by A. X. Ahmad
Lapsing into silence, Kishen stares angrily down at his hands. Clearly this was a long speech for him.
“Point taken.” Ranjit raises his hands, palms out, in a placating gesture. “But look, Mohan’s vanished, and coincidentally, so has Ruksana. Is there any possibility that the two of them…?”
“Mohan and Ruksana?” Kishen stares from under thick brows. “You really don’t know shit, right? Ruksana hated my cousin, she would have had him fired from the Dakota if she could, she kept threatening to do it. You know why? Before my cousin came around, Ruksana had total control over her sister. Shabana is clueless about real life, all she’s ever done is act in movies. She can’t even go out and buy a loaf of bread, okay? Ruksana took care of everything, and she loved that power. Then Mohan began to do things for Shabana, they ate together, cooked together…”
Ranjit thinks of how familiar Mohan was with the kitchen in the Dakota, opening cabinets and taking out cutlery.
“… yeah, Shabana was happy for once. The two of them used to go up to Mohan’s apartment in the attic, they were like two kids in a tree house. You know that wall of pictures Mohan has? All those old photographs? The two of them went through all those abandoned suitcases, found those pictures, she helped him hang them. It was like a project.”
“K! Yo!” The bald man at the desk stands and gestures to Kishen. “Yo, this Tesla got to be ready! Four o’clock, and I mean four o’clock today, not tomorrow!”
Kishen waves back. Ranjit reaches out and pats the man’s muscular shoulder. “Okay, sorry if I upset you, I just had to ask the question.”
“You know what? Maybe that bitch Ruksana did it. She was always pushing Shabana around. I mean pushing her, physically. Shabana was the goose that laid the golden eggs, and when the eggs stopped, Ruksana was furious. At least Shabana had Mohan. What did that bitch have? Nothing.”
“Okay, I get it. You sure you don’t know where Mohan is? I’m the only friend he has left in this town.”
Kishen’s voice drops to a whisper. “If I knew, I would have helped him myself. But no, he hasn’t called. He wouldn’t want to involve me. That’s the kind of guy he is.”
Ranjit nods. “One last thing. You seem like a straight-up guy. This old Sikh in the Bronx, he says you stole some engines from his garage—”
“That guy!” Kishen laughs bitterly. “Man, you have been talking to some weird people.” The laughter ends abruptly. “That old man is an alkie, he took the parts, sold them, blamed me in front of his wife … anything else you want to know, you come back, okay? You know where to find me.”
Kishen turns and stalks back into the garage.
“This must be a bad time for him.” Leela stares at the man’s broad back. “He and Mohan are really tight … Well, that’s that. We still don’t know where Mohan is. What are we going to do now?”
Ranjit leans against the rough brick wall, listening to the whine of a mechanical screwdriver, the clanking of a winch.
“Where do we go, Ranjit? Back to my place?”
“By now, Lateef probably knows where you live. I’m sure they have my address, too … I’ve got it. Ruksana’s place. They won’t expect us to go back there.”
“And then?”
“I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry.”
“When is this going to end? My mother and Dev can’t stay at her cousin’s place forever. They fight like cats and dogs.”
Not to mention that the grand jury trial is on Thursday and today is Tuesday and he has no evidence to take to the cops.
“I’ll figure it out,” he says, and reaches for her hand.
Move, he tells himself. For now, just get off the streets and hide.
* * *
By the time they reach Ruksana’s apartment, the sun is fading from the sky. They enter the dark living room, illuminated now by a slice of light that slants past the blank brick wall outside. A quick check reveals that the apartment is empty, exactly as they left it, the shoebox lying on the floor of the studio, and photographs spilling out onto the floor.
Ranjit sinks down into the futon couch, feeling the soft cotton compress under him. Leela stands by the window, dialing Auntie; he can hear it ring, but nobody answers.
“Damn. She refuses to learn how to use a cell phone.” Leela hangs up angrily and stares at the blank brick wall outside, now glowing with golden light.
