Spice and Smoke

by Suleikha Snyder

  “Kya jodi!” all the industry trades had said. “What a pair!” Dubbing them the next superhit blockbuster couple. Only, they’d never worked together again. Rahul had assistant-directed his father’s next picture, and Priya had nearly snuffed her rising star by going home to Kolkata. The crew gossip vine was right. There was a story there, no doubt. Ek epic kahani.

  For a moment, Rahul and Priya’s eyes locked, and Viki was stunned by the intensity of it. Even from across the set. He’d seen the same misery, the same longing, in the mirror every day for three years. Trishna followed the direction of his gaze, but it was clear when she spoke that she misunderstood its focus…she thought he was looking at Michael, not their producer. “My husband and I do love each other. But we know that we can’t give each other everything.”

  He snorted. As Sam might say, he had a pretty good idea of what exactly Trish couldn’t give Avi. He turned the rude noise into a cough, the lewd speculation into an honest question. “How did you live with that? With knowing there was something Avinash wanted more than you?”

  It was Trishna’s turn to make a noise of amused disbelief. “You do realize that wanting men and wanting drugs are two different things, na?”

  Yes, he realized that all too well. But before he could tell her, his mobile buzzed in his pocket. “Sorry. Ek minute.” He stepped out into the hall to check the display. Jai, it said. Sam’s Jai. There was no question, he had to answer. “Hello? Jai? Sab tik tho hai? Is everything okay?”

  “Viki Uncle!” The boy’s voice burst forth from a host of static, just beginning to deepen like a man’s. Vikram almost didn’t recognize it. “Papa’s not answering his phone! Is everything okay there?”

  “Haan, haan. Don’t worry, Jaidev. Sam’s been on set all morning. They’re filming a song, na?”

  Jai’s sigh of relief was palpable, even across the line, and Viki closed his eyes, repressing a shudder. How he remembered these moments…worried whenever Sam didn’t call, fearing he was in a gutter somewhere, or in emergency care.

  “He’s fine,” he assured, softly. “Jai, woh bilkul tik hai. He has not fallen off the wagon. He’s doing so good. Better than good. You should be proud of him.”

  “Thank God, Viki Uncle. Tell him to ignore my six voice messages, okay? I have to go back to my tuition. Maths.” Jai made an elaborate, theatrical choking noise. It figured drama would run in his blood, given who his father was.

  “Okay.” Vikram chuckled ruefully. “Apna khayal rakna. Take care, Jai.”

  “Jai?”

  The single word came from behind him. Laced with deadly fury. Sam’s face was bleached of all color, like he’d soaked in Fair & Lovely cream for hours. But there was nothing lovely about his anger. “What are you doing with my son, you son of a bitch? Talking about me behind my back?”

  Viki flinched, the mobile phone hanging loose in his fingers. “Sam…” It wasn’t as though Jai called him often. Just enough. Perhaps six or seven calls over the years. But instead of saying that, he was instantly defensive. “I broke up with you, not him. He’s allowed to talk to me if he wants.”

  “You broke up with me? Is that what you’re calling it? Bullshit. You fucking abandoned me, that’s what you did. You ran,” Sam accused. “That does not give you the right to keep up a relationship with Jai.”

  “I left because you were a junkie, and it was too much for me to watch you kill yourself.” But he wasn’t going to talk about that. He couldn’t. He couldn’t go back to those awful, terrible months. “When you were in rehab that first time, Jai couldn’t talk to you, he couldn’t talk to his mother…so he called me. Sometimes he still calls me. For birthdays and Diwali and questions on how to box a bully’s ears. That’s all it was.”

  “Jai’s all I have. You can’t take him from me.” Sam was, if possible, even paler. He wrapped his arms around himself, shivering. Away from the lights, the sweat was no doubt cooling on his skin.

  Vikram wanted nothing more than to reach out for him. Instead, he balled his hands into fists, fingers clasping his phone hard enough to break the buttons. “Sam, I’m not stealing anything from you. Jai is your son. He will always be your son.”

  Sam’s laugh was bitter, ragged, and his kohl-lined eyes closed as he drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “He is the only thing keeping me sober. Don’t you get that?”

