Three Bargains: A Novel (43 page)

“One of my first real jobs was in a factory where they made clothes,” he said. “I learned to sew.”

She let him talk, telling her about those first years, the length and breadth of the loneliness, the adventures and heartaches, until the children woke and Swati went to attend to them. Madan went to his room to pack his clothes and wash up for his return journey. It was time to go back.

Swati, of course, had understood, but Jaggu was aghast when Madan told him in the morning of the bargain he planned to make with Avtaar Singh. “You can’t just hand it to him. Forget Avtaar Singh, you can’t give that much away,” he had said.

“I need to know about my child,” Madan had said. “I didn’t know Arnav nine years ago, and now I’d give away the whole lot to have him with me. Wouldn’t you, for this one?” Madan reached out and caressed Vipul’s round cheek. He craved only the right of every parent, the chance to know: Are you okay? Are you happy?

He said his goodbyes. Jaggu, Swati and the children waved to him until he could not see them in his rearview mirror. The real problem with forfeiting Jeet Megacity was practical, not emotional, he told Jaggu. Everything was in Preeti’s name. He couldn’t give Avtaar Singh his share of Jeet Megacity, simply because it was hers, and only hers to give. There was no fine print or hidden loophole. He had made certain of that when drawing up the ownership. Preeti still hadn’t spoken to him, or answered any of his calls. She could refuse to part with Jeet Megacity, leaving him with no bargaining chip with which to approach Avtaar Singh. He turned onto the highway, and the billboards of Jeet Megacity assaulted his views once again. She could leave him bereft of her as well.

The house was immaculate. Madan surveyed the spotless room, the polished tables, the shiny cabinets. Perhaps the house always looked like this, only now coming to his attention after the cluttered, overflowing rooms of Gorapur. And it was so quiet. Where had everyone gone? In quick alarm, he stepped back into the foyer, relieved when the door slammed and a servant came running out, apologizing for not hearing him drive up. Where was Preeti? he asked, but the boy only said memsaab was out. Is she coming back? But the boy had already gone about his work.

Madan wandered through the house, making his way to Arnav’s room. Though confused and distracted when he stepped into the house, he had not paused at the entryway, his eyes desperately searching the empty hallways, his ears attuned in futile hope for the shout of,
Papa!
He came home knowing not to look up, not to seek out, not to cling to useless hope.

His dropped his bag by Arnav’s bed. The closet door creaked when he pulled it open. Arnav’s clothes hung from the rod in a straight line, his sweaters and T-shirts in neatly folded piles on the shelf. Madan gathered the ends of the hanging shirts and pants, burying his face in them. There was a whiff of faded detergent and the woodsy odor of the closet. He hugged the clothes to him.
Sorry
, he said to the angled pocket of the jeans in his hand.
Papa is so sorry.

He had thought to lie down for a minute but tiredness had hammered his eyes shut, and it was early evening when he woke. Was Preeti back home? He splashed water on his face. In the drawing room he heard voices. To his surprise, he saw Ketan-bhai. He was talking to Preeti. Tea steamed in their cups, and the biscuits on the plate lay untouched.

“Madan.” Ketan-bhai came up to greet him but retained a wary look, his smile forced and fading away quickly. Madan tried to pat his back, but Ketan-bhai returned to his chair.

Madan made a move toward Preeti, but she kept her gaze firmly trained away and looked like she was here under duress.

“Sit down. Have some tea,” Ketan-bhai said. “How’re you feeling now? Your holiday was good?”

Madan nodded, trying to figure out their intentions, sure Ketan-bhai was leading him somewhere. Preeti and Ketan-bhai exchanged glances.

“Madan,” Ketan-bhai said. “Don’t be angry, but we consulted a psychiatrist.” He held up his hand when Madan was about to speak. “Hear me through,” he said. “His name is Dr. Mitra, he comes highly recommended. He says your sleeping problems, this disappearing act, are all signs of post-traumatic stress. You know, after Arnav you’ve never really . . . never really had an outlet. Dr. Mitra can help you, if you allow him. He can help you find your old self again.”

Madan took in his wife’s swollen, red-rimmed eyes, the concerned lines around his friend’s face.

“Find my old self?” It was a frightening thought. “How far back is the highly recommended doctor willing to go, Ketan-bhai?”

He picked up Arnav’s picture from the table. The sweetness of his son’s face pierced his heart. “You don’t know me.”

They began to protest but he shook his head to stop them. He began to pace back and forth. “I have something to tell you,” he said. “It doesn’t seem like it now, but you’re going to find it very hard to believe what I’m going to say. It’s going to change everything. I’ve told so many lies that I have to tell you everything from the beginning, so nothing is left out. So you know it all at the end.”

Both Preeti’s and Ketan-bhai’s expressions dissolved into confusion and doubt. Ketan-bhai gave a short, sharp laugh, and Preeti turned away as if what he was going to say were of no accord. Madan didn’t hesitate, didn’t let himself think about what this would mean once said, or how it would be received, or of wounded feelings and broken loyalties.

“When I was twelve,” Madan said, “I went to live in the town of Gorapur. My father worked for a man who owned a timber factory there, but more than that, he owned most of the town. Not only real estate and property—but people. He had a way of owning you without you minding. No one sneezed without him knowing. He was the most powerful man I ever knew. I thought him more powerful than any god. His name . . .” Madan sat down. “His name,” he said, “is . . . Avtaar Singh.”

