I sigh, take off my jacket again—now mostly wet—and roll up my shirtsleeves again. I take the shampoo bottle from the shelf and stand behind her, squeezing a generous amount of shampoo onto her scalp.
“Where’d you learn how to make a tourniquet?” I ask. A question I’ve been pondering all evening; how she knew just what to do, despite the chaos.
“Maharani Latika taught us at the Maharani School for Girls. She taught us Western dancing, how to set a table for ten guests and how to save a life in an emergency.”
Sheela cleans under her fingernails while I massage her scalp. “She’d boarded in Switzerland for school, and guess where the Red Cross started?”
She turns her head to look at me.
“Close your eyes,” I tell her, “or I’ll get shampoo in them.”
She closes her eyes and faces front again like an obedient child. “I was good at all the medical stuff. I could have been a doctor.”
“What stopped you?”
She sighs. “My father wanted me to marry Ravi so his business could be merged with Singh Architects. And I wanted to marry Ravi.”
She takes gardenia soap from the tray attached to the tub. It takes two tries because the alcohol has slowed her down. Now she’s using it to soap her arms.
“He was such a prize, Abbas. Every girl I knew was hoping to land Ravi as her husband. But I was determined to win. The marriage was arranged when I was fifteen, but his family sent him off to England and we had to wait until he finished his degree.”
My ears are burning, now, with indignation. They sent their son to England to conceal his dalliance with Radha and the son he fathered with her. I’d like to say it, but I don’t. I don’t want anyone to know that Niki’s illegitimate. It’s better that he’s with the Agarwals than with the Singhs. Of that, I’ve always been sure.
Sheela rinses the soap off her arms. “Abbas? What will happen now?” The tremor is back in her voice.
I don’t know any more than she does. I’ve seen rickshaw drivers get a leg smashed by a passing motorist. I’ve seen drunks fall off the second story of the Pink City bazaar. But I’ve never seen anything like tonight’s catastrophe. “Close your eyes,” I tell her.
“Yes, Sahib.”
“Lean forward.” I open both the bathtub taps and fill the steel container that was sitting on the floor with warm water. I pour the water on her head and watch the suds fill up the tub. The fact that I no longer see her breasts, or the dark triangle of hair between her thighs, is a relief. I realize the feeling that I’ve been having is guilt—as if to look at Sheila’s naked body is to cheat on Nimmi. But now that feeling starts to ease.
“It isn’t Ravi’s fault, you know,” she says.
I rinse the remainder of the soap from her hair. “What’s not?”
“The cinema. Tonight.” She turns to face me, the water from her wet hair splashing my face. “I want to show you something.” And before I know what’s happening, she climbs out of the tub, grabs a thick white towel from the rack and wraps it around herself. She runs into her bedroom, still a little unsteady on her feet.
When I open the drain to let the water empty from the tub, the vision of her rising from the water—supple buttocks, slim waist, caramel-colored legs—is seared into my brain. I can hear her in her bedroom, rummaging through her dresser drawers.
“Here it is!” I hear her say. Just as suddenly, she’s standing next to me, her scented body, her warm, damp skin, the water dripping from her hair. She’s pointing to a piece of paper that she’s holding.
It’s a transcript from Ravi’s final year at Oxford. “See? He’s very good in math and material sciences. He understands how buildings work, and how to make them strong. There’s no way he’d have anything to do with the disaster we went through tonight. He couldn’t have. He didn’t.”
Her eyes are begging me to agree with her. I know she wants me to absolve her husband. But I can’t stop thinking of those bricks I saw at the cinema house tonight. Why were they there? If they came from somewhere other than Chandigarh Ironworks, how did they end up in the Royal Jewel Cinema? There’s something off there. I just don’t know what it is. And there’s no way I can confide in Sheela. She loves her husband—I can see that plainly—and will do anything he asks of her. I also see the question behind her question—What if he has done something wrong? I don’t know. And the answer, when it comes, could hurt those who are dear to me. I’m thinking about Manu and Kanta. And Niki.
“I have to go,” I tell her, gathering my jacket and walking to the door.
She calls out to me and I stop to listen but don’t turn around.
“Thank you,” she says.
As I descend the marble stairs, I’m rolling down the cuffs of my shirtsleeves. Ravi rushes in through the front door and runs directly into the drawing room. He calls out, “I heard about the—”
He comes back out of the drawing room and sees me coming down the stairs. “What are you doing here?”
The sight of him—disheveled, frightened, in a panic—fills me with disgust. Where was he when we were taking care of people injured in the building he built, the project he’s been boasting about?
“Taking care of your wife.” I button the sodden cuffs of my shirt as I come near him. “You can take over now.”
His mouth twists into an ugly frown. “You! You stay away from Sheela,” he says. “Think I haven’t seen how you look at her?”
Now I’m standing right in front of him, putting on my damp coat. Ravi smells of alcohol and cigarettes. His eyes are bloodshot. His hair, usually slicked back with Brylcreem, falls in tendrils across his forehead.
I take the cotton handkerchief from my pants pocket and dab the wet patches on my coat. I take my time, letting him wonder why my coat is damp. Then I raise my chin. He’s taller than I am, but that doesn’t stop me looking him in the eye.
“You should look at her more often, Ravi.” I push his chest lightly.
He stumbles back, as if I’ve slapped him.
I step around him. When I reach the front door, I turn. “Sheela helped a lot of people at the cinema tonight. Now it’s your turn.”
The sedan is waiting for me when I walk outside. When I step inside the car, I realize I’ve brought the scent of Sheela’s gardenia soap with me.
AFTER THE COLLAPSE
All India Radio Bulletin
May 13, 1969
Last night, a balcony at the newly constructed Royal Jewel Cinema in Jaipur collapsed, killing two and injuring forty-three others. Over a thousand people were in attendance for the grand opening of the much-anticipated building, a wholly modern theater with a screen to rival Mumbai’s biggest cinema house and surround-sound technology straight from the United States. In the opening remarks, Maharani Latika of Jaipur, who initiated the four-thousand-lakh project built by the renowned Singh-Sharma Construction, called the Royal Jewel Cinema “an historic occasion for Jaipur, home to world-renowned architecture, dazzling textiles and jewels, and, of course, Rajasthani dal batti.” Rumors of cost overruns and construction delays have been circulating for the past year. The palace expressed tremendous sadness at the loss of lives, one of whom was beloved veteran actor Rohit Seth. Mourners have laid flowers for him at the site of the tragedy. The other victim has yet to be identified. A formal statement is expected from the Jaipur Palace later today about possible reasons for the catastrophe and anticipated remedies. The actors Dev Anand and Vyjayanthimala, who were present for the showing of Jewel Thief, the first film to premiere at the cinema, were unharmed, having left at the beginning of intermission. It’s not clear how soon the Royal Jewel Cinema will reopen for business. We will bring you further developments throughout the day.