—
She watched this speech with an underwater detachment. He wore a casual dark brown linen summer suit, crisp white shirt, black tie. His rakish black hair fell about his face, his dark, almond eyes shone feverishly. His thick beard, neatly groomed, cut close to his skin, gave him a scholarly, revolutionary look. He kept running his hair back with his hand. He was tall, rangy, athletic. But she couldn’t get a fix on him. While his accent seemed to belong to some international nowhere, there was a coarse rustic vigor to his speech that a few years of self-improvement couldn’t hide. She liked it.
The tension of him.
She looked around the table and recognized some of the guests: a hotshot video artist, a model turned photographer, a Bengali director of short experimental films, a young fashion designer. She had interviewed a few of them for the paper. Here they all were at the altar of Sunny. She guessed he was bankrolling them too. She wondered if they would give him the time of day otherwise. But he was, and they were, and that’s how the world worked. But beyond that, God, he was magnetic. Hari was now absorbed in the group. She knew she should introduce herself, but she became reluctant, shy. “Neda,” Hari called out. She put on a faint smile, waved. A spare chair was found by Hari’s side. Vodka was passed over. There were nods and looks of recognition among Neda and some of the people she’d interviewed. Recognition and what? Disapproval? She felt inferior to them all. Everyone was at ease, and she was out of place. Hari made up a plate of meats and salad and dumplings for her and she began to eat because she was so hungry and stoned, and she glanced at Sunny and looked away when he glanced back at her.
* * *
—
She did what she knew to do. A schoolgirl trick. She stood and stepped to the threshold of the restaurant and lit a cigarette, staring into the concrete of the deserted underground arcade, tapped her cigarette out a few times, waited, twisted the tip of her shoe into the small pieces of gravel.
Waited . . .
She felt someone behind her.
She could tell it wasn’t Hari.
“I have a question,” she said.
She was gambling . . . but yes. Sunny was holding a bottle of vodka and two shot glasses. He passed one glass and filled it.
“What’s that?”
“Why would you want to shove a diamond up Prince Charles’s ass?”
He laughed.
“Seems a bit excessive,” she went on.
“It’s a metaphor.”
“Yeah, but is it?”
He gave a casual shrug. “I’m just playing to the crowd.”
“I’ll give you that.” She glanced back at the room, caught Hari’s eye a moment. “You have them eating out of your palm.”
“And you?”
“I’m a cynic.”
“So you weren’t impressed?”
“I didn’t say that. You certainly talk a good game.”
“But you want to see if my money’s where my mouth is?”
She offered her hand. “I’m Neda.”
He offered the pinky of his shot-glass hand back at her. “Sunny.”
She shook it with her thumb and forefinger. “Yeah, I know who you are.”
“Neda?” he turned the name over.
“It’s Persian.”
“And you are . . . ?” he leaned back as if to reexamine her.
“Punjabi as they come.”
“So let me guess.” He furrowed his brow as if he were a vaudeville mind reader. “Your parents are leftist liberal intellectual types who don’t believe in religion, caste, or class.”
“Wow! You’re good at this!”
“Actually, I interrogated Hari when he asked if he could bring a friend.”
“Ah, so that’s how he talks about my parents?”
“No, no. He said only nice things. He loves you, by the way. How come I never heard of you before?”
“He’s been hiding me in his past life. The one that wasn’t cool.”
They both looked back at Hari. He was goofing around, telling a story to the gang.
“If he was friends with you he was always cool.”
“Oh, smooth.” She changed the subject. “Anyway, what’s up with your name. Wadia. You’re not Parsi, are you?”
“No.”
“So?”
“There’s a story to that. I’ll tell you sometime.”
“Tell me now.”
“It’s too intimate.” He removed a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket—Treasurer London—and offered her one.
“This is an intimate setting.” She took a cigarette. “Looks fancy.” Crunched the one she was smoking underfoot. He lit the new one with his Zippo. She nodded to the lighter. “Can I see?”
It was silver, engraved. She read the writing on the front. “70–71.”
“It’s from Vietnam.”
“Oh, no way! You fought in the war?”
She said it so earnestly, with such a straight face, he almost fell for it.
“Very funny.”
She flipped it over, narrowed her eyes, read the other side. “35 Kills. If You’re Recovering My Body, Fuck You.” She handed it back. “Charming.”
He opened it to show the inner chimney, diagonally cut away. “See this?”
“What am I looking at?”
“It was cut like that to light opium pipes.”
“You’re into opium?”
“No, no. I’m just a student of history.”
“Ah, I see.” She had to hide her amusement. His use of the term was quaint, gauche.
He picked up on it.
“So what are you doing standing out here?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. Separating myself from the herd.”
“I get it. You’re a loner, like me.”
She laughed. “Yeah, just like you. You’re the loneliest guy in the room.”
“Where are you from?” he went on.
He had that look a guy gives, a look of pursuit.
“Right here. Delhi. I’ve lived here all my life. I’ll probably die here too. What about you?”
“Me? I’m a citizen of the world.”
“A student of history and a citizen of the world,” she teased. “Next you’ll be telling me you studied at the university of life.”
She detected some kind of hurt in his eyes—she’d slighted him.
She knocked back the vodka to do something with herself.
He was still watching her intently.
She smiled as he refilled her glass.
“You look like you want to kill me.”
He said nothing.
“I did enjoy your speech though,” she went on. “I mean it. It was rousing. Even the cynic in me was roused.”
“What do you do?” he said.
She decided to stop playing. She fixed him with a firm, cool look.
“I’m a journalist. I write for the Post.”
He met her gaze. “I better watch what I say.”
She was aware—intensely aware, intensely aware that the rest of the room was probably aware—that they were staring into each other’s eyes.
“I’m off duty,” she said.
“No one’s ever off duty.”
Before she could reply, one of the girls at the table cried out his name.
Neda nodded at the room. “They’re missing their hero.”
He broke eye contact, turned to go back in. “You can smoke in there too, you know.”
“You go ahead,” she said. “We wouldn’t want to start a rumor.”
* * *