“Why is it all closed up? Shouldn’t you open it for tourists to visit?” I asked.
“Tourists?” Lakshman laughed. “Tourists? In Zalilgarh? My dear girl, I don’t think we’ve had a tourist here since 1543, when Sher Shah Suri camped here while building the Grand Trunk Road. Why would a tourist come to Zalilgarh? Even you don’t qualify as one.” Suddenly his hand was on my upper arm again. “Watch your step here — there’s a lot of rubble on this path. I don’t want you twisting an ankle.”
But he released his grip almost instantly as we walked on.
“What happened was that the Kotli sat here undisturbed for generations, like so many ruins elsewhere in India,” Lakshman explained. “The land from here to the river belonged to the old nawab and then to the government, so nobody could build here, and nobody wanted to, either. It’s quite an isolated place, far away from the town, near nothing. Plus there was a rumor that it was haunted.” “Haunted?”
“The story goes that the owner of the Kotli was murdered in his bed by his wife and her lover. But he never let them enjoy the fruits of their villainy. He haunted the house, wailing and shrieking and gnashing his teeth, until he had driven them away in terror. No one would live there after that, so it just fell into disuse.”
“Do people still think it’s haunted?”
“In India, myths and legends are very slow to die, Priscilla.” “Unlike the human beings,” I found myself saying. I was just trying to be clever, in keeping with his mood, but as soon as I said it I wished I hadn’t.
“Unlike the human beings,” he repeated slowly. “Now why would you say a thing like that, Priscilla? Have you seen so much of death and dying here? I’d like to think Zalilgarh has been a pretty peaceful place in recent years. Haven’t had so much as a riot since I’ve been here. And our infant mortality rates are dropping too.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. It was a foolish thing to say.”
“No, not foolish,” Lakshman said gently. “We’ve seen more unnecessary deaths and suffering in my country than I can bear to recall. It’s just that things do get better, you know. And in this respect, they have.”
We walked on in silence for a couple of minutes. Then, silhouetted against the dramatic evening sky — a blue-black canvas splashed with the angry saffron of the setting sun — I saw the Kotli.
It was a ruin, all right, but it stood strong and solid, its stone rectangular shape a striking contrast to the suppler lines of the foliageladen trees, the forlorn weeds, the flowing river beyond it. In the evening light it seemed to rise from the earth like a fist.
“Come inside,” Lakshman said, switching on his flashlight.
I picked my way over the rubble-strewn approach and, predictably, tripped, falling heavily against him. He turned quickly to hold me, but only for as long as it took to steady me. And then, as he turned again toward the Kotli, he slipped his free hand into mine.
“Come with me,” he said unnecessarily, that voice of his huskier now, a voice like mulled wine.
I felt the pressure of his hand in mine. It was a soft hand, a hand that had never wielded any instrument harder than a pen; unlike the other male hands I had held, it had never mowed a lawn, washed a dish, carried a pigskin over the touchdown line. It was the hand of a child of privilege in a land where privilege meant there were always other hands to do the heavy lifting, the rough work, for you. And yet in its softness there was a certain strength, something that conveyed reassurance, and I clung on to that hand, grateful that in the gathering gloom its owner could not see the color rising to my cheek.
We stepped into the Kotli. There was no floor left, only grass and pebbles where once thick carpets, perhaps, had covered the stone tiling. But Lakshman’s flashlight danced across the walls and ceilings, illuminating them for me. “Look,” he breathed, and I followed the torch beam to a patch of marble that still clung to the stone, the fading lines of an artist’s decorative flourish visible across its surface. The flashlight traced the vaulting lines of a nave, then moved to a delicate pattern in the stone above a paneless window, then settled on a niche where a long-ago resident might once have placed his oil lamp.
“It’s marvelous,” I said.
“Come upstairs,” Lakshman said urgently. “Before the sunset disappears entirely.”
He pulled me to the stairs, his hand insistent in mine. Part of the roof had long since disappeared, and much of the upper floor was a long open space, ending in a half-wall, like a battlement. I began to walk toward it, intending to stand at the edge, the breeze in my hair, and watch the sun set over the river. But Lakshman pulled me back.
“No,” he said. “There’s a better place.”
He walked to the right of the roof floor, the beam of his flashlight dancing, until it caught the dull glint of a padlock. This was attached to a bolted wooden door, clearly a later addition to the premises.
“Only the district magistrate has the key.” Lakshman laughed, gaily pulling a bunch from his pocket. He turned the key, extracted the lock, and pulled back the screeching bolt. “Follow me,” he said, and pushed the door open.
We stepped into a little room, no larger than a vestry. To the left was a rectangular opening in the wall, a window of sorts, through which the river and the sky were visible, framed as in a painting.
“Come and sit here,” Lakshman said.
I sat gingerly where he indicated, on a raised stone slab in an alcove where perhaps a bed had once lain. Lakshman sat beside me, crossing his legs contentedly. There was an expression on his face I hadn’t seen before, one of barely suppressed excitement.
Anticipation suffused his breathing. “Look,” he said, pointing with his flashlight, and then switching it off.
I looked, and felt my blood tingle. Directly across from us a mirror had been hung on the wall. It was pitted black with age in places, but it still served, a silvery glint upon the stone. When Lakshman’s beam of light went off, the scene filtering in through the rectangular window was reflected brilliantly in the mirror.
“Now you can watch your first stereo sunset,” Lakshman said.
I could not say a word; all sound would have caught in my throat.
I looked out through the rectangular window and watched the saffron spread like a stain across the darkening sky, then turned my eyes and saw the colors incandesce in the mirror. Outside the air was thick with the scent of gulmohur and bougainvillea, which seeped in through the opening to mingle with the warmth of Lakshman by my side, his breathing now calm and even, his teeth flashing white beneath a happy smile.
“You like it?” he asked, squeezing my hand.
I wanted to thank him, but the words wouldn’t come. My eyes strayed from the scene outside the window to the scene in the mirror. It was simply the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen. I was absurdly conscious that this was Valentine’s Day, and that I had never spent it in a more romantic setting. So without really thinking, hardly conscious of what I was doing at all, I pressed myself against him and kissed him on the cheek.
Well, mainly on the cheek. But the edge of my lips touched the edge of his, so that the silken bristles of his moustache grazed my own upper lip, and then it wasn’t just a kiss on the cheek anymore. His hands rose to encircle my body in a tight embrace, and both pairs of lips moved with a volition of their own toward each other, and I devoured him hungrily, feeling the faintly spicy taste of his mouth, my tongue exploring the soft moist mystery of him, until the sound that had been trapped inside me emerged at last as a long, low moan.