‘Yes, I do, but you also know what brought it back, don’t you?’ Ritwik adds, with feigned innocence.
Zafar doesn’t reply. After a while, while they are on Vauxhall Bridge Road, he tries again.
‘So when are you going back to your country?’
‘In a few days.’ He has become laconic again.
Ritwik decides to hold his tongue; Zafar is unreadable and besides, what does it matter to him what the man does for a living?
As the traffic starts moving, Zafar seems released into another short burst of affability. ‘You know, maybe you shouldn’t go there again.’
Silence.
‘In fact, I’m asking you not to go there. If it’s money you’re worried about, I can see to that, it’s no problem.’
Ritwik’s senses prick up, like a cat’s ears, but he remains quiet in the fear that any word might break this delicate spell of generosity and make Zafar retract everything.
‘I can settle something on you. I come to London quite often and when I’m here, you can see me. What do you think?’
Settle. What a strange word. Dust settles, memories settle, agitated liquids settle, but money for exclusive access to bad sex? Does that settle too?
‘You must be joking.’ Ritwik cannot believe what he is hearing.
‘You can be my friend, only mine.’ Once again, Ritwik is thrown by the slippage in such an innocuous word.
‘Why are you doing this? You don’t know me at all.’
‘Do you mean, you don’t know me? Is that what is bothering you?’
Thou turn’st my eyes into my very soul. .
‘Trust me. I just want to make your life a bit easier.’
‘But why? I don’t understand it at all,’ Ritwik fairly shouts.
‘Let’s call it a whim. Or maybe it’s because I would like your company when I come to London. Which is often. I would like to have someone to spend some time with, talk to, you know, when I’m here.’ The words are tentative and feel as if they are being spun out unrehearsed.
Ritwik is a whirl of flattered ego and utter bafflement. A Bengali proverb, much used by his mother, comes to his mind but inexactly, something along the lines of not pushing away a smiling god.
They are nearing Brixton, so Ritwik starts giving Zafar directions. Once outside number 37 Ganymede Road, Ritwik asks him to stop.
‘This is where I live. With a very old woman. I’ll tell you about her some day. Her entire family died — her husband, her son, her daughter, too, I suspect. All at different times in her life.’
Zafar makes a noise of regret with his teeth and tongue. ‘You’ll come to my hotel tomorrow?’ he asks.
‘What time?’
‘I can come and pick you up from here. Say eight o’clock. We can go and have dinner somewhere.’
‘All right. See you tomorrow.’
Zafar smiles — this is the first time Ritwik has seen him smile gratuitously and it makes him look like a child who has just received a cuddle — and cups Ritwik’s face in his palm, gives it a light squeeze and says something in Arabic.
‘What was that?’
‘I’ll leave you to find out. All right, then. Till tomorrow.’
Ritwik gets out of the car, bends down, gives a wave and lets himself into the house with a very gently tripping heart.
In the next four days, Zafar takes him out to dinner twice — he doesn’t see Ritwik on the second and third days; he is busy with other, business, things, ‘client dinners’ — and invites him to his suite after dinner. The sex is unchangingly swift and one-sided and Zafar retreats into an aloof and impenetrable world of introspection after each time. It is as if Ritwik starts fading for Zafar during the sex and disappears completely afterwards. It is as unintimate as physical contact gets and is always preceded and followed by a shower, in an attempt, Ritwik supposes, to sluice off ritually not only semen, sweat, the touch of another body — there is no saliva, for Zafar never kisses — but also the bigger intangibles that he perceives to come with this paid sex.
The ‘settlement’ is not mentioned by him again and Ritwik drives himself neurotic thinking about it all the time and being unable to broach the subject in fear of appearing grasping and greedy. On Zafar’s final night in London, he slips Ritwik a piece of paper with numbers and letters written on it in green ink before they step out of his bird suite to drive to Brixton. Out of a misplaced sense of politeness, he doesn’t read what is written on the paper, he just folds it up and shoves it into the back pocket of his jeans.
‘Call this number soon. He’s a friend and looks after some of my stuff here. I’ve spoken to him already and told him you will be in touch, so he’ll be expecting your call. Just give him a ring when you need any money, any time. He’s very reliable. You can either have him give you a lump sum at a given time every month, or you could get in touch with him as and when you require money. Does that suit you?’
Ritwik is overwhelmed by this casual generosity and feels belittled by the stubborn suspicion about Zafar’s motives that will not let go of him. Too many questions are muddying this, too many bad films and stereotypes and myths are in the way. He nods, unable to say anything that will not appear flimsy and hackneyed.
Outside Ritwik’s house, Zafar turns off the engine.
‘Is there any way I can get in touch with you?’ asks Ritwik.
‘Why?’ The question is as instantaneous as Zafar’s regret for letting it slip out. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, I just wanted to. .’
‘No, that’s all right. Thank you so much for your generosity.’ The whipcrack of Zafar’s question has turned on all the harsh lights; even the brief illusion of soft focus images is now gone irreversibly.
‘You know my address, you have my phone number,’ Ritwik continues, ‘you can contact me when you’re in London next.’
‘Yes, I’ll do that. And. .’ Zafar hesitates.
‘What?’
‘Don’t go to King’s Cross again. That’s our deal, all right? And don’t for once think I won’t find out if you do it. I have eyes everywhere in London.’
Ritwik finds the image much more startling than the naked threat. Once again, he wonders what Zafar does for a living that gives him such wealth, such a smooth acceptance of the role of imperious master. He doesn’t respond immediately to this. When he speaks, his words are of a doormat’s.
‘How long will it be then before I see you again?’ He hates himself for being such a pushover, he finds his own voice whiney and needy.
‘Soon,’ says Zafar, evasive again.
Ritwik reaches for the door handle. Zafar leans forward, touches his hand and says, ‘You give me your word, don’t you, you are not going to go with other men?’
Ritwik isn’t sure the unidiomatic nature of Zafar’s words is real or imagined inside his prejudiced head. He nods and even manages a smile as Zafar holds his face and says something in Arabic again.
‘You never said what it means.’
‘I will, one day,’ he whispers.
The rest of the night is sleepless for Ritwik. He writes for a bit, for company, nearing the end of Miss Gilby’s story. At other times, he lies in bed and stares at the objects in the room with a fixed gaze, hoping it will induce first a meditative trance and then sleep. No such luck as he discovers that the hoop of the small lock on the metal trunk stowed away under the table doesn’t go through the clasp of the bolt. Which means the trunk is not locked but just gives the impression of being so. He leaps out of bed and starts ferreting, unsure of what he is going to find.
Bills, some dating back forty years, house deeds, vehicle registration forms, leasehold papers, brittle yellow pieces of paper, foxed and aged, letters, bank statements, a bundle tied with faded blue silk, a post mortem report from Southwark Coroner’s Court for Richard Christopher Cameron, died May 26, 1966, by his own hand, a single gunshot wound to his forehead.