by Ranjit Lal
Her mind went back to the lady with the baby and the surly taklu at Emerald Eden. They would bear careful watching – what on earth did the boy mean when he said he wanted to kill everyone? Was he a psycho? He sure looked like one. Next time she must check if he wore an earring or had pierced an eyebrow. And maybe she’d ask Dr Sham if she could borrow their recording equipment for a bit. Then she’d be able to hear everything that was said in Cottage 105.
Her brow puckered as she schemed and plotted until she was called for lunch.
‘You should rest in the afternoon. You look tired,’ the Geek Empress ordered.
‘I’m not tired, nani,’ she protested, but ten minutes later she was fast asleep in her bed.
Thud! Thudthudthud!
‘Rukmini! Will you come down please? I told you to be down at four!’
Shroom sat up in bed with a jolt. What? Where? Was somebody firing a gun with a silencer outside her door? She rubbed her eyes as whoever was behind her door knocked again, more urgently.
‘Baby?’ The door pushed open and Snake-face looked in. ‘Baby, madam is calling you.’
Shroom nodded and smiled sweetly at Snake-face. ‘I know; I can hear her!’ She made an expansive gesture with her arms, nearly knocking over her alarm clock. ‘The whole mountain can hear her!’
Shroom slowly shuffled into the neat and spacious drawing room. It had oversized sofas and armchairs that looked like flower beds, and a gleaming brass fireplace over which were all those boring framed VIP photographs. Colourful rugs were scattered across the wooden floor, and on the sideboard were vases stuffed with flowers – dahlia, zinnia, gladioli and sunflowers. ‘You cut their heads off and bring them in,’ Shroom had once accused the Geek Empress, ‘just like you cut off the heads of little children and send them to school!’ The Geek Empress had just nodded balefully at her and pursed her thin lips.
Shroom’s eyes were downcast but flickered up to check out the two girls standing near the bay windows, staring at her. ‘You summoned me, nani?’ she said in a teary whisper.
The girls, their eyes wide with shock, had their hands over their mouths. Shroom’s wrists were cuffed and she was hobbling along in plastic leg irons.
‘Rukmini, will you stop this tamasha!’ the Geek Empress said, exasperated. ‘Take those cuffs and leg irons off at once and give them to me! You’ll fall down, you silly girl!’
‘The keys, nani,’ Shroom murmured. ‘Remember you threw the keys into the valley of death to the crocodiles of the devil…’ She held out her hands pathetically.
The girls stifled their giggles.
‘Really, Rukmini, it’s high time you stopped all this drama. Now where are the keys?’
‘You know, nani, I just remembered. You threw them over the edge into the chasm of death, but luckily they got caught in a branch and I asked Snake-face – I mean, Gudiya – to rescue them. Here…’
‘You talk a lot of rubbish. Now let me introduce you. This is Miss Raveena and this is Miss Monica. They’ll come to teach you and keep you company every day.’
‘Hi, Rukmini,’ the girls said, waving.
‘My name is Special Agent Shroom,’ she said, steely-voiced. Then with a flourish she whipped off her hat. Much to her surprise, the girls didn’t bat an eyelid. They both had lovely straight black hair that fell to their waists; one with a hairband, the other with red clips in it. They were wearing colourful printed salwar–kameezes; one was in red and gold, the other in green and blue.
‘I told you, she’s had treatment and operations,’ the Geek Empress said softly.
‘I had a craniotomy,’ Shroom announced, crossing her arms in front of her chest. ‘So you’ll have to forgive me! If you come closer you can see the scar. It’s like a railway track running round and round my head. A round trip costs a hundred rupees.’
‘She talks a lot of nonsense sometimes; just been alone too long, I think… with a rather overactive imagination.’
‘I’m sure we’ll have a lot of fun, Shroom,’ the girl called Monica said. ‘Do you know the bald look is in, in Hollywood? All the famous actresses are cutting off their hair.’
‘So we’re thinking of cutting ours off too – chop-chop!’ Raveena added.
‘What? No! Please, you can’t do that – it’s too beautiful.’
‘Just kidding!’
