by Sheela Chari
After Neela hung up, she relayed the information to everyone. “Notice how,” she mused, “the teakettle and the rock happened on the same day?”
Mrs. Krishnan got an anxious look on her face before disappearing into the kitchen. A few minutes later she returned with Mrs. Sunder behind her.
Neela groaned when she saw what her mother held in her hands. “But Mom, the aarti didn’t even work the first time. Now we’re getting rocks thrown at us.”
Mrs. Krishnan lit the camphor on the brass plate. “Sometimes you have to do it a few times.”
“Drishti?” Pavi asked. She and her mother watched as Mrs. Krishnan circled the burning flame clockwise and counterclockwise in front of Neela.
“Everything helps,” Mrs. Sunder said.
Neela thought of the rock and the note. “We’ll need all the help we can get.”
Neela looked at the clock. In India, where it was morning, her grandmother would be awake by now. Quietly, Neela slipped out of bed and got the phone from the hall. She had dialed her grandparents’ number so many times, she knew it by heart, even the international and city codes for Chennai. As she heard the phone ringing on the other end, she glanced behind her. It was late, but her father wasn’t home from work yet, and her mother was downstairs in the office, studying for an exam. Sree was already asleep. Neela climbed back into bed with the phone, just as her grandmother answered.
“Hi, Patti, it’s me,” she said in a low voice, speaking in Tamil.
“Neela! Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”
“No, not yet.” She fingered the edge of her pillowcase. She wasn’t sure how to begin. “Something happened today, Patti. Something that has to with the missing veena.”
Lalitha Patti’s voice was immediately concerned. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. We’re all fine.” She described the rock and note they found earlier in the day. “But the strange part is that the note mentions you.” She picked up the note from her night table and read it to her grandmother.
“I don’t believe it,” Lalitha Patti said. “This is getting worse and worse. Are you sure you’re all okay? Did you call the police?”
“Yes, there’s nothing to worry about,” Neela said quickly. The last thing she wanted to do was scare her grandmother. That wasn’t why she was calling. “But the note gave me another idea—about your other veena, the expensive one with the jewels?”
“It was stolen,” Lalitha Patti said. “But you know that. Why are you thinking of that veena?”
“Because maybe whoever took that veena took the one you sent me, too.”
“Neela, I think you should stop thinking about all of this.”
“No, but what if the thief is trying to steal all of your veenas, and that’s why he mentions you in the note, because—”
“He didn’t want the expensive veena,” Lalitha Patti cut in.
“But you just said it was stolen.”
“Yes, but…” Lalitha Patti hesitated. “I don’t think it’s the one he wanted.”
“How do you know?”
“I was about to go on a trip and wanted to take the sturdier case, so I switched the instruments the night before. But the thief didn’t know that. He took the expensive one that was in the lightweight case by mistake.”
“But wouldn’t he open the case just to make sure?”
“I don’t know why he didn’t check,” Lalitha Patti said, “but I’m positive.” Here she paused again. “Neela, I have to be honest. I haven’t told you everything. If you knew the rest, you would know why he wasn’t after all my veenas. He was after only one.”
“If it’s the curse, I know about it,” Neela said.
There was a silence. For a moment Neela thought her grandmother had hung up. But then she finally spoke. “I told them not to tell you. I didn’t want to upset you.”
It took Neela a second to figure out that Lalitha Patti meant her parents. “They don’t know I know,” she said. She thought about Sudha Auntie’s story, but that would take too long to explain to her grandmother. “I overheard them,” she said instead. “But don’t worry about me, Patti. I’m old enough to know.”
“Oh, Neela, it isn’t just the curse. There’s more.”
“Well, tell me, then,” Neela said. “Tell me what you didn’t tell me before. Who is the thief?”
“I don’t know,” Lalitha Patti said. “But I can tell you what happened before the veena was taken, and why he was after the other veena.” She cleared her throat. “Many years ago, I was traveling and came across a music store in one of the villages near here. You know me. I can’t resist instruments, especially something old and in good condition. That’s when I found this veena. When I saw it, I knew right then it was…” Lalitha Patti searched for a word.
“Special,” Neela said. She had heard this story before. It was one she had always loved, the one she had asked her grandmother to repeat countless times before going to bed when she was in India. But tonight, the story had begun to take on a new meaning.
“Little did I know how ‘special’ the veena was,” Lalitha Patti said.
“That it was cursed,” Neela said. “But what about the Chennai Music Palace? Isn’t the store part of the curse, too? Doesn’t the veena always return there?”
“You’re jumping ahead. As it turns out, my good friend Govindar owns the Chennai Music Palace. Two of my veenas are from his store. But I only met him after he had sold the maya veena many years ago, so I never saw it in his store. And it never came up between us because, well, I didn’t know I owned the maya veena. I certainly didn’t know it when I bought it from that village store.”
“And then what happened? The veena stayed with you? It never disappeared?”
“No, but here’s the thing. After I bought the veena, my brother-in-law handled all the maintenance—fixing strings, adjusting and reapplying the frets. All the little things you need to do to keep your veena in shape. But over the years, he developed arthritis in his hands and had to stop. Last year, I had someone else come. Someone new.”
