“Sit.”
Sunny sits on the footstool, far too small, diminishing himself.
“Papa, I . . .”
Bunty holds up his hand. “Don’t speak. There’s nothing to say.”
Silence. In the warm shadow.
He goes on.
“You cannot undo what’s done.”
Sunny feels his throat narrowing, clogging, burning.
“I did it for you,” he says.
He just might break down. He wants these words to be believed over everything.
“It was smart thinking with the Polaroid.” Bunty taps out his cigarette ash. “Did you sleep?”
Sunny composes himself, nods meekly.
Bunty nods along too. “It was a bad night. But it could have been far worse. And now I know something very important.”
Sunny’s eyes dart around the floor as he waits. Bunty, in no rush, only stares into his son’s anguished face.
“What, Papa?” Sunny whispers.
Bunty leans forward. “That you know what it means to be ruthless.”
Sunny wells up, all but cries.
Satisfied, Bunty leans back in his chair. “Why don’t you make yourself a drink?”
But Sunny shakes his head. “I’m fine.”
His father studies his broken expression, his downturned eyes.
The coke is losing its power.
The yawning emptiness is swallowing him.
“Where is he?” Sunny asks.
“Who?”
“Gautam?”
“He’s far away now.”
“What will happen to him?”
“He’ll become useful.”
He daren’t ask.
But he has to.
“What did he say?”
Bunty feigns ignorance. “About what?”
About what? About what a fool I’ve been. Exposing myself to him, being played for fun.
“About last night.”
Bunty smiles. “Does it matter? Do you think I don’t know everything anyway? Your plans with him. Your plans with the girl. Do you think I didn’t know?” So there it is. His father knew it all. He watched quietly, waiting for Sunny to ruin himself. Waiting, waiting, until . . . “But you’ve wiped the slate clean.” Bunty stands. Shifts his body close to Sunny and Sunny looks up as Bunty speaks. “I always worried for you. Worried that you didn’t have it in you to be my son. But you destroyed everything you held close in a heartbeat.” He reaches for Sunny’s face, holds his cheek in his great hand. “You did good, son.” Tears well and fall. Then just as suddenly Bunty is gone, walking across the villa floor. “You didn’t ask about the girl,” he calls back brightly. “She didn’t ask about you either.” He pauses at the sliding doors. “You’ll stay here in the farmhouse for four nights. As far as the world is concerned, you’re in Singapore.”
“Yes, Papa.”
“Eli will keep an eye on you here.”
“Yes, Papa.”
“When you return home we’ll get to work.”
4.
He returned to the city mansion on the fifth day, Eli driving him home. To his penthouse, still almost empty since it had been torn apart. He walked into it, and he was glad all the memories were gone. He was with his father now. He ate with his father, he sat with his father, he listened to his father’s calls in the evening in his father’s great mahogany-paneled dining room, the two of them alone.
* * *
—
He told himself a story. He had been playing different roles all his life, testing personas, like all young people test themselves. Seeing who it was possible to be. Seeing which one fit. For a while he had enjoyed building a scene, projecting himself in a certain way, as an avant-garde philanthropist, a patron of the arts, as a good man with a moral code. There had been that flourishing cult of personality around him, and this he had greatly enjoyed. He had enjoyed the attention, the importance he was afforded by a small band, which he craved as a proxy for what he really needed. He had lavished them with generosity.
* * *
—
And the more he exercised his incredible generosity, the more he felt the desire to corrupt grow in him. He had seen it again and again inside himself. He lavished his friends with wine, whisky, champagne, five-star meals. He let them know everything was free, everything was on him, they needn’t worry about this ridiculous little thing called money because it would keep pouring from his body, his wallet, his card, his father. He watched their pleasure, especially those who were not conditioned to wealth, who otherwise had to count their rupees. He forced luxury and pleasure upon them so readily. It was only inevitable their tolerance, their threshold would increase. That they would slowly stop expressing delight and guilt and joy at what came from him. That they would slowly come to expect everything. And then he would pull the plug on them.