by Ranjit Lal
It was a scruffy guy in a denim jacket and ragged jeans, looking totally out of place here. He was crouching down, a steel catapult in his hand drawn fully back. She looked for what he was aiming at. On the edge of a bare rock that sparked with mica, an Indian tortoiseshell butterfly was soaking up the sun. Before Raveena could react, the boy had released the rubber. The pebble smashed square into the insect, sending it flying off the rock in tatters, its wing scales floating down.
‘Oh, my god!’ Raveena shrieked.
The guy whirled around and, for a moment, Raveena was frightened. Would he turn the catapult on her and attack her? He looked that mad. His dark eyes bore into her from deep within a devastated face. But then her rage took over and her voice trembled. ‘You monster! Why did you do that? That beautiful butterfly – you just shredded it!’
Completely caught off guard, he gawked at her. ‘Bu… but… wha…’ He shook his head. He was holding the catapult loosely in one hand, and the pebble dropped out. Then his face took on that stony expresion again and he stared at her with cold eyes. He bent down and picked up another pebble. This time he aimed at a translucent snail halfway up a boulder. Raveena winced as she heard the shell shatter and explode.
‘Hey! What’s the matter with you? Are you crazy?’ In one stride she was beside him and had snatched the catapult out of his hands. With one angry motion she flung it over the mountain, then her hand shot out, and she gave him a resounding slap. He reeled back. ‘Don’t you ever, ever do such a thing again! Do you understand?’ Raveena fumed, her voice shrill. He was staring at her again; he seemed deranged. His jaw was working as if he was trying to say something, his face and ears turning crimson.
Raveena suddenly got a distinctly uneasy feeling that she had seen this face before… He was holding his cheek, stunned by the slap. Then, to her horror, she saw his eyes flood with tears – he roughly pushed past her with a strangled cry, scuttled up to the path, and disappeared. And that’s when it came back to her in a flood of confused memory… She quickly followed in the direction he had taken. ‘Wait!’ she called. ‘Listen!’ But he was gone.
Raveena sat down on a rock and tried to get her breathing under control. Was it possible? Could it have been the same guy? She couldn’t reconcile the two images she had in her head: that lanky, somewhat loopy teenager blowing a raspberry on his baby sister’s tummy while changing her diaper as his gorgeous Alsatian growled at her and Monica; and this unshaven bald lout smashing a butterfly and a snail with his catapult. Impossibly different, yet both faces had the same intense eyes, overhung by those woolly-bear eyebrows and that dead straight nose. Raveena had covertly studied his face while helping him with the baby’s diaper. There had been a marvellous mixture of sheer delight, affection and diffidence in his expression as his sister had chortled with glee. She had even e-mailed him the picture, as she had promised, but there had never been a reply. She looked at the photograph many times, wondering if they would ever meet again. And now she had run into him here, on this remote mountain ridge. How bizarre.
Raveena looked at her watch. Oh shit. She’d better hurry – Monica would be waiting for her, and Monica was known to be impatient. She scrambled to her feet and retraced her steps back down to the rest-house, then set off towards Emerald Eden, her mind in turmoil.
SEVEN
Sitting by the rustic wooden gates of Emerald Eden Estate, Monica looked pointedly at her watch as Raveena hurried up to her, waving. She frowned. Something was up with Rave; she was tripping all over herself as she scurried over.
‘Hey, what’s the matter?’
Raveena drew a hand through her hair agitatedly. ‘You won’t believe what just happened. I slapped a boy!’
‘What? Already? One of the school kids?’
‘You remember that guy we met at Lodi Gardens with the lovely Alsatian? I think it was him.’
‘What? Rave, are you sure you haven’t been eating any funny mushrooms?’
‘Monica!’
‘But why did you slap him? What did he do? And what’s he doing here, anyway?’
Raveena sat down next to her sister. She sighed. ‘I don’t know. I found him shooting butterflies and snails with his catapult, and I just lost it.’ She described her encounter.
Monica shook her head. ‘That doesn’t sound like him. Someone who blows raspberries on his baby sister’s tummy doesn’t seem the sort who would blast a butterfly to smithereens.’
‘I know! But I’m quite sure it was him. I recognized him, even though he was nearly bald. And I think he was able to place me too – he just goggled at me and disappeared.’
