by Mahesh Rao
“Would it be completely mad for us to get married?”
It was Mussoorie’s idea.
They gave the court notice of their intention to marry, neither one quite sure if it would really come to pass. But it did. On the appointed day, they waited for hours on a wooden bench outside a grimy office before they could get the marriage registered. The additional district magistrate had been called away to cut the ribbon at the opening of a new classroom at the local school. Their witnesses—Fahim’s old newsroom colleague and a taxi driver—signed the papers in advance and left. They drank cup after cup of sweet tea, possessed by a mild hysteria as they gazed at the dusty files and the trunks full of old election papers. It was their wedding day.
As if to restore some sense of balance, the honeymoon was at a magical hotel on the edge of the Rajasthani desert. A former palace owned by one of Mussoorie’s friends, its rooms were filled with a golden light. Even the slightest breeze sent the sheer curtains into a billow; and beyond them, through the latticed doors, the pool gleamed an outlandish blue. The evening sky was the same lilac as the fragments of quartz they found in the sand.
Her brassiness was wonderfully at odds with the prissy coquetry of the women he knew, who would gaze up at him through their lashes and then act wounded if he tried to touch them. He thought her strong-willed charm might rub off on him. It was just the boost he needed: the attention lavished by a well-connected woman who would introduce him to a new world. Perhaps she would even prove to be the gateway to a new country, where he would be ready for new professional conquests.
* * *
—
BUT HE WAS flooded with disappointment when their cab pulled up outside her parents’ home. She had often referred to the place as their “manor,” and it was only now that he realized that she might have been being playful—or duplicitous.
The manor turned out to be on a drab crescent in a Basingstoke suburb. The front garden was almost entirely paved over—a sole cypress tree stood to one side of the detached house. The door-knocker was in the shape of a smiling Buddha, and there were more Buddhas sitting inside the bay window. Mussoorie’s parents had never had anything to do with the armed forces. Former hippies, they had settled into unspectacular respectability by way of a successful key-cutting and shoe repair business. Simon shook Fahim’s hand and pulled him into a hug as Ann stood behind them, patting her husband on the back, as though impatient for her turn.
The warmth of their welcome made him feel even more wretched. Conversation was like sitting through a slide show of holiday snaps as Simon and Ann recalled their time in Goa and Rishikesh.
“It must all have changed so much,” they said every so often.
“Yes,” he said.
They seemed impressed by his broadcasting career, which Mussoorie seemed to have embellished.
“It’s an honor to have an Indian celebrity as part of the family,” said Ann. “Now what can we get you to drink? There’s everything: wine, beer, gin, scotch.”
Then her face creased with embarrassment, and her hand flew to her mouth.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “How insensitive of me. You’re Muslim.”
“Mum, he drinks like a fish,” said Mussoorie.
“Oh what a relief,” said Ann, her face righting itself. “Red wine all right then?”
There hung a large portrait of Mussoorie on the landing, her hair tumbling in pre-Raphaelite curls, an orchid nudging her shoulder. She had the largest bedroom in the house. From the window he could see the roof of the house next door, a wide overhang that held an assortment of balls and cuddly toys flung out of an upstairs window. The slightest movement made her brass bedstead shudder. He opened the cupboards to find a tangle of tights, sweaters, and balled-up tops. She laughingly explained what they were: the purchases that were lapses of judgment, the clothes that she hoped she would fit into again, those she had forgotten she owned.
“I’ve told Mum not to worry, I’ll make some space tonight,” she said, kissing him on the side of his head.
When she had gone downstairs, he lay on the bed, his shoes still on. He had to concede that it was a fitting turn of events. While Mussoorie had wheeled in place glittering façades to impress him, he had also created a few illusions of his own. He had fabricated a kinship to the Nawabs of Baoni, discovering that they were not the subjects of much researchable material. He described occasional visits to their palace before a fire destroyed it. She had been charmed when he described the Baoni coat of arms, on which the escutcheon was supported by two otters, the kind of detail that he knew would delight her. She reveled in the paraphernalia of Indian royalty like a puppy in a puddle.
There were other lies about his life: major news stories he had broken, his friends in the media, his plans for the future. He was an only child with no surviving parents: it was easy to inspire a sense of sympathy for someone who was unmoored by family. And there would never be any relatives who would come forward to lay bare his claims.
“You’re not going to have a nap now, are you?” Mussoorie shouted from the bottom of the stairs.
He sat up. The bedstead let out a long creak. Slowly he lay down again.
* * *
—
THERE WAS LITTLE sign of Mussoorie’s glittering London social life. The pictures in the society pages were not borne out, and quite a few of the evenings were spent in the local pub. Mussoorie was a different woman in Basingstoke, much more subdued, perhaps now chastened by the reality of having led him on. He felt a lull the first time they walked into the pub, a strange suspension as his presence was absorbed. And then the music and the clatter and the chat all sped up again.
