Miss New India - Bharati Mukherjee [119]
"You'll get over it. Time heals all wounds."
"The things that happened, happened to me, don't you understand? My father came to my cell with a bed sheet around his neck, my dead father who killed himself because I ran away to Bangalore. I'm in hell."
He jerked her by the elbow to stop her. "Maybe I don't understand. Maybe I can't. But understand this: You're lucky I have connections with the police. You're lucky I'm not off in Mexico right now. Shit happens, but you are very, very lucky, period. You have friends you don't even know, but you can't just float around Bangalore like a kite—someone will cut the string."
Her kite string had already been slashed. She had no phone and no one to call. Not that she cared. What friends? There was no longer a Bagehot House room to go back to. "Where are you taking me?"
"Patience," he counseled. "You'll find out."
She steeled herself for the next favor Mr. GG was about to bestow. He would insist she move in with him in the flat overlooking Cubbon Park. In the police thana, she had been called a prostitute. What choice did a woman like her, homeless, jobless, skill-less, have? The police were right: she was a prostitute. What other name is there for a young woman without a job or means of support? "All right," she said. "I'm very lucky I know you."
They neared Mr. GG's car. She made out a shape in the back seat. "Don't get ahead of yourself, Miss Bose. You haven't heard me invite you, have you?" He unlocked the trunk of his Daewoo. "Don't take me for granted."
"I'm hallucinating!" she gasped. Her red Samsonite was in the trunk.
The back-seat passenger scrambled out of the car. "Hey! Whazzup?" He grinned. Tall and skinny, his hair grown out and standing on end. He moved the red Samsonite suitcase to make room for the briefcase. Then he gave her a bear hug.
Mr. GG banged the trunk shut. "Let's just say you've completed a reality TV episode."
"And survived the final round," the passenger joked. "Girish activated his local network and the vast Peter Champion network. You can't imagine how many thousands of activists are working night and day for you! Parvati-Auntie's sorry she couldn't come to the thana herself, but her driver's wife's in surgery, so she's keeping vigil in the hospital. Anyway, she said to tell you her home is your home."
"But I've let her down."
"She's an incurable do-gooder. A one-time call agent might not interest her, but an unjustly accused prisoner is right up her alley. But as aunties go, she rocks."
Anjali rested her head on the skinny chest of the young photographer she had met—it seemed incarnations ago—and succumbed to tears of shame.
Part Four
1
Aurobindo and Parvati Banerji's three-story home in Dollar Colony—so named for the area's preponderance of foreign-returned executives and entrepreneurs—had four master-bedroom suites of equal size, each with its sitting area, dressing room, spa bath with separate shower, and small private porch. Two of the four suites were located on the ground floor, one occupied by Auro and Parvati, the other kept in move-in condition for long visits by Auro's elderly parents. "It was in-laws on the ground floor with us, or install an elevator," Parvati liked to joke, "and this was the cheaper solution." An efficient live-in staff of six ran the house and adjacent grounds.
The public rooms—formal drawing room, dining room, an office for Auro, a puja room, and a granite-lavished kitchen—were also on the main floor. The other two suites, fully furnished, were on the upper floor and separated by a second sitting room. They were intended for the Banerji sons, Dinesh, a senior at Harvard, and Bhupesh, a junior at MIT, and their future wives and children. That still