Vanished

by Sheela Chari

  Neela kept walking. “He remembered my string snapping.”

  “But he still remembered you,” she said. “It was a compliment.”

  Neela didn’t say anything. It hadn’t sounded like a compliment to her.

  Sudha Auntie waited a moment, then said, “All right, suit yourself.” She turned back in the direction of the stage. She probably had more important things to talk about with the professor, such as her star student, Pavi.

  Neela stepped out into the lobby. It was quiet and cool out there—a good place to hide herself away from everyone. If only she could hide herself away from her mistakes—but they seemed to follow her everywhere. It didn’t help that the most embarrassing one had been witnessed by Professor Tannenbaum, and that he had mentioned it in front of all those people, who seemingly had all been to the same dreadful performance. If there was a contest for bad weeks, this one would get the grand prize.

  Neela felt inside her pocket and found the crumpled-up bag of potato chips. But they were gone, and there was nothing else to eat. As she went to toss the empty bag in a nearby trash can, she accidentally bumped into an Indian man who was also throwing something away.

  “Sorry,” she said automatically.

  “Sorry,” he said, too, stepping back. He was neatly dressed with a trimmed haircut and starched collar. “You are fast, I did not see you.” He had an accent like her grandparents, and now that she had a better look, she saw he was young. He might be the same age as her cousin, Arun, who had just finished college in India and was getting married. Neela also noticed the flash of a ruby-and-gold ring on the young man’s finger where the light hit it. She had never seen anyone his age wear jewelry like that before.

  “You too,” Neela said, without thinking. Then she stopped. Why did she say that? It didn’t even make any sense.

  “You are enjoying the concert?” he asked. “Or getting bored?”

  “No, I wasn’t bored,” Neela said. “I play the veena, too.”

  “Really?”

  Neela nodded, feeling suddenly important, when only a minute ago she had wanted to put a brown paper bag over her head.

  “Good. Very good. Because, like it or not,” the guy went on, “the veena is dying.”

  “What?” Neela hadn’t expected this.

  “Dying away. Not many people are playing it anymore.”

  “But that’s not true,” she said. “I know so many. Professor Tannenbaum, my teacher, my friend, and…”

  The guy smiled. “Trust me, veenas are hard to sell nowadays. The magic is all gone. Even if the veena has the loveliest, sweetest sound of all Indian music.”

  Then, before she could respond, he walked away. Who was he? She watched him sift through the crowd and back through the doors of the auditorium. He was slender, with long thin legs, and he walked comfortably through the lobby, as if he had been to the recital hall before. And yet his accent was so strong, he had to be from India, not here. She wondered again who he was. He didn’t act anything like her cousin Arun.

  Curious, she followed him back in. The lights were blinking, which meant the concert was about to start again. Inside, she spotted him at the front, talking to Professor Tannenbaum. Standing a few feet away was a woman dressed in black, with straw-colored hair cut to her chin. She was photographing them with a huge camera, the kind where the lens stuck out and looked complicated and professional. Neela wondered if she was from the newspaper.

  Neela crept closer to the young man with the ruby ring so she could hear what he was saying to Professor Tannenbaum. She stood behind a few people so she didn’t look too obvious.

  “It is not a problem,” he said, flashing the same delicate smile Neela had seen a few minutes ago. “Some sealant will do the trick.”

  Tannenbaum said, “I knew I could count on you. But the crack is fairly large.” He directed the young man to his veena to show a long crack that ran along the length of the bottom. “I don’t know how it happened. I don’t remember banging it against anything.”

  The young man looked carefully at the instrument. “This isn’t that kind of crack. It was caused by heat. Maybe a hot summer followed by a rainy fall?”

  “Why, yes,” Tannenbaum said thoughtfully. “That must have been it.”

  The young man gave Tannenbaum a business card. “This number will work until the end of the week. Call me. I can have it fixed for you.”

  “Is this your last stop?” Tannenbaum asked. “I thought you came to Boston last month. Surprised to see you still here.”

