Oleander Girl (18 page)

My dream shifts. In it, I hear Seema’s voice, arguing urgently.

“It’s four p.m.! Where were you all this time? Why don’t you pick up the phone when I call? You know that makes me ill with worry. Especially when you stay out all night.”

“I told you, I’m busy with a project. Can’t be disturbed in the middle of business dealings.”

“Not gallery business, I can guess that much—”

“Quit nagging! I’m doing this for you—you know that. Haven’t you been begging to go back to India to have the baby? Where do you think the money for that will come from? You know Mrs. Bose has refused to advance us any more, the bitch!” His hisses the words, which reverberate in the small room.

“Shhh. Korobi-madam will hear you.”

“Are you kidding? Jet lag’s like chloroform. Just look at her, slumped over.”

“Please don’t do anything dangerous! I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Mitra gives a bitter laugh. “You’re like the cat in the proverb—want to catch the fish, but don’t want to touch the water. Everything comes with a price. Did you find out why she’s here?”

“I asked, but all she said was she’s looking for a relative. She doesn’t want to talk about it. I’m sorry! I’m no good at things like that.”

It sounds as if Seema is tearing up.

He gives a sigh. “Never mind. Come here. Let me rub your back. Is it aching a lot? Did you have heartburn again?”

Even in sleep, I can feel her snuggled up against him. My body aches with memory.

“Remember how the baby wasn’t moving, the last couple days? Well, he kicked again today, thank God!”

“He did? How about that!” A smile fills Mitra’s voice.

In my dream, they kiss. Mitra bends over Seema’s stomach to whisper to the baby inside. After a while, she serves him lunch. He tells her everything tastes excellent.

“Korobi-madam helped me.”

“Don’t call her madam!” He’s angry again. “She’s not your boss. And you shouldn’t have taken her help.”

“Why don’t you like her?”

“Because she’s one of them. And because Mrs. Bose practically ordered me to put her up.” He puts on a posh, clipped accent. “ ‘Mitra, Rajat’s fiancée is coming to New York. I’d like her to stay with you.’ Not a single
please,
and certainly not a
thank you.
”

“But Korobi-madam—uh, she—can’t help that. And she seems kind. She asked about the baby and my health, telling me to eat on time. I can’t tell you how nice it is to have someone to talk to.”

“I hope you didn’t tell her anything important?”

“What can I tell her?” Seema says petulantly. “It’s not like I know anything about what you’re doing.”

“The Boses can’t be trusted. Anything they know, they’ll use against us. Have you forgotten how Mrs. Bose acted after the gallery was broken into? When the police took me away? Like it was all my fault. Then when I asked for an advance because you were pregnant and we hadn’t been able to sell any paintings, she wanted to know what I’d done with the earlier commissions. That’s none of her damn business!”

Seema makes soothing sounds, but Mitra ignores her.

“And how about when I said I wanted to quit and return to India because of your depression?”

“She told you that we couldn’t leave now, because they’d have to close down the gallery.”

“Is that all you remember? You’re such a simpleton, it’s good you have
me to watch out for you. She said you needed to pull yourself together, and added that if I quit now, she’d make sure no one in Kolkata ever gave me another job again. For all you know, she’s put the girl here to spy on us.”

“Okay,” Seema says in an abashed voice, “I won’t tell her anything else.”

“There’s something fishy going on. This Desai, whom I’m supposed to take her to see, is a private detective. Korobi must be looking for someone important. Otherwise she wouldn’t have traveled halfway across the world on a shoestring budget—I saw how she counted out her dollars. Whatever her secret is, it’s clearly something the Boses want to keep private. If I can figure it out, maybe I can get some money out of them, and a good reference as well. Together with the deal I’m working on, that’ll be enough for us to get back to Kolkata and on our feet again. The Boses owe us that much, at the very least, for all the trauma they’ve put us through.”

Seema whispered something I couldn’t hear, but Mitra answered vehemently, “Oh, they’ll pay! And if they don’t, I’ll make sure to crush that family reputation they’re so proud of. Trample it into mud.”

His voice is so vicious, I cringe in my sleep.

“Go wake her. I’ll take her to that detective now.”

When the kettle begins to hiss, Asif turns off the gas burner and holds the letter in the steam billowing from the spout, as he had once seen in a spy thriller. In the film, the hero had peeled the flap open in one smooth move. This letter turns soggy and refuses to cooperate. He should wait for the paper to dry some, but he’s desperate to read what’s inside. He pulls the flap, and it tears. Asif swears. He’ll have to buy another fancy envelope for the letter. It won’t have Rajat’s name on it, but that would be believable, won’t it? It’s a secret letter, after all. He’ll just have to hand it to Rajat with the professional chauffeur’s expressionlessness.

The single sheet inside is filled with English words. It takes him a long time to unscramble the bold handwriting with its slanted slashes, the unfamiliar vocabulary.

