Three Bargains: A Novel (41 page)

Jaggu put a hand on his arm. “Remember why you’re here. If Neha has any information, something we can use, you need to know. Keep that in mind.”

Jaggu was right. Finding his child was the most important thing right now. He walked down a short path with green lawn on either side.

He had barely stepped up to knock on the door when the gate opened. A sleek gray sedan rolled up beside Jaggu’s car. Two girls and a boy tumbled out, tall and gangly in their teenage awkwardness, swinging their backpacks playfully at each other. They looked to be no more than sixteen.

Madan watched as their mother emerged from the car, hands full of books and lunch boxes. Her hair was untied and long, straight and thick as he remembered it. She flipped her head back, adjusting the dupatta around her shoulders. She looked up, her gaze following her children’s to Madan on her doorstep.

Her arms gave way. The servant girl ran to pick up the books and pencils and pens on the ground. She ignored her, nearly stepping on her as she walked toward the front.

The lines on her face mirrored his. She was not the same girl who had met him when night fell on those mountain peaks so high they speared the clouds in the sky. Age, children, time, had thickened her middle and her arms. The salwar stretched across her, too tight in some places. Her face was heavy, but her eyes . . . her eyes, he saw, still glinted with copper.

“Neha,” he said. The children started at the sound of their mother’s name, so intimately whispered from the mouth of this strange man. No
Mrs. so and so
. He couldn’t even remember what Jaggu said was her married name. “I have to talk to you.”

Three pairs of inquisitive eyes swung to their mother.

She snapped at the children, suddenly aware of their presence. “Go inside,” she ordered. They turned, filing reluctantly away, her tone forbidding argument.

“You haven’t changed much,” she said when they were gone. “You look older, of course, a little gray here.” She touched her own temples to indicate. “But otherwise . . .”

He looked away from her self-consciously.

She looked down at her hands, the skin swollen around her diamond rings. “Are you married?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Children?”

He paused, that tricky question again. For now, he settled on saying, “No.”

“I heard you got married . . . soon after,” he said.

“My father didn’t let me continue with college. There was no more fight left in me. I decided to make do with what I had,” she said. “But I don’t understand. Why are you here?”

“Talking about children—” he said.

“Oh!” Her hand flew to her mouth.

“Neha.” He spoke fast. “My life has gone in so many different directions, it’s impossible to untangle most of them. But there is one thing I have to settle before I can go on with my life; one thing I’ve realized I have to know is . . . about . . .”

“You can’t be serious.”

“When I said I didn’t have any children, I meant that I have none I know of. I had a son. I lost him in an accident recently. It made me rethink everything in my life. It made me think . . . it made me want to know about . . . about our child.”

She gave a sharp cry, looking around as though someone may have heard him.

“I don’t want to cause any trouble,” he said. “I came to see if you have any idea, if you can give me any information about what happened. That’s all I want, and then I’ll go away. You’ll never see me again. I promise.”

She didn’t answer, kept shaking her head.

“Neha, haven’t you ever wondered? Haven’t you ever thought?”

“I never even saw the baby,” she said. “They took it right away. I asked, but both my mother and father refused. My mother said it’s better that way. I’m sorry.” Her gaze softened as she looked into the distance. “I made myself forget. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do.”

Forget me or forget what we made together?
The query darted in his mind, but at the same time, as if to calm his thoughts, he realized her response did not matter. It had ceased to matter a long time ago. Their fleeting storm of passion had shattered with the first assault, and would never have lasted beyond the artless summers of their youth. If not for this child, he would have gone on with his life, never needing to seek her out.

He had wished differently for her, he realized as she walked him back to the car, the sound of her children babbling through an open window. When he thought of her, he’d always imagined that she’d found a way out. That she’d fled into the rest of her life, and was somewhere protesting environmental catastrophes, fighting for farmers’ rights, against police brutality and misogynistic edicts. He’d hoped she was leading the charge, penning manifestos. He thought she would have found a way to live by no one’s dictates but her own. But she was right here, not far from where he’d left her. Life had twisted them around since they had parted. They were both destined to live with their regrets. Or perhaps this was always how it was going to turn out. Perhaps there was less fight in her than he’d thought.

