The Centre(60)

But, yeah, let’s not overstate the matter. In many ways, Delhi was lethally unsafe, and I found myself occasionally circumventing a certain spewing of hatred by answering, when people asked where I called home, that I was from Bihar or Lucknow. (In those places, I figured the Hindi accent probably sounded the most like mine.) Not being visibly Muslim was also, I could tell, useful to me in India, and I felt for my sisters and brothers struggling with an everyday Islamophobia that was even more deeply rooted, pervasive, and hostile than that in England, and also, even more state sanctioned, positively encouraged, and therefore deadly. Again, not that Pakistan is kind to its minorities … but this comparison game leaves me talking in circles. All patriotism, in the end, is patriarchal and deadly.

Anyway, after our sightseeing, we’d come home and chill for a while. Then, every evening before dinner, Shiba would spend about an hour in the cottage, recording her story while I read a book in the living room. Arjun would often, at this time, conveniently take a break from his work and saunter in from the study for a chat.

“What are you reading?” he asked one evening.

I’d selected a Henry James novel from one of the tall bookshelves lining the hallway.

“The Turn of the Screw,” I said, showing him the cover.

“Ah, I see. I’ve never been one for fiction myself.”

“It’s pretty good, I think. A bit hard to understand.”

“For you? I doubt that very much,” he said.

“No, it is. It’s dense. Confusing. I keep losing my concentration.”

“You youngsters, I tell you. All of this YouTube shoetube has shortened your attention spans.”

“I’m not that young.”

He looked at me then, with a raised eyebrow.

“No. No, I suppose you’re not.”

I don’t know if I’d meant to infuse my words with innuendo. Sometimes, it feels as if it’s just hardwired into my system—a compulsion toward people-pleasing, maybe stemming from an early sexualization and an intuitive understanding of the power in pandering to sleazy uncles. That power, of course, is totally false, but maybe I reach for it anyway, unconsciously. The other possibility is that my words had been innocent, and Arjun was the one who infused them with another meaning with his raised eyebrow and conspiratorial tone of voice. Maybe he had started it even earlier, on that first night in the cottage when he’d told me that thing about the illicit substances. By asking me to keep a secret from his daughter, he had made me an ally. An accomplice. I noted it all, the raised eyebrow, the tone, the regular strollings in for chats while Shiba was away, but I responded as if I hadn’t.

“He writes in a way that’s deliberately obscure,” I pivoted back to the James novel. “Unclear.”

“I know what obscure means.”

“Of course.”

“Tell me,” he asked. “How did you get so smart?”

“I’m not that smart.”

“My daughter is very smart, and if she values you so highly, you must be too.”

“We’re just … on the same wavelength, that’s all.”

“Well. I’m glad she’s made such a close friend. It’s good to have you here. I hope you keep coming.” He smiled and raised his glass toward me. “Drink?”

“I’m good, thanks.”

“Okay, well. You know where to find me,” he said and gave me a wink. “Back to work.”

He was cliché, Arjun Uncle. Of another era, with his mustache and his flattery, his sharing of confidences, and now, his offer of a drink. But at the same time, he held the answers to the burning curiosities inside me, not just regarding the Centre, and Anna and Peter, but something deeper. I felt that Arjun held something mysterious, unnameable, precious, and ephemeral, something that I would never have access to. At least not in this lifetime. But proximity, I thought, could help. And so his attention both flattered and repelled me, and I’d even started reconsidering my refusal of the drink when Shiba returned, yellow USB dangling from her wrist. Each of the foursome carried a similar USB on which they backed up their recordings, plugging them into whichever device they were using.

“How was it?” I asked.

“It was fun. I actually find it very cathartic, ending every day like that.”

“I can imagine,” I said. “What did you talk about today?”

“Oh god, so random. Literally whatever came into my head. I think at some point I was even talking about the renovations to the Centre. Hey, you feel like going out tonight?”

“Sure.”

In the evenings, after dinner with the uncles, Shiba and I would often go out, either with her friends or by ourselves. My favorite place that we would go was to the top of the Park Palace hotel, where we reclined on lounge chairs that surrounded the rooftop pool—a glowing blue oasis. Here, we usually ordered a luscious chocolate fondue that came with pieces of brownie, strawberry, pineapple, and banana. We would sit there for hours, pecking on the fondue, sometimes ordering a cocktail, soaking in the breeze and chatting. These nights out felt decadent and luxurious. I imagine, though, that it sounds like peak ignorance and privilege to be feasting poolside while children begged for money on the street just below, but sometimes it felt like this very thing—the chaos and noise, the poverty so close to our faces—that made our retreat into luxury all the more alluring. The rooftop was a haven from the blaring horns and the dying poor just steps away.