“Well,” Harshal began again, gritting his teeth as he purposely concealed two incidents surrounding Lovely’s disappearance:
Nimish and Lovely’s tryst under the tamarind tree.
And his own encounter with his sister just afterwards.
“Naturally, we were all sleeping,” he said, remembering the feel of his hands around Lovely’s silken neck, her muffled cry. “I woke my mother after the phone call and discovered that my sister was missing.”
“Was there anything unusual in her room?” Pascal said. “Signs of a forced entry?”
“No,” Harshal said, realizing with a panic now that he’d have to get back to her room before his mother and wife. He had to get rid of the blood.
“Sounds like she had a secret rendezvous.” Pascal winked.
Nimish sank into the sofa and earnestly wiped his spectacles. If anything happens to her, I’ll never forgive myself.
“How dare you suggest such things,” Vimla said in shock.
“Then why wasn’t Lovely in her pajamas in the middle of the night?” Harshal asked, clenching his teeth as if fighting off an invisible pain. His bowels feeling as if they had swollen inside, pressing against his anus with unbelievable force.
Pascal laughed gruffly. “I wouldn’t worry, she’ll probably show up in an hour or two with flushed cheeks. These things happen when there’s no father to enforce discipline. My advice is to find her a suitable boy before her reputation is spoilt.”
“My Lovely’s a good girl!”
“Don’t worry, I will do the needful,” Harshal nodded. He felt afraid though. Afraid of what his sister had done, afraid of what she would do if she returned.
“But Pinky,” Maji asked, all at once feeling furious at Lovely, “surely Pinky was not involved in this.”
Vimla loosened her grip on Maji’s hand, offended by her insinuation.
“The two disappearances are linked,” Pascal said, standing up and brushing biscuit crumbs from his lap. “Please call the station if you have any further information. In the meantime, stay at home. Keep a close eye on the children.”
After he left, rain pellets and a fine mist dusted the bungalow’s front door where unspoken accusations began to fester, working their way into Maji and Vimla’s hearts. A tiny fissure, finer than the wispy strands on a newborn’s head, had opened up deep within the layers of their lifelong friendship.
THE CALIGINOUS OCEAN
An unbearable silence filled the parlor.
“You stay,” Harshal said, slipping his feet back into his wet chap-pals. “I’m going back.”
“We’ll all go back,” Vimla said, releasing Maji’s hand and leaving without a word to her.
Feeling the helpless eyes of her family on her face, Maji held back tears that gathered like monsoon clouds behind her swollen eyelids. No one wanted to sleep; activity of any kind, anything to occupy their minds, was the only way to bring relief. “Kanj, make the puja halwa,” she finally said, “and some flatcakes. It’s going to be a long night.”
Cook Kanj trundled off to the kitchen.
“Parvati, Kuntal, the boys’ room needs cleaning.”
“What if the ghost’s still there?” Kuntal asked.
“Let it make trouble,” Parvati said menacingly, and grabbing Kun-tal’s hand, strutted down the hall.
“I’m coming with you,” Savita said to them.
“To clean?” Parvati raised a disbelieving eyebrow.
“To see her,” Savita huffed.
“Savita, don’t,” Maji said.
“I’m going to find my little moon-bird,” Savita said, “and nobody will stop me.”
Nimish stood to walk with her.
“Nimish!” Maji called out. “Leave her be. You and your brothers go get the gaddhas from the living room to unroll on the floor. We can all rest here tonight.”
Then, taking a deep breath, Maji pinched the fold of skin between her eyebrows. “Gulu, utho.”
Gulu groggily lifted himself off his mat where, despite the flurry of activity, he had begun to doze. He suddenly jumped to attention, the loss of blood making him dizzy. “Maji, please forgive me for all this—”
“Tell me,” Maji said hopefully, “was there anything more? Anything we didn’t tell the inspector?”
“No, I—I slipped while closing the gate.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“That’s all I remember.”
“Did you see someone outside the gate?” Maji leaned forward, “Pinky’s missing. Do you understand the seriousness of this?”
Gulu’s face contracted, uneven teeth bit into his bottom lip. Oh God, he thought of the ghostly laugh, the reddened lips, would she really harm Pinky?
