‘Sounds good,’ he said.
In the living room, he pulled out the newspapers sticking out from under the door – the Hindu and the Times. He settled down on the sofa with the Hindu while Dog Raj scampered off to examine the world below from the sitout. The headlines were the same – all scams, snags and shams. From inside the kitchen the smell of filter coffee wafted out along with the familiar tune Padmini was whistling. He reviewed the scene. The newspaper, the coffee, the dog and her. All it required was a snot-nosed kid pulling his pants going, ‘Appa! Appa!’ This was insane. This was the dream he hadn’t dared to dream.
‘Coffee,’ she said, giving him a kiss. She looked impossibly beautiful.
What was the matter with him? Why had he taken so long to realize what he had been missing?
The doorbell rang. Padmini went to answer it, followed by Dog Raj and his vibrating tail. It was her parents.
‘Back so soon?’ Padmini gave her father a hug.
‘Yes, ma. A car was leaving early, so we hopped on,’ he said.
Dog Raj jumped on both of them and greeted them in his customary fashion. The couple didn’t seem to mind at all.
‘Who’s this?’ said her father, giving the Lab’s upturned face a jolly old shake.
‘Mr Dog Raj, belongs to him,’ said Padmini, pointing to Ray.
‘Hey, Ray, sorry, didn’t see you. How are you, pa?’ said her father. He strode towards him with an outstretched hand, changed his mind midway and hugged him.
‘Sorry about your father, my boy,’ he said while Padmini’s mother patted his back.
‘Thanks, Uncle. Thanks, Auntie,’ he said.
He felt uncomfortable. What were they thinking? He tried smoothing the wrinkles on his track pants and smiled awkwardly.
‘Ennappa, morning jog-a?’ said the old man.
Ray’s head did a cross between a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’. Padmini’s father took it to be a nod.
‘Combining it with walking your dog, I see. Very good,’ he said.
‘Ray’s very athletic, pa,’ said Padmini from behind. ‘Ask him what he did last night.’
Her father stared at him, smiling. Ray stared back. What was the matter with her?
‘Go on, Ray, tell him,’ she said.
‘I worked out … Uncle … at the gym. Did some strength training,’ Ray said.
‘It’s good to be health conscious, son. But you should be careful not to overdo it,’ Padmini’s father said.
‘That’s exactly what I said,’ said Padmini.
Meanwhile, Padmini’s mother, who had gone into the kitchen, returned with a couple of cups of coffee.
‘Did you tell him, Mini?’ she said.
‘Tell him what?’ said Padmini.
‘These modern girls, I tell you. Padmini’s getting engaged, pa. Finally … coming Saturday, the seventh. I hope you’re here. It’s at home, only family and close friends,’ she said.
Ray looked at Padmini. The mischief of a moment ago was all gone.
‘Congratulations,’ he said.
She shrugged.
‘Who’s the lucky chap, Auntie?’ he said.
‘Vinay … he’s a journalist with…’ she said before stopping. ‘Anyway, it’s better if Mini tells you.’
‘Yeah, Padmini, why don’t you tell me?’ Ray said, getting up. ‘Gotta go, Uncle. See you, Auntie.’
‘I hope you’re here on the seventh,’ Padmini’s mother said.
‘Unlikely, Auntie. My work’s done. I’m leaving,’ he said, looking at Padmini. Strangely, she looked betrayed.
Ray walked out, followed by the Lab and Padmini. They stood at the lift. He pressed the button five times in quick succession.
‘When were you going to tell me?’ he said.
‘How? First, it was your father, then the lawyers, now this. Where was the chance?’ she said.
He could have strangled her if she wasn’t looking so vulnerable.
‘This could have been averted, you know,’ he said.
‘I didn’t want to,’ she said.
‘I don’t get it. What are we going to be from now? Friends with benefits?’
The lift door opened and he got in only to be yanked back by Padmini.
‘Listen … what happened between us is special. But your life is in the US. Mine is here. I don’t want either of us to make a move in the heat of the moment that we’ll regret later. Now, we have this at least, Ray. Isn’t it great? Don’t you get it?’ she said.
