Arrival

Dubai International Airport, transit area.

Aditya's flight would not arrive until the next morning. He had to spend the night at Dubai Airport.

Back in Mumbai, Rafiq had made it very clear: Aditya only had to wait in Dubai, and someone would exchange the money and bring it to him.

Of course, Aditya could not leave India carrying fistfuls of US dollars. If he really tried that, he would not be going to Israel, but to an interrogation room at Mumbai Airport.

So the biggest concern on this trip for Aditya was not buying a plane ticket, but waiting for the money to "walk" over on its own.

In India in 1992, the authorities enforced strict foreign exchange controls. Under the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act implemented in 1973, rupees could not be converted into foreign currency without permission from the Reserve Bank of India.

This left Indian residents unable to legally obtain foreign currency and restricted their travel abroad. Overseas travelers had to obtain foreign currency through specific channels, while ordinary people mostly relied on the black market.

Aditya had only a little spending money and a few sheets of traveler's checks on him. The real bulk of the money, in US dollars, was going through hawala.

Aditya had first handed the money to Rafiq in Mumbai, and Rafiq then used hawala to bypass Indian customs. He moved the money illicitly to Dubai, exchanged it for Israeli shekels, and had it delivered to Aditya.

Aditya had worked in finance in his previous life, but he had only ever encountered things like hawala in reports. Now that he was using it himself, he finally understood just how sweet a deal it was.

Hawala was a transfer system operating in the foreign exchange black market. The funds did not need to cross borders or pass through banks. People in a few different places made some phone calls, and the money moved from one country to another. Settlement was then handled through smuggled goods or other offsetting transactions.

Hawala could bypass strict foreign exchange controls, left no official records, and was relatively discreet. Transactions were usually faster than through regular banks, with better exchange rates to boot.

Wasn't this just the Indian government forcing its Indian bros to exchange money on the black market?

Not really. The Indian bros would tell you exactly what "our great India has its own national circumstances" meant.

Based on what Aditya knew of the Indian bros, and assuming the worst possible intentions, people like Rafiq were very likely fronts for certain people openly serving in the authorities.

Because Aditya could sense that India's black market was not necessarily black, and its white market certainly was not white either.

As Aditya walked through the transit area, he recalled what Rafiq had told him on the last day.

At the time, the dark, skinny man had sat with his legs crossed, smoking a cigarette as he said indistinctly:

"When you get to Dubai, find the third seat against the wall diagonally opposite Gate D8 and sit down. My man will come to you. He'll be holding an Indian newspaper in English. He'll ask whether Mumbai is hot, and you say it's cooler than Kanpur. He'll give you an envelope. Inside will be the Israeli shekels we've exchanged for you, and a business card. You don't have to do anything. Just take it and put it away safely. There's a sheet of paper in the envelope telling you what to say when you reach Israel. Read it yourself."

The air-conditioning in Dubai Airport was strong. After walking for a while, Aditya reached the gates in Zone D. He found the third seat against the wall that Rafiq had mentioned.

Aditya walked briskly over, placed his suitcase by his feet, and sat down.

He first scanned his surroundings. There were not many people making connections in the middle of the night. A few Arab men nearby were leaning together, dozing, while a Western woman was kissing her white husband.

After he had waited for ten-odd minutes, an Indian man ambled over from the airport duty-free shops.

The man looked to be in his thirties. He was dark and skinny, wore a gray shirt, and had his trousers pulled up high at the waist. As expected, he was holding an English-language newspaper. As though he had finished reading and had nothing else to do, he slowly sat down beside Aditya.

Without looking at Aditya, the man asked quietly in Hindi, "Is Mumbai hot?"

Aditya was utterly speechless. He felt as though he had become a spy.

"Cooler than Kanpur."

Still, Aditya answered as arranged.

The man said nothing more after hearing this. He folded the newspaper, placed it in Aditya's lap, and said, "Read the paper for a bit. Wait here for me."

Then the man stood up and hurried away.

Only after he had gone some distance did Aditya pick up the newspaper to look at it. He found a yellow envelope wrapped inside.

Aditya did not rush to open it. He went to the restroom first.

Once the stall door was shut, he tore open the envelope. Inside were a dozen or so banknotes. He counted them: 4,600 shekels in total, plus 200 US dollars in small bills. At Israel's 1992 prices, that was enough for two weeks of accommodation and meals, as well as taxi fares.

There were two other things in the envelope. One was a business card, black lettering on a white background, with English on one side and Hebrew on the other. It belonged to a Jewish man named Yair Ben-Zeev, with an address in Jaffa, Israel, whose company dealt in clothing accessories. The other was a folded note. When he opened it, he found precautions for entering the country written on it.

After reading it, Aditya put the note and business card back in the envelope and tucked it into his leather bag along with the cash.

Only after reading the note did Aditya learn that this man, Yair, had been paid to vouch for him when he entered the country. The business card was for the border control officer to see.

A young Indian man flying to Israel via Dubai could consider himself lucky if he was only stopped and questioned for three to five hours when he had no suitable reason for the trip.

With Yair vouching for him, Aditya was a businessman legally traveling to Israel. Only then could his trip to Israel proceed smoothly.

Aditya left the restroom, returned to his seat, and sat down.

As the night deepened, Aditya placed his suitcase in front of him, hugged his leather bag to his chest, and leaned over the suitcase to sleep.

Aditya remained groggy without ever truly falling asleep. However brightly lit Dubai Airport was, it was no safe house. Sleeping in the airport, he stayed tense at all times, and leaning forward was uncomfortable too. He could not sleep properly at all.

Aditya woke several times. Once, an announcement sounded, and he hurriedly opened his eyes, but it was not his flight.

The second time, he heard someone speaking beside him. Only when he opened his eyes did he realize that a security guard was standing nearby, a radio clipped to his waist.

Near dawn, Aditya got up, washed his face, and bought a sandwich and a bottle of water at a coffee shop.

Dubai Airport's prices were brutal enough to make anyone check their change twice.

Looking at the bill, Aditya silently cursed and paid.

By the time he finished eating, an announcement sounded too. The flight to Tel Aviv had arrived.

Dragging his suitcase and carrying his leather bag, Aditya went to complete the boarding procedures.

When boarding, Aditya stood toward the back of the line, holding his passport and boarding pass. When his turn came, the ground staff member looked at his passport, then his boarding pass, before saying, "Enjoy your flight."

Aditya gave a "Mm" in response.

His seat on the plane was by the window. The sun rose in the east, dazzlingly bright.

Aditya squinted at it, then fastened his seat belt. Only when the plane began moving did he breathe a sigh of relief.

As the plane began taking off, Aditya tilted his head to look out the window. Dubai below slowly shrank into a gray-white expanse.

Aditya withdrew his gaze, closed his eyes, and soon fell asleep.

Over the past few days, Aditya had traveled from Kanpur to Mumbai, then from Mumbai to Dubai, and now he was going from Dubai to Tel Aviv. He truly was exhausted.