He sounds more broken than angry, more defeated than indignant. It takes only one step for him to drop his sturdy frame on the cot. His head is bent low, playing with the gauze around his hand. He hasn’t noticed that his ample rump is now seated on the Times of India crossword puzzle.
Mr. Reddy, who is still standing at the washbasin, looks at Hakeem and sighs. After a beat, he walks to the table and begins cutting the vegetables with slow, measured movements of the knife. “We met in Bombay when Hakeem was visiting his family one year and took them to the cinema house. We saw each other and just knew. And we found a way to be together in Jaipur when the theater manager job came up.” His eyes are wet when he looks up from the cutting board. “This was the best way of saving his family from the embarrassment and still making sure they’re taken care of. Hakeem’s job at the palace is so good. He’ll never find another like it in Bombay. And we get to be alone. We don’t bother anybody.” He stops to pull a handkerchief from his dhoti and blows his nose.
I’m puzzling it out. I point to Mr. Reddy. “When did you start working for the cinema house?”
“Three months ago. They needed to decide on ticket prices, organize putting up the flyers, coordinate the films to be shown. Oh, and the actors.”
I point to Hakeem, who is studying his bare feet. “The Singhs found out about the two of you?”
“It was Mr. Ravi,” Mr. Reddy says. “He saw us together one day in Central Park. Having lunch. You had a cold that day, Hakeem, remember? I brought you extra chilies for your dal.”
The two men exchange a look. Hakeem is the first to look away.
A memory comes to me. Omi beseeching her husband, home during a hiatus. He was a handler for the mahoots, the men who trained the elephants in a traveling circus. She had fallen at his feet, begging him to divorce her. “Let me marry someone else! Let me lie with a man as other women do.”
I hadn’t understood what I’d heard that day; I was then only a boy. I’ve been in the world many more years since then, and I’ve learned a few things. There were passions beyond our control, beyond what we had been taught to believe were normal.
I rub my eyes with the flat of my hands. “Look, I’m not interested in your private life. My intention is to clear Manu Agarwal’s name. I know those receipts for supplies were doctored, Hakeem Sahib. And there’s only one person who could have manipulated them.”
Hakeem picks at the bandage on his hand. He nods. “I got rid of the original receipts. If you look carefully, you’ll notice the ones I replaced them with are on a different paper. I had no choice.”
He looks at his lover, who comes to sit beside him on the cot.
Mr. Reddy gives me an imploring look. “It didn’t help in the end. They got me to say that I let too many people into the balcony. The palace is firing me.”
He covers Hakeem’s hand with his own. “We will find another way to stay together.”
“But your job is guaranteed, Uncle?”
The accountant nods. “That was the deal.”
“Are you willing to tell your story to the maharani?”
He shakes his head. “No, young Abbas, I will not. I cannot. My family needs to be protected. I cannot let my daughters’ lives be ruined by my failings. If word got out about what I am, they will never be able to marry. No one will have them. I will never confess any of this to Her Highness or to Manu Sahib or I will lose my job. In disgrace. I can’t afford that.” He looks directly into my eyes. “You would have to kill me first.”
His companion gasps and turns to him sharply.
Hakeem turns moist eyes to him. “Not even for you could I do this, BK, I’m sorry to say. My daughters are young. They have their whole lives ahead of them. Lives that won’t survive the scandal of our relationship.” He squeezes Mr. Reddy’s hand.
“What if I can guarantee discretion?” I have no idea if I can, but I have to try.
Hakeem scoffed. “You can’t. No one can.” He shook his head. “No, Abbas Malik. There is no solution here. I’m sorry for the families of the injured, but there is nothing I can do to change the outcome.”
His eyes are hard. I can see his mind is made up. Mr. Reddy looks at me hopefully, as if I had a prepared response that would make all this better. I hadn’t.
Of the three days Maharani Latika gave us to provide evidence of malfeasance, we’ve almost used up two. We have one more day to find enough evidence to clear Manu. I check my watch. It’s nine o’clock in the evening. The Singh family will have had their dinner by now. The chowkidar is used to me (I always share a cigarette with him when I visit), and he lets me in without alerting the family.
The house servant greets me at the front door. I tell her I want to see Samir. She takes me to the library door, then knocks.
“Come in,” I hear Samir say. The servant opens the door for me and leaves.
Samir is seated behind his desk. He’s marking blueprints. When he looks up and sees me, the surprise in his face is evident. “Cinema house again?”
I nod.
“You’re like a bad anna. I thought we were done with that.” He waves at the drawings in front of him. “There’s another project on the horizon. Everyone’s moved on.”
“Manu Agarwal hasn’t. He can’t.”
Samir throws his mechanical pencil across the desk. It bounces off the blueprints and lands at my feet. I pick it up and step up to his desk. I place the pencil on his blueprints, gently. Samir is angry, and I can see why, but I won’t let that deter me.
“When employees make tragic mistakes, they lose their jobs. It happens every day, Malik.”
“You’ve worked with him. He’s hired you for some of the palace’s largest projects. You know he’s above reproach. How can you let him take the fall for this?”
“This has nothing to do with you. Malik, if you keep badgering me, I may have to bar you from this house.” He’s looking at me with a charming smile, but he sounds annoyed.
I take a piece of brick and a chunk of cement out of my coat pockets and set them on the blueprints. I take out the telegram from Chandigarh and set it there also.
Samir looks down at my offering. Without raising his head, he lifts his eyes to mine. “What am I to do with these?”
I put my hands in my pockets. “They’re pieces of a puzzle I’m trying to put together, but I’m missing a piece.” I begin pacing the area in front of his desk.
“On the Royal Jewel Cinema project, decorative bricks like this were substituted for the bricks specified in the original contract. The invoices show that the palace paid for class one bricks, not these less expensive ones. If the palace was charged full price, did Singh-Sharma pocket the difference?
“Now, as for this cement. It’s too porous to be used on the balcony of the cinema house. Wrong ratio of sand to water. That can happen when unskilled labor is used. But I thought Singh-Sharma has a reputation for using only the most qualified labor. The palace certainly pays top rates for your labor costs. So once again, if the palace was charged full price, did Singh-Sharma pocket the difference?”
“Sit, Malik. You’re making me dizzy.”
“You again?”
I turn around. It’s Ravi.
He walks into the room, rolling his eyes at his father as if to say Malik is pagal.
Ravi throws up his hands. “Abbas, is this another flimsy excuse to catch a glimpse of Sheela?”
What? The confusion must show in my face.
“With or without her sari?” He tosses a chin at his father. “Papaji knows all about it.”
I turn to Samir, who has put a hand over his mouth, as if hiding a smile.