He raised his shot glass in the air. Everyone followed suit.
“What I’m saying to you is this . . . We’re going to transform this city, we’re going to transform this country, we’re going to change our lives, we’re going to transform this world! This is India’s century. Our century! No one’s going to take it from us!”
“And bring back the Koh-i-noor,” one drunken voice cried out.
“I’ll bring back the Koh-i-noor!” he cried. “Right after I shove it up Prince Charles’s ass!”
* * *
—
She watched this speech with an underwater detachment. He wore a casual dark brown linen summer suit, crisp white shirt, black tie. His rakish black hair fell about his face, his dark, almond eyes shone feverishly. His thick beard, neatly groomed, cut close to his skin, gave him a scholarly, revolutionary look. He kept running his hair back with his hand. He was tall, rangy, athletic. But she couldn’t get a fix on him. While his accent seemed to belong to some international nowhere, there was a coarse rustic vigor to his speech that a few years of self-improvement couldn’t hide. She liked it.
The tension of him.
She looked around the table and recognized some of the guests: a hotshot video artist, a model turned photographer, a Bengali director of short experimental films, a young fashion designer. She had interviewed a few of them for the paper. Here they all were at the altar of Sunny. She guessed he was bankrolling them too. She wondered if they would give him the time of day otherwise. But he was, and they were, and that’s how the world worked. But beyond that, God, he was magnetic. Hari was now absorbed in the group. She knew she should introduce herself, but she became reluctant, shy. “Neda,” Hari called out. She put on a faint smile, waved. A spare chair was found by Hari’s side. Vodka was passed over. There were nods and looks of recognition among Neda and some of the people she’d interviewed. Recognition and what? Disapproval? She felt inferior to them all. Everyone was at ease, and she was out of place. Hari made up a plate of meats and salad and dumplings for her and she began to eat because she was so hungry and stoned, and she glanced at Sunny and looked away when he glanced back at her.
* * *
—
She did what she knew to do. A schoolgirl trick. She stood and stepped to the threshold of the restaurant and lit a cigarette, staring into the concrete of the deserted underground arcade, tapped her cigarette out a few times, waited, twisted the tip of her shoe into the small pieces of gravel.
Waited . . .
She felt someone behind her.
She could tell it wasn’t Hari.
“I have a question,” she said.
She was gambling . . . but yes. Sunny was holding a bottle of vodka and two shot glasses. He passed one glass and filled it.
“What’s that?”
“Why would you want to shove a diamond up Prince Charles’s ass?”
He laughed.
“Seems a bit excessive,” she went on.
“It’s a metaphor.”
“Yeah, but is it?”
He gave a casual shrug. “I’m just playing to the crowd.”
“I’ll give you that.” She glanced back at the room, caught Hari’s eye a moment. “You have them eating out of your palm.”
“And you?”
“I’m a cynic.”
“So you weren’t impressed?”
“I didn’t say that. You certainly talk a good game.”
“But you want to see if my money’s where my mouth is?”
She offered her hand. “I’m Neda.”
He offered the pinky of his shot-glass hand back at her. “Sunny.”
She shook it with her thumb and forefinger. “Yeah, I know who you are.”
“Neda?” he turned the name over.
“It’s Persian.”
“And you are . . . ?” he leaned back as if to reexamine her.
“Punjabi as they come.”
“So let me guess.” He furrowed his brow as if he were a vaudeville mind reader. “Your parents are leftist liberal intellectual types who don’t believe in religion, caste, or class.”
“Wow! You’re good at this!”
“Actually, I interrogated Hari when he asked if he could bring a friend.”
“Ah, so that’s how he talks about my parents?”
“No, no. He said only nice things. He loves you, by the way. How come I never heard of you before?”
“He’s been hiding me in his past life. The one that wasn’t cool.”