The Tenacity of Darkness: Book # 2 of A Thorn for Miss R.

by Sakiv Koch

  I repeated them verbatim: Welcome to Toronto, Your Majesty. We shall strive to make your stay highly memorable and extremely short.

  He gazed in the far distance thoughtfully for almost an entire minute before bringing the incisive focus of his bright eyes back on me.

  “They weren’t here for spoons and glasses,” he surmised, “although they took some silver cutlery and some crystal decanters with them.” He looked at Cameron, who nodded his confirmation.

  “They took many small things worth a small fortune,” Cameron elaborated. “This place is so big and so full of all kinds of stuff it will take me another full day to check everything against my inventory book.”

  “And then there is the power outage,” the officer said. “They tampered with the penthouse’s circuit breaker box. They picked rather sophisticated locks quickly. We have dusted the apartment for prints, but these guys sound like professionals who wouldn’t venture anywhere without gloves. We have rounded up a few men,” he informed me. “We’d like you to come down to the station to look at them.”

  I had just glimpsed two figures from a considerable distance in almost absolute darkness. The probability of my recognizing and correctly identifying one or both of them was pretty close to nonexistent.

  “Sure, sir,” I told him. They waited for me to complete my morning ablutions and then we went to that area’s police station. The officer had six men paraded before me in a well-lit corridor. All of these gents looked as though they would love to have a go at me. I felt like pointing my finger at the two most malicious-looking characters out of pure malice.

  And then some entirely unexpected happened. One of these illustrious gentlemen stopped suddenly. His eyes widened.

  “Oh God, no. Not now—!” he cried before going rigid and falling forward. He started twitching and writhing on the floor. His hands and feet curled in on their joints. His drooling mouth worked as if he were chewing something.

  The officers stationed at the door leading into the corridor ran to help him, while the rest of the suspects watched the man with a shocked interest. I pointed at the man undergoing the epileptic seizure.

  “He’s one of the men who broke into King Sanjay’s penthouse last night,” I told the inspector with complete certainty. “He’s the one who mock-welcomed and threatened us. I recognized his voice when he spoke just now.”

  “Hmm,” the officer mused. “He’s the only one here with no prior history. We brought him here only because his next-door neighbor is a beat constable who saw him around Wellington St. area last night. When Constable Smith asked him what he was doing in that neighborhood at such a late hour, this man — Peter is his name — said he was walking back home, which is less than a mile away from that point, to help digest a heavy meal consumed at a dinner party in a nearby restaurant. Peter eats at that restaurant often. Smith asked Peter to come along to the station only because of our blanket directive to question everyone seen in your building’s vicinity during the hours of interest to us… Hmm… it’s pretty unusual for someone to have this sort of calling when they suffer from this kind of condition. Only voice based recognition is not a very solid identification in any case.”

  The inspector made no attempts to hide his doubts about the validity of my assertion. The intensity of Peter’s seizure was subsiding. It took two men to get him back on his feet. He mumbled something indistinct and the men holding him rushed him out of the corridor. They hadn’t gone halfway to the door when thin streams of water began to leak out of the bottom hems of his trousers.

  The other suspects in the corridor glared at me, as though I were personally responsible for Peter’s suffering. The inspector hummed again and asked me to accompany him to his office, where he offered me coffee. My stomach — which had gone without bagging a meal for the last several hours — rumbled audibly. The considerate inspector ordered a plate of bagels to go with the coffee.

  “Hmm,” he began. “The chances of your being right about Peter are pretty slim. We’ll know for sure, one way or another, by the time you finish your coffee — a couple of officers are corroborating the veracity of his claims about this dinner party he says he attended last night.” My coffee arrived. A plate of something shaped like rings followed shortly afterward. I ate like a starved pig and drank like a thirsty camel, making a cursory effort to muffle the concomitant chomping and slurping noises.

  Two uniformed officers asked permission to enter the inspector’s cabin when I finished everything on the plate and in the cup. The newcomers saluted the inspector, who asked them to take seats after returning their salutes. One of them introduced himself as Constable Smith, the beat officer who had seen and hailed Peter last night.