  “I had some unexpected business. Then it is home for me.”

  Tannenbaum smiled. “I can’t believe you’re all grown up. I still remember when you came as a small boy with your father, and he was the one doing the repairs.”

  The young man smiled back. “Sometimes I think I know Boston like the back of my hand.”

  He said something more, but by now the people in front of Neela were jostling her, trying to get back to their seats. She leaned in further to catch the last of his words, and bumped into the photographer by mistake.

  “Watch it, kid,” the woman said. She was pretty, but her face was sharp and unsmiling.

  “Excuse me, we’re supposed to sit down,” Neela said coolly. She hated being called “kid.”

  The woman ignored her but stepped to the side to let Neela pass. By now, the young man had finished his conversation, and Tannenbaum returned to his place onstage. The lights flickered again, and everyone took their seats. As Neela sat down, she looked for the young man with the ruby ring, and the blond photographer, but they had disappeared into the shadows of the audience.

  After the concert, on their way back to the car, Neela’s parents talked about Professor Tannenbaum. They said he was just as good as any player from India.

  “Even his pronunciations were excellent,” Mr. Krishnan observed.

  Behind them, around the corner, Neela heard a woman’s voice.

  “I think these photos are enough…Why didn’t I think of Tannenbaum before?”

  “No…” came a man’s voice. “You have to…” muffled words, then, “…a Guru original.”

  Neela turned around. Before her appeared the Indian man with the ruby ring, and the mean woman with the camera. They walked past Neela without even looking at her, and went inside a coffee shop. Neela stared at them through the window of the shop. They were in line at the counter, still talking. The woman waved her arms as she spoke, and the man twirled his ring around and around his finger. Had he really said “Guru original”? Like what Sudha Auntie had said about the missing veena?

  “Neela!” their mother called from the car. “What are you doing?”

  Neela stood rooted to the ground. She desperately wished to hear what they were saying. How often did you hear someone on the street talking about a Guru original? She glanced at her mother. “I’m getting a drink of water,” she yelled, and went into the coffee shop before her mother could stop her.

  By now, the man and woman had bought their coffee and were sitting at a table near the counter with the condiments and napkins. Neela pretended to get a napkin, and stood nearby trying to hear what they were saying.

  “I wasn’t sure my e-mail would reach you before you went back to India,” the woman said. “My friend said you’re only here for a short while. So I guess I lucked out.”

  “I’m happy to be at your service,” the man said.

  “I have to admit, you’re a lot younger than I expected. What are you, fifteen?”

  He smiled. “I finished college last year. But I’ve learned a lot over the years working with my father.”

  “Well, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty.” She glanced through some notes. “Like I asked in my e-mail, can you tell me again what a Guru original is?”

  The young man took a gulp of his coffee. “It is a term our customers came up with, named after one of our most beloved artisans, Guru. His veenas are called Guru originals, as opposed to instruments made by other veena makers
that try to imitate his workmanship.”

  She fixed an intent look on his face. “So, then, they’re valuable. Like a Stradivarius?”

  He laughed. “The famous violins of Italy. I hear people have tried for years to figure out the secret behind the beautiful sound. Unsuccessfully, I might add.”

  The woman waited. “You haven’t answered my question.”

  He stopped smiling. “I do not know if I can. The wood Guru used to make his instruments came from a very special area in South India, near the district of Thanjavur. Ordinarily, veenas lose their quality of sound over time as the wood ages. But in the case of Guru, something different happened, maybe because of the particular weather patterns at the time, which allowed the wood to season in a slow and unusual way. What he ended up with finally was a rich, dense wood, and with a sound that is superior even today. Combine that with his meticulous design, and you have a veena with a sound matched by no other. Stradivarius? No. But for many, valuable nevertheless.”

  “How many Guru originals are out there today?”

  “Hard to say. No more than a dozen, I believe.”

  “Fascinating,” the woman said, writing what he said down. “So if someone were to have one, all the way here in Boston, that would really be something.”

