Vanished

by Sheela Chari

  Saturday evening, Pavi’s family came over for dinner. Neela opened the front door to find her best friend in corduroys and an apple-green sweater, wearing a small, glittery sticker on her forehead.

  “What’s with the bindi?” she asked.

  “My mom’s been on my case about it,” Pavi said. Behind her, her brother, Bharat, ran upstairs to play with Sree, while the parents sat down in the living room.

  “My mom gets on my case, too,” Neela said, “but that doesn’t mean I’ll wear one.”

  Both their mothers wore bindis, the traditional dots that adorned women’s foreheads in India.

  “Yeah, but I changed my mind. They’re kind of cool. Gwen Stefani wears one.”

  Neela considered Pavi’s bindi. It was a pretty light green, bordered with glitter, and Pavi wore it low, just above her eyebrows, as was the fashion these days.

  Still, Neela didn’t like to wear one in public. Once in first grade she wore a bindi to school, and Amanda and Michelle Manser had run around screaming, Neela has chicken pox cooties! The worst part was that until then, she and Amanda had been friends. In fact, Amanda, Penny, and she used to sit next to each other at snack time, play on the swings together, and share their crayons at the drawing table. But then the chicken pox cooties thing happened. After that, Neela never wore a bindi to school again. She figured that just a small dot on your forehead made you eligible for embarrassment. And she wasn’t sure, but somewhere around that time, even though Penny would still do things with both of them, Neela and Amanda stopped being friends. It was gradual, one of those things she didn’t notice, like the sun setting, until it was gone.

  But Neela didn’t mention any of this now to Pavi. “It is pretty,” she said instead, trying to be agreeable. “I guess it isn’t a big deal.”

  Pavi’s eyes flashed. “Not a big deal?”

  Neela sighed. Pavi could be so touchy. “I just meant, it’s cool, that’s all.”

  “People treat you different when you wear a bindi.”

  “Then why do you wear it?”

  Pavi grinned and answered in typical Pavi style, “Maybe I want to be different.”

  After dinner, the conversation turned to the missing veena and what to do next.

  “Well, there’s the insurance,” Mr. Sunder said. “You would get some money back.”

  “Are you going to buy another veena for Neela?” Mrs. Sunder asked.

  Neela’s mother shrugged. “She was doing fine on Sudha Auntie’s student veena. Maybe she can go back to playing on that.”

  “Sudha Auntie’s veena?” Neela repeated. Her heart dropped. She had not considered this yet. Her teacher’s squeaky, oversized veena suddenly seemed like a punishment after being spoiled for half a year on Lalitha Patti’s gorgeous-sounding one.

  “Sure,” Mrs. Krishnan said. “It was good enough before.”

  Neela felt herself on the verge of tears. “But it’s so…squeaky,” she faltered.

  “You can play out of tune on it just like you did with Patti’s veena,” Mr. Krishnan joked. “Maybe we won’t even be able to tell the difference.”

  Neela stood up and glared at her father. “I don’t play out of tune.”

  “What? I was kidding. Besides, you’re not playing any instrument right now.”

  “Fine. Maybe I should play on Sudha Auntie’s veena for the rest of my life.”

  She ran up to her bedroom. Upstairs, she nearly tripped on Sree and Bharat, who were playing in the hall.

  “Neela, you want to push the red engine?” Sree asked, when he saw her.

  But Neela was in no mood. “Find somewhere else to play with your stupid trains,” she said angrily, stomping past them.

  “She’s mad because she’s a loser,” Sree said to Bharat.

  “I’m not a loser!” she yelled behind her. She knew it was Sree’s four-year-old way of explaining what had happened. Still, she didn’t want to be called a loser—even if it was true.

  Neela closed her door and lay down on her bed. She wasn’t sure what she was angrier about—the idea of going back to Sudha Auntie’s veena, or her father saying she played out of tune in front of Pavi and her family. As long as Neela could remember, Pavi was better at everything than Neela was—a better swimmer, a better student, a better veena player. Pavi would never lose her veena in a church. The worst part was that the veena wasn’t even something Pavi really wanted to play in the first place. It was her parents’ idea, which they got from seeing Neela, and Pavi had simply gone along with it. Pavi’s parents had bought a veena over the Web for cheap. It wasn’t a great veena, but it was adequate. Then, on this adequate veena, Pavi breezed through the early exercises with little effort. Of course she never had a problem with playing in front of people. Picture everyone in their underwear, she would say.