“Govindar,” Neela guessed.
“Oh no, not him,” Lalitha Patti said. “He sells veenas, he doesn’t service them. At least not anymore. This was someone from a different store. When he came over to the house, he recognized the veena right away. This is Guru’s maya veena, he told me. He used to work at Chennai Music Palace long ago. He remembered the veena because of its story.”
“So he’s the one who took the instrument?”
“I don’t know. But two days later the Chennai Telegraph did a big front-page article on how Guru’s legendary cursed veena had been recovered. Someone leaked the information to the newspaper. Maybe it was him or someone else he told.” Lalitha Patti’s voice took on an angry tone. “From then on, I had phone calls, reporters bugging me at my door. All because of this veena, which, after so many years, had been finally unearthed. It became a huge scandal and a major headache.”
“Then what happened?” Neela asked. “Someone tried to steal the veena?”
“No, no. Not yet. Govindar called. Why hadn’t I told him I had the maya veena? I said I didn’t know until the fellow who came to service my veena told me. At that point, Govindar and I discussed what to do next. He said the press would stop after some time. But that if the stress of owning such an instrument got to me, he offered to buy the instrument from me.”
“Of course,” Neela exclaimed. “He wanted the instrument back!”
“Govindar?” Lalitha Patti said. “Why on earth would he want that veena? More than likely, he had been trying to get rid of it all those years. But the last thing I wanted to do was sell my veena because of some stupid story. So I said no, thank you. Then over the next months, we started getting phone calls every day. Not just phone calls, but e-mails, letters in the mail, even people stopping me in the street, claiming the maya veena belonged to them. Most of them were real cuckoos. Even this I put up with. Then about a month before I mailed you the veena, that’s w
hen we had the break-in.”
Neela reflected over what she’d heard so far. “It had to be the man who repaired your veena. Or Govindar.”
“Why do you keep suspecting Govindar? Definitely no. He’s a good man. But really, it could be anyone, Neela. Remember, the news was broadcast over all of Chennai.” Lalitha Patti sighed. “The break-in is what finally did it to me. Your grandfather became so jittery after the incident, he began having palpitations, and with his heart condition, it was serious. And the thought of a complete stranger in our home frightened us. He had taken the wrong veena—maybe he would be back for the real one. I realized then that this veena would always be a source of trouble. It was cursed, all right, but not in the way I had expected. Unless I did something. So I called Govindar again.”
“To sell the veena?”
Lalitha Patti was quiet for a moment. “I guess it was my own selfishness, wanting to hang on to that instrument. But it was unique and too beautiful to sell; I couldn’t bring myself to do it. So instead, I decided to mail it away, someplace far. To my granddaughter, who was in need of an instrument.”
“Then why was the package from Chennai Music Palace?”
“Govindar helped with the packing and shipping. His store ships to places internationally all the time, so he did me the favor and I reimbursed him.”
“So then what happened?” Neela asked.
“Well, I announced to the Telegraph I’d sold the veena, which they published, and that was the end of that. The phone calls, the e-mails, the weird people in the street, all stopped. Still, maybe it would have been better to sell the veena to the store when I had a chance. The veena is missing again, and now I’ve got you involved in the whole mess, too.”
Neela leaned back in her bed, taking in the whole story. “That’s not so bad, Patti. Why didn’t you tell me all of this before? Why did it have to be a secret?”
“Well, I didn’t think it was worth sharing. I thought the curse was some silly story passed around Thanjavur and Chennai.”
Neela frowned, trying to make sense of her grandmother’s words. “And you don’t think that anymore? You think it’s the curse that keeps making the veena disappear?”
Lalitha Patti seemed to hesitate. “I honestly can’t say I know. There is something about that veena that’s not…normal. It has some kind of pull, some kind of force.”
There was one other thing she and her grandmother had not talked about yet. “Patti, do you know about Veronica Wyvern?”
“Veronica Wyvern?”
“Yes, the veena player who died about ten years ago, and—”
“Of course I know about her. What a ridiculous question.”
Was it Neela’s imagination or had her grandmother’s voice turned sharp?
“I hear you are getting a new veena,” Lalitha Patti suddenly said. The whole tone of her voice changed in just a split second, as if someone had wiped over it with a cloth. “I think that’s the best news I’ve heard.”
“But…” Neela paused. Why was her grandmother trying to change the subject?
“And now I must leave you,” Lalitha Patti went on, “because the milkman is here, and I have to pay him.” She ended the call with an abrupt good-bye.
Neela set down the phone. What just happened? At that moment, she looked up to see her mother standing at the door. She jumped. How long had her mom been there? Had she heard the whole conversation?
“Who were you talking to?” Mrs. Krishnan asked.
“Lalitha Patti,” Neela casually said, hoping that would be the end of it.
“And what’s this?” her mother said next, holding up a printout.
The article about Veronica Wyvern! She must have left it in the office the other evening. “That’s mine,” Neela said. She resisted the urge to snatch it from her mother’s hands.
