“For the love of god, Imal,” says Priyal. “How is it?”
“Seriously? I didn’t stop. The bastard was sleeping on the edge of Grand Trunk and I just ran—”
“No, you idiot. How’s the car?”
“Oh, a nasty dent in the bumper.”
“What were you driving?”
“The Jaguar.”
“Luckily it was not the Maserati.”
“Oh, fuck.” His voice quivers. “Jeez, no, of course not.”
“Careful, anyway, with this shit.”
Ferang smiles. Gobbles the last of his drink, which is by now a mixture of watered down rum and crushed ice. He pours himself another Old Monk and fishes four ice cubes from a Lalique vase resting on an antique table in the corner. He observes his reflection in the signature silver pliers and slips them into the inside pocket of his jacket. It’s an Armani, for the record.
His reflection walks towards him in the triple glass doors of the terrace. Moving straight towards it, he holds its gaze. Ferang smiles. “I’m quite the stunner tonight.”
Nil is chatting, his elbow resting on the steel rail, with a second-year dude. Ferang greets them both with a nod. The guy, who knows Ferang without him having the faintest idea who he is, responds with an over-enthusiastic smile. Ferang takes the glass to his mouth and chugs it. Though he sounds caught up in the conversation, Nil sloughs off the boy without delay.
“They are fake,” says Ferang, glancing at the guy walking away.
“No doubt,” Nil goes, “a pair of Ferragamo would never make that sound.”
Ferang laughs. He laughs at Nil, but Nil doesn’t need to know that. Nil lights a Benson, takes a puff. Offers Ferang one.
“Just because it’s a lovely night,” he says. Ferang lights the cigarette, takes the smoke in and keeps it in his lungs, repressing a slight cough.
Nil smokes looking straight ahead. Ferang glances at the pool in the middle of the garden: a flashy display of wealth covered with pink marble, imported, for sure, from this or that foreign country. The combination of the rock and light system create the illusion that the guests are dipping into a tub of rosé. The boys are in their swimsuits, the girls completely dressed. Some are doing a couple of lines on a silver tray on the poolside.
“You’re right,” says Nil.
“‘Course I am. But what about this time?”
“It is a lovely night.”
“Sometimes all you need is a guy’s night out.” Ferang rests his empty glass on the railing, managing to balance it so that it won’t fall. He looks at it for a few seconds, then he pushes it down. It doesn’t make any noise. The music’s too loud.
Ferang locks eyes with Nil, who looks back at him a little longer than usual he feels, before looking away and taking a drag. Having reached the filter, Nil throws it over the railing. Ferang realizes that his cigarette has burned out, untouched, after his first puff.
“You know,” goes Nil, his eyes back to the pool, “I’m glad we’re doing this together. It might not work out in the end, the investigation I mean, but what’s more important is that it made me understand that you guys will always be there for me. Even when I do wrong, you’re there. And you’ve changed me.” Nil pauses. “You have helped me become the person I wanted to be.”
“I’m happy about that, bhai,” says Ferang, laying a hand on his shoulder.
Silence.
“I know, you don’t say such things often...” Nil smiles. “But I just wanted you to know.”
“I’ll be there for you until the end, Nil.”
Nil bows his head. His skin tightens along his jawline.
“Always,” says Ferang.
Nil’s shoulder feels hot to the touch. Slowly, Ferang draws him to himself. A fluid motion. A barely perceptible one. Nil’s face is filled with surprise, but he lets himself be carried away. Ferang grips his shoulder. He cranes his neck, lying his lips on Nil’s. He feels Nil’s body tense. Then relax. Ferang opens his lips, lets his breath brush over him. Someone screams in the pool, diving. Ferang kisses him, still clutching his shoulder. Nil’s wearing a blue polo shirt and returns the kiss.
Ferang lets go of his shoulder, his hand gliding along his forearm. Closes his mouth. Steps back, opening his eyes. In his mouth, Nil’s aftertaste. Peppermint and stuffy rooms.
Nil stands still, petrified. Wide-eyed. One hot puff of air sweeps the terrace. His chest rises slow, falls deeply.
