Bollywood and the Beast (Bollywood Confidential) (9 page)

Taj had warmed to her—
more
than warmed to her—but she still saw the questions on his face, the reservations.
Nani
deserved more than her halting, pathetic attempts to make conversation. And was it fair to keep playing charades with Usha just to figure out where she kept the sugar and how to tell the
dhobi
to put less starch in her clothes? So she had to step up her learning, prove she was serious about improving her craft and about respecting India as her new home.

Rocky wasn’t a spoiled
Amrikan
princess, here to steal roles from hardworking Indian actresses. And even if the assumption was what had landed her here, she wasn’t a silly city girl just slumming it in an industry veteran’s spooky
haveli
to keep from causing more trouble.

Besides, she’d found trouble anyway.

Six feet of it, dark and so dangerous.

You wouldn’t bloom with me, Rakhee. You would die on the vine.

She had to prove him wrong. She had to show him she could flourish, no matter what he threw at her. She had to be strong
for him
. The realization had stunned her in the garden, after he’d wheeled away, and it was no less awful and painful now. It hurt to take a breath when she thought of his face, his voice…when she relived that soft dusting of his mouth that barely registered as a kiss yet seemed to cost them everything. And she ached for what they’d left unfinished.

“Rakhee?
Bacche
?” The tap-tap of
Nani
’s cane followed the plaintive call.

“I’m here,” she replied, though it was re-stating the obvious as
Nani
gingerly tottered into the parlor and greeted her with a delighted smile.

Far more comfortable on her feet than Taj, she insisted on taking the stairs by herself, even if the trek from her rooms took a half hour. “I came to this house on my own power, and I will leave it only when every drop of that power has left my body,” she’d said to Rocky the first time the question cropped up…and it had taken the better parts of
her
power to parse the philosophical words.

She slipped off her earbuds, folding the wires up and patting a space on the sofa beside her. “
Kaise ho
,
Nani
?”
Her “How are you?” was probably informal instead of formal and conjugated totally wrong, but it was the effort that counted, right?

“As fine as these old bones are ever going to be.”
Nani
spoke emphatically and punctuated with a chuckle, the twinkle in her eyes almost a match for Ashraf’s. “How are you, child?”

“I’m so tired.” It was an easy Hindi phrase, and Rocky held up the case for the language CD for emphasis, hoping that spoke volumes.

Nani
’s snow-white eyebrows rose in response, and she shook her head. “What is the need for this nonsense? The heart knows the heart’s words. It needs no translation.” She touched her chest to reinforce the message, just in case Rocky didn’t get the gist.

She did. Oh, man, did she get the gist. She squeezed
Nani
’s hand, not trusting herself to speak…likely not needing to, since her heart was apparently expositing all over the place.

Taj didn’t need her to be proficient in Hindi. He needed hope.

Chapter Fifteen

The open living room often felt cramped by the sheer size of
Bhaiya
’s presence. As if he were still projecting every emotion for the cameras, squeezing blood from a stone for the career that had already ravaged his body. Tonight, like so many recent nights, he only had an audience of two. But, still, Taj seemed tall enough to fill a movie screen, even slouched as he was in his chair.

Ashraf was
surrounded
by men with an overabundance of charisma…and too much mystery as well. He cupped his hands round his cooling cup of
chai
, slouching forward. “Do you think Kamal has a family?”

“What kind of question is that?” Taj’s frown telegraphed that it was a stupid one. “Did he spring from the earth fully grown? Of course he has a family. You know they have been in Punjab for three generations, and his distant relations live just outside Lahore. I think his mother and father are still alive.”

“No, I mean a wife. Or girlfriend. Or—” he waggled his eyebrows suggestively, not even knowing where the next word came from, “—a boyfriend?”

“Shut up.” The words were a crack gunshot. Taj’s eye flashed fire. “He’s not like us, Ashu. He doesn’t have our name or our reputation or the protection of the industry. Even a whisper like that could ruin him,
nahin
?”

Even a whisper
. Ashraf swallowed the words that would surely be louder than that. Naming the names of men he’d worked with who were gays. Speaking of how the world was changing, how India was changing. They seemed like feeble arguments where Kamal’s personal affairs were concerned. After all, did he not have his
own
damning secrets? Things that had ruined him already?

“It could kill him, right?” Rocky’s uncertain contribution pulled Ashraf back to the conversation. “His family or his village…they could put him to death if they thought he was gay? That still happens, doesn’t it?”

He shivered despite the fire leaping high in the hearth. “Okay, okay. I am sorry I brought it up, Mr. and Mrs. Thought Police. I was just curious,
na
? About where he goes when he is not here.”

“Where would he go?
Why
would he go?” Taj laughed, glaring across the room at Rocky as he spoke. “This is the Hotel fucking California. Check out, but never leave.”

She glared back, social conscience for the moment forgotten. “Have you ever actually
tried
to leave, Taj? Or do you just
assume
you’ll burst into flame once you cross the threshold?”

Oh, yes. Mr. and Mrs. indeed.

Ashu only had the barest memories of his parents.
Ammi
’s laugh.
Abba
’s stern features, so much like Taj’s. A car crash had claimed their lives as well, killing them instantly when he was just five years old and
Bhaiya
fourteen.
Nani
and
Nana
-
ji
had taken over their care. His memories of them were clearer, more present…and they’d often argued just like this, blazing higher than the fireplace, blistering each other with tirades that always ended in peace and private smiles.

Would he ever know the same?
Nahin
. It was not for him. His stomach coiled tight as he thought again of Nina. At first, he’d been naïve enough to think she cared. A worldly older woman who knew so much about the business, about how to make it or break it. He’d thought she could be his teacher, his godmother, his guiding hand. Just
where
she was guiding hands became all too clear all too quickly.