Standing on tiptoe, she presses a finger into the dry soil of a cactus. Without a word, she goes into the kitchen and returns with a glass of water.
Ranjit watches her stretch upward to water each cactus, till some liquid dribbles into the plate underneath. He thinks of her well-tended flower bed, crowded with tall sunflowers and hydrangeas, the care she lavishes on these mute things.
“Ruksana’s been gone a while,” Leela says, turning to him. “Her cacti are bone dry. Nice apartment, though…” She gestures with the empty glass in her hand. “I was saving up to get my own place, before my father died. I really wanted to live alone.” She moves closer. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have an apartment?”
“I’ve been living in one for two years.” He thinks of his dim basement. “Not much room to grow flowers.”
“Oh, I’d be happy with some plants. So what do you think? You, me, and Dev in a place like this?”
No mention of Auntie, or of Shanti, who will be arriving in two weeks. Leela sits down next to him on the futon and waits for a reply.
Is she just talking, imagining her way into the future, away from this dark moment, away from Lateef’s men? How can he answer that he needs to live alone with Shanti and rebuild their relationship? In any case, he cannot imagine Shanti and Leela getting along: both of them are strong, impulsive, childish personalities, but the difference is that Shanti is a thirteen-year-old child.
“What are you thinking, Ranjit?” Her eyes are fixed on his face.
He cannot answer her honestly, and she badly needs his reassurance right now. Instead of speaking, he reaches out and hugs her, and she must misinterpret the gesture, because she reaches in to kiss him. He wants to say, No, wait—but it is too late. Her mouth presses into his.
The soft swell of her breasts pushes into his chest, and he remembers clearly what they did that night on Dev’s bed. She must feel his body yearn toward her, because she kisses him so hard that her teeth clatter against his.
Outside, he hears the city, muffled by the brick wall: the roar of traffic, the wail of sirens, the honking of horns. He can feel the island stretching around them, north and south, the dark rectangle of Central Park close by, all of it now seething with danger. Lateef will hunt them down, he won’t stop till they are dead: Ranjit can imagine the shock of bullets hammering into the back of his head, plowing into Leela’s flesh.
A shout of protest rises in his throat, a realization that he has wasted two years of his life, always deferring life, real life, to some distant future. Now the future is here, as blank as that wall outside, and in this moment he wants life, he wants this warm girl squirming in his arms, her saliva sweet in his mouth.
They kiss for a long time, and when they can’t stand it any longer, they don’t even bother to lower the futon. She pulls away and stands in front of him, pulling off her T-shirt. He unbuttons and tugs down her jeans, pushing the worn denim over the swell of her hips, then slides his hand between her warm, smooth thighs. She stands, her head tilted back in the darkness, her breath coming faster. They stay like this till she pushes his hand away.
“I want you on top of me. I want to feel your weight,” she says, gesturing for him to get up.
She sprawls on the blue futon, looking up at him with her hazel eyes. Stripping off his clothes, he presses into her soft, warm body, and she sinks deep into the old cotton. He has to prop himself on both arms, and his broken one begins to ache, but he ignores the pain. Moving slowly at first, he pushes harder into her, and she finds the rhythm, and pushes back.
It feels as though they have sunk into the futon, ha
ve sunk to the bottom of a sea of soft cotton, and they are moving upward with each thrust, till she hits her head on the wooden armrest and goes oh. He stops then, but she tightens her legs and whispers, Don’t stop now, not now, and he keeps going.
He doesn’t want it to end, but then it does, like tumbling off the edge of a cliff and falling into deep, still water. Exhausted, he falls onto her, then hears her whimper and realizes that he is crushing her. She slides out from under and lies facing him, wrapping one smooth leg over his, her face inches from his, her small lips relaxing into a slight smile.
He must have fallen fitfully asleep, because he surfaces at intervals to see the light fading from the blank wall outside.
It is the loud growling of his stomach that wakes him up, and he realizes that the last time he ate was tea and sugar toast that morning.
“Leela,” he whispers, but she groans, pushes her face into his shoulder, and does not wake. He levers himself up, and climbs over her sleeping form.