Ferang glances at the pool. Smiles to himself. “I’m screwing Mel,” he says.
In the house, someone slams a door. Someone shouts.
Nil meets his eyes, praying it’s a joke. His face empties of all expressions. Like a full bucket pierced at the bottom. His emotions liquefying and slipping away from his face. Disappearing completely. Only a mask of bones and dark skin left behind.
Nil breathes a feral breath before throwing the
NIL
first punch.
Stricken right in the kisser, Ferang falls on his back. Nil is on him, hitting and beating him under the left eye, seeing the tears gushing out, and then on his ear and then on his nose, and Ferang holds a hand to his face but doesn’t really try to avoid the punches, and so Nil hits all the more infuriated. Every blow hurts Nil more than it hurts Ferang—and it’s fucking unfair. When Ferang tries to get up, Nil grinds his teeth hitting him across the face and then on his left eyebrow, feeling the shape of his skull beneath his knuckles, and Ferang tries to protect his temples, and Nil hits him on the teeth. On the neck. On the lips again.
Priyal runs in, shouting. Imal grabs Nil from behind, lifting him, and in the pool someone laughs, and Priyal kneels near Ferang but doesn’t touch him and Ferang stands on one elbow, wiping the corners of his mouth with the palm of his hands and meets Nil’s eyes and says nothing, and Nil can smell the blood of his friend, his fist still high above his head.
“This is so unlike him,” someone says in the crowd.
“Unlike who?” says another.
“The white guy—what’s his name?”
“Ferang.” A pause. “Yeah, he’s such a hot guy.”
Ferang stands and moves to the parapet as if to spit but walks away instead. Nil follows him with his eyes as Ferang gets back into the house, looking at his own reflection in the glass doors, and even now, Nil can’t help but think, he looks like Marlon Brando, or James Dean—they all look the same.
“Not bad, huh?” he can hear Ferang say, walking past the glass door. “Even without the chainsaw.”
Once inside, he spits in the ice bucket, trying to button up his blazer, but Nil feels in his own grip the button he tore away in the scuffle, and so Ferang rubs his chest where his inside pocket would be and then he hops in the elevator, and “Boyfriend” by Justin Bieber breathes through the air, and then he’s gone.
There is excitement on the terrace, laughter by the pool, and Careena puking in a corner.
Nil tries to put himself together but his lungs won’t slow down, pumping oxygen into his blood, making his head heavy, his knees trembling, and he feels like fainting and so yanks himself free from Imal, who is still holding firm, hurting him in the process.
Nil enters the hall and pulls out a white powder packet that is not coke but a pulverized mixture of all the medicines he could find at home, and he pours it on the back of his hand and, right in the middle of everything, seen by no one, he does it, and it’s messy, it’s unclean, and then his skin turns red when Nil touches his nostrils, his fingers stained with blood, and he winches realizing that it’s not Ferang’s, but his own.
Looking for the bathroom in a hall adjacent to the main room, Nil is greeted by a disturbing song playing out of the sophisticated Bose sound system, yellow and red lights alternating with green ones and UV lamps and strobe and laser lights, and while trying to reach the bar, Nil sees Amaan and Aishaniya necking in a corner, his hand disappearing between her legs, and then a short and fat girl standing next to him says, “Whore,” hungrily staring them.
&n
bsp; Nil strolls past her and bends just to tell her to mind her own fucking business, but from his mouth only comes a “I agree.”
He paves his way through the crowd holding his breath, raising his arms to avoid contact but also taking the opportunity to touch a pair of tits with his elbows and, although he had decided to look for the bathroom, once he gets to the kitchen, he pours himself a glass of Old Monk on the rocks and drinks most of it in one gulp. He refills the empty two-thirds of the glass and moves toward the sleeping quarters, where he hears a triplet of muffled moans coming from behind a closed door, which he opens and finds Imal with two design sluts, and they stop and look at him and then go back to fucking again, and Nil thinks he is lucky that there are blankets to hide their intercrural intercourse because sex, right now, reminds him of a hideous industrial machine full with pistons and mechanical arms, an outright aberration.
