“Play chess with me every night, and you can stay forever.”
That evening the power went out while I was studying, and, with a hand on my thigh, he made a very different request of me. It was put gently, but with a clear expectation. Initially I was anxious, even fearful. But unlike my last lover, Johnny was tender in his attentions before he was forceful. Later I realized I enjoyed being held in the safety of his short, burly arms.
I knew Sarika would be waiting for a message so we could settle accounts and discuss the future. If she was aware how close I was, we could find a way to meet. I was sure even she was feeling badly about turning me in.
Meanwhile, I had to resume business on my own. I phoned an aunty by the alias of Devika. This lady, whose voice I knew well, said, “Wrong number.” I wasn’t concerned; it only meant I’d called at an inconvenient time. But two days later, the number was cut off. In this way, one by one, the numbers in my diary disappeared from service, snuffed out by an invisible hand.
I went to see the aunty on Doctor’s Lane, and another bungalow I’d visited many times near Bengali Market. I rang and knocked in both places, but no one answered.
“Friend,” I told Johnny one morning during these harrowing days, “one more favor from you. Please take a message to a lady in Basant Lane. Tell her I need to settle my tuition account.” I’d told Johnny I’d fought with my bua and it was awkward going back to the railway colony. For his trouble, I put money into the pocket of his shirt hanging on a nail.
“I am a bachelor,” he protested. “What use do I have for that?” But I didn’t listen; I needed as little charity as possible. As he dressed to leave, I wrapped what was left of my earnings inside my underwear and locked them in my suitcase.
All day I paced in his room. As the sun got stronger, the walls heated up, until I felt I was being slowly cooked. In the late afternoon I must have fallen asleep. When I awoke, my half-shirt drenched in sweat, Johnny was priming the kerosene stove in the dark, the blue flame lighting up his creased face. The way he crouched on his haunches, his compact upper body folded over as he worked, made me feel a pang of affection for him, my one loyal friend.
“I met your lady friend in the railway flats,” he said. “She wouldn’t let me in. She said no one needs a tutor now.”
“What about settling what she owes me? For her nephew’s tuition?”
“She got angry. She said: ‘We’ve paid our dues. Tell the tutor to keep what he has. But there is no more work.’ Then she shut the door in my face.”
It was as though someone had shot me point-blank through the heart. In bed that night, I turned away when Johnny reached for me. He was silent for a while. Then he said, in his somber way: “I don’t know all your troubles, Mukesh. But if you’ve been treated unjustly, you must stand up for yourself.”
Over several mornings I wandered down Basant Lane with a dark umbrella over my head, looking over the boundary wall at the buildings rising in staggered rows. Days of punishing sunlight had unevenly bleached the pink distemper on the outside of the buildings; to my eyes they had a mottled, diseased appearance.
I was sure Sarika was padlocking her doors now. I noticed that adjoining flats on each floor shared the narrow servants’ balcony, with just a wall dividing it into two parts. A plan took shape in my head.
I knew Sarika headed to her gym and beauty salon on Monday mornings. I waited with my umbrella outside the colony gate to see if this ritual had changed, and, indeed, it had not. I followed her as she walked to the taxi stand on the main road. Her slender profile from the back, the sight of her pert shoulders in a T-shirt, made me melt through the center of my body.
By the following Monday my preparations were complete. I bought a length of strong rope, a crowbar, and a switchblade, and I put them inside a backpack. I got my hair cut with a quarter-inch clipper. Johnny said I looked different, tougher.
I shaved closely and wore dark glasses and clean pants, shirt, and shoes. “Soon I’ll stop being a burden on you,” I told my friend. He shook his head at me indulgently, but I knew what I had to do.
I walked one last time toward Basant Lane. I entered the colony compound with confidence, my backpack over my shoulder. The guard at the gate saluted smartly. I climbed up the stairs in Sarika’s building two at a time.
As I had expected, the front door of her flat had a large lock on the outside. The servant’s door appeared bolted and locked from the inside — Bibiji was trapped. But the neighbor’s service entrance was open; they illegally sublet their quarters and people always went in and out. I stepped through and walked along the servants’ balcony toward Sarika’s side. It was quiet. If anyone saw me, I would say I was Mrs. Khanna’s nephew, locked out by my aunt.
I straddled the dividing wall between the two flats, hanging precariously off the parapet as I crossed over. A vein in my temple throbbed. I found the door to Sarika’s kitchen latched from inside, but I was a contractor’s son and knew railway construction. I cracked open the foot latch with a few kicks, then leaned against the lower part of the door. It strained open a few inches. I reached into the gap with my crowbar and pried down the top latch.
I found Bibiji cowering on the living room floor. She hiccupped and gurgled as I tied up her hands and wrapped a strip of cloth around her mouth. Her eyes widened when I used my knife to cut the rope. She fell down as if dead. I picked her up and took her to her room.
For an hour I examined every item in the household: refrigerator magnets, ashtrays, the doll case, confidential files in Mr. Khanna’s desk. I lay on Sarika’s bed, but it felt strange and unfamiliar somehow. I searched through open cupboards for money, though all I found were bedsheets and pillowcases.
I heard the front door open and close, and then the squeak of the inner deadbolt being drawn. If only we had taken such precautions before. I waited in Bibiji’s room, where the old woman lay facedown, groaning occasionally.
Sarika screamed once, seeing Bibiji trussed up like a goat, but I had my knife out and Sarika was a smart woman. I made her sit down in a chair and tied her hands and ankles. She was wearing a polo shirt, light jeans, sneakers. She had cropped her hair below her ears. It made her look even more like a boy. Her hands smelled of fresh nail polish. Her left eye twitched and she cringed at my touch, but she stayed quiet.
“I came to settle our business,” I said, keeping my voice steady even though my temples were pounding hard.
“The network is gone,” she replied, leaning forward. “I told your friend with the long face.”
“Mr. Khanna shut it down?” I said, trying to sound reasonable.
“I did,” she shot back. “Ashok knew about the boys, but not yet all the ladies.”
“There were other boys?” I burst out without thinking.
Contempt flashed across her face. “Poor Mukesh,” she said, despite her position. “You were only the cheapest.”
I winced and shut my eyes. I clenched my aching head between my fists, the knife in my hand. When I opened my eyes, she was attempting to rise.
“Don’t move!” I shouted. I was finished with her indignities. “I’m only asking once: Where is the money?” I held up the knife.
“There is two thousand in the almirah. Untie Bibiji and I’ll get it. But if you ever return, my husband will be waiting.” Was it fear or amusement in the curl of her lips?
“I’m not a thief who needs to hide. I came for my due, not charity.”
She looked at me as though I were an exasperating child. “Then why threaten me with this bandit act? Ask the one who has it.”