“Ajay?”
“Yes, madam.”
“Is everything OK?”
“Yes, madam.”
“Is Sunny OK?”
“Yes,” he said, but he didn’t sound so certain.
She thought about pursuing that line, but decided against it, lapsed into silence again, but he overtook the truck soon after, and the act of acceleration on the narrow road roused her.
“You drive like you know the roads.”
“Madam,” he said, “I worked here.”
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Arambol.”
“You were a shack boy?”
“Yes.”
“Before Sunny?”
“Before Sunny Sir.”
She lit a new cigarette. “Have you been back there? To see your friends?”
He smiled shyly and shook his head. “Madam, I’m working.”
They fell into silence again and crossed another bridge.
The image of that smile remained imprinted in her mind.
* * *
—
They entered the capital city, Panjim. Small, colonial. It made her think of a fairy tale. Ajay drove along the riverfront before turning inside, following narrow streets of yellow-painted colonial buildings with large-tiled roofs and narrow wooden balconies and screens made of oyster shell. Winding up a hill to a hotel called the Windmill, one of those once glamorous, now shabby, three-star joints. He found parking nearby and locked the car and asked her to follow him. Inside the small reception, a young man with frizzy hair and acne and a badly sprouting mustache greeted Ajay with warmth. He looked to Neda and addressed her in English. “You must be our guest. Your friend is waiting for you.” He pointed to the elevator. “On the roof terrace.”
“Madam,” Ajay said, “I’ll go.”
Before she could reply he had slipped out the front door.
* * *
—
She rose in the cramped and clanking elevator. It opened to a dead roof. Chairs had been stacked, tables turned on top of others, lights switched off. But she saw a bartender standing in low light behind the bar, and when she moved ahead she could make out Sunny’s figure seated, feet up on the concrete rim, staring out at the clouded, moonlit sky.
She approached silently. He was dressed in an old cotton T-shirt advertising a petroleum brand, the kind you get in backpacker towns in Thailand. She could see the bulge of his belly that had been hidden by his tailoring. His beard had grown unkempt. He wore a baseball cap.
An empty chair was waiting at his side.
She stood beside him, lit a cigarette but didn’t sit.
She looked out onto the narrow, cobbled streets, the old stone churches, the palm-lined avenues. The air was fresh and smelled of brine. Beyond the city, trawlers bobbed in the wide, placid mouth of the river. On the far bank, a flamboyance of advertising hoardings, neon flamingos above a fishing village, irradiating the sky.
“Sit down,” he said.
“Not yet. I’ve been sitting all day.”
He offered her the drink that was in his hand.
She was cool with him.
“What’s that?”
“Long Island Iced Tea.”
“You’re on vacation now?”
He shrugged.
She took it from him and took a sip.
“Shit, that’s strong.”
“Yeah.”
“We used to get them in college, happy hour at TGIF, me and the girls, when I had my girls. Feels like another life.”
“I never had one before,” he said.
“Really?”
“I went straight from desi daru in the cane fields to martinis at Dukes.”
“Why am I here?” she said.
“Because I’m a joker,” he looked up at her. “Right?”
Dean’s unpublished piece.
“You read it?” she said.
“Yeah.”
“The whole thing?”
He nodded. “Maybe your guy was right.”
She took a seat.
“I mean . . .” She was at a loss for words. “I don’t think so.”
He took the drink back from her, slurped it down.
He was on the way to being wasted.
She felt like getting to that place too.
“At least,” she went on, “I now know what your uncle did in Kushinagar.” She raised her eyebrows. “Local politics, right?”
“I used to love him so much. He always had good stories.” He let out a long sigh, was about to speak but held back.
“What?”
“I don’t know.”