“Piece of shit,” cries Priyal behind him, and Imal jumps on the bed, covering himself with his hands as he wards the two hoes off and in turn screams, “Piece of shit,” and Nil realizes that both the insults are aimed at him, and tearful, Priyal flees and Imal grabs Nil by the collar and pushes him off, kicking him in the ass.
Nil takes refuge in the first bathroom he finds and turns on the light and sees himself reflected in the mirror, a dark mask with bloodshot eyes and congealed blood around the nostrils and on the upper lip. He looks away and hangs his head to wash his face but when he looks back up, the Crooked Woman is caressing his hair, and then a thud resonates behind him, and Imal, a crazed out expression on his face, is banging his head hard against the wall of the bathroom, and when Nil turns back again the Crooked Woman is gone, and Mel is standing next to him, a glimmer of trepidation in her eyes, her nipples hard under the fabric of her dress. At the sight of her he is pervaded by a sense of almost total annihilation.
“Exile, be my dwelling,” he whispers
Mel closes the bathroom door. Turns the light off. She fishes a packet of dope out of her bra. First, there is solitude, silence and the weight of tomorrow, then Nil feels her soft hands on his neck, guiding him down, making him bend, and when he’s there, he snorts it up, and the darkness turns welcoming and fresh and clean, and Mel breathes out in his ear.
“I don’t understand,” he says, the sound of Imal slamming against the wall again and again.
Mel kisses him on the
MEL
temple.
“Just let it go, Nil. Let it go.” She walks out.
Mel takes the elevator, the doors splitting her reflection and that of the Little Girl. The guard in the basement is not the same guy who greeted her only half an hour ago, but all the same he smiles and wobbles his head, showing off his rotten teeth, his wrinkled face, an old man in his early thirties. He magically knows which one is her vehicle and hands her the keys of the Enfield. Mel rides it, indulging in the pleasant touch of the bike on her palms, on the inside of her thighs, and between them.
The Saifee, the best hospital in the city and of which Worlds United owns a fair share, shines in the night just two hundred meters from a clinic where family members of patients, dogs and rats sleep on the ground, all waiting for more or less the same thing.
Mel enters exhibiting her pink pass, takes the elevator scratching away the remaining enamel from her nails and, tempted by the idea of biting them, just a little, shoves her hands in her pockets. But before the doors reopen, though, she has given in. Mel spits out a piece of nail as she walks out on the floor.
A security guard stands in front of the room.
“Take a walk,” says Mel as she steps in.
On Gabriel’s face, a hint of surprise. Mel cheers, smiling with her eyes, relishing in the confusion she created in him at last, drinking from it like a leopard in the summer—oh, the sweet, smoky smell of chaos. But when Gabriel tries to sit up, tries to disguise the extreme vulnerability of his position and regain a semblance of dignity, Mel feels a stab of pain, and for a moment she feels discouraged and belittled by the suffering she is inflicting.
The room, the closest to the fire escape, is spacious, spotless.
Gabriel falls back in the bed, slowly, hugging a pillow, exhaling, opening his lips, his eyes always wide and vigilant. “How does it feel?” he says.
Mel stares at him.
“Victory, I mean. Or defeat, depending on the point of view.” He runs a hand through his crewcut. “I had my doubts at the beginning, I won’t deny that. And not because you’re rich or because you’re white. The first time I saw you I knew who you were, of course, like everyone else, but unlike everyone else, on instinct I knew what you came looking for, and I knew you’d get it. You were helping out at the Breach clinic, weren’t you, the first time I saw you? Well before Budhwar Peth, you used Ferang to participate in his social work, and so you were there, waiting for the right opportunity. And then you looked up and met my eyes, oh I remember that as if it were yesterday, and I knew I had in front of me a golden opportunity.”
Mel walks toward the bed, sees a vase of fake flowers on a bedside table. Seeing the dust that covers them, she removes them from the pot and washes them in the sink in the corner of the room.
