Horns blared tone-deaf symphonies

Here, the protagonist, Nisar Chowdhury, has a conversation with Gazi regarding an unusual request for his birthday party. 

I didn't rush, didn't seek shelter. A long line of cars sat stalled on Road 11, their brake lights hazed with rain and steam. People cut between them, running the way people do in the rain even after they've been sufficiently soaked, and I thought about how one of the biggest scarcities in this city was space. It was why the smallest inch, the tiniest, most impossible opening, had hordes racing for them all at once. I passed a motorcycle and two rickshaws trying to wedge through between the front end of one car and the rear end of another, none of the parties willing to back down. A little further down, a drenched policeman's whistle screeched like a tortured monkey while he blocked a CNG scooter with his body from moving forward and obstructing the intersection. Horns blared tone-deaf symphonies. 

The rain finally started letting up, leaving the air cool and bearable. My clothes stuck to me like they were glued on, and I felt chilly.

I felt a tug on my sleeve, and there was a boy of six or seven with a distended belly and a missing arm looking up at me, holding out the palm of the hand he had. I gave him a Tk100 note. His eyes dropped on the money like it had sprouted magically out of his palm, then jolted up to me again, flashing disbelief. Before I'd taken another step, a small gang of boys and girls crept out of corners I'd never know were there. I took out some more notes, all the cash I had, and gave them away, then held my wallet upside down to show that it was empty.

I'd pushed my key into the door when a shadow to my left startled the beating heart out of me. I guessed it was the night guard but then realised he was at his station at the gate, where I'd just received a salute from him on my way in. 

"Hi, Boss." Gazi stepped partially into the light of the portico. He'd come around the back of the house from Eternal Complex, which kept him unseen to anyone at the front. "Didn't mean to scare you."

 "It's fine," I said, unlocking the door. 

"You're soaked, Boss," Gazi said. "What have you been doing?" 

"I walked home from…" I didn't know where to take the rest of it. And the "boss," now spoken twice, was strange. "From being out," I said. 

"You should get dry before a cold takes you. And a drink to warm you up good." He held up the Blue Label. 

"Thank you," I said accepting the bottle a second time. "Would you like to join me?" 

Gazi didn't respond. He stood just a few steps short of being under the portico, his face lit only from the nose down. 

"Did you ask her?" He said. 

It occurred to me, watching him stand outside the cover of the portico, dry as I was wet, that the rain had stopped at some point during the last leg of my walk. Now there was just the wind rising and falling. 

"Please come in," I said. "I really want to get out of these clothes."

 "Did you?" He repeated, as if I hadn't spoken. 

"Not exactly, no," I replied. 

Gazi stepped fully into the portico's light. He was wearing a salmon-pink, short-sleeved shirt, cream-coloured khakis, and tumbled calf-leather moccasins, either brown or black. His posture, gait and general bearing reminded me of a Hollywood icon from the era of silent films – Valentino, or Errol Flynn; all he was missing was a cigarette in a slender, expensive holder to finish the picture. 

"Will you?" He asked. 

"I'm not sure she thinks it's a very good idea," I answered. 

"Did she say that? Herself?" He took a step forward, and his eyes came into view. I thought I noted menace in them. It didn't stay long, if it was there at all, sent on its way with a smile that rounded off the portrait of the matinee idol. 

"I guess she didn't have to, not in so many words," I said. 

"But she didn't say no," said Gazi, eyes aglow with hope. "Boss, I'm counting on you. Please." 

With that he was gone. His exit only heightened the cinematic figure he'd drawn, walking backward, meshing soundlessly with the night.

Published by Hatchette India, The Inheritors will be available from 20 February 2023.