Without turning on the light, he opens the cabinets in Ruksana’s kitchen, finding a carton of artificial sweetener, tea, but nothing to eat except for a box of strange cereal made from grains. No choice. He pours out a handful and crunches it down, but it is like eating cardboard.
“What are you doing?” Leela raises herself on one elbow and rubs the sleep from her eyes.
“I’m starving. There’s nothing to eat in this place. What did Ruksana survive on?”
She swings her legs down and walks over to him, smelling of warm sleep.
“Why are you eating that crap?”
“There’s nothing else.”
She yawns and waves a hand at the side of the refrigerator, decorated with restaurant menus. “This is New York City. You never heard of takeout?”
* * *
She orders, and thirty minutes later, clothed now, she collects the food at the door and pays the young Chinese deliveryman, tipping him well.
Ranjit and Leela don’t speak, but sit on the floor by the futon, eating directly from the cartons. Leela uses her chopsticks deftly, and he uses a plastic fork, shoveling the aromatic shreds of chicken, fried eggplant, and egg noodles into his mouth. It is greasy and delicious, and he looks up to see Leela gesturing at him with her chopsticks.
“Hey,” she says. “Share. Don’t hog all the noodles.”
They trade cartons and he starts in on the fried rice, still so hot that its fragrance fills the air.
“I heard of this game show,” Leela says, “a Japanese game show. They locked this guy up, naked, in an apartment, and he had to win everything by sending in postcards to contests: food, clothes, everything. Kind of like us, huh?”
He tries to smile, but he can’t quite manage it.
* * *
It is almost midnight. This time they figure out how to lower the futon couch into a bed and lie on it, their stomachs full. Having slept and eaten, Ranjit is wide awake, though Leela seems sleepy.
“I hope … I hope that Dev is okay,” she says. “He probably misses me.”
“He’s a good kid.” Ranjit lies on his back next to her. “Very calm. He’s got a good personality.” She looks at him strangely, her head propped up on one arm. “What? Did I say something wrong?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “It’s just that … you’ve never asked me about his father. Most of the men I meet, they want to know right away.”
“It’s really none of my business.”
He does not want to have this conversation now; besides, Auntie already told him all about it. He needs to figure out what to do next: tomorrow is Wednesday, the last day before the ax falls.
“Well, it’s okay. I’ll tell you.” She laughs, a silvery, artificial laugh.
Give her a few minutes, he thinks, let her get it off her chest. He moves closer to indicate that he is listening.
“You know, I was this nerdy girl…” She reaches out and places a hand on his bare chest. “I was way behind all my other friends. They all had boyfriends, they were sneaking around and having sex, talking about how wonderful it was. Like they had eaten at this fancy restaurant that I could never go to. So I was curious.”
She absently plays with his chest hair.
“There was this boy who lived up the lane, a tall, gangly boy, but sweet, very sweet. He used to bicycle past my house, he always used to slow down and stare at me. The other boys would whistle at me, but this boy, all he used to do was stare.” She laughs again. “So I decided that he would be the one. When my mother was out of the house, I invited him in, and he was so clumsy, it was nothing like what my friends said.”
She pauses. “Well, not a lot more to tell, really. When I got pregnant, I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t tell the boy—anyway, he had moved to a different city. So I had the baby … and, well, the rest you know.”
She looks at him, her hand still resting on his chest. “Stupid, right? But I was a kid, he was a kid, it happened, so…” Shrugging, she moves her hand away.
He turns on his back and stares up at the ceiling. This is not what Auntie had told him. She said that Leela was involved with some rich man, old enough to be her father.
“You don’t judge me, do you?” She waits in the dark for a reply. “I was so young, I didn’t know any better…”
“No, I don’t judge you. Of course not.” It is lucky that she can’t see the frown on his face.
“Oh, good. I’ve been meaning to tell you. We shouldn’t have secrets between us, right?”
“Right.” Out of the corner of his eyes he watches her snuggle down into the futon, using her forearm as a pillow.
