THE COLD DISH. A short story.

Kate waited exactly where she had told him she would be. Round the corner from the Finchley tube station, down the quiet, residential street with free parking. She came prepared to wait all day. She had the radio, a book, a thermos of coffee and cheese sandwiches, knowing he would come. Would she recognise him? He would have changed his appearance as his heavy beard blurred his features in the newspapers. But he would not be able to disguise those heavy-lidded, piercing eyes. It had been many years since she’d seen him in the flesh.

She knew him instantly in the rear view mirror, standing at the corner, looking down towards the car, then away to scan the street. It was mid-afternoon, and the street deserted. The city, and this street, would be familiar to him. The homes were uniform on either side, lawns trimmed to the uniform height and uniform size. In his well-cut suit and tie-less shirt he didn’t look out of place but a good citizen. He was clean shaven too, reminding her of the past. Of course, he would know she was watching him. As she adjusted the mirror, she saw him step back just as the passenger door opened suddenly and her husband jumped in. His wispy blonde hair looked electrified and his mouth was tight as a trap.

He slapped her hard and then poured out his contempt and jealousy, screaming within the closed-in car. ‘You’re waiting for him, you bitch, I know you’re waiting for him so you can fuck with that bastard.’ Even through watering eyes and the pain, she looked into the mirror for him and, not seeing him, was furious that her husband should upset their carefully laid plans. His fist closed to strike her again and, without any hesitation, she pressed the gun against his heart and pulled trigger. The explosion startled her, not knowing how loud it could be and looked around the quiet street expecting it to erupt with people. Her husband was slumped back in his seat and when she glanced into the mirror saw him approaching. If anyone had heard the shot, it would have been him, his ears were attuned to violent acts. He stood beside the car and guessed it was a shot to the heart, quick and clean, before he opened the door and helped her heave the body into the back.

He climbed into the passenger seat as she started the car. The imprint of the man’s palm was fading from her cheek as she drove. ‘You don’t say much’, she said as she steered quickly through traffic, ‘but then you never did.’ He nodded and, knowing he was safe, fell asleep. When he woke, it was dusk and they were deep in the country, passing through a small village. The houses glowing softly. ‘We’re in Cottingley, in the Costwolds. I’m taking you home. Is that okay?’ He merely closed his eyes in agreement. ‘How have you been?’ she asked. She turned into the drive, a long one, to a house set well back. It showed no lights, and she didn’t seem bothered he hadn’t answered. ‘We’ll bury him in the rose garden. He loved roses and he’d like that. There’s a pick and shovel in the tool shed at the back’. Obediently, he went and found them and they took turns digging up the rose bed, the soil was soft and loamy. She took the dead man’s feet, he took the shoulders. They dropped him in the grave and shovelled the earth back in. When it was done, he meticulously patted the earth flat and then helped her re-plant the roses. He couldn’t tell the colour in the darkness but their smell reminded him of his homeland where roses blossomed to the size of a fist, and caressed the air with their perfume.

‘Why did you marry him?’ he asked when they were sitting in her gourmet kitchen, gleaming with gadgetry, all wasteful in his eyes. His taste in food was austere and simple - leavened bread, a spiced vegetable, pungent onions, enough to sustain him in the mountains. He noted, but said nothing, that she had used a key to open the front door when the kitchen one was unlocked. She poured herself a chilled Chablis but didn’t offer him, as she knew he didn’t touch alcohol. ‘I fell in love, I suppose, why else does one marry?’ She had a worn beauty, like a well-rubbed coin, still revealing the profile of a queen or a princess. ‘He was gentle in the beginning, then he became the beast, like all men do with the passing of time. He knew you were coming and he knew I’d be waiting for you. I never stopped waiting for you, and he knew that too. He knew my password, it’s her name. When I typed it in I thought of her and now when I do I am reminded of her.’

‘How did they kill my daughter?’ He waited until she refilled her glass, the wine sending a faint blush through her cheeks.

‘She was found hanging from the clothes hook on the back of the door in her room,’ she said in a whisper. ‘They said it was a suicide, young people do that in their depressions, they said, then they said it was a drugs trip. My heart broke into small pieces when I saw my dead daughter and it will remain in lost pieces until the day I die. I didn’t know until then how frail is the heart, it broke like dropped china.’ He waited, letting her weep, without consoling her. Always patient.

