She’s blaming me for wanting the best for Malik? She thinks I smother him? I sit there, numb, my glass of scotch like a prop in my hand. How am I supposed to comfort her? The woman who was kissing my husband an hour ago? Do I defend myself? After I’ve risked my own life to keep her and her children safe from the danger her brother put them in?
Nimmi plops herself down on the sofa next to me, surprising me and upsetting my drink. She seizes my free hand with her strong, hot fingers. Her face is just inches from mine and her dark eyes are blazing. “He—he does things you want him to because he’s good. Malik is good. And he owes you so much. He’s told me. He doesn’t know where he would be without you. But he needs to live his own life now. He deserves to make his own way in the world. It’s time for you to let him go. He needs to hear it from you. Please. He’ll let go if you let go. Mrs. Kumar, you have to let him go. You have to.”
She opens her mouth to say more, but nothing comes. She merely stares into my eyes, as if she wants to reach the part of me that I don’t allow anyone to see.
Her gaze is so penetrating that I have to look away.
Is she right? Do I use my hold on Malik in a way that doesn’t serve him? Am I using my influence to lead him toward a life that will make him unhappy? I’ve never thought of Malik as a son, more as a younger brother. But he’s more than that, isn’t he? He’s a part of my past, a part of me. He has known me at my best and my worst. At my happiest. And my most despondent. He’s known me longer than anyone in my life—longer than Jay—or Radha, who came into my life when she was already thirteen years old. If I ceased to look after Malik, would I feel the loss, like a limb I’d mislaid? Or would it be a relief to know I no longer had to be responsible for his well-being? Is Malik even expecting me to look after him that way? Or does he just humor me, allow me to direct him, because he knows it makes me feel useful?
I feel hollow—like a reed before the henna paste fills its core. I don’t know what to say, or what to think. I can neither speak, nor move.
Jay sets his glass on the table. He takes Nimmi by the shoulders, eases her off the sofa, and leads her out of the room and up the stairs.
My hand, where her fingers had just been, feels like it’s burning.
* * *
I finish my drink in my bath, then set the glass on the soap basket. Even now, after washing off the memory of the day—the pungent sweat smell of the men at Canara, the rough wool of the sheep on my palms, the humiliation of seeing my husband kiss another woman, the unsettling questions Nimmi has planted in my mind—I don’t know what to feel.
When the water has, at last, gone cold, I step out of the tub, and Jay comes into the bathroom to stand before me. He wraps me in a towel and rubs it gently on my back, looking at me all the while, never taking his eyes off mine. He still smells of the outdoors, the scent of pine needles on the forest floor, the musty odor of the wool we’d sheared.
Then he lets the towel drop to the floor. He puts his forehead against mine and leaves it there. Is he sympathizing with me? About what Nimmi said? Or maybe he feels the same way she does. Perhaps he’s asking for forgiveness for kissing her? Is there anything to forgive? The rational part of me knows he acted in our best interest tonight when the police showed up. It’s ridiculous to think that he has been carrying on with Nimmi. Even so, I want to hear him say it. I know how long he waited for me, how long he wanted me before I realized I wanted him, too. But there are times—like now, when I’m at my lowest—that I need to hear the words.
Water from my breasts is soaking through his shirt. He slides his hands down my arms and lets them rest on my hips. He kneels.
The warm touch of his lips in the triangle between my breasts makes me draw a sharp breath. His lips travel lower—down to my navel—and lower still. My buttocks tense and every nerve in my body vibrates with anticipation.
I put my hands on either side of his head and press his lips to the space between my trembling legs. He squeezes my buttocks, pulls them apart, pushes them together. Then his tongue finds the spot that makes me tingle inside and out; it licks and sucks and darts until I feel that I’m about to faint. When I come, I let out a loud groan, not thinking of, or worrying about, the other woman in the house, in Malik’s room. Jay stops moving. We stay like that until I am no longer shaking. Then he turns his head to one side, wraps his arms around my legs and says, “You, Lakshmi.”
For a long time, we stay that way.
Finally, Jay says, pleadingly, “My knees.” And then he’s laughing. I feel his lovely eyelashes brush against my belly, and I release him.
Not long after, I will fall into the deepest slumber of my life, my arms around my husband.
THE COLLAPSE
17
MALIK
Jaipur
We’re still in the lobby, making our way back to our seats after the refreshment break, when we hear the crash. Followed by shrieks and groans, the plaintive cries for help. All at once, people are stampeding—into and out of the Royal Jewel Cinema. They’re pushing one another to get to the lobby doors or running inside the theater to tend to the injured. For a split second, our group—Kanta, Manu, me, the Singhs—stands frozen, in the middle of the lobby, as desperate people dash frantically around us. Baby is now awake and screaming.
Then Samir is fighting to get inside the ground floor of the theater. Manu is right behind him. I can hear Samir yelling at everyone to evacuate the theater immediately.
He calls for Ravi, who is nowhere to be found. I run toward the lobby, shouting at the ushers to open the doors and pleading with the crowd to quickly go outside. The exodus is a tidal wave, but there’s also an opposing force—people fighting to get in to rescue loved ones who remained in their seats during the intermission.
While Samir disappears inside the theater, I tell Sheela to take her children and Parvati and Kanta outside. But she shakes her head, hands the baby to her mother-in-law, and tells her and Kanta to go home. Then she runs inside the theater. I follow her.
Groups of men and women are lifting the mound of rubble off the injured. Sheela and I join them. We can hear pleas for help underneath the chunks of concrete, rebar and bricks.
I spot Samir talking to the theater manager, a man I know only as Mr. Reddy, whom Samir hired from a smaller movie house in Bombay.
Hakeem is standing next to Mr. Reddy. That’s strange. I’d expected to see the accountant earlier with his wife and daughters up on the balcony. Hakeem is nervously swiping at his mustache as if he’s wiping away the memory of the accident that’s just occurred. Samir is barking orders. Mr. Reddy wipes the sweat from his brow and snaps into action. Hakeem runs after him.
Manu looks as if he’s in shock; he keeps asking Samir how this could have happened.