  And now Pavi would have all her exercises memorized, and Sudha Auntie would lavish her with praise. At the same lesson, Sudha Auntie would yell at Neela for losing her veena.

  The door opened. “It’s not as bad as you think.” Pavi flopped onto the bed next to her.

  “Easy for you to say,” Neela mumbled.

  “You just need Sree to screw up big so your parents can forget about you. Maybe he can set the rug on fire? Or leave the water running in the tub?”

  Neela smiled in spite of herself. So many times she wished Pavi lived in Arlington and went to school with her. She had known her for more than six years, from the time they met at a swimming class, and Pavi was the only one who could really make her laugh. She could do impressions of just about anyone, including her whole family, the swimming instructor, and even the priest who presided at the temple their families both visited. This was all, of course, before last summer, when they stopped taking swimming lessons together, after Pavi suddenly became really good.

  Neela turned over. “You want to hear the weird stuff that happened at the church?”

  Pavi looked interested. She nodded.

  Neela described Mary’s embroidery of the dragon, and the way she hid it away, and how her shoes squeaked just like the sound outside the door the day the veena was taken. When Neela got to the part about the kitchen and the metal dragon head falling on the ground, Pavi shivered with a mixture of horror and delight. “Did you get busted?” she asked.

  Neela shook her head. “That’s the weird part.” She explained how Lynne appeared in the kitchen and fixed the dragon. “So it’s like having three suspects.”

  “Three?” Pavi asked.

  “Hal is number one. Mary with the shoes is number two. And Lynne.”

  Pavi looked doubtful. “There’s nothing that links Lynne to the veena.”

  “But isn’t it strange she showed up in the kitchen at the same time as me?”

  “She had a photography class.”

  “Or she was following me.”

  “But what does your veena have to do with that coffeepot?”

  “Teakettle.”

  “Whatever.”

  Pavi’s point was valid. Neela didn’t know the connection either.

  She debated. There was still one other thing she hadn’t yet told her friend about. But she knew Pavi would say she had lost her mind. A mysterious curse? A veena disappearing because of a spooky past? And if Hal or Mary or Lynne were involved, it seemed impossible they could have anything to do with Lalitha Patti’s secret story all the way back in India. Neela decided to keep quiet. Meanwhile, she needed to talk to Lalitha Patti again.

  From downstairs, Pavi’s parents called for her and Bharat to get ready to go home.

  Pavi jumped up. “See you at Sudha Auntie’s.” She and Neela got to see each other every week at their veena lesson.

  “Aren’t you going on Sunday?” Neela asked. Her family was going to a veena concert that afternoon near Harvard.

  “Oh, yeah, right. See you there.”

  Downstairs, Pavi said to Neela’s parents, “So, back to the student veena?”

  Neela gave Pavi a Don’t look. She didn’t want
to bring up the subject again so soon.

  “Well, yes, but we came up with another idea, too,” Mr. Krishnan said.

  Neela sighed. “Oh?”

  “We decided to go to India in December instead of June,” Mrs. Krishnan said.

  “That’s when we’re going,” Pavi said excitedly. “We can get our tickets together.”

  Mrs. Krishnan nodded. “We can travel at the same time. In fact, Neela’s cousin is getting married around then, too. Maybe we can make it to the wedding.”

  “What does all of this have to do with the student veena?” Neela asked.

  “We haven’t decided for sure, but maybe while we’re in India, we can think about buying you a veena.”

  Neela stared at her parents. “But what about Lalitha Patti’s veena?”

  “We’re not happy about it being lost,” her mother said. “But we’ll claim the lost veena with our insurance and use the money to buy another one. That’s the best we can do.”

