* * *
—
They crept along the track inside the compound, through the woodland, Ajay trotting alongside. They traveled for a good few minutes this way. Then the track opened up, the trees vanished, and they emerged into a grassy clearing with another track leading out the opposite side. He stopped the car in the middle. Killed the engine and the lights. Climbed out and opened the rear door. She climbed out too, felt the grass underfoot, the soft purity of it. The moon came out and the clearing was illuminated. It was clean and empty. He took her by the hand.
“What is this place?”
“Wait,” he said.
He led her through more woodland to a vast open space in which there stood a construction site of monolithic proportions. They were looking on the foundations of an extraordinary building, like an alien spaceship crash-landed. Around it were mountains of sand and gravel, piles of brick, and slabs of marble sheltered beneath tarp. There were several JCBs, a bulldozer, a huge cement truck, a dormant workers’ camp of tents and firepits. But the site was empty.
* * *
—
He guided her with a flashlight across a manicured field, toward a squat building a hundred meters from the main site; when they got closer she could make out a single-story villa, sliding-glass doors, and horizontal slabs of rough-hewn stone, slightly run down, an older marker on the land.
“Ouch.” She flinched and pulled her foot back.
She’d stepped on something sharp.
“What is it?”
He shone the torch down and saw that her foot was bleeding. She’d stepped on broken glass. A piece was still inside her skin.
He pulled it out. “Can you walk?”
She nodded.
They walked on to the villa, Sunny shining the torch on the ground, sweeping the path before her. He unlatched a gate at the side, led her down an alley to another. Outside that gate he opened a fuse box and snapped on several switches. Lights burst into life just out of view, and when they rounded the corner a swimming pool was glowing in the rear. By the poolside there was a bar, its many fridges jerked to life as Sunny flicked yet more switches. He led her to one of the deck chairs, sat her there with her leg up.
“I’ll find something.”
He got to work searching through some cupboards below the bar. She stared into the water of the pool. A few dead leaves floated in it.
He lifted his head from the cupboards.
“I don’t bring anyone here,” he said.
She turned back to the water. By the long edge of the pool toward the darkness, high, flowering bushes and palms peeked over the wall. An empty watchtower stood dormant in the night. Sunny straightened, placed a half bottle of whisky on the counter, and progressed to one of the deep freezers. “The assholes turned this off.” He looked for a switch but couldn’t find one. “Let me see inside.”
He disappeared through an entrance hidden from view.
Some lights went on inside the villa.
She slid off the deck chair and hobbled to the pool. Her foot was bleeding quite badly. When she turned it toward her eyes, the cut throbbed, dripping onto the warm concrete. She hitched up her kaftan, slid her legs into the water, up to the knee. Bats flitted overhead. The faint roar of Delhi. She watched the blood leaking from her foot into the water.
“Madam,” a new voice reached her ears. Ajay carried a large tray, its contents hidden beneath a white cloth. He looked at her with such an earnest expression.
“Sir is?”
She pointed inside the villa. He hurried in and emerged ten seconds later and hurried away again. Another minute passed before Sunny appeared carrying the same tray, now uncovered, revealing a bottle of vodka, an ice bucket, two rocks glasses, some lemon slices, a clean dish towel.
He set it down on the bar, carried the bottle over.
“You shouldn’t put it in there. Show me.”
She pulled her foot out. He took the clean towel to her skin, dabbed it dry around the cut.
“It’s pretty deep.”
She watched him closely.
“I don’t feel it.”
“You will in a second. Are you ready?” He tipped the bottle and poured vodka over her foot. “Stoli,” he smiled. “Nothing but the best.”
She laughed, then she started to cry.
“What’s wrong with us!”
He tied the towel tight around her foot, placed it on his shoulder.
“You have to keep it elevated,” he said.
But she was still sobbing.
“I’m serious. What the fuck is wrong with us?”
She pushed herself off him. Lay on the side of the pool staring into the trees. He walked back to the bar with the bottle, washed his hands in the sink, began to fix their drinks.