‘Okay, so now if we can iron out the details about when you’ll be able to come…’ The Geek Empress was getting impatient. ‘I was thinking maybe you could take it in turns day by day. She’s brightest in the morning, gets a little tired by afternoon… Come into this room and I’ll explain.’
She ushered the two girls into the adjoining sitting room. ‘You can go and play now,’ she said to Shroom as she closed the door.
‘Dammit! It’s me they’re talking about in there and I don’t know what they’re saying.’ Shroom peered through the keyhole but couldn’t see very much; just the big sideboard on the opposite side of the room with its crystal animals: a hippo (her favourite), an elephant, three deer, a parrot and a monkey. The sofa set where they were sitting was out of sight. Hmm, maybe she’d have to ambush and interrogate the girls when they were dismissed. They looked friendly, but you never knew. She stationed herself on the swing in the verandah with a Tintin, and waited.
Inside, Vijaya Abhinav settled the girls down on the sofa and drew up a chair. ‘Well, let me tell you a little about Rukmini. She was a very bright, hyperactive child – I hate to use the word prodigy, but it seemed like that. She had picked up all the hill dialects spoken in this region by the time she was three and could read and write much beyond her years. She’d gone through most of the classics – unabridged – by the time she was seven. She was also a naturally gifted gymnast; she used to do the most hairraising balancing acts and handstands on the narrow tree trunks and branches that fell across the stream. She said she didn’t know whether she wanted to be an astronaut or an Olympic gymnast, or one of those children you see performing on the roadside.
‘Then, when she was about eight, she fell ill. She started losing her balance and falling. She’d be violently sick in the mornings, get fatigued and have excruciating headaches. It turned out to be a brain tumour. Luckily, it was a slow grower. She had a craniotomy, followed by radiotherapy and chemo, and it’s been completely taken out – or at least they think so. She was in and out of hospital for the last two to three years. My brother insisted we move to Delhi with him permanently, but I didn’t want that – I know what kids of VIPs are like; it’s obnoxious. In any case, Rukmini never did well in Delhi. Even after her treatment was successfully concluded and she recovered, she was always falling ill with some infection or virus. So I brought her here. Actually, she has lived here ever since her parents died when she was three months old and, well, now as you can see, she’s running around all over the place all day.
‘She doesn’t seem – thank god – to have suffered from any of the horrible side-effects of her disease or treatment except that her hair hasn’t grown back as quickly as she would have liked, and she’s into this secret agent, hush-hush spy thing rather avidly. But we still have to be careful. She gives me nightmares when she goes running off along those narrow mountain tracks but I don’t have the heart to stop her. She’s a plucky child and I don’t want to crush her spirit. I have two girls following her all the time in case she needs help and they’re part of the security rigmarole too – and she hates that.’
Vijaya paused and smiled dryly. ‘So, my dears, I want you not only to teach her what she would have learnt in school but to keep her interested in everything that’s going on around her. She’s got a vivid imagination, which you can take advantage of.’
Monica nodded. ‘She seems like quite a little dynamo. She certainly hasn’t let this awful disease take her down.’ She glanced at Raveena, who was blinking back tears. ‘We’d love to teach her.’
At last they emerged. Shroom shot them a quick glance. The Geek Empress was smiling fiendishly and the two girls were nodding in agr
eement with something she had just said. ‘She’s crushed them in her iron fist already,’ Shroom muttered to herself as they came into the verandah. ‘They’ll be like putty in her hands. She’s brainwashed them – given them a lobotomy.’
‘So we’ll see you tomorrow,’ the Geek Empress said. ‘I’ll make sure Rukmini knows…’
‘I’m here in case you’re looking for me, nani.’
‘So I see.’
‘What are you reading?’ Monica asked.
‘Just this.’
‘You must be very good at reading – that’s upside down.’
‘Yes, I can read perfectly well upside down, and backwards too.’
‘Rukmini, Miss Monica will be coming over tomorrow morning to teach you. She’ll be doing English, geography and history with you. Miss Raveena will come the day after for maths and science. Please tidy your desk and don’t give them any trouble.’
‘Why can’t I go to school like everyone else? I could go to the school near the forest rest-house.’