  “Peter’s alibi checks out. He was at the Oriental from nine p.m. until a quarter past one a.m. His full name is Peter Kumar Gupta — his mother was a Scottish lady and his father was from India. His wife, Lucy Gupta, and their twin daughters were with him yesterday, along with six family friends. It was the Guptas’ twelfth wedding anniversary. They hosted this celebratory dinner for that occasion. Peter had had a bit too much to eat. He asked his wife to drive their car back home. He wanted to walk all the way. There was apparently some disagreement between him and his wife regarding this point, on account of his epilepsy. But he prevailed in the end. I have known him for a long time; he’s nothing if not stubborn. I saw him around 1.20 a.m., at a short distance from the Oriental. The Guptas’ friends, as well as the waiter assigned to their table, swear that Peter was there all the time, except for a couple of visits to the loo. That’s it.”

  I burped. I had clearly been mistaken. Again.

  “Fatigue, fear, and stress can affect anyone’s judgment adversely,” the inspector said considerately. “But don’t worry. We’ll get to this affair’s bottom as soon as possible. Here’s my card. Please ring me if you need help with anything.”

  I thanked him and went back home — if I could call that place home, that is. In spite of the inspector’s assurances, the police couldn’t turn up any other leads. We beefed up the security at the penthouse. Cameron now slept on a futon in the living room. Egoists like to indulge in oneupmanship, even when they really respect the person they want to seem superior to.

  I installed a tripwire on the main entrance. Upon being tripped by any intruder, the wire would activate a switch that would set off an alarm bell. Cutting off the penthouse’s electrical supply wouldn’t disable the alarm. I had a dedicated car battery to ensure uninterrupted power supply to my little apparatus. Am I smart or what (imagine me wriggling my eyebrows as I ask this)?

  The incident of the break-in and its attendant fear faded from our minds over the next few weeks. The king was enrolled for a fancy management degree at the University of Toronto. He attended his classes during the daytime on weekdays, leaving me with lots of free time to explore the wonders of that wondrous world.

  Parks, streets, churches, cinemas, boat rides, beautiful women, beautiful girls, beautiful women, beautiful girls, trees with their spectacular leaves, beautiful women, beautiful girls, nightlife, clubs, bars, cafes, restaurants, the lake, benches, ornate lamps, shopping malls, strip malls, flea markets, beautiful girls, beautiful women, high-rise towers, street cars, art, art galleries, beautiful girls, beautiful women, theaters, broad avenues with their noble maples, the first snow of the winter, beautiful girls, beautiful women.

  By looking at the frequency with which beautiful girls and beautiful women feature above, one would think I had turned into a ladies’ man, that my irresistible charm must have compelled several women to seek my attention, that I was experiencing all sorts of carnal pleasures.

  One would be wrong in forming that impression. For all my self-belief in my killer looks and overpowering charisma, I couldn’t summon the courage to approach a single woman! All we ever exchanged — those pretty women and I — were casual, low-intensity (from their sides) smiles.

  To my utter amazement and even greater dismay, King Sanjay proved to be
a real playboy, a Casanova! His attractiveness rose from the depths of the ocean of wealth that lapped at his feet — that’s what I told myself.

  He never showed off, never dreamed of doing so. Being kingly rich was ingrained in his very DNA. His Rolls and Bentleys, his tailored suits, his solitaires, his 24-carat-gold watches and fountain pens, his handmade leather shoes, etc., were as much a part of his being as his nose and his eyes. To flaunt his richness was as unimaginable to him as humility to me.

  However, all that wealth, even without any conscious effort to display it, did dazzle a lot of women from his university. They swarmed around him at every opportunity. One would think that a few of them would have deigned to bestow something more than a few smiles on such a strikingly handsome fellow as me, but one would be wrong yet again. All I ever got from them were residual smiles and (misleadingly) enthusiastic hellos.