He knew what she would say before she said it. ‘You’re to blame because of who you are,’ she screamed at him, ‘they killed her knowing it was only way to hurt you but they don’t know you as well as I do that you can’t be hurt by your daughter’s death. You feel nothing, nothing, you never did.’

He waited until she stopped weeping, pouring himself a glass of water from the tap, savouring its cool sweetness, envying her only for that convenience. He had forgotten the ease of such a life, a tap, clean water, the very simplicity unavailable in his land. He drank slowly, remembering the times he had thirsted for water. Remembering too, despite his reluctance to recall the past, that she was wrong in her screamed accusation. He had felt, he had experienced, love. She had forgotten that in her anguished rage. There had been the long winter of tenderness in their lives, the winter in which she conceived the daughter who was now dead. He had felt love for her though he had not articulated his emotions. And that was his fault, love needed to be spoken out aloud, and not confined to the heart. He had not spoken it so long ago, when they were young, because he had known he would not remain in her country long. She would not survive long in his, the harshness would have killed her. When they assassinated his father he had left her, without saying goodbye, never expecting to return. Knowing he had left a part of him in her body. He had under estimated her determination to make him remember, and had sent him photographs of the daughter, wrote about her too, and sent those messages to an email address that was not in his name or even remotely connected to him, except through layers of intermediaries. From that distance, he had watched his child grow into a beautiful young woman who also wrote to him. She wanted to know her father, meet and embrace him, though she knew too, from reading the newspapers, that he was considered a dangerous man, incapable of human warmth. His replies to her long, longing letters, had been curt, dismissive of her suggestions, not knowing that rejection to a woman’s heart only increased her longing. The daughter knew, despite his curtness, that she had touched him and he had read her letters, otherwise he would never have even replied. By doing so, he realised now, that even his curt replies had endangered his daughter’s life. He had revealed, to those who watched for such signs, his vulnerability. If only he had kept silent.

He rose and washed the glass, letting the water run, listening to its music, and then wiped the glass clean before placing it in the rack. She was reminded that he had always been meticulous in his movement, keeping them minimalistic, never wasting energy. He had the slight stoop of a man who crouched close to the earth in his movements, which brought him down to her height, almost. He’d lost some weight but wasn’t skinny, just lean and muscled and tried to imagine what kind of a haunted life he led. When he washed his hands under the running tap, she thought he was trying to wash the blood off his hands as he used the soap to scrub his hands clean, like a surgeon before an operation. The State has shaped him on the murder of his father, a man of wisdom and steadfastness of purpose against the injustices of the State, when he had been around the same age as his daughter. Of course, his hands would never be cleansed. When she had known him long ago, he had not killed anyone, and was just an innocent boy she had fallen in love with. A solemn young man, yet with a wry sense of humour, and honeyed skin she loved to caress. That skin looked coarser, tiny scars criss-crossing the backs of those cleansed hands, and his eyes no longer held any humour. She could not see any laugh lines.

She broke the silence to distract him from listening to distant sounds. ‘Isobel insisted on using your name, you know, insisted, even though she had never set eyes on you and knew you only through my bitterness. I wanted her to keep my husband’s surname. He had adopted her, but when she reached eighteen, she dropped his name and changed to yours. And then she converted, without even telling me. You had no right to her life, and she lived only another 18 months with your name.’

He nodded, ‘Yes she told me that she had and I advised her, strongly, not to. It would mark her out even more. She was reckless?’

She heard beyond the question he had asked, for the first time showing some curiosity. ‘Isobel was brave and she was beautiful and clever; she danced and sang and laughed with abandon. She was so alive, unlike other girls her age who walk and talk as if they’re dead, and she had a halo of friends who surrounded her wherever she went. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, commit suicide, not hanging herself from a hook on the back of her bedroom door. The coroner said she had, no matter how much I insisted the authorities murdered her because of her father. The coroner was one of those kindly looking men with metal hearts. He said I was mad with grief, as she was my old child, and I was fantasising such conspiracies. The authorities were kindly people too, he had said, they lived by the law and would not, could not, murder an innocent child for sake of punishing her father. It wasn’t done by the State which upheld high moral codes, respected human rights and practised democracy. It was men like her father who murdered the innocent, that’s what he told me in front of everyone. I begged him to order an autopsy but he said it was unnecessary, she had committed suicide. The Investigator,’ and here she used two fingers of both hands to place that word in quotation marks, ‘sat in the front row, and he too looked at me with kindness and sympathy, as if understanding my unremitting pain. The Investigator was the one who broke the news of my daughter’s death to me. He came to the house early Sunday morning with his mourning face to tell me that there had been an accident, that my daughter had hung herself from the hook on the back of her bedroom door. I didn’t believe him, she had called me the evening before. She called every evening, and told me she was going to a party with her friends as she had finished her assignments. In that way she was disciplined too, she wouldn’t party until her work was completed.’

