The Secret Keeper of Jaipur by Alka Joshi

9

MALIK

Jaipur

I’m at my desk just outside Hakeem’s office, admiring the new red Ford Maverick in the latest issue of LIFE magazine (“The first car of the ’70s at 1960 prices!”), when a ledger lands on top of it, barely missing the glass of chai on my desk.

“Arré!”I yell. When I look up, I see Hakeem standing on the other side of my desk. He’s glowering.

He taps his stubby index finger on the ledger several times. “You made a mistake. Yes!” He is triumphant.

I turn the ledger around so I can read the spine: Purchasing 1969.

Hakeem strokes both sides of his mustache with his finger. “Tell me, Abbas. C-M-T. What does it stand for?”

“Cement,” I say.

“And B-R-K?”

“Brick.”

Hakeem clears his throat. “Correct. So why would you have switched those two figures in the ledger?”

I’m still taking this in when he opens the ledger, then flips back a few pages. “See here? C-M-T? Yes? And here? B-R-K? Yes?”

I nod.

“The sum for bricks and the sum for cement used for the Royal Jewel Cinema is the opposite of what it should be. You have transposed the two.”

I look again at the columns. “But, Hakeem Sahib, I double-checked the bills against the ledger.”

He flicks his mustache with his finger. “Check them again. Sloppy accounting will not be tolerated here.”

“Yes,” I say, with a straight face, eliciting another cold glance from the little man.

When he goes back to his office, I look at the numbers in the ledger. I can see his point. There should have been a lot of cement used and very little brick for a project of this size. I’ve learned that much from the engineers who work for Manu. Manu himself has taken me to different building sites (ignoring the disapproving glare of Hakeem) to teach me about materials and methods employed for different parts of a building.

I’m aware Hakeem resents my presence in his little kingdom. He might think I’ve been hired to take his place. For all that, I can’t believe that he would stoop to jiggering the books to get me into trouble.

I turn the pages of the ledger slowly to see how much has been spent on the cinema house project since the beginning of the year. I add the totals up; the sums surprise me. The amount Singh-Sharma Construction has spent on cement is three times the sum the firm has spent on bricks. So why would the latest invoices show the opposite?

I’m puzzling over this when Hakeem comes out of his office, locks the door behind him and leaves for his lunch hour, dangling his tiffin in one hand, an Agatha Christie novel in the other. Hakeem is passionate about his murder mysteries.

I don’t need my watch to tell me that it’s one o’clock. As always, he will head to Jaipur’s Central Park and claim his favorite bench (Bhagwan forbid that someone else arrives to claim the bench before Hakeem!).

He will return at two o’clock. Not a minute earlier, and not a minute later.

Hakeem’s office is a tiny, windowless room set off in one distant corner of this floor, but years of loyal service have earned him this small privilege.

From where I sit, I can see the desks of project managers, draftsmen and overseers. The secretaries who type letters for the office sit closer to me. But at lunch, employees either leave the office or sit quietly behind their desks, eating lunch, reading a newspaper or taking a nap.

I let several minutes pass before I make my way to Hakeem’s office door. I was raised on the streets of Jaipur, left to my own devices when I was just two or three years old, which was when Omi gave me a home, even though she had three of her own children to feed. Her husband was absent for long periods, so I helped her out any way I could. I played Parcheesi for food and marbles for money, learned how to cheat well at cards, haggled for things Omi’s children needed.

And I excelled at picking locks.

I am inside Hakeem’s office in three seconds.

The file cabinet marked Support holds the original invoices from suppliers. At the end of every day, when I’ve finished inputting the invoice amounts in the ledger, Hakeem snatches the invoices from the box on my desk, double-checks my work and stashes them in this drawer.

I pull the bills for April, looking for the invoices from Chandigarh Ironworks marked Paid. I find both items: one for concrete, one for bricks. Both amounts match what I recorded in the ledger. Were the bricks purchased for another project and inadvertently billed to the cinema house project? I put the two receipts in my pocket and check my watch. It’s still lunch hour, so there won’t be anyone at the supplier’s office if I call.

