‘I married Ranjit to give you space,’ she said. ‘And I spent two years helping him cut family ties, and pushing him up a political hill that he was ill-equipped in anything but ambition to climb.’
‘So, you inappropriately alienated his family, so that he could misappropriate the family fortune, and in exchange he pushed your slum resettlement agenda? Am I getting this right?’
‘Substantially. At least, that was the deal, if he’d stuck to it.’
‘Karla, that’s . . . kinda nuts, what you were doing with Ranjit.’
‘And living with Lisa wasn’t nuts, in its own way?’
‘Not . . . every day.’
She laughed, and then looked away.
‘At the last moment, Ranjit ditched the resettlement program, and pulled out of the race, because of a few scares the other side threw at him.’
‘When did that happen?’ I asked, thinking that his withdrawal from politics might’ve had something to do with Lisa’s death.
‘That day at his office when you came in growling for me, I’d just had it out with him. It was all over. Everything I’d worked for. He’d withdrawn his nomination. He was shaking and sweating. He quit, and you know I can’t stand a quitter. I went and sat in the corner while he settled down, and I told him that if we ever found ourselves in the same room again, so long as we lived, we’d sit as far apart as possible.’
‘Neither one of us knew he was so scared that day because he thought I knew he’d been with Lisa at the end.’
‘I was so happy when you walked in.’
‘As happy as I am now?’ I asked, kissing her.
‘Happier,’ she purred. ‘I was sitting in the corner, with everything I’d planned and worked for in ruins around me, and then you walked in. I was never more glad to see anyone in my life. I thought,
‘Let me get you something heroic to eat. I don’t know about you, but I’m starved.’
‘No, let me.’
She brought us a platter of dates, cheese and apples, and wine in long, red glasses with feet like a hawk’s claws.
She talked about Kavita Singh, and how Ranjit’s disappearance gave Karla one last hand to play, because she had a proxy vote on Ranjit’s shares, which he couldn’t rescind without resurfacing. Karla elevated Kavita to deputy editor, in exchange for a promise from Kavita to make slum resettlement a banner issue.
Working together, Karla and Kavita developed a citywide beautification program to nudge public consensus toward humane resettlement of slum dwellers, as a matter of civic pride. They played it out on newspaper pages still technically owned by Ranjit.
‘The editor was a problem,’ Karla said. ‘We tried for weeks to get him on the team. He fought us to the fourth quarter on everything. But when he accepted an invitation to the fetish party, it was easy.’
‘What was easy?’
‘Compliance,’ she said. ‘Smoke a joint with me.’
‘Why were you on Benicia’s bike last night?’
‘Does it hurt more that I was with Benicia, or that I was on her very pretty motorcycle?’
‘It all hurts. I don’t ever want to see you on any motorcycle but mine, unless you’re riding it yourself.’
‘Then you’ll have to teach me to ride, renegade. You start with your legs wide, right?’
‘Wide enough to hold on,’ I smiled.
‘Smoke a joint with me,’ she said, lying back on the bed, her feet in my lap.
‘Now?’
‘Look, the city’s in lockdown. We can’t go anywhere. Jaswant has plenty of supplies. I’ve got a gun. Relax, and smoke a joint with me.’
‘I’m pretty relaxed, but okay, if you think it’s a good idea.’
‘Some doors,’ she said slowly, ‘can only be opened with the grace of pure desire.’
Some time later she brought us fruit on a blue glass tray, and fed me with her fingers, piece by piece. Love is connection, and happiness is the connected self. She kissed my hands, her hair like wings fanned for the sun. And an instant blessed by a woman’s love washed wounds away.
‘Compliance,’ Karla said, settling in beside me with a glass of wine.
‘Compliance?’
‘There’s nothing like a fetish, to get a man’s compliance point out in the open.’
‘The chief editor?’ I asked, still cocooned in the segue.
‘Are you zoning out?’ she asked. ‘Of
‘How did you find out his fetish? Did he present a card, or something?’
‘When the guests arrived, we’d already supplied every fetish in the book, with girls in masks, dressed by damnation. We paraded them past him, until one got a reaction. It didn’t take long, actually.’
‘Which one?’
‘Dominatrix, in a fake-leather sari. It’s a catalogue item.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then he got filmed, in a private booth, getting dominated.’
‘You and Kavita filmed him?’
‘Not just him. We also filmed a judge, a politician, a tycoon and a cop.’
‘You set all this up?’
‘Kavita and I had a woman on the inside.’
‘Who was that?’
‘The hostess.’
‘Who was?’
‘Diva,’ she said.
‘
‘Our Diva, who left earlier, with Charu and Pari, while you were asleep,’ she said. ‘Some cars arrived to bring them home. Bodyguards were banging on the door. Jaswant thought the zombies were trying to break in. We pulled the barricade away and –’
