Banquet on the Dead

by Sharath Komarraju

  ‘Understandable, is it not, miyan, in a house so full of people?’

  ‘Yes,’ Swami said, and nodded. ‘Yes, Prameela did see me as I came out of mother’s room. She did not ask me anything, but she had that mildly puzzled look on her face and I knew she wanted to know why I was there.’

  ‘You told her?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I told her mother was being a little troublesome, especially since the bags were going to be emptied that very morning.’

  ‘And what time did the “emptying” occur, sir?’

  Swami looked at the Inspector and shrugged. ‘Around ten o’clock, sir, right after breakfast.’

  Hamid Pasha asked, ‘Who took the lady’s breakfast into the room, miyan?’

  ‘I did, sir. Mother was sick the night before, so she wanted to be served in bed.’

  ‘Was this before your breakfast, miyan, or after?’

  ‘Before. I came out around nine o’clock, I think, and had something to eat with Prameela.’

  ‘Achha. Apologies for interrupting, miyan. Please continue.’

  ‘After breakfast I immediately started shifting the bags of chlorine myself. It required a bit of muscle, you see, they were hefty bags, so I did not want to wait too long after breakfast.’ He smiled faintly. ‘You know, laziness kicks in.’

  ‘Ah, how many kilos of chlorine does the well need, miyan?’

  ‘Around a hundred-and-twenty every six months.’

  ‘My word, that is a lot, is it not?’

  ‘Actually, it is not for a well of that size. We do not keep it as clean as we ought to, if you ask me. If we were to drink that water I think we would need at least two more bags per year.’

  Hamid Pasha said, ‘That may be so. I am not very knowledgeable on the topic of wells.’ After a momentary pause for thought he added: ‘So that will be forty extra kilos, then, for two bags?’

  ‘Oh, we can get them in bags of any size, sir, but generally we have fallen into a habit of ordering forty-kilo bags.’

  Nagarajan lifted his brow and asked, ‘You carry the bags yourself?’

  Swami broke into a smile. Nagarajan noticed he had perfect square-shaped incisors, all of them more or less the same size. Nothing about the man seemed to be irregular. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘After a fashion, I do.’

  ‘What do you mean, after a fashion? And why do you—the owner of the house—need to do any work? Could you not get your servant to do the job for you? Or even one of your grandsons?’

  ‘We only have two servants in the house, sir,’ Swami said stolidly. ‘And the man is older than I am. If I am too weak to carry the bags, surely he is weaker. As for my grandsons, they have chores of their own to attend to, I am sure.’ He stopped, and with a lower inflection continued, ‘And when I said “after a fashion”, I meant I carry the bags over to the well on a trolley, sir. Not on my shoulders.’

  ‘And you did this on the morning in question?’

  Swami’s face turned grim. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘One bag at a time. I think it was around eleven when I had finished emptying the bags in the well. I came back and visited mother again. She had been ailing from something the night before, and it looked like it had become worse. She was quite loud in her complaints, and she claimed to smell chlorine even though the bags had been taken away. I had to spray the room with freshener to convince her that the bags were gone. She would not believe me.’

  ‘Was she usually like this with the chlorine bags?’

  Swami shook his head. ‘No, sir, and that is what baffles me. We have had the bags for a couple of days—I had been putting off the process—and she did not complain at all for the first two days. Only on the third evening did the commotion begin.’

  ‘Didn’t you think that was a bit strange, Swami saab?’

  ‘I did, sir. I most definitely did. All I can say is that the discomfort caused by her illness caused her to notice the chlorine more than she normally would.’

  Hamid Pasha adjusted himself on his chair and coughed. ‘Miyan, a quick question—is there any reason why the chlorine bags were kept in the lady’s room? Was no other room available? Does this house have no storeroom?’

  ‘The only storeroom is behind mother’s bedroom. In fact, that used to be my room, but when she said she wanted a bigger bedroom we switched rooms.’

  ‘Ah, so the smell of chlorine does not bother you, then?’