  Sam really believed that? “No, he’s not. You know he’s not. You haven’t touched a drink or smoked hash since you got here…and that’s all your power, your strength.”

  “No, it’s my goddamn weakness. Because I swapped Mr. Johnnie Walker for Mr. Vikram Malhotra. You’re an addiction, too, Viki. That’s nothing to be proud of. Samjhe? Understand?”

  It was like being hit. Chandu and Shankar tussling in the dirt once more. “Is that all you see me as? Your new drug?”

  “What else am I supposed to see you as, Vikram? Huh?”

  “As the man who’s been in love with you for years. I love you. But that was never enough of a high, was it?”

  “Fuck you. You are so goddamn superior!”

  They were shouting now. Viki was aware that a crowd had gathered. Spot boys, a few cameramen. Joshi, Rahul, their costars. This was no drag-out fight in their dressing rooms. Nahin. It was all out in the open, for the world to see. Trishna was staring at them with a mixture of pity and empathy.

  “You do realize that wanting men and wanting cocaine are two different things, na?” she’d asked him. She had her answer now, didn’t she?

  “I’m not superior, Sam. You’ve just assured me that I’m nothing. Shukriya. Thank you for that.” Vikram tucked his mobile phone back into his jeans and walked off set.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Mr. Austin shoves the last of his papers into his case, trying to ignore the distant sounds of rifle shots. He had not known that coming to this humble little district would cause so much pain, so much discord. It is time to go back to Calcutta, to step into line like a good company man and pretend he’s never seen suffering, never known that British progress could be so unwelcome…and so destructive.

  But there is one vision he will never forget. One sight that will haunt him for the rest of his natural life: Nishta, screaming for the man she loves, fighting for his life…for his life and for, it seems, his very soul.

  Sam slumped against the parapet, sucking furiously on his fourth cigarette. He ignored, or at least tried to ignore, Michael Gill. But the man had snuck up on him, and was now leaning against the stone barrier, arms sprawled out along the top like he was posing for a calendar.

  “When did you know you were gay?” Michael asked, as if they were having some sort of heart-to-heart conversation.

  “Man, I don’t have those ‘coming out’ issues. Half the world knows I’m gay by now. So just leave it,” he spat, trying to concentrate on the peace of filling his lungs with the only drug he was allowed.

  But Michael wouldn’t be deterred. “Just answer the question, Sam.”

  It was hard to deny a man who looked like a god and sounded like a telephone sex operator. “Nine. I was nine, okay? I was totally mad for Mithun in Baadal.” In retrospect, he blamed the tractor. He’d always been soft for men who weren’t afraid of hard work, who didn’t mind getting a little dirty. Like Viki.

  “When did you take your first drink?”

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Ten, maybe? I broke into Dadaji’s liquor storage. Got sick on brandy he’d had in there forever.”

  “Your first smoke?” Michael prompted.

  Sam was fully humoring the line of questioning now. “Cigarettes? Thirteen. Marijuana, fifteen. I did my first line of cocaine in a beach club in Mauritius when I was seventeen. Is the history tour over now, Austin-sahib? Satisfied?”

  Michael slid down the low wall to sit next to him. “No. I am making a point, Sam. You have never been gay and sober at once. I think you are scared.”

  He felt his spine stiffen even as he laughed aloud. “Scared of what? Not getting high?
Because, yaar, you better believe I got over that in my very expensive rehabilitation center.”

  “No, you’re scared that Viki won’t love who you are without the drugs. That you can’t love him without the drugs.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that except, “Fuck you, man.”

  Michael didn’t blink. “That pleasure is reserved for Avi, and it didn’t come without pain. I had to put myself out there, knowing he is married.”

  “How long has this huge risk been playing out, Romeo? A week?” he snorted, derisively. “That’s so cool. So very romantic.”

  “Thirty-eight days.” Michael’s know-it-all façade slipped a notch. Despite not feeling particularly generous, Sam patted his thigh.

  “Relax, yaar. It’s cool. In queer years you are nearly ready to get a dog and move in together. He’s mad for you. Anyone can see that.”

