I had thought of taking a bouquet of flowers, but had thought it inappropriate for a business meeting. Thoughts of an alcoholic present—scotch or a bottle of wine—were similarly squashed, but then I thought of the pen Ma could never bear to use. Here was a man of letters, and one who I looked to lift us out of our trouble. I got up from my desk and went to the almirah in Ma’s room, where the pen remained, behind Ma’s collection of dupattas. I squatted, feeling behind the gauzy material until I came across a harder surface, the smooth, firm black box that sheathed Ma’s Mont Blanc.
I would rather have consulted Maya, but my mind was set on bringing a solution to her. She had reacted to the fire with a phlegmatic indifference I had forgotten. Maya had changed in the months since the launch of the magazine. Gone was Ma’s satellite, so afraid of change or of uncertainty, and I wanted desperately to present her with Raja Singh’s offer of investment, or with news of whatever door he was prepared to open for us, as a fait accompli.
The Mont Blanc pen, then, had been selected. I patted it through my bag, looking around. Ajay was long gone, and the compound was starting to fill up. It was a tall building, and I assumed it housed several offices, and one by one, I saw people on cars, motorcycles, scooters, and even the occasional pedestrian file past me and through the glass doors set atop a shallow set of stairs. No one stopped to ask me if I needed any directions, and I followed the stream of people as they went up the stairs.
I waited at the reception for an age. The first person I spoke to, a bored looking, over-manicured woman in her early twenties, nodded listlessly as I told her I had an appointment with Raja Singh, and asked me to take a seat. It appeared she had recently painted her nails, as she kept blowing on them and waving her hands in the air to help the paint dry. If she placed a call or sent a message announcing my arrival, I didn’t see it.
After a while, she sighed theatrically and rose. She surveyed the waiting area with disdain before turning her back and walking off into the interior of the building. A man replaced her, and I quickly rose to ask him about my appointment.
‘Yes,’ he responded when I asked if I had to wait much longer. ‘Let me see.’ He twirled his moustache officiously and asked who I had come to see.
‘Raja Singh.’
The man’s demeanour changed instantly. ‘Mr Singh!’ he cried, bobbing his head furiously. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before? You should never have been kept waiting.’ He stabbed at some keys on the computer in front of him and rose. ‘This way please,’ he said, leading me to a set of lifts. ‘Singh Sir is expecting you.’
I rode up to a reception area, where I expected another long wait. I patted my bag, feeling for the pen, wishing I had some anecdote to recount. Raja Singh and Ma had been good friends, apparently, but I had had no knowledge of their interaction, and I had had no knowledge of Ma having launched The Satirist. I smiled at the receptionist, who rose at my arrival. ‘Miss Sharma?’ she asked, and as I nodded, she reached out towards me. ‘Follow me, please,’ she instructed in cool tones. ‘Mr Singh is expecting you.’
Raja Singh was on the phone. The receptionist let me in and left the room, shutting the door behind her. I surveyed the office, which was large and bright. There was a floor to ceiling window at one end of the room, a big wooden desk situated against a perpendicular wall to take advantage of the views over the Delhi skyline, and two seats on the opposite side of the desk. I considered seating myself opposite Raja, but worried about appearing forward. There was a large, low leather sofa nearer where I stood, but I decided against seating myself there for fear of appearing unprofessional.
I looked again at Raja, who gave no indication of having noticed me. He laughed out loud, throwing his head back, and I wondered if it made sense to clear my throat or cough to attract his attention. ‘Send her over, by all means,’ he was saying in his booming voice, his tone generous and expansive and full of promise, and I inched forward in the hope that my motion would attract his attention.
It didn’t. He laughed again at something the person at the other end said, and repeated, ‘No, no, it’s no problem really. I’ll be glad to help,’ and as he shook his head in time with his speech, he looked to the left and saw me.
The call was over in a moment, and Raja Singh was up on his feet. ‘The girl of the moment!’ he exclaimed loudly, coming round to where I stood, and I knew he’d forgotten my name.
‘Siya Sharma,’ I said, and he nodded. ‘It’s so good to meet you, Sir.’