  ‘No, sir. The room also has some old household items which have their own unique smells. But when the door is locked you hardly notice them. Mother did not either, except on this particular morning. I wonder... ‘

  Nagarajan waited for the man to finish, but on seeing him hesitate, he said, ‘Yes, Swami saab? What do you wonder?’

  ‘Well, sir,’ said Swami, pausing at each syllable in his speech, ‘I do not know if this has any relevance, but it seems to be my mother was in a very foul mood that morning. And I cannot help but wonder if her argument with Prameela the night before had anything to do with it.’

  ‘Your sister and your mother had an argument the night before?’

  Swami said seriously, ‘Did she not tell you about it? It must have slipped her mind. I had half a mind to ask her about it myself, but you know how it is with these things. You may have noticed our family is not the most communicative.’

  ‘Do you happen to know,’ Nagarajan asked, ‘what the argument was about?’

  ‘Prameela has a lot of complaints with our mother. I don’t know what it was that night. I could only hear their voices, not their words. But I know it did not end well. I heard one of them say that it would be great if the other were to die in the well.’ He cocked his head slightly. ‘I cannot tell who said it—they both sound the same—but Mother would not use language like that.’

  ‘And your sister would?’

  Swami grimaced. ‘Of the two of them, I would have thought it likelier that my sister had said those words.’

  Hamid Pasha murmured under his breath, ‘Can you not even guess, miyan, what they might have been talking about?’

  ‘Oh, guesses can be made.... Mother had in the last week fought with almost everyone in the house— Venkataramana, Raja, Lakshman, Praveen—even Kotesh. There were constant references to the “two louts” in most of the conversations.’

  ‘And the two louts were...?’

  Swami smiled. ‘In our house they refer to myself and Raja as the two louts. So I guess we were the topic of at least some of those conversations.’

  ‘And your sister? What of her?’

  ‘Prameela is the kind of woman who dwells in the past,’ Swami said. ‘There has been enough tragedy in her life, bless her, but she sometimes overdoes it.’

  ‘You speak of her husband’s death, of course?’

  Swami said, ‘Not just that. Her husband’s death shook her, but he had been an alcoholic for a long time, so she had come to expect it, I fancy. Also, they were not a very close couple. She grieved for him all right, but her daughter’s death—this happened fifteen years before her husband’s, you understand—now that really broke her. She has never really recovered from that.’

  Hamid Pasha asked, frowning, ‘I do not understand, miyan. Surely the death of her daughter was just an accident? What could your sister have against your mother in relation to that?’

  Swami shook his head resignedly. ‘What to make of women, sir? One moment they fight, and the next they groom each other as if they’re the best of friends. Prameela has her own suspicions—and these come and go like the phases of the moon.’

  ‘Surely she does not think your mother was in some way responsible for her daughter’s death?’

  ‘Oh, she does not stop there. She blames her squarely for her husband’s death too. Imagine, when the whole world knows he had taken to the bottle—what can you say, sir? Women are not easy to understand.’

  ‘But what possible motive can your mother have for killing Prameela’s husband?’

  ‘None, sir. None whatsoever. You should see her i
n one of those moods—stark, raving mad! She is a paranoid, unbalanced woman, Prameela, and you never know how she will react to something you say. We all take great care with what we say to her, you know. Only Karuna has the courage to openly antagonise her—but then that is Karuna.’ His mouth curled down in slight distaste.

  Nagarajan coughed and said, ‘Please go on with your story, Swami saab. You returned from the well and spoke to your mother. What time was that?’

  ‘Must have been eleven when I came out of Mother’s room. That was when Ashok and Nagesh came, so I had to set them their respective tasks. I came back into the house at a quarter-past and went to bed.’

  ‘Quarter past eleven?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I am in the habit of taking a small nap between breakfast and lunch. It was a strenuous morning for me too, so I welcomed the rest.’

  ‘And just before you went to sleep, what were the people in the house doing?’

  ‘Raja, I think, went to a movie that morning. I could not hear Prameela in the house, but I daresay Gauri was around. I seem to remember hearing her step outside my door. And Mother, of course, was still groaning and muttering something or the other next door. After a short while that stopped too.’

  ‘How long were you asleep?’