He listened without any movement, wishing he had met his daughter. She had wanted to meet him when she changed her name and religion but he had coldly discouraged her. Another curt: No.

‘You married when you went home, didn’t you? Did you fall in love?’ And when he shook his head, just once, she continued: ‘How many children?’

‘Three, two boys and a girl.’ He paused, not wanting to continue but he did in spite of his reticence. ‘They were killed by a missile at home, even though I was very distant from them. It was the rumour I was there that killed them.’

In the silence she wondered whether he had mourned that loss, and poured herself the third glass of wine, giving herself the false courage to continue with the evening.

‘You’ve come to revenge my daughter’s death, haven’t you? That’s what you promised. Who else can do what you do so well?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘revenge against the State is futile. As she has my name and belongs to my religion she must lie in the graveyard in my home. She will lie beside my family, my father and my mother. My brothers too lie there. You had written you would allow me to move her. Where is she now?’

‘In return I wanted revenge. So we both lied.’ Then Kate had to laugh out aloud at his audacity, though she knew the dangers of her contempt. ‘She’s buried in the land of her birth, in the village graveyard. She was my altar when she was alive, now her grave’s my daily pilgrimage. She will remain here. Who would she know in the graveyard of your ancestors? She didn’t even know your language and I will not allow her to lie among such strangers. Please, I beg you, allow me that.’

He heard no pleading note in her voice. It was more mocking. He felt no remorse when he knew that, because of her defiance, he would have to kill this woman he had loved. His daughter had to lie in the family graveyard, even as one day he too would be buried there.

Despite their years apart, she still knew how he thought and waited for them to come for him. They were near, just beyond the door. They both waited as he had been listening to the silence and knew it had been disturbed and seeing her look knew they were here. He had risked his life for the body of his daughter even though he knew it was a trap.

‘You told them?’ he said.

‘Yes, I told the Investigator you would come for her.’

‘What did he promise you for me?’

‘Nothing. I wanted you take your revenge but you won’t will you?’

‘No, I told you that.’ He still had the gun in his waistband; it felt so heavy, dragging him down. The men who helped him enter the country on his new passport, with a false name and in the photograph clean-shaven and so youthful, had given him the gun. They were from his land, but exiles who claimed to support the cause, and were overly deferential to him. You are our hero, they said in unison, and bowed in unison, expecting him to be swayed by such flattery. They promised to take him and his daughter’s body to the homeland.

The Investigator came through the back door, not quickly, cautiously, and two armed men, who remained in the shadows, followed him. Though he was of medium height with that bland, non-committal face, he stood facing them both with all the authority of his State. ‘Give me your weapon,’ he said quietly, and accepted the gun slid across the polished table. He picked it up, hefted it, and then sat down. He had a gentle voice, listening calmed the spirit of the listener. ‘I’ve waited many years for us to meet. Patience pays off.’

‘You killed my daughter?’

‘It was unfortunate but how else could I reach you so well hidden away in your land. Like a serpent in its hole, I had to tempt you out, somehow. You are too famous and protected in your land. I know your culture and your traditions, you couldn’t allow her to remain here. It was my persistence. I did not know you had a daughter here until she changed her name and it came up on our computers. I traced you back to the days when she was conceived, and read your communications with her. Even though your responses were brief, I knew she had touched you. Otherwise you would never have exposed yourself.’

He sat very still facing the Investigator, and Kate knew the men would kill him as soon as they could. He knew that too. She saw, for the first time, that he was tired, not so much physically but his interior was worn away. He glanced at her, and she caught the tiny glint of admiration in his eyes.

