Ro Krishna crouched on a white wooden dock and peered into the rapidly darkening Harrington Sound. Then he straightened his back and looked up at the fading sky. He didn’t have much time. He slipped noiselessly into the water. He’d dive another day.
The water was the same temperature as the air, like in a sensory deprivation tank. He backstroked toward a large raft anchored a short distance away.
Clambering on, he flopped onto his back and crossed one leg over the other at the knee. He placed his hands behind his head and lay on his back with his eyes open, studiously turning his mind blank. Ro had once read that soldiers managed to get through war by turning their minds blank. He was now uncommonly good at this, as he had been at war for some time now.
He lingered on the raft, looking at the first stars of the evening, deliberately cutting it close.
Finally, he lowered himself into the now-inky water and swam back to the dock. Pulling on his “Surf Leucadia” T-shirt, he padded barefoot up the hill. As the lárge Colonial-style house came into view, he saw that preparations for the party had advanced significantly while he was in the water. At least two bars were now set up on the lawn. A peculiarly international selection of food trucks had formed a queasy circle. Several people were struggling to set up a bouncy castle that was clearly too large for the space it was meant to occupy.
Ro continued up the path and entered the house via an inconspicuous side door. Walking into his room, he picked up the watch on the bedside table and saw he still had thirty minutes to get ready. He would be all right.
A shower first. He took off his T-shirt and his navy blue swim trunks. As he walked toward the bathroom, his eyes fell upon his phone, lying on the bed. He picked it up to give it a cursory glance, and then he froze. There were an unusual number of notifications, in an unusual number of ways: texts, emails, several missed calls. Other messaging apps. He decided to begin with his emails and scrolled down to the carliest unread message.
And then time stopped. Ro stared into space, his eyes vacant, his mouth
hanging open. His phone dangled from his hand.
Post-shower, still toweling his hair, Ro stood in front of the closet and evaluated his options. A 40th birthday party in Bermuda in the shoulder season was a minefield in terms of attire and, whether innocently or mischievously, Rollo had not given a dress code. Every event had a theme, Ro mused. Sometimes overt, sometimes covert. He would have to figure out tonight’s theme by himself.
Fortunately he now had all the time in the world.
The shirt he eventually chose was plain white cotton except for its collar, onto which rocket ships, rainbows, and snakes were embroidered whimsically, ostensibly justifying the shirt’s equally whimsical price. But the lower half of his body remained a problem. None of his jeans or trousers seemed right. Then his eyes fell upon a pair of sky-blue Bermuda shorts tossed over a chair.
When in Rome.
Ro added a grey-blue woven leather belt and grass-green suede moccasins.
Buckling on his father’s old gold-and-steel Cartier Panthère watch, Ro looked in the mirror and nodded. With regards to the theme, he was fairly sure he’d nailed it.
Leaving the room, he turned to the left, walked two feet, then knocked on
the next door.
“Come in,” a familiar voice said.
Connie was Ro’s best friend from college. She sat at a table looking into a mirror, applying makeup, her hair up in a loose chignon. She wore an em-crald green dress made of pleated silk faille. The room was chaotic. Connie’s shoes were splayed gorily all over the floor of the closet. “Will you grab the gold ones?” Connie asked, applying mascara. “No, not those. The strappy ones.” Ro silently handed them over.
She placed them on the floor. Once she was done with her eyes, Connie stood up, turning her back to him. She picked up a bottle of perfume, spritzed some—Samsara, by Guerlain, although Ro didn’t know that—into the empty air in front of her, and walked into the cloud. Then she sat down on the bed and began to fasten her shoes.
“Can you hand that over?” she said, pointing to a fabric pouch Ro had bought for her in Bhutan. Opening it, she pulled out what scemed to be yards of gold and began to arrange them around her neck. The necklace was an improbably long Van Cleef & Arpels Alhambra chain made of gold, mother-of-pearl, malachite, and onyx. Connie saw Ro’s admiring look in the mirror. “My mother’s. It’s from the 70s. Can you help?” Ro fastened it for her.
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Connie unpinned the chignon, shook out her long, dark, lustrous hair, and stood up. She took a shopping bag out of the closet. “Rollo’s present. Want to see?” Carefully antying the brown ribbon, she opened the orange box to reveal a large green travel wallet. “Dartmouth green,”
she said, satisfied.
Ro just smiled.
“Let’s go,” Connie said, picking up her bag. She caught Ro’s eye in the
mirror and sighed. “Ugh. You have the best hair.”
Ro smiled again, shrugging.
It was true.
He did have great hair.
Connie and Ro walked onto the lawn through the side door. It had gotten dark, more or less.
“Joss isn’t coming, right?”
Ro shook his head.
“He works too much. Although Bermuda’s a massive schlep from LA, I’ll give him that. Oh, there’s Masha.” She waved at a slender girl wearing a fuchsia dress, her pale blond hair scraped back into a ballerina bun.
Masha waved back frantically. “I need you guys!” she yelled.
They walked over to her. The bouncy castle waved uncertainly against the night sky. Masha gazed up at it. “I messed up. It’s way too big. Where do you think we should put it?”
“Ooh, I’m not sure.” Connic took off her shoes and started running around the lawn. “Oh, I see. You don’t want to block the view. Wait.” She ran another few feet and paused. “Maybe here?” Ro made a slashing motion with his hand. “Diagonally?” Connie added, grinning at him.
Masha came over and jumped, clapping her hands. “I think that might work!” The workers came over and huddled with her for a moment, then began to drag the castle into place. Ro grinned as he watched Masha squeal and clap her hands again, her eyes sparkling. “It does!”
