The long general ward was full of patients in varying degrees of suffering. Half a dozen nurses, all dressed like the one beside her, in white saris, scurried from bed to bed tending to people with broken arms, or fever, or with rashes all over their body. Some patients were vomiting on the floor, while others were swearing loudly to get the attention of the nurses. The old man on the bed beside Maya had been coughing uncontrollably for more than five minutes, and she felt guilty for stealing medical attention from someone who needed it more.
"You must do something about your husband," continued the nurse, "you cannot allow him to have his way or he’ll make your life hell. I don't think the Longstaffs would be of any help, they just sit in their constabularies and doze. I do know a few men who can help though. They will teach your husband a lesson. For some money of course, if you can manage it."
Maya nodded. She was in no mood for a conversation, especially one which was based on a lie.
She had told the nurse that her injuries were the result of an extremely violent streak of her drunk husband. An event so prevalent among the natives in Anthill that the nurse had taken little time to accept it. It had also given her an instant sympathy from the native nurse, who seemed like she had been a victim of domestic violence herself. She wore red vermillion in her hair, an indication that she was still married, but she was working (which wasn’t commonplace at all among native women with earning husbands) which meant that she had either left her husband or he was one of those men who spent more time in opium dens to care for their family.
But her sympathy was now bothering Maya. She wanted some peace of mind and silence to think about what had happened to her. She remembered loitering around the house of Seth Murari Das near the Banyan Square in the morning, exploring a robbery case that she had taken up recently, when she had felt a tug at her shoulder. Before she could make any move, a hand had come swinging across and put a black face shroud upon her head. Then a kick had sent her tumbling on the road and she had passed out from the impact. She had gotten a fleeting glance at her assailant before the shroud was pushed upon her head, and Maya vaguely remembered a humongous black man with a long crop of brown hair like the mane of a horse. When she had woken up next, she was in a garbage dump, being looted by a rag picker. The poor man had been so scared by her suddenly coming to life that he had run away leaving not only her bag but even his own garbage sack beside her.
Who was that large black man and why did he almost kill her?
"Don't move your legs," said the nurse sharply, "you are smearing the ointment on the sheet."
Maya looked down at her feet. She was in a habit of rocking her legs whenever she was in deep thought. Though the filthy sheet under her did not have the potential to become any dirtier, she decided to stop moving her legs anyway.
"Are you a Hindu?" asked the nurse again, "I don't see a wedding ring on your hand."
"I..." Why was this nurse so inquisitive, "I threw it away, I was rather upset at my husband for beating me."
The nurse patted Maya's shoulder affectionately.
"You did a brave thing," she said, "That ought to teach the swine a lesson."
The man beside Maya’s bed suddenly catapulted into an extremely violent coughing fit and toppled off the bed.
"I think he needs you," ventured Maya, trying to get rid of the nurse.
"Yes, yes," said the nurse, "I have dressed your wounds and applied iodine. You should be fine, just rest. And don't move your legs."
Maya nodded. She saw her move to the man next to her, then started to shake her legs once more, trying to reflect on the day’s events.
Was it someone she had ruffled in the wrong way during one of her cases who had sent that large man to beat her? She suddenly remembered the envelope that she had found upon her in the garbage pile and reached into her bag to retrieve it. This should clarify things further.
A letter fell into her lap along with an inch long piece of wood. She picked up the wooden piece and threw it back instantly, it wasn’t wood at all but a dried up, decayed fingertip.
Maya resisted the urge to vomit and quickly brushed it under her sheet before one of the nurses could swoop down and confiscate the unhygienic souvenir of her fatal experience yesterday.
She opened the letter and read,
Dear Maya,
I hope finding a fingertip in your mail hasn’t shaken you too much.
I felt inclined to enclose this artifact because this fingertip belonged to a person who was much like you. He tried to put his hands in affairs that were not his own.
We have noticed in the last couple of months that you have repeatedly shown the qualities which proved to be the bane of the man whose body part you have now in your possession. You have indulged in activities that have led to great losses to our organization. I will not go into the details, but it should suffice to say that the losses are large enough for us to consider this step. Any more prodding from your side would only make our attempts more desperate, and that will not bode well for you.
If you keep your noses out of affairs which you have no interest in, you will find that you have a long life ahead of you.
On the other hand, if you do not correct your course and continue to bother us, the next time someone receives this letter, the fingertip inside might be yours.
Your Well-Wisher
The envelope, as well as the ink, and the pen with which the letter was written was of good quality. A bloating paper had been used as well to dry the ink. The author of the letter was someone reasonably well to do, not to mention influential, as no one knew that Maya was in Anthill.
She tried to look for other clues on the paper, but there were none. She could not figure out much. Someone had warned her to keep herself away from his affairs but hadn't revealed who he was. What purpose did that solve?
Maya picked up the fingertip and explored it for any clues about the identity of the sender. There were none.
