The Smoke is Rising
Page 28
‘Ambika told me that you had said that you were all going on a trip to Thailand, paid for by Anand,’ said Rukmini, her eyes on the boat as it coasted past dense undergrowth.
‘I just said that. It wasn’t true.’
‘I know.’
They turned to look at each other, both smiling.
‘She has been grumbling to me that you won’t talk to her about any of this,’ said Rukmini.
‘So what did you say?’
‘I said that she should stop pestering you and that you will talk about it when you want to.’
Mala did not respond. She put Babu’s pills into an envelope and placed it on the coffee table.
Rukmini leant forward and gripped Mala’s hand, covering it with both of hers: a hot, tight embrace that tried to seal off the past. Neither of them spoke.
As suddenly as Rukmini had taken her hand, she let it drop.
‘I must go to bed now,’ she said.
She stretched, yawning loudly.
‘Look at me, sitting here till God knows what time, as if I haven’t got to wake up in the morning. You’ll switch everything off?’
Mala nodded.
‘And don’t forget to lock the front door.’
Mala nodded again. Rukmini took off her glasses, gathered up the folds of her wayward sari and walked slowly to the bedroom. The door shut quietly.
Mala turned the volume down and continued to look at the screen. A man’s hand was holding up a tiny insect, its glossy shell like a precious stone cut out of the centre of the earth. Its spindly legs waved and glinted in the background, as it tried to climb up the man’s smooth palm.
Behind her a window banged against its pane, and a few seconds later, she thought she could hear rain. She turned off the television, walked to the front door and pulled it open. The gabbling in the darkness was layered over the silence of night in a small town. The temple’s tower rose up in the distance, its edges streaked with snatches of moonlight. Lifting her head towards the sky, she held out her arm. There were no actual droplets. She could make out the loamy smell of rain and hear its rush building somewhere over the trembling rooftops. The world twisted into the shape of a teardrop, its gasps seeming ever closer. But still nothing fell from the skies. Perhaps it was just the wind changing direction.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My thanks to the many friends and well-wishers who have been so generous with their support right from the start.
I am particularly grateful to Richard L MacDonald for reading the first draft and for support that goes back a very long time; to Jeri O’Donnell and Asha Rao who read and commented on an early draft; to Shashikiran Kolar for crucial website and photographic assistance; to Michael McMullen for unwavering encouragement; and to Arshia Sattar for many kindnesses, including her comments on parts of the manuscript.
I am grateful to Tara Gladden for her careful editing, Antony Gray for the typesetting, Jacqui Lewis for proofreading the text, Jon Gray for designing the perfect cover, Angela Martin for publicising the novel and Karen Maine at Daunt Books for all her editorial assistance.
All my thanks to my agent and friend Priya Doraswamy for her helpful advice and her faith in the book.
A special thank you to Natasha Lee for coming to the rescue when it was most required.
I am indebted to Laura Macaulay at Daunt Books for giving the book a home and for opening so many doors. Her careful work on the manuscript has been invaluable.
I owe an immeasurable debt to K J Orr for words, edits, counsel, insight, laughs and so much more.
And finally, my deep gratitude to my parents and my sister Mamta for a lifetime’s love and support.
About the Author
Mahesh Rao was born and grew up in Nairobi, Kenya. His work has been shortlisted for the 2013 Bridport Prize, the 2012 Commonwealth Short Story Prize and the 2010 Zoetrope: All-Story Short Fiction Contest. He lives in Mysore, India. This is his first novel. www.maheshrao.info
Copyright
This electronic edition first published in Great Britain in 2014 by
Daunt Books
83 Marylebone High Street
London W1U 4QW
Copyright © Mahesh Rao 2014
The characters in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, dead or alive, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
The right of Mahesh Rao to be identified as the author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, copied or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission from Daunt Books, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
Ebook ISBN 978–1–907970–32–0
www.dauntbooks.co.uk