Kamal, despite being in their household for a decade, seldom touched him. There never seemed to be a reason, even an instance of their shoulders brushing as they passed in the hall. And yet, that day on the veranda, he’d reached out to break Ashraf’s fall…and that simple movement had spoken volumes. Like a locking of eyes across a room or a ceasefire in the form of a smile.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, even though Taj and Rocky had already returned to their prior topic of conversation. “I would never want to put Kamal in danger.
Never
.”

Not when it seemed to be his life’s work to spare all of them from harm.

If only Kamal had stopped his fall all those years ago. How different things would have been…

Long after Ashraf left them to go up to bed, Taj stayed in the living area, listening to Rocky chatter about nothing and everything. She railed about Indian society’s injustices against the gays, moved on to injustices against women and then described to him her first taste of a
gol-gappa
from a Chandni Chowk stall and assured him, “The ones Usha makes at home are
so
much better.” It was almost…domestic. A wife telling her husband about her day. Except in this scenario, the wife was a rising star, the husband was a housebound monster and the marriage was an impossible fiction.

It was not to be. It couldn’t be. And if it existed for even a moment, it wouldn’t last beyond it.
You would die on the vine
, he’d said to her. And he meant every word of it.

Rather than distance her, it had only rallied her. She seemed more determined than ever to seek him out, to stay by his side, to draw him into conversation and tend him like a stubborn rose in need of cultivation. The harder he tried to push her away, the more firmly she stood before him. The day they first met, she’d warned him he would not easily be rid of her, and she was seeing that promise through.

“You need me,” she said now, as if she knew the subject of his thoughts. Certainly it wasn’t street food or politics. “I want to help you, Taj. I want to be here for you. Let me be your friend if you can’t let me be more. Is it really so hard?”

Yes. It was so hard it was impenetrable. After all, he was made of stone,
na
? The walls of his garden were too high, too reinforced. Not simply to keep Beauty out, but to keep the Beast in.

“Goodnight, sweet Rocky,” he whispered, before he left her alone by the fire.

Chapter Sixteen

The lights were hot. Sweat beaded his brow, and his pressed white shirt stuck to his back like a bloodied bandage. There was a boom mic in his peripheral vision, swinging subtly like the pendulum of a giant clock. And Rocky was staring at him.
Why
was she staring at him? Ashraf glared back, uncomprehending. Did he have something in his teeth? Did he need a Chiclet for his breath? Had the wind whipped his hair into an odd configuration?

“
Line
,” she hissed between barely moving lips. “Ashu, it’s
your line
.”

But it was too late. The pause had gone on too long. The pace was broken and the moment over. “Cut!” Chatterjee screamed from the director’s chair that was inexplicably hoisted far above their heads. Ashraf had blown the shot. A
simple
shot. Something he hadn’t done since his first film as a junior artiste. And Chatterjee’s irate railings cited him as lower than such, suggesting they hire the tea boy as the new lead or perhaps just cut the film to
1 Luv in Delhi
. Disproportionate rage, no doubt, but Ashu’s sweat turned ice cold and his hands began to shake.

Rocky stepped in front of him, a tiny packet of fury, placing her hands on her hips and crying out, “Stop it! Stop it, Mr. Chatterjee!” she yelled up toward the chair. “Ashraf knows his lines. You
know
he knows his lines. Let’s just take it from the top.”

While some still-attentive part of Ashu appreciated the defense, their
filmi
overlord did not, turning his scathing display of temper to Rocky with a vengeance. “Director
ho gayi kya
? You are not in charge of this shoot! I am!
Chup-chap khari raho
. In English, madam, that is ‘just shut up and stand there’.”

Ashraf’s blood was roaring in his ears. Louder than whatever Rocky said in response. Whether placating or provocative, he couldn’t have sworn upon pain of death. All he knew was that his silence, his stillness, had turned into the worst sort of tremors. And a tightness in his throat. And spiders crawling upward from his churning belly.

You’re a fraud, Ashraf
, reminded the ghost-Nina in his head.
No one will ever want you.

You’re a failure, Ashu
, said the phantom Taj.
No one will ever love you.

Simply make it stop
, urged his own darkest heart.
Make it all stop.

He couldn’t do that. Not here. All he could do was turn and bolt from the set, tripping over cables and ropes and knocking into lighting equipment. Running and running and running. From things he could never escape.

After a round of profuse—albeit completely insincere—apologies to the director and the crew, Rocky knew she had to find Ashraf. The shoot was small, pretty contained, with their trailers girding the field where their characters were supposed to declare their love, but what if he’d run off? What if he’d gotten to the main thoroughfare and caught a taxi or an auto to parts unknown?

The worry that had begun pricking her with the first of the mysterious phone calls kicked into overdrive. Something really
was
wrong with Ashu. She’d never seen him choke under pressure before. If anything, he was always the one who made sure
she
was on the ball. His discipline was almost scary. Robotic. Like he’d been trained since birth like a Russian gymnast. Or at least it had been…until recently.

Worry only made her walk faster, threading between the set pieces and equipment he’d practically bulldozed in his need to get away. Was it Taj? Was it being home? Something had him unraveling at the seams. The least she could do was try and sew him back together.

The breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding escaped in a whoosh of relief when she let herself into his trailer and found him slumped in the chair in front of a small vanity. He was staring into the mirror. Practically crawled halfway into it, really.

“Ashu!” He didn’t reply to her winded hail. So she tried again. “Oh my God, Ashraf, what
was
that out there? Are you all right? Do you want me to call Taj?”

It was the mention of his brother that broke his communion with the glass. Understandable, since the name certainly did amazing things to
her
.