At six thirty, Arvind is supposed to take over, but he’s often late. It frustrates Ajay, his colleague’s sloppiness, but he’s also grateful for a little more time, to see Sunny’s friends arrive, to see the nights he knows the embers of take their first spark.
Relieved of duty, Ajay returns to his room, showers, changes, puts on new clothes he has bought from the market—shirts and trousers he’d never wear in the mountains. He takes his dinner at the small table at the back of the central kitchen, eats slowly without conversation, going over the events of the day, then he’s free to walk the streets. From seven thirty until ten most nights he memorizes the nearby roads, studies the shops, gets to know the neighborhood. He sits awhile at a chai shop or on a bench, watching people come and go, feeding stray dogs any kitchen scraps he could gather. He keeps moving, releasing the static energy of the day, fighting, in these hours, his loneliness, his longing for the mountains, for a path to climb, a forest to disappear inside. He walks as far as AIIMS, wanders the hospital grounds; something about the poor crowds desperate for some medicine, for news of a loved one’s fate, makes him feel perversely safe. His face is bathed in the green neon of all the pharmacies lined up outside. He returns home. Yes, it’s home now. He remembers the auto driver who helped him on his first day. He fantasizes about meeting him again, bumping into him in the street, showing the man his gratitude, buying him a meal, revealing how far he’s come up in the world. Maybe the driver—what was his name?!—would invite him back home, he’d meet his family, be welcomed in by them, sit in the park with their son, maybe there would be a daughter, a niece. He tries to imagine something solid beyond that point, but he cannot remember the driver’s face anymore, let alone his name.
* * *
—
Three months into Ajay’s service, Mr. Dutta calls him to his office.
“You work evenings now too,” he says. “In the evenings you serve Sunny when he entertains his guests. Can you do it? Day and night?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ll have some extra hours in the day to sleep. Remember, you see nothing.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Nothing leaves that apartment.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your salary is now fifteen thousand a month.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“OK, go.”
“Sir?”
“What is it?”
“What happened to Arvind?”
“That joker? I had to cut his balls off.”
* * *
—
In these new and fantastic nights, Ajay witnesses the glory of what he’s only seen echoes of before: the glamorous flames illuminating the apartment, igniting it with music and words and drunken howls, which seem to grow wilder and more extraordinary by the hour. In these flooded nights he sees the disintegration of some of the most beautiful people he has known, invisible as the crowds argue and laugh and debate and howl and kiss and fight and jump around. The men insult one another and tell stories. The women insult the men and tell jokes. People stop and peer over mirrors, fall into huddles of gossip and laughter, dive into the pool.
“Ajay.” He has become a name. To be called and used. Turned on like a tap. Turned off again.
His name ringing out, hands raised, shaking empty glasses.
Ajay scurrying, refreshing their drinks, bringing fresh ice, cleaning the spills away.
He’s a master of this. He discovers who is kind and who is cruel and makes a note to take care of cruelty first.
But Sunny.
Sunny is above them all.
Without Sunny, nothing exists. One invisible hand rests on his master’s beating heart.
The gathering becomes riotous. Sunny tells the story of how Ajay came into being. “He was found in the mountains.” To much laughter. “He’s seen everything. Everything. Why do you think I got him here?”
In the middle of the evening, food is demanded. Ajay calls down to the kitchen. What can be made? Very serious now. Can we make it? Can it be done? Running down to the kitchen he’s struck by how quiet it is, how the enormous building sleeps, how the staff sweep around in gilded silence, how desire spills like blood from Sunny’s high life. Bring the food up, arrange it in the kitchen, serve it in bowls, arrange the plates, make sure everyone is served. Fresh roti with white butter. Chicken. Burgers and fries. Mutton biryani.
And sometimes he is sent out to pick up food from outside. He goes with one of the drivers in one of the many cars. Someone will say, “I want kebabs from Aap Ki Khatir,” “Go to Karol Bagh for Chicken Changezi,” and he’ll ride in the steaming Delhi night with the driver and see the city from this place of power, gliding down the streets, listening to the driver hold forth on the universe, watching all the millions of faces like his, but without his fate or luck. And he strides into these places to collect the food, pays for it from the roll of notes that has been handed to him so carelessly. He learns to check whether the order is right, to make sure the food is fresh and hot, he waits on the moment he pulls out the notes, letting the restaurant know he serves a big man, and in the very best restaurants, where the bill is more than his monthly wage, he learns the power of a name, where a nobody like him is now treated with careful respect. He assumes the manner. He is becoming a Wadia man.
* * *
—
Often they’ll vacate abruptly. Cut the music or the movie midway and pile out the door. He might be in the middle of serving food. He might be fixing someone’s drink. But they go and Ajay is left alone, standing motionless in the silence, savoring the debris, savoring his life, before setting to work cleaning things so it will be spotless when Sunny returns. They could be back within the hour, or they won’t be back at all. He’ll go to bed with his phone and beeper next to his ear, waiting for Sunny to call. It’s not always like this. There are low, slow days when Sunny doesn’t get out of bed until the afternoon. Where it’s just the two of them, Ajay serving tea and Sunny melancholy or rude. Days when Ajay knows to stay out of his way. There are days of women too. Ones he recognizes from the raucous nights. Turning up to see Sunny alone.
10.
A year passes in this rhythm, wanting for nothing, no time to think. He attends one of the gyms in the neighboring basti, a crumbling and swaggering box of testosterone and camaraderie, with a tin roof and old jury-rigged machines, a hub for migrant domestic servants and local braves. As a Wadia man, he’s afforded extraordinary respect. No one forces him from the treadmill. No one teases his bench press and bar pull. No one asks questions. He takes his hour each day, building himself up with the weights. He goes running in the Deer Park in the morning, when he can, like the rich people do. In the mirror of the gym he repeats a name.