Monica narrowed her eyes. ‘Yes, you probably would recognize him. I’ve seen you looking at that photograph quite often,’ she remarked dryly. ‘But where was his dog?’
‘How should I know? I just hope we don’t bump into him again, though god knows that’s likely since he’s here too.’
‘Just keep your hands tight by your side; next time he might just hit back.’
‘That poor butterfly! You would have done the same thing.’
‘Probably. Anyway, come on now, we can’t keep Special Agent Shroom waiting or she’ll eliminate us. Just try and forget the whole thing. We have some map-reading to do this afternoon.’
Sure enough, Shroom was pacing up and down the little stone bridge, glaring at Snake-face and Flared-nostrils, who stood near the guardhouse watching her with amusement.
‘Reporting for duty, Special Agent Shroom!’ Monica called out, saluting smartly.
Shroom walked up to the girls and took out a piece of paper from her shirt. ‘Your map and instructions,’ she said under her breath, sneaking a glance at her two minders. ‘They’ve been following me. I don’t know if we’ll be able to shake them off.’
‘Tell you what, Shroom,’ Raveena said, lowering her voice. ‘Let’s play them at their own game.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘See, we know that they’re in the Geek Empress’s pay and are spying on us, right? But they don’t know we know that!’
‘So?’
‘So what we do is say things we’d want them to carry to the Geek Empress! False information! Propaganda!’
‘That’s a great idea,’ Shroom grinned. ‘Now you may unfold the map, and let’s see how good a map-reader you are.’
‘Right.’
Monica studied the map as Raveena peered over her shoulder. She looked puzzled.
‘Hey, that’s upside down!’ Shroom said delightedly. ‘You don’t know whether you’re coming or going!’
‘Sorry!’
‘Okay,’ said Raveena, ‘So you’re saying “Stand at guardhouse at brige”. Ah, bridge has a D in it. Okay, we’re right here. “Do a left turn and walk along stream.” That’s simple enough… Here we go!’
Shroom’s map and instructions were remarkably clear – up to a point. They had reached the egg-shaped boulder when they stopped.
‘You know what I call that rock?’ Monica told Shroom. ‘Humpty Dumpty rock!’
‘That’s cool!’ Shroom exclaimed.
‘Hey, what’s this?’ Monica said frowning. ‘You’ve written, “Turn this way, turn that way and go, go, go!”’ She looked around at Shroom, who stood by her side, beaming from ear to ear.
‘You’ll have to figure it out,’ she said crossing her arms. ‘I’m not going to tell you!’
‘I know!’ Raveena said, looking ahead. ‘See, the path turns this way here – there’s no other place to go unless you want to land in the water. Then maybe that way after the bend… and then we go straight, straight, straight!’
Shroom looked thrilled. ‘You got it! You’re good!’
With Savita and Gudiya tailing them, they eventually found themselves at Shroom’s Perch.
‘Wow!’ Monica said softly. ‘So this is Shroom’s Perch. What a fabulous view! But now we have to find a path going down…’
Shroom had suddenly gone quiet. ‘Are you all right?’ Raveena asked her.
She nodded and checked her watch. It was 1455 hours. Had Taklu reported? Slyly, she peered over the precipice, at the pool far below. The leopard’s rock was empty and there seemed to be no one around.
‘Found it!’ Monica yelled. ‘You mean we go down this path? You’ve drawn it like a corkscrew and that’s exactly what it looks like. But isn’t it dangerous?’
‘Nah,’ Shroom shook her head. ‘I’ve gone down hundreds of times.’
As the girls watched and Snake-face called out – ‘Rukmini baby, samhal ke jaana!’ – Shroom slithered down the corkscrew path at an alarming pace. She reached the bottom quickly, sliding the last few yards on her butt, and looked around.
He was sitting on a rock, his sketchpad by his side, looking a bit scary. She swallowed and rushed up to him. ‘Hello. I have brought the two teacher spies down here as well as my minders. Listen very carefully to what they say; we have to figure out what they’re plotting.’
‘Huh? What?’ Gaurav got to his feet and stared, astounded, as Raveena and Monica made their way down gingerly, with the two women behind.
