Chapter 37

Lena started the Pajero.

Arif looked at her, surprised. "Where are we going?"

Without replying, she reversed the vehicle and began driving back to the point where the by-lane intersected with the main Powai road.

Arif looked back and saw the Perfumed Gardens complex disappearing around a bend as they picked up speed.

"Stop the car," he said loudly.

She continued driving, overtaking a Matiz which was struggling over the post-monsoon pot-holes cautiously. The Pajero lurched easily over the pockmarked road, then leaped over a redundant speed bumper like a reckless daredevil in an online game of Monster Truck Madness. She laughed as the Pajero two-wheeled for a moment, then came back to earth.

"Wow, what a rush!"

Arif opened the door on his side. Wind roared in, and an overgrown branch on the side of the road whipped viciously at his face. Lena glanced at him sharply.

"Shut the fucking door."

Arif kept the door open. Another overgrown branch, sticking out into the road, raked its claws across the glass of the passenger side door. Arif heard the wooden claw rasping across the metal.

Lena launched a string of abuses. Arif couldn't catch all of them, but he thought there was some Arabic in there. Maybe Swedish as well.

She brought the Pajero to an abrupt halt. Arif lurched forward, cracking his head against the windshield.

"You bastard," she said viciously, as he touched the spot on his forehead and his hand came away bloody. "Do you know how much a new paint job costs on this thing? Anyway, fuck the paint job. Who the hell do you think you are, sitting in my car and telling me where to stop?"

Arif had had enough of this woman's mouth. And her constant sexual teasing, her frank-yet-inscrutable attitude, and her mysterious revelations.

He exploded back at her.

"Who the hell do you think you are, bringing me out here, giving me some half-assed story about my wife becoming a petal in a rose garden or some such crap, and then driving away like you're in a hurry to get to the ladies room?"

She looked at him, silent.

He slammed his fist on the dashboard. "I don't know what kind of fucking game you think you're playing, Lena. But just tell me this: Is my wife, Sarla, really back there in that place you just showed me or not?"

She shrugged. "Is."

He nodded slowly, calming himself. "Okay then." He got out of the car, shut the passenger side door and began walking back. He patted his jeans in search of a handkerchief he could used to dab at the cut on his forehead. Not finding one, he used the cuff of his shirtsleeve instead.

After a moment, he heard the soft powerful purring of the Pajero but kept walking without looking back. He was less than a hundred metres from the by-lane.

The Pajero appeared beside him, running in reverse. She looked at him, a lopsided smile on her face.

"Okay, so you laid down the law, Mr Testosterone. Now get in the fucking car."

He kept walking.

She gunned the engine. The Pajero lurched over a pothole.