No doubt his father has been busy, on the phone, talking to the palace lawyers, the media and his vendors, doing what he can to mitigate the damage to the reputation of his firm. Now that Samir is picking up the pieces, Ravi can assume a more relaxed attitude.
“What time?” I have no intention of staying for dinner, but at least I’ll have an opportunity to talk to Samir.
“Eight o’clock. Mummi schedules dinner at the same time every night.”
I check my watch; I’ve got time to finish what I need to do.
* * *
Back at the palace facilities office, I spend my lunchtime talking to one of Manu’s engineers. He’s single, about ten years older than me, and we often walk to the local street vendors to eat lunch together. After we’ve dug into our palak paneer and chole, I show him the materials I picked up from the Royal Jewel Cinema site.
He looks puzzled. “These are not to the specifications I saw in the documents for the construction of the cinema.” He takes a bite of his aloo parantha and shrugs. “So many of us worked on that project. Maybe the specs changed when I was no longer involved. One of the other engineers may know more.”
But I can’t find one engineer who knows how the specs changed.
* * *
At the office, in the final hour of the day, Hakeem keeps me busy. I enter new invoices into the ledgers and reconcile accounts until my head is spinning. By the time the motor rickshaw drops me off at Samir’s house, I barely have the energy to socialize. And there’s every chance I might run into Sheela—something I’d prefer to avoid. (Even though Sheela won her battle for a house of her own upon her marriage, she agreed to the nightly dinner at her in-laws’.)
I’ve no sooner stepped inside the door when Sheela comes out of the drawing room, looking peeved. Her daughter Rita, in a yellow tutu this time, follows her.
“Did Ravi not come home with you?” Sheela makes it sound as if I’m Ravi’s designated minder and have managed to lose him just to spite her. It’s as if the tender moment we shared right after the collapse never happened. The Sheela standing right in front of me, her hand on one hip, is a stranger. Has she forgotten that I helped her take a bath two days ago when she was fragile and alone?
I shake my head in answer to her question.
Tonight, she’s wearing a salwar kameez in a soft moss green that sets off the pink glow in her cheeks. A white chunni, embroidered with tiny green beads, falls gracefully across her shoulders. The fine cotton kameez hugs her breasts and hips and accentuates her flat stomach. The memory of her naked body rising from the bathtub makes me blush. She notices—a smile, or smirk, appears at the corner of her mouth.
I turn my attention to Sheela’s daughter. I squat down until we’re eye to eye. “Who is that, Rita?” I point to the plastic doll she’s holding, upside down, in her fist.
The girl takes cover behind her mother. With some impatience, Sheela tells her to answer when a grown-up is talking to her. Rita sneaks a peek at me from behind her mother and holds her arm out so that I can see her doll—a full-figured woman, about eight inches tall, with blond hair. The doll is naked.
I look up at Sheela, who rolls her eyes. “Ravi’s brother doesn’t have a clue about what to give a little girl. So he sent his niece what he thought was an American Barbie doll. It’s not. It’s a Tessie doll.”
Now Rita grins at me. A dimple appears on her chin. She looks much like her mother, but that chin is Ravi’s. “You push her tummy and her hair gets big. See?” Rita pushes her tiny finger on the doll’s stomach and, sure enough, the blond hair lengthens three inches.
When I hear the front door opening, I stand up and turn around. Samir comes in and hands his suit coat and his briefcase to the servant waiting to receive them. He smiles at his granddaughter.
“Rita,” he says, “your doll is going to need a lot more than hair to cover herself.”
The little girl examines her doll, turns her around and offers her to Samir. He chuckles and picks Rita up to kiss her cheek.
Sheela has both arms crossed against her chest. “Papaji,” she says, “you can’t keep Ravi at the office such long hours. His children hardly ever see him!”
Samir looks vexed, and then, just as quickly, smiles at her. He gives me a knowing look, as if he and I are coconspirators, and says, “But, Sheela, who will pay for tennis lessons and your club membership and Rita’s ballet lessons?” He jiggles Rita, making her laugh. “Hah, bheti?”
Sheela presses her lips together, as if she’s holding back a retort. She takes Rita from Samir, gives us both a look and stomps off to the dining room.
Samir beckons me to follow him. He leads us to his library and shuts the door. I remember being in this room when I was a boy. The built-in bookshelves, crammed with English, Hindi and Latin tomes. Red-leather armchairs. A hearth, always blazing with a fire in winter, is empty on this warm May evening.
I sit down in one of the two armchairs. Samir removes his gold cuff links and rolls his shirtsleeves to his elbows. “Ravi told me you’d be coming by. The tragedy at the cinema isn’t quite what Manu had in store for your internship at the palace. A little too much excitement, wouldn’t you say?” He opens a cocktail cabinet, unscrews a bottle of Glenfiddich and pours us each a measure of single-malt scotch.
“As they used to say at Bishop Cotton, there’s nothing quite like baptism by fire.” I take the glass of scotch from him.
“Right-o,” he says, holding up his glass as if to toast my wit, before he takes a healthy sip of scotch. Then he sits in the other armchair and rests his glass decisively on the arm as if he’s come to a decision.
“Before we merged Singh Architects with Sharma Construction, we were a small firm that employed five draftsmen. Ten years later, we have fifteen architects and almost a hundred employees. As you know, when Mr. Sharma had a stroke, I took over all his duties. I do far less design now, and a great deal more management. Which is to say, I’m not so much involved in day-to-day decisions. Of course, I oversee the projects, but the...details...”
The scotch burns my throat but when I swallow it goes down like honey. I can feel my jaw relax, and then the muscles in my neck. In Shimla, Dr. Kumar and I share a glass of scotch from time to time—Laphroaig’s his brand, and I enjoy it—but I always have, and always will, prefer a good, cold beer.
Samir continues. “After Oxford, Ravi graduated from architecture school at Yale. He came back full of new and bold ideas about design. About construction. He’s a natural, and people know it. Clients like him. So do our employees. And he manages his projects well.”
Samir drains his glass and straightens in his chair.
I take another sip of scotch.