The girls stopped in their tracks. Raveena’s hand shot up to her mouth. ‘Oh, shit,’ Monica muttered. ‘I forgot – Shroom had mentioned something about meeting a taklu.’ She greeted him coolly: ‘Hi. Haven’t we met before, at Lodi Gardens with your baby sister and dog…?’
Shroom’s eyes were as large as full moons in her face.
Gaurav nodded but said nothing, his eyes flickering uncertainly from one sister to the other.
Raveena put up her hand apologetically. ‘I’m, err, sorry for… what happened up there,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have… I lost my temper.’
Monica smiled. ‘Let me guess. You had a rendezvous with Special Agent Shroom here at 1500 hours?’
Gaurav nodded and looked at Shroom, who was gaping at them.
‘You… you know Taklu?’ she whispered incredulously. ‘Oh my god!’
‘Yes,’ Monica said, ‘we know him from a previous assignment, Agent.’
‘You’re kidding me! What assignment?’
Monica closed her eyes and leaned casually against a rock. ‘I’ll say this in code,’ she said, gesturing very obviously at the minders. ‘We assisted Special Agent Taklu while he was on a mission to change a baby’s diaper, right?’
Again he just nodded.
‘Baby’s diaper?’ Shroom was getting hungrier for information by the minute.
‘Yes, his baby sister’s,’ Monica replied, casting a quick glance at Raveena, who still seemed mortified. ‘At the time he had an Alsatian on guard, which growled at us.’
‘What?’ Shroom’s head turned from Monica to Taklu like she was watching a tennis match. ‘You have a dog? Where’s your dog?’
Gaurav’s jaw hardened. ‘I have to go,’ he said curtly, and picked up his pad and made for the track.
‘Please wait!’ Raveena caught his arm. The pad fell down, its pages flipping over one by one in the gentle breeze. They stood and stared for a moment, as the terrible caricatures appeared and disappeared. Gaurav froze. ‘I’m sorry,’ Raveena said, bending down to pick up the pad. She closed it and gave it to him. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked softly, looking into his eyes and still holding his arm. ‘Something’s happened, hasn’t it?’
‘Tell us! Tell us what happened!’
‘Shroom, sweetie, hush…’ Monica put a restraining arm on her.
‘Nothing’s happened,’ Gaurav muttered, wanting to free his arm yet wanting Raveena never to let go, and wishing with all his heart that it had been Zara’s hand. But her fingers felt soft and warm.
She shook her head impatiently. ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ she said. ‘You seem so angry and aloof… so different from the guy we met in Delhi. And you look like shit. You’re not doing drugs, are you?’
‘What’s it to you if I’m doing drugs or not?’
‘It’s nothing – I just want to know so I can understand. Otherwise it doesn’t make sense.’
‘So what if it doesn’t make sense? Nothing makes sense! I have to go now.’
But Raveena didn’t move out of his way. ‘Maybe you should talk about it,’ she persisted quietly. ‘Talk to us, then you can go and we won’t bother you again.’
Gaurav looked at her for a long moment and then slowly sat down, covering his face with his hands as his body trembled with silent tears.
The girls crouched down on either side of him. Raveena, looking disturbed, rubbed his arm. Shroom came forward and stood beside them, her face turning pale. The chaperones, who stood a little way off, exchanged knowing glances: ladki-ladke ka lafda…
‘Yes,’ Gaurav whispered miserably at last, ‘something happened.’ In a way, he thought, the sisters vaguely had a connection to what had happened. ‘Not her fault…’ he murmured, trying to get a hold on himself. He took a deep breath. ‘They shot her…’
‘What! Who?’ All three of them were horrified.
‘The cops shot her, that same day…’
‘Shot whom? Your sister?’ Raveena asked in a shrill voice.
‘Rani…’
‘Your dog? Oh, no! I’m so sorry.’
‘But why?’ Monica enquired.
And then, like the gushing waterfall, Gaurav poured it all out. He told them everything.
‘I remember now,’ Monica said white-faced. ‘It was in the papers here but the report was so badly written, it was difficult to tell exactly what had happened. And we never saw the TV reports.’
‘Those were the worst,’ he said. ‘That’s why I shaved my head, so I wouldn’t get pointed at.’
