Ajay circles Sunny for the next few days. Sunny closing himself off, Ajay performing his tasks with clipped professionalism. But he can barely look in the mirror anymore. He can’t sleep at night for thinking of what he’s done. He returns to the edge of the field, running and hiding while his sister screams for him. He hears her now as she’s taken away. He sees that cockroach in the earth. His cowardice defines him. The little runaway. He knows why his mother sent him away. His appearance begins to fray. Sunny watches him the whole time. Ajay fears he will be sent away. Cast out of the Wadia home.
“You really want to find her?” Sunny says out of the blue one morning, when Ajay carries the coffee into his room.
He doesn’t hesitate to reply.
“I do.”
“How?” Sunny asks. “How will you find her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you even know where you’re from?”
“I think I grew up near that place we went.”
“The sugar mill?”
“I recognized the land.”
“That looks like a lot of places.”
“But I felt it, sir.”
Sunny weighs this up.
“I can’t let you go,” Sunny says. “I need you here. Things are going to happen soon.”
Ajay nods once, turns to the door.
“Wait.”
And Ajay does.
“Write everything you remember,” Sunny says. “Names. Landmarks. Schools, temples. The names of people. Anyone.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll see what I can find.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“In the meantime, I need you by my side.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’re flying to Goa tomorrow.”
* * *
—
That night Ajay sits up in bed and writes it all down. He writes everything he thinks he knows, the sight of the mountains from his hut, the shape of the fields, the school and the farmland and the temple, the long-forgotten names of places nearby, local names, the name of his schoolmaster, the name of his father and mother, and finally, finally, the names of the two big men, Rajdeep and Kuldeep Singh.
* * *
—
He hands the folded sheet to Sunny when they board the flight, as Ajay passes Sunny in first class to take his economy seat. Ajay can think of nothing on the way down but those two men, that place of his long-forgotten nightmares, all those things he spent his lifetime leaving behind.
* * *
—
They stay in a five-star resort hotel on the edge of the capital, Panaji, in one of the beachfront villas, with a servant’s room. Wednesday and Thursday are spent at Sunny’s side during different meetings in the city. In the evenings, after Sunny has attended the obligatory business dinners, he sits alone in the garden of the villa, staring out over the wall to the sea. He barely speaks, he doesn’t eat or drink.
On Friday, Ajay is charged with renting a small car and a Royal Enfield motorcycle, to be paid for in cash. In the afternoon Sunny tells him to go and book a room in a cheap city hotel, the Windmill. Then he gives Ajay a flight number. “Go to the airport in the rental car,” Sunny says. “Neda Madam’s flight lands at eight p.m.”
* * *
—
There is a great comfort in seeing Neda come out the arrivals door and fight her way through the taxi drivers. He’s been waiting a little way off; he pushes through the scrum and takes her luggage, and she smiles at him shyly, with great familiarity. She places a hand on his shoulder as they walk to the small car, a Maruti with local plates, without a word.
He asks her to sit in front, so the police don’t think that he’s an illegal taxi driver.
It’s strange, having her next to him.
For a moment he can take a flight of fancy—scandalous, unbearable to hold it for more than a second—that he is Sunny himself, that Neda is his, that he has a normal life, a life where he is in control.
With Neda back in Sunny’s life he feels things might resolve themselves for the good.
“Is this your first time in Goa, Ajay?” she says.
It comes out of the blue.
He likes it when she uses his name.
“No, madam.”
There is a safety in calling her madam.
They fall into silence again.
“Actually, madam,” he says awhile later, surprised that he’s talking unprompted, “I worked here before.”
“Really, you did?” she says, genuinely interested. “When?”
He feels shy. “Before.”
She laughs quietly. “Where?”
“Arambol.”
“Nice beach. In a shack?”
“Yes, madam.”
“With friends?”
“Yes.”
“Will you see them this time?”
“Madam,” he says, “I’m here to work.”
And they fall into silence again.
* * *
—
He delivers her to the hotel as planned and takes his leave. He goes back to Sunny’s five-star, parking the local car in a residential street some distance away, alongside the Royal Enfield, and walking to the property, going through the metal detector, placing his gun in the tray, showing his license. He goes to the servant quarter in Sunny’s villa and waits. Sits on the bed, bolt upright, hands on thighs, his eyes closed, as if he’s meditating, thinking of Neda with him in the car, the warm wind blowing, no words. Then he’s picturing her trapped while she’s being attacked. Remembering the feeling of his fists pummeling her attackers. It’s the first time he’s really examined it. His teeth clench, his hands ball up into fists. He feels every blow, again and again, the commitment Eli talked about, the commitment to violence. What is it about her? His attachment. It is not desire. Is it mere protectiveness? Solidarity. Maybe. Or perhaps it is envy? He’s envious of the closeness she shares with Sunny. A place he cannot reach. He opens his eyes before he gets too lost. Curls up on the bed. Tries to sleep. At midnight he gets a message from Sunny. Bring the Enfield to the hotel at five a.m.
* * *
—
It’s a pleasure driving slowly through the dawn city on the Enfield, the warm air brushing over his face, the chop of the mighty engine reverberating through the empty streets bathed in the sulfur glow of streetlights. He waits outside the reception as the sky grows pale. Then they are here. He hands over the keys. The tank is full of petrol. Sunny’s license is in the zipper pouch above the tank. Everything has been taken care of.
“Ajay,” Neda says, “why don’t you go see your friends?” She looks at Sunny. “Don’t you think that will be all right?”
“Be back here tomorrow night,” Sunny tells him. “Seven p.m.”
Then they’re gone.
* * *
—
He waits until they are out of sight, imagining himself a solid, stoic presence should they happen to look back, should they, for some reason, need to turn around and return to him. He waits a little longer, until the thundering engine is inaudible. At that moment he turns on his heel and goes inside to settle the bill and, when everything is settled, walks the five kilometers back to the five-star hotel.
He has thirty-six hours.