Now, surveying Samir’s lawn, I tug at the sharp crease along one of my pants legs and laugh. The grass is cool under my feet, and it feels good to stretch my toes. I notice Samir is also barefoot. The servant returns with a small tray, offering me a cut-glass tumbler of scotch and ice. As I take it, I say, “Think I can pass for an angrezi? With this?” I gesture to my face, the color of my skin not unlike an overcooked chapatti.
Samir chuckles as our glasses clink. His pale wheat complexion could pass for a Brit. He takes a long swallow.
It’s more than the color of my skin that will keep me from the ranks of the privileged. Long used to serving rather than being served, I affect a deference in my bearing that’s hard for me to shed. I suppose the upper classes might suss me out sooner or later, but that doesn’t really bother me.
Samir lowers his voice so the servant in the yard cannot hear us. “I have strict orders to call you Abbas while you’re here in Jaipur.”
The memory of that day makes me smile. Auntie-Boss was filling out my school enrollment form shortly after we’d moved to Shimla. She had marked my age as eight, an age I preferred, though neither of us knew how old I really was. She asked me for my full name to put on the form.
“Malik,” I said.
“First or last name?”
I had to think a moment. If I ever had a naming ceremony as a baby, I didn’t remember it. I shrugged. “Only name.”
She turned down the corners of her mouth as if considering this. “Let’s pick a first name for you, then.” She ran through an impressive list, rattling off the meaning of names like Aalim, Jawad and Rashid. I pretended to be embarrassed, but I was secretly pleased; no one had ever spent this much time thinking about my future. We finally settled on Abbas, which is Urdu for lion. I liked the sound of that: Abbas Malik. For days after, I practiced writing my new name over and over.
Like me, Samir is wearing a custom tailored shirt and raw-silk pants. He has loosened his tie—he must have just come from work—and it sits like the wilted stem of a plant on his chest. “Manu Agarwal told me you’ve come to Jaipur only at Lakshmi’s request, and I think it a wise move. But then, Lakshmi has always been wise.” He sounds wistful, and I wonder if he misses her. She has never talked to me about the two of them, and I have never asked. “The Maharani Latika trusts Manu Agarwal to manage the facilities department. It’s a big job, and he’s been doing it now for fifteen, sixteen years? I’m of course grateful he hires my firm to design and build the larger projects.” Samir is not being entirely truthful; his blood relation to the royal family makes his work for the palace a foregone conclusion. Luckily, he has the talent to justify the nepotism. “You’ll learn a lot about the construction business from Manu. After a time, you can decide whether the work suits you. It’s what I tell my sons. Their career, their choice.”
When Auntie-Boss and I left Jaipur in 1957, Samir had just merged his architectural firm with Sharma Construction, now known as Singh-Sharma. Lakshmi had arranged the marriage of Samir’s son Ravi to Mr. Sharma’s daughter Sheela, so the business merger was inevitable. Ravi Singh, having completed university at Oxford and architecture school at Yale, now works alongside his father as an architect in Singh-Sharma. Samir’s younger son, Govind, is studying civil engineering in the United States. Manu told me Samir is hoping both his sons will eventually take over the family business. Singh-Sharma is now the biggest design-build firm in Rajasthan, constructing projects throughout northern India.
“I heard Mr. Sharma had a stroke?”
Samir nods. “Five years ago. The good Mrs. Sharma looks after him.” He jiggles his glass and a servant comes forward to pour more scotch into it. “None of his sons or his brothers wanted to take over his part of the firm. Besides, they’re scattered over the globe.”
“So it’s all on your shoulders now?”
“Mine and Ravi’s.”
“Congratulations.” I raise my glass and he taps his drink against mine.
It makes me feel better to hear Samir say that my apprenticeship at the palace is a chance to see if I like the work. I’ve been wondering if I should give this opportunity my all rather than looking at it as a way to appease Auntie-Boss, who I know is only looking out for my future.
Nimmi had a hard time understanding why I would want to go four hundred miles away just when she and I were getting close. I told her: Auntie-Boss made it possible for me to look after Omi and her children. Without her, where would I be? Hustling contraband cigarettes off the back of a truck? Serving time for peddling pornographic films? I knew Nimmi was terribly lonely after the death of her husband, and that I had filled a gap in her life, so the news about my internship in Jaipur came as a blow to her no matter how many times I told her it was temporary. I think what hurt her the most is that my immediate loyalty is to Lakshmi; Boss is my family.
Would it be too much to hope that Nimmi and Auntie-Boss might become friends in my absence? Their relationship is important to me in a way it wasn’t with any of the private-school girls I bedded. First, because Nimmi is older than me by two or three years. (We don’t know for sure how far apart we are in age because she never had a birth certificate either, but we made a guess based on what she could remember about the time when India gained her independence. And the answer was: nothing! So she must still have been a baby.)
Moreover, in Nimmi’s presence, I feel like a grown man—an adult—though I can’t explain why. I do know I want to take care of her, and Rekha and Chullu. But I’m only twenty—too young to have a ready-made family. Here in Jaipur, I know many of the cousin-brothers I grew up with must already be fathers, but I never expected that to be my fate.
These thoughts are interrupted by a woman’s scolding voice, which startles both Samir and me. “Ravi!”
We both turn around to see who is shouting.
There, on the veranda, stands a young woman in a yellow silk sari, a sleepy baby resting on her shoulder. A young girl, maybe five years old, is trying to conceal herself behind her mother. The girl is dressed in a pale pink tutu; she’s crying. It’s hard to understand what she is saying. The woman’s dark curly hair is only long enough to reach her shoulders, as is the way of India’s modern women. Her cheeks are flushed. And at the sight of me, her eyelids flutter. “Oh! I’m sorry. I thought you were my husband.”
Samir Uncle looks amused. “Come and meet our guest, who will be joining us for dinner.”
The woman hesitates, before hoisting the baby higher on her shoulder and coming down the steps. The little girl follows.
“Meet Abbas Malik,” says Samir. “He’s working with Manu Agarwal at the Jaipur Palace, and he’s joining us for dinner tonight.” Now he turns to me. “Abbas, this is my daughter-in-law, Sheela.”
Instead of greeting me with a deferential namaste, Sheela steps forward and offers her hand for me to shake. Her fingers are long and carefully manicured, the nails are polished and catch the sun’s light. She wears a slim gold watch, seed pearls surrounding the face. Her handshake is firm, warm.