‘Have you thought about getting another dog?’ Raveena asked.
He shook his head. ‘No, I couldn’t bear it. Not after Rani.’
Monica was looking closely at Shroom. ‘Shroom, sweetie, are you okay?’ she asked, turning towards her.
Shroom nodded, sniffing, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘The next time Tinku has pups,’ she said, between hiccups, ‘you can have them. All of them. She had eight the last time.’
Gaurav smiled in spite of himself. ‘So that’s it,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what to do any more… I should have listened to that cop. Rani would have been alive…’
‘Don’t blame yourself so much,’ Monica comforted him. ‘That cop was the kind of person who would have found any excuse to do what he did. As you said, he shot her when she was about to return to you.’
‘Yeah, she was wagging her tail.’
‘Your parents must have been very upset,’ Raveena said.
He nodded. ‘My mom still hasn’t got over it. She keeps thinking about what could have happened – she keeps saying that the cop could have shot Mihi.’ He grimaced. ‘I know that, and it would have been my fault. My father has hardly spoken to me since. He’s been grounded by the airline. My girlfriend Zara’s just disappeared. I don’t know where she’s gone. She doesn’t want to have anything to do with me any more… I’d got Rani from her family.’
Shroom had stopped listening and was pacing up and down on the flat rocks by the pool, her hands behind her back. She was glowering.
‘Shroom?’ Monica called out.
‘Please don’t disturb me! Can’t you see I’m thinking?’ Shroom said, putting on her hat.
‘Sorry, Agent!’ Monica said, biting back a smile.
Raveena was looking at Gaurav in that special way of hers. He felt relieved, lighter. Maybe he should have talked about this earlier instead of bottling it up. Maybe then he would not have shot innocent butterflies and snails. He felt calmer now. The fury was gone, but it had been replaced by something darker. Come what may, he would do what he had to do for Rani – and nothing, nothing at all could come in his way.
‘Okay,’ Shroom said suddenly, stopping mid-stride, ‘I want to go home. I have a secret assignment.’ She walked up to Gaurav and took his hand. ‘You will report to me for a complete debriefing!’ she ordered. ‘Right now, on the double, mister!’ She turned to the sisters.
‘You are dismissed!’
‘Okay, Agent Shroom,’ Monica complied.
The motley group climbed up to the perch and then made its way back to the bridge.
‘Raveena will report for duty tomorrow,’ Monica told Shroom, who was in a hurry to get back home.
The girls said goodbye to Gaurav. ‘Take care of yourself,’ Raveena added softly. Monica raised her eyebrows as she noticed the goofy look on her sister’s face. Gaurav just smiled awkwardly. And the two started the long walk back to the rest-house.
At the guardhouse Shroom took Gaurav’s hand again. ‘Come on in,’ she said. ‘I have to take you to the debriefing room to interrogate you.’
What the hell was he doing, following this crackpot to her place, Gaurav wondered. Well, at least it was better than going back to his mom and sister at the estate. Besides, he was curious about the house and its occupants.
The Gurkha guard at the gate eyed him suspiciously as did the man in plain clothes but, seeing Shroom drag him along, they both simply shrugged. The plain-clothes chap had a quiet word with Savita and Gudiya, who were following close behind.
‘You should shave!’ Shroom said severely. ‘Then people won’t think you’re a criminal. And you’ll be able to fool them in case you are one.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Gaurav looked around. The big two-storey stone house, with its gleaming bay windows and creepers of wild rose and jasmine, was set in a large terraced garden bordered with orderly flower beds. There were two distinct wings, set at an obtuse angle to each other, joined by a common central area and portico. A path paved with round river stones led to the verandah, where baskets of magenta and pink fuchsia hung from the columns.
Shroom put a finger to her lips. ‘This is the Geek Empress’s palace. We stay in the east wing; bade-mama stays in the west wing when he comes. Maintain complete silence.’
She took him through the large drawing room with its overstuffed flowery sofas. Gaurav stopped and stared at the framed black-and-white photographs of VIPs over the fireplace. In one of them, Shroom, with a curly mop and an impish smile, was standing between the PM and a tall woman. ‘This is the Geek Empress, and that’s my bade-mama,’ she pointed out. ‘He’s the prime minister. Come on, now.’