She took out a paper and pen from her bag and spent ten minutes writing the name of any person she felt could have a reason to harm her. The list was quite long, but even at the end of her effort, she had a feeling that this wasn't the work of any of these people. Someone much more powerful was behind this. Not that she really cared, it was just slightly unsettling to think that she had an enemy she did not even know. Maya preferred to be on an equal footing with her adversaries. She nibbled at her pen trying to think of other people she could have offended, and her glance strayed towards the door.
Maya’s heart skipped a beat.
Someone had just brushed past the general ward and Maya was certain she recognized the face. It was a face she hadn’t seen for a long time.
And a face she did not want to see, ever.
Maya shuffled restlessly upon her bed. Was that really her? What if she had seen Maya? What if, she was looking for her...
No! That couldn't be. She couldn't be looking for her? Not now, after so many years. She was here for a completely different reason and Maya would make sure she did not stumble upon her by mistake.
Maya put the fingertip and the letter back in her bag and slyly slid out of the bed to avoid the nurse, who was still tending to the man beside her.
She put on her one sandal, the other was missing, and hastily made her way out of the hall to the front yard of the hospital. Maya looked around to make sure that the person she was trying to avoid wasn't there and carefully rushed towards the gate.
She had taken one step out of the gate when she felt a hand upon her shoulder.
"Nadia? Is that you?" she heard the familiar voice of her sister.
FOUR
Harold Wilson's Daughter
Maya contemplated running away but gave up the idea almost immediately. Her feet were still in considerable pain. More importantly, she didn’t feel like running away. Hearing her cousin's voice after so many years had a strange debilitating effect on her.
It had made her emotional.
She wanted to turn and face the person she
had scraped from her memory long ago. Maya wanted to talk to her and hug her. The sudden loss of emotional control left her slightly dizzy and gravely disappointed with herself.
Natasha stepped in front of Maya and blocked her way out of the gate.
She was a tall woman with dusk skin, long black hair which she held in a bun upon her head, and a face which had hardly changed since Maya had seen her last seven years ago.
“Oh, Nadia! it is indeed you, I cannot believe it!” she said and embraced her tightly. Maya put her hands on her cousin's back as well, apprehensively almost. The proximity to her forgotten past was unsettling and yet there was little she could do. The warmth of Natasha’s embrace was something she had missed sorely.
It seemed like Natasha had missed her as well, for she showed no signs of relaxing her grip around Maya. In fact, Maya soon found her sobbing softly on her shoulders.
“What happened Natasha?” she asked plucking her sister away from her, “why are you crying?”
Maya noticed that Natasha’s eyes were red, her dress casual, and her hair disheveled. It was clear that she had gotten out in a hurry. And she was in a hospital.
Something was wrong.
“Is everyone all right?”
Maya’s statement precipitated Natasha into a fresh salvo of tears. She held Maya’s hand and slipped the fingers between hers, like a child does.
“Tell me,” Maya pressed.
“It’s father,” she said, “He’s no more.”
Maya wanted to express shock but couldn’t. Somehow she had already known. Who else would Natasha cry so terribly for.
An awkward silence engulfed the two as Maya scavenged for things to say. It was at moments like these that she found her social awkwardness most incapacitating.
“I… I am sorry,” she managed finally, cringing at how theatrical it sounded, “What happened?”
Natasha looked around, as if to make sure that no one overheard her
“He killed himself,” she said, “jumped from the top of a watchtower in the circus ground.”
Maya hadn’t anticipated this.
Harold Wilson, the owner of the Golem Circus, had committed suicide! Maya had known him to be a brave man, and a man who could be rather stone-hearted if he so chose (Maya had experienced it firsthand). What could have pushed a man like him to take his own life? Maya wanted more details but Natasha was in no condition to talk about her dead father.
“I am sorry to hear that,” she said without realizing that she had already said it before, “When did this happen?”
“In the evening before yesterday. The funeral is today and I had come here to do some formalities."
Maya nodded.
“Oh Nadia,” Natasha said wiping her face in the sleeve of her dress, “I meet you after so long but in such terrible circumstances. But you will come to the funeral, will you not? It is in the St. Mary’s Church near East Bank.”
Maya hesitated. There would be too many old faces in the funeral, as well as tricky questions and whispers. She didn’t think she was prepared for that.
“I will try,” she lied, “I have some urgent work right now but I will try.”
It seemed as though Natasha could see through her lie.
“It is your uncle’s funeral, Nadia,” she exhorted, “would you not give him a parting goodbye.”
The words did nothing to change Maya’s mind. If anything, they reminded her of the time Maya had seen Harold Wilson last. He had refused to be called her uncle then.
“I will try, Natasha,” Maya repeated.
She embraced Natasha once more, then stepped out of the gate wondering if she will ever see her cousin sister again.