‘Likewise,’ he said, ‘Siya Sharma,’ and as I put my hand out to shake his, he put an arm around me, ‘Siya Sharma,’ he said again, and directed me to the leather sofa at the other end of the office. ‘Sit,’ he sat, patting my shoulder. ‘Sit down, Siya Sharma,’ and as I sat down, landing too hard and too low on the soft leather, he asked me if I wanted a drink.
I looked around. There was no cafetière in sight. ‘Some water, please.’
He looked at me with a smile I couldn’t decipher and walked to a table in the corner, where he poured water into a heavy-bottomed crystal glass. He handed this to me and said, ‘I’m going to fix myself my afternoon scotch. Will you join me?’
I checked my watch as he observed me. It was a little after two, just past lunch. I shook my head, and his smile widened. ‘Suit yourself,’ he said, wandering back to the table, preparing his drink. His back was turned towards me, and I observed him as he worked. He was of middling height, and slight of build, but power radiated off him. It was hard to pinpoint, but it went beyond his well-cut suit and exquisite leather shoes. He smelt expensive too; of cologne liberally applied and of a daily massage in the morning. He turned back towards me with a smile, and I knew he had his teeth whitened and that he applied lip salve. His hands were perfectly manicured, his nails short, his cuticles gleaming, and I thought to myself that this was a vain man.
‘Well, Siya Sharma,’ he said as he sat down. For all his being a near neighbour, this was our first real interaction. Everything before had been noise and tumult, a brief word spoken of a morning, and this was my first real opportunity to get a measure of the man. He took a sip of his drink before resting it on a glass coaster and moved closer to me. I could smell his breath, the whisky on his tongue, and the cologne on his face, and I leant back a bit. He took another sip, setting his drink down carefully, and moved an inch closer. I started. ‘Now tell me, Siya Sharma,’ he said, ‘what brings you here on this balmy afternoon?’
‘Sir,’ I said. He smiled, putting his arm across the sofa’s back such that his hand fell around my shoulder. I twisted around, resting my back against the sofa’s armrest, but returned his smile. This felt unnatural. I tried to think of the email I had sent to him. I had thought myself professional in my message to him. Friendly, of course, but there had been nothing in my language that could have misled him. And he had heard of the fire, surely. But then, I considered, as he looked expectantly at me, perhaps I was being prudish. He had embraced his old friend’s daughter, had fixed himself a drink and had sat down next to me. I was making too much of this. I blinked, thinking of how I could bring the conversation around to the topic of the magazine, when he patted my knee.
‘I forgot,’ he said, patting my knee once, then again, then giving it a meaty squeeze. I told myself once more that I was reading too much into his actions, and he continued, ‘How talented a journalist your mother was.’
‘Sir,’ I said. I squirmed, despite myself, moving my legs away from his hold, leaning forward to take a sip of water.
‘Rupa,’ he was saying in that deep voice of his, speaking the name out softly, sensuously almost, and though I smiled, I willed him to stop. Was there a hint of knowledge in his eyes? A hint of male appreciation? I shook my head. I was imagining things. Raja Singh was clearly inappropriate, handsy in a way older men sometimes were, but that was it. I just had to deal with him and make my case for The Satirist. He was harmless, surely, and I wasn’t to read too much into his overtures.
‘She was a beaut
iful woman, your mother,’ he said, and I nodded. ‘Beautiful, and talented too.’ He looked at me appraisingly. ‘Tell me,’ he asked, ‘do you write as well as she did?’
‘No, sir,’ I replied. ‘I don’t really write. It’s my sister Maya who has inherited Ma’s talent.’
‘Yes,’ he nodded thoughtfully. He took a deep draught of his drink and opened his mouth. The smell of the whisky reached me. ‘I’ve read some of her work,’ and then, returning to his earlier topic, he said, ‘your mother really was something.’
There it was again, the hint of something lascivious, and I screwed my eyes shut. It was all in my mind, this needling suspicion, and I had to focus. ‘If I remember correctly,’ he was saying. I smelt the whisky on his breath and moved a touch away. ‘If I remember correctly,’ he repeated, his words blending slightly into one another, ‘she was working on launching a magazine too.’