Jaggu got out of the car as they approached. “Is that your old friend?” she asked.

“Yes, it’s Jaggu.”

Acknowledging Jaggu’s greeting, she turned to Madan. “You were always lucky in the people who loved you.” She stood close now, not as aloof, more friendly, her eyes lost in her sad smile.

“Yes,” he agreed. His thoughts flew to Preeti, Ketan-bhai. “I still am,” he said.

T
HEY RODE HOME IN SILENCE, AND WHEN THEY GOT BACK
to the house it was dark. A car sat in Jaggu and Swati’s driveway, a black SUV. “Who could that be?” Jaggu asked. Madan was silent, though he felt he already knew. When they pulled up, a man got out of the front passenger side. “Saab wants to see you,” the man said to Madan.

“No,” Jaggu said. “Tell your saab he won’t come—”

“Jaggu,” Madan said. “It’s all right.”

“But you can’t—”

“You’ve spent enough of your life worrying about me.” He embraced Jaggu and, keeping his voice low and even-keeled said, “I knew I couldn’t come back without the news reaching him.” Before Jaggu could protest, he got in the waiting car.

As they drove away, he kept his gaze out the window at the houses flying past. They drove through town, and presently Madan noticed they were not heading toward the timber factory as he had expected. He began to pay more attention to the scenery. Somnolent fields glowed in the moonlight behind the town, and the car lurched over potholes before joining a smoother roadway. Madan’s stomach turned as he realized the direction of their journey. The car picked up speed on the deserted highway, and twenty minutes later he was standing at the entrance to Jeet Megacity.

Security guards manned the barricades at the entrance, and barbed wire surrounded the development. Floodlights blazed from above, spotlighting the temporary barracks that ringed a large dirt lot and housed the offices of the project managers. The guards watched him step out of the car and look around. This was a strange place to bring him. What could they do to him here?

He waited for one of the men to say something, tell him what to do. The driver was on a cell phone, and, clicking the phone shut, he told Madan to look back.

A long sedan maneuvered in behind them. The driver jumped out and opened the back passenger door.

Madan held still. Avtaar Singh emerged from the car, a walking stick in his hand.

Madan took a few automatic steps toward him, and then stopped. If Avtaar Singh wanted to talk to him, he would have to come to Madan.

Avtaar Singh dug the end of the cane into the dust, grasped the molded silver handle and adjusted the shawl draped lightly over his shoulders. He straightened up and looked around. Avtaar Singh didn’t hesitate. He made his way to Madan, the high-pitched buzzing of the floodlights drowning out the scrape of his cane on the dusty ground. There were the usual markers of time on his face, his jowls looser, his dark eyes cocooned deeper into the folds of skin, his thick hair and mustache turned ashy white, but the confidence of his lean, trim bearing remained untouched by the years. The gleaming wooden cane, it seemed, was no more than a stylish accessory.

At Madan’s side, he extended his hand. But Madan didn’t reciprocate, and Avtaar Singh let his hand drop. Together they turned and regarded Jeet Megacity, bright and pulsating like a giant interloping spaceship, the creak and groan of timber and steel drowning out what they could have said or what they wanted to say.

“Is it you who is responsible for this monstrosity?” The cane twirled a depression into the ground. “If you wanted to kill me, there were easier ways. But I should have known. No one else could do this.”

The guards talked into their radios and kept a watchful eye. Madan wondered how Avtaar Singh had found out. Had the news of Madan’s arrival juxtaposed two opposing thoughts and jolted Avtaar Singh into making an accurate guess? Standing next to Avtaar Singh, he was finding it impossible to get a fix on his own thoughts.

“You know who this is?” Avtaar Singh said to his men standing a few feet away.

They regarded Madan without interest.

