* * *
—
He turns them all back over, pushes them away so hard they scatter to the floor.
“This isn’t real.”
Chandra pours him that drink now.
Gautam takes it with shaking hands.
Then Chandra takes the phone, turns it off speaker, puts it to his ear, listens a moment, hangs up.
“It wasn’t me,” Gautam whispers. He drains the glass, takes out a cigarette, tries to get up, but he’s dizzy. He sits down again, puts the cigarette in his lips. Chandra leans forward and lights it for him, retrieves the photos from the floor.
“Your car. Your fingerprints. Your face. Witnesses who place you at the scene.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“Surely you must remember now.”
That flash of light.
That servant girl reaching out.
Gautam’s body sags.
Then his chest convulses, he retches.
Chandra stares at one of the photos a long while. Places it on the table. “The girl was pregnant,” he says.
Gautam, empty.
“It wasn’t me.”
Chandra lights his own cigarette.
“It was. It was you. But . . . it doesn’t have to be.”
The words take a long time to become meaningful.
Gautam looks up.
“What?”
“Mr. Rathore. What if, by some miracle, it was not you.”
He blinks stupidly. “What?”
“You’ll be arrested soon enough. That is, if you don’t jump. The police will take you in, I can assure you of that. You will go to jail. You can protest all you like, concoct strange stories, try to blame others, but that will only make things worse. Have you been to jail? I’m not sure you’re suited. At least, not without money. Your family won’t help you. Sunny’s line of credit has expired. It’s true you have your status, that will protect you to a point. But you also have enemies now. Would you like to be an enemy of my employer? Do you know what that means? We can make life quite miserable for you.” He pauses. “But what if it weren’t true? What if you could turn back the hands of time?” Chandra places the photos back into the manila envelope. “At present there is a young man in police custody, waiting to go to court. He has volunteered to take the blame, at great personal cost. He could just as easily change his statement, and this Polaroid of you could just as easily go to the press and the police.”
Gautam closes his eyes.
“What do you want me to do?”
“That’s the spirit.”
“Just tell me.”
“We want you . . . to get better.”
Gautam looks up, screws his face.
“What?”
“There’s a car waiting downstairs. Eli will show you to it. Inside there’s a suitcase, your passport, other small effects, an amount of money to help you on your way, not that you’ll need it, but it’s psychological. You’ll drive to Jaipur. From there you’ll take a private jet to Bombay. From Bombay you’ll fly to Geneva. Your visa is in order.”
“It is?”
“Once there you will be escorted to a clinic. A lovely place in the mountains, conducive to recovery.”
“Recovery?”
“From your vices, Mr. Rathore.”
“You’re sending me to rehab?”
“And you will stay there as long as it takes. You will work hard at your recovery, with the memory of this night and your liberty etched into your mind. And when you’re fully recovered, be it three or six or eight months or two years if need be, you will return to your family home. You will marry. You will act with honor and propriety. You will take your rightful place as the heir.”
“I don’t understand.”
“One day you’ll be asked for a favor. It won’t be anything onerous. In fact, in doing this favor, you will become powerful and also very rich. This wealth will snowball, as will the power. The only thing you must do is prove to your family that you are reformed. That you are worthy of your name.”
Chandra stands up, buttons his suit, waves up to Eli to come join them.
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to understand, Mr. Rathore. You only need faith. Cheer up. You’re with Bunty now.”
AJAY III
Tihar Jail
1.
He is taken from the warden’s office to a new cell in a different wing. He passes many crowded cells along the way, where prisoners whoop and cheer, snarl and spit, where some clutch the bars dead-eyed, some unblinking, some morose, others sleeping, cooking, sobbing in a corner. All the cells are overcrowded, twelve, fifteen men to a space, but the cell they stop outside holds just two. The scene within: sedate, bright, homely even. From a table against the wall, a TV plays a comedy show; another table, low and circular, holds a bottle of Black Label, two glasses, a pitcher of water, a sprawled deck of cards, a thick stack of rupee notes. Pictures of gauzy, hypercolored mountains and Bollywood actresses adorn the walls. There are two beds with thick mattresses, another mattress on the floor. The two men laze there, watching TV, eating from buckets of Chicken Changezi.