When he emailed her a few months later to tell her he was traveling to Delhi, she replied: You’re not going to believe this, but I’m going to be in Mumbai and Bangalore at the same time, and I’ll come see you in Delhi. We’ll get just one room this time, okay? He didn’t give a thought to the coincidence and delighted in the fact that destiny would have him see her again, and together in the same wonderful room at the Kempinski Hotel, no less. He postponed his return to Israel by two and a half days, and she managed to clear her calendar in Chicago, too. After all, I’m a senior partner, she said.
Come with me, she whispered to him on the second evening. I want to show you something. They set out in a small, cramped taxi in the direction of the airport and came to a quiet residential neighborhood, as quiet as anywhere in India could be. The neighborhood appeared dotted with luxurious homes. Groups of security guards and drivers and random loiterers stood at the gates to all the houses. Despite the magnificence of the structures, the streets themselves were dusty and filled with potholes. Dogs with their tails between their legs and scrawny cows roamed freely. The taxi stopped at a small commercial center that reminded Michael of remote shopping centers in development towns in Israel. AnaÏs forged a path for them among rickshaw drivers who were sitting around on small chairs, waiting for customers who might or might not show up, and made her way toward a locked iron door. She sent a WhatsApp message, received a number in response, and entered the digits into the keypad lock. The door swung open with a hiss and they climbed the dimly lit staircase to the second floor, where they were greeted politely by a young man. AnaÏs led the way in without a word. And the moment they entered he felt as if they had time-traveled to a different world. Antique leather armchairs, greenish in color, furnished the room. A large wooden ceiling fan spun lazily above them. Bottles of expensive beverages stood on one of the dressers that were inlaid with mother of pearl, and resting atop a low table like an old lion was a large humidor, made of polished red wood. Like a display case for expensive jewelry, its glass lid revealed an array of spectacular Cuban cigars. Covered with plush wallpaper adorned with intricate patterns, the room’s walls displayed black-and-white photographs of famous cigar smokers, from Che Guevara and Churchill to Sean Connery and Robert De Niro. A handsome young waiter quietly poured them each a shot of single malt Scotch. AnaÏs went over to the humidor and selected two cigars for them, Cohiba Siglo VIs. “You smoke cigars?” Michael asked, somewhat taken aback. “I do a whole lot of things you don’t know about,” she replied with smiling eyes, and Michael’s heart was gripped by a yearning still to come, a longing for AnaÏs even though she was sitting there right in front of him at the time. Sitting at the tables in the relatively small room were two pairs of men and another group, two men and a young woman. Everyone was speaking in soft tones. A cloud of bluish smoke filled the room. A sense of calm and lethargy spread through his limbs, and they spent several minutes puffing on their cigars without any desire or need to talk. Michael gazed at AnaÏs and was struck again by her beauty. In the dim light he could hardly see the scar alongside her left eye, which he had come to love and would sometimes gently caress, with their faces almost touching each other.
“I want you to meet someone,” she said to him. “After you told me about your consulting work, I thought the two of you may have some shared interests. Only if you want to, of course. He’s a childhood friend of mine who’s in Delhi for a few days, and he told me he could join us. He manages a huge investment fund in Atlanta. We represent some of his companies, and he’s someone special. Not your ordinary millionaire, if there is such a thing at all. But then again,” she added, “you aren’t just an ordinary guy either.”
Despite wanting to erase it, not only from his memory but also, and primarily, from the depths of his consciousness, Michael couldn’t forget the conversation he had that evening with Chris Bentham. Nothing, absolutely nothing could have performed that absolute delete that Michael so craved.
There was something amiss about the conversation, but it was impossible to pinpoint anything concrete. And Michael had certainly tried to do so in hindsight. They were speaking about business and about the world and about the craziness of India, and naturally Chris showed an interest in the Middle East and Israel, and its red-hot high-tech companies. And Michael asked questions, mostly to be polite and maintain his cover story, and showed an interest in Chris’s work, and without making any commitments they even broached the subject of meeting again, maybe even the following day, in Delhi, but if it didn’t work out then soon, perhaps, on one of Michael’s trips to Europe. And he’d be very welcome to visit of course if he ever got to Atlanta, but Europe was more or less a midpoint, so it would probably be the most convenient for them both. But it wasn’t all that noncommittal talk that was bothering Michael. What was really troubling him immensely, like a near-inaudible high-pitched shriek, the thing that seemed so strange to him, was the thought that he wasn’t hearing Chris but himself instead. Chris sounded exactly how he must have sounded during the hundreds of conversations he’d conducted over the years. That was how he had conversed, fishing for things from his objects, those individuals introduced to him in discreet bars, hotel conference rooms, aboard luxury yachts by Arab headhunters or beautiful women. Surely, he thought, Chris can’t be trying to recruit me, because that would mean that AnaÏs had initiated the contact with me precisely for the purpose of getting to this point in time. But I was the one to approach her, he thought. After all, she was already at the bar when I walked in. She couldn’t have known I’d be going to the bar at the Atlantic. Unless, unless they’ve followed me before and have seen that that’s where I go to seek refuge, to pass the time, to somewhat dull all the thoughts racing so chaotically through my mind. Surely not.
Essentially, Chris wasn’t saying anything any other businessman wouldn’t have said. But the way in which he was speaking, his pace, the timing, the implied offers, the casual references to the riches that were just waiting for those who dared, the wonderful adventure just waiting for someone made of the right stuff, for the select few who had the power and energy to act and not simply wait for things to happen to them—that revealed more to Michael than anything else. The pain that coursed through his body was so real, so focused, that Michael looked down at the pure white shirt he was wearing to make sure he didn’t see a thin line of blood seeping through the fabric, spreading and becoming a sticky and disgusting stain. He could actually feel a sharp knife slicing into him. But he knew it was the pain of parting ways with AnaÏs that had yet to come, the pain of forgoing the leap he wouldn’t dare to make, a leap of devotion, reckless abandonment, and betrayal.
He so wanted to say to Chris, Yes, sure, we’ll meet in three or four weeks’ time, let’s set it up now. But only on condition that AnaÏs would be there, too. She had to remain in the picture. Had to. He wanted her so badly, in a way perhaps that he had never wanted any other woman before her, so passionately, so desperately. He was ready to lose himself in her, to drink in the velvety sweetness of her dark skin, to see her looking back at him with wide-open eyes, to sit together with her for hours without saying a word. Not for the first time, he imagined himself with her in a simple domestic setting. He knew he could spend all his life with her, but he knew that it wasn’t going to happen. He was so close to that line that should never be crossed. He had to block his ears to that false song of the Sirens. You can be such a fool, he said to himself. You’re such an idiot. And pathetic, for the most part. You’re at a dangerous age at which men do foolish things, but not as foolish as this. Really not like this.