The Investigator turned to Kate and said ‘Give me the gun with which you killed your husband. There’ll be no charges as this man committed that murder.’

‘I tossed it in the river when I crossed the bridge on the drive back here,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that what they do in the movies, get rid of the of the murder weapon? And there are only the three of you? He’s a dangerous man, as you yourself said.’

‘Three are more than enough.’

When he turned to one of his men, she opened her purse which lay on the table. She took out the gun with which she had killed her husband, and killed the Investigator and then his two companions.

‘I believe in revenge,’ she said in the silence that followed the explosions. ‘I wanted him here alone, I wanted to hear him boast about my daughter’s murder. I knew he would come himself so he could boast about catching and killing you.’

He reached over and took the gun. Carefully, he wiped it clean of her finger prints and then gripped the weapon in his hand, pressing down firmly on both the butt and the barrel, then placed it back on the table between them. He smiled, reminding her of that youth, and she felt it gentle as a goodbye kiss. He rose, picked up his own weapon, tucked it into his waist band and walked through the door. She thought of offering him a lift but knew he would find the way back to his own land.

POCKET PICKER PICKED. A short story.

Kant, who named himself after the last syllable of his favourite movie star as he did not posses a family name or an ancestral place, and who had escaped from his master, arrived early in the morning by the Pandian Express at Chennai Central Station. He had jumped on the train as it was slowly leaving Madurai the night before, and slept under a lower berth in the second class compartment, squeezed between two suitcases. When they were removed, he rolled out and joined the rest of the passengers leaving the compartment as if he belonged to one of them. This was the first time in memory he had been alone and, though the station was vast and complex for a young boy, he wasn’t intimidated. He had never been in Chennai before, and he had heard it was a city with many prospects for a boy like him who had honed his talents well.

He put a swagger in his walk and drifted along with the crowd towards the exit, looking for a likely benefactor who would, unwittingly, provide him with a meal. The passengers were distracted by porters, greeting their waiting friends and relatives, eager to reach homes or their hotels. It was always a good time to pick a pocket his master, Selvam, a minor history-sheeter, with many talents, had taught him. Selvam was also a minor magician who could materialize coins or chicks from behind ears and out of mouths, cut a rope in half and reappear it whole, pick out a card chosen by one of his street audience from a shuffled worn pack, all the while keeping up a steady line of chatter. While Selvam distracted his audience, Kant would wander among them, expertly relieving the men of their wallets. He would then walk away and wait for Selvam to join him. Selvam always took all the money and only gave Kant a cuff on his head for not extracting more from the crowd. It was after one of these performances, when Kant had failed to pick even a rupee from the poor people who had gathered, that he decided to run away and try his luck elsewhere.

Although he was nearly 14-years-old, this according to Selvam who had taken him from his parents, Kant could not read or write as he had never been to school but he was a better magician than Selvam. It was a natural talent in his dextrous fingers as they were suppler than a drunken man’s. The previous evening in Madurai station he had earned the princely sum of five rupees through his magician’s talents. A small crowd, about to board the Pandian Express, had gathered to watch him juggle six stones, then he had materialised a stone from a child’s ear and a larger one from a man’s mouth. Following this he had played the shell game with three discarded plastic cups, challenging his audience to find the pebble. He was so swift that none of them chose right, and they had betted a rupee each time. Among the watchers was an old couple and Kant had challenged the old man to find the pebble. The old man had shaken his head, smiled, but Kant was aware that he remained intently watching the other tricks before moving on with his wife. Unfortunately, the Pandian was ready to leave otherwise Kant would have made ten rupees. Right through his entertainment, he had kept up a swift monologue of jokes which he had learned from Selvam.

It was his habit that when he was in a crowd, he watched always young children with their parents, and he did this now as he jostled along on Platform 9 of Chennai Central station towards the exit. He didn’t stare with a predator’s eyes but with longing and dreaming, imaging he was that boy who held onto his mother’s hand or that boy holding a book and walking beside his father or that boy, about his age striding between his parents and talking to them. How he envied those children. He could have been one of them, walking with his mother and father, holding their hands, experiencing the warmth of their love. He used to pray each night he would find them, them him and they would be united forever. But, as days, weeks, months and years passed and he was condemned to Selvam’s company, he had stopped those prayers but couldn’t stop his dreams when he saw other children.