  “But…but we can’t give up looking for the other veena.” Neela tried to keep the despair out of her voice, conscious of Pavi’s parents watching. “What if we looked just a little more? Like putting an ad in the paper and—”

  “We could do all of that,” Neela’s mother said, “but the point is, that veena is gone. And we have to face the fact that we won’t get it back.”

  Neela stared at her mother’s face, which had that I’ve-made-up-my-mind look on it. She remembered her words from the other night, how it was better if they didn’t find the veena. All because of a curse. A curse no one would tell Neela about.

  “Think,” Neela’s father said. “A new veena.” He forced a smile, as if trying to convince her what a great idea it was, but Neela could hear the sadness in his voice, too.

  A year ago, Neela would have been ecstatic at the prospect of getting a veena of her own. But that was then. And now…

  Pavi, who didn’t notice the change in Neela’s expression, was hopping around with excitement. “Neela, hey, what about the trip? We’ll have so much fun!”

  Behind her, Sree and Bharat were cheering, and even the adults had to smile. Neela tried to show the same excitement as everyone, but inside, she felt a wave of despair. Was she the only one dismayed by this latest development? Because a new veena did mean she could graduate from Sudha Auntie’s student veena. But it also meant her grandmother’s veena was gone…for good.

  Sunday afternoon, Sree’s wailing could be heard all over the house and even in the driveway, where Neela was looking for a lost headband in the backseat of the minivan. She didn’t find it, but she did find an unopened bag of potato chips that had fallen down in the back. She leaned against the side of the car, eating them.

  Her mom’s voice came through a half-open window. “Sree, I’ll be gentle.”

  “You’ll cut my brain.”

  “I won’t. Here, have a lollipop.”

  “I don’t want a lollipop,” he cried.

  “Take it,” Mrs. Krishnan said angrily.

  Neela sighed. Aside from the fact that it was embarrassing to hear her family yelling through the window, she didn’t get why her mom didn’t take Sree’s butt to the barber and have him yell and scream there instead.

  She ate the last of the crumbs off her fingers, thinking about the afternoon concert. Alfred Tannenbaum, an American, was performing on the veena. Sudha Auntie was friends with him, and she had mentioned he was a professor at Tufts. When Neela asked if he taught veena, Sudha Auntie answered in her usual snide tone: Well, he doesn’t teach yodeling! Neela’s parents, whose friends had raved to them about Tannenbaum’s live performances, had been looking forward to the concert all week. For once, her dad took the time to match his socks, and her mother wore a fancy sari, as she did when they went to the temple.

  It always surprised Neela that the two of them cared so much about music, when neither of them could carry a tune. “Why didn’t you ever learn the veena?” she asked her dad once. “I mean, Lalitha Patti is so good, why didn’t she teach you?”

  “What makes you think she didn’t try?” he asked. “We had so many lessons, and most of the time she screamed at me, until she finally gave up. Because I’d rather play outside with my friends. I guess all the music genes in our family skipped me. So I had to settle for these denim ones instead,” he said, pointing down at his pants. He made jokes, but Neela knew that when he thought no one was listening, he sang to himself.

  Mr. Krishnan poked his head out of a living room window. “What are you doing?”

  Neela crumpled the bag of potato chips in her hand. “Getting ready,” she said.

  He stared at her for a moment. “I see. You’re getting ready for a concert by standing in the driveway next to the minivan.”

  “Fine,” she said. She came back in, stuffing the empty chip bag into her pocket.

  Inside, Sree was lying on the floor of the bathroom, tears streaked across his face, unopened lollipops strewn everywhere. Mrs. Krishnan stood over him, shimmering in a Mysore silk sari bordered by gold thread, with a pair of scissors in her hand. She looked at Mr. Krishnan and Neela. “I’m getting nowhere. His hair looks like an overgrown forest.”

  Next to her feet, Sree continued to whimper.

  “You’re cutting his hair,” Mr. Krishnan asked, “in your sari?” He looked at her as if she were insane.

  “I wasn’t planning to. Then I saw his hair, and I couldn’t stand it anymore.”

  Mr. Krishnan sighed. “Why didn’t you do it yesterday?”

  “Saturday,” she said.

