Maya laughed, but Veda looked grim. ‘Please stop making a scene,’ she said with a curl of her lips. ‘We don’t know who’s watching.’
Lola flushed and Maya intervened. ‘What does the epilogue of our clue say? Do either of you want to visit the museum? Or should we just head to St Paul’s?’
Veda started walking down the steps towards the gate. Lola shrugged and trailed behind the truculent figure in peach chiffon. Maya paused for a moment to stuff her money back into her wallet and hurried out of the zoo gate and towards a waiting taxi.
As the taxi pulled away from the curb, Maya spotted a familiar figure. Standing in the middle of shrieking children, exhausted mothers and gleeful popcorn vendors was somebody who looked exactly like Father D’Gama. She twisted around for a better look. But the priest—if it was the priest—was hidden behind a clump of Tweety Bird balloons.
‘Was that Father D’Gama near the gate of the zoo?’ she yelped so loudly that the taxi-driver slammed on the brakes and turned back with dinner-plate eyes, while other cars and buses honked.
‘Are you trying to cause an accident?’ Veda snarled. ‘Father D’Gama! What would he be doing here? Is your mind playing tricks on you? Sometimes I think Aadil is right, and you imagine things.’
Maya would dearly have liked to strangle Veda with her own flowing chiffon dupatta, sequins, tassels and all. Instead, she apologised to the taxi driver, took a deep, yoga-style breath and asked, ‘Did anybody know that we were going to be here? Did either of you say anything to anyone?’
‘No,’ Lola said.
‘Of course, not,’ Veda replied in an offended tone, staring out of the window at the minarets and domes as the taxi zoomed along the Mohammed Ali Road Flyover.
‘Then how could Father D’Gama know we were here?’
‘You’re not even sure it was Father D’Gama.’
For the next five minutes, nobody said a word. It was only as the taxi descended the flyover near Crawford Market that Lola asked, ‘Maya, what exactly does the epilogue say?’
Maya pulled out her pad, already dog-eared and dirty, and read the last verse of the poem:
Sometimes I am made of stone
Sometimes I am made of bone
Find me in the book
Then in familiar rooms take a look
‘The book,’ Veda exclaimed, forgetting her sulk. ‘It makes sense that the answer should be in the book.’
‘What book?’ Lola asked.
‘Does she know about it?’ Veda asked.
‘Father Lorenzo’s diary. I think I told you about it,’ Maya said and turned to Veda. ‘Is there anything there about an elephant? Do you have the book with you?’
‘It’s somewhere safe,’ Veda replied, looking pointedly at Lola. ‘I’ll look it up and let you know.’
The taxi pulled up outside St Paul’s College and Maya paid. ‘Fighting Shadows is a pretty expensive business,’ she thought, looking at her depleted wallet. ‘I hope this ends soon.’
Veda got out of the taxi and stomped off. Lola stared at the retreating figure and pulled a comical face. ‘She really doesn’t like me. I think she feels like left out. Where has she hidden this famous diary? Oh, look at this. What fun! We are totally going to go. Your shoe crisis has just become an emergency.’
A bright blue poster had appeared at the college entrance, next to the chowkidar’s chair.
Let’s Rock Around the Clock
Calling all Summer School students to step into their time machines and come to our ‘50s party on May 6.
Be there or be square!!!
Dress code: Vintage
‘Umbrella skirts. Polka dots. Jiving,’ Lola crowed. ‘We’ll have to start shopping really soon. Like today. Let’s get some coffee and plan.’
‘I’m not sure I’ll come,’ Maya stuttered, as they entered the canteen full of carefree souls, happily unaware about the killers lurking in their midst. ‘I don’t like parties, and I hardly know anyone.’
‘So let’s get to know them,’ Lola said. ‘Don’t make silly excuses. You Are Coming. Now Let’s Get To Know People.’
Lola wandered up to a crowded table that had been colonised by Mandira, Sharanya and gang. She pulled up a chair, and a couple of girls shifted to make room for her. Maya hovered for a few seconds, then pulled up a chair. Nobody bothered to make space for her, and she perched at the periphery of the group, feeling awkward.
Mandira smiled at Lola, and Fatima leaned across the table and waved a tube of Polos at her, but the remaining girls just sipped their coffee and checked their mobiles. Maya squirmed.
