Warlock

by Vickram E Diwan

  She walked up to the open side door of the bungalow, which led to the reception of that institute. The receptionist took the admission fees from Payal and gave her a temporary entrance card after filling Payal’s name, telephone number and address on a sleek Dell laptop in front of her, on which a daily attendance register was also maintained. A small Gorkha boy took Payal to the main hall of the bungalow, where the acting instructor Ms. Rupali was conducting her class. It was a well-lighted huge hall, with a wooden floor and a large mirror that ran to the entire length of one of its walls. Everyone turned their heads to the door when Payal appeared in the middle of the discourse of the instructor.

  Miss Rupali turned out to be a rather ordinary looking middle-aged woman; who seemed to have an exquisite taste in make-up and dressing. Her black hair was tied behind her head and she had her coloured goggles resting on her head. “Yes?” she questioned Payal.

  “Good morning madam, I‘m Payal Chatterjee, a new admission,” she said looking at the teacher who sat on a chair while her beautiful young pupils, sat on the wooden floor.

  “Come in Payal; but before you sit amongst the students, would you care to explain as to why are you late?” asked the lady instructor looking at her small golden wristwatch, which showed quarter to twelve.

  “I didn’t know what time the classes begin; I just got enrolled in this course,” Payal offered by way of explanation.

  “All right, since this is your first day I will make an exception. But make certain young lady that you are never again late for my class,” Miss Rupali said a little sternly. “And that goes for all the rest of you young ladies as well. Unpunctual people never succeed in life, and make room for Payal in the front row. Since she’s a newcomer, she should get a chance to watch and learn closely.”

  Girls in the front row moved a little to make space for Payal who sat on the wooden floor of the large hall where the acting class was being conducted. “So, where were we?” asked the lady instructor.

  “About enacting a romantic scene,” one beautiful girl answered.

  “Right; Jyoti and Neeta get up. Show the class how to act a romantic scene,” said Miss Rupali.

  Two young women got up from the floor and tried to act a romantic scene, in which Jyoti played a boy while Neeta - a spoilt rich kid kind of a girl, tried to act as a woman in love. Neeta was undoubtedly one of the most beautiful girls, Payal had ever seen and going by her clothes, rich too; but acting simply wasn’t her cup of tea. Despite Miss Rupali’s continued guidance and suggestions, she failed to act in a natural way.

  The teacher had to call another girl, a more impressive performer, to play and act that scene. Payal could see clearly the resentment on the fuming face of Neeta as she sat down beside her on the floor. The talent, skill, and experience of the instructor more than compensated for her lack of natural beauty. The students acted one scene after another, exploring the realm of acting, learning to act different emotions and different situations, all under the constant guidance of their competent instructor.

  At half past one in the afternoon, Miss Rupali announced the end of the class for the day. “Wait girls, I’m not finished,” she said stopping the young women who were trying to get up. “The class will meet at eleven tomorrow morning; you will be taught how to face the camera. So do your homework in front of the mirror, I don’t want to see anyone unprepared. And remember, an actress always acts naturally,” she added as she left the hall.

  The noisy bunch of young women followed later, who loudly talked amongst themselves while walking their way through the gallery that led to the reception and the driveway. “Hello, Payal? Isn’t that what you said your name was?” asked a voice.

  When Payal turned back her head, she saw the rich girl, who had tried unsuccessfully to act the romantic scene before the class, smiling pleasantly at her. “Yes, I’m Payal,” she answered smilingly.

  “I’m Neeta Choudhari,” the rich girl said offering her hand.

  Payal shook her hand in a friendly manner and said, “I’m pleased to meet you, Neeta.”

  “Are you also taking Schönherr’s class?” Neeta asked Payal while they were walking on the driveway that led to the front gate of the bungalow.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Good, I’m also taking his class. Why don’t we go to a fast food joint; we can talk there while eating lunch. You don’t have to rush to your house, do you?”

  “No; I intend to take the dance class at four and leave only in the evening.”

  “Good, we’ll have plenty of time to get acquainted. You like gossip, don’t you?”

  Payal could only smile in response; she was already beginning to like Neeta, who seemed a friendly person with no arrogance of her riches. By the time they were outside the gate, the Gorkha watchman kept on looking at the students curiously.

  The space outside the boundary wall was completely empty except a shinning ‘Toyota’ car. “You wouldn’t mind walking to the restaurant, would you?” Neeta asked. “I don’t feel like driving; besides South Extension market is only at walking distance from here.”

  “I don’t mind at all; this place looks a lot different after all those cars have left,” Payal said while they both walked on the road beside the boundary wall.

  “That was nothing; wait till the time of Schönherr’s class. At that time this entire road will look like a parking space with cars parked on both its sides along its entire length.”

  “Really?” Payal asked as they both turned the corner of the street and came on the pavement running alongside the market of south Ext. Part I.