She turned to Connie. “I think we deserve a Dark and Stormy.” They began moving toward the bar, chatting with each other animatedly. Ro followed them, smiling to himself. He hadn’t yet spoken the first word of his postwar life. He wondered how much longer he could go.
As it happens, he could go quite a long time. And it was delightful.
Ro bobbed around, nodded, smiled and waved, smiled and shook hands, save and received kisses on both checks, shook hands without smiling, save meaningful looks, shook his head, pointed, raised his eyebrows, sipped, chewed, made noises of appreciation, made grunts of disapprobation, saun-tered, shrugged, hugged, gave a thumbs up, and gave two high fives. He was pretty sure nobody had clocked what he was up to.
He stood discreetly at the back of the lawn near one of the bars while Rollo, who was wearing a smoking jacket, a bow tie, and a kilt, gave a speech thanking his guests and welcoming them to Bermuda.
To much applause and laughter, Rollo announced the start of a limbo competition. Ro turned and walked toward the lawn’s edge. He stopped in front of the ha-ha and looked down at the sound. The now-black water lapped gently at itself.
“Ahem.”
He turned and saw someone he didn’t think he knew, a somewhat puzzled look on her face. She was maybe a few years younger, early thirties or late twen-ties. Her short dress was covered in gold sequins. Her blondish hair was in a ponytail. She wore large gold hoop earrings. A Swatch was on her left wrist. The only makeup Ro could see was a carelessly applied smudge of red-orange lipstick.
“Hello,” she said shyly.
Ro was charmed. He smiled and tilted his head toward her.
The woman smiled back at him, hesitant, visibly debating whether to say
something.
Finally, she did. “Are you not speaking on purpose?”
Ro laughed, delighted. “Thank you. I was wondering when somcone
would notice.”
“Oh!” She sighed, relieved. “We noticed a while ago.” She waved toward a smiling man a few steps behind her, perhaps around Ro’s age, sandy-haired, stocky. “But we were having so much fun watching.”
“I’m glad I could be of service,” Ro said, mock-bowing.
The woman hesitated again, looking down and chewing her lip. “But it wasn’t just that,” she said. “Your aura is amazing right now. It’s remarkable.” She paused. “Apologies, I don’t mean to be a hippie. But it’s energy. Something new”.
“Don’t worry,” Ro said. “You know, it’s weird, but you’re right. My life did
actually change today.” He gave her a warm smile. “I’m Ro, by the way.”
He leaned in to kiss her on both checks.
“Bronya. What’s Ro short for?”
“Rohan. I literally never use it, though,” Ro replied. “Is Bronya short for
Bronistawa?”
“Yes!” she squealed, jumping up and down. “I’m impressed. What does
Rohan mean?”
“Ascending,” Ro responded, a little surprised. He usually asked that ques-
tion first. “What does Bronislawa mean?”
Bronya thought for a moment, then laughed. “I don’t know, actually!” She
turned to the man behind her. “This is my boyfriend, Alex.”
The man approached them with a friendly grin. “Hello, Ascending. I’m Alex. Short for Alexander, which means ‘defender of men.’ And this is Novi,” he added, indicating the Pomeranian in the grey Goyard tote bag he carried. Alex was more or less the same height as Ro, a shade or two under six feet, but looked more solid, with broad shoulders. His light blue button-down shirt was tucked into pale yellow trousers. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, revealing tanned forearms.
“Hi, Alex. And hi, Novi.” Ro leaned in and gently scratched Novi on the
top of her head. “Novi, that’s a cute name.”
“It’s short for Novichok,” Bronya said. “So, how did your life change to-day?” she continued, looking at Ro. “If you don’t mind my asking, of course.”
Ro paused. Words were fluttering on his lips, but he didn’t quite know
what to say.
“I’m sorry,” Bronya said, retreating a little. “I don’t mean to intrude.”
“No.” Ro shook his head. “Please, don’t worry. Really. It’s just that I haven’t talked about what happened yet.” Except to lawyers, he added to himself. Lots and lots and lots of lawyers.
“You haven’t talked about it? Not even to your girlfriend?” Bronya saw
Ro’s puzzlement. “The girl in the green dress.”
“Oh, Connie. No. Connie’s my best friend, by the way,” Ro added. “More
my twin sister than anything else.”
“And you haven’t even told her?” Alex asked, interested.
Ro shook his head.
A burst of applause came from farther down the lawn. “Are you planning
to do the limbo?” Alex asked.
“No,” Ro said. “I’m Indian. It wouldn’t be fair to the others.”
Alex laughed. “Let’s go for a swim. Everyone will be down there soon anyway.” He looked at Ro. “You’re staying in the house, yes? Why don’t you go change? Meet us at the dock.”
How did he know that, Ro wondered. “Sure.”
It was a full moon, or almost one, anyway.
Alex dived effortlessly into the water. “The water’s so warm,” he said as he
surfaced. He swam toward Bronya, who was already on the raft.
Ro peeled off his T-shirt. “I love your swimsuit,” Bronya cooed at him. “Is that Dsquared2?”
Excerpted with permission from Death in the Air by Ram Murali
Publishing/ Penguin Random House (2024)
You can buy your copy here.
By Ram Murali
Ram Murali began his career as a lawyer in private practice in London and Paris, and worked for many years across all aspects of film and television development, production and distribution. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College, Columbia Law School, the Sorbonne and the University of Cambridge.