  Neela rolled her eyes. It was her mother’s belief, from the time she was a child, that it was bad luck to cut hair on a Saturday. Sometimes Neela wondered how anyone got anything done with her mother around.

  Mrs. Krishnan looked at her watch. “I guess we should get going. I don’t suppose we’ll be on time.”

  Mr. Krishnan said, “Are you kidding?”

  Miraculously, Neela’s family pulled into the last parking spot on Amherst Street. The miracle continued as a delay in setting up the sound equipment gave them time to find seats inside. Neela sat down next to her dad and surveyed the audience. She spotted Pavi and her family, sitting near the front. They were always early, well-dressed, and groomed. Neela pushed back her flyaway hair and brushed away a few potato chip crumbs that were still on her shirt. At least no one could see what she looked like in the dark.

  When the musicians came onto the stage, their instruments were already there waiting for them, so they just had to tune. Professor Tannenbaum wore an orange-colored kurta and khaki pants, and had a wave of gray hair poofing out around his face. Neela thought he looked exactly like an owl. An old, poofy-haired owl.

  The concert began. Professor Tannenbaum started with an invocation. Neela knew what it was because her parents had explained it to her before. It was how all South Indian concerts started, with a musical prayer to the Lord Ganesha, the remover of obstacles. For good luck, her mother had explained. Neela knew all about luck in performances, though she personally never seemed to have any.

  “When is it over?” Sree whined. “I’m bored.”

  “Sshh,” their mother said. “It just started.”

  Sree squirmed in his seat. “Next time you can cut my brain out,” he said.

  “Dork,” Neela said.

  Following the invocation, Professor Tannenbaum started with the first song from the Pancha Ratnas or “Five Gems,” as they were known. Lalitha Patti played it during every visit, and hearing it now made Neela’s stomach knot up, remembering all over again how she had lost her grandmother’s veena. To make herself feel better, she tried to picture herself all grown up and on the stage, playing the song instead, with accompanists and an audience and flowers in her hair, wearing a gold-colored sari or a flowing kurta shirt or whatever musicians would be wearing by the time she was grown up. And, of course, without being terrified to death. The image of her in the future helped, but only partly, because when she closed her eyes,
she still saw herself playing on her grandmother’s old veena.

  During the break, Sudha Auntie materialized out of nowhere. For someone well over seventy, Neela’s teacher moved with an uncanny quietness and speed. Neela first heard her voice, then felt a claw hand on her shoulder, and when Neela turned around, her teacher was standing before her. How did she do that? It was almost creepy.

  Before Neela could say anything, Sudha Auntie said to Mr. and Mrs. Krishnan, “You don’t mind, but I’m borrowing Neela for a moment.” Then, with surprising deftness, Sudha Auntie extracted Neela from her seat and brought her down the aisle. She had Pavi already in tow on the other side of her. “Girls, you must meet him,” Sudha Auntie declared.

  Neela and Pavi exchanged looks. “Alfred, Alfred!” their teacher called to the man onstage. Professor Tannenbaum was already swarmed by a bunch of people from the audience, but this didn’t seem to stop Sudha Auntie. “Some students I want you to meet.” And with that, she thrust Neela and Pavi right into the middle of the swarm. Everyone stared stonily at the two girls for cutting the line. Neela inwardly cursed her teacher.

  “Talk,” Sudha Auntie prodded. “Tell him you’re veena students.”

  Pavi mumbled something of this sort to the professor.

  Neela hated it when a grown-up told her what to say. She mumbled hello and was about to turn around, when Professor Tannenbaum said, “I remember you!”

  Neela stopped. “You do?” She had never seen Professor Tannenbaum before.

  His face broke into a delighted smile. “You’re the girl whose string snapped at the temple last summer.”

  The swarm stopped to look at Neela more closely. Yes, their faces seemed to say, this was the very same girl. Some of them even smiled.

  Neela felt her face go hot. Would she never be able to forget about that stupid string? “Lucky me,” she muttered, and stepped back. Like a curtain, the crowd closed back around Professor Tannenbaum, surrounding him again.

  Sudha Auntie came bounding after her, with her superhuman agility. “Hey,” she demanded. “What was that?”