Back at my desk, I shoo a fly away from my tea, now cold. The sluggish fan overhead does little to cool the room. I may as well step out for a parantha and a mango lassi before I head over to the offices of Singh-Sharma, just a few streets over, for a chat with Ravi Singh.

“So what’s the problem?” Ravi is gazing at me across his immense desk at Singh-Sharma Construction as I stand with the two receipts in my hand.

“The amounts are the opposite of what they should be.”

“And?” He sounds impatient, eager for me to leave so he can continue inspecting the blueprints in front of him. The sleeves of his white shirt are rolled up at the cuffs. His elegant linen jacket hangs on a wooden coatrack in the corner.

“The invoices are from Singh-Sharma suppliers. Have they made a mistake? Should I call them or would you like to?”

Ravi narrows his eyes, considering me. He pulls a cigarette from the pack on his desk and offers one to me. He pats his pockets for his gold lighter, the one that’s a duplicate of Samir’s. He frowns, his head tilted. Then his face clears and a smile plays about his lips.

Inwardly, I roll my eyes. Has he left his lighter at the home of his latest conquest? I pick up the matchbox on his desk and light his cigarette first, then mine. I shake the match to extinguish it.

Ravi takes a drag of his cigarette. “Show me.”

I lay the receipts on the desk.

He blows smoke from his nostrils as he examines the invoices. Unscrewing his fountain pen, he crosses out the total at the bottom of the first invoice and writes in the total from the second. Then he does the same to the other invoice. He hands them both back to me with a broad smile. “There. Not so hard, was it?”

For a moment, I say nothing. What kind of strange accounting is this?

Ravi shrugs. “Look, there’s no need to complicate things. Hakeem needs the numbers to match. They’ll match. End of story. What are you doing for dinner tonight?”

His habit of abruptly changing subjects always throws me off guard. I’m still trying to make sense of what he’s just done to the invoices.

“Why not come out with us tonight? Sheela and I are leaving the kids at home. We’re dining at the Rambagh Palace. The rogan josh is sublime.” To his credit, he doesn’t boast about the relationship of the Singhs to the Jaipuri royal family. He doesn’t have to; it’s a well-known fact; his father has always been a favorite of the court.

Before I have a chance to say anything, Ravi reaches for his phone. “I’ll tell Sheela you’ll be joining us.”

When I lived in this city as a boy, Rambagh Palace used to be the maharajas’ personal residence. After independence, when the purses of India’s maharajas were dwindling rapidly, His Highness of Jaipur had the bright idea of turning the Rambagh into a hotel to replenish his coffers. It worked. Royalty from around the world, successful businessmen and wealthy globetrotters all frequent the Rambagh.

It’s one of the grandest places I’ve ever been. The waiters are dressed in maroon maharaja coats cinched with orange cummerbunds, orange turbans on their heads. Overhead, multitiered chandeliers hang from the ceiling, their lights bouncing off the gems on the fingers, wrists, necks and ears of diners. I try to store the details in my memory so I can describe them to Nimmi in my next letter.

At dinner, Ravi is the attentive host, ordering for us, making sure our wine glasses are filled, regaling us with amusing stories. He gossips about the polo club (His Highness is bringing the Bombay polo team here for an elephant polo match—that should be charming!), praises Sheela’s progress at tennis (Mark my words—she will be a regional champ next year!), and India’s cricket team (We’re going to show the Australians a thing or two come November!). Sheela is in fine form, too, dazzling in an emerald-green chiffon sheath with spaghetti straps, laughing at her husband’s jokes, teasing him about his cricket obsession and chatting merrily about their friends at the Jaipur Club. I try to picture Nimmi’s granite-dark skin, exposed, glistening, under a dress like Sheela’s and feel a blush creeping from my neck to my ears.

After dinner, as Sheela is getting into their car, Ravi tells her he has promised a potential client a late-night drink. The driver will take Sheela home first, then me. Ravi will take a taxi to his appointment.

Sheela’s face falls. “But it’s almost midnight!”

