Three Bargains: A Novel (36 page)

Madan said, “All this is for you someday, but only if you want it.”

Madan went back to his work, but Arnav piped up again. “What did your papa give you?”

“What?” Madan thought he had misunderstood or misheard.

“What did your papa give you?” Arnav repeated.

What could he tell Arnav about Avtaar Singh, the man who had given Madan his own life, taught him right from wrong, lies from truth, failure from success? Shown him how to live, how to act, how to breathe? To fight till you win? What had he bequeathed Madan upon which he could build a life and a future?

“An education,” Madan said.

When they managed to locate Sourav, he was at one of his work sites a short distance away.

Madan told Arnav they were going to stop at the construction site first before going home. As always, Madan was thankful for Arnav’s easygoing nature. Arnav never complained too strongly, was ready to accommodate a change of plans, could keep himself busy when needed. Madan’s conversation with Sourav should be simple enough, and then he and his son would be on their way.

The construction site was off the highway. Nothing but a board with Sourav’s company name marked the general location of the site. The sign had been knocked to the side as if someone had tried to bulldoze it to the ground. Madan’s driver turned into the lot, slowing down as the car shuddered over the rutted land.

“This won’t take long,” Madan said to Arnav. “You can stay in the car.” He handed Arnav his phone so the boy could play one of his many downloaded games, but Arnav said he didn’t need it and instead sent the driver out of the car and moved into the driver’s seat to play with the steering wheel.

The construction site was a mess of building materials and twisted barbed wire. Cleared in parts, the land undulated freely until pockmarked by old broken structures and half a wall of an abandoned store. Piles of gravel, burst bags of sand and cement and broken red bricks littered the ground. It was quiet. A buzzard circled in the aluminum sky. Sourav was in deep conversation with his site manager, who spied Madan making his way toward them.

Sourav turned. He didn’t look happy to see Madan.

“I’ve been trying to call you,” Madan said. He noticed Sourav’s men lolling around his jeep.

Sourav would not meet his eye. “Everything is getting a little crazy,” he said. “You shouldn’t have come here. You heard what happened to my older nephew?”

“Yes,” Madan said. “I saw a video. I never thought he’d rush into a mob like that. I should never have asked for your help. How is he?”

“Not good. In a coma. I’m frantic, but what I can do? You know how these boys are. Sitting idle, money coming in, but no real work to do. And these days, heroin is flowing like a river from Afghanistan, Pakistan, straight into their veins. These boys pop balls of afeem in their mouth, and it’s like their battery’s overcharged. They got it into their head to go there. And when they saw that crowd, everything got out of control.”

A rumbling sound filled the air, reminding Madan of the thunderclouds rolling over the fields of Gorapur. Madan turned and saw an Audi sedan drive onto the site, wheels crunching over broken rocks and stones.

“It’s my brother, Surjit,” Sourav said, sounding panicked. “Damn it.”

Sourav’s men whipped out their revolvers. Alarmed, Madan thought of his boy in the car. Sourav ignored them and took Madan by the elbow. “You better go.” But before he and Madan could move, a large man came barging at them.

“Sisterfucking son of a whore pig!” the man shouted, towering over Sourav. Spittle flew off his mealy lips. His eyes sank in bags of flesh, and his skin was black, scorched and lined as if he’d stuck his head in a tandoor clay oven. The buttons on his shirt strained to keep together.

“Bhai-saab!” Sourav said. “I was on my way to you.”

Surjit lifted a meaty palm and smacked Sourav, who tottered and regained his balance. “You did this,” Surjit said. “What is this work you gave them? I told you to keep them busy, not to cost me a fucking son.”

Surjit’s eyes fell on Madan, who was trying to make his way back to the car, to Arnav.

“Which whore’s son are you?”

“Bhai-saab, calm down,” Sourav pleaded, quickly explaining who Madan was.

“You?” he said. “You’re the one?” A fat finger poked Madan in the chest. “Bastard, dressed up like some five-star dandy in your tie and suit. This is how we’re to be treated? Like garbage. You think we’re here to do your dirty work? You can use us, and then throw us away like we’re chewed-up bones. Is that what your father taught you?”

“If there’s anything I can do—” Madan said, making to get away from Sourav and his oaf of a brother, and back to his son in the car.

What an idiot Madan had been. A reckless, vengeful idiot. Madan couldn’t believe he’d thought Sourav was in any way like him just because they grew up a short distance from each other in kindred towns. Nostalgia had blinded him. Avtaar Singh would never have recruited a gutless ass like Sourav.

“Look at me!” Surjit said. He brought his face close to Madan. The stink of his sour breath made Madan hold his own. “You can’t even breathe near me, and you want to do me a favor. What can you do for me? That’s my son, my heir, lying in the hospital.”

There was no reasoning with the man. Madan’s hand itched to pound the bastard’s already pudgy face to pulp, but he thought of Arnav. He needed to get back to Arnav. How could he have been so stupid as to bring him here? And, he needed to calm the man. “It was not meant to happen like this,” he said.

“Not meant to happen?” Surjit mocked. “I’ll go to your house and fuck your wife red, then I’ll do your sister. And if you don’t have one, I’ll fuck your mother. Then I’ll say it wasn’t meant to happen.”