  Swami frowned. ‘I must have slept for close to two hours. When I woke up, the house was totally silent, and I thought Mother had gone to sleep. I did not feel very hungry, so I sat up in bed and started reading. Ashok had already left by then, but Nagesh was around. He said something about hearing my mother scream...’ His eyes grew big and soulful for a moment, and he blinked rapidly to come back to the present. ‘But I did not pay attention.’

  Nagarajan asked, ‘Had your brother returned from the movie by then?’

  Swami said, ‘Oh, yes. I peeked into his room and the smell of recently smoked cigarettes came to me. I could hear him snore too. I thought I would check on Mother, but it was all so quiet in her room. I did not have the heart to wake her up.’

  ‘So this,’ Nagarajan said, ‘was around two in the afternoon?’

  Swami nodded. ‘Yes, about that. I went back to my room, with the intention of reading for a while and maybe take another nap. I saw Gauri still in the kitchen—she was probably readying lunch.’ He paused, and his hands twitched as they clutched the armrests of his chair. ‘I did not feel very hungry that day. It was as if something had killed my appetite. Now, looking back,’ he looked up at them dolefully, ‘I sometimes feel maybe I had an inkling of what had happened and maybe that had killed my hunger.’

  Nagarajan said, ‘So did you go back to sleep after you went into the room, sir?’

  ‘Yes, after maybe twenty minutes or so of reading. I only woke up when I heard voices outside—those of Praveen, Prameela, Raja... ‘His voice croaked, and he coughed a couple of times to bring it back to normal. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I slept.’

  ‘I know this is very painful to you, sir, but can you please tell us what you saw when you came out of your room?’

  ‘Sir,’ he said in a pathetic voice, ‘I honestly do not remember. I must have gone into shock or something, but for a long, long time all I could see was her face and her body, just lying there—dead!’ His hands rose to his face and covered his eyes. ‘Dead!’ His voice quivered, and he broke off, sobbing.

  Nagarajan waited patiently for the man to recover. He refused to be swayed by Swami’s show of emotion, though he admitted to himself that this was more in line with expected behaviour than what he had seen in Prameelamma. Even so, he had seen many such ‘sincere’ shows of grief in his line of work to be affected by it either way. So he simply waited.

  Eventually, the man calmed down. Rubbing his eyes with the flats of his palms, he said, ‘I remember Raja crawled to her bed and said something to her. She did not reply. Praveen was sitting there too, and he was sobbing... I think—I think Prameela was there too, somewhere.’ He swallowed, hard, and restored himself to equanimity. ‘And then Karuna came,’ he said.

  ‘Was she expected?’ asked Nagarajan.

  ‘No, sir,’ Swami answered, and hesitated. ‘Karuna— Karuna does not like coming to our house very much.’ He looked up and smiled. ‘To be more specific, she does not like me very much.’

  ‘And the reason, sir?’

  ‘Most of it is just instinctive hostility, I guess. You like some people and you dislike others. Sometimes there is no one big enough reason. There are a lot of small ones.’

  Nagarajan nodded. ‘And is this feeling of—hostility— mutual?’

  ‘More or less,’ said Swami. ‘But since I am the older person I take pains to not let it show as much as she does.’

  ‘But surely, sir,’ Nagarajan insisted, ‘you could tell us one reason, perhaps, that induces such antagonism?’

  Swami thought for a second. ‘Yes, I suppose I should. Let me give you an example. When Karuna walked in that day and looked at Mother’s body in the room, she sighed as if to say, “Finally!” and admonished all of us for crying. She said Mother had lived a long enough life and now that she was gone, all of us should get on with ours without her watching us every single minute.’

  Hamid Pasha said, ‘There is wisdom in that, miyan.’

  ‘I agree,’ Swami said. ‘But it is the way she says it, sir. She spits out the words at you as if you were some sort of cur. All of us—and I insist, all of us—were shocked with what she said. She has always been that sort of girl: mean, heartless, and insensitive. Everyone in the family keeps away from her, sir.’

  ‘And what about your mother? Did she have any love for your niece?’