He had work to do if he was to survive alone in this huge city that awaited him. A few steps ahead walked the old couple. He had noticed them again as they’d cautiously clambered down from the IInd class a/c compartment. The man had tenderly helped his wife down, holding her hand and now wheeled their trolley case behind him. Kant had noted the sagging bulge in the left hand pocket of the man’s crumpled white kurta; his wife wore a cotton saree, also crumpled from sleeping in their clothes. The man was slim, with neatly combed white hair and skin as smooth as glass, and walked easily. But his wife, who had a botu the size of a rupee coin in a beautiful face, walked more painfully, as if her knees couldn’t bear the burden. The man patiently paced by her side. They walked slowly and the people flowed around them impatiently, often brushing too close to bump them.The station was filled with noise too, announcements on the loud-speakers, trains departing and arriving, vendors calling out their wares.

Kant quickened his pace, not making it too obvious to anyone who might be watching. The couple stopped suddenly, people collided with them. The old woman was fumbling in a coir bag and her husband waited for her to remove something from it. As Kant passed the old man, he dipped his hand swiftly into the kurta pocket and, with two supple fingers strong as pliers, easily removed the wallet. In almost the same easy motion, he slipped it under his ragged shirt and tucked into the waist band of his trousers.

As he started to quicken his step, the old man called out to him. ‘Thambi, thambi.’

Kant’s heart raced, and he was ready to run but the man’s voice had not been angry. He had to remain calm and turned, trying a smile.

‘Here,’ the old man said, holding out an apple. ‘We would like you to have this.’

Kant took it in surprise. He never expected kindness from people.

The old woman smiled too. ‘We saw you and thought you looked hungry. It’s a very sweet apple.’ She turned to her husband. “He does look like Prakash, doesn’t he? When he was of the same age.’

‘Yes, very much like him.’

The old man pulled on his trolley and they kept moving along. Kant hurried past them, and didn’t look back. Though he was tensed and ready to run should the old man have noticed the theft and called out. Strangely, instead of feeling gratitude Kant felt anger building up in him. People shouldn’t surprise him with acts of kindness; there should be a law against that. He wasn’t about to return the wallet just because they gave him an apple. It would teach them a lesson not to be generous to strangers, especially boys like him. He slid among a group of passengers as they passed the ticket collector, who paid no attention to him, and was out in the main station, heading towards the beckoning sun shine.

A police constable, stocky with a trimmed moustache and a shirt straining against his paunch, strolled towards him. Kant knew enough not to avoid his quick glance, and certainly not to run. The wallet burned against his sweating tummy. The constable would have seen just another chokra, gaunt, with large eyes, tousled hair, which needed a cut, and a friendly quick smile. Normally, he would have chased Kant out but as he had just eaten an excellent breakfast of two masala dosais, a plate of vadai sambar and drunk an excellent south Indian coffee, all without paying a paisa, he was in a benevolent mood.

Kant slowed back to his casual saunter and was free and clear, lost among the many hundreds entering and leaving. He paused at the exit, across the busy road was a huge brand new building which resembled a hospital, and he edged towards the auto rickshaws lined up for passengers. There was a rubbish bin by a pillar and quite deliberately he dropped the apple into it, getting rid of any guilt that might have contaminated him.

He looked back. There was no sign of the old couple and then raised his eyes. The station was a grand building, he thought. He liked the colour – red- with the white on the borders. He thought too that it looked like a palace. He turned away and hurried down the road, passing a row of small shops. He was eager to see what he had stolen and saw a gap among the shops, slid into it and, with his back turned towards the footpath, pulled out his prize. The wallet was made of fine leather but wasn’t very thick. He opened it slowly, peeked in, and sighed with pleasure. There were four one hundred rupee notes, and three ten rupee notes. But stuffed in a separate compartment was a single sheet of paper, about the size of the one hundred rupee note. He didn’t look at it. In another compartment were two plastic cards. He took out the cash, stuffed it in his pocket and dropped the wallet through the railings into the railway compound behind the shops. There, he said to himself, that’s what I think of them and their apple.

He walked back to the footpath. First things first, he was starving. He had not eaten since the day before as Selvam had punished him for not stealing enough. Across the busy road were three or four eateries and he dodged the continuous traffic, slid through the divider and dodged once more to reach the other footpath. He went into the first eatery and grandly ordered two masala dosai, a plate of idli sambar and a coffee.