Madan’s fist shot out and Surjit staggered backward. Blood spurted from his nose. It was rote instinct. At Sourav’s shout, his men came forward to help him. Righting himself, Surjit threw them off. He blew his nose like he was clearing the mucus from a cold, and cleaned his bloodied fingers on his shirt. Madan turned away in disgust. Through the rolled-up window he could see Arnav, up front in the driver’s seat.

Surjit followed Madan’s gaze. Both men watched for a long moment as Arnav, unaware of what was going on around him, turned the steering wheel of the stationary car left and right, the soft curve of his cheek rising with his smile, his tongue sticking out in concentration, still absorbed in his pretend game of driving the car.

Madan began to make his way back. He was almost at the car when, from the corner of his eye, he saw Surjit grab a revolver from one of Sourav’s men and come after him.

“I’ll show you hell,” Surjit screeched at him. “You think you can cause this mess and walk away? Someone has to pay.”

Madan turned to face him. A smear of blood shone greasily on Surjit’s chin. Farther back, there was only Sourav and his henchmen, unmoving against the background of construction rubble. Madan looked at the gun pointing to his heart. He tensed, quickly assessing his next move.

The gun swung away from Madan, the aim readjusting to a target behind him.

“Now you’ll feel what I feel,” Surjit said.

Madan threw himself at the car. He heard the gun discharge.

He felt the whiz of the bullet, and was thankful he was in the way. But he had turned porous, become nothing but air. He landed hard, shattered glass pouring over him.

Madan reached for the car window, debris burning his eyes. He pulled himself up by the door handle, but he couldn’t see Arnav. He saw only the splatter of blood dripping slowly onto his outstretched hand.

I
N AN UNOCCUPIED HOSPITAL ROOM, TWO SOMBER POLICEMEN
stood before Madan. He could hear voices and footsteps from the other side of the closed door, and could feel Ketan-bhai’s supporting hand on his elbow as he grimly accepted the policeman’s condolences. Madan stared blankly at the insignia on the policeman’s sleeve. His shirt was stiff with blood where Arnav’s head had rested just a short while ago. He had rinsed his hands but they still felt wet and sticky from trying to stanch the blood flowing from his son’s chest.

The creak of the ceiling fan slicing through the air caught Madan’s attention. When he was four, Arnav had developed a fear of ceiling fans. He believed that if the fan rotated too fast it would spin off the ceiling and whiz through the room, chopping off ears and noses as it flew through the air. “Turn it off, Papa, turn it off!” he would yell, and Madan would quickly flip the switch. Papa had always saved him.

After the policemen finished with their questions, Ketan-bhai led the senior of the two officers to the corner and handed him a wad of notes “We want to take our child home,” Ketan-bhai said. “If the paperwork is completed soon, we’d be thankful.”

“We’ll be in touch,” the lead inspector said with a nod.

“I want those bastards,” Madan said abruptly, as if waking from a stupor. The policemen looked alarmed as he moved toward them, blood in his hair, his arms and face scarred from the broken glass. “I want every one of them. I am going to kill—”

“Madan,” Ketan-bhai interrupted, laying an arm on his. “The inspector will do all he can.” He glanced apologetically at the officer. “You understand that he is very distressed right now, otherwise he never talks like this.”

Madan shook Ketan-bhai off him. “Do you know me?” he asked Ketan-bhai. “You don’t know me; don’t know what I’ve done or what I am capable of.”

“We are all upset,” Ketan-bhai said again to the officer.

“We’ll open the case and get the warrants going,” the inspector assured him.

Madan’s hands suddenly were on the man’s throat. “No. You don’t understand,” he shouted. He could hear Sourav’s brother’s words echoing back at him:
Someone has to pay
. He slammed the inspector’s head against the wall. He felt the man’s Adam’s apple, his struggling breath on his face. He squeezed harder, droplets of spit spraying onto the inspector’s face.

“Madan!”

“Someone has to pay, Ketan-bhai,” Madan roared, as Ketan-bhai and the other policeman pulled him off.

Ketan-bhai clasped Madan tight. “You are paying,” Ketan-bhai said in his ear.

When the light broke though the space between the curtains, Madan had to remind himself that he was in his bedroom. He could hear Preeti through the walls. She was with her mother. Her keening had filled the house throughout the night. When he had returned from the hospital with the news, she had launched at him, her mouth open grotesque and wide, shrieking. Unable to hold her up, he let her crumple to the floor. She had clawed at his shirt, the last vestiges of her child now flakes of blood stuck under her nails.

He forced himself to move his limbs and get out of bed. Every part of him was a numbing ache. He had been unspeakably reckless. He had thought that all he had created and achieved and built from the ground up made him untouchable and invincible. He had thought his boy would be by his side always. He had been wrong. “Every move has a consequence,” Avtaar Singh had told him as they had watched the wrestlers in the pit.

Downstairs everyone was up and about. Nalini was organizing breakfast. Ketan-bhai was on the phone taking care of the final preparations, and Dilip was overseeing the rearrangement of the drawing room, helping to move sofas to the side, laying white sheets over the carpets for the prayers that would go on for the next thirteen days. The pandits would be here soon. Had he agreed to all this, pandits and praying? He couldn’t remember.