‘Yes,’ I replied.
‘It had such promise, that magazine,’ he said. ‘Its name is on my tongue.’ He clapped himself on his thigh, and I wondered if it was a compulsive habit, the constant contact with flesh. His voice sparked with gravel. ‘What was its name?’
‘The Satirist,’ I said, preparing to tell him that we had adopted the name for our own publication, when he spoke again.
‘Of course,’ he said in his deep, lofty voice, ‘The Satirist.’ There it was again, the familiar, knowing lilt to his voice, followed by the words that rooted me to the spot. ‘That it never raised funding fills me with endless regret.’
He took another sip of his drink, and then another, draining his glass, setting it down with delicacy and precision in its place. He looked at me with a disarming grin, and though I nodded, I felt the blood rushing to my head. He spoke again, evidently asking me a question, as he paused and looked at me, but I could hear nothing. It was suffusing my senses, pounding in my head, the blood, the rush, until I felt certain I was about to faint. ‘Siya,’ Raja Singh was saying, ‘Siya Sharma?’ He lifted my glass of water to my mouth, and I took a deep sip. I coughed, I spluttered as he slapped me on my back, and I rose quickly. ‘Siya,’ he was saying, perplexed, and I turned around and ran out of the room.
I stumbled out of the building, past Raja’s cool faced secretary, past the man who had conducted me to the lift and past the woman who continued to blow on her nails. Once outdoors, I stood blinking in the sunlight. I heard some noise in the reception. I worried that Raja had followed me and hurried down the stairs.
The sun was suddenly blinding, the heat oppressive, and I felt my vision blur. The world grew dark, and I walked blindly forward, breathing heavily, taking in huge gulps of air as if to rid myself of all traces of my encounter. I felt myself sway, nearly walking into a standing motorbike before righting myself. It was impossible what Raja Singh said, and yet there had been a knowing look in his eyes, and I was sure I hadn’t misheard. The heat rose and I lurched.
‘Siya?’
I walked on.
‘Siya?’ came the call, and as I continued ahead, I felt a heavy hand on my arm.
‘No,’ I said, shaking the hand off, but it remained in place.
‘Siya,’ came the voice again, and all at once I heard Ajay’s worried voice, and turned to see him looking at me with concern. ‘Siya,’ he said gently, taking me by the arm and leading me to the car.
I laughed. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Are you alright?’ He asked, and as I smiled, he said, ‘Really, you look awful.’
‘I’m fine,’ I said, as he squatted by me. I saw the dust on the ground, was sure his khaki trousers were getting filthy, but I didn’t say a thing. I looked at him, so worried, his forehead creased, and registered that I appeared shaken. I didn’t say anything, not then, not as he asked me what had happened, not as he asked me if Raja Singh had harmed me in any way.
XXV
We sat in the car park outside Raja Singh’s office for an age. Ajay had switched the car on, preparing to drive, and as the air-conditioning had flared into life, the car’s music system started up too. A loud Hindi number was playing on the radio, a catchy piece that had been played at all the wedding celebrations the previous year, and as the singer began to croon about her milky wrists, Ajay hurried to turn the volume off.
‘Siya,’ he said, his voice low.
‘Let’s go.’ I didn’t look in his direction, staring instead in front of me as office workers filed past us. My hands were on my lap, I was conscious of Ajay’s eyes on me, and I began to snap my fingers to the rhythm of the song that had just been playing.
‘Siya, did he…’
I switched the radio back on, and the final refrain of the song burst into the car. Ajay switched it off and I laughed. ‘It’s a silly song, anyway,’ he complained. ‘Imagine singing an ode to your wrists.’
‘You have to feel for the songwriter,’ I replied. ‘Everything else has already been written about.’
‘Siya.’
‘There’s nothing to say.’
‘Siya.’
I could laugh again. He was as predictable as the song, his response as unvarying. He leant towards me, reaching out to touch my hand, and I said, ‘Let’s drive.’ He stared at me for a moment or more. I suppose he was trying to gauge my mood. ‘That Raja Singh,’ he began, and then, as I didn’t respond, ‘I never should have let you…’
The office complex’s door opened, and we saw Raja Singh stride out. He didn’t look around, and was quickly ushered into a waiting car. Off he drove, and I said to Ajay, ‘Please, Ajay, please let’s just go.’
