They pass through an inner arch into a dining room, where a solid hardwood table, space enough for twenty, runs lengthways down the middle of the room. But there’s only one man, an elderly white priest, hairless, almost deaf and almost blind, sitting at the head, eating sausage and mash.
“What’s this!?” he shouts.
“A weary traveler!” Brother Sanjay replies.
“No, I don’t want to buy a radio!”
“Ignore him, he gets like this.” Brother Sanjay pats Ajay with a reassuring hand.
With that said, the old priest retreats into his own world.
“Here,” Brother Sanjay says, “sit, I’ll bring you food.”
Ajay looks around him, shaken and confused.
Moved by the spontaneous kindness.
Mindful of the gun.
The mission at hand.
Sanjay returns with two plates of rice and dal, sabzi on the side. He looks at the clock on the wall and makes a tutting noise. “He’s always late.”
“Who?!” the old priest shouts.
“Peter Mathews,” Brother Sanjay replies.
“Leave my sausages alone!” the old priest shouts.
A gruff, bearded cook appears. “Father! Everything OK?”
“He wants my sausages!”
The cook winks at Ajay. To the priest he shouts, “I’ll keep him away.”
As the cook disappears, another figure enters the hall. Silently, meditative, head down, his hair cut into an unfashionable bowl.
He bows to the old priest first, takes a seat opposite Ajay, next to Sanjay.
“Good evening.” He places his hand on his heart. “I’m Peter Mathews.”
* * *
—
“Why are you doing this to me?” Sunny holds his head in his hands.
“I remember the day you were born,” Vicky replies. “It was an eclipse. A beautiful day. I wished I could have been by your mother’s side.”
“Please. Stop torturing me!”
He can feel the MDMA rising, unmooring him from reality, loosening the mortar of his rage.
“I regret all these years,” Vicky says.
Sunny turns to look at him and he clearly sees his own face.
“What are you doing to me?” he says again.
Vicky gives him a distorted smile.
“Nothing you haven’t already done to yourself.” From his pinky finger he slides off a gold and emerald ring. “She wanted me to give you this.”
Sunny stares into the emerald pulsing green.
“I told her I would wait.”
* * *
—
“I’ve been through my life convinced more and more,” Peter Mathews says, “that I’m dying all the time. I can’t help this feeling. Every time I cross the road, I believe I’ve been hit by a car. One version of me keeps walking, but the other has died. These are terrible thoughts to have, I know, but it’s something I can’t shake. Have you heard of the multiverse, Brother Sanjay?”
“I can’t say I have.”
“There are infinite worlds where every possible world plays out. In this one, I could stab myself right now,” Peter Mathews says, “or you, Brother Sanjay, or our new friend here, who has just arrived.”
“Oh dear.”
“Here we’d all be dead, but in the other worlds we’d still be alive.”
“It doesn’t bear thinking about,” Brother Sanjay says, before perking up. “Still, it’s no excuse to be unkind.”
Ajay keeps staring at Peter Mathews.
Does he know?
Does he suspect?
Should he pull his gun out and shoot him dead?
Peter Mathews looks back at Ajay and smiles.
“Where have you come from?” he asks.
“He’s from nowhere,” Brother Sanjay jokingly replies.
Mathews pours himself a glass of water. “No, he’s come from somewhere else tonight.”
“I came from jail,” Ajay says.
“Yes,” Mathews nods, “I could guess from your tattoo. I work with prisoners all the time. And what did you do?”
“Killed people.”
“Oh dear,” Brother Sanjay laughs, “maybe you’ll be the one to kill us tonight.”
* * *
—
Sunny holds the ring in his hand, shimmering, pulsating.
He starts to grin.
He says the word.
“Rastogi.”
Vicky nods sympathetically and smiles.
“Rastogi,” Sunny says again and climbs to his feet.
Starts to laugh.
Uncontrollably.
“Yes,” Vicky nods, “yes, Rastogi!”