‘Are you all coming for the party?’ Lola asked, trying to dispel the stiff silence.
‘Not if that Minty is there,’ Aditi blurted out. ‘That bunch. They are snakes. Demons.’
‘Why?’ Maya gasped, and the entire table swivelled to look at her. She was usually tongue-tied amongst this flamboyant group, with their cool clothes, messy hair and loud, public crushes.
‘We officially hate Minty,’ Fatima announced.
‘Denzil asked Sharanya out … for Jungle Book,’ Aditi explained. ‘They were to go today. Then that Minty-cow came along this morning and almost pounced on Denzil. She started unbuttoning his shirt and twirling his hair. I tell you, she hypnotised the poor fool.’
‘You’re exaggerating,’ Sharanya protested. ‘She was just playing with his top button.’
‘Whatever,’ Aditi shrugged. ‘Anyway, he invited her along to the movie as well … I mean, can you believe that … and now he’s acting like nothing was really fixed between him and Sharanya. Loser.’
Sharanya dipped her head miserably, and Maya looked at her with astonished sympathy. It had never occurred to her that a girl with golden highlights in her hair and a wardrobe full of Zara skirts could be dumped – that too by Denzil, one of the three interchangeable guys who sat at the back of the class, surgically attached to their earphones.
‘Which one is Denzil?’ Lola asked. ‘He’s one of the second year students, right? The tall one?’
‘The clever one,’ Mandira said. ‘He’s Politics-History. Editor of the pol department magazine. He’s also Father Furtado’s grand-nephew or something.’
‘Not to forget Father D’Gama’s something or the other,’ Fatima supplied. ‘Isn’t Father Furtado related to Father D’Gama? His uncle or something?’
‘Whatever,’ Sharanya said in a doleful voice. ‘Makes no difference to me now.’
Maya’s head whirled. Denzil was related to Father Furtado! Father Furtado was related to Father D’Gama! How come nobody had said a word about this?
Now Minty the Model was making a play for the well-connected Denzil. What could all of this possibly mean? And what did it mean for Sanath?
Maya tried to send Lola an SOS with her mind and eyebrows. But Lola was giving Sharanya an impetuous hug and going over the sad details.
So when Veda sent a curt WhatsApp summoning Maya to Professor Kekobad’s office, it was easy to slip away. She walked to the little room by the chapel, tapped on the swing door and entered the musty, cluttered space. Professor Kekobad was poring over a bulky file, his nose just two inches away from the typewritten sheets.
‘Brass Ganesha with 18 arms, sitting cross-legged on a lotus. The trunk turned towards the right instead of being towards the more usual left,’ he read. ‘Yes. It seems to be the same statue that Father Lorenzo mentions. It is in Room 101, in Display Case 3.’
Maya waited till the professor was done, and then turned to Veda. ‘Anything?’ she asked. ‘I guess you haven’t had a chance to check the diary yet …’
‘I’ve checked,’ Veda replied, looking victorious. ‘I could only find two entries about elephants. One about an antique Ganpati in the collection of the Historical Research Institute. Another about an elephant skeleton that belongs to the Zoology department. If we’ve got it right, the keys must be hidden either in the antique Ganpati or with the skeleton.’
Professor Kekobad peered
at the girls through his thick glasses. ‘Let’s hope that this is the end of our quest,’ he wheezed. ‘Let’s hope we can return to life as normal. To our real work.’
‘Yes. I still have to write that 2000-word essay for Father D’Gama,’ Veda said. ‘And to read that book by Professor Karl Brun. It’s quite amazing to think that he actually taught at St Paul’s for 10 years.’
‘Yes. I still need to buy unmortifying shoes,’ Maya thought, peeking at the beige bellies.
The professor tapped his pen, caught his breath and continued in an urgent tone, ‘The Historical Research Institute is locked, and students are only allowed in on one day of the week. The antiquities stored there are priceless, so I’m afraid I will have to go and examine the Ganesha by myself.’
‘We will do it like this. I will organise the key and go to the Historical Research Institute this afternoon. At the same time, both of you can go up to Zoology and see what you can find.’
‘We can go now,’ Maya said.