“Do you understand?”
Gulu felt the heat from Maji’s stare, felt his body jerk into place as if being pulled by an invisible string. Maji was his benefactor, the one who had taken him in, given him a second life. Try as he might, he could not lie to her. “I saw . . . something.”
“Tell me!” Maji yelled, waving her cane at him.
Shrinking back onto the floor, Gulu recounted the details: the moan of the gate, the shrouded figure in the street.
“Was it Lovely?”
“I don’t think so but I didn’t see her face.”
“Then how do you know it was a woman?”
“I heard her voice.”
“What did she say?”
“She beckoned to me,” Gulu recalled her slender arms, the flash of her scarf, “but then I fell.”
“Don’t play games with me,” Maji boomed. “Who was she?”
Gulu lifted his face so his eyes met hers. If only I could see her alone, find her before anyone else, make everything okay. His finger throbbed, blood pushing at the flimsy cloth bandage, saturating it with every heartbeat.
“Please,” he pleaded.
“WHO WAS SHE?”
Tears slid across Gulu’s face. He dropped to his knees and covered his face, uttering the name that had not been heard inside the bungalow’s walls for over thirteen years.
“Freedom?” Pinky shouted, the dampness in her clothes was making her skin pucker in the crevices under her arms and where her underwear’s elastic clutched at her bottom. Her thin cotton pajamas had been soaked by the drenching rains. She realized that she was shivering, however, only after they had hit the glittering curve of Marine Drive, its Queen’s Necklace of streetlights illuminating the bay’s plunging neckline. The Arabian Sea crashed against the shore sending spray forty feet into the air. “What are you talking about?”
Lovely remained silent, her vacant eyes staring straight ahead, her knuckles white against the handlebars.
“Turn back!” Pinky cried out. Silently, she recollected that she had known Lovely almost her whole life. Surely, there was a reason for this madness, a reason why Lovely couldn’t tell her more. Is she running away from home? Pinky couldn’t shake the feeling that something utterly destructive possessed Lovely. She held onto her waist for dear life, straining her eyes at the passing sights, beacons by which she hoped to guide them back home.
They turned onto Churchgate Street, a main boulevard with high-rise commercial buildings in soiled grays and browns topped by equally doleful residential flats. Piles of wet debris cluttered the corners of the sidewalk, paved with little squares of saffron-colored brick which glimmered under the incessant pelting of the rains. A deteriorating wall was covered in peeling movie posters. An advertisement for a nearby undertaker proclaiming WE CAN SEND DEAD BODY ANYWHERE ANYHOW ANYTIME had been hastily pasted over top. Another poster warned “The Cemetries Are Full. A Driver Lived in Haste Died With Speed.” And yet another read Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai, promoting India and China’s fraternal relations in celebration of Premier Zhou En Lai’s visit to Delhi several months back.
Rains gushed near an overburdened gutter, spraying dirtied water into the air. Across the d
ivider with its black curving separators, Pinky spotted a solitary figure, a man walking quickly in the other direction, head hidden under a black umbrella, and considered calling out to him. But what would that accomplish?
Lovely gunned the accelerator and they reached Flora Fountain, Bombay’s central hub, named after the Roman goddess of abundance. From there, they continued southward, curving past a black stone statue of King George dubbed Kala Ghoda, the Sir David Sasson Library where Nimish spent much of his time, and the Rhythm House which, because of restrictive copyright laws, did not stock Tony Bennet or Elvis.
The Triumph slowed as they entered Wellington Circle, approaching the fully air-conditioned Regal Cinema, the name crawling boldly along the building’s cement edging. The theater was showing Mughal-e-Azam, the tragic love story of Prince Salim and the beautiful Anarkali, who was buried alive by the Moghul emperor. Anarkali was played by none other than the famed actress Madhubala, whose magazine photo Pinky had tucked into her teak chest as a proxy for her mother. Now upon an immense movie hoarding, Madhubala’s anguished face rose up against a backdrop of a sixteenth-century battle scene—eyes closed, head thrown back, mouth parted in unutterable sorrow.
“Mummy!” Pinky cried out.
