Three Bargains: A Novel (21 page)

The twins mapped out their activities for the rest of their day and, after their ride, they took the cable car up to Gun Hill, where one of the touts persuaded the twins to dress up in costumes of the tribal hill women for a photograph against the panoramic backdrop of the mountains. Neha chose to dress as a British colonial soldier in a khaki safari suit with a handlebar mustache that drooped past her jawline. She stood between the twins adorned in glittery imitation finery, her ancient rifle held up as if she were ready to pillage the local villagers.

They walked the Mall, the main thoroughfare, browsing in tiny boutiques, warming up with chicken corn soup and mutton momos, then back to purchasing more knickknacks from the Tibetan shops. The twins would often shop like this, buying everything in sight and never using most of it.

“The original capitalists,” Neha whispered to Madan, swishing past him, her hand brushing against his as she followed the twins into another store.

That night she was waiting at the railing when Madan got there. “This spot is easily visible from the house,” he said, giving her the chance to reconsider and head back.

But she said, “Come with me. I haven’t been here for a few years, but if I remember correctly . . .” She led him back toward the house. He was sure someone would see them, but before they got too close, she turned, heading away from the cliff. Wooden steps took them down to a terraced garden. Unlike the gardens on top, it was unruly and overgrown. Tucked into a corner was a circular gazebo. They stepped into it; fallen leaves littered the cement floor and soft moss crept up the pillars.

“I don’t think anyone’s been down here for ages,” said Neha.

“Doesn’t your family come up here much?”

Neha sat down and patted the spot next to her. “Not much, my father’s too busy. My brothers come up here sometimes, with their friends. They have big parties. There is hunting in the area but they don’t have the same freedom. Here it’s someone else’s turf.” Though not too far apart in age from her brothers, she did not share any of their interests and was not close to any of them. “Sometimes I used to wonder, in Delhi, whether I’d recognize them if they passed me on the street.”

When she asked about him, he found it difficult to say much. About his mother, he simply said that she worked in the house. And about Avtaar Singh, he told how Avtaar Singh had made sure Madan went to school, and how he helped now in the office with the orders and books.

“You’ll like this,” he said. “We stopped chopping down trees from the forests some years ago and now buy them from the farms, especially poplar and eucalyptus, which grows like a crop—we call it
social
forestry.”

She punched him playfully in the arm as he laughed. He told her what he was unable to articulate to anyone yet, that he believed that Avtaar Singh was going to give him the new factory to run, after he completed college. “If it weren’t for Avtaar Singh . . .” He shook his head and trailed off. If it weren’t for Avtaar Singh he would not have much of a life at all.

A true account of himself was not possible without telling her about Jaggu too. Their ties were stronger than those of brothers. He told of how he made a protesting Jaggu study for every exam and now he would be going to college too.

Madan glanced at his watch. “We better go back.”

“Next time I’m going to bring a blanket or something to sit on,” she said, and then continued about Jaggu. “It’s wonderful you have a friend like that, we always need those.”

She got up, stretching and dusting the back of her jeans. “Are you my friend, Madan?”

He got up too. She was standing still, facing him. The trees swished restlessly, and below them the lights of the town glowed like splatters of paint against the dark hillside. He reached out, pulling her toward him, the space between them insignificant.

This was nothing to do with friendship. Friends met out in the open, not secretly in the dark of the night. “No,” he said.

Her lips were soft, cold. They pressed against the half wall of the gazebo. He felt her hands on his shoulders and the dense structure of her bones unyielding through layers of clothes and skin. When they broke apart, he waited, watching her closely to see her reaction. She zipped up her jacket and walked out wordlessly, and he, not knowing what to do, followed her back up to the house.

In the morning, Minnu memsaab called for him. Everyone was in the dining room finishing up with breakfast. Neha was reading the newspaper, her back to him. She didn’t turn when he entered, but he was conscious of the slight firming of her posture as she became aware of his presence.

They were going for a day trip to Kempty Falls. Minnu memsaab got up from the table and began to explain how to organize the cars, pointing out the picnic baskets by the door and giving him a message from Avtaar Singh. He listened with half an ear.

Suddenly Dimpy’s voice rang out, “Where were you last night, Neha? I got up and you weren’t in the room.”

Everyone fell silent. Madan saw Neha hesitate for a moment as she turned the page. “I don’t know . . . bathroom, maybe?” she said.

“But I went to the bathroom,” persisted Dimpy, “and you weren’t there.”

An awkward hush permeated the room, but Neha didn’t pause this time. “Must be when I went to the kitchen to get a bite. I was hungry.”