“I’m so tired, I’m going to close my eyes for a minute.” Her eyelids shut, and soon she has slid easily into sleep.
He watches her calm, sleeping face, and thinks of how easily she has lied to him. Is this what she thinks he wants to hear?
He has now slept with her twice, has eaten with her, stayed with her family, but each time he thinks he knows her, another side emerges. She plays so many roles: Lenore at the club, Leela at home. Is she creating another role for his benefit, that of the young, innocent girl?
The calming effect of the sex has worn off, and he feels completely disoriented. There is only one day left, and he has no idea what to do, and who to trust. A scrap of prayer drifts into his mind:
During the second watch of the night,
You are intoxicated with the wine of youth and beauty.
Day and night, you are engrossed in sexual desire,
The Lord’s Name is not within your heart, but other tastes seem sweeter …
In falsehood, you are caught in the cycle of birth and death.
One thing is clear to him—he is lost in the darkness now because of his own weakness, his own desires. If he survives this, he must change his life.
With Leela sleeping next to him, he stares out at the dark brick wall, thinking through all the explanations for Shabana’s death:
Patel and the cops said that Mohan did it.
Leela is convinced that Patel killed Shabana.
Lateef and now Kishen say that it was the obsessive Ruksana.
Maybe Mohan and Ruksana were in it together.
What is he to believe?
One thing is for sure: the doorman, the actress, and her sister have emerged as a triangle, tied together by love, obligation, and hate: the truth lies within that configuration.
Is there any stone he has left unturned? This apartment, for instance: have they searched it thoroughly?
Rising slowly from the futon, he walks to Ruksana’s studio, turns on a floor lamp, and flips through a stack of canvases, seeing the two sisters, in red and white, painted obsessively, over and over. He examines the backs of the paintings for anything written or taped there, but there is nothing.
Sifting through the box of photographs, he sees familiar images of Shabana alone in a white salwaar kameez, and Ruksana in a red one. Then one photograph of the girls with their parents: a plump, long-haired woman
and a tall, sallow man with a thick mustache, his hand on Shabana’s shoulder, while Ruksana stands close to her mother. The group poses in an enclosed courtyard with peeling plaster walls, an overflowing garbage can in one corner.
The two identical sisters, growing up poor in Mumbai, Shabana clearly her father’s favorite, Ruksana allied with the mother. Well, maybe that explains the animosity between the twins. Ranjit stares and stares, but the photographs reveal little else.
Putting the photographs away, he searches the closet, careful not to make a noise, and finds some paint-splattered shirts and more painting supplies. Then he remembers the bathroom along the corridor: neither of them had looked in there …
Heading to the small, yellow tiled bathroom, he opens the small cabinet below the sink. It is full of cleaning supplies and a pair of rubber gloves; unlike her sister, Ruksana clearly liked her apartment spotless.
That leaves the mirrored cabinet above the sink. Yanking it open, he sees a pair of glasses, a toothbrush, and an old silver-handled hairbrush. Nothing here. He is about to close the cabinet when he pauses: Shabana had an identical brush on her dressing table. Picking it up, he tries to figure out why this one seems different—the curlicues on the handle are the same, as are the stiff white bristles. Then it comes to him: Shabana’s brush was clogged with long strands of black hair, which she hadn’t bothered to clean out. Ruksana’s brush is immaculate.
Oh. He stands there, stunned by a sudden flash of intuition.
Mohan killed Shabana. Patel killed Shabana. Ruksana killed Shabana. Both Mohan and Ruksana killed Shabana.
There is another possibility. Why hadn’t he thought of it before?
But he has to be sure, completely sure, before making a move. Pulling out his phone, he dials a number from a card in his wallet.
Detective Case picks up on the second ring. “Yes?” Her voice is awake and alert.
“This is Ranjit Singh.”
“What do you have for us, Mr. Singh? I’d given up on hearing from you.”
“You’re up very late. What’s the matter, this investigation giving you a lot of trouble?” She doesn’t take the bait. “Look, I need some information. About Shabana’s corpse.”