  Cameron was my guide and companion. He showed me the nuances of the city’s beauty. He taught me the art of photography. He invited me for a friendly fight after listening to my endless boasts about my prowess in hand-to-hand combat. I had never faced a third-degree black belt in Taekwondo before.

  One would think Cameron would have kicked and punched me black and blue. I take pride in informing you, brothers and sisters, that this hypothetical ‘One’ would be wrong yet again! Our private match lasted for under five minutes, at the end of which Cameron declared my unusual style and reflexes to be superior to anything he’d ever experienced before!

  It occurred to me that he was pulling my leg. I watched his eyes and his mouth like a hawk, but saw no signs of suppressed mirth. One would imagine I strutted around like a proud rooster for the next several days. My dear One, you would finally be right in so imagining!

  Cameron took me to a strip club one afternoon! I felt drunk (without drinking any liquor) after watching completely naked women dancing a few feet away from me.

  I had something that even Sanjay didn’t have—leisure. He had little free time. Most of his life revolved around the university campus. He romanced fairies and angels when he wasn’t studying.

  He was a changed person in this respect. Back home, he showed complete indifference to all women except for Rachna. Here, in that foreign land, he was far less reserved, far less aloof than I had known him in India.

  Perhaps this difference arose from his being just another student in Canada, as opposed to being a king in his native country. Also, perhaps you are never so carefree as when you are studying something somewhere.

  Immense distance — with a continent and an ocean lying between you and your place of grim responsibilities — is also a great transformer.

  I continued to daydream of Princess Roop, but the Eastman-color vividness of her image had faded to monochromatic tones. Rachna, who had always come like a black-and-white movie in my mind, neither faded nor vivified in my transformed imagination.

  She and I spoke on the telephone a couple of times during my second month in Canada. The first month had passed barren, for a variety of reasons. King Sanjay was present on both these occasions—in fact, it was he who had made the calls to talk to Rachna. She had spoken with him for a few minutes and then asked him specifically to ‘please get Neel on the line.’

  The first time this happened, he had handed me the receiver wordlessly, frowning and cracking his knuckles until I hung up. A vein stood out and throbbed in his neck all evening. But all of this put together was a mild breeze as compared to the storm of his rage back in Surajgarh royal palace’s telephone hall, when he had got ready to murder me for telephoning her!

  The second time when I got to talk to her was a Friday afternoon. Fall was intensifying into winter. Days grew very short. People wound their clocks back in an effort to stretch daylight. Nightlife continued to remain as animated as ever, but like all animate beings, it went completely indoors, leaving the streets and sidewalks deserted.

  Sanjay, who was a light drinker normally, left for a bar much earlier than usual that afternoon. Just as he had refused to take me on his hunting expedition the day following our ‘telephone hall’ altercation in Surajgarh, he now forbade me to accompany him to his usual weekend hangout.

  That suited me to a T. I had some extra-special plans for that particular evening, plans involving losing something our culture, society, and tradition dictated I keep safe and intact until my marriage!

  Cameron had fixed everything in advance — the place, the time, the person, the cost! The fact that this first venting of my long-accumulated desire would in reality be a commercial transaction disguised as lovemaking dampened my spirits a bit, but the level of my excitement was still stratospheric.

  Sanjay sensed that, perhaps. He took our plan, smashed it on the ground, and then trampled it to a shapeless pulp. He ordered Cameron, the captain of my Lose Virginity ship, not only to go with him to his bar but also to remain in the king’s motorcar in the parking lot until Sanjay’s return, no matter how late he thought it fit to exit his refuge of the broken- (or bruised-) hearted.

  I don’t know why Sanjay took out his Neel-inspired anger on poor Cameron’s head, whose evening was ruined with this arrangement. I sometimes think the king was more hurt than angry, and that he was more cross with Rachna than with me! He might also have thought that Cameron was pampering me a bit too much and therefore needed to be taught a little lesson.

  My exploratory ship couldn’t sail on its expedition without Cameron. I just didn’t have the courage to go it alone. Our scheme stood postponed.

