Sarika, I discovered, preferred a combination of fixed and variable routines. Before we began, she would ask me to brush my teeth and take a bath, even if I had already done so. I would come out in my towel to find her lying undressed smoking her pipe packed with ganja she procured from a discrete Israeli dealer in Paharganj. She insisted on initiating any kissing, which she liked deep and rough. If I tried to just hold her, she would whinny and thrash like a trapped mare. My chest became bruised from her teeth marks. As soon as one set of scratches healed on my back, she covered me with another. This is what I remember from those days: her kneeling against the side of the bed, goading me on as I crouched over her from behind, my legs open and half-bent and trembling, her neck craning back and her pretty mouth distended, her spine coiling and convulsing like it was a reptile trapped beneath her skin.
She wanted me to be just as rough with her. I struggled to comply. “Bite me. Harder. Didn’t I say harder?” she would cry mid-frenzy. Once, approaching climax, she halted abruptly and changed positions. “Choke me. Do it. I’ll tell you when to stop.” I hesitated, but she pummeled me until I actually wanted to hurt her. Dark and angry urges rose inside me as I pressed my fingers around her supple neck. Fortunately, I soon lost control. Sputtering and coughing, she examined her neck in the mirror. Even from a distance I could see the bruises I’d left. The salty bile of shame rose up in my throat. “Now we’re making progress,” she said, eyes gleaming with strange pleasure.
I played chess with Johnny after that session. He frowned and stopped the game. “What’s the matter, Mukesh? You’re sacrificing pawns early and without a plan.”
“I have one,” I insisted, but my lie was soon exposed.
After I’d lost the next three games, he looked at me and said kindly: “I enjoy our matches, Mukesh. But it’s not right that you come to this place so much. Go spend time with other young people.”
With a curt goodbye I left his office. If he didn’t want to play, I had other preoccupations: I could sit under the neem and read my notes from college.
In the bright, early winter light I walked up the cemetery’s central path. The bustle of Nehru Bazaar was just beyond the high walls but here the only sounds were the cackling of crows and the dull whack of workmen breaking the hard ground with pickaxes. I stood beside the workers for a moment, nursing the thick sensation I carried in my chest these days, a sensation like hard-boiled phlegm. The hole the workers were digging appeared too small for an adult. Perhaps it was for a missing person’s funeral. Only room to bury personal items was needed.
I began to dress in my bua’s bathroom to avoid scrutiny of my wounds. She did remark on my new jeans and jacket. I told her I’d bought them cheap in Main Bazaar. Bua felt the jacket’s lining and said: “Main Bazaar or Bandits’ Bazaar?” In truth, Sarika had given me money for them, saying she didn’t care for my dreadful clothes. She also paid for me to get my hair styled, causing my bua to say: “Delhi air is something. Look how city wiles have sprouted.”
In addition to Bua’s chores, I was now also on call for Sarika’s household errands. Picking up her dry cleaning one Sunday, I saw her tank of a husband lounging on the sofa in a loose bathrobe. Bibiji sat on the floor shucking peas into a steel tray. Locked away during my other visits, the old lady had become a rare sight. She rose and creakily approached, shouting: “She puts chains on my feet, but I am not a fool, you hear?”
The hair on my arms stood up. What was she reporting to Mr. Khanna? But he only yawned and stretched where he sat. His wide, bushy midsection peaked out from underneath his banyan. “Bibiji,” he barked without putting down his newspaper, “brake lagao, or you’ll be sent to bed.” The old lady shuffled back to her peas.
Sarika came out with the dry cleaning. Right under her husband’s nose she said: “Come back later. Mr. Khanna is going to the club by 1, and the peon is out today.”
Bibiji’s face twisted with loathing. Mr. Khanna raised his thick eyebrows, but the rest of his face stayed hidden behind the paper. As I shut the door I heard him ask Sarika something in a gruff tone.
She said: “No one. Mrs. Verma’s nephew. A helpful boy.”
My grandfather’s heart stopped in his sleep in December. I could not see Sarika for some weeks and found that I missed her rough attentions. A council of uncles and aunts was held at Bua’s flat, just like after my parents’ accident. The agenda was my youngest sister Chhoti’s guardianship. “Already we are barely making ends meet,” Bua said grimly. Another aunt added: “Mukesh, finish your BA quickly, beta. Everyone is counting on you.” I responded to such demands with a blank face, and silently cursed my parents for their ill-timed pilgrimage, which, like a bad investment, was bearing expense without end. The decision was made to send Chhoti to the boarding school for orphans that Sonu, our middle sister, attended. People thanked my bua for the sacrifice of keeping me. The indignity of being a charity case sat like curdled milk in my stomach.
In the New Year my liaisons with Sarika resumed. If she knew what was happening in my family, she never asked about it. After our third meeting in January, however, she handed me a slip of paper with a lady’s first name and number. I looked at her, confused, and she said: “You want to make some money, right?”
I heard out her proposition. The aunty on the paper would pay for small but important errands. If I was reliable, there would be more jobs.
The aunty sounded pleasant when I called her from Sarika’s phone. She gave me an appointment for the next day. Her bungalow was on Doctor’s Lane near Gol Market.
Sarika smiled broadly. “Come by soon and tell me what happened.” Then she took out some money and said severely: “Buy a new undershirt before you go. Are you using deodorant regularly?”
I laughed. This was how she spoke to me after we’d made hard, sweaty love for an hour. I tried to kiss her, but she cringed at my eagerness and pushed me back.
I was the opposite of eager when I returned with my report from Doctor’s Lane. “Sarikaji,” I said, lips trembling, “forgive me for misunderstanding. I’m not that kind of boy.”
“Oh?” she said, lifting her brows. “What kind are you then?”
I’d come in with the intention of confronting her, but her haughty self-assurance washed away my resolve. “The aunty... she gave me the money first. It seemed like too much. When she told me what she wanted, I tried to give it back.”
“She didn’t report any problems to me.”
“I was forced to stay,” I said, shuddering at the memory. “She told me she would raise a noise if I tried to leave, have me beaten as an intruder.” I held all the money before Sarika. “Take this. I don’t want it.”
She peeled out a few notes from the bundle. “That’s my share, Mukesh. Think of this work as social service you get paid for.”
“No,” I cried.
“Then don’t come back here,” she said flatly. “I can’t tolerate undependable boys. I give you a chance and you come back wheedling and whining.”
“Don’t say that,” I said, almost hacking. My throat was dry, constricted.
“Imagine what you can do with the money,” she said, and pulled me by the arm to the bedroom. Afterwards, she looked at the bites on her breasts. “I’ve taught you well,” she said. “Luckily, Mr. Khanna doesn’t like the lights on.”
With my first earnings I bought a mobile and a diary to keep track of my appointments. If the person I called didn’t recognize the name I asked for, the rule was to pretend I had the wrong number. Sarika sent me to railway wives, lady doctors, businesswomen, young managers in offices. Now I understood why she usually began texting the moment we finished in bed. I saw the insides of flats and bungalows from Gol Market to Bengali Market, and as far south as Sundar Nagar. Some aunties only wanted to meet in a seedy tourist lodge in Tooti Chowk after shopping at Connaught Place. Sarika’s instructions were to accommodate every request.