“Thank you, sir.”
“The rest is up to Sunny, you’ll report to him. He’s your boss now. Do what he says and you’ll be fine.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And smile. You’re a Wadia man now. No one will ever steal from you again.”
* * *
—
He has a haircut and a shave in the market and when he returns a doctor tends to the cuts on his face, cleans his wounds, and hands him one painkiller and one antibiotic. He is shown around the servants’ areas below ground, shown where he is and isn’t to go, then in the afternoon he is sent up to Sunny. He still cannot comprehend the dimensions of this house; this house is like nothing he’s ever seen. A uniformed boy leads him back through corridors he thinks he knows, and when he reaches the ground floor through a small flight of stairs the surroundings abruptly change, the functional tiles and white lighting give way to rugs and ornate furniture, to paintings on the walls, to fantastic displays of wealth. They travel up a central flight of shallow marble stairs, with each floor leading off through several heavy wooden doors into different apartments, some he can see as servants pass in and out. On the third floor they turn into one of these doors and enter another maze of passageways, softly lit, decorated with statues of gods and soothing sacred music, speckled white marble underfoot. At the end of one corridor there’s an elevator. They enter, he and the silent, uniformed boy, and travel to the fifth floor. As soon as the elevator opens they are met by a red-leather-padded door and a stairway falling down to the right. The boy rings the bell on the door and a chubby young man with laconic eyes opens up to let them in.
A burst of light and air. Sunny’s apartment is the penthouse. Ajay enters a vast main room full of plush sofas and low tables full of hardback books, a raised level on the far-right side with more sofas and a giant TV; bright, garish paintings on the wall; odd sculptures and lamps dotted around; trays of fresh fruit beautifully cut; and past the raised section a small, cramped-looking kitchen incongruous with the rest. On the left there’s another section with a dining table and eight chairs, and beyond it a bank of glass doors leading to what looks like a pool, through which floods warm afternoon light. It seems to Ajay that this place exists in a universe of its own, detached from the working bowels of the vast mansion, the muted and austere opulence of the other upper floors. Yes, after the crushing authority of the building, after the windowless weight of his own dorm room, this apartment feels like paradise.
He stands dumbly, inhaling it all. Then he hears the voice he has yearned for for so long, coming from a door to the rear of the apartment.
“Arvind?” it shouts.
“Yes, sir?”
“Who’s here?”
“Sir,” the chubby servant replies, “the new boy is here.”
“What new boy?”
“Sir, the one from the mountains.”
There’s a few seconds of silence.
“Send him in.”
“Go,” Arvind whispers.
Ajay heads toward Sunny’s voice, pauses on the threshold.
“Get in here!”
When he enters, he’s hit by the icy blast of the AC. The room is windowless, sparsely furnished. Marble floors, cream-painted walls, a large low bed in which Sunny sits topless, rolling a joint.
“Sir,” Ajay says.
Sunny looks up and studies Ajay dispassionately. “What happened to your face?”
“Sir . . .” Ajay fumbles.
Just as he is about to regain his composure a door behind the bed opens, and the girl from the mountains, the “actress,” walks out, dressed in short silk boxers and a man’s shirt.
“It’s Puppy!” she exclaims. “He’s come. Oh, how sweet. But what did he do to his face?” She flops down on the bed and Ajay doesn’t know where to put his eyes. “I want coffee,” she says idly.
“Go make coffee,” Sunny orders. “There are beans in the kitchen.”
Ajay is frozen to the spot, overawed by it all.
“Chutiya,” Sunny cries. “What are you waiting for?”
9.
His official workday begins at six a.m. He wakes each day at four, spends a good hour in the shared bathroom scrubbing himself, brushing his teeth, cleaning his nails, oiling and parting his hair, making sure his shoes are shined and his clothes are immaculately ironed and creased.
His job is to manage the mornings. When Sunny wakes, he does not want to see the debris of the previous night. Most nights Sunny has friends over until late. Sometimes when Ajay enters he feels he’s missed them all by seconds. A cigarette still burning in an ashtray, a CD still playing low. He has his routine, collecting the empty bottles first, with great care so as not to make them clink. Then it’s the empty glasses. Then the ashtrays. Then he begins to sweep. He checks empty cigarette packets for forgotten charas at the bottom, puts any he might find, or other drugs, in little baggies, away safely in a drawer. Then he checks the sofas for lost phones or money or credit cards, plumps the pillows, mops the floor.