The regulars were friendly enough, but it was an arrested sociability, so different from the voluble enthusiasm of Mussoorie’s parents. The staff displayed a hard professionalism, and he wondered how long it would take to secure the cheeky amiability they showed the other drinkers. Perhaps he would never be allowed to experience it. That was the enigma of being an outsider: the reasons for exclusion were rarely made clear.
Some of Mussoorie’s friends complimented him more than once on his fine English. On other occasions they would treat him with an exaggerated camaraderie designed to reassure him that, while many would readily believe he was a terrorist sympathizer, they were not among that number and were eager to be absolved and, in some sense, applauded.
Every other evening a couple called John and Susan would pop in for a drink, looking almost embarrassed to find Fahim still in the house. John never met his gaze, rarely started a conversation, and when he did, spoke mainly of his suspicions of mismanagement at the golf club. Susan told Fahim that he reminded her of Omar Sharif, her mother’s favorite actor. She took to calling him Omar.
During these visits, his sense of having been entrapped was so acute that he would excuse himself and slip into the bathroom. The frosted window had a little vent with a nylon cord to slide it open. Every time he pulled, it made a smart click. The sage green guest soaps by the wash basin were for show; family members were supposed to use the liquid soap that was in the cabinet. There was a framed sketch of a giraffe on the wall, made by Mussoorie when she was six. When he returned to the sitting room, they all turned to face him with broad smiles. He could not bear the thought of settling down again, being sucked into the large sofa cushions, so he stood in front of the French doors for a few moments, as though admiring the sad, sparse garden. There was a hot tub on the deck. He imagined them all sitting in it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THERE WAS NO adornment in the Khurana office boardrooms and banqueting halls, no artwork on the walls or specially commissioned sculptures, no tributes in bronze or glass to the traditional values of the company. There had been a deliberate attempt at emptiness and sterility, as though in reaction to the excesses that the company otherwise encouraged. In one of the meeting rooms, sunlight streamed throug
h the skylights onto the large white table. The men seated around it all stared at the video screen on the wall waiting for their interlocutors in Guangzhou to resolve their technical hitch. No one looked at their phone in meetings unless absolutely urgent: another Khurana decree.
Dileep glanced around and closed his eyes. In meetings he often gave the impression that he was preoccupied with his own thoughts, gaze fixed on some distant point. But then he would seize on some feeble or imprecise formulation and interrupt without any hesitation. He paid professionals handsomely to order the company’s affairs, and he was always vigilant about the value he received. He had a nose for accounts and an interest in technology. His legal training meant that he was practiced in the pliability of language, the fragile surface through which a loophole could be gently bored. But that day, as they all focused on the blank screen, the minutes dragging, he began to feel the soft swell of an incipient panic.
He left the room, saying that they could finish without him. He needed some sense of motion and vitality. He took the stairs to his office, leaping up them two at a time, and keyed in the code for his private bathroom. The lights, sleek and yellow, sparked to life. He pulled the magnifying mirror toward him and examined the skin on his face. Two hairs were longer than the rest of his short stubble, and they showed brilliantly white against his skin. He reached for some tweezers and pulled them out, enjoying the twinge. He looked at his chin in profile, searching for but not finding any bagginess. He lowered his head by a couple of inches to make sure.
He had taken risks and either grown or transformed the businesses: the mills had been replaced by pharmaceutical companies, the trade magazines were now globally integrated financial risk management service providers. As a single parent, he had raised a beautiful, accomplished daughter. He had provided a home for his sister and was convinced that he had saved her from some kind of deathly insanity. For the most part, he had lived his life in the way that the dead men of his family had lived theirs, or perhaps would have wished to live theirs, or perhaps would have wished him to live. These questions of legacy were complicated. But now every day he faced a seeping dread that there was nothing more to do. Incomplete, irrelevant, he would slip into an early death.
He had wasted no time in getting Mr. Nayak’s number from Serena and arranging to see him.
Dileep’s interests did not extend to conventionally religious matters. Given Serena’s endorsements, he merely craved a glimpse into this mysterious world, since it seemed to be available. His upbringing had not been religious. His father had been an atheist who would attend religious ceremonies when expedient to do so. And his mother’s connection with God involved a series of lies, exaggerations, and threats, which made it no different to her relationship with her husband. She did the puja every morning while her sari blouse was being freshly ironed. Dressed in one of her magnificent silk saris, spilling out of her demi-cup bra, she stood at the top-floor shrine, tinkling a little silver bell at any point that she felt required particular emphasis. When she had finished, a tremulous waiting hand would hold out the ironed blouse on a hanger, and she always associated its warmth with the Almighty’s munificence.
During Dileep’s first visit to Mr. Nayak’s office, the small degree of skepticism had soon dissipated. Serena introduced them and gave Dileep a little reassuring pat on his arm. Mr. Nayak smiled. There was none of the garish and obvious paraphernalia of the shady godman. He wore a well-pressed white shirt and gray trousers, a slim gold pen tucked into his breast pocket. His secretary was in a navy skirt, white blouse, and thick glasses. They could have been middle-ranking employees of an insurance company. It was clairvoyance, but its appeal was that it looked managerial. Mr. Nayak’s business card offered an emergency out-of-hours number. Appointments were promptly confirmed by text message.
