It was Tinu.
“You were at the farmhouse all night, in the villa. Put that in your mind. There’s Valium by your bedside, the correct dose. Go to bed, take the pills, close your eyes.”
“Did you tell Papa?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell him I did it for him?”
“Just go to bed.”
“What did he say?”
“Give the phone back to Eli.”
“What did he say?”
“He’ll come to you soon.”
3.
Sleep.
Noon sun drifting to set.
The rays still soaking the bed.
The damp sheets drying out.
In the kitchen the ice-cold vodka down his throat until he can’t take it anymore.
He opens the sliding door and walks barefoot to the pool, tastes the sun through his skin, and thinks things like: a new dawn. Drinks from the bottle and walks around the pool slowly three times. Walks back inside into the bedroom, takes the coke and his wallet into the bathroom. Locks the door and removes the huge mirror from the wall, lays it down on the floor, wipes the mirror clean with damp toilet paper, dries it assiduously with more, pours out half the gram. Crouched in his boxers, straddling the mirror, reeking of vodka, cutting lines, staring into himself, muttering, puffing. On his knees. A long line. A long slug of vodka. A long line. A slug of vodka. A line. And the shock of the pool. The thumping of his heartbeat. What was he searching for? The cold water, the bright sun, his burning mind, his body out of time, the vodka numbing his pain, the coke making him brave. He remained underwater as long as he could, his heart hammering, looking up at the sun . . .
* * *
—
. . . looking down at the wreck of Gautam’s Mercedes, Gautam unconscious inside, Neda crying over the dead bodies, urging him to do something. What could he do? What was he supposed to do? What more? What could anyone expect of him? Take charge, call an ambulance, call the police, try to help the dead and dying while he waits for the authorities to arrive?
Really?
Laughable.
Absurd.
Maybe in Sweden.
But this is India.
If he’d stayed, a mob would have had them.
This is India.
Yeh India hain.
Here’s another version: they watch the crash and just . . . drive on.
Drive on as if nothing ever happened. No contact. No engagement.
Gautam left to his fate.
That would have been something.
To keep driving through the night. Drive on to Chandigarh. Then what? To the mountains, stop for breakfast at Giani Da Dhaba, go on, all the way to Jalori, to Baga Sarahan. They slaughter a goat. Stay for a week, a month.
And then what?
Stay up there forever? Run farther? He and Neda. Start a new life, free of everything? Another country, another city, a humble life.
A regular job.
Imagine it.
Neda comes home to find he’s quit, he’s been drinking all day. She’s had enough. She screams at him. He slaps her. She spits at him, throws a plate. He grabs her raised hand with his left fist, punches her in the ribs.
See how that worked out.
No, there is no way out of this.
There is no way.
* * *
—
He bursts from inside the pool. And his father is standing there, right above, at the villa end, the sun in his face, a navy suit, black shades, a solid, stark figure in the winter haze. He’s been watching him. How long? How much does he know?
Now neither of them moves, nor do they speak.
Until Bunty raises his hand, motions ever so slightly for Sunny to approach.
That’s all it takes.
Sunny slides toward him.
Everything is keenly felt.
The cold water, the weak sun on his back, the light shimmering on the surface, bouncing off the villa windows. And his father, the bright, dark center of everything.
He reaches the edge, looks up.
“Papa . . .”
Then it happens.
Bunty holds out his hand.
Holds it there, palm open, waiting.
For Sunny to take it.
To be pulled into a new life.
* * *
—
He feels a cold, hard certainty blooming inside him, which he hopes will never leave. His father’s hand on the scruff of his neck, guiding him inside.
In the bathroom he looks down at the mirror on the floor, the remnants of lines, the baggie still half full.
“That poison,” his father says. “You don’t need that poison anymore.”
Sunny doesn’t say anything in reply, he just watches the coke.
“Flush it,” comes the command.
Even now, he’s thinking about saving something somehow.
One last line.
“Put the mirror back on the wall.”
He does.
He won’t look at himself until he does.
When he does, he sees.
There’s nothing there.
He showers with scorching water once his father is gone.
Combs his hair.
Dresses in a crisp white shirt and wool pants.
* * *
—
When he comes into the living room his father is sitting in one of the armchairs smoking a cigarette, his great hulking mass so at ease with itself, one leg over the other, head tilted to the ceiling in an aspect of poised contemplation.
“Sit.”
Sunny sits on the footstool, far too small, diminishing himself.
“Papa, I . . .”
Bunty holds up his hand. “Don’t speak. There’s nothing to say.”
Silence. In the warm shadow.
He goes on.
“You cannot undo what’s done.”
Sunny feels his throat narrowing, clogging, burning.
“I did it for you,” he says.
He just might break down. He wants these words to be believed over everything.
“It was smart thinking with the Polaroid.” Bunty taps out his cigarette ash. “Did you sleep?”
Sunny composes himself, nods meekly.
Bunty nods along too. “It was a bad night. But it could have been far worse. And now I know something very important.”
Sunny’s eyes dart around the floor as he waits. Bunty, in no rush, only stares into his son’s anguished face.
“What, Papa?” Sunny whispers.
Bunty leans forward. “That you know what it means to be ruthless.”
Sunny wells up, all but cries.
Satisfied, Bunty leans back in his chair. “Why don’t you make yourself a drink?”
But Sunny shakes his head. “I’m fine.”
His father studies his broken expression, his downturned eyes.
The coke is losing its power.
The yawning emptiness is swallowing him.
“Where is he?” Sunny asks.
“Who?”
“Gautam?”
“He’s far away now.”
“What will happen to him?”
“He’ll become useful.”
He daren’t ask.
But he has to.
“What did he say?”
Bunty feigns ignorance. “About what?”
About what? About what a fool I’ve been. Exposing myself to him, being played for fun.