‘No, I don’t. And this Vineet character, what about him?’
‘Vinay, actually. He’s a good guy. Him and me … it’s uncomplicated. It makes sense. A girl’s got to settle down sometime. I want kids, Ray. I’m not getting younger,’ she said.
‘This … sensible sperm donor, do you … what … love him?’
‘C’mon, Ray,’ she said, hugging him. He didn’t resist, he didn’t reciprocate.
‘Do you love me?’ he said. Her face was on his chest. He could see the whorl on top of her head.
‘You know what my only regret is?’ he said.
‘What?’ she said, drawing out of the hug.
‘That of all the places in India, SBI had to transfer your dad to goddamn Madras,’ he said. He got into the lift, followed by Dog Raj.
As the doors closed, the last thing he saw was the little girl mouth that he would never kiss again.
He walked as fast as he could. He wanted to run but didn’t. Dog Raj followed him, his leash snaking behind him. The watchman from the previous night was still there, awaiting his replacement. He gestured to Ray.
‘Saar, if you don’t mind, please don’t do this kind of thing. It could get you into trouble,’ he said.
Ray stopped and put his hand on his shoulder.
‘I’ll take your advice. Thanks.’
As he got into the auto, he didn’t see Padmini looking down at him from the sit-out.
12
Nothing was in order at the parking lot of Anna International Airport. Cars played ‘Statue!’ without notice or shot out like badly aimed arrows, depending on their mood. Luggage trolleys zigzagged through the constantly changing spaces while horns drowned out cuss words. Ray wondered why no one had made an XBox game of it. The door of the car in the adjacent spot shot open suddenly, banging into theirs. A fat man got out, completely unaware of the damage he had done. Abie didn’t exercise his fundamental right of punching his lights out.
‘You guys knew?’ Ray said.
‘Yes.’ The part of Abie’s face that was visible to him from the backseat looked vaguely apologetic.
‘When were you planning on telling me?’
‘We got to know only a couple of days ago, Ray…’ said Sumi, turning to look at him.
‘Hey, c’mon, da. How were we to know that you were suddenly going to liquidate your twenty-year-old fixed deposit?’ Abie said.
‘Abie!’ said Sumi.
In spite of himself, Ray burst out laughing. You could depend on Abie to bring in body fluids into any conversation in the first five minutes.
‘I didn’t plan it,’ he said. ‘It happened.’
Why had he even mentioned this to them? It wasn’t like him at all. In fact, nothing he had been doing of late was like him. Then again, how could he have kept it to himself? These guys were all he had left.
He had slept with the girl he had been in love with all his life and found out she was getting engaged, all in one night. Who on earth was in charge of editing? Freakin’ Godard? Even he wouldn’t have jump cut from heaven to hell.
‘I think this is for the best,’ said Sumi.
‘I suppose so,’ said Ray, ‘anyway, what choice do I have?’
‘Hey, tell me, but wasn’t this your plan all along? To tie up things and go back?’ Abie said.
‘Don’t be so hard, Abie. See what the fellow’s been through,’ said Sumi.
‘I don’t think he’s being hard. He’s right. That was my plan,’ Ray said.
~
&
nbsp; ‘You must do something, Ray. If not for me, for your mother.’
It was his father. He was wearing the fedora, his Ray-Bans and a pale-green hospital gown.
Padmini stopped kissing the man in the shadows and said, ‘I agree.’
She began taking off her clothes.
The man she had been kissing came into the light. It was Rajarajan. He began jumping up and down, his fingers doing an ‘L’ sign on his forehead.
Abie was filming the whole thing, going round and round, movie camera in hand.
‘Breakfast, sir,’ Padmini said.
‘What?’ said Ray.
‘Sir … your breakfast, sir.’
Ray opened his eyes. It was the flight attendant.
‘No, thanks,’ he said.
~
San Jose was great this time of the year. The air was fresh and lemony from the citrus trees giving up their oils to the California sun. His Mercedes ML 350 purred like a porn star. And he was on the right side of the road. How good it felt to be on the right side.