Both Professor Kekobad and Veda shook their heads. ‘Too many people around,’ Veda pointed out.
‘Nobody should guess,’ the professor warned. ‘Don’t mention a word to anyone. Your safety lies in absolute secrecy. The closer you get to the keys the greater the danger.’
Maya didn’t argue. She could wait a few more hours to get her life back. At any rate, she had no option. When it came to bossiness, she was no match for the two other people in the room.
CHAPTER 28
Maya sat through her lectures in a daze.
Radhika Rathod screened an old documentary film that flickered, froze and fragmented. Father D’Gama spoke about how different parts of the city had gotten their names. Pydhonie, because once there was a small creek in which travellers could wash their feet. Bhendi Bazaar was not named after the vegetable – but was supposedly a corruption of ‘behind the bazaar’. While Chinchpokli came from the vast groves of chinch—or tamarind trees—that once thrived in that now drab, cemented area.
Aadil read out his essay about the city and its changing image in Bollywood films. ‘Not bad for a turncoat and a traitor and a wearer of batik bandanas,’ Maya admitted to herself. Though she would never admit it to Veda.
Finally, though, the bell rang, chairs scraped, and the college started emptying out. ‘See you outside the Zoology lab in 10 minutes. Best we go separately,’ Veda whispered and rushed to find Aadil and critique his essay.
Maya packed her bag, checked her phone and headed out of the classroom, rattling with anticipation and terror. She hated the idea of climbing those deserted, gloomy stairs with their shuttered windows and menacing corners. Couldn’t Veda have waited for her?
She jumped when a voice said, ‘There you are.’
With a racing heart, she looked up and tried to smile at Sanath, who was leaning against the wall with folded arms. ‘Sorry. Did I scare you? I missed class and was wondering if I could borrow your notes.’
‘Oh,’ Maya replied, both flattered and disappointed. Nerdiness had its advantages.
‘And,’ Sanath hesitated, ‘I was wondering if you’d like to go for that movie now. I know 9 a.m. on a Monday is not your thing. So maybe 3 p.m. on a Thursday?’
Maya blushed and stuttered, ‘I’d love to go for a movie, but I promised somebody else that I would do something else. Any other day is fine … just today … ummm. But let me find those notes for you.’
She pulled out her pad and flipped to her notes. Sanath photographed them and handed the pad back with a nod. ‘Thanks,’ he said, but the remote look was back in his eyes.
‘I can come for a movie on any other day,’ Maya said again, as Sanath strode away, hoping she didn’t sound pathetic.
‘And why can’t you go today?’ a voice at her elbow hissed.
Maya jumped for the second time in five minutes, and saw Lola. ‘I didn’t know you were still here,’ she said.
‘Why can’t you go for a movie with Sanath today?’ Lola asked again. ‘I mean … this is like a moment from a movie. The boy of your dreams asks you out and, instead of slapping on the lipstick and toodling off, you go and hang out with Vile Veda. What’s wrong with you? What are you doing that is soooo important? Seriously?’
‘I have… I’ve got some …’ Maya stuttered. Nobody was supposed to know about the elephant bones. But Lola had every right to know – she had helped solve the clues. It just wasn’t fair to act like she was a suspicious outsider.
‘Veda checked the diary,’ Maya blurted out. ‘Apparently there’s some elephant skeleton in the Zoology department. Maybe the keys are hidden there. I’m going up just now to try and find them. Sorry I didn’t tell you but Veda and the professor insisted on complete secrecy.’
‘It’s fine, whatever,’ Lola shrugged. But her slumped shoulders told another story. ‘I’ve got to go home anyway. See you tomorrow.’
Maya wanted to cry. First Sanath. Then Lola. And now she had to climb that spooky staircase to the gallery of death with its coiled snakes suspended in fluids and skeletons leering from the walls. She began the long walk down the deserted corridor and up the echoing staircase.
Veda was waiting outside the Zoology department, and the two girls entered the shadowy, shuttered gallery together. The occasional shaft of afternoon sunlight served as a macabre spotlight – picking out the elongated skull of a platypus, the vertebrae of a camel.
‘I hate this place,’ Maya moaned, just as Veda said, ‘I really wish Father Furtado was here.’
