If only Gautam had as much compassion for Sunny as he did for a stray dog. My memory is dark after that. It comes in pieces. I’m outside on the road on my hands and knees screaming into the pavement. I’m covered in someone else’s blood. I’m cradling the girl who is dying. I can see that she is pregnant. I can feel her hand pressed in mine. I still feel it. Sometimes I wake up and think I’m holding it. I wake up sometimes and I think she’s standing by my bed looking down at me, but that’s only my conscience. On the road, I look down and she has died. The baby could still be saved. Sunny is behind me, and he’s looking down on us all. I stand. I stagger away from him. I see Gautam unconscious in his Mercedes. I think he’s dead too. I can keep telling you what I see and feel, but what difference does it make now? And I don’t even feel it myself. It isn’t happening to me, it’s happening to someone else. I tell Sunny to call an ambulance. I try to pull his phone from his pocket. Mine is still in my bag in the car, I must have left it there. He pushes me away. I cry at him. What the fuck are you doing? Call an ambulance. Call an ambulance. Call somebody. Do something. I’m back where I’ve been before. He turns to Ajay instead and orders him to take something from the car, it’s a Polaroid camera, the one I saw in Goa. He takes a photo of Gautam in the car, then he orders Ajay to pull Gautam out. I think they are going to put him on the roadside. But they take him out and carry him between them and place him into the back of the SUV and I think is this really happening, is this how it happens? I get up and stumble after them. Ajay and Sunny face one another in the road. Sunny has taken a bottle of whisky from the back of the SUV. He keeps a bottle there. He guides Ajay over to the Mercedes. They speak. Ajay hands over his gun and takes the whisky in its place. Then he climbs into the Mercedes and starts to drink, he drinks the bottle until it’s done. And when he’s done, Sunny takes the butt of the gun and smashes it into Ajay’s face. When I cry, Ajay and Sunny both look at me. Then Sunny steps toward me. Nothing in his eyes. I am afraid of him. He closes his fist. He raises his hand.
The next thing I knew, I was in a room. A white little room, clean, bright, with a garden outside and little birds singing. It was midmorning and I was in bed, looking at a man who was a stranger but who I know now as Chandra. There was a small TV mounted on the wall, an electric kettle, a bedside table with a phone. A government guesthouse. That’s how it felt. He’s sitting in an armchair. I think we’ve been talking but I don’t know what about, it occurs to me I don’t know where I am, I can’t remember how I got there. I’m wearing pajamas and my face is sore and bruised but otherwise I’m clean. This is what I remember. He had exceptional manners. He was soothing. He was laying it out for me. He was saying: there’s nothing you could have done, and there’s no profit from dwelling on it. It’s done, my dear. Decisions were made in the heat of the moment and none of them were yours and for that you can be grateful. And rest assured, the decisions that were made were in the interests of everyone. I stared at him blank-eyed. I didn’t have a thought in my head. Then I remembered. He must have noticed. He said: it was a bad night for everyone. I must have expressed a desire to go home because he told me I couldn’t go home just yet. Why not? He told me I was in Amritsar. He said I had driven to Amritsar with friends on a whim in the night. We had wanted to see the border at dawn and eat chole kulcha for breakfast. Such is the life of a carefree young Indian. He handed me the phone and warned me not to complicate my parents’ lives, knowing how sick my father had been. I found it surprisingly easy to lie when my mother came on the phone. I didn’t betray a shred of fear or grief. Just the exhaustion of a young girl who drives to Amritsar on a whim. After the call to my parents, he told me to call in sick at work, to keep it brief. I did as I was told. Then he gave me a glass of nimbu pani. I drank it all and it must have been laced with sedatives.
When I woke it was evening. The sun was setting, the birds outside were in full song. I was groggy. A sweet lady was bringing me a bowl of khichdi. I asked the woman where I was, but she didn’t say. When she left, I heard her lock the door from outside. So I was a prisoner. I didn’t try to escape. Chandra came back just before dark. It took him a moment to get into character. He must have caught that look in my eyes. He crossed his legs and smoothed his thighs with his palms. He said: You want to confess, I know. You want to go to the police and tell them everything. I didn’t agree or disagree. But what will you tell them? What will you actually say? And who will believe you? It had already come down to a question of belief. I asked where Sunny was. “Sunny? He’s on a business trip in Singapore. He has been for the last three days.” I saw where this was going. Gautam? “Mr. Rathore,” he replied, “is far away.” Ajay? He just smiled and shook his head. “Mr. Rathore’s driver is in jail.”
The light outside was almost gone, someone was turning lamps on around the garden, lighting dhoop. “And you’re driving back from Amritsar. You’ll be home soon.” He half stood and turned on the bedside lamp. It cast a deep shadow on his face. I asked him what’s going to happen to me? He said, what do you want to happen? I didn’t know what to say. I really didn’t know. So he told me. It’s time for you to leave, Neda. That’s what you always wanted. You wanted to go and study and live abroad. I said yes, I’m going to Japan. He said why? You can go anywhere now. He told me I’d been dragged into a situation not of my making, which I didn’t fully understand, and it could easily destroy me and my family. Or I could go anywhere. Anywhere at all. I would be given money, an apartment, my tuition would be paid for, the visas would be arranged. I could have a new life now. A happy life. How does that sound? Does that sound reasonable? I was so very tired. Does that sound like something you’d want to do? He handed me a handkerchief from his pocket for my tears. Does it? Neda, dear, does it sound reasonable? He was all kindness. He said all I had to do was forget this night, forget Sunny, forget the last year of my life, never speak about that night, never contact Sunny again. Wipe my slate clean. I was tired. I said yes . . .