Vijaya sat in the bank conference room, trying to stay calm while inside, her heart was racing. The silence in the room was so thick, the occasional rustle of paper seemed to have to force its way through and sSeated around the big table were all the principals to the sale while they were all carefully studying mortages, deeds and other papers and Vijaya, at this point, had nothing to do but watch them as they slowly turned pages.
Her job, she hoped, was done. She had gotten buyer and seller together, gotten them to agree on price, and helped arrange the mortgage. Theoretically, there was nothing more for her to do except collect her commission. She wondered how Uday was doing. She had made another of those gut-wrenching drives to the hospital with him shivering and shaking beside her. By now he had been on the kidney machine for close to an hour. His agony should be subsiding. Vijaya felt reasonably confident that everything was going to be all right. No one at the office had gotten wise to what she had done. All the terms of the sale had been agreed on. Even though Uday only had two more times on the hospital kidney machine, there should be no trouble. Those two treatments would give them enough time to get their own dialysis unit and get it set up.
He was going to live! It all had worked out, all the worry and sweat and filth and degradation and risks had paid off, had been worth it. The guilt Vijaya felt about what she had done was tempered by the knowledge that Uday was going to live. She noticed that Sundar Raj had finished reading his papers. The banker arranged them in a precise perfect stack in front of himself, placed a pen and a pencil exactly one inch on either side of the pile, then sat back. The expression on his pink face was unreadable.
Ripu KN was next to finish. Casually, he dropped the last one on the top of his untidy heap and rubbed his eyes. His expression was just as unreadable as Raj's while Sandhya KN added the papers she had been reading to her husband's stack and her lips quirked and she glanced at Vijaya, and shrugged.
Badri Dayal was frowning. Vijaya watched him nervously. His forehead was wrinkled slightly - three faint lines between his red eyebrows. Reaching the end of the final sale contract, he leafed back through it and reread it. Keeping the contract open to that page he set it in front of him, and weighed it down with an ashtray.
"Well," Sundar Raj began, "everything seems to be in order. Is everything agreeable to you, Mr. KN?"
Vijaya watched him fearfully. The short, powerfully built man nodded. "Yes."
"Mrs. KN?" Raj asked.
"If it's all right with him, it's all right with me," she said agreeably.
"Mr. Dayal?"
The big Panjabi frowned. "No."
Vijaya flinched at the single, short denial. Oh God, not now! Sundar Raj looked mildly startled.
"Oh? What seems to e the problem?"
"Two problems," the color-haired man answered. "First is the date I take occupancy. That has been changed from what Mr. KN and I originally agreed upon."
He paused and Vijaya's eyes went to the KNs. Ripu KN was looking at the agreement. Sandhya KN was carefully inspecting her long, elegant fingernails.
"Second problem is in the mortgage," Dayal went on.
"There is a prepayment penalty in the mortgage." He looked at Raj.
Raj nodded blandly. "Well, yes, that is standard bank policy," he responded.
"Well then, it's no deal," Dayal said firmly.
Vijaya thought she was going to die.
"I see," Raj said blandly. "That's unfortunate."
"What's wrong with the date of occupancy?" Sandhya KN asked her voice soft.
Vijaya eyed the tall woman carefully. She had the feeling something was brewing.
"What's wrong? I have to be out of my present place on the first of the month, and according to this I can't move into your house until the last of the month. At least, that is when you are scheduled to vacate it," Dayal pointed out. "I don't understand why it was changed."
"Maybe there's an error on your copy," Sandhya KN suggested, getting up from her chair. She strolled around the table, her moves easy, graceful languid, and sexy. When she got behind Badri Dayal, she leaned over him, and studied his papers. Vijaya saw that one of the woman's big, lush breasts was brushing the side of Dayal's head, and that he responded by leaning against the warm, soft mound and rubbing his cheek against Sandhya's shining satin blouse.