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.For a moment, the three vehicles ran abreast, spanning the entire width of National Highway Forty-Eight.Foot to the floor, the bus moved ahead of the flatbed that was struggling to pass the creeping tractor-trailer.After flicking on his directional, he cut in front of both vehicles, just in time to give the horn a friendly toot, waving hello to a rival bus company driver who came full-speed around the bend.Behind him, Mukund heard the two tourists suck in their breath and he could picture them, eyes-wide, gripping onto the arm rests or onto each other, certain they were about to die.Mukund made a mental note to cut it a little closer next time.There wasn’t a ten-meter stretch of the route that Mukund didn’t know as well as he knew his own home.The crumbling pavement outside of Bantval, the traffic-choked area around Sakaleshpur with its busloads of pious Jain pilgrims, the constant road work between Hassan and Channarayaptna, the thousands of bends and twists of the blacktop as it snaked through the mountain passes—he could close his eyes and see all of it.The six-hour morning run to Bangalore he could do in his sleep.The run back to Mangalore—the last two dead-tired hours coming in the dark jungle foothills—well, that was different.He didn’t just drive his bus, an air-conditioned Tata that wasn’t even three years old yet, he controlled it, dominated it, like an expert rider controlling a fiery thoroughbred.And yet they gasped as if he didn’t see the bus coming headlong at them.Damn tourists.He kept his foot on the gas pedal, slowing down just as he came up to the back end of a truck hauling burlap bags of rice, the words Horn Please ornately painted on the tailgate.Mukund hit the horn twice as he shot by, staying in the wrong lane even after he was well past the truck.He glanced in his rearview mirror to make sure the tourist couple was watching.The first thing he had noticed about the man when he climbed aboard the bus was the long gauze bandage on his left arm.He had been watching as the man had replaced an older, dirty bandage with a smaller one, doing the whole thing one-handed, easy, biting the white medical tape from the roll with his teeth like he’d been wearing the thing his whole life.From where he had been sitting, Mukund didn’t think it was much of a cut, but he knew that it was the small cuts that were most trouble.The man needed a shave and his clothes looked like he’d slept in them, but overall he didn’t look like the typical scruffy western tourists that took the bus, anyone with money hiring a car, cutting an hour at least from the trip.Mukund tried not to stare too much at the woman.Her hair was dark but when the light caught it right it seemed red—not a henna-based red, something richer, more natural—but for some reason she bunched it all up under a grimy, long-billed cap.She smiled at him when she had climbed aboard the bus, asking if the bus had a restroom, him pretending he didn’t understand just to draw out the conversation, captivated by her bright eyes and beautiful smile, that lean, hard build.She had to be the one from the note.In the mirror, Mukund watched as the man closed his eyes and looked away from the front window.It was that kind of disrespect, that open lack of confidence in his driving ability, that questioning of his skills, that Mukund hated most.He yanked the bus back in his lane, waving to the cement truck driver who didn’t wave back, too busy screaming as he stood on his brakes, long, smoking black lines appearing under his locked-up rear tires.The other passengers rode in proper silence, eyes glued to the TV monitors, Shah Rukh Khan lip-synching the title track to a tear-jerker film.Two movies, a clean toilet on board, reclining seats and a fifteen-minute rest stop at the halfway point—what more could you ask for?But Mukund knew what they were asking for.A rail line.For decades there had been talk about connecting the two cities, politicians proclaiming that, if elected, they would drive the final stake themselves, one more promise forgotten the day after the voting, the geography blamed for the delay.It was all hills and sharp bends and swamps.Maybe—someday—a narrow gauge line like the one they had up in Simla, a toy train that would take three times as long as the bus.But a proper rail line? Not possible.Then the computer boom.Bangalore—sleepy little garden-city Bangalore—suddenly the Silicon Valley of the East, whatever the hell that meant, everybody moving there, all those high-tech companies starting up, failing, starting up again, money everywhere, pensioners forced out of their hometown by the high rents, those young guppies or puppies, whatever you call them, driving brand-new cars, not content with Ambassadors, no, demanding Toyotas and Hondas and Mercedes.Demanding a rail line, a real one, getting it from a New Delhi government cowed by their success.The line would be complete in a year, maybe two.The smaller bus companies were selling out already, the bigger ones scaling back.He had four years at most before he would be out of a job, already thinking about the money he’d be missing.A thousand rupees to see that the backpack stays on the bus? Easy money.Ahead, an overturned truck, its lights still on, its wheels still spinning, had dumped a load of stone in the street.He downshifted and stopped, waiting for his turn to move around the wreck, the dazed truck driver clearing a path with a broken-handled shovel.Mukund looked back into his mirror, wondering what the hell they were doing now, the cute girl holding up part of a ratty old sari, sticking her fingers through little round holes, holding the fabric up to her nose and laughing, punching the man in his shoulder, the man rubbing the spot like it actually hurt, the girl leaning over, kissing him on the cheek, then the mouth, again, right in public, the guy making a veil out of the fabric, covering their faces, probably kissing under the red sari.Mukund looked back at the road and waited for an opening in the traffic.He didn’t care what they did.Just as long as that backpack stayed on the bus until Bangalore.Chapter Twenty-oneThe Mangalore Transport Company’s morning bus pulled into its assigned parking space at four-forty in the afternoon, ten minutes ahead of schedule.The driver wore a toothy grin as he eased the blunt nose of the bus under the corrugated tin awning, the air brakes hissing as the bus came to a stop.Unlike the airlines that kept their passengers in their seats until the captain gave the two-bell signal, the aisle of the bus had been packed for the last five miles, the travelers eager to abandon the air-conditioned comfort for the sweltering humidity of their hometown.Jason and Rachel were the last two off, the driver, happy, saying something that sounded like thank you as they passed.There was more hustle to the crowd at the bus terminal, a greater sense of urgency brought on by the unpredictable schedules of the privately owned transports
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