  Hell, the crew had a front-row seat for all their drama, which pretty much made them the worst actors ever assembled on one picture. Perhaps Joshi needed to chuck The Raj and sell the backstage stories instead? Michael shifted, staring up at the gathered clouds. “Viki’s crazy for you, too. Or did you not hear him announcing it to the public?”

  “I know. I heard. I hear it even when I’m not listening.” Sam watched a single bolt of lightning arc across the sky. The rains would begin again at any moment. “He loves me. He’s always loved me. Even when I didn’t deserve it.”

  “Then just believe it. Because that’s all any of us has got.” Michael returned his thigh squeeze, and then stood, climbing back onto the roof proper and leaving him alone.

  That’s all any of us has got. All he’d ever really had was Jaidev and Viki. That was all that had ever mattered in his life. Shit. Shit. Michael was right. Son of a bitch.

  Rahul Anand and Harsh were the ones who came after him…following him out to a secluded veranda. He had the absurd thought that such a team-up was alien after Harsh and Michael constantly dogging his footsteps like they were as inseparable as Butch and Sundance or Munna Bhai and Circuit. But, then, everything was alien, wasn’t it? Sam had ripped his heart from his chest and he was still walking. How was that even possible?

  “Vikram, don’t worry. This will not leave Bihar. There won’t be gossip.” Oh, so that was why Rahul had presented himself. “Joshi and I will straighten everything out.”

  The ironic choice of words made Viki choke back a laugh, and he leaned against a pillar, covering his eyes lest they see the less-than-mirthful tears in them. There was a sympathetic squeeze of his shoulder that could only be courtesy of Mathur the Monk.

  “Come on, man,” Harsh murmured. “It’s okay.”

  “Okay? How? How can this possibly be okay?” When he allowed himself to meet it, Harsh’s pale gaze was unbearably compassionate. “You heard what Sam said out there. He hates me. He resents me. He thinks I’m the same as heroin or cocaine. That I’m his drug.”

  “What was inside those words, Vikram? Did you hear that? Because I think everyone else did.” Harsh tossed a look over his shoulder, as if confirming that Rahul, too, had gained whatever brilliant insight he was about to impart. “Sam Khanna’s in love with you, yaar. I think he’s been in love with you this whole time.”

  If that was the case, Sam’s definition of love was total bakwas. Viki shrugged off Harsh’s hand, casting a baleful glare at him and also at Rahul. “Sam’s love is like poison. It’s codependent and dysfunctional.” God help him, he sounded like the literature they passed out at addiction support groups.

  “Maybe that’s the only way he knows how to love.” Rahul’s usually friendly, open face darkened like a thundercloud. “Maybe what he needs is all of our support, no matter how badly he behaves. Did you ever think of that, Vikram? That he needs us to not walk away?”

  Yes, he’d thought of that. Of course he’d thought of that. It was an enabler’s lullaby, na? “I stood by him,” he assured, roughly. “I believed in him when no one else did. Hum saath-saath the. We were together in everything. In all the darkest times.”

  “Then stand by him in the light,” Rahul said simply. “Be with him now, when he’s finally back on track. Because I think he needs a little push in believing that he’s better.”

  A little push? Sam was the kind of stubborn little shit who needed a tight slap and a hard shove. But he was better. Viki couldn’t deny that. Working on The Raj had proven it. He was clean, sober, ready to work and play and laugh…if he could only stop seeing everything as part and parcel of his addiction.

  “What’s more important, yaar? Protecting yourself or taking a chance on him?” Harsh asked. Viki knew the question came from a personal place. For hadn’t he taken a chance on Trishna? Tossed caution to the winds? “Do you really want to leave Sam again?”

  Yes. No. Never. Vikram scrubbed at his face with the back of his hand, as if he could banish both the tear tracks and his conflict. Rahul and Harsh wore matching expressions of compassion. “Love doesn’t come around often,” Rahul pointed out, and something in his eyes called to his own story. Whatever had happened with Priya Roy…it was still paining him. “What if this is your last chance to make it right? What if this was all meant to be?”