“And that’s when deals get sealed in Jaipur.”

“Which deal is this?” There’s an edge to Sheela’s voice.

I’m in the passenger’s seat, next to the driver. I can see Sheela and Ravi in the side-view mirror.

“I need one more piece to come together for the grand opening of the Royal Jewel Cinema. That’s the guy I’m meeting.”

Seeing that Sheela is starting to pout, Ravi leans close to her and slips a finger under one of her spaghetti straps, sliding it up and down the delicate fabric, grazing her skin. “He’s the one who’s always ogling you. I can’t have that. That’s why you’re not invited.”

The act is so intimate it makes me blush. Are they always like this? I shift my gaze away from the side-view mirror, wondering what their driver, the ever stoic Mathur, is thinking.

Sheela looks at her husband sideways. And smiles.

After a beat, Sheela reaches up a hand to straighten Ravi’s tie. “Abbas will have a drink with me, won’t you, Abbas? Mathur can take him home afterward.”

I turn around to object. I have a lot of work to do for Hakeem tomorrow and a tutorial with one of Manu’s engineers. It’s late, and I’d rather go to bed.

Ravi’s face has darkened. He’s staring pointedly at Sheela. She returns his stare, coolly.

He pushes his lips out as if considering the idea. “A little Sheela hospitality. Sounds like a plan.” He straightens and pats my shoulder as if the matter is settled.

My acquiescence, it seems, is neither warranted nor necessary.

At Sheela and Ravi’s home, the driver parks, then hops out of the car to open Sheela’s door. I stay where I am, hoping that the invitation for a drink was only a maneuver to make Ravi jealous.

“You don’t mind, do you, Abbas? Spending time with me?”

Quietly, I let out a sigh. She is my hostess this evening. I follow her into the house where she hands Anu, her maid, her shawl and purse. Then she leads me to the drawing room—an airy space with a high ceiling and enormous French doors that take up the entire east wall. I imagine, in the daylight, that this room is even more spectacular. It’s so quiet at this hour I can hear the hum of the air conditioner.

Two yellow damask sofas facing each other dominate the room. They’re separated by a coffee table—long, rectangular—finished in a pale birch. The room is decorated lavishly but sparingly. No clutter. Nothing out of place. My guess is that the furniture, alone, in this one room, cost more than what Dr. Jay earns in a year.

Sheela opens the drawer of a matching side table and removes a packet of Dunhills. “Ravi thinks I don’t know where he keeps his stash,” she says. When she turns to face me, she’s holding a cigarette between her jeweled fingers.

I reach into my pocket for matches, wishing I, too, could offer her a gilded lighter. The yellow matchbox is the one I picked up earlier today from Ravi’s desk.

I lean in to light her cigarette. This close, I can smell her orchid perfume, the white wine she drank over dinner, the scent of cigarette smoke on her breath. I can see the small black beauty mark, nestled in the faint lines next to her right eye. Do I think that she’s attractive? Yes. She’s self-assured, and confident. Well aware of her sexual allure. I remind myself that Sheela Singh was once a girl who wouldn’t take a second look at me—was offended, if fact, by the sight of a me—the ragged eight-year-old I was then, when she was fifteen. Has she changed? Have I? Or am I simply tempted by the possibility of something forbidden?

She offers me the pack. I take one. Then she takes a seat on one of the sofas and draws on her cigarette slowly and deeply. She tilts her head back and blows smoke rings at the ceiling, her mouth kissing the air. “One cigarette after dinner is a lovely thing,” she says. “After two kids, tennis alone won’t help me slip into this.” She points to her dress. The chiffon bodice does little to hide the fact that she’s not wearing a bra. Her breasts are high and full. The women of Nimmi’s tribe don’t wear bras. Nimmi’s breasts have stretch marks, as does her stomach. (If Sheela ever breastfed, I would be surprised.) I like that Nimmi is comfortable in her body. Even so, that low-cut dress succeeds in making Sheela look salacious.