‘Where’s your money?’ the counter man demanded, ready to move away. Kant took out a single one hundred rupee note and waved it under his nose. That persuaded the counter man who brought him his order, dosais hot and crisp from the kitchens. Kant ate greedily, drank his coffee, paid and walked out. Further down that footpath was a clothes shop and Kant who loved to look stylish and neat, bought a yellow shirt and blue jeans. He changed into them then and there, leaving his ragged old clothes for the shop keeper, sniffing disdainfully, to get rid of. The meal had cost forty rupees, the clothes seventy. He yearned to spend the rest of the money, it gave such a grand sense of achievement to feel the notes in hand, flash the notes under the noses of servers, instead of stealing or begging for money.

He thought of catching a bus and where it took him would be the adventure. But across the road he saw a bazaar. It was to one side of a very high building which in turn was beside the railway station. He dodged back across the road and strolled along the narrow, potted road. There were book stalls to one side, snack shops the other and further along a red building, looking somewhat like a small mosque. He asked a stall holder what it was and the man said dismissively ‘New Moore Market’. He entered, found it gloomy, half-deserted and depressing, and left. But the road had further interest. Spread out of the ground were all sorts of instruments ranging from old telephones and radios to stranger things he didn’t know what they were for. He felt the excitement at discovering this new world. But wisely, he decided not to buy anything so useless. He would savour and spend the money slowly. Quite naturally, when this initial exploration was over, he gravitated back towards Central station. It would not only be his base, until he found another one, but also a source of money.

As he entered the station, he stopped suddenly. The old couple was sitting on a bench, looking very sad and beside them was the police constable, while three or four other people were listening to what they were telling the constable. The constable had a note book in his hand and wrote down what they told him.

Kant started to turn away when he heard the woman call out to him. ‘Thambi, did you like our apple?’

Reluctantly, dragging his feet, avoiding the constable’s glance, half of recognition, he approached them. ‘Yes,’ he lied. Then couldn’t help himself. ‘What has happened?’

The old man sighed, near to tears. ‘I have mislaid my wallet.’ He turned back to the constable. ‘It’s not the money; there were only a few hundred rupees. But there was a cheque in it and it’s our whole life’s savings. You see, I sold my ancestral property in Madurai after many years of fighting a court case. The buyer gave the cheque for the property and went back to America. He lives there. I don’t know where the buyer lives in America and how to find him in time to issue me another cheque. You see, we have to pay for our new flat by tomorrow, our final home. Otherwise, we’ll be evicted.’

‘It is a nuisance,’ the old woman said, not with any anger nor did she show any anger to her husband. She seemed to accept the tragic inevitability of their lives.

Kant who survived without any guilty conscience, though knowing he may have picked the pocket of a poor man’s last rupee, now wished he had not heard this tale. He should have caught that bus and vanished into the city. The constable continued to make his notes, a small crowd had gathered and was sympathetic to the old couple. They wanted to know where he had lost his wallet, what it looked like, which train he’d got off.

Kant knew everything and now quietly drifted away. He was going to catch that bus. But, no matter how hard he tried, he found himself moving towards the wall of the compound, to approximately where he’d dropped that wallet. Trying to look as if he was not looking for something, he drifted along the length of wall. His heart felt heavy, it had gone, someone must have found it. He wished he’d kept it now. Too late. But as he started to move away, he saw it lying in the dirt, ten metres from where he was standing. He walked over, looked around – no one was watching – and scooped it up swiftly. With his back to the high building he reluctantly took the remaining three hundred and twenty rupees from his pocket, and slipped the notes back into the wallet. He hoped the old man wouldn’t object to him having some food and new clothes. He tucked the wallet into his waist band under his shirt and strolled back to the station.

The old couple were still sitting, and at the woman’s feet was the bag. He would drop the wallet in the bag. The constable was putting away his note book. The small crowd murmured their sympathies to the couple.

Kant took out his change and dropped the coins so they rolled towards the bag. As he bent over to gather the coins, he brushed past the old man. Kant reached under his shirt. The wallet was gone. He straightened, bewildered. Had it fallen out? It had been there a moment before when he had bent down. As he turned to see if he had dropped it, the constable grabbed him by the neck.