She went back to her paper and Rimpy began talking about how she was hungry last night as well but it was too cold to get out of bed. Minnu memsaab resumed her instructions to Madan, but not before he saw Neeta memsaab’s eyes roll over Neha with a worried look.

“I can’t believe this is our last day,” wailed Dimpy on their way back from Kempty Falls. Neha and Madan exchanged glances in the mirror. “This was my favorite day,” said Dimpy. “The waterfall was spectacular.”

“You said yesterday was your favorite day,” said Rimpy. They began to discuss the highlights of their trip, soliciting Neha’s and Madan’s opinions now and then. Madan couldn’t think beyond the present, he had already forgotten what they had seen and done.

That night he waited in the gazebo. When he heard the creak of the wooden stairs and she stepped into the circular dome, he was actually surprised. She was holding a rolled-up blanket in her arm.

“I thought you wouldn’t come,” he said.

The blanket dropped to the floor and they kissed as if hours and hours had not passed since the last kiss. Neha shrugged off her jacket. The floor must be cold, he thought, as her back touched it, but the thought was short-lived. Their limbs tangled like the branches of the ancient trees above them; his hands were under her T-shirt, his fingers splayed along the grooves of her rib cage. Who sighed first? Whose hand first fiddled with the clasps of their jeans? The curve of her hip rose to meet his, robbing him of every sane thought, and he succumbed without hesitation.

When their trembling subsided, they pulled on their clothes and Madan retrieved the blanket, folding it around them. They leaned against the wall. He stroked her shoulders, her arms, twisted strands of her hair in his fingers. He couldn’t resist the urge to feel every inch of her.

“What’s going to happen when we go back to Gorapur?” she asked.

Do we have to go back?
he wanted to ask, but he knew the answer to that question better than she did.

“Madan?”

“I’ll think of something.” If there was one thing Avtaar Singh had taught him, it was to find a way where none seemed to exist.

When it was time to return to the house they sensed the reluctance in each other. There was no choice, though, but to leave the moonlit gazebo. Madan turned back to look at it one last time before he reached the top of the stairs and then the moss-covered refuge crept back into its little corner of the hillside.

They seemed to have more bags than when they’d arrived, thought Madan as he loaded the car the next morning. He fitted another paper bag into the back corner of the trunk and when he closed it up, Neha was standing by the open car door.

They stood smiling at each other, unwilling to look away, when Madan sensed the presence of someone else. Rimpy was standing by Neha and looking from one to the other. Abruptly, Neha got in the car and Rimpy followed, slamming the door shut.

From the house, Dimpy came running down the steps. “I’ll remember this place forever and ever!” She rolled down her window and waved to the silent snowy peaks as Madan slowly followed the other car out of the gate and away from Heaven’s End.

T
HEIR LONG BRISTLY TAILS WAVING LIKE FLAGS, THE MONKEYS
screeched and showered Madan with leaves as he walked down the brick path to the temple. He had no offerings they could pilfer off him as they did to unsuspecting worshippers, stealing fruit and sweets brought to pacify or beg the gods. Anyway, he wasn’t here for any of those reasons. He was here to pick up Pandit Bansi Lal. Today was Avtaar Singh’s birthday and, as always, the day started with a havan, the massive prayer ceremony that Minnu memsaab orchestrated on this day every year.

Before ascending the grand marble staircase leading to the main temple floor, he removed his shoes, placing them in one of the compartments in the shelves outside the temple, safe from the greedy monkeys. He walked around the main cupola, barely glancing at the statues of Ram and Sita with their hands raised in blessing, and went around to Pandit Bansi Lal’s private quarters.

Silagaon Temple, much like Gorapur Academy, was another consequence of Avtaar Singh’s philanthropic excesses. He financed its domes and spires of pink sandstone, its latticed marble columns, and its idols covered with flakes of gold. He’d procured the land on which the temple stood, paying off various government beauraucrats to acquire the property belonging to the state government. In the matters of the Almighty, Avtaar Singh did not hold back.

Madan met one of Pandit Bansi Lal’s assistants, who led him to the pandit’s rooms.

Pandit Bansi Lal sat on his charpai holding court, a few of his pujaris in chairs and on mats around him. Madan stood by the door as the assistant whispered in his ear about Madan’s arrival. Neither with a twitch of his eyebrow nor a turn of his head did Pandit Bansi Lal acknowledge Madan’s presence, talking on and on to the others in the room without interruption. This went on for over ten minutes before Madan walked out. The pandit knew he was here and where to find him. He wasn’t going to wait at the door like a browbeaten dog.