Mrs. Krishnan looked at the margin, where some notes had been scrawled. “‘Veronica Wyvern killed?’” she read. “‘Veena destroyed in crash?’” Her eyes narrowed. “Does this have something to do with Lalitha Patti’s veena?”
Neela looked at the floor. “Sudha Auntie mentioned the veena player. I was curious about her,” she mumbled.
“Curious about a train wreck?”
Neela said nothing.
Mrs. Krishnan sat down on the bed next to her and accidentally crunched a bag of chips. “You eat way too many chips,” she said, picking the bag out from under her.
“It helps me think,” Neela said.
“About what?”
“Stuff.” Neela waited for a lecture to begin on the downside of eating too many potato chips.
Surprisingly, her mother said nothing. She opened the bag. “There are a few more left.” She held out the bag like a peace offering.
Neela took it from her reluctantly. She was still trying to make sense of her conversation with Lalitha Patti and her grandmother’s reluctance to talk about Veronica Wyvern when she had shared everything else. On top of that, ever since Neela had overheard her parents talking that night, she knew they weren’t being completely honest with her either. How was she expected to tell her mom stuff if she didn’t do the same in return?
Mrs. Krishnan reached over to stroke the ends of Neela’s hair. Neela had always loved this since she was small. But lately, it had begun to annoy her, too, because it felt as though her mother was secretly trying to arrange her hair at the same time.
Still, it was a trick that never failed, and in spite of herself, Neela found herself relaxing under her mother’s hand. She reached into the bag and ate the last remaining chips.
“Do you think the veena is a dying tradition?” she asked.
“Wh-at? Did Patti tell you that?”
“No, someone else. One of…Sudha Auntie’s students,” Neela lied.
“The veena is definitely not dying. It’s beautiful and expressive.”
“But what if no one wants to play it?”
“There will always be people who want to play it. Like you. Unless you’re thinking of giving up. But you shouldn’t let the rock stop you from playing.”
“I’m not,” Neela said. “Actually, I want to find Patti’s veena even more. There has to be something special about it if someone wants it so badly.”
“Don’t you think you’re confusing two different things?” Mrs. Krishnan asked. “You can still go on playing, with or without Patti’s veena.”
“But it’s only after I got her veena that I started to sound okay,” Neela said, “and not twangy. It’s bad enough I get scared to play in front of people. The last thing I need is a twangy veena.”
“You’re not that twangy. And you won’t play on Sudha Auntie’s veena forever. We’ll get you a new one.”
But it wouldn’t be her grandmother’s veena. It wouldn’t be a Guru original. It wouldn’t be the one with a strange curse that marked it special forever. Neela thought all these things, but she didn’t say them out loud.
Mrs. Krishnan stared at the printout still in her hand. “Is there something else you’re not telling me? Like this Hal, is he someone you know?”
“Of course not! I never saw him before in my life.”
Mrs. Krishnan sighed. “The important thing to remember is that Patti’s veena is gone. And some strange man out there wanted it and knows where you live. And God only knows if he has anything more planned. That veena isn’t worth your safety. Forget about it and this Veronica Wyvern stuff.…It isn’t healthy to be so fixated.”
“How can you give up so soon?”
“There’s nothing else we can do.”
Neela remembered her mother saying how it was better that the veena was gone. “I think you’re happy we lost the veena,” she said. “Because it’s bad luck.”
“Of course not!” Mrs. Krishnan flushed. “I’m just being practical. You should too. I don’t know what Lalitha Patti said to you. But I’m telling you: stop thinking about that veena.” She crumpled up the printout and threw it in the waste can on her way out.
&nb
sp; When her mother was gone, Neela leaped from the bed and pulled the printout from the trash. She smoothed the paper out and stored it inside her backpack. She most certainly would not forget about the veena. So much had happened in just the last few days. And she was sure she was on the right track. The rock was proof. Her grandmother’s story was proof. There was something her mother didn’t want her to know, and Neela was going to figure out what it was.
As the weeks went by, Neela found it hard to concentrate. She felt charged with excitement over all the things she had learned so far. At night she tossed and turned in bed and woke up the next morning tired. In class her mind wandered until Ms. Reese would call on her to pay attention. From her seat, Lynne would look over at Neela as if she wondered what was wrong with her. Sometimes Amanda would look at Neela, too, but to make a face at her.
The only thing that relaxed Neela was playing. Some days she practiced twice, once in the afternoon, and again before going to bed. The pads of her fingers, which in the past always became sore when she practiced for too long, had formed thick calluses, just like Sudha Auntie’s, making it easier to press down on the strings.
“You seem to be practicing more these days,” her mother observed. “I thought you didn’t like Sudha’s veena.”
“Well, the duct tape sucks,” Neela said. “But I’m getting used to it.”
It was true the duct tape was ugly and rubbed against her leg when she practiced. But she didn’t notice it so much these days. She had finally memorized her recital piece, which meant she didn’t have to look at her book anymore. Sometimes she closed her eyes and focused her entire mind on how she sounded, note by note. She was surprised by the results, that even with her own ears she could hear she was improving. If she had her grandmother’s veena, she couldn’t help thinking, she would sound even better.
“Why are you closing your eyes?” Sree asked. He was always there these days when she practiced.