‘Caught you, you thief.’

‘Thief,” Kant protested indignantly. ‘I’ve not stolen anything.’ He turned to the couple. ‘I just came to see if you had another apple as I was hungry.’ He turned back to the constable. ‘They very kindly gave me an apple. I’ve not stolen anything. You can search me, if you want.’

The constable did, very roughly, and didn’t find the wallet. The old man bent to rummage in the bag and brought out an apple which he held out to Kant. As Kant took it, the old man delved back into the bag and pulled out the wallet. His face was level with Kant’s, and he winked into Kant’s puzzled eyes.

The old man held up the wallet, surprise on his face. He smiled apologetically to all around him. ‘The problem with old age is one forgets where one has placed things. I must have put it in my wife’s bag as I was getting off the train. I am very sorry to have caused you all such trouble.’

‘Please check if there is anything missing?’ the constable asked, still holding Kant.

Slowly, very slowly, the old man counted the money.

Kant wriggled. Now, he was in trouble. He was stupid to have returned but he was curious. How did the wallet end up the bag and why had the old man had lied? The wallet had been in his kurta pocket and Kant had picked it. Now the old man would see that one hundred and ten rupees was missing.

‘Nothing is missing,’ the old man said.

‘And the cheque?’ the constable asked.

‘It’s here too.’

Reluctantly the constable released Kant, and demanded. ‘Where did you get your new clothes?’

‘I bought them,’ Kant said cockily. ‘I have the bill.’ And took it out. But the constable lost interest, and walked away. The small crowd dispersed. Kant remained, staring at the wallet.

‘Thank you for returning my wallet,’ the old man said

‘You knew I’d stolen it?’ Kant said.

‘Oh yes, you were the only one who could have. I knew you’d come back to the station after you’d spent some money. But I wasn’t certain whether you’d try to return my wallet when you saw us looking so sad at losing it. When I saw you go away and return again I knew you had my wallet and that you have a good heart.’ He turned to his wife. ‘I did bet you he would return it.’

‘But how did it get in the bag? I was going to put it there myself.’

‘I picked your trouser band. I saw you performing in Madurai station,’ the old man said, and his wife nodded smiling as she picked up her bag as if agreeing with her husband. ‘You’re not a bad magician, you do have some talent. I could teach you be a great one and not live like a pick pocket.’

‘He looks just like Prakash when he’s puzzled,’ the wife commented, still smiling, and her husband nodded.

‘Teach me?’ Kant said warily. ‘Who are you to teach me?’

‘I was one of the greatest magicians of all when I was young,’ the old man said with quiet pride. ‘I was known as Mandrake the Magician, it was a name I took from a comic book. I travelled all over the world performing my magic. Removing the wallet was baby’s play for me.’

He pulled up his sleeve and held out his right arm, palm up. Kant didn’t look at that hand but at the left one. That was a trick he knew. The left hand would have a coin nestled in the fold between the thumb and forefinger and as it passed across the open palm the forefinger and second finger would pluck the coin from the fold and slip it onto the palm. Quicker than an eye could follow. But the left arm remained by the man’s side even as he closed his hand. He opened it and nestled on his palm was a gold coin. Kant’s large eyes opened wider. The hand closed again. This time it opened with two gold coins. When he closed and opened the third time, his palm was empty.

‘How did you do that?’ Kant asked, eyes still wide in wonder.

‘You’ll learn.’ The old man glanced down at his hands. ‘My fingers are too stiff to perform other tricks.’

‘Who’s this Prakash you keep talking about?’ Kant asked, curiosity now aroused.

The old woman said. ‘He’s a scientist and lives in America. We have not seen him for many years now. He didn’t want to be a magician, he hated magic.’

‘It’s only cheap illusion, he told me,’ the old man said. ‘But everything in life is illusion.’

They gathered their bags and moved towards the auto rickshaw stand. Kant remained watching them, wondering what he should do.

The old man turned. ‘Well, are you coming with us so I can teach you to be a great magician? Or will you stay here and be a bad pick pocket?’

Warily, Kant said. ‘You’re not going to treat me like a servant?’

‘Of course not,’ the old woman said. ‘You look too much like Prakash, our son.’

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