  He stared at her. “Well, yes.”

  Just then the door to the café swung open.

  “Neela!” Mrs. Krishnan gestured from the front.

  The couple at the table stopped talking at the sound of Mrs. Krishnan’s voice. At that moment, the young man’s eyes met Neela’s. His look of recognition was immediate. But he neither smiled nor acknowledged her in any way. Instead he looked on curiously as she slinked over to her mother.

  “Where’s your ‘drink of water’?” her mom asked evenly.

  “I guess I didn’t have any change on me,” Neela said, her ears burning. Her mother had come at the worst moment. Neela could feel the guy’s eyes on her. Did he think she had been following him? Or just that she was some silly young girl getting chewed out by her mother?

  As her family drove down Amherst Street a few minutes later, Neela peered through the window to catch a last glimpse of the man and woman before the car turned the corner.

  Customers, the guy had said. He had some kind of business that involved Guru originals. He knew about them; maybe he sold them. At any rate, he was an expert, because the woman with the camera was asking him questions as if she were interviewing him.

  But why was she so interested in them? Neela couldn’t help noticing the look in the woman’s eyes when she said: So if someone were to have one, all the way here in Boston, that would really be something.

  She must have got a hold of one, Neela thought suddenly. That was the only explanation. She thought of the marks on her grandmother’s veena, the initials Sudha Auntie said were Guru’s. Was it possible there were two Guru originals in Boston? Or could this woman know something about her grandmother’s veena?

  Neela shivered. “A Guru original,” she repeated to herself.

  “What?” Mr. Krishnan said.

  “Nothing,” she said. She couldn’t explain it, but the incident had caused a small thrill in her, as if the trail to the missing veena, which had been icy cold until now, had suddenly thawed.

  The only nice thing about being late to school was that there was no one to collide with when running down an empty hall. At 8:35 a.m. Monday morning, Neela barreled into class while Ms. Reese was doing announcements. Behind her, Matt ambled in leisurely. Nothing ever seemed to faze him, not even Ms. Reese’s late minutes.

  “How do you spell ‘tardy’?” he whispered. He was wearing a T-shirt with a photo of a bunch of shaggy-haired rockers and the word queen written above them in big lettering. The shirt smelled musty, as if it had been inside a suitcase for the last twenty years.

  Neela ignored him. She had too much on her mind, like the blond photographer and the guy with the ruby ring. And now that Neela was in school, it was back to thinking about Lynne and their encounter at the church. With all these strange happenings, overheard conversations, and coincidences, Neela couldn’t forget that Lynne was part of the puzzle as well.

  Neela glanced at Lynne now and noticed she was wearing a tie-dyed wraparound skirt with a shirt that had—Neela looked again—purple feathers along the cuffs and hemline.

  Matt must have noticed, because he whispered, “What’s with the feathers?”

  Neela shrugged. She wasn’t sure of anything when it came to Lynne.

  Matt made tiny squawking sounds as he sketched an electric guitar in his notebook.

  “Stop,” Neela whispered. She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.

  Matt shaded an area with his pen. “She draws wicked dragons, though.”

  “Matt,” Ms. Reese said.

  Neela blinked. “What did you say?”

  “Dragons,” he repeated. “Check out the back of her notebook.”

  “Matthew and Neela.” Ms. Reese’s voice rose.

  Neela reddened after hearing her name, but she was too intrigued to care. First her veena, then the teakettle, and then Mary’s embroidery. Now Lynne’s notebook had dragons, too?

  In Art, they were making papier-mâché puppets. This was Mrs. Averil’s favorite project, so they did it twice a year. Neela picked up her puppet from the back and looked for a seat next to Penny, but Amanda was already sitting next to her.

  “No one’s sitting in that chair,” Amanda said when she saw Neela. But the chair she was talking about was on the other side of her, and Neela really didn’t want to sit next to Amanda. Instead, she took the chair across, even if it meant having to sit next to Matt again.