When Savita had seen Mughal-e-Azam with her friends she had wept for days after. Fate can be so cruel, she had lamented, braced against Nimish’s shoulders. How can anyone stand in the way of such love? The movie was such a phenomenal hit that Filmfare ran a story about a taxi driver who had paid to see it over a hundred times. Can you imagine working so bloody hard to spend your money in such a way? Jaginder Uncle had commented. The whole family had tittered over such foolishness.
“Stop! Please just stop!” Pinky screamed, pressing herself against Lovely’s back and trying to reach up to the handlebars.
“Don’t stop me,” Lovely warned, easing onto Colaba Causeway, heading directly for the tip of Bombay, passing the Empress on the right, the café where not so long ago Pinky had sat with her cousins and watched the hijras. The left side of the street was crammed with shops selling smuggled goods such as Gillette shaving cream and other luxury items, now all closed, barred against looters and the torrential rains. Beyond that, rising out of chilly Bombay Harbour, stood the yellow basalt Gateway of India built in 1911 to signify the enduring nature of British rule. Lovely steered them past the Esplanade, a row of three-story buildings where affluent Parsi families resided, and then beyond the BEST bus depot to Cusrow Baug.
Pinky frantically tried to piece together a plan. She’s running away, she’s taking me. As soon she stops the bike, I’ll jump off. They sped by a small petrol pump, veering off the causeway and onto a quiet tree-lined lane edged by a cluster of old buildings with high wood-beamed ceilings. Maji’s first cousin Uddhav Uncle lived in the last building called Dar-ul-Khalil, Pinky suddenly remembered with a flash of hope. He was a widower who intermittently rented out the small, six-by-eight-foot cubicle in his flat to docking sailors. Pinky caught a glimpse of the fierce Afghani Pathan who guarded the building at night, his longs legs sticking out of the kholi under the wooden staircase where he slept, undisturbed by the rains.
Bhenchod loan shark, Uddhav Uncle had called the Afghani, originally from Kabul, his mouth curling in disgust. When he’s not charging impoverished mill workers twenty-five percent monthly interest, he’s bartering with the sailors for tins of Dunhills or State Express 555 or for those bhenchod Yashica gadgets.
His type is unpredictable, Maji had declared.
And bloodthirsty, too, Uddhav Uncle added. The bastard carries a six-inch knife.
Pinky’s heart sank as they cut across Wodehouse Road and ended at the Koli fishing community, situated on a rectangular bay, catercorner to Nariman Point. They were engulfed in the stench of rotting fish. Pinky began to gag, holding her pajama top to her nose as if the flimsy cotton, now completely soaked, could filter out the saturating odor. Beyond, near the sands, clusters of small homes huddled together to protect themselves from the chilly ocean winds. A sole coconut tree rose up into the darkness.
Lovely stopped the bike and, tightly gripping Pinky’s hand, pulled her down to the shore.
“Come,” she commanded again in that strange, gritty voice so unlike her own.
“No!” Pinky shouted, taking in the caliginous ocean sprawling to infinity as she pulled from Lovely’s hold. “I’m not going anywhere! Not until you tell me what is happened!”
“You’re shivering,” was Lovely’s response. “Here take my dupatta.”
“But it’s wet,” Pinky said, nonetheless reaching for the exquisite silk. As she touched it, she felt an energy pass from Lovely to her, a mystifying heat, a radiance that numbed her resistance. Lovely walked ahead, the dupatta tied to her waist, Pinky behind, holding onto it as if for dear life. Despite her terror, she did not want to be left alone in the strange darkness. They walked past a darkened hut on the outskirts of the village, circumvented the village itself, and finally stopped near the jetty where a dilapidated trawler swayed with the current and small wooden canoes lay overturned in the sand.
Lovely pushed a craft into the foaming waters of the Arabian Sea, Pinky climbed in across from her, continuing to clutch at the dupatta, allowing it to overwhelm her reason and resolution with its eerie, satiating heat. Lovely’s like a sister, she told herself. She won’t harm me. She’ll take me home afterward. The rains grew heavier; a heavy fog rose up over the stormy waters. Only Pinky and Lovely’s heads bobbed above the surface, like dolphins coming up for air. Stormy waves crashed around them but the small patch of water surrounding the canoe remained strangely calm as if it were welcoming Lovely within it, like a mother opening her arms to a beloved child. The tiniest blush of pink colored the horizon.