“He is a son of Gorapur, you useless sons of bitches,” he shouted. “And see what he has done—” Avtaar Singh swept his cane up and around to encompass the whole city, his shawl slipping off his shoulders and into the dust. “See what he has done to you, to Gorapur and to . . . me.”

The squealing of the walkie-talkies filled the quiet following Avtaar Singh’s outburst. No one moved. “You have nothing to say to me?” Avtaar Singh huffed.

Madan bent down and picked up the shawl, his earlier dread and anxiety dissolved into numbness. Anything this bickering, aging man said no longer had the power to scare or cow him. He shook out the shawl and folded it into a neat square. Taking Avtaar Singh by the elbow, he guided him back to the car. Avtaar Sigh sank down into the seat with relief, jerking his arm out of Madan’s grasp.

“Gorapur is not my home,” Madan said. “You took that away from me.”

Avtaar Singh’s knuckles gleamed white against the dark polished wood of his cane. He stared straight ahead to the cranes and bulldozers parked alongside the road.

“Get in,” he said finally to Madan.

The guards looked relieved when they saw the cars pull out. In the backseat with Avtaar Singh, Madan watched as Jeet Megacity dimmed to a point as they drove away.

“This may not be your home, but it is mine,” said Avtaar Singh. He fidgeted with the cane resting between his legs and, seeming bothered by it, tapped the shoulder of the man in front. When he turned around, Madan realized it was the man who had been rallying the farmers in the cell phone clip. Avtaar Singh passed his cane to the man, and sat back comfortably.

“We can’t stop progress,” said Avtaar Singh. “The whole country is in a rush. They’re not waiting for this century to finish, they’re already propelling us into the next. I myself have had to diversify. Can’t count on these boys anymore,” he said about the men in front. “They want to be waiters in the fancy hotel and photocopy boys in big offices. Idiots, all of them.”

He scrutinized Madan, as if compelling him to speak or offer some rebuttal. When Madan didn’t, Avtaar Singh charged on. “I may not like the changes, but I understand. This will be the new Gorapur. A reincarnation, a rebirth. You have your money and your reputation on the line, and as you know, I can make things easy, or I can make them difficult.”

A week ago, if a massive flood had swept over Jeet Megacity, wiping it off the face of the earth, Madan, bereft of spirit and strength, would not have cared. With Arnav gone, he’d found it hard to understand how the whole world could go on, yet Jeet Megacity had forged ahead unfaltering.

Avtaar Singh could sit here and choose to forget how he’d betrayed the promises he had made, spoken and unspoken. He could forget how he had repaid Madan’s devotion with his bloodthirsty demands. Avtaar Singh could forget. Madan could not. He thought he’d lost the will to go on, but he vibrated now with a rare possessiveness at the thought of this man getting anywhere near Jeet Megacity.

“No,” Madan said. “I’ll never allow it.”

“It seems you haven’t changed that much,” said Avtaar Singh. “Still as stubborn as ever. How it irritated Pandit Bansi Lal. He said you were spiteful, difficult, but I knew it was merely your firmness of mind. When you knew what you wanted, nothing would deter you.

“But you must remember how Pandit-ji thrived in his discourses?” Avtaar Singh rolled along with his memories, taking everyone in the car with him. “He was very fond of the story of King Hiranyakashipu. Have you boys heard it?” There were some noncommittal noises from up front. “In his quest to become invincible, the king prayed and sacrificed to Lord Brahma, and was granted a boon that he could not be killed indoors or outdoors, at daytime or night, neither on the ground nor in the sky, nor by human being or animal.”

The boon had indeed made the tyrannical king undefeatable, but when the time came, his nemesis, Lord Vishnu, took the form of half lion, half man and, by placing Hiranyakashipu on his lap so he was not on the ground or in the sky, struck the fatal blow in that in-between time of twilight, when it was not day or night, in the courtyard of his palace so they were neither indoors nor out, thus circumventing the parameters of the boon.