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  —Ah, I think I’ll go and find Ranjit. Get settled in.

  —As you like, Kritik says. You must do as you like. Go then, get gone. And Jivan? Don’t you breathe a word of what you saw.

  Jivan nods; he backs down the steps, into the grass. Turns, keeps moving, walking the path Kritik cut. Then hears him shout:

  —Get lost you bastard! After all these years!

  Jivan starts to run, back through the courtyard, where his shadow crosses the sundial; back, he wants to go, to the Banyan tree in the wild wood, and from there find his way to the house in Nizamuddin, where he was a boy with a mother and a brother and some kind of father sometimes. In the garden squares of the Eastern enclave there were crumbling mosques to explore and badminton titles to defend. There was standing on the runner of Jeet’s bicycle and swooping around, minding the cobbler on the street-corner and the men getting shaved. At home there was his desk, and on it the models of Table Mountain, the pyramids, the Empire State Building made by him from chuski sticks licked clean. On the walls, his posters of Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Samantha Fox tacked underneath. There was Ma, and her music: tabla and sitar. There was always the promise of seeing Gargi for love, and Radha for fun, and water from the nalka and hot cooked food. There was no Sita, then.

  In the rose garden he bends double, hands on knees, breathing in dust. Sweat drips from his temples to water the earth, he drops to a weed-picker’s squat. His mouth falls open, he rubs his fists in his sockets, salt and dirt. His vision fills with red dots dancing over each blade of grass, over and under and over each other. Beneath the surface of the garden, thousands of ants are churning the soil, piercing it with tiny holes, working without orders, without mind.

  §

  MY NAME IS DEVRAJ. Mine is a simple story, come closer if you can.

  The day Ranjit’s boy came home from America, I watched him pick about the place, look into the gardens, the sports grounds and the stone yard. It was a time fit. For Kings. What a beautiful place that was!

  Months have passed since that hot time. Now, in the death days of autumn, I find myself in Kashmir, the land of milk and honey. Ah, Srinagar, Sringari, City of Wealth! The great Emperor Ashoka named it thus. Life is good: I have brought Sita with me to open my new hotel. The Kashmir Company is my most beautiful property. It sits on a hilltop, waiting for us. We will go there soon.

  Sita wanted to see this old house first, and though I once swore I would never come back here, I cannot say no to my daughter. So we find ourselves, wandering through these five storeys of broken, rotting wood.

  I can sense the Jhelum, mud-coloured and sluggish below. A snake disguised as a river, changing direction as it wills. There used to be a jetty, where vendors would tie their boats and sell cut-price saffron, tea, bootleg cigarettes. Now the stench of stagnant water rises up. The wooden house is falling down, into its own reflection.

  It’s very dirty all around. Somewhere outside, the city goes about its business, wrapped in shawls against the biting cold – here the market, there the shrine. The tulip fields are fallow, waiting for spring. While bees make honey and reeds make boats and the world keeps turning, turning. Simplicity is life on the water. No fixed earth.

  I cannot remember the last time I was here. These days, I have to work to catch the exact moment, the begetting of forgetting. Forgetting is always there, a slippery fish. Blind, with teeth. Silently it gapes and nibbles.

  —Sita?

  She does not answer. Dust floats around the place, for there has been a kerfuffle. There is a crater in this floor, and I can see through to the next. My young manservant is down there, lying on his front; his neck is twisted at such a strange angle. I think he must have fallen and be dead.

  Maybe Sita went down to fetch the tea. No, of course not, it’s not possible. Now I am getting confused. Confusion: the bastard half brother of chaos. Chaos: the torture instrument of forgetting.

  Where did she go? For a while she was asleep here, then she ran off. She loves to play hide and seek, catch-catch. Now is not the time, I told her. For I am telling my story, and mine is from the heart. It is the most important: through all the ages of my life, the best, most learned men have told me this. Nevertheless, I have learned that all should be judged by their speech acts. So here we are, talking in circles, on floorboards threatening to crack.

