* * *
—
Now when these old friends came back to him, in the weeks and months that followed, as Gautam got clean in the Alps, as Neda vanished into London, as Ajay was just a name gathering dust, as the crash was forgotten, never spoken of, never raised, never even known, as all the tension of the last year washed away, he watched with numb pleasure as these parasites devoured everything around them without a second thought, and those he’d rejected so cruelly and arbitrarily turned up once more as if it had never happened, and partied without question, consumed without question, took everything from him. But now he succumbed to that desire within him to see them suffer, to see them fall prey to their vices. He surveyed them, his false friends, and despised them all, and was secretly glad in his heart because he was corrupting them. He was giving and giving and giving in the knowledge that when they needed him most he could take it all away.
* * *
—
In a globalized world given over to solitary consumption, his desires found expression in the anonymity of expressways and the suites of luxury hotels, pleasure in their streamlined ease, liberation in their frictionless navigation. He only need withdraw his card, only need direct his driver, sit back and close his eyes, let the blue glow of the future wash over him. The car would do the rest, the card would do the rest, the driver would do the rest. He despised public contact, dust, noise, failure, sorrow. He’d dream of waking in a city of the future, depopulated, full of elevated walkways, paths to nowhere on which no one walked.
* * *
—
When he was called in to his father, he was told he would get his reward. Now he would build. But not in Delhi. Delhi was dead to him. He would build across the border in UP. There was land, land given to them, land that Ram Singh had acquired, which Dinesh Singh would oversee, as was the deal. It was a blank canvas of nothingness upon which he could finally construct his dreams.
AJAY IV
Tihar Jail
1.
It was a lesson to him, the photo of his sister. You’re never comfortable. You’re never happy. Thinking you have power, you’re in control, this is a mistake. Never make that mistake again. He keeps hold of the photo in the brothel, it’s in his hand all day, in his hand at night, a double-edged sword, a double-sided coin that’s the price of life. Obedience and slavery. He can’t bring himself to look at her face. He can’t stomach the words on the back of it. But he holds it. All day long he torments himself. He just holds it, keeps his eyes averted. An act of torture, an austerity. His sister. He wants to see her again. He wouldn’t judge her. He would save her. At night before he sleeps he allows his eyes to fall on her.
* * *
—
Is it possible to withdraw? Disappear? Be erased? Can one do it by doing nothing? Or must one make the choice? Must one take the drastic step? There it is, the thought that’s been dogging him, at his heel his whole life. He, Ajay, can die. He can just die. It would be quick. It would only take a moment and all the pain would end.
* * *
—
The idea, coaxed into the light, becomes his friend. He tends to it kindly. Where? When? A bottle shard in his wrists. A sheet round his neck in the shower. Or a Mandrax overdose. But he must get it right. He mustn’t slip up, lose his nerve, be found out and saved. If it was done, it should be total. Death would be a relief to him. Justice, perhaps, for everything he’s done. For the men he killed, and for the ones he saw dead in the road, who, though he didn’t kill, he betrayed. Strange though . . . now these thoughts run freely in his mind, others run too. Options he never thought he had. Saying no to Sunny—this is the first thought he entertains. Sunny tells him to get in the car, to drink the whisky. And he, Ajay, says no. The very thought of it is thrilling. He says no. He says: no. It’s like the dreams of a blind person who has sight. It’s a deaf person dreaming they can hear. A mute dreaming they can speak. Everything is turned up loud, in color. No.
Why don’t you get in the car?
* * *
—
He plays his life in reverse.
Each time saying no.
No, he won’t chase Gautam.
No, he won’t fire the gun into the air.
No, he won’t decide to kill the Singh brothers.
No, he won’t try to find home.
No, he won’t go to Delhi to work for Sunny Wadia.
No, he won’t get in that Tempo.
No, he won’t let the goat free from its rope.
* * *
—
He’s back there, eight years old, back with Hema. He’s supposed to be tying up the goat. He’s supposed to be tying the rope. He doesn’t tie the rope. The goat goes free. He watches it go. This is what he realizes. He watches it go, and it eats the spinach in the neighbor’s field. Hema, where is she? She sees and comes running. She doesn’t chide him. She runs straight for the goat. Pulls it away, though it won’t come. He watches. He tries to see her in his mind’s eye. But now all he sees is the woman in the photo.