I wonder what Daksh might have told her about me apart from the ‘beautiful’ thing (which makes me blush a little).
‘Is it, like, a big party?’ I ask her.
She shakes her head. ‘Just family. That’s why we are surprised you’re here. I asked them not to call you.’
She’s walking far ahead of me and yet I can feel her anger radiate to me. I wonder if she has a crush on Daksh and sees me as a threat. She makes me jump a fence next to the petrol pump. On the other side is an abandoned plot infested with weeds and overgrown bushes.
‘Before we go on,’ she stops and turns towards me. In a stern voice, she says, ‘You need to know something. Daksh hasn’t told you because he didn’t want you to freak out or something, but . . . Daksh’s mother is dead. She’s been dead for three years. Where you’re going, there’s plenty of sadness so don’t be shocked, okay? I know you saw him last when he was rich or whatever, but things have changed now. It has taken Jagath and me a lot of to fix him a little, so don’t break him, okay?’
She says everything so matter-of-factly, like telling someone to keep their shoes outside the house before entering, that the words don’t register at first.
‘What?’
‘Daksh’s mother is dead. I don’t know much clearer can I be. She’s dead. Do I need to repeat it?’
The words knock my breath out. ‘Dead?’ I whisper.
Zeenath rolls her eyes impatiently. She takes out her phone from her pocket. I see her typing ‘Accident, Ras Al Khaimah Road, Four Dead’. She gives the phone to me.
4 Killed, 4 Injured in RAK Accident
Four men were killed after the vehicle they were travelling in collided with an SUV. Police said the SUV was travelling at high speed when the driver lost control at Emirates Ring Road in the Emirate on Wednesday afternoon.
Police patrols and ambulances hurried to the scene where four men were pronounced dead. One more passenger is critically injured.
Police experts are investigating the incident to determine its cause.
‘She was the driver,’ explains Zeenath.
My throat goes dry. The words float in front of my eyes. ‘But . . . it says four men died.’
‘She survived the accident and died later in the hospital. That’s the worst part. That she died later,’ answers Zeenath and with some rage, she continues, ‘Had she died on the spot, Daksh would have been in a much happier place. But what can one do, right? We should go now. Daksh must be waiting.’
‘Zeenath—’
‘We can’t be late. And behave yourself, don’t be flirty with him or anything, he’s already into you. He needs no complications in his life, okay?’
She leads me to Dhumketu Apartments. At the entrance, I see Daksh’s scooter. There are two unicorn stickers on it. This is not his bachelor’s pad. It’s where he lives now. He, his father and Rabbani.
He opens the door. ‘Welcome!’ he says and his voice trails off. The shock on my face would have been easy to read because he adds, ‘Did Zeenath tell you?’
‘Of course I did!’ says Zeenath and barges into the apartment ahead of me. ‘If you can invite strangers into the house, I can tell them everything too.’
13.
Aanchal Madan
The walls are crumbling, the windows are tiny and the house smells damp. The floor beneath is cracked, but there’s no mess. Things are symmetrically kept; it’s clean, organized, bare. It’s not much bigger than the room I grew up in. I have been trying unsuccessfully to keep a smile on my face like the others.
Rabbani and a guy are already waiting with a Ludo board, waving at us.
‘Jagath,’ says the guy. ‘I’m Daksh’s best friend. Zeenath there is also his best friend. But in all truthfulness, it’s me.’
‘Fuck off,’ glowers Zeenath who is helping Daksh in the kitchen, pressing half-cut oranges against a juicer. The kitchen is just a slab in a corner of the room.
Daksh grumbles at Zeenath’s language. He is in his black T-shirt again. It fits him snugly and his biceps strain against it as he pushes down the oranges against the juicer. In the open racks that serve as the cupboard, I see five more of the same T-shirt.
‘We are sorry for Zeenath,’ apologizes Jagath. ‘She gets like this every time someone new comes into this circle of four. Five, if you include Uncle.’