  I was born in Napurthala, a Kingdom not far from here. To a gambling Maharaja and his fifteen-year-old bride. He died in a shooting accident when she was twenty-five. I was ten-years-old, her little Prince, growing up under the shadows of Empires. Mughal and British. My widowed mother was strict: always she warned, If you eat the flesh of an animal, the animal will devour you from within. Still, she prepared the choicest of meats for me. Stew and dumplings, a sauce with onions, with tomatoes. A dish that she gleaned from the wife of the British Viceroy who also recommended a daily glass of fresh cow’s milk, so white it could stain the insides.

  I first came to Srinagar in 1957 as a dashing young Maharaja full of desires for life. Accession had gifted Napurthala to our new, independent India, and so I had no city or state. Srinagar had gone the same way. I was a King without a Kingdom, hungry to establish my name. I hankered after this house, and for the secrets of shawl production it held. Luckily for me, a wealthy man lived here, a Kashmiri Pandit, of the ruling class, refined in his manners and Hindu enough in the best of ways. Suitable company for a King. His daughter was young and his business was failing, for he was used to fraternising with his Shi’a employees as if they were his family. He did not understand that the modern way was to only favour one’s own.

  I was virile, with money and connections across our dear country. Quietly I speculated, providing the banks of Srinagar with finance, setting up a few local friends in stock exchange. This was in the days before computerisation, when men were on the trading floor. The Outcry System. It brooked no response. The one who shouts the loudest wins.

  Finally, the old Pandit came to me and invited me into this house. In this room we would receive the weavers from one-hundred-and-fifty families, across the Valley. Hand cleaned, hand spun wool. Hand woven so both sides of the shawl came out exactly the same. Then carefully patterned and properly hued. We ordered dyed colours, for women did not want a natural look. They wanted Himalayan-blue or hot-pink like the pursed buds of a bougainvillea. Not to mention rich, royal purple, colours we made from saffron, walnut, pomegranate seed. And then on top, the embroidery! Gold thread spun fine in backwater rooms, glinting like the reeds caught in evening light. These days duns and tans and sage greens are the signal of good breeding, and the less chamki, the better. So does fashion change.

  Each piece took a year for one family to make. We paid one thousand rupees each, on top added our margin, and then sold by appointment only, in the best of the Company shops. India exclusive. And ferenghis, Prime Ministers, Princes and their wives came from far and wide to buy them, for no one can deny that they are quality things. Why should a price not be paid for quality things?

  Ten years passed. I became restless, for Srinagar was full of honeymoon couples. One could not move without tasting some delicious ware from a hot chestnut wala, almonds and spice, perambulating down the boulevards, en route to the cinema, perhaps to see the latest films at the Broadway or the Regal, picnicking in the Shalimar gardens in the summer.

  Finally the day came when the Pandit’s daughter turned fifteen. In this very room, the windows once reflected every angle of the sun. I played my hand and won my bride and every stitch she came with. Her father begged me, Don’t take my daughter! For you take my most precious shawl to keep you warm.

  I promised to take care of both daughter and shawls. And allow her to come back whenever she wanted. It meant she was always half here, half there. When violence began to choke this city, she was here with him. I called from Delhi to insist they leave, but her father said he would not. No one can move a man who wishes to remain stuck in his place. And who can blame him? This house was such a
beauty.

  It is hard to believe, but rich carpets once adorned these walls. Now they are in tatters, sprouting mould, a breeding ground for moths. A handmade chandelier once hung from the ceiling, pearls and diamonds dropping from it. After my wife and her father were dragged from this room and slaughtered in the streets around, I took that chandelier down and rehung it at the Farm. I shut this place up.

  Sita does not remember her mother, or this house at all. But she is such a tender-hearted girl, she was upset to find it so damaged. She cried for what she never knew. She also cried out for her sisters, for reasons I cannot understand.

  I tried to distract her, sitting with her, cross-legged on the floor. I said:

  —Don’t forget Gargi always tried to make you play her games, so I built you a hideout of your own! Don’t forget Gargi actually thought you would be safe going to movie halls, but I installed a cinema on the Farm! And don’t forget Gargi never wanted you to join the Company, so I gifted you the best share!