“I am a professional, Mr. Khurana. I do not want any kind of misunderstandings between us, isn’t it? From the very beginning, I will confirm to you what exactly I cannot do. I am not able to predict the future and tell you whether you will get some contract or when your daughter will get married or when party X or party Y will become deceased. That is clear, isn’t it?” said Mr. Nayak.
“Yes,” said Dileep, his voice low.
“I am in the business of people’s energies, the forces that they emit, positive or negative, both for the alive and the deceased. And I will help you reconnect with those energies and improve your relationships with those people. You are a busy man, there are countless demands, many people depend on you. Correct, isn’t it?”
“That’s correct.”
“I may provide you with a remedy—some powder, some vegetable matter—or I might ask you to use some substance or article to assist me. Please don’t misunderstand this as some kind of black magic or witchcraft.”
“No.”
“I think you have understood me. Symbols are very powerful instruments in dealing with energies. What I will give you are representations of this power. Temporarily containing these energies. I am being clear, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I can already see that you have some unfinished business with a deceased person. There is a serious matter that has not been resolved for many years. She is waiting. And I will help you.”
Dileep stayed silent, stunned with this divination.
It was clear to him that Mr. Nayak had quickly become aware of the torment he suffered. Dileep still thought of his dead wife every day. He had never discussed grief or mourning with anyone but had heard others speak of their struggles. They seemed to agree that the irritating memories faded: the tiny nuisances that would rankle for days, the tiresome habits that inevitably led to a confrontation. This had been his experience too. He had made a conscious effort to cultivate only the recollections that would act as a sudden sunburst on a grim day. It was difficult, but year after year he had managed to avoid dwelling on the fact that she had died only as a result of her own treachery.
Mr. Nayak patted him on the shoulder as he showed him out, a hopeful, professional gesture.
“I will help you, Mr. Khurana, I will help you.”
* * *
—
NINA HAD BEEN asked to attend a friend’s perfume launch party, an invite that held little allure but no clear escape, which was how she found herself in a hotel lobby with distinct and inimical constituencies. Near the fountain there stood a group of tall women in short skirts who, to all appearances, inhabited the hinterlands of prostitution. A group of Korean tourists waited their turn at the front desk, quietly seething about something. Couples from the Middle East occupied the sofas by the windows, the women in burkas, the men dressed like jocks on spring break in floral board shorts and slogan T-shirts, earphones trailing out of their back pockets.
At the concierge Nina asked the way to the Ruby Room. As she turned, she spotted Renu, walking through the sliding doors. Her instinct was to spin back around and head toward the shopping arcade, linger among the gaudy, overpriced scarves and trinkets until she could safely emerge again. But Renu caught sight of her and began to approach, her arm linked with that of a handsome young man.
But there was a difference. Renu was strutting. Or at least, Nina could see an approximation of a strut. Renu’s hair was shorter, her chest was puffed out with pride, a hen in charge of a splendid egg. She was marching the poor man along as though he would try to make a break for it at any moment. Poor, plodding Renu had finally been blessed with everything she had ever desired, and it was almost too painful to witness.
“How lovely, Nina, I didn’t expect to see you here,” said Renu.
“I could say the same,” said Nina, offering her cheek.
“This is Nikhil,” said Renu.
Nina looked blank.
“The colonel’s nephew.”
“So you’re the famous nephew,” she said. “We waited and waited but you never came. It was all getting terribly biblical
. And now you’ve arrived. I was wondering when Renu would let the rest of us have a little look.”
“Like a new toy?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t be quite that optimistic.”
He grinned, and she could see his body relax into the fun that she would provide. He had his head slightly cocked; he took his hand out of his pocket and let it fall by his side. It wouldn’t be long before Renu’s dullness would become unbearable.
“So how has Renu been entertaining you?” asked Nina. “Bridge parties?”
“Nina! I’ve never played bridge in my life,” said Renu.
“Oh, she’s been wonderful, allowing me to tag along, introducing me to all kinds of people,” said Nikhil.
Renu gave him a sweet little pinch.
“How marvelous,” said Nina.
There was something in his manner that reminded her of the young men who would wait to give her a ride home from college—clear-eyed chaps who tried to pass off their nervousness as a kind of friendly impatience. She could see that he was trying to settle into his manliness: there was no telling what it would turn into after a few years.
He had the kind of American accent that she associated with preppy students at good universities, the rounded enunciation of earnest debaters. Renu was looking at him with fond pride, nodding in agreement, her arm almost twitching to be in his again.
Nina thought briefly of her own son. A huge crack of thunder had woken her up before dawn. She had lain in bed, feeling anxious and dislocated—the water drumming against the walls and roof, the wind rattling the balcony doors—wondering if he would ever speak to her again. This is what it would be like in a few years, she thought: too tired or ill to get out of bed, making sense of the world through its sounds; a woman lying in a mausoleum, listening out for leaves being raked across the paths.
