His mother burying his charred corpse.
His sister surrounded by those men.
His cowardice in the face of Rajdeep and Kuldeep Singh.
* * *
—
Waiting for the last flight back to Delhi in the night, sitting in the miserable, shining departure lounge of the newly built airport, the flight delayed, both men silent and pensive, Sunny massaging his own neck, looking at messages on his phone, Sunny kicks Ajay in the leg.
“Chutiya,” he says, “you abandoned me today.”
Ajay says nothing.
“What’s your fucking problem?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Bullshit. Do you know how you made me look?”
Ajay lowers his eyes.
“Sorry, sir.”
“What did they say to you?”
“Sir?”
“What did they say?”
“Who?”
“Vicky’s men. Who else, asshole? Did they talk about me?”
“Sir, no one talked.”
Sunny narrows his eyes.
“So, what happened?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“You made me look bad.”
Ajay nods.
“You don’t know what it’s like. You don’t know what it’s like here. With my uncle. You have to toughen up out here. It’s not like Delhi. Nothing is the same.”
* * *
—
Nothing is the same. There’s a ringing in his ears. He tries to let it go. But he can’t clear the sound. He can’t shake the image. The cockroach a messenger, a portal. And now a chord connects him to the child he once was. Time and space folded over, as if to erase the life in between.
13.
Since their trip, Sunny has grown more pensive. He drinks more into the night. He sends Ajay out to buy coke. Sometimes he sends Ajay away at night and when Ajay returns Sunny is still awake in the same place. Then Sunny sleeps until four and wakes up and drinks again before he goes out to see Gautam Rathore.
* * *
—
One foggy morning in January, Sunny wakes early and he wants to run. He’s only had three hours’ sleep, he’s fizzing, restless, maybe still drunk. He looks like hell, but he tells Ajay to take him out to the city woodland of Sanjay Van. It’s seven a.m. Sunny is awkward in track pants and running shirt. He knows it. Does he really want to do this?
“You’re coming too,” he tells Ajay.
Ajay removes his suit jacket, revealing his undershirt and the body beneath. Sunny’s eyes pass over Ajay’s lean muscles, his youth. Is that jealousy?
“Carry the gun,” Sunny says.
It occurs to Ajay that Sunny is scared.
“You work out?” Sunny asks as he performs a few stretches.
Ajay nods.
“Do steroids?”
“No, sir.”
Ajay removes his shoes and socks to run barefoot.
“Keep your shoes on. You’ll cut yourself,” Sunny says.
“Sir, I’m fine.”
“No, you’ll step on a needle. You’ll get fucking AIDS. I don’t want you bringing AIDS into my house. I’ll put you down. Put your fucking shoes on.”
* * *
—
They run for half an hour, Sunny pushing himself hard, punishing himself even, with Ajay at his heels barely breaking a sweat. But he’s glad to be here with him, to share this moment. His brain has been on fire. He feels like this is the end of things. He feels they are both on the verge of collapse.
* * *
—
“Sir?”
“What is it?” Sunny pants.
They have returned to the car.
Ajay wants to speak, but he hesitates, so Sunny switches to English. “What? You’re getting on my nerves.”
“Sir, I want to ask . . .”
He can’t . . .
“Just fucking say it!”
“Sir, what happened to your mother?”
The question stops Sunny dead. The impropriety of it. He’s frozen.
He’s never once spoken of his mother in front of Ajay, and Ajay has never asked such a personal question before, not about this thing or anything.
Stunned, he says, “Who told you about my mother?”
“Nobody,” Ajay replies.
Sunny steps close to Ajay’s face. “Fucker,” he hisses. “Don’t lie to me.”
“It was no one, sir.”
“It was Vicky, wasn’t it?”
“No, sir.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“No one, sir,” he says.
Sunny begins to shout. “Who the fuck told you about my mother? Who do you think you’re talking to?” He removes Ajay’s Glock from its holster. Points it clumsily in Ajay’s face. “I should shoot you right now.”
Ajay doesn’t react, just stares into Sunny’s eyes.
“Don’t forget who you are,” Sunny says.
“Who am I?” Ajay calmly replies.
The words unnerve Sunny more than anything his gun can do.
He lowers the gun, presses it back into Ajay’s hands.
“Get in the car.”
* * *
—
Sunny drives home himself, too fast, too reckless.
When they pull through the gates into the compound and park, Ajay can feel Sunny’s heavy breath.
Still clutching the wheel, he turns to Ajay. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Sunny turns the engine off.
“Why did you ask about my mother?”
Ajay stares at the dashboard.
“No one ever asks about my mother,” Sunny goes on.
He lights a cigarette.
“She’s dead,” he says, blowing on the cigarette.
“Do you think about her?” Ajay asks.
Sunny fights his instinct toward silence.
“I used to think about her a lot. Now I don’t think about her at all.”
“I stopped thinking about my mother too,” Ajay says, “after I came to work for you.” He thinks about it. “Maybe even from before. But she exists.”
Both men are surprised to hear Ajay’s voice so clearly.
“And I remember her now.”
Sunny looks at Ajay as if he were a person for the first time.
“I didn’t even know you had a mother.”
“Everyone has a mother.”
“I thought she was dead.”
Emotion takes hold of him; it looks like he’ll break down. “I’ve done a wrong thing,” Ajay says.
“What thing?”
“When I was a boy,” he speaks the words with great concentration, “my father was killed. To pay a debt I was passed to a thekedar and driven to the mountains and sold. I was supposed to help my mother live, I was supposed to send money home. The man I was sold to told me my wages would be sent to her. He said she would have money and live a good life because of me. But the money wasn’t sent. I always knew it, but I pretended to believe. As I got older, I started to believe this lie. I decided my mother and my elder sister were fine. When I came here, when I started this job, I finally made money, I could do something to help them, but I abandoned them. I forgot.” He gathers himself. “When we saw Vicky-ji, I remembered them. Now I need to find them again.”
Sunny can’t take any more of this.
He throws the door open, climbs out, and Ajay is left alone.
14.