The Blue Bar (Blue Mumbai #1)(46)

She sat up with a start in the light of early morning, alone. Arnav must have stepped out for his run. She recognized each corner of the room. He hadn’t changed any of it. Neat enough, but bare. The curtains hung limp, the bedsheets clean but faded. She went to the toilet, freshened up, and took a bath. Her shower at the hotel before Arnav picked her up had been brief. She peered into his closet and was tempted to borrow a shirt.

Seeing her in a man’s shirt might prove too much for Shetty’s thugs, so she wore her own. She contented herself with sniffing Arnav’s clothes and spraying on his cologne. After a while, she went looking for him, but he hadn’t returned. He never jogged this late. Maybe he’d left for work. This was probably his way of saying goodbye without so many words. Tara felt the sting of tears, but didn’t let them fall.

Last night, she’d let herself go. It had seemed real enough. He’d been a generous lover in the past, still was, but he’d also cradled her as if he needed her in more than his bed. As if he’d missed her. Well, she’d missed him, but did she want to tie herself down?

She gathered her bag and was about to leave when the door opened. Arnav stumbled in, laden with plastic packets.

“What are you doing?” He glanced at the handbag on her shoulder. “I bought us breakfast.”

“I thought you’d gone to work.”

“In a bit.” He dropped a kiss on her head on the way to the kitchen, as if he did it every day. “It is early yet. Let’s eat first. I’ll drop you back.”

She left her handbag on the table and followed him, her step light.

Arnav unwrapped all the packages: vada pao, samosa, pakoras, aloo-poori. Tara grinned at the spread—all her favorite street snacks, fresh-made. He’d remembered. She hadn’t eaten vada pao in all these years—the softness of the bread and the spice of the filling satisfied a craving she’d been unaware of. He wiped the grease off the crisp pakoras with a napkin, the way she used to do in her attempt to cultivate an actress’s body. They fed each other, laughing at the spills, surrounded by the mouthwatering smells of tamarind and green coriander chutney. Like lovers. He kissed the sauces off her lips and chin.

Once they’d eaten, Arnav went off to shower and change, and with nothing else to keep her hands busy, Tara cleaned up. Her body felt heavy—with memories, and longing. This could have been her everyday life had she not danced at a bar. Not been poorly educated. Not been Tara, in short.

Pia had been conceived in this house. She had a right to this home, to know who she was, who her father was. To flip through the albums of family photographs Arnav kept hidden in his cabinets, to touch all the medals he’d won, be proud of them. Tara paused. Was she being unfair to Pia by not telling Arnav? She arranged the medals in the showcase, the ones she’d cleaned yesterday. A thorough polish would do them good, but they already looked a lot better.

Arnav hugged her from behind, smelling of shampoo, cologne. She twisted away, laughing, and Arnav said, “Have you forgotten?”

“How to escape if someone grabs you from behind?”

He had taught her, worried about her returning late at night in the hired auto-rickshaw—Karate and dance are similar, pagli, you need to be aware of your body and how you move it. Spin. Duck. Aim for the ribs or stomach, and run.

She’d practiced it with him dozens of times. She spun, ducked, mock-hit him. He backed off, mock-flinching.

He could teach this to Pia. She turned away to hide her expression.

“You know what this means, don’t you?”

He was tuned to her moods. His voice had lost all trace of their joking horseplay.

“What?”

“You can break it off with Shetty. When you plan to run this time, tell me.”

“What makes you think—”

“I’m older. I’m a policeman. You’re staying at a hotel—not telling me stuff.” He nuzzled her neck. “If you change your mind, I’m here.”

She nodded, not sure what else to do.

They remained silent again during the drive back. A part of her didn’t wish them to reach her hotel.

Right before parting, he caught her hand in his. “Remember. If you get into trouble, you’ll come to me this time.”

She felt her face lose color, but couldn’t think of a reply. She stepped out of the car. Waving to her, he drove off.

At the hotel entrance, she met Shetty’s man. “Sir wants to see you.”

She nodded. “I’ll be down soon,” she replied, and strode to the lift. The man had expected her return. Shetty knew she hadn’t slept in her room last night.

Inside the lift, she opened her handbag to check on the piece of tissue she’d squirreled away in a small compartment. Not thinking it through, she’d torn off a few sequins from the electric-blue saree before returning it to Shetty’s man last evening.





CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN


ARNAV

At the daily briefing, Arnav listened as a sub-inspector droned on about the routine trivia of the Malwani station—calls in response to domestic violence, reports on robberies, internet scams—but his thoughts kept flitting back to the woman in his bed last night, and that child’s face on the phone screen. He’d been tempted to check Tara’s phone, but watching her sleep, open-mouthed, a trickle of drool on the pillow, stayed his hand. He’d blamed her for so long for what she’d done that he’d let slip his initial misgivings. Was she in trouble when she left? She’d been a little evasive during the weeks before her disappearance, not staying on Sunday evenings. Was the picture on the screen the cause? He didn’t dare let himself give words to it.