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The Good Soldier

Posted on April 21, 2007
Filed Under The Stories |

He knew how it worked. After being told a million times, he also understood it. Of the things expected of them, loyalty was number one. Keeping their mouths shut was a close second. He could probably write a small book or a long movie about the stuff that went on behind closed doors. Instead he was expected to do what was asked without complaint or question. He had been a good soldier for fifteen years. Over the past two however, he had begun to renege on his promise to serve the greater good so that he could finally look out for the people that mattered more – his own family over the one he worked for.

His name was Birju and he had served as one of a battery of cooks employed by the superstar’s family since his arrival in the metropolis as a twenty one-year-old. The heat in the big city was different from what he was used to in his village. It was more wet and salty, possibly because of the sea’s proximity. It took him a while to get used to the noise and the fact that life progressed by a different clock from the one he was used to.

He was expected to be awake at four thirty each morning because the big boss would awaken at five. The man needed his ginger tea before he used the toilet and left to putter around at a nearby hotel’s gymnasium at six. As with most other things in his life, the actor liked his tea just so and Birju had to undergo intense training and several slaps upside the head from the senior cook before he got the proportions of the concoction perfectly right.

Around seven-thirty, the master of the house would return, shower, shave, put on his hair and leave for work after consuming a strictly vegetarian breakfast. Once he was gone, his wife would call up one of her three close confidantes and spend an hour or two on the phone, bitching about real and imagined atrocities committed by her husband of thirty years. She told them because she trusted them to keep their mouths shut. That, and the fact that she would be crazier than she already was if she kept it all inside. That her husband had been unfaithful was about as much of a given as the fact that he was a famous star. That she would never leave him was also just as guaranteed.

The servant pool loved to share speculations about who was screwing whom and for what role or advertising campaign in the film industry. The more worldly ones took immense pleasure in terrifying the naïve ones with stories of the various sex acts an aspiring actor had been required to perform on a director, his wife and his daughter before he was given his first big break. When one of the relatively innocent ones named an actress he thought would never stoop so low to get work, he was given a laundry list of producers and directors she had worked with who did not believe in shooting a single foot of film until they had received their pound of flesh.

On the days he was not working (and he wasn’t working anywhere near as often as his father) the son would wake up around ten. His mother would be careful not be caught airing the family’s dirty laundry within his earshot. Though he thought it was his secret, it was a well known fact that he consumed non-vegetarian food outside the house, had been sexually active since he was nineteen and he wasn’t above smoking dope with the other sons of once-famous actors and directors he hung out with.

Any new staff member received a thorough orientation in how the three were to be treated. The big man did not appreciate conversation; his son was talkative but not particularly interested in what the other person had to say and the woman was to be spoken to only when she spoke first and even then it was only to agree with everything she said.

Around the time that the son’s career began gaining momentum it was decided by his father, that he should be married. The boy was thirty years old and though he wasn’t treated like a man around the house, his father expected him to provide him with a grandson within the next two years.

The servants knew all this, and more, because it was a widely accepted fact that the help were no better than furniture. People spoke their hearts and minds in their presence as if they were simply thinking aloud in solitude. From watching the films the master and his son acted in Birju had gained a fair understanding of how the world of spies and subterfuge worked. He had also begun to cultivate a friendship with some of the journalists and photographers who hung out outside the family home in the hope of snagging a candid photograph or impromptu interview.

He knew what they were really interested in and with time and increasing job dissatisfaction he resolved to give it to them.

When the wedding was announced and the name of the bride was unveiled, super sexy women in three states threatened to kill themselves. Because his father had chosen the homely, slightly overweight daughter of one of his favourite directors as his only son’s bride. The younger man was not pleased with the decision until he realised that his clueless wife would never suspect him of any of the dalliances he planned to continue after they were married.

The city and the rest of the country was scanning every inch of printed and televised material about the wedding for details, clues and the roulette that was the guest list. The family was going out of its way to coax or coerce family and friends to avoid talking to the media. Everyone involved was confident that the larger leaks were being contained so they were assured a profitable sale for the wedding photos and video.

In addition to clearing living and cooking space for the pros that were being imported from the far reaches of the country to feed the rich and famous guests at the various wedding ceremonies, Birju was deep in negotiations that would guarantee his future and that of his wife and son back home in the village. He understood the how, he understood the where and he understood the when. He smuggled the small devices of many colours into his own tiny living quarters and waited until the lights had been strung up and flowers of four different varieties had begun to play havoc with the mistress’s allergies. When the coast was clear he installed the cameras and listening devices in the spots agreed upon with the people paying him.

He assumed that he was helping them get exclusive and candid photographs. He imagined that those clandestine shots would serve as a coup as well a negation of the official pictures that the family was selling for an exorbitant sum. The woman who sold him on the deal told him it was common practice for rival publications to try and undercut the winning bidder by sneaking devices in and acquiring their own pictures at a much lower cost. What he didn’t know was that the data gathered would be used for three different purposes.

On the actual days of the wedding, all Birju had to do was hide the devices while flowers and other decorations were changed. On the one occasion he got scolded by the master of the house for dawdling, he cheered himself up with the memory of the money he would make. During a brief lull in activity he allowed himself to leaf through the currency notes he had been advanced.

And then it was done.

The guests left for the last time, the servants stretched their aching muscles after finally clearing out the flowers and lights and leftovers. Birju worked quickly to retrieve the cameras and listening devices and he got the very last one just as the master stepped into one of the rooms. He got a suspicious look from the screen legend but his pretence of dusting the nearest table was enough to allay the big man’s suspicions especially since he was already relishing the prospect of sifting through all the presents the guests had left behind. He hurriedly locked the door behind Birju and instructed his wife to hand him the envelopes with cash first.

Birju couldn’t have explained why he did what he did.

It wasn’t only because the mistress supervised how much food the servants ate each day. It wasn’t because he had been denied leave when his father was very ill because the master had a cold and couldn’t function without his ginger tea several times a day. It also wasn’t because he knew that their son was playing fast and loose with the emotions of several girls during any given week.

It wasn’t any one thing but they were all definitely motivating factors in Birju’s selling out of his employers.

When all the audio had been collated and the grainy video put together in a watchable sequence they exposed several secrets the common man would never have suspected. Three business deals, fourteen sexual peccadilloes and the true state of the groom’s parent’s marriage came to light in no uncertain terms.

The family lost friendships faster than the Indian cricket team lost wickets during important games. Despite his frantic calls to various injured parties, nobody believed that the master of the house had no clue about the hidden cameras and listening devices. The stock markets crashed to an alarming low based on the information that came to light about those business deals and everybody in one famous spiritual healer’s family was unable to ever look at him the same way again after video proof of his peculiar infidelities lit up the Internet.

It wasn’t meant to be the most infamous wedding of the year but it turned out that way because of how many people were exposed as less than the stellar examples of humanity they presented themselves as. The groom’s mother moved out of the family home soon after the video of her bickering with her husband hit a major television network.

Four weeks after the heat from the exposes had died down, the Income tax department came calling.

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