  Was it? They’d gathered quite a motley crew on The Raj, hadn’t they? Somehow, everyone had paired off, two by two. Even Mili the makeup girl and Mohan the driver…they’d gone off on holiday to Gol Ghar and climbed all one hundred and forty-five steps. Could he climb a much smaller number for Sam? Could he take the first, crucial, step?

  Viki knew questions would not suffice. Now, all he needed was answers.

  Chapter Twenty

  The thunder of horses’ hooves heralds the coming storm, the noise growing louder with every passing tick of minutes. At any moment, the sipahis will be upon them…will finish them. They are outnumbered, crippled, both in spirit and in body. This is not a reckoning. It is a slaughter.

  “Take her,” Varun whispers, hefting his sword. “Take your woman and go. Leave this terrible place. Find happiness where you can.”

  But Alok cannot abandon those he loves, the men he respects, to the fate he knows awaits them. “No, brother. I am with you. Nishta is with you. We are all in Ishwar’s hands now.”

  A Roman emperor had once fiddled while his city burned. Trishna found herself dancing while her film was, quite possibly, crumbling. It was her bewakoof husband’s idea, of course. She’d paced back and forth in the hall like an expectant father in a hospital ward, wearing grooves into the floor until Avi diverted her by pulling her into the set where they’d been filming the item number. Empty of extras and crew, now just a cavernous room of dormant cables and silenced smoke machines. He’d demanded she show him some dance steps, because he was still feeling a bit off tempo.

  “Now you want a revolution?” she grumbled.

  “No, I want peace after all the tamasha.”

  “I will give you a piece…of my mind.”

  They practiced for perhaps twenty minutes, but it felt like hours until Harsh and Michael returned from their respective missions, looking like two bearers of miserable news.

  “What happened?” She stopped mid-whirl and Avinash, still copying her, stumbled off balance. “Are Vikram and Sam all fixed up?”

  Michael caught Avi, setting him right and slinging an arm around his shoulder like they were chums. They would fool no one. No friends looked at each other with such trust and affection. “I did my best, bhabi. It’s up to them to fix each other.”

  Harsh was more helpful. With his eyes alone, he told her volumes. He’d spoken in a similar way when he came back from Mumbai, telling her that he missed her and loved her and that all her fears were baseless. “They are very proud, very tough. But bahut pyar hain ooske beech main. There is a lot of love there also. That will win out in the end.”

  “Sach? Oh, really, Saint Harsh?” She gently pushed at his shoulder. Not the hard shoves and sharp slaps of so many weeks before. “How do you know? What made you so smart?”

&n
bsp; “You did.” He cut a quick, careful, glance round the room before pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “It won with the four of us, na?”

  Trish felt Avi’s gaze on her then. Sober, serious, just a little bit sad. And she understood. In this, too, he’d had to be shown the proper steps. Perhaps he would never master the moves completely, but he was trying. They were all trying. She didn’t bother checking the room for prying eyes before looping her arm through Harsh’s. Before bringing them close to Avinash and Michael in an absurdly silly, but absurdly right, embrace. “It won because we fought for it,” she told her boys. “Because it’s worth it to continue fighting.”

  Forget The Raj. Love was the only empire that mattered.

  When Sam finally got it in his head to follow in Michael’s wake, he climbed slowly over the parapet and back onto the roof. It felt like it had been hours, but it had only been minutes since the lecture session. He half-expected the perfect Mr. Gill to be waiting for him. But it wasn’t Michael who greeted him at the top of the stone staircase that led back down into the haveli.

  Viki looked like he’d gone ten rounds with the fight master. His broad shoulders were slumped, his eyes brimming with exhaustion. Sam didn’t know what he was supposed to say. Sorry? Forgive me? Main world class idiot hoon? He turned away, tilting his face up to the first drops of rain, hoping the water would somehow flush away the last two hours.

  “Harsh, Avinash and Trishna have smoothed things over with Joshi and Anand.” Vikram sounded as beaten as he looked. I did that, Sam thought sickly. I hurt him. “They swore the crew to secrecy. None of our little drama will go to the public. I just thought you should know.”

  “I’m not worried, man.” It was true. The crew selling their saga to the Bollywood tabloids was last thing on his mind. “I’m worried about us. About you. About what the hell we are doing here.”