  Swami shook his head. ‘None whatsoever, sir. She used to always ask Kotesh where Karuna got all that anger from. Karuna also has a weakness—as we all do, I guess—for money. She is a hoarder, and we tend to be a bit more liberal with our money, as you can see.’ He gestured at the room and its furniture. ‘That has often come between us too.’

  Hamid Pasha stroked his beard thoughtfully and said, ‘So, miyan, it looks like memsaab is not liked by anyone in the house. So why, then, does she visit you every now and then?’

  ‘She doesn’t,’ replied Swami. ‘She only comes twice a year at most. And when she does we all grit our teeth and wait for her to go away.’

  ‘Yes, yes, but why does she come even once or twice a year, miyan? If she does not like you and you do not like her, why does she not keep away from you for good?’

  Swami sighed. ‘Once again you ask me about a woman’s mind, of which I must admit I have no knowledge whatsoever. All I can think of is Karuna and Prameela have a decent relationship with one another. My sister does not seem to fight or argue with Karuna as much as the rest of us do. Maybe she comes here to visit her mother? Mind you, that sounds very unlike Karuna. It is hard to imagine she would think of anyone else but herself.’

  ‘Is there any,’ and Hamid Pasha paused slightly, ‘financial interest here for her, perhaps?’

  ‘Unlikely, but definitely possible. It depends on how Mother had decided to pass on her property and if she had given Prameela a share, but I suspect she must have, given that she is a widow. And if Prameela gets a share, maybe a portion of that will go to Karuna?’ Swami ran a hand through his hair, frowning. ‘I honestly am not sure. Even if she does get something out of it, I suspect it will not be very substantial.’

  ‘Because it is a portion of a portion,’ Hamid Pasha said.

  ‘Exactly. And that is assuming Kotesh and Krishna will not have any objection to giving Karuna a share.’

  ‘Acha. Then there must be some other reason why the lady keeps ties with this family unbroken. Tell me, miyan, would you say your niece was capable of killing your mother?’

  Swami received the question with no visible sign of surprise. Nagarajan guessed the thought had already occurred to him. He said slowly, ‘Everyone is capable of killing, sir. But I understand what you are asking me. And the answer is... yes, Karuna is certainly capable of killing someone in cold blood.’
<
br />   ‘But you hesitate, miyan. Why?’

  ‘I am a bit uneasy levelling accusations without any evidence, sir, that is all. Also, Karuna arrived at the house a good three or four hours after the body was taken out.’

  ‘Then if not Karuna, who do you think stands a good chance of being the killer of your mother?’

  Swami shifted uneasily in his seat. ‘Have we first ascertained that it was not an accident? What is it that makes you so sure that it was a murder?’

  ‘Perhaps it is as you say—perhaps her falling into the well was brought about by accident, but do you not think, miyan, that we need to find an explanation for why she ventured out to the well?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Swami admitted. ‘I cannot pick one, sir, but my sister gives me cause for suspicion.’

  ‘Your sister, sir?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, that quarrel she had with Mother the previous night; it seemed, somehow, more heated than their usual arguments.’

  ‘So impassioned that she might have considered killing her mother?’

  Swami raised his hands and let them drop. ‘Ah, I don’t know! Prameela is a kind soul—she does not have it in her to hurt a fly, I sometimes think. But sir, in moments of over-excitement...’

  Nagarajan said softly, ‘But this is not a crime of passion, Swami saab. If this is a murder, then it is a planned murder. What ruse could your sister have used to lure your mother to the well?’

  ‘I cannot think of anything,’ said Swami, shaking his head. ‘But she could have easily asked her to come to the well to talk over whatever they were discussing the previous night. At the well there would be no one to overhear them.’ His voice trailed off as he gave in to his thoughts for a while. Then he said, ‘I do not know, sir. It is not nice suspecting your sister of killing your mother, but—but who else could it have been?’

  Hamid Pasha, smiling, leant forward and tapped himself on the chest with his palm. The smile froze on his face as he said, ‘I, sir, will find that out. I promise you.’

  And Nagarajan thought he saw a flash of fear in Swami’s eyes at that moment.