My ears perk up. He goes on to describe bricks similar to the ones I saw at Canara Enterprises.
“The project specifies cement mortar—not bricks—for the columns. I’ve examined the contracts. I’m not wrong. But no one wants to listen to me.”
I’m listening. And what Malik’s saying makes my heart race. He describes the ledgers where he enters figures; how the purchase receipts for bricks and cement were altered by Ravi right in front of Malik’s eyes and then replaced in the files; how the numbers in the ledgers have been altered, too.
By the time he finishes, my palms are sweating and ideas are buzzing in my head like bees. I’m trying to connect the threads, but they come and go before I can make sense of them. I moisten my lips, realizing, only then, I’m parched, as if I haven’t had a drink of water in days.
The car comes to a stop, and Malik turns off the ignition. When I look around, I see we’re at the cricket grounds. A group of boys in cricket whites are milling about the field. It’s dusk and the park lights have come on. A man with a whistle stands on the sidelines, refereeing the game. Malik reaches behind the front seat and grabs a thermos. He unscrews the top and fills it with steaming chai; the scent of cardamom, cinnamon and cloves fills the car. He hands me the cup, and I sip from it. The chai’s delicious and sweetened just the way I like.
“May you live a thousand years,” I say, “and may every year have fifty thousand days.” I bless his thoughtfulness by placing my hand on his head.
He grins. “Okay if we just watch from the car? I think it’s not a good idea to have you standing in public next to Niki with fifty of the Agarwals’ closest friends.” Of course, he’s right. Indians with eyes the color of the ocean are unusual, and Niki’s eyes are like mine, and like my sister’s. The gossip-eaters would take notice.
We watch the game for a few minutes while I finish my tea. I’m thinking about what Malik has told me. I don’t want him worrying about Nimmi, but I need to tell him some of what’s been going on in Shimla.
“Baat suno,” I say.
I tell him that two children found a sheep wandering the hills; how Nimmi recognized it as belonging to her brother’s flock; that we found the flock—and her brother—and discovered that the sheep were carrying gold; how we brought Vinay’s body on horseback to be cremated in town; and how we then delivered the gold to the next courier.
At each new piece of information, Malik’s eyes widen and his breathing quickens.
“But... Nimmi’s all right, isn’t she? And Rekha and Chullu?”
Naturally, he’s concerned for his priya. “For the moment, Nimmi and the children are staying with us. They’re sleeping in your room. Jay is making sure they’re safe.”
Malik releases a long breath.
“The bricks you found in the rubble?” I say. “I saw a woman in Shimla making bricks that look like that,” I tell him.
“Where?”
“At a small factory called Canara Private Enterprises—the place where I had to deliver the gold.” I raise my eyebrows as if to ask, Does that fit with what you know?
Malik shakes his head. “Singh-Sharma buys their bricks from Chandigarh.”
“From Chandigarh?” My heartbeat quickens.
“Hahn. Why?”
“The woman making the bricks told me that the truck that comes to pick them up goes to Chandigarh.”
Malik drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “The bricks are made in Shimla, then taken to Chandigarh? That makes no sense,” he says. “Chandigarh Ironworks is a huge company, with at least four brick kilns. They wouldn’t need more bricks from a smaller supplier in Shimla.”
Malik turns to face me. “Something else that I don’t understand, Boss. Why would any large company working with Singh-Sharma sell them inferior materials? Contracts from a construction firm like Singh-Sharma are so lucrative. Any company that tried to skimp on quality would be shooting themselves in the foot.”
Malik’s right; cheating the company that fills your coffers makes no sense. “Is it possible this Canara Enterprises makes a kind of brick that can’t be made in Chandigarh?”
“You mean they’re using a special clay or some other material?”
He shrugs.
A tap on my window makes us both jump, and the tea from the thermos cup spills onto my sari.
“Sorry, sorry!” Kanta says, opening the passenger door. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost!”
“I have!” I tell her. “You.”
She laughs delightedly. Vivacious Kanta! How I’ve missed her! Aside from Jay, I haven’t grown as close to anybody else in Shimla. But even as she’s laughing, I can see anxiety etched in the wrinkles across her forehead. Her red lipstick contrasts vividly with her anemic complexion.
Malik grabs a towel from the trunk of the car and hands it to me so I can dab the damp spots on my sari. I step out of the car to hug Kanta. Over her shoulder, I see a boy in cricket whites, his cheeks flushed, smiling shyly, looking at me with his green-blue eyes. He is beautiful.
Kanta takes him by the elbow. He’s nearly as tall as she is, and on his way to being taller.
“Lakshmi,” Kanta says, “this is my son, Nikhil. Niki, meet the famous Lakshmi!” She beams at me. “He’s heard so much about you, growing up, and now you get to meet!”
I laugh, approvingly. “Lovely to meet you, Niki. I’ve only had the pleasure of seeing you in photos.”
The boy blushes and bends down to touch my feet. His movements are graceful, almost balletic. Oh, Radha, I think, how you would love to know this boy.
I can’t stop staring at him. When I saw him last, he was an infant, and I couldn’t have envisioned what he’d look like as he aged. The photos of the family that Kanta regularly sends me in no way do him justice. His ink-black hair, which he keeps brushing back, falls over those mesmerizing eyes. In his cricket uniform, standing with his legs apart (knee pads on), and his arms behind his back, he reminds me of the athletes featured in the pages of the Hindustani Times. The polo-playing, tiger-shooting Maharaja of Jaipur used to stand this way.
And just like that, I’ve traveled back to Jaipur, where I’m sitting on a raw-silk sofa in the palace of the dowager maharani, signing an agreement for this baby, Niki, to be adopted by the royal family as the crown prince.
Only it never happened.
When he was born, Radha—then just thirteen—refused to let him go. She’d never meant to give him up.
Soon enough, she realized she couldn’t care for him—she was a child herself—and she asked Kanta and Manu to adopt him. I blink to keep my tears at bay. How close we came to losing Radha’s son to the palace instead of seeing him here, now, basking in the warm embrace of loving parents, dear Kanta and Manu.