Chapter 22: Asking Again

Mira's mother took one look at Nandini's flat and began to rearrange the kitchen.

She was sixty, small, and a schoolteacher's widow.

She wore a cotton sari and had brought a steel tiffin of food all the way from Kolkata.

"Who keeps mustard oil beside the tea?" she said.

"I do, aunty," said Nandini.

"It will taste of mustard."

"It already does, aunty. I have learned to live with it."

Mira laughed for the first time in a week.

Her mother heard it and gave her a long look over the top of her glasses.

She said nothing and went on stacking plates.

At four o'clock the bell rang.

"That will be him," said Nandini. "He said four. He has been outside since three, according to the guard."

Mira's mother stopped with a plate in each hand.

"The husband."

"Yes, Ma."

"The one who read the messages."

"He didn't write them," said Mira. "He read them aloud. In front of forty people."

"I see," said her mother. "I would like to meet him in the front room, please. Sitting down. With tea."

Dev came in with a paper bag of sweets and a face that had been shaved twice.

He put the bag on the table and stood in the middle of the room.

Her mother sat on the sofa and poured the tea herself. She did not offer him a seat.

Dev stayed standing.

"Aunty," he said. "I am Dev Malhotra."

"I know who you are. Nandini told me what you did, and I did not like it."

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