From the canoe, Pinky could see a fisherman stepping out of his home. She could just make out his white tikkona, a checked bandana-like cloth twisted like a rope and pulled back tightly, and his T-shirt with dark stripes. A white cloth covered his head. He turned as if to look at them, hand pressed perpendicularly to his forehead, and then disappeared into his hut.
A sudden rush of wind whipped the silk dupatta from Lovely’s waist and Pinky’s fingers. It caught on the back of the boat, trailing along in the water like the tail of a mythical beast, gold and glittering. Pinky spasmed as if abruptly waking up. All at once, she was shocked by the iciness of her damp clothes, the bite of the ocean’s spray, the sheer horror of her situation. Oh my god, how did we get here? In the middle of the ocean? Lovely’s seemingly innocent words at Hanging Gardens came flooding back to her. She drowned, yes, Lovely had said about the dead baby. But at least she’s free.
“Didi! ” Pinky screamed. “Take us back!”
But Lovely continued to row them past the rectangular inlet and into the bay, where the stillness inside her grew more and more powerful, nourished by the depthless ocean, the water surrounding them in all directions.
“We can still make it back!” Pinky yelled, thinking, She’s going to drown us! We’re going to die! Was that Lord Yama, God of Death, right now canoeing towards them waiting to pluck their souls? “What happened! Why are you doing this! Tell me!”
Lovely rowed faster and faster. Pinky noticed a trail of wetness running down her leg, glistening.
“What’s that!” she shouted, pointing. “Where’s it coming from?”
Lovely stopped rowing, her eyes sunken. And then, slowly, with fingers splayed, she grabbed at it.
“Oh my god!” Pinky yelled, seeing Lovely’s hand smeared with blood. “We need to get you to the hospital!”
She tried to force the oars from Lovely’s hands but found them locked in a deathlike grip. Whatever terrible accident had happened to Lovely, Pinky had to make her realize the consequences of what she was about to do. “Everything can be made right!”
Lovely remained unmoved, methodically rowing without responding.
“Didi! Don’t do this!” Pinky screamed, saying the only thing left to give Lo
vely hope, to save them both. “Nimish loves you! Not me, not any other girl. Only you! Don’t you see? Whatever happened tonight, he’ll marry you! He loves you!”
Just like one of Lord Rama’s piercing arrows of passion, Pinky’s words hit their mark. It had been Nimish’s confession of love that had first unlocked Lovely’s guarded heart with wonderment and possibility.
Now again, his name, the promise of his love traveled deep to her core where her spirit lay trapped by something terrifying, powerful, dark. It was too late for her to save herself from what had transpired after she fled the tamarind tree, but the love Nimish kindled in her heart was just enough to break free from the hard, lifeless, unyielding presence within her. For the briefest of moments, her rowing faltered; her face softened; her eyes grew clear.
“Tell him to come to me,” she managed, her strangled voice barely audible. “I’ll wait as long as I can but I can never go back.”
And then, all at once, her body grew strangely translucent. An eerie wailing rose up from the bowels of the boat, and the ocean crashed against it. Pinky held on tightly; at any moment, she could be thrown into the swirling sea. She cried out, not wanting to die in the merciless ocean, not wanting to be taken away from Maji and Nimish. She called upon Matsya, Lord Vishnu’s colossal fish avatar who saved Manu, the forefather of humanity, from the primordial flood that devastated the earth. Send me your conch-shell boat, too!
And then, scanning the infinite water all around her, she suddenly recalled the drought that had orphaned Parvati and Kuntal. She remembered the press photo of their emaciated parents, the newspaper itself tenderly wrapped in a yellow and red bandhani cloth for safekeeping. To remind me, Parvati had said that long-ago day in the bathroom, to survive at all costs.
Pinky’s eyes fell on a half-broken oar resting inside the boat.
“Lovely didi, please, let’s go back!” she called into the deafening din.
“You want to know who drowned the baby?” Lovely shouted. Her soaked clothes pulled tightly against her slender body, revealing taught, youthful muscles underneath.
Haunting Bombay Page 21
