“If they have other cars, I want you to check what kind. If there is luggage being delivered, I want you to find out where it is coming from. If you can get close enough to tell me the brand of his watch, I’ll consider giving you a raise. If his wife comes, I want to know what she is wearing. Everything, Balwinder,” Mr. Chopra had said. “And if I’m at home when they come, you call me immediately.”
During the day, unlike a lot of other homeowners in the neighborhood, the Chopras did not require Balwinder to sit in the booth outside the gate. He usually spent the morning in the shade under the big banyan tree across the gate and napped in his room in the afternoon. Today the Chopras had taken Mr. Chopra’s brother, Upen, who had arrived the previous night, to the LRC for lunch, and Balwinder was waiting for them to return when the Mercedes drove down the lane. The Mukherjees had driven the Chopras mad with their quiet wealth, and he was curious to see what this family would cause. And he wouldn’t mind wooing the pretty maid in the starched sari despite the fact that she looked a lot older than him. Paying for sex—even though Sugandha had breasts that would make the sultriest Bollywood stars jealous—was starting to feel insufficient. He would see Johnny and his friends, all with pretty girls on their arms, coming home night after night and wonder why he didn’t have the right to that. He was young, he was handsome, and he was definitely more intelligent than Johnny. Why was he stuck scrambling out of bed and opening the gate for them instead of slipping his hand up the shirt of a pretty young girl? The girls did not even look at him. Occasionally a nice one would mutter a thank-you, but mostly they just flicked their cigarette ash and walked past him without a care in the world. He had wanted, a few times, to grab the bottom of one of these passing beauties. When they came in late at night, with their eyes glazed and the boys’ hands all over them, they were unlikely to notice.
The Mercedes pulled up and Balwinder saw the same pretty maid get out and push open the heavy metal gate. They would need to get that gate replaced, he thought. It was about nine feet high and the sections in between the iron slats were covered with some sort of Plexiglas. The Mukherjees had been scared of having their home robbed again, so they had slowly built themselves a completely private fortress. Balwinder much preferred the Chopras’ gate. It was taller—about twelve feet high—and Mr. Chopra had had bird shapes bent into the wrought-iron rods. The gate next door was heavy and rusted in parts and looked bulky.
The driver’s-side window rolled down and Mr. Jha looked out toward Balwinder. Balwinder got up and rushed over, hoping he would be able to catch a glimpse of his watch.
“Namaste,” Mr. Jha said. “Is Mr. Chopra at home?”
“Good afternoon, sir,” Balwinder said. “Sir and madam have gone to the LRC.”
“The what?” Mr. Jha said.
“The LRC, sir. The club. But they should be home soon. What time is it, sir?” Balwinder said and moved closer to the car window to try to see Mr. Jha’s watch.
“Well, hopefully we’ll see him later this afternoon,” Mr. Jha said, and put his window back up and pulled into the driveway.
Not, however, before Balwinder looked into the car and saw the woman—he assumed the wife—sitting in the backseat, wearing big sunglasses that covered most of her face. Her hair was loose over her shoulders and she looked like she was wearing Western clothes. It was strange that the lady of the house sat in the backseat while the maid sat in the front when the husband was driving—it was usually the other way around. Or, if there was a driver, the maid sat at the front, and the man and woman of the house sat at the back. He would have to remember to tell Mr. Chopra this detail.
When they pulled into the driveway and Mrs. Jha had pushed the gate shut behind them, Mrs. Ray stepped out of the backseat of the car. She was glad Mrs. Jha had invited her along to see the house today. After the fiasco with the stolen yoga pants (which had shown up one morning, bundled and thrown into a corner of her balcony), she needed a break.
“Oh, this is just lovely,” Mrs. Ray said. “Look at all the greenery. Who would even know you’re in Delhi? This is beautiful.”
“It’s silly,” Mrs. Jha said. “It seems a shame to push the city away so much, doesn’t it?”
“Not at all. The only way to survive in Delhi is to push it away,” Mrs. Ray said.
She looked around the lawns feeling a hint of envy. Her husband had died leaving her with enough money to get by every month, but she had no way of making her way out of Mayur Palli. Here were the Jhas, Mr. Jha ten years older than her, getting a fresh start, with a new home and new neighbors and friends. It wasn’t even a question of dashed dreams for her; she realized now that she simply had no more dreams. At some point, she had become aware that the number of days she had ahead of her were probably fewer than those behind her. She could dress youthfully, do yoga, and paint her walls red all she wanted, but was there anything left for a childless widow her age to look forward to? She looked down at her flared jeans that were so tight she had a hard time sitting comfortably in them. Her nails were painted pink, but did the girls at the beauty parlor laugh behind her back after she got her pedicures?
“It’s an oasis of calm,” she said.
“This is nothing,” Mrs. Jha said. “You should see some of the other houses around here. I peeked in through the gates when I was here last week—the first house on the road has a small racing track built into the front lawn for their children. And one of the houses near the main road is built like a miniature version of the Taj Mahal.”
Mrs. Jha was glad Mrs. Ray was the first person from Mayur Palli to be seeing it—she hoped it didn’t look too ostentatious. But she also hoped it looked impressive. Seeing it with a friend from Mayur Palli for the first time, she looked up at the home and realized it looked quite regal.
“Who built a house like the Taj?” Mr. Jha asked. He hoped Mrs. Ray didn’t think the new home looked run down. They just hadn’t yet had the chance to get everything done properly. He would have to remember to get a gardener in soon. He would have to buy some wrought-iron-and-glass furniture, and maybe have some exotic plants flown in from Indonesia. He wanted his guests to forget they were in Delhi. They couldn’t live in a neighborhood like this and not keep up with the neighbors.
“Sir, sir, the neighbors are here again,” Balwinder said when Mr. Chopra’s Jaguar pulled up to the gate almost two hours later. But Mr. and Mrs. Chopra were not in the car. It was only Upen. Balwinder opened the gate to allow the car in.