‘You know that’s too far away for you to manage every day even on the ponies. We tried that, remember, and you fell ill again.’
‘But that was years ago! I’m all right now – really, I am. I walk there nearly every day anyway!’
‘That’s enough.’
Monica walked up to Shroom and smiled. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll have fun,’ she promised. ‘I’ll bring a pile of interesting books for us to read.’
‘Like what?’
‘The Mad Killers of Killjoy Mountain, The Baby-head Bashers, Guzzle My Blood and Die Gurgling!’
‘Really?’ Shroom’s eyes widened. ‘They sound cool.’
‘And there are more.’ Monica’s eyes twinkled. ‘So, see you tomorrow at nine-thirty.’
‘Be careful on your walk back,’ Shroom warned. ‘Make sure you’re not being followed.’
‘Sure, we’ll keep an eye out. Bye, Shroom.’
‘Bye.’
Tomorrow morning at nine-thirty, huh? Not a chance! Special Agent Shroom had a previous engagement. She’d planned to be at Emerald Eden at oh-nine-hundred to check on the new guests. Pretty Miss Monica would have to read The Mad Killers of Killjoy Mountain by herself. The Geek Empress would be mad but, well, the Geek Empress was always mad.
She looked up, startled and guilty. Snake-face was standing against the doorway, watching Shroom, arms folded across her chest, a tiny smirk on her face. It seemed as if she knew exactly what was going on in Shroom’s head. Shroom forced a smile. ‘Chalo,’ she said. ‘Let’s go for a walk before the sun goes down. Then it gets chilly.’
Radiating innocence, Shroom positioned herself between Snake-face and Flared-nostrils and walked down the long driveway to the bridge where the stone guardhouse stood.
‘I surrender,’ she intoned sepulchrally. ‘You can take me to the firing squad and shoot me. But I shall never tell you my secrets or betray my friends!’ Chin up, she took a confident step forward. ‘But one final request: can I have a last cigarette?’
Later that evening, after Shroom had finally gone off to bed, Vijaya looked askance at the two girls who were being ‘debriefed’ – as Shroom would have put it – by her.
‘What? Rukmini asked for a cigarette? Don’t pay attention to what she says,’ Vijaya told them with a wan smile. ‘She’s a little drama queen, but she has had a brain operation, so just make sure she stays out of trouble and doesn’t fall down. Now you can have your dinner, and tomorrow morning please report by eight sharp.’
Gudiya and Savita withdrew, and Vijaya went back to her book.
From her window upstairs, Shroom flashed a desperate SOS in Morse with her torch. It was something she did every night. Maybe some day, a handsome secret agent would see it and levitate on a rocket pack or flying Aston Martin and rescue her…
A mile away, in the dining hall at Emerald Eden, Megha had just wound up for the day. She stood in the verandah, thinking about her new guests. It was nice to have paying guests. For starters, there would at least be some inflow of money. Secondly, there was someone to talk to. Ajay was out for a week and it could get pretty lonely out here over long periods.
Megha suddenly broke into a smile as she gazed at the dark forest. That little monkey Shroom was at it again, flashing messages with her torch. She had very earnestly taught her Morse code. ‘You must know it, aunty,’ she had insisted. ‘It could save your life. What if you’re trapped in the mountain by an avalanche, and you need help…’ Megha picked up the big brass torch from the table and flashed back.
In her room, Shroom grinned and grabbed her pencil. Then she shook her head in exasperation. ‘That Megha aunty! She’ll never learn anything.’ But it was nice to know that Megha aunty was there and looking out for her. She waved her torch about wildly for a bit, then jumped into bed and drew the covers up.
Her mind wandered for a bit, as she planned her escape the next morning, following which she had some serious investigation to do. Who were those new people at the estate? Why was the taklu sad and angry? Who did he want to kill? Special Agent Shroom was determined to find out. Then she turned on her side and was quickly asleep. Had she known who else had spotted her desperate signal, she wouldn’t have been able to fall asleep so easily.
