He made the arrangements for me. He took care of it for me. I didn’t argue. I was broken. I was drinking so much, I was in such grief. My heart hardened because it had to, Dean, but it never hardened enough. I’m consumed by such remorse and horror at the direction my life has gone, how I let it go there. You can only be judged by your actions. But my God! There’s so much more to it than that, isn’t there? I don’t know what’s left for me now. I don’t know where I’m supposed to go, what I’m supposed to do. When I arrived here I was bereft. I had no shortcuts to help me process life. I had no comfort to help me manage. I watched all my life torn away. I watched the life I could have had evaporate. Why did I do that? And yet I’m no victim. Everyone thinks of themselves as a victim, Dean, not a willing accomplice. But there I was. I have no right to anything anymore. I have to suffer . . .
You know I see Sunny everywhere. I see him in so many faces on the street. Punjabi men with their baseball caps and beards, in their jeans and tight T-shirts over their rice bellies. He could have just been a man. I read about him in the papers. I don’t know this man. He’s thriving, it seems, though I know him enough to know he’s damned himself. But Gautam, I doubt Gautam has one sleepless night. He was born to rule, and to escape punishment is his God-given right.
I’m going to stop writing now, I’m done. I’m left alone in this lonely gray city in the dark, far from home. Can you do anything with this? Is it any good to you? Or will it just cause more pain? You can use it if you like. I allow it. I don’t know if I’ll be around to face it. I’ve already decided to leave. If you use any of this, just remember, nothing will change, this is Kali Yuga, the losing age, the age of vice. The people on the road will remain dead. The baby will still be unborn. The Gautams of this world will thrive. The Ajays of this world will always take the fall. And Sunny? I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. The wheel will keep turning toward the dissolution that will swallow us all.
Her finger lingers on the trackpad, moves the cursor over SEND. But she lacks the courage again. She discards the draft. She still won’t take a stand.
THREE
MEHRAULI, 2004
SUNNY
1.
He woke the afternoon after the crash in the villa at the farmhouse estate.
In the bedroom with the plate-glass windows looking out at the pool, and the skylights above like the eyes of a corpse staring up at the sun.
The sun was strong. Hot glass on sun. Cold, empty air. Tangled in the white duvet. The creamy sheets soaked with sweat. A perfect late winter’s day.
Remember it. Turn your head to look outside. Bare trees. Leaves falling into the pool. Remember it. Clouds pass quickly through the blue and cover the sun. Brightness muted, heat scattered, hiding. The damp sheets remember it. His perception not connected to his senses. Still a ringing in his ears. The sun returning.
He rolled over. If he stared hard enough at the pool it began to tremble.
He could see the wind through the trees.
But couldn’t hear it. He thought about the ocean, far away. “Ajay . . .”
He called out the name, impatient, forgetting Ajay was just a name now and nothing more. He was waking from a drugged nothingness. Valium, 30 milligrams. Xanax, 5 milligrams.
The bliss of a void. He shifted his body from the damp sheets, but the bed was cold there too. Sat up and reached for the cigarettes. The lighter. Artifacts of the night.
* * *
—
He still had Gautam’s coke in his trouser pocket.
His suit jacket had fallen from the back of the chair.
He wandered around the villa in his boxers with a thick blue blanket around his shoulders, one hand drawing it across his belly, listening to the cigarette burn.
Suppose it was a nightmare?
His nose was crusted with coke and blood.
He turned on the kitchen tap, spat dry, sticky blood into the sink.
Blew each nostril.
From the freezer, a bottle of Grey Goose.
He poured the viscous spirit down his throat.
A coughing fit. Doubled over. Retching.
Swallowed more vodka, waited until the sharp edges of his soul began to swoon and fray. He had to do something.
He kept seeing it.
The turn.
The river.
The cards in his hand.
The hand of his life.
2.
And driving through the Delhi night in the SUV with the two unconscious bodies in the back, with Gautam and Neda in the back, leaving the dead behind. Ajay, and the dead. Not too fast, not too slow.
Waiting for the sirens.
For the checkpoint.
But no one is coming. No one is flagging him down.