“I was right.” Gabriel waves his hand as if to dismiss the memory, his fingers nimble in the air. “Your victory coincides with my own, you know, and it’s ironic that my downfall also coincides with yours. Soon the sky of Ayodhya will again be filled with the black fumes of the uprising, the flames of useful things destroyed in an act of protest. You may think it gives me pleasure, the idea of the masses rising in my name. The answer is yes, of course it does. Winning is everything, for those like us. Am I wrong?” Gabriel smirks and cocks his head. “No, of course not. We are alike, you and me, now I see that crystal clear.” Gabriel smoothens the bedsheet, protecting his stomach. “The first time I saw you, though, I misunderstood your personality, but now I know—both of us have consecrated our lives to a higher purpose we ourselves created, and for this invention we are ready to do anything.”
“Enough, Gabriel,” says Mel, drying the flowers with a cloth. “You knew the implications of this plan even better than I did. Enough with your punchlines.”
“Life has no meaning,” he says, ignoring her. “I always knew that. Putting myself in your hands, maybe a part of me had hoped I’d find a way that wouldn’t come to this, but deep down I always knew. There is no meaning except what we ourselves choose, arbitrarily. For animals it’s easier. The meaning of their lives is dictated by instinct, a feeling so pervasive as to leave no room for anything else. But with us, nature has done an incomplete job, giving us the faculty to question the stars in search of a purpose, but depriving us of the ability to decipher the answer. So, the answer, we make it up. For some it’s love, for others it’s power, or fame, or family or money. This is the only way for our species to survive. We repeat the same question again and again and we end up mistaking the echo of it for the answer we were looking for. I know what you think. This is why the world is falling apart, because each of us is willing to do anything it takes, to kill in some cases, to achieve what we believe to be the purpose of our existence. The purpose, the goal, the dream, call it what you want, but the moral is the same. Our destiny is fulfilled through the death of the destiny of others.”
Mel rinses the fake flowers.
Gabriel licks his lips. They look dry. “It’s by mere chance that the purpose of my life is to create and yours is to destroy. However, I believe—the one without the other can’t really exist, can it now? That’s why I don’t feel like a victim. I don’t feel like a victim at all. I am a martyr. In your eyes, that day, I saw something I had never seen before, and that is the absence of doubt.” Gabriel stares at the back of his hand. “But then I didn’t know that your talent has nothing to do with anger. Only now I really see what it is. It’s revenge. The same that powers my project. Yes, revenge on a world that is wrong and has been with impunity for too long. Many would be surprised to hear me talk this harshly. Don’
t be fooled, there are no benefactors here. Even Gandhi did it for himself. And you—you’ve made it. You have rekindled the fire. And it will blaze. It will consume everything, everything and everyone, while you dance untouched into the flames.” Gabriel allows himself a smile. “Maybe.”
Mel puts the flowers back in the pot, and the pot back at his bedside, observing him the whole time without any thought crossing her mind. She smiles back. “You’re right about everything,” she says. “Except for one thing, Gabriel. This is not a story about revenge. This is a story about love.”
Gabriel’s smile widens, and he nods an indulgent nod. “Good luck, Blonde Girl.”
Mel feels her bowels lock up. She rummages in her bag, steps closer. “You ready?” she says, the syringe in her hand.
Gabriel holds her gaze, says nothing. Nothing at all.
Mel turns the heart monitor off, picks the tube of his intravenous feeding with two fingers, finding the port, placing the needle against it, pushing in. Four hundred milligrams of heroin shot into his bloodstream.
Gabriel gasps, yet his features relax at once, his eyes open wide, his pupils shrinking to pinheads. He has beautiful eyes, she notices, but their light gets dimmer and dimmer in the white, cold room. He smells like jasmine, even now.
She reaches out to hold his hand. He pushes her away.
Gabriel’s lips turn blue, his face sinking on itself. He already looks older. He wouldn’t like that, she tells herself. But he’s still looking at her. The whole time, his eyes don’t leave her.
His breath, the flutter of his eyes, it all slows down. And then it stops. There he lays, empty. Gone.
She walks out, calls the guard back.
“Make him vanish,” she says. “Keep him safe,” she says. “No one can know.”
In the elevator, Mel’s breath breaks painfully in her lungs, her lips quivering but, bowing her head she hides it, the Little Girls singing their song in her mind.
Objects in the Mirror Page 32