“Oh, he was a fiend.”
“And what did the two of you talk about, broadly speaking?”
“What all boys talk about. How it would be better for us if our fathers were dead.”
“Would that be better for you?”
“It wasn’t really about me.” He flicks his cigarette over the edge of the terrace. “Is he dead?”
“Your father?”
“Sunny.”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I suppose I am . . .”
“You don’t have any loyalty.”
“It would have been quite dramatic. Loyalty? To Sunny? No. I don’t have loyalty to anyone.” He swallows the whisky, then taps his glass. “Drink.”
“No.”
Gautam stares at the empty glass, the soft sun, the terrace, the desert beyond. “I’m tired.”
“We’re all tired.”
“But no one is quite as tired as me.”
“What do you know about Sunny’s father?”
“Now there’s a question.”
The wind blows softly through Chandra’s silken hair. He removes a mobile phone from his jacket pocket. He dials a number, puts the phone to his ear. Waits a moment. “Yes,” he says, “he’s here.”
He places the phone on the table in front of them, puts it on speaker.
Gautam sits staring at it, waiting.
No voice comes.
Instead, Chandra takes hold of the manila envelope by his side, opens it, removes five large photographic prints from inside. Places them facedown on the table. Keeps his finger on them a moment. Then slides them across to Gautam.
“What is this?” Gautam glances uneasily at the phone, listening to the silence on the other end.
“See for yourself.”
“No,” he says childishly, “I don’t want to.”
No one speaks. No one moves.
Until a slow, narcotic voice emerges from the phone.
It says, “Turn them over.”
Gautam’s stomach drops.
“I don’t want to.” He runs both hands through his hair. “Give me a drink.”
“Turn them over.”
“It would really only take a second,” Chandra says amiably, “for Eli to throw you over the edge. I believe he’s already made the offer. And honestly, no one would think twice about your suicide now. Not with your blood alcohol levels the way they are. Not after the life you’ve led. Not after what you did last night.”
“Give me a drink.”
“And once it was done, everything would come out in the press.”
Gautam is shivering. “I haven’t done anything.”
“Turn them over,” the voice says. “And you’ll have all the drink you want.”
Gautam closes his eyes.
Places his hands on the paper.
Holds the edges.
Turns them round.
* * *
—
Bodies. Dead bodies. Dead bodies mangled and strewn over the road. Limbs broken and contorted, eyes wide open, lips curled in horrible smiles, teeth showing, eyeballs white, blood smears in flashbulbs. Police photos. Bodies on the sidewalk, bodies in rags, and a car, his car, his Mercedes, his license plate. Bodies. A teenage girl in rags, blood seeping from the void between her legs. Bodies. Now lined up in a hospital morgue. Five of them. Shattered and torn. Bodies. And finally, Chandra hands him a Polaroid. And there he is, Gautam Rathore, face crumpled up in an airbag at the wheel.
* * *
—
He turns them all back over, pushes them away so hard they scatter to the floor.
“This isn’t real.”
Chandra pours him that drink now.
Gautam takes it with shaking hands.
Then Chandra takes the phone, turns it off speaker, puts it to his ear, listens a moment, hangs up.
“It wasn’t me,” Gautam whispers. He drains the glass, takes out a cigarette, tries to get up, but he’s dizzy. He sits down again, puts the cigarette in his lips. Chandra leans forward and lights it for him, retrieves the photos from the floor.
“Your car. Your fingerprints. Your face. Witnesses who place you at the scene.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“Surely you must remember now.”
That flash of light.
That servant girl reaching out.
Gautam’s body sags.
Then his chest convulses, he retches.
Chandra stares at one of the photos a long while. Places it on the table. “The girl was pregnant,” he says.
Gautam, empty.
“It wasn’t me.”
Chandra lights his own cigarette.
“It was. It was you. But . . . it doesn’t have to be.”
The words take a long time to become meaningful.
Gautam looks up.
“What?”
“Mr. Rathore. What if, by some miracle, it was not you.”
He blinks stupidly. “What?”
“You’ll be arrested soon enough. That is, if you don’t jump. The police will take you in, I can assure you of that. You will go to jail. You can protest all you like, concoct strange stories, try to blame others, but that will only make things worse. Have you been to jail? I’m not sure you’re suited. At least, not without money. Your family won’t help you. Sunny’s line of credit has expired. It’s true you have your status, that will protect you to a point. But you also have enemies now. Would you like to be an enemy of my employer? Do you know what that means? We can make life quite miserable for you.” He pauses. “But what if it weren’t true? What if you could turn back the hands of time?” Chandra places the photos back into the manila envelope. “At present there is a young man in police custody, waiting to go to court. He has volunteered to take the blame, at great personal cost. He could just as easily change his statement, and this Polaroid of you could just as easily go to the press and the police.”
Gautam closes his eyes.
“What do you want me to do?”
“That’s the spirit.”
“Just tell me.”
“We want you . . . to get better.”
Gautam looks up, screws his face.
“What?”
“There’s a car waiting downstairs. Eli will show you to it. Inside there’s a suitcase, your passport, other small effects, an amount of money to help you on your way, not that you’ll need it, but it’s psychological. You’ll drive to Jaipur. From there you’ll take a private jet to Bombay. From Bombay you’ll fly to Geneva. Your visa is in order.”
“It is?”
“Once there you will be escorted to a clinic. A lovely place in the mountains, conducive to recovery.”
“Recovery?”
“From your vices, Mr. Rathore.”
“You’re sending me to rehab?”
“And you will stay there as long as it takes. You will work hard at your recovery, with the memory of this night and your liberty etched into your mind. And when you’re fully recovered, be it three or six or eight months or two years if need be, you will return to your family home. You will marry. You will act with honor and propriety. You will take your rightful place as the heir.”
“I don’t understand.”