“Avtaar Singh?” Ketan-bhai latched onto the familiar name. “You mean . . . What d’you mean? You didn’t tell me . . .”

There was no way to spare Ketan-bhai the anguish of what he was about to learn. “Yes,” said Madan, “the same.”

“Who’s Avtaar Singh?” Preeti asked. “What are you talking about?”

A dumbfounded Ketan-bhai turned to Preeti. “From the township project . . .” he said, confusing her further.

“That is where I was these last few days—in Gorapur. I have a mother there, a sister.” As Madan spoke, Ketan-bhai stood and paced back and forth. The phone rang, Nalini probably wondering where her husband was, but they did not pick up. Madan didn’t stop until the end.

“What was clear in my mind a short while ago feels meaningless now,” he said. He’d thought he was invulnerable with his new self, his new life, with no possibility of loss or defeat. As if he could use what Avtaar Singh had taught him and turn it against Avtaar Singh. But an arrow shot into the sky can fall anywhere.

“What glorious plans I had, what I envisioned. It was all I could think about. Jeet Megacity. What it would take away from Avtaar Singh. I thought I knew how it felt to lose everything when I left Gorapur, but no. I had no idea.”

Ketan-bhai and Preeti exchanged glances, at a loss for words. “You didn’t know?” asked Preeti.

Ketan-bhai shook his head. “I can’t, I didn’t . . .” He couldn’t go on.

“A mother, a sister?” Preeti kept her gaze on Ketan-bhai, did not look at Madan.

Again, Ketan-bhai shook his head in disbelief. “But why now, Madan? Why tell us now?”

“Ketan-bhai, I’ve been thinking about all I’ve done in my life so far, all that has happened. Perhaps I shouldn’t have had Arnav. There’s no grief when you lose what you don’t have, but to imagine my life without him seems a much bigger loss. I wished many times I’d gone with Arnav. Why am I still here? What else am I supposed to do? What else is left?”

He turned to Preeti. “I have failed many people in my life, but there is one person out there, someone I turned my back on and walked away from.”

“Madan—” He heard the warning in her voice and saw her recoil, but the time to reconsider was long gone, and he would not allow anyone to stop him now. She must understand. If it had been Arnav, she would never have walked away, never have abandoned her child to the vagaries of this chaotic world. And if he, at that time, had had but a morsel of the understanding he held within him now, he would have slain anyone who stood in his way.

“All I want to do is make sure that this child has a good, decent life, that—”

Preeti shot out of her chair like he had taken a whip to her. “You had a child,” she said. “Or is Arnav so easy to forget? Is he so easy to replace?” She stopped to catch her breath. “Arnav never even knew his father.” She pointed her finger at him. “All he knew was a lie.”

Madan turned pleadingly to Ketan-bhai, who slumped on the sofa, tears in his eyes. “I made you part of my family. Morning, noon and night we talked. And not once, not once could I ever think or imagine what you were keeping from me.” Ketan-bhai blew his nose and dabbed his watery eyes.

“I have got some good leads . . .” he began to tell Ketan-bhai, but his friend was pulling himself up and muttering about going home.

“I’m sorry,” he said to Preeti, who had followed Ketan-bhai to the door. She stopped and turned at his apology.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “You never asked for any of this. Even when I think about it, I find it hard to understand. So for you—I can’t imagine. I’ll do whatever you want. You want the house, the factories, the business. I’ll make sure you’ll never want for anything, ever. But there is one thing.”

She could call him selfish, reprehensible, a lunatic, callous and deplorable. She could call him whatever names she liked; whatever would ease her shock, he was ready to accept it all.

“It is about Jeet Megacity,” he said.

“You’ll make your name with that place.”

Not my name
, he thought. He explained what he wanted her to do.

“All it’ll take is a few signatures,” he said. “Twenty minutes of your time. All I need is your assent. You can have anything in exchange.”

“Answer me one thing,” she said. “Can you give me Arnav?”

She left Madan alone with the blazing lights shining solely on him.

Madan glanced impatiently at his silent phone. Ketan-bhai sat across from him and, clearing his throat, he pensively contemplated the edge of the desk. An office boy entered, letting in the hum of the busy office floor. He gathered the emptied coffee cups off the desk, wiped down the surface and left, closing the door behind him, and leaving Madan and Ketan-bhai alone once again.

Ketan-bhai had stewed for a while, then succumbed to his fondness for Madan, unable to resist Madan’s relentless calls of apology and self-reproof. Madan knew now that he could have trusted his friend. Ketan-bhai’s sentimental heart would have taken him in and understood, regardless.

“It’s foolishness,” Ketan-bhai said, searching again for a reason to dissuade Madan, but it was too late. Ketan-bhai would soon be partners with Avtaar Singh in Jeet Megacity.

To Madan’s surprise and relief, Preeti had agreed to sign the papers the morning after their conversation, simply saying to inform her where and when, demanding nothing in return. He dared not question her decision, and later, sitting by her side as she signed and initialed, he searched for some way to convey the depth of his gratitude. Returning home at the end of the day, he learned from one of the servants that Preeti had left for her parents’ house with a suitcase. She had rebuffed all his attempts to talk to or see her since then.