  None of this seemed to calm Sita. She wrung her hands; she bit her perfect lower lip. She has her mother’s delicate bird features, her cocked head, peachy breasts that are almost too big for her frame. I stroked her hair, and told her to speak about her college days, tell me where all she has been. We held hands, and she said, Papa, I love you so much, it is time I told you everything. As you know, I studied for my Bachelor’s in the hush of a Cambridge library. How homesick I was, and how free. Experimenting in mind and body, yes, I came naked in so many beds, but no one truly caught my mind’s eye. Then, last year, I fell in love with an Indian filmmaker. He stole my heart from the moment I saw him. He distracted me from the life of my mind, and yet he became it. I wanted him. I wanted him. I was ready to betray the calling of my studies. But one night he broke the intensity of my feelings by asking me outright for my body.

  Here she paused, and looked at me. I kept my face blank as an unwritten cheque. She continued:

  —I took the train to meet him. In London. Half way through dinner, as I was lifting my fork to my mouth he said, Will you stay the night with me?

  Here she jumped up and began to pace the room, twisting her dupatta around in her hands. She pulled it off her and let it fall. Without looking at me again, she said that his words shocked her into replying, No, I cannot, even though he paid for the dinner. Papa (she said, and here she knelt before me), if only he had not asked, I would have let the night unfold and given myself to him. He said it was shame that prompted me to refuse. Fear of what you, my dear Papa would say. Fear of what people would think. But it was not shame. It was love, for my spirit and self. I wanted him so much, but I knew I would break if he touched me, and that he would just move on. My refusal meant that he did so, anyway. I still regret that decision. I think about him constantly, my body on fire.

  As she spoke, the house around us trembled. Yet I could not allow her to see that I was disgusted. I wondered who she thought I was to her – a girlfriend or an aunt? Her sister? Which one? I patted her hands, and gestured to the young manservant who brought us here: though he was over by the door, his ears were like two handles of a speech-day cup. Clearly he was listening to every word.

  —Chup-chup, shh, I said. That is over now, Sita, I said. Here we are. No matter. Look at us sitting and telling tales, like two bad sisters together.

  This made her laugh, ruefully, I thought. The sound enraged me even more, and I wondered that she couldn’t tell. I almost told her that after I spunked to conceive her, I vowed I would never come back to this house again, or to this part of the city. It is a place suitable only for dogs and dead kids.

  I must say, I forgot how cold November is in Kashmir. It is almost snowing. When I stick out my tongue I can taste the ice in the air. The beams creek above my head and pieces of sky bear down. I seem to have lost my shawl.

  —Sita?

  O Lord, why can’t a man just be? Why must he take on a wife, and bear children? More than a woman, a man bears a child. Khaana, daana, dhanda, doodh. So many responsibilities. Where is she? No answer.

  ii

  There will be no future for Jivan Singh in the Company because looking stupid is his new career. He has become the official entertainment for the drivers and garage boys who cannot understand where he wants to go.

  —Can you take me to Ranjit’s house? In Nizamuddin? Old house? He mimes a driving motion. Thinks about trying in Hindi, but does not. Wants to demand the keys for the Ferrari, the Maserati; somewhere in this garage must be the vintage Rolls that old Nanu was driven around in when he was a boy. He was not allowed near it, if he even breathed near it she would threaten to give Gargi a slap. The car belonged to her husband, the Maharaja of Napurthala. Ma said it was the only thing, alongside Nanu, to survive the Maharaja’s love of dice.

  A man in a grey and gold uniform approaches, and the other drivers let him through. His head is so round, he looks like the letter i.

  —I am Dipesh Singh. Chief Mechanic here. Ah, Jivan sir, Ranjitji’s bungalow is on the Farm, only. Your bag has been delivered. I will request an escort for you.

  —No, I want to go to uska, er, no, unka, ah, ghar. Ranjit’s home? Jivan mimes four walls around his face, a roof; he watches closely, does his rusted Hindi raise the Chief Mechanic’s brows? The corner of his mouth?

  —Yes sir. Praveen!

  A boy with hair as shiny as a bowling ball steps forward.

  —Chalo, take Mr Jivan to Ranjit Sahib’s bungalow.

  Jivan allows them to put him in the back of another golf cart. They pass the bowling green, the pool again. He keeps his eyes closed, head back. It takes around ten minutes. They don’t talk.