  Today in class they were painting their puppets. Neela had started out with a duck, but as she added more papiermâché, it ended up looking like a frog. She painted the eyes, starting with white and then adding a layer of blue and green. When she was done, she surveyed the results. “Great. My frog looks like he got beat up.”

  “Put bandages on him,” Matt said. He was making a space alien.

  “Put sunglasses,” Penny suggested.

  “It doesn’t even look like a frog,” Amanda said. She was painting something white and lumpy-looking.

  “What are you making?” Matt asked her. “A turnip?”

  Amanda bristled. “It’s a sheep. Can’t you tell? It’s white.”

  “I think it looks bah-h-d,” Matt bleated.

  Penny giggled.

  Amanda reached across with her paintbrush and dabbed a big blotch of white on Matt’s forehead.

  “Hey,” he exclaimed. “Why did you do that?”

  Amanda laughed. “You’re Indian. I just made you Indian.”

  Matt didn’t understand. “I’m Indian because I’ve got paint on my face?”

  “It’s a dot. You know those dots they wear.”

  Matt gave her a long look. “You’re a strange person, Amanda Bones.” He wiped his forehead with a paper towel, making the paint smear across his forehead.

  “That wasn’t funny,” Lynne said. She was seated at the next table, making a dragon with wings. At the moment, though, she had put down the dragon to glare at Amanda.

  “It was a joke,” Amanda said.

  “It was a stupid joke,” Lynne said.

  “I was totally joking,” Amanda said crossly. “Right, Penny? Even Neela thought it was funny.”

  Neela flushed, but kept quiet. She wondered if Penny would say anything, but Penny went on painting as if she hadn’t heard a thing that Amanda had said.

  “And they’re called bindis, not dots,” Lynne said.

  “Whatever.” Amanda rolled her eyes. “And why are you wearing chicken feathers? This isn’t a farm, you know.”

  “They’re ostrich,” Lynne said coolly. “It’s a designer shirt.”

  Amanda sniffed. “I’m allergic to feathers.”

  “Then stay away from me,” Lynne muttered.

  After that, Matt got a hall pass and went to w
ash his forehead in the bathroom. Neela glumly continued painting. She remembered Pavi’s comment about how bindis made people treat you differently. Neela wasn’t even wearing one, and yet she felt like she’d been singled out unfairly. It was like first grade all over again, when Neela didn’t have the guts to speak up, and Penny kept quiet the entire time.

  Only this time Lynne was there to defend her. How Lynne even knew about bindis was another story. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that Neela had said nothing while Lynne had stood up to Amanda, even though she was the one with the feather shirt and funny glasses and…

  Neela noticed then that Lynne’s chair was empty. She looked up just in time to see Lynne slip quietly out the door of the classroom. No one was allowed to leave without a hall pass. But apparently no one, including Mrs. Averil, had noticed Lynne slip out. And there at her table next to the unfinished papier-mâché dragon, Lynne had left her notebook behind.

  Neela leaned forward to get a better look. Just as Matt had said, the back of Lynne’s notebook was covered with dragons, each drawn in varying levels of detail. The largest one was remarkably good, with raised wings and scaled legs. And each dragon had a pointy tail, a beaky face, and two legs, just like the dragon on her veena and the one on the teakettle in the church.

  When she was sure no one was watching, Neela reached for the notebook. Her conscience jabbed at her as she flipped through the pages under the table. Yes, she was going through Lynne’s private things, but maybe there was something important about the dragons.

  As she looked through, a magazine clipping fell out of the notebook and fluttered to the floor. She picked it up and saw it was an ad for cameras on sale at a local camera shop. One was circled in thick black ink: Amazing images! Outstanding performance! State of the art SLR! A lot of exclamation marks, Neela thought. She remembered the photographer at yesterday’s concert. The fancy camera in the ad looked like something she would use. Neela stuck the clipping back into the notebook.

  By now, Matt had returned, his forehead washed off. “Mission—terminate all animal forms,” he said, and pretended to swoop his space alien over Neela’s frog puppet.