Home > Veil(3)

Veil(3)
Author: Eliot Peper

The officer drummed pudgy fingers on the pitted Formica desk. “Random inspections can happen at any time. That’s why they’re called ‘random inspections.’” He took a puff. “I mean, she’s a foreigner”—shrugging derisively at Zia—“but I would expect you to know how these things work.”

Himmat leaned forward angrily but Zia put a hand out to restrain him. He was a good kid. He could even grow to become a good leader. No point in him making enemies until he absolutely had to, especially when he’d have to deal with the repercussions for years to come.

“This is the fourth consecutive year without a monsoon,” she said. “People are starving. Farmers are bankrupt. Topsoil is blowing away in the wind.” She touched her collarbone. “You may not like me, but India needs those seeds.”

“India doesn’t need you telling us what we do and do not need,” said the officer.

There it was—the thing that drove her mad: that wrapped in a desiccated husk of ignorance and petty viciousness was a kernel of truth.

“This strain was bred by Dr. Chou’s team at UC Davis,” said Himmat. “Drought resistant. High yield. No fertilizer needed. We do need this. Badly. If they aren’t planted in time, we’ll miss another harvest.”

“Farmers can plant what they’ve always planted.” Puff. “The monsoon will come when it comes.”

“If they do, and it doesn’t, next year will be even worse,” said Zia.

The officer tapped ash off the end of his cigar into a ceramic tray scarred by a network of thin cracks. “Funny,” he said. “Nobody else seems to be able to predict the climate anymore, yet you seem so very sure of yourself. Coming all the way out here to appease your guilt and tell your rich friends back home that you’re saving the world. Well, it’s time to go back to America. Go home. Go.”

“She’s from Costa Rica, you imbecile,” snapped Himmat.

“And you,”—the officer smacked his palm on the desk and the ashtray jumped— “cozying up to her like some kind of toy poodle, sucking the foreign aid teat. You are a disgrace. You should go with her, but the way things stand she probably won’t even be able to get you a visa. If I had my way, I’d rescind hers preemptively.”

Zia touched Himmat’s arm to make sure he didn’t say something he’d regret. A bead of residual sweat trickled down her spine, raising goosebumps in the air-conditioned chill. Her mother would have been able to make this scene read as profound. She would have teased out the irony and shown it to be a microcosm of the human condition, a reflection of the beautiful, fucked-up universe. Zia’s father on the other hand—he would have noticed opportunities to exploit, sought clues that might suggest higher levels of abstraction, bigger pictures that only he could see.

The officer was leaning back in his chair, looking back and forth between them—savoring the flex of what little power he had. The chair itself looked like it might collapse if he wasn’t careful. The walls of the room were bare, dirty white paint peeling back to reveal asymmetric islands of lime-green undercoat. The AC unit purred unevenly. The ashtray was the only thing on the desk, and there wasn’t any other furniture besides the plastic chairs they occupied. It wasn’t so much an office as a room hastily emptied to act as one.

She met the man’s eye. This wasn’t merely an exercise in fishing for a bribe. He was having far too much fun for something so quotidian. And she couldn’t see why a BSF grunt would take the initiative to arrange an impromptu holdup in a borrowed room at a freight yard hours away from wherever he called home. If this little stunt wasn’t on his initiative, then it was on someone else’s.

“Governor Rao would like that, if you pulled my visa,” said Zia quietly.

The officer grinned. “Just when you think all politicians are lying cheats, one comes along who knows what he’s doing, who isn’t afraid to stir things up.”

Zia nodded. “And it seems to be working. All those rallies. I wouldn’t be surprised if his party won a dozen more seats in the Lok Sabha in the next election.”

“At last, an India for Indians.”

Himmat stiffened at the slogan and Zia willed him to keep his peace.

“You’re an enterprising man, officer,” said Zia. This was just like when she’d been gearing up to represent Costa Rica in Colombo by special ambassadorial appointment of President Kim. “BSF is certainly thorough, but only through the efforts of high performers like yourself. And I’d imagine that Governor Rao might be able to put in a good word for a man like that, encourage the system to promote the deserving.”

The man’s face closed. “I wouldn’t know about that,” he said. “What I do know is that your shipment isn’t going anywhere.”

“Ahh,” said Zia. “The shipment, of course. Given how well-informed someone in your position must be, you know that the Minister of Agriculture personally approved this project.” The man’s ruddy cheeks paled. “And the Minister of Agriculture plays polo with the President, at whose pleasure Governor Rao serves.”

“Rao is invulnerable,” the officer snarled. “There’d be riots.”

“As you say,” said Zia. “But ask yourself—are you invulnerable? How far will the good governor go to protect your career, if this mission later proves politically inconvenient? He was appointed to appease a loud minority. Why do you think he’s stationed here in Chhattisgarh? Because the governorship is a figurehead position and the woman with the real power here, the chief minister, hates everything he stands for.”

The cigar smoldered, forgotten, ash flaking onto pressed khaki pant leg.

“Now,”—Zia offered him a small, close-lipped smile—“as I said, you’re an enterprising man, a man with intuition. If I was in your shoes and possessed a similar gift, I might take this opportunity to suggest that perhaps the best way to serve Governor Rao would be to release the shipment to us so as to spare him the unpleasantness of a browbeating from Delhi. You can still tell him you held it up and that I had to come down here personally to get it released, disrupting our field operations. Tell him whatever you damn well please. But give us our containers, and sleep soundly tonight knowing that you saved your career and did your part to prevent a famine.”

All trace of good humor had evaporated from behind his eyes. You could almost hear his thoughts racing around the cul-de-sac, probing for a hidden exit. Zia didn’t want to have to make good on her threat. That would mean asking Vachan for a favor. A big one. She was here to offer help, not ask for it. But if she couldn’t make this suit-stuffer see reason, she’d have no choice.

The officer broke eye contact and ground out his cigar in the ashtray with unnecessary force. Although his shoulders remained pointedly un-slumped, his presence deflated like a punctured party balloon. Without looking up, he raised a hand and waved them from the room.

 

 

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“Did you see his face?” Himmat’s own expression

was rapturous as he offered Zia a fresh coconut. “It was priceless.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how you do it, but when there’s so much bullshit to crawl through, it feels good to see the jerks heaping it on fall into the muck themselves once in a while.”

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