“Come,” she says.
I step into the room. “Thought you couldn’t stand the stuff.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” she says.
I take the glass from her. We sip the whiskey; this is not a night for offering a toast.
Now she smiles. “You’re a right mess.”
“Look who’s talking,” I reply.
I turn her by the shoulder so she can see her own face in the mirror over the fireplace. She looks at her reflection: face covered in dust, her blouse torn at the shoulder, her tattered sari, a tendril of hair that seems to be standing at attention while the hair on the other side of her head looks flattened. She takes a deep breath in, then lets out a whoop of laughter.
Her laughter takes me by surprise, and hearing it is a relief. This Sheela, this disheveled girl who’s laughing at herself, is a reprieve from everything that happened earlier tonight. It almost makes me happy. At fifteen, a privileged girl with rosy cheeks who thought herself a queen, she was too good to tolerate my presence. But at this very moment, I can almost believe I’m seeing the real Sheela, the one without polish, without pretense.
With her glass of scotch, Sheela gestures to my pants, ripped at the knees and covered in grime. We do look a mess: a pair of ruffians, or beggars. She covers her mouth with her hand to keep from spitting out her liquor. Then she starts to hiccup, and it’s one more thing we find hilarious. Now we’re doubled over, giggling. We’re in tears, because we’re giddy and exhausted. And we’re still alive, despite the mangled bodies, and the blood, and the tears and pain. It’s hard to believe it really happened, even if we saw the chaos for ourselves, the people suffering and people helping others, even when they couldn’t know if more was coming—more destruction, more suffering, more death.
When we finally stop laughing, Sheela wipes her eyes. Her kajal has smudged her face so that the area beneath her lower lids looks bruised. She studies her ruined makeup in the mirror, suddenly serious. Then she takes another gulp of scotch and glances at me.
“People died,” she says.
“Only one,” I say. So far.
She raises one eyebrow. “And that’s supposed to be a comfort?” She goes over to the cabinet to fill her glass again. “I saw that boy—the one whose tibia was smashed. He’s Rita’s age. And that actor, who plays everybody’s favorite grandpa—Rohit Seth. Millions of his fans will miss him...” She takes another sip of her drink. “How many injured? Forty? Fifty? This calamity will... There will be consequences. None of this will go away.”
Sheela has that look I’d seen on the faces of Omi’s children when they were feeling hurt and didn’t know what to do about it. The feeling of betrayal, when things went wrong, or didn’t happen in the way they expected. Tonight was supposed to be Ravi’s triumph. And she had stayed to help knowing full well that her husband was with another woman, oblivious to what’s happened. She must know that the others in their circle—the tennis club, golf club, the polo club—know about it, too.
When one of Omi’s children was confused, or sad, I’d sing a song and rub their back until they fell asleep. I can’t do that with Sheela, but I think of the remedy Auntie-Boss taught me years ago.
“Come,” I say, and take her elbow. “Do you have lavender oil?”
She frowns at me as, not sure why I’m asking. “Ye-es?”
“Good.” But in my head, I hear warning bells: Bevakoopf! Her husband isn’t home. Remember the last time you were alone with her? Can you trust yourself? I answer my own questions: she’s spent, traumatized, she needs comfort. I’m doing nothing more than drawing her a bath.
She’s a little unsteady and lets me lead her, drink in hand, upstairs. She points to their bedroom. I gently sit her down on the bed, covered in white satin. Then I remove my jacket, roll up my shirtsleeves and go into her bathroom, where I turn on the faucet to fill the bathtub.
I’m not surprised to see the bathroom’s made for comfort. Samir designed it, after all. The claw-foot tub is generously sized. It’s made of porcelain and occupies at least a quarter of the room. White Carrara marble he must have imported from Italy covers the floor and the walls.
In the cupboard, I find a box of English bath salts and an indigo bottle of lavender oil; I dump a handful of salts into the steamy water, and a capful of the oil, then I go back to the bedroom. Sheela hasn’t moved. She’s sitting, staring at the Persian carpet; her glass of scotch now empty.
I put my hands on my knees and bend at the waist so we’re looking at each other eye to eye, the way I might approach a child. “Let’s get you in the tub.”
She stares at me, uncomprehending. I help her to stand and point her to the bathroom. Then I pick up my jacket, salaam her and leave the room.
I’m at the bottom of the stairs before a chilling thought occurs to me: since we arrived, she’s put away two healthy glasses of the scotch, and she’s been drinking on an empty stomach. If no one else is with her, might she drown?
I run back up the stairs and into her bedroom, throwing my jacket on the empty bed. The voices in my head are screaming now: Bevakoopf! Mat karo! The bathroom door is open, and I step inside. Sheela’s hands are holding on to the sides of the tub, but the rest of her, including her head, is under water.
“Sheela!” I run to the tub, grab her under her arms and haul her up.
“What?” she says. She sounds annoyed. She can see from my expression that I’m panicked, and it makes her chuckle. “I was only wetting my hair. In any case, you’re just in time to shampoo it.” She’s slurring her words.
I’m looking at her naked body, when I wonder what I’m doing here, and back away as if I’ve just been scalded. The cuffs of my shirt and suit coat are soaked, and my hands are dripping water on the sari, blouse and petticoat she was wearing tonight, lying next to the tub.
She raises her eyebrows and points. “Abbas,” she says, “shampoo!” Now she is the girl with the cut-glass surface: imperious and spoiled. But then she looks at me, offers me a playful smile and says, politely, “Please.” She points me to the shelf above the sink, where I can see the shampoo bottle. It’s as if the Sheela that I’m dealing with tonight has two sides: the first haughty, used to giving orders to the help, and the second needy, wanting company and consolation.
“And if Sahib comes home?”
“He won’t,” she says. “He has a thing for actresses.”
She sinks under the water again as if to put an end to any conversation about Ravi. When she comes back up, she wipes her face with her palms.
I’ve spent a lifetime serving others. I’m good at it, and always have been. But only so long as it serves me, too. I do it gladly, willingly, when I can see the benefit. When the benefit is questionable, or when there might be consequences, I weigh the two. Usually, the end result is a zero sum. What’s the harm? I ask myself. It doesn’t make me lesser if I’m helping someone who’s in need of a simple service I can provide.