Ray slid to a halt outside a fence-free, fashionably lowslung white house. A man on a lawnmower was giving finishing touches to a vertical stripe pattern on the grass.
‘The next one,’ said Clive.
Ray shook his head and drove the car to the next lot.
‘Twenty days, is that all it takes?’ said Clive Berenger. He got off and leaned against the window.
‘What do you mean?’ said Ray.
‘Twenty days in India to forget the boss’s house?’
‘Must be the jetlag. Sorry,’ said Ray.
‘Kidding. Anyway, good to have you back.’
‘Thanks for picking me up,’ he said.
Clive fired at him with the finger gun. ‘You’re the man, Ray,’ he said.
If there was one thing Ray disliked about his boss, it was his predilection for cliché. He was glad Clive hadn’t done the accompanying click-click.
Next stop: home.
It had been good of Clive to pick him up at the airport. There was something comforting about having his familiar 6’2” frame ready and waiting on arrival. Clive had driven in his car which Ray had left under his care while he was away. How many bosses did that for you? But Clive had been more than a boss, he had been a mentor. From his first day with Foretell Tech, having picked Ray from an array of talent, he had taken the Stanford grad under his wing.
‘You’re the man,’ he had said then, and it had remained that.
In a way, Ray had picked Clive and Foretell, too. Instead of going with the offers he had from giants like Intel and Microsoft, he had settled on the relatively small Foretell. He had read up on Clive Berenger, had liked what he saw and decided that Foretell was the place for him.
He knew that he had repaid Clive’s faith in him. The start-up had grown from a garage operation to a quarter-billion-dollar company in the last eight years, organically, without losing its individuality. And he had definitely been an integral part of the success story, fitting in with Clive’s philosophy, being a complementary second-in-command and working like a dog.
Clive was an old-world guy, a throwback, the kind that America had seen the last of in the 1960s. Ray found it easy to imagine him in those Anthony Mann Westerns his father so loved, replacing James Stewart as the quiet, dependable straight-shooter who would take on the establishment, but with his finger gun. Clive Franklin Berenger III believed that companies ought to be built to last, passing from generation to generation, not fatted up for slaughter by big-name behemoths.
‘This was my dad’s dream, he started it with his 401(k),’ Clive would say over a drink. ‘What Foretell makes is for sale, not Foretell.’
A stubborn guy who had got his way this far, surviving two heart attacks and staving off a dozen hostile takeover bids. In truth, he was the man.
At home, the garage door, the American answer to the Gothic drawbridge, did its elaborate welcome act as he checked his watch. Twelve minutes. That was how long it took from Clive’s place to his. Thirty-five to his office, twenty-eight to Santana Row for an evening out. Pretty much the same every time, give or take a couple of minutes. That’s what he liked about America. It was a life that didn’t throw random, meaningless surprises at you on a daily basis. If you could discount the odd maniac perforating some random school or movie theatre with automatic weapons, that is.
He keyed in his password to disengage the burglar alarm and opened the front door. Or rather, what substituted for the front door in the US in general – the all-purpose entrance that led into the house through the garage. The real front door was meant for guests and the UPS guy.
He half-expected Dog Raj to bounce out with his oscillating rear before he realized where he was. Twenty days. Is that all it took to be infected again? Ray left his suitcases in the middle of the room and checked his phone. There were 126 messages. He hit the delete button. In the era of remote connectivity, 125 of them would be telemarketers. The one legit caller would have access to his mobile.
What if it had been Padmini? What if she had called? What if she had said, ‘Ray, I love you, my darling. I can’t live without you.’
What a mess he was. Five minutes at home and he was missing a dog, and a girl who would never be his.
‘Loser!’ That’s what his father was, according to Rajarajan.
‘Loser!’ That’s what the drunken youngsters had called him that night.
He felt an unbearable emptiness in the pit of his stomach. Why couldn’t it just suck him in like a black hole and make him disappear? He collapsed on the couch.