Gaurav Roy, sitting in the verandah of Emerald Eden Estate’s Cottage 105, stared out at the velvet darkness over the pine forest and the sharp quarter moon that had risen. Far away to the north, the big mountains glimmered faintly in the starlight; the most imposing of them, he knew, was Nanda Devi. They were rather like the monuments in Delhi, but more permanent and secure. But these were young mountains, subject to earthquakes. So here too there was only an illusion of security – these mountains could move and bring the world crashing down. Like a walk in the park had done…
An animal, perhaps a wildcat, suddenly yowled somewhere in the jungles below, bringing Gaurav out of his reverie. It was wonderfully cool, and so completely quiet – apart from the odd bird or animal call and the soft susurration of the wind through the tall pines. A shooting star dived out of the heavens and vanished. And what was that across the forest, on that ridge… a light twinkling on and off. Gaurav narrowed his eyes and looked at it intently. Then he remembered, when he was about seven, his father had taught him Morse code. And now, a mile or so to the east in these remote mountains, someone was flashing an SOS. But he couldn’t give a damn…
FOUR
Why didn’t he listen to the cop when he shouted at him to go back into the gardens? Why did he walk on defiantly and enter the open-air restaurant? Gaurav had asked himself this a thousand times. It was the arrogance in the cop’s tone that had pissed him off. First there was the cop inside the park who stopped him from going to the bench to change Mihi. And then the fellow who ordered him about, shouting and blowing his whistle. Just who did they think they were, shunting ordinary law-abiding people off the streets as if they were kicking aside cockroaches?
The horror of what immediately followed the gunshot haunted him. Regaining consciousness on the filthy floor of the vehicle as it careened off, its siren screaming, slamming his chin as it bounced. Gaurav had found his hands bound behind him; a boot thrust his neck down. A hood had been slipped over his head. But it hadn’t blocked Mihi’s petrified screams as she squirmed in the ungentle grip of a brawny constable.
The inspector told the press corps that Gaurav had deliberately set the dog on the elephant to cause mayhem on the road just as the prime minister was about to pass. It might have been just mischief, or an assassination attempt; investigations would reveal if there was any sinister plot or a connection with terrorists. Plus there was the pram and the baby and there had just been that blast in Meerut involving a baby’s basket, so his men were fully justified in their actions. Fortunately, the baby had not been wrapped up in explosives as had been feared – the cops who searched her and the pram were to be commended for their courage. The boy had not obeyed specific orders to go back into the gardens but had gone into t
he restaurant, where he knew the elephant was waiting. Then he had set the dog, an attack-trained German shepherd, on the elephant. Of course, they would be finding out why the elephant had not been cleared out from the place beforehand; there appeared to have been a communication gap and a birthday party that had continued beyond the stipulated time. The restaurant owner would be interrogated too – everyone in Jor Bagh and Lodi Colony and Golf Links would be investigated if necessary.
The press was worse: shrill, aggressive, paranoid, ignorant, and had darted in and out with questions with all the glee of a pack of panting hyenas that had discovered a wildebeest trapped in a mudhole.
‘Did you deliberately set the dog on the elephant to cause chaos?’
‘Why did you not go into the garden when ordered by the police?’
‘Are you associated with any fundamentalist group or party?’
‘The police say the dog was a fully attack-trained German shepherd – is that true?’
‘Had it been inoculated against rabies?’
‘Didn’t you know you’d be risking the life of your baby sister by your action?’
‘Did you know elephants are a protected species under the provisions of the Wildlife Protection Act?’
Gaurav looked up and answered just once, his voice a hoarse whisper: ‘He shot her, deliberately… he shot her…’
‘The police say the dog was out of control. It attacked the elephant. Is that true?’
‘The cop spooked the elephant with his bloody whistle!’ Gaurav shouted.
‘But surely a city elephant would have been used to loud noises?’
‘Well, this one wasn’t. Why don’t you listen…?’
They didn’t. And again: ‘How could you risk a little baby’s life? Your own baby sister at that?’
That was when he lost it and lunged for the mike of the shrill sanctimonious bitch who had made the insinuation. They had hustled him off and kept him away from the media after that. Certainly, no press conferences would be held until the matter was cleared up.
