Now Rita grins at me. A dimple appears on her chin. She looks much like her mother, but that chin is Ravi’s. “You push her tummy and her hair gets big. See?” Rita pushes her tiny finger on the doll’s stomach and, sure enough, the blond hair lengthens three inches.
When I hear the front door opening, I stand up and turn around. Samir comes in and hands his suit coat and his briefcase to the servant waiting to receive them. He smiles at his granddaughter.
“Rita,” he says, “your doll is going to need a lot more than hair to cover herself.”
The little girl examines her doll, turns her around and offers her to Samir. He chuckles and picks Rita up to kiss her cheek.
Sheela has both arms crossed against her chest. “Papaji,” she says, “you can’t keep Ravi at the office such long hours. His children hardly ever see him!”
Samir looks vexed, and then, just as quickly, smiles at her. He gives me a knowing look, as if he and I are coconspirators, and says, “But, Sheela, who will pay for tennis lessons and your club membership and Rita’s ballet lessons?” He jiggles Rita, making her laugh. “Hah, bheti?”
Sheela presses her lips together, as if she’s holding back a retort. She takes Rita from Samir, gives us both a look and stomps off to the dining room.
Samir beckons me to follow him. He leads us to his library and shuts the door. I remember being in this room when I was a boy. The built-in bookshelves, crammed with English, Hindi and Latin tomes. Red-leather armchairs. A hearth, always blazing with a fire in winter, is empty on this warm May evening.
I sit down in one of the two armchairs. Samir removes his gold cuff links and rolls his shirtsleeves to his elbows. “Ravi told me you’d be coming by. The tragedy at the cinema isn’t quite what Manu had in store for your internship at the palace. A little too much excitement, wouldn’t you say?” He opens a cocktail cabinet, unscrews a bottle of Glenfiddich and pours us each a measure of single-malt scotch.
“As they used to say at Bishop Cotton, there’s nothing quite like baptism by fire.” I take the glass of scotch from him.
“Right-o,” he says, holding up his glass as if to toast my wit, before he takes a healthy sip of scotch. Then he sits in the other armchair and rests his glass decisively on the arm as if he’s come to a decision.
“Before we merged Singh Architects with Sharma Construction, we were a small firm that employed five draftsmen. Ten years later, we have fifteen architects and almost a hundred employees. As you know, when Mr. Sharma had a stroke, I took over all his duties. I do far less design now, and a great deal more management. Which is to say, I’m not so much involved in day-to-day decisions. Of course, I oversee the projects, but the...details...”
The scotch burns my throat but when I swallow it goes down like honey. I can feel my jaw relax, and then the muscles in my neck. In Shimla, Dr. Kumar and I share a glass of scotch from time to time—Laphroaig’s his brand, and I enjoy it—but I always have, and always will, prefer a good, cold beer.
Samir continues. “After Oxford, Ravi graduated from architecture school at Yale. He came back full of new and bold ideas about design. About construction. He’s a natural, and people know it. Clients like him. So do our employees. And he manages his projects well.”
Samir drains his glass and straightens in his chair.
I take another sip of scotch.
He smiles and points a finger at me. “Listening is the most important trait in business. I can tell you’re good at it.”
I’m also good at waiting. At first, I followed Auntie-Boss around the city until she noticed me. Eventually she started paying me to carry her supplies. Then I’d go with her to Jaipur’s grandest houses, sitting on their lawns outside until she finished painting henna on the fancy ladies like Parvati Singh. Later, still, at the prestigious Bishop Cotton School for Boys, I waited patiently for classmates to accept my less desirable pedigree. It was hard at first, the hazing. A school-issued shoe stuffed with a garden snake. A toothbrush filled with sheep’s wool. A school tie wound around my ankles while I slept. I didn’t retaliate. Instead, I made myself useful. I knew Nariman liked American cigarettes; I got him some. Ansari preferred photos of naked women. Modi was into rare stamps. For me, it wasn’t hard to find these items, as I’d once found Jaipur’s best pistachios—the ones the palace chef preferred—all those many years ago. Overnight, I became valuable to the biggest bullies, and they stopped harassing me.
Now I swallow what’s left in my glass and hold it up for Samir to refill. He seems relieved to have a task, something to distract him from his thoughts. He can’t quite bring himself to tell me what he wants to tell me. I can see it’s hard for him.
As he returns my replenished glass, he says, “Did Ravi tell you that he finished his two most recent projects well ahead of time? He did the ballroom and restaurant remodel of the Rambagh Hotel and, after that, developed that old Rajput estate on Civil Lines Road into a world-class boutique hotel.”
I nod.
Samir sits down and takes a deep breath. “All of that is hard to do. So many variables, so many things to track—the weather, or materials that don’t arrive on time. Days when workers don’t show up. All sorts of things.”
He reaches for the pack of Dunhill cigarettes on the table next to him. He shakes one free, then holds out the box for me. I take a cigarette. Back when I lived in Jaipur, he used to smoke Red and Whites, a less expensive brand. I make a note of the upgrade. As I’ve made a note of the nicer cars in his driveway.
He takes a gold lighter from his shirt pocket and lights our cigarettes. Once he’s had his first, deep drag, he starts talking again.
“Accidents can happen,” he says. “It’s the law of nature. What happened at the cinema house is devastating, but...” He lets out a stream of smoke, taps his glass on the chair arm. “It’s my name on the company, Malik.” With his free hand, he points to his chest. “I don’t allow gross errors on my projects. Not in judgment, not in code compliance, never in materials.”
He leans forward now, his elbows on his thighs. “With the cinema project, I gave Ravi freedom to do things his way. Didn’t want him thinking I didn’t trust him to make the right decisions.”
He locks his eyes on mine. “After the accident, I asked him to go through the books, the process, everything we did, what part the palace played. He did exactly that. And, honestly, I can’t find any reason he would be at fault. He did it by the book. Every single thing. And yet...” He leans back against the leather armchair. “From what I hear, you’re doubting him. And me. You’re doubting my professional ability.” Now his voice has taken on an edge. He sucks his cigarette, blows out a steady stream of smoke.
The liquor is worming its way into my brain. I take another look around the room. A rich man’s room. The leather-bound books. The gilded clock. A rich man in a rich suit who wants me to protect his son. Now I understand why Ravi wanted me to come. It wasn’t so we could make peace. It was to warn me.
I set my glass of scotch on his desk. “What is it I’m supposed to have done, Uncle?”
“Hakeem told me he found you in his office yesterday, snooping around. Ravi saw you lurking around the reconstruction site doing Bhagwan knows what. And—” he points his finger at me accusingly “—you’ve been asking questions of the palace engineers. Oh, don’t look so surprised. I’d be a lousy businessman if I didn’t keep my ears to the ground.”
The hair on the back of my neck tingles. All at once, I’m back at Bishop Cotton, at the swimming pool, three upper-form boys forcing my head underwater. How did he find out I’ve been talking to the engineers at the palace facilities office? Has Hakeem been spying on me? Does everyone I’ve talked to go directly to Samir? Are all of them in his pocket?