FIVE
Ernst Looks for a Dance Partner
Lieutenant Ernst Wilhelm stood at the door of the Bombay Detective Agency on St. Sebastian Square and adjusted his collar. He felt slightly ill-dressed in his tie-less white shirt and blue trousers, given the purpose of his visit (though in hindsight, from what he knew about Maya’s taste and appetite for fashion, he wasn’t too underdressed)
Ernst Wilhelm was here to ask Maya to be his partner at the annual High Guard ball, scheduled two weeks from now in his Constabulary. Maya had told him that she worked as a Junior Researcher in the agency. Asking her to a ball in her office didn’t seem like the best of decisions, but he had no choice. He did not yet know where she lived. In the two months that he’d known her(he had met her first in a dingy pub where drunk men were trying to auction her), they had met a few times but only in restaurants or on streets. He often bumped into her at the oddest of places. Places where he wouldn’t really expect any normal woman to be - shady opium dens, pubs, and dirty bylanes of Flea Market. She attributed her presence in these places to the needs of her job, which demanded her to collect information on the cases that the agency was working on. It was not a job that many women in the city could claim to have, but if there was one thing that he had understood about Maya in the short time that he had known her, it was that Maya was not like any woman he had ever met before.
And that was the reason he was here.
The impending ball had given Ernst a reason to think about his future. Ernst was 24. Old enough to start looking for a partner he would want to spend his life and start a family with. He had spent a full day thinking about it, analyzing all his female friends and acquaintances. Being the son of a rich banker and forced to attend numerous parties and dances all through his life, his list was quite long. But only one name stood out.
It was the one woman he knew the least. Maya.
Taking a cue from his father, he set out to find a logical reason for his attraction towards Maya. It couldn’t really be her appearance merely – Maya did not conform to the traditional idea of feminine beauty. She had a long angular face, a bony frame, and thick black hair which were often untidy and sequined with dirt. She wasn’t the most socially adept, shunning society and drifting into sudden long silences while talking. Ernst had also come to be wary of her mood swings. In the end, he came to the conclusion that his attraction towards Maya was solely because she was so different from all the others around. The way she dressed, or spoke, even the choice of her profession, and her lack of concern for personal hygiene and appearance. It was all so exotic. She was a mystery, an other-worldly secret. And being with her felt like an adventure.
Ernst cleared his throat and adjusted his collar once more before opening the door to the building. But he lost his heart at the last moment and stepped back on the pavement.
Approaching Maya for the dance was harder than he had anticipated. She didn’t really come across as someone proficient in tapping her feet to music. What if she said no to his face? Ernst wasn’t sure how he’d react to that.
But he had to be brave. He wiped his shoes on the back of his trousers and stepped inside the building. He would approach her with confidence and ask her to dine with him in the evening. He would propose the dance over food.
He clambered a narrow flight of steps and turned right towards a bright green door. The door opened into a small foyer which led into a large circular hall. A few men dressed in black coats and top hats were talking animatedly with each other in the hall. One of them, with no hair on his head and a large scar on his face, came forward to receive him.
"Hello," said the man, "I am retired Colonel Reginald Grisham. How may I help you? Are you looking for the services of our agency?"
"No, Colonel," said Ernst slightly embarrassed at having disappointed an old military man, "Actually I am here to meet Miss Maya Mitchell. She works here as a researcher."
The man looked slightly confused.
"Only one woman works here," he said scratching his head, "I have never inquired her name, so cannot say if it is Maya, but I can certainly tell you that she is not a researcher. She works here as an assistant, you know, takes care of the woman stuff - bills and the rent and managing the sweepers and the sort. She sits right there," he pointed to a small desk in the foyer jus
t beside the door. It was empty, "Actually now that I think of it, I remember that her name is indeed Maya. Since Camleman, the Chief of the Agency is out of Cardim, she had sent a leave application to me a few days ago. She is unwell I think."
Ernst fidgeted unsurely. Maya wasn't a researcher but an administrative worker? But why would she lie to him? And what about the numerous times he had found her lurking in places only criminals and detectives would venture?
He found the bald man still staring at him.
"Would it be possible for me to get her address?" Ernst asked, "I want to contact her urgently."
"I am sure that can be arranged," said the bald man moving briskly to Maya's table to take out a large register.
"121 C, Tamarind Street, Emilia. Please give her my well-wishes."
"Yes I will," said Ernst making a mental note of the address, "and thank you for the help."
*****
121 C, Tamarind Street, was a small room on the first floor of a newly built apartment building at the edge of Emilia, and Maya was not in her room either. Instead, a chubby young woman with green eyes and a noticeable amount of talcum powder on her face opened the door.
"Hello," said Ernst, "I am Lieutenant Ernst Wilhelm. I am here to see Maya."
The woman was visibly surprised by Ernst's arrival at her door. She observed him for a few moments before opening her mouth.
"Maya is not in," she said, "Are you here to arrest her?"
"No, not at all," said Ernst, taken aback, "Why would you ask that?"
"Oh nothing," the woman was embarrassed slightly, "Maya never has any visitors and you seem to be a High Guard so I thought that she could have gotten herself in trouble and you were here to arrest her."
Ernst tried to smile, still slightly wary of the woman's assumption of the purpose of his visit.
"I am Maisie by the way, Maya's roommate. If you want you can come inside, I can make tea for you."
"Oh, no," said Ernst, "please don't bother. I was just here to meet Maya. Do you have any idea where she is and when might she be back?"
The Mystic's Miracle Page 2
