'So, friend, my brother, my dear, dear brother Arvind, was a great businessman. He built Surya Industries from scratch. We used to sell beads in the Laadbazaar market of old Hyderabad. You know, the one near Charminar. It was he who painstakingly built up the business empire which I have inherited.'
'But you must have helped your brother in his business.'
'Hardly. I was a failure. Couldn't even complete my matriculation. It was my brother's greatness that he took me under his wing and employed me in the sales division of his company. I did my best and, as time went by, my brother's confidence in my abilities increased. Eventually he made me Head of International Sales and sent me to New York, where our international office is located.'
'New York? Wow! That must have been great!'
'Yes, New York is a great place. But I had a tough job, going out every day, meeting the dealers and distributors, processing the orders, ensuring timely delivery. I was busy from morning till night.'
'OK.
So what happened next? Just hold on for a minute while I bring you another plate of shammi kebabs.'
'Thank you, friend. It was in New York that I met Julie.'
'Julie? Who is she?'
'Her real name was Erzulie De Ronceray, but everyone called her Julie. She was dark and sultry with thick curly hair and pouting lips and a slim waist. She worked as a cleaner in the apartment block where I rented my office. She was an illegal immigrant from Haiti. Have you heard of Haiti?'
'No. Where is it?'
'It is a tiny country in the Caribbean, near Mexico.'
'OK. So you met Julie.'
'Well, I would occasionally exchange a greeting with her. One day, the INS caught her working without a green card. She begged me to show her as my employee so that her stay in the US could be regularized. In a fit of generosity I agreed to sponsor her. In return, she gave me love, respect, and the most mind-blowing sex I had ever had. Believe me. I am drunk. And a drunken man always speaks the truth. Right?'
'Right. Why don't you take another peg? This single malt from Scotland is really good, isn't it?'
'Thank you, friend. You are very kind. Much kinder than Julie. She really manipulated me, you know. Preyed on my weaknesses. I was a lonely man in a large city. One thing led to another and I ended up marrying her.'
'And then you went for your honeymoon to Port Louis, correct?'
'Correct. But when I returned from the honeymoon I discovered there was a different, darker side to Julie. I visited her flat for the first time after we got married and found it to be full of strange stuff – rum bottles decorated with sequins and beads, a whole bunch of weird-looking dolls, stones of various shapes, crosses, rattles and even parchment made of snake skin. She also had a black cat called Bossu, which was very mean and nasty.
'The first time I discovered that there was more to Julie than met the eye was when I was attacked in the Bronx by a mugger with a knife. I was lucky to escape alive, but received a deep gash in my arm. Julie wouldn't allow me to go to the hospital. Instead, she applied some herbs to my arm and recited some chants, and within just two days the wound was completely gone, not even a scar remaining. And then she told me that she was a voodoo priestess.'
'Voodoo? What's that?'
'You don't want to know, my friend. Voodoo is a religion in Haiti. Its practitioners worship spirits called loas and believe that the universe is all interconnected. Everything affects something else. Nothing is an accident, and everything is possible. That is why people who know voodoo can do all kinds of amazing things. Like bringing a dead man to life.'
'You must be joking.'
'No, not at all. These dead people are called zombies. I told you I am drunk. And a drunken man always tells the truth, right?'
'Right.' By now I am drawn completely into his story. I forget to ply him with more whisky and cashew nuts.
'Julie turned my life upside-down. She had been a poor cleaning woman, but now she wanted to be a part of high society. She forgot that she was married to the brother of a rich industrialist, not the industrialist himself. She wanted money all the time. Money which I couldn't give her because it didn't belong to me. It belonged to my brother, to the company.
'She forced me into stealing. It started with trifling things – a few dollars pocketed from a false taxi claim. Then it moved on to bigger things. Money received from a client and not shown on the ledger. A contract signed, the advance received and not sent to head office. Over time, the embezzled amount became half a million dollars. And then my brother, who lived here in Mumbai, discovered it.'
'Oh, my God! What happened then?'