I can’t help but stare, which is exactly what that dress is asking me to do. I notice that my cigarette is still not lit and make a show of lighting it now. I force myself to think of Nimmi—her shy smile, her cinnamon lips, inviting me to go to her. When I undress her, Nimmi counts each hook aloud, softly, as I undo her blouse.

“Ravi keeps the good scotch in the library. Feel free to help yourself.” Sheela makes a careless gesture with her cigarette in the direction of the hallway. “Never had a taste for it myself.”

I take a seat on the sofa opposite Sheela’s. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

When Sheela leans forward to tap the ash from her cigarette into the ceramic ashtray on the coffee table, she makes sure that I can see her cleavage. The triangle of shadow between her breasts is sprinkled with gold powder. Despite myself, I’m getting hard. I look away, embarrassed, and shift in my seat.

Nimmi, who at this moment is four hundred miles away, would never think of sprinkling gold dust between her breasts.

“Two months, already, you’ve been here, Abbas. And we still know nothing about you.”

“You assume there’s something to know.”

“I’m guessing that you have a family.”

I don’t know how to answer that without involving Auntie-Boss. And it’s better Lakshmi’s name isn’t mentioned in this house. Nor can I tell Sheela about Omi, or my shoeless, shirtless beginnings in the Pink City. I tap the ash from my own cigarette into the ceramic bowl. “Some.”

“Hmm.” A smile is playing about Sheela’s mouth. Her glossy lipstick catches light, competing with the shimmer of gold between her breasts. “You’ve never told me how you came to know my father-in-law.”

I’m assuming Sheela doesn’t know that Ravi had a son with Auntie-Boss’s younger sister, Radha. Or that Samir made up for Ravi’s indiscretions by paying Radha’s way through school. Why he paid for mine has always been a mystery to me.

I release a plume of smoke. “I know Samir the same way lots of people do.”

“Meaning?”

Ignoring the question, I point to the large portrait in a silver frame, hanging on one wall—a family portrait of two generation of the Singhs. “Great photo,” I say.

The original photo was taken in black and white but then hand-colored so every person’s lips and cheeks are pink, even Ravi’s. In the photo, little Rita is an infant, her eyes lined with kajal for good luck. She’s looking off to one side, gnawing on her fist. When the photo was taken, Baby hadn’t yet been born.

Sheela glances at the photo but says nothing. She adjusts the large emerald and pearl ring on one of her fingers. “Society says it’s fine for Ravi to have his women—and I use the term loosely.” She arches a shapely eyebrow. “But if I did the same, they’d be outraged.”

She flicks ash from her cigarette into the bowl, again leaning forward, demanding my attention.

I try to keep my eyes on hers.

“It’s not as if I’ve had no offers,” she says. “His clients. Our friends. Men I’ve known for ages. Some of whom would have gladly married me when my parents were entertaining proposals. Now those same men see me as a conquest.” She takes another long drag from her cigarette and releases the smoke from her mouth, slowly. She pouts and raises one eyebrow. “Why do you think that is?”

Her hair is lustrous, shiny from expensive shampoos, her dark eyes fixed on me. The ridge of her collarbone reflects the lamp’s light; a lovely glow. I take my time, observing her, letting her see what I see in her.

“I think you know,” I say.

She has the grace to blush.

I lean forward, extinguish my cigarette in the bowl and stand. I smile at her, apologetically. “I have work tomorrow,” I say, and start to leave the room.

“Before you go...”

I turn around.

She holds her hand out. For a moment, I imagine that she’s asking me to hold it. Then I understand.

I take the matchbox from my pocket and put it in her outstretched hand.

I reach the Palace Guest House fifteen minutes later and go directly to my bedroom. I take off my clothes, dropping them onto the floor as I make my way to the shower. I turn the water on, as hot as I can stand, and let the feeling of it soothe me. Even so, I picture Sheela’s naked breasts, recall the scent of her perfume. Her dark eyes, taunting, or inviting, me. I take care of my erection, feeling shame and guilt, as if I’ve actually cheated on Nimmi. But now I’m home, I’m safe. And when I get in bed, I immediately fall asleep.