Rajat,

I need to see you—even if it’s for the last time. I need to sit face-to-face and talk things out. I made some mistakes, I admit it. I hurt you. And I’m willing to apologize—something I’ve never done for any man. That should tell you how I feel about you.

Before you crumple up this letter and throw it away—see, I know you and your temper, because mine is just like it—I want you to remember all the things that were good between us. Remember when your company sent you to Delhi? When I flew up there without telling you and bribed that clerk to let me into your room, so I was naked under the sheets waiting for you when you came back from making that disastrous sales pitch? How magical those three days were. Those hours between meetings, and in the evenings, wrapped in the sheets . . . We hardly slept. You were afraid you wouldn’t get the account, you were so distracted, but I coached you, and it worked out. Remember how you said I was your lucky charm?

But sex wasn’t the only thing that made our relationship special. We could talk to each other, express our anger and frustration with the world, or even with our families. We could show each other our dark sides and know that we’d be understood and not shunned. You told me things that you said you’d never shared with anyone. Can you do that with that bland pretty-face you have now? How soon before you get tired of acting the virtuous husband for her?

I can help you, too, far better than she can. I know about your family’s financial problems, the failing gallery in New York. Yes, I’ve made it my business to know. My father would give me the money you need in a moment, if I tell him it’s for the man I love.

Understand, I’m not trying to bribe you. I just want to meet you once. Then you can do what you want.

Call me if you have the guts to face who you really are.

Sonia

Asif lies back on his lumpy mattress, exhausted and shocked. He’s had to spell out some words and guess at the meanings of others, but he
understands the gist of the letter. He’s surprised that Sonia would give him a letter with such private details in it. She must have thought he was illiterate, at least in English. Or maybe she couldn’t believe that a mere servant would dare to open her letter. His eyes burn as though he, too, stayed up for all those sex-soaked nights. When he read that part, he could feel himself hardening. He wanted to spit at Sonia for being a whore. He wanted to tear her clothes off. He was disgusted at her and himself. But then came that last part. The way she accepted Rajat’s shortcomings—and her own—with a shrug and didn’t try to pretend, as most people would, at a virtue she didn’t possess. There was courage in that. He could see the lure of being with such a woman. To be accepted not in spite of your vices but because you had them. The great relief of that.

She seems to really love Rajat, too—something else that Asif hadn’t expected. It bothers him. He was much more comfortable with the notion of Sonia as a millionaire’s spoiled daughter who only cared for her own pleasure. Then there’s the money. If she could get it from her father (and Sonia wasn’t the kind to make promises she couldn’t keep), that would change everything for the Boses. Pia-missy wouldn’t have to give up any of the things she deserved to have. She could go to Darjeeling every year if she wanted. And Asif is the one—the only one, at this point—who can make it happen for her.

Then he remembers how, on those occasions when Pia accompanied Sonia and Rajat someplace, she would sit silent in a corner of the car while Sonia chattered on gaily, waving her flamboyant hands, pressing up against Rajat to give him a kiss. Sonia was never mean to Pia; Asif had to admit that. But where Korobi showered Pia with affection, Sonia merely tolerated her. Could Asif condemn Pia-missy to a lifetime of that?

Asif’s head swims from the lateness of the night, from having stared at the letter for so long. Just when he thought he had figured out what to do, he’s confused all over again. He goes to the shelf where he keeps the Quran his sister tucked into his bag when he left home. He takes the scuffed volume from the shelf and presses it to his forehead, hoping for guidance. But the book offers no answer. Instead, an image rises in his mind: himself down on the ground, face encrusted with blood, ribs broken, teeth knocked out. It isn’t difficult for a moneyed woman to hire
thugs to beat up someone in this unforgiving city. He feels that might be Sonia’s style when people refuse to do what she wants.

The prudent decision would be to take the letter to Rajat, as she wants. Let them fight it out among themselves. Why should he put himself in danger by opposing a spoiled rich girl’s stubborn whim?

He thinks all this. Then he folds the letter and slips it inside the Quran. Before replacing it on the shelf, he kisses the book for luck, because surely he’ll need it now.

R
ajat sits in his office, which is on the upper floor of Barua & Bose’s warehouse, massaging his throbbing head and cursing last night. His table—a beautiful carved mahogany affair chosen by his mother—is stacked with notices and invoices that have piled up over the last month. They require his immediate attention, but he’s having a hard time focusing, in spite of several cups of tea and more aspirin than was good for him. What makes everything worse is that he hasn’t been able to talk to Korobi since she left India.

He had called Mitra’s apartment before he went out last night. Mitra’s wife said Korobi-madam was still sleeping. It was early morning in America, plus she hadn’t slept well the last night. Mitra’s wife had heard her moving around even after midnight. With the pregnancy, she didn’t sleep so well herself. Her back ached all the time.

Mitra’s wife talked too much, Rajat thought in annoyance. He interrupted her to say he was going to let Korobi sleep in, but she should call him as soon as possible.