He looked like he wanted to argue, but one look at my face convinced him otherwise. He started up the car, and we joined Delhi’s gridlocked streets. Raja’s car was right in front of us, his pomaded hair brilliant in the sun, and I slunk low in my seat. Ajay looked my way again, and before he could speak, I said, ‘Just drive.’
He pointed towards the jam in front. ‘What happened, Siya?’
I turned the radio on, feeling my petulance. There was a caller on the radio, speaking about wanting to break up with her boyfriend, and I turned the sound off.
‘What happened?’
‘Nothing.’
Ajay’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. ‘Did he do anything?’
‘No,’ I said. I thought back to our time together, the early drink, the insistence on sitting together on the low sofa. ‘No,’ I said again, more resolutely this time. I could tell him we had spoken about Ma, and that he had repeated a phrase I had read, but I didn’t know if I would implicate Ma by doing so. He was looking at me, Ajay, and I said, ‘We largely spoke about Ma.’
‘But…’
The traffic light changed, Raja’s car surged ahead, and we joined the traffic flowing north. I turned the radio’s volume up again to avoid conversation, and though Ajay tried to talk a couple of times, I didn’t respond. I sang along to the music, and though I knew my lack of communication frustrated him, he didn’t try to force the issue.
My phone buzzed as we left the car. It was an email from Raja Singh: You left abruptly, and I hope you weren’t taken ill. We didn’t finish our discussion, and as I have already told you, I am happy to support Rupa’s children in any way I can. Let me know if you want to reschedule our meeting. R.
I had wanted to discuss my afternoon with Tasha-di, but now I vacillated. What if I had imagined Raja Singh’s aggression? What if his actions had been as his email implied; benign and interested? I avoided Ajay, avoided my sister, disappearing instead inside my room, where I paced the floor. I studied Raja Singh’s email: I am happy to support Rupa’s children in any way I can.
And he had been supportive. He had been kind and welcoming and solicitous, but then, as I told myself that my discomfort was imagined, I paused. I looked out of my window, where I had so often spied a Raja Singh on his morning walk. He had sat by me, close, too close, had placed his hands on my knee when there had been no call to do so. He had leaned in, he had presumed on an intimacy that didn�
�t exist. I studied the email again: Let me know if you want to reschedule, and recoiled. I thought of the words he had spoken: That it never raised funding fills me with endless regret. How sincere he had seemed, how distraught at the idea of Ma’s failure. And all while he rested his hand on my knee. I shook my head and threw my phone into my bag.
No, Raja Singh, no. His words sounded heartfelt, they sounded plaintive, but there was no denying their artifice. There was no truth in them, no real substance, and there was no end to them barring his own selfish interest.
Back downstairs, I took Tasha-di aside and told her about my meeting with Raja Singh, asking her if he had been Ma’s benefactor.
We were in the garden room, the scene of so many of the two ladies’ evening sessions. Tasha-di fingered the fringe of her dupatta as I spoke, her face impassive, her eyes fixed on me. She didn’t interrupt me, didn’t react to my story, but then said, ‘Darling, I wish you hadn’t gone to see that man.’
‘Was he Ma’s benefactor?’
Another oblique response followed. ‘Was he civil with you?’ She knitted her brows, and I saw she was trying to worry out the right words. ‘Was he respectful?’
This I took to be much the same question as Ajay’s, and my discomfort rose. The rushed words of the letter I had found swam before me: That you considered my conduct overfamiliar fills me with endless regret. Had this been what Tasha-di alluded to by asking about a breakdown in civility? A hysterical note entered my voice, ‘Tasha-di,’ I called out. ‘Please tell me.’
‘Beta…’
‘Was Raja Singh the man who wrote Ma those letters?’
‘Beta,’ she repeated, neither a confirmation nor a denial.
I rose from the bamboo armchair, pacing the worn floor of the room. ‘Beta,’ called Tasha-di in a plaintive voice.
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