

At the hotel, Amma finally spoke.

"He was: brave," she said.

Not: "he lied." Not: "he betrayed me." Not the recrimination that I had: feared, the anger of a widow discovering that her husband had: secrets. Instead: "He was brave."

"He was in the: movement, Amma. He was a sepoy in the British Army and he was: working against them."

"He could have been: shot. Court-martialled. Hanged. The British executed: Indian soldiers for less. And he — he went to: Bombay. He stood in that: room. With those: people. And he came back. And he married: me. And he never said: a word."

"He was: protecting you."

"He was protecting: everyone. The people in that photograph. The: network. If he had told me — if he had told: anyone — the network would have been: exposed. Even after Independence. Even after the: danger passed. The names in that network were: people who became — who became: important. Politicians. Bureaucrats. The people whose names the government: redacted."

"You're not: angry?"

"I'm: proud." Amma's voice. Steady. The steady voice of a woman who had: reassembled. Who had taken the broken understanding and: rebuilt it, larger, more: complex, more: true. "I married a brave man. I just didn't: know how brave."

*

The next morning, we followed: Riyaz.

Riyaz Ahmed. Tabla player. R. The man who had written the love letters. The man who had died in 1971, on Lamington Road, alone.

Lamington Road was: fifteen minutes from Grant Road. A commercial street — electrical goods, computer parts, the specific merchandise that Bombay's commercial districts specialised in, each street: a category, each category: a world. But Lamington Road had also been: residential. The upper floors of the shops contained: flats. Small flats, the kind that Bombay compressed people into, the flats where a musician could: live and: practice and: die without the city: noticing.

"We need to find where Riyaz lived," Meri said.

"In 1971. Fifty-three years ago."

"The building will: exist. Bombay doesn't: demolish. Bombay: accretes. The old buildings stay. They just get: covered by new things."

She was: right. Bombay's buildings persisted the way its: people persisted — stubbornly, despite: everything. We walked Lamington Road. I carried the: letters — R's letters, the originals in a plastic folder that Professor Qureshi had given me, the folder that protected: paper from the Mumbai humidity that destroyed: everything it: touched.

The last letter — the warning letter — had an: address. Not a full address — R had written only "the flat" in most letters, but in the sixth letter, the love letter before the: warning, he had written: "I am playing the raga from the flat on Lamington, and the sound reaches the: street, and I think: if Farida could hear this, she would know I am: here."

"A flat on Lamington Road where a tabla player's music could reach the: street," I said. "That means: upper floor. Open windows. Probably: a corner flat."

"That's: specific."

"Musicians are: specific about: sound."

We asked. The shopkeepers on Lamington Road were: a generation removed from Riyaz's time, but they: knew. The way Bombay knew — not through: records but through: stories. The stories that shopkeepers told each other, the oral history of a: street, the memory that lived in: commerce.

"A tabla player?" said the owner of an electrical goods shop — a Sindhi man in his sixties, sitting among transformers and voltage stabilisers. "My father told me — yes. There was a musician. Upper floor. The building with the: green shutters. He played at night. My father could hear it from the: shop. He said the music was: beautiful. And: sad."

The building with the green shutters was: there. The shutters were no longer green — they were the colour of: forgetting, the paint: gone, the wood: grey. But the building was: standing. Three storeys. A corner building. The upper floor had: windows that faced the street, windows that would have carried: music.

The ground floor was: a mobile phone repair shop. The owner — young, twenties, who had leased the space six months ago — knew: nothing. But the landlord — the landlord lived: upstairs.

The landlord was: Mr. D'Souza. Catholic. Goan. Eighty-two. He had inherited the building from his father, who had bought it in: 1965. He received us in his: flat — the flat above the shop, the flat that was: small and: immaculate, the kind of flat that a man who lived alone maintained with: military precision, every surface: clean, every object: placed.

"The musician," Mr. D'Souza said. "Riyaz. Yes. He was a: tenant. From before my father's time — he came with the: building. When my father bought the property, Riyaz was: already there. He paid: thirty rupees a month. He never: missed."

"He lived alone?"

"Always alone. A quiet man. Played the tabla at night — my father didn't: mind. My father liked: music. Goan, you know. We like: music. Riyaz played and my father listened and they were: neighbours. Not friends — they didn't: socialise. But: neighbours. The kind of neighbours who: acknowledged each other's existence with: respect."

"Did anyone ever: visit him?"

"Visit? In all the years—" Mr. D'Souza paused. Considered. The consideration of a man reviewing: decades. "My father said a woman came. Once. Near the end. When Riyaz was: ill. She came and she: stayed. For three days. And then Riyaz: died. And the woman: left."

The room: stilled.

"A woman," I said.

"My father said she was: old. Or not old — aged. The way people age when they have: lived too much. She was: thin. She wore: white. She came with: nothing. No luggage, no: bags. She came to: be there. And after he died, she: disappeared."

"Did your father know: her name?"

"No. But he said — my father said she: sang. At night. While Riyaz was: dying. She sang and he played the tabla — weakly, barely, the sound almost: nothing — and they made: music together. In the flat. With the windows: open. And the music reached: the street."

Meri was: crying. Meri who was: digital and efficient and who believed that the universe rewarded: optimism — Meri was: crying in Mr. D'Souza's immaculate flat because a woman had come to sing to a dying man on Lamington Road in: 1971 and the music had reached: the street.

"Farida," I said.

"You think it was: her?"

"A woman in white. Who sang. Who came with nothing. Who: disappeared."

"It could have been: anyone."

"It was: her." Amma. From the chair by the door. Amma who had been: quiet, who had been: processing, who was now: certain. "It was Farida. She came back. Not to: Dehradun. Not to: the stage. She came back to: Riyaz. To be there when he: died."

"And then she: disappeared again."

"Because disappearing was: what she did. What she had to: do. Whatever the: danger was in 1944, it was still: there. Or she: believed it was. And she came out of: hiding for one person. For: three days. To: sing."

I looked at Mr. D'Souza. "The flat where Riyaz lived. Is it: still there?"

"Empty. Has been empty since: 1971. My father never: re-let it. He said it was: the musician's flat. And the musician's flat should: stay."

"Can we: see it?"

Mr. D'Souza led us upstairs. One more flight. The door was: wooden, old, the kind of door that Bombay's old buildings had — heavy, solid, the door of a flat that had been: built when buildings were built to: last. He opened it with: a key that was: as old as the building itself, the key turning in a lock that: protested but: yielded.

The flat was: empty. And: not empty. The walls were: bare but the light was: present — the Bombay light, the light that came through the open windows, the windows that faced the: street, the windows through which music had once: reached.

In the corner: a table. On the table: a pair of tabla. Dusty. The skin cracked. But: present. Riyaz's tabla. Left: where they had been left. In 1971. Fifty-three: years ago.

And next to the tabla: a flower. Dried. A marigold. The specific orange of: a marigold that had been: placed and had been: forgotten and had: survived by: drying, by becoming: less but: remaining.

Someone had placed a flower. Next to the tabla. After: Riyaz died. The woman who had come for: three days. The woman who had: sung.

Farida had placed: a marigold next to Riyaz's tabla. And it was: still there. And it was: the most beautiful thing I had ever: seen.