  And so, on that cold, clear evening in late November, I attempted to fill the pit of my disappointment by deciding to watch James Bond’s Goldfinger at Odeon Carlton. I bought a ticket for the next show and ordered fish and chips at the restaurant located in the theater’s lobby, as much to sate my hunger as to while away the twenty minutes that remained before the start of my show.

  It was while munching the last of my chips that I saw someone I knew, at least by sight, enter the lobby of the theater. It was Peter Kumar Gupta. Like me, he had come to that magical place of visual stories by himself. Seeing him reminded me how he, an innocent man, had had to suffer at the police station on my first morning in Toronto. I remembered, too, how I had asserted him to have been one of the intruders in our penthouse, as though I was some kind of voice analysis expert.

  I paid my bill and hurried to meet Peter with the intent to say hello and beg his pardon for that entire unpleasant incident. He grimaced at seeing me approach him, turned on his heels, and marched away from me, leaving me fuming. A string of the choicest abuses boiled to my lips, but I refrained from hurling them at Peter’s receding back, chiefly because I didn’t want to miss a single moment of my movie, partly because I understood at some level that I might have acted the same way upon seeing him had our respective experiences and roles been reversed the day when we first saw each other.

  The film helped take my mind off the unpleasantness of life. Pussy Galore (why hadn’t I gotten any?) and Jill Masterson (I wished I could liberate her from the smothering layer of paint on her body) took a gentle hold of my spirits and lifted them quite a way from their abysmal, below-ground level. Bond’s action filled me with so much energy my hands and feet tingled with a need to spring, smash, and kick. The nice guy sitting on my right turned his head to look at me pointedly before I realized my elbow was inflicting needless punishment on the armrest between his seat and mine.

  I exited Odeon a happier man than when I had gone in. Tomorrows looked promising again. I wasn’t ready to go back home yet. The air was crisp. I jammed my hands in my pockets and began walking, humming a tune, thinking about a story I had started writing a few days back.

  The song at my lips was the one Rachna had sung when I had last seen her—about the man who doesn’t come home. The story I was developing in my mind revolved around a young woman whose character description would read like a description of Rachna. I suddenly felt glad and relieved that I could not do what I had originally intended to d
o that night… I thought guiltily about the conversation I’d had with her that very morning, a conversation too terse and too brief on my part, what with the king breathing down my neck, cracking his knuckles, fuming silently…

  I had taken several turns without really seeing where I was going. The laces of my left shoe came undone. My right foot stepped upon the loose cords. I stumbled, but recovered my balance just before falling headlong on the pavement with my hands stuck in my pockets. With nothing available to break your fall, you are certain to break your face.

  I had barely stopped teetering when someone bumped into me from behind. My legs milled to keep me upright. I stopped a yard away, still vertical only because the shove hadn’t been a hard one. And whose countenance do you think I beheld when I whipped around?

  Peter’s! A doubly unpleasant double coincidence? It was I who frowned, and he who smiled this time around. It was more of a smirk, really. It got my hackles up, that smug expression. I took a step toward him with an intent to wipe it off his pudgy face.

  And then, just like that, ice sheathed my spine in that familiar, dreaded sensation that I had first experienced when the nightwatchman of my boyhood had staggered into my home all those years ago. My blood froze. I abruptly knew, with absolute certainty, that it was this man, Peter, who had mocked and threatened us from our balcony after fearlessly breaking into our home that night.

  As soon as he saw me reaching this mental conclusion, he affirmed it by smacking his lips and blowing an air kiss my way. I went mad with an uncontrollable fury. I covered the distance between us with a single leap. My hands flew out to take his throat captive. But my arms didn’t attain the requisite height. Something gripped them from behind and jerked them back to my sides again.

  Something metallic connected with my spine, prodding me in the lower back. All the moisture in my mouth evaporated, along with all the courage in my heart. The men holding my arms released them, but the one boring the barrel of his gun into my back dug it as deep as it would go without actually firing a shot and creating a new opening in my rapidly numbing body.