The room was huge. Ornate ceiling rosettes surrounded thick, gold suspension chains for three elaborate chandeliers on the distant ceiling. At the end of the room near the main door, there was a long dining table with twelve high-backed teak chairs. A mahogany armoire ran the length of the table against one wall, and was topped by an immense, rose-glass mirror. Beside the armoire, there was a floor-to-ceiling bookcase running the further length of the wall. On the opposite long wall of the room, four tall windows looked upon the uppermost branches and cool, shading leaves of plane trees lining the street below. The centre of the room, between the wall of books and the tall windows, was set up as an office. A teak-and-leather captain’s chair, facing the main door, served a broad, baroque desk. The far end of the room was decorated for entertaining, with leather chesterfields and deep armchairs. Two enormous bay windows in the end wall, behind the couches, dominated the room with arches of brilliant sunlight. French doors set into the two bay windows opened onto a wide balcony, giving the view of Colaba’s inner-city rooftop gardens, clotheslines, and neglected gargoyles.
Abdul Ghani stood there, listening to the music and singing that thundered from an expensive sound system built into the wall of books. The voices and the music were familiar, and a few moments of concentration brought them back to me. They were the Blind Singers, the same men I’d heard as Khaderbhai’s guest, on the first night that I met him. The song wasn’t one I recalled from that concert, but I was struck, at once, by its passion and power. As the thrilling, heart-wrenching chorus of voices finished, we stood in a throbbing silence that seemed to resist the noises of the households within the building and of the street below us.
‘Do you know them?’ he asked, without turning around.
‘Yes. They’re the Blind Singers, I think.’
‘Indeed, they are,’ he said in the mix of Indian lilt and BBC newsreader’s tone that I’d come to enjoy. ‘I love their music, Lin, more than anything I have ever heard, from any culture. But in the heart of my love for it, I have to say that I am afraid. Every time I hear them-and I play them every day, when I am at home here-I have the feeling that I am hearing the sound of my own requiem.’
He still hadn’t turned to face me, and I remained standing near the centre of the long room.
‘That… that must be unsettling.’
‘Unsettling…’he said softly. ‘Yes. Yes, it is unsettling. Tell me, Lin, do you think that one great act of genius can allow us to forgive the hundred flaws and failures that bring it into being?’
‘It’s… hard to say. I’m not exactly sure what you mean, but I guess it depends on how many people benefit by it, and how many people get hurt.’
He turned to face me, and I saw that he was crying. Tears rolled quickly, easily, and continuously from his large eyes, and spilled across the plump cheeks to the belly of his long silk shirt. His voice, however, was calm and composed.
‘Did you know that our Madjid was killed last night?’
‘No,’ I frowned, shocked by the news. ‘Killed?’
‘Yes. Murdered. Slaughtered like some beast, in his own house. His body was torn to pieces, and the pieces were found in many different rooms of the house. The name Sapna was daubed on the walls with his own blood. Police are blaming fanatics who follow this Sapna. I’m sorry, Lin. Forgive my tears, please. I’m afraid that this bad business has taken its toll on me.’
‘No, not at all. I’ll… I’ll come back at another time.’
‘Of course not. You’re here now, and Khader is anxious for you to begin. We’ll drink tea, and I will pull myself together, and then we’ll examine the passport business, you and I.’
He walked to the hi-fi set, and extracted the cassette tape of the Blind Singers. Sliding it into a gold plastic case, he approached me and pressed it into my hand.
‘I want you to have this, as a present from me,’ he said, his eyes and cheeks still wet with tears. ‘It’s time I stopped listening to it, and I feel sure that you will enjoy it.’
‘Thank you,’ I muttered, almost as confused by the gift as I was by the news of Madjid’s death.
‘Not at all, Lin. Come, sit with me. You were in Goa, I believe? Do you know our young fighter, Andrew Ferreira? Yes? Then you know he is from Goa. He goes there, often, with Salman and Sanjay, when I have work for them. You must all go there together, some time-they will show you the