‘Appa,’ he said, aloud or in his mind he wasn’t sure, ‘Appa, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.’
He ran into the bathroom and washed his face vigorously; he figured that that way he wouldn’t know if he was crying. Then he towelled his face till it was beet red, picked up his mobile and called Lakshmi.
‘I’m back,’ he said as soon as she picked up the phone.
‘Are you okay, da?’ The voice of the sole surviving member of his family made him want to burst into tears again. But he sucked it in with a giant effort.
‘No, Lakshmi. I’m not,’ he said.
There was silence at the other end.
‘You have us, kanna,’ she said.
‘I know,’ said Ray. ‘That’s all I have.’
‘It’s okay for you to feel terrible. You’ll be fine, I promise.’
He didn’t say anything.
‘It’s all right to cry, you know,’ she said.
‘I know and I’ve been doing loads, don’t worry,’ he said.
‘It’ll be okay,’ she said.
~
He switched off the projector, popped open the button of his Armani jacket and sat down. He had dressed up for the Japs. He hated it but he did it on occasion. People found it easier to hand over their money to a well-dressed man. The hundred million he was about to take from the Tokyo boys was worth the discomfort.
‘Gentlemen, as you know, at Foretell, we read trends, patterns – call them what you will. Nothing special, you may say. So do a lot of other companies, probably bigger, and better known than us, and do it cheaper, too. Maybe. But none do it with our accuracy. Our track record speaks for itself. In the last eight years our margin of error has been under one point five per cent. And you know why?’
He had done it so many times, he had it down pat, tweaking it here and there, depending on who the pitch was for. The three identically suited directors of Mizoguchi Corporation didn’t look particularly impressed. But that was to be expected from the Japanese. He knew they hadn’t flown across the Pacific to say no. They were in the bag.
‘…it’s because, at Foretell, unlike our competitors, the emphasis isn’t on technology, it’s on the people who analyse its findings…’
His father had looked calm at the hospital. When he had said that it was going to be fine, he had believed him. He had let Appa down. Maybe he should have insisted on annual health check-ups, like they di
d here. Had he done that, he would probably be around now.
‘…every day in the world, people, tastes, priorities – they change in a random manner. In reality, though our competitors would want to have you believe otherwise, no mathematical formula can predict how or why. At the risk of making it all sound quite simple, only sound oldworld common sense does…’
Her lips. That was the last thing he had looked at through the lift doors. Her little girl mouth with its upturned corners. He would turn around to look at her in class, wondering if he would ever know what they would feel like against his own. Even during exam times. No wonder she had beaten him consistently, the witch. How it could be set dead serious one minute, turn prankster the next. And her breath that smelt of clove. How would he kiss anyone else now?
‘We read the past to figure out your future. For instance, we could tell you how many deaths there would be of schoolchildren in America at the hands of other schoolchildren in, say, 2020 … provided the planet is around in 2020,’ he said.
The youngest of the Japanese let down his guard and laughed. His senior gave him a stern look and followed it up with a simulation of the world exploding, using his hands and an appropriate sound effect. He was obviously a fan of the Toho Films’ disaster epics. Everyone laughed, a sign the presentation was going well.
At the end of it all, when he had slunk out of Rajarajan’s room, he had turned around without knowing why. Through the closing door he had caught the director and his lawyer friend laughing. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen misplaced mirth before. He had played Holly Golly, lived in a hostel for years, been to raucous bars – where one man’s misery was another man’s side dish. But he had never heard anything like what he had heard that day. There was something medieval, maybe even prehistoric about their glee. The way they threw their heads back, revelling in the deceit and the subsequent death of a decent man.
It was as if God was on leave.
Fuck you, Raman & Son.
‘But, as you know, that isn’t the case, gentlemen. Because if the world was going to go “poof” in 2020, why would you bother giving us seventy-eight million dollars?’
An hour later, after the Japs had left, their gold Sheaffers capped and reinserted into their pockets after having signed the contracts, Clive Berenger looked at him. His protégé was staring at the blank screen in front of him.
Jump Cut Page 7