Maya shivered. ‘Father Furtado reminds me,’ she said, ‘you didn’t tell me that he was Father D’Gama’s uncle.’
Veda looked nonplussed. ‘So? I didn’t tell you that Radhika Rathod is married to Dinesh Rathod who teaches Statistics. What difference? Anyway, can we do what we came to do? What we are looking for is a trunk made of wood, about four feet wide and two feet high. Can you see anything like that? I can’t.’
Maya looked around. One wall was lined with Godrej cupboards, another with glass display cases. The remaining two walls were lined with wooden cabinets fitted with shallow drawers. Each drawer was neatly labelled with a string of Latin words. Maya pulled open a drawer and found an assortment of conical shells.
At the far end of the gallery were two doors. One opened into the bright, airy room that served as Father Furtado’s office. Another was locked, but the key hung on a nail next to the door. Veda pulled the heavy metal key off the hook, unlocked the door and emitted an explosive sneeze. ‘Dusty,’ she said, fumbling around the dark space for a switch. ‘My allergies.’
Her fingers found the fat, old-fashioned electric switch and an uncertain, flickering bulb lit the neglected storeroom. It was piled with boxes and the maybe-we’ll-need-it-sometime debris of decades. The room was the size and shape of a BEST bus. Unlike the average bus, however, it didn’t have a single window but was lined with shelves stuffed with unidentifiable objects. The thought of entering this space made Maya sick with dismay. ‘We can’t go there,’ she whimpered. ‘There’s nothing there that looks like a trunk. There must be rats.
Veda held Maya’s arm in a firm, sweaty grip and pulled her into the room. ‘We are in the Zoology department of a college in the heart of Mumbai. Not in some murderer’s basement. And anyway, haven’t you heard what Buddha said. Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.’
The desire to slap Veda’s smug mug was so overwhelming, that for a moment Maya forgot her fear. It took incredible willpower to keep her hand from going khatak. ‘I am afraid of death, if you don’t mind,’ she spluttered. ‘And so are you. And there’s got to be something wrong with a person who throws around quotable quotes at a time like this.’
Veda didn’t reply. Instead, she turned on the torch on her phone and shone it into the nether reaches of the room. More jars. More bones. And, in the midst of this clutter, a large wooden chest smothered by the dust of ages and bulging plastic bags.
‘Is it …?’ Maya whispered as Veda inched forward and
started dumping plastic bags from the chest onto the floor, releasing a dust storm and a medical encyclopedia of allergies.
‘Shhh, don’t yell,’ Veda said, arranging swathes of peach chiffon before she crouched and examined the solid chest. There was a brass key—incongruously small for such a huge chest— and she tried to turn it. Gently at first and then with more force. ‘It’s not budging,’ she said, frustrated.
‘Maybe the chest’s not locked,’ Maya said. ‘I mean, who would lock a chest full of elephant bones?’
She gripped the top of the chest and gave it a frantic tug. The lid rose so easily that Maya was thrown off balance and trod heavily on Veda’s finger. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ she said, managing to prop the lid of the chest against the wall.
Hearts pounding, both girls leaned over the chest to examine the contents, and reared back. The beam of Veda’s torch revealed a grisly collection of ribs and vertebrae and other twisty, yellowish-grey bits – a gruesome flashback to the horns sprouting from Amara’s head.
‘Let’s hurry,’ Maya half-sobbed, swamped by inexplicable terror. ‘How are we ever going to do this? How many bones are there in one elephant? It will take us hours and hours to check each bone.’
Veda ignored the tidal wave of panic. Instead, she reached across and lifted out a thick roll of yellowing paper that sat on top of the hillock of bones. On the paper, in faded, browning ink, was the drawing of an elephant skeleton. A meticulous inventory of the bones in the chest, neatly numbered and labelled in a clear hand. Veda was about to roll the paper once more when the torch in Maya’s hand wavered.
‘What’s that?’ she asked, focusing on a little postscript at the bottom of the sheet.
It was written in the sloping, cramped hand that popped up at every turn. ‘Is that Father Lorenzo’s writing? Can you read what it says?’
Veda strained to understand the words, shifted the torch and started reading. ‘If you have … something, something ... key needs a something’
What Maya Saw Page 18
