Through this maze and out into descending night to the scene of Hamilton Road, past the queues of cycle rickshaws and the toilet blocks, and families with young girls in make-up and cheap clothes, over the railway bridge, just like a fairground, the colour and bustle, the ephemeral joy of the lit-up. A dentist is sitting cross-legged waiting for customers, kept company by pliers and a pile of orphaned teeth on the side of the road.
Into the bazaar north of Chandni Chowk we plunge, to the market inhabiting the centuries-old stone, plastic toys, calculators, computers and games, stationery, manuals. Everything you could hope to find has its place here, junk piled up high into rooms which tiptoe into blackness, passageways that fork and vanish into crypts, double back on themselves. Above ground or underground, inside or out, it’s unclear.
We emerge without warning into the pavement of Chandni Chowk. He pulls me across a gap in the road, past the cycle rickshaws. The Red Fort is glowering at one end. The sound of so many bodies swallowing us. And the fort is gone.
Then a measure of peace, a side alley where nothing stirs. Turning back you can see people marching past the crack of it. It happens like this sometimes, some lanes remain forever hidden away.
He walks me deeper into the walled city, twisting down narrow passageways and alleyways, knowing the way by heart. Suddenly we’re in the place where lives are spent behind walls, in courtyards where the walls are front doors. It’s where the Muslim girls roam, in twos and threes, heavenly girls of milk-white whose skin the sun does not see — they glide past us in silence with their painted cat eyes framed in black.
Turning into another alleyway, he slows our pace to follow a pair moving arm in arm ahead. Suddenly I see them with his eyes, feel his obscene desire, the sport he makes of them. My sisters and me. Because I love him we follow them like this, see their sashaying walk, seek the plaited hair peeking below the waist. Beneath the blackness of their outer world there are gaudy colours, there are sequined and embroidered clothes of pink and blue, pierced ears and noses, rings and studs, necks clamped in jewels, arms in bangles, legs in anklets, feet in heels. I taste the hunger he has for them, for their enormous kohl eyes etched in black, for their lips made up with ruby-red and lashes rising to the moon.
Somewhere, behind closed doors, in cramped and barren rooms, in happy rooms of austere stone, they’ll lie down in their splendour and a man will make love to them, beat them for a look or a word, for no reason at all, will despise them, ignore them, be blind to them, somewhere someone will caress them, whisper secrets in their ears, buy gifts to appease them, make them smile, coax a laugh from their lips from which love trickles like a brook. Her eyelids open and close in the heat of the night, overlooking the masjid.
In his room we hold Old Delhi inside us, the things we’ve seen: the torn cheek, the teeth, the clicking heel on stone, the fleeting eye, the hair beneath the veil. He talks it to me, he fucks me slowly with his words, takes his pain out on me from the city he’s consumed, merging limbs and lips, doing it to me again and again. I beg him. He wraps his hands around my throat and sinks inside. He wants to be with me everywhere, wants to follow me through the streets. I’d walk for him and he’d obliterate me, take everything but my eyes. I’d cover myself, in devotion, and know that I was owned.
But it’s the same old problem, the one we come back to every time. He says, Leave, move in with me, and I say I will … but I can’t. I ask him to wait awhile and he says, What for? He gets angry and stalks the apartment, calls me a liar, a coward, drinks some more, says I’m boring, just like everyone else. He wonders why he’s wasting his time. I’m a tease and a tourist. He becomes angry because I leave, because of the way I guard myself, the way I never let go, as if I’ve learned nothing from him. But it’s OK. He’ll show me if it kills him, he’ll carry me kicking and screaming through his world.
Driving home I feel everything that’s been lost, I feel the sudden fear of a life out of control, knowing it’s too late to go back and that I’ve already gone too far. Going home I think how I can escape, how I can get away from what we’ve done. And then I get inside Aunty’s static world and I can’t wait to run back to him.
Under the pretext of looking for jobs I drive around the city all the time, spend hours driving around in my car alone. Then go to his apartment and sit outside and look, waiting for something to happen.
Finally something does happen: a family appears, a smart-looking corporate type with his wife and small child. I watch them on the balcony and through the living room window from the dark of my car. I keep coming back for more. I watch the husband leave for work in the morning. I watch the wife standing on the balcony as he goes.
A few days later his voicemail dies.
In Nizamuddin I ring the bell of the apartment door. The maid answers and I ask to speak to sir or madam, knowing that sir has already left for work.
Madam comes to the door holding her young child, a curious look on her face. I act surprised to see her, as if expecting someone else. I ask her right away where they are, if the family is in or away. She tells me they don’t live here any more, they sold the apartment, it only happened two weeks ago, it was a very quick sale. Oh, I say, but I’ve come all the way from Chandigarh. I’d lost their number but I knew the house, I used to live just round the corner and now … Do you have a number for them? Do you know where they’ve gone?
She says she’ll get it for me, would I like to come in?
The woman offers me a seat in the living room while she goes to leave her child with the maid. The Japanese screen doors have been removed — now family photos cover the walls. It’s hard to believe it’s the same home.
She comes back and sits down opposite and asks me what I’m doing here in Delhi, besides coming to find old friends. I tell her I’m applying for my visa to the States, and also meeting a boy who I might be marrying, who’s from the U.S. himself. He’s only here for a few days, but we’ve met six times before and I think he might be the one. The lies fall out my mouth very easily. But it’s hard being here. Beneath the layers of new furniture and everyday life I can see where I’ve been ripped apart.
She sees my wandering eye and asks, It must look different to you. I heard their son did a lot of work on it in the last few years. Did you know him very well?
I say I knew him a long time ago when we were small, he was older than me, he used to tease me a lot, but when we moved to Chandigarh we lost touch.
She nods and says, So you really haven’t heard? Well, I hate to be giving such bad news, but he died, not so long ago at all. He fell in front of a truck on the highway. He was drunk. It was in the papers, they said it was suicide and a girl was involved, but then there usually is in these cases, no? She drove him to it, that’s what they say. It almost stopped us buying the place, but since he didn’t actually die here we thought that there’s really no bad luck involved.
The pain is suddenly very sharp, like a clockwork razor turning in my chest; I feel it tightening and cutting me to shreds. I want to run away from here as fast as I can. I ask if I may use the bathroom instead.