  They come to a gated section, where three discrete bungalows form sides around a well-kept green. Each has a tidy verandah, complete with a cut glass table and low beanbags slung around. Each one has flower boxes in the windows. They pull up. The boy hands him an envelope, says,

  —Sir, that one. He gestures to the central house. Here, your personalised card key. He starts the cart. He whistles as he steers away.

  On the verandah, a wrinkled woman in a mud coloured sari squats with a long cane brush. She does not look up, just sweeps around Jivan, moving like a crab. Wild. That’s wild, he thinks.

  Inside, the temperature is controlled. Dark wood, glass and porcelain, down-lighting and more lilies. Everything embossed with the Company logo – a shield, two tigers, two snakes. Two mottos, one in Latin and one in Sanskrit or Hindi, he cannot guess language or meaning. The only word he recognises is DEVRAJ.

  Ranjit lives in this executive suite. That means there has to be food. He goes to the kitchen: the cupboards are bare. There are only quarter bottles of Tiger beer in the mini-fridge. The back door opens onto an unloved yard, where the dying sun makes everything look jaundiced. On the laundry step another woman crouches, slapping wet fabric against stone. Her arms bruised blue with the dye from the clothes. She looks up, her eyes dark and opaque as the bucket of foaming water beside her. She does not smile.

  He checks the two bedrooms. In one, the cinnamon stink of his father’s Old Spice almost makes him gag. In the other, someone has unpacked his case, laid his things inside the closet. He pulls off his suit jacket. The pockets are empty, his Harvard tie lost somewhere on the Farm. Shoes kicked off and socks discarded, he falls onto the bed. Thinks of Kritik, cameras, microphones – and keeps his boxers on. After the hours in the air and the shocks on the ground, he can hold on to nothing. He sleeps.

  In his dreams, Gargi is waiting for him. Smiling like Ma, smelling of roses, sandalwood, silk. His nose does not register this. He begins to cry as Gargi slowly unwinds her sari, hands definite, eyes steady on his. She comes close in her blouse and petticoat and begins to drape the sari onto him. Her nails catch on his stomach hairs as she tucks it into his belt, sending small shocks to his groin. He can smell the almond oil on her skin. So pretty, she says. Turn, she tucks it in; turn, and again, turn. He plays with her hair – like water in his fingers – and
feels her breath on his skin as she bends to pleat his sari, he strokes her side as she drapes the pallu across his chest. It makes him hard and hot but wrong feeling because this is Gargi, who played Ma to his beta. Still she goes on, bending again, lips closer to his belly, fingers in the pleats. He looks around: it’s humid in this jungle, the sand beneath his feet is powdery and fine, they are surrounded by date palms, green, luscious, reaching out to caress. There are mirrors rising from the sand; he looks into one – Radha is reflected – she is so beautiful he wants to touch her too. He stretches out his hand towards her breasts and finds he is wiping tears from his own face. The sari is soaking, heavy all around him. He wants to move. Gargi is gone, the mirror melts into a puddle of silver, and where is Sita? He is looking for her among all the folds of silk between his legs. He needs her to tell him something but she is nowhere. As his hands reach out, fabric begins to knot around his neck then he wakes, choking, caught up in the sheets, strangling Ma’s name in his throat before it can come out of his mouth.

  *

  For a moment he thinks, Jon, what did you take? He does not know where he is, what time it is, what day. His eyes are so dry he thinks they might crumble from their sockets. His legs are heavy. He looks down. The sheets are drenched in his sweat. And, Ma is dead.

  Jivan sits on the edge and presses all the switches until there is light. He promises himself that he will stop. Thinking, dreaming. From now, he will live where he is.

  Outside the birds are chattering through the pink sunset like first-graders at home time. The sun is melting into the indigo sky.

  He takes a shower, then, swaddled in a Company bathrobe he weaves, light headed, starving, around the bungalow, wondering if he can order room service. Steak frîtes? He could murder it mid-moo. He tiptoes into Ranjit’s study, all wood-panelled, faux college-library. He sits behind the leather-topped desk in his towel and picks up the phone.