  “Of course, mean I don’t have anything against rich girls; I myself am fairly rich. But most of those girls come here more to be close to Rudolf Schönherr than to learn dancing.”

  “No kidding!”

  “Oh, you’ll see for yourself, how obnoxious those girls of this dance class are. Each one of them looks to be falling all over Rudolf Schönherr when he’s around.”

  “And doesn’t he, Rudolf Schönherr try to stop all this?” Payal asked as she entered the fast food restaurant behind Neeta.

  “What will you have?” Neeta asked.

  “Whatever you’ll have.”

  “I’ll have a big burger and a chilled strawberry shake. Is that good for you too? Good, you find an empty table, I’ll place the order.”

  Neeta went to the payment counter, paid for the burgers and shakes and gave the slip of the same to the service counter. While the order was being prepared, Payal and she waited on a table beside the glass window, which looked at the busy ring road running outside the restaurant.

  “You didn’t answer me,” Payal said, “doesn’t Schönherr tries to put a stop at all that?”

  “Why should he?” Neeta asked back. “I believe he actually gets a kick out of it.”

  “Don’t tell me!”

  The electronic signboard on top of the service counters showed that their order was ready; Payal stopped Neeta and went herself to fetch the food. She came back with a plastic tray, with two King size burgers and two chilled strawberry shakes in it. She carefully placed them on the table, while Neeta picked up the bottle of tomato sauce from the table and squeezed out sauce on both the burgers.

  “Don’t they realize how Rudolf Schönherr is using them?” Payal asked taking a bite of her burger after putting some more sauce on it.”

  “Even if they know it, they can’t do anything about it; he is simply so charming, so magnetic and so irresistible. I have to admit this: there is simply no denying of his being a hunk, a Casanova, and to use a degrading expression - a lady-killer. It’s almost quarter to three,” Neeta said looking at her wristwatch, “Let’s go back to the Institute, we will talk on our way there.”

  “What’s the hurry; Rudolf Schönherr won’t be there till four.”

  “He would be there already; he only takes a class at four, besides we’ll have to get out of these clothes before he comes in the dance-hall.”

  “What do you mean?
” Payal asked.

  “Don’t you know that all the students have to change into tights – the skin fitting nylon clothes- for the class?”

  “Nobody told me; I haven’t also brought them with me.”

  “Not to worry, you can find plenty of them in the changing room. Come, let’s go,” Neeta said.

  Both the young women got out of the restaurant and walked on the pavement beside the busy ring road, towards the institute. Payal saw a ‘Toyota-Prado’ parked at the end of the driveway. “That’s Rudolf Schönherr’s station-wagon,” Neeta announced, “he must be resting in his room on the first floor before the class starts.”

  “By the way, why are you here?” Payal asked her as she entered the open doorway of the reception after Neeta.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The way you talk about Rudolf Schönherr, It seems evident that you for one aren’t impressed by him or his art. And going by what you have told me about your father, you don’t need to make money by choosing acting as your profession. Why are you here?”

  “You won’t believe this!” Neeta said walking through a gallery inside the bungalow and entering a room after opening a door bearing a brass plate of ‘Changing room.’

  “I’m listening.”

  “My mother was really into acting and dance in her college days. She never got a chance to fulfill her ambitions because of my grandparents pushing her into an early marriage with my father.”

  “And now she wants to realize her unfulfilled ambitions through her daughter,” Payal said.

  “Something like that; anyway it’s not a bad way to pass time.”

  “And what about the fees your parents have to pay for all this?”

  “Who cares? My family has got loads of money.”

  “I guess you are right.”

  They were both standing in a medium sized room, the door of which Neeta had already closed. On the three sides of the room were wooden cupboards, which covered the wall from the floor to seven feet of height; the cupboards had about half an inch wide openings in them, like straight horizontal lines, in its upper section. Only the cupboards of two walls were in use, one for keeping the tights and other for hanging the clothes of the students.

  According to Neeta, the cupboards on the third wall of the room were not in use and were kept locked at all time. Unknown to her, as to all other young women, the cupboard on the third wall opened in the backroom. Also unknown to her and Payal, at that very moment a pair of dirty eyes, which moved feverishly in their sockets, was staring at them through the straight horizontal opening in the cupboard’s upper section.

  Those eyes moved even more feverishly as the two young and unsuspecting women slipped out of their clothes and wore the skin fitting clothes made of nylon. Even when they both had walked out of the changing room lit by six tube-lights, that pair of unknown eyes remained there. They continued to ogle as the other young women came in the changing room to change their clothes.

  After they were all gone to attend the class, the master of those eyes slowly opened the rear door of the cupboard behind him. He jumped into the room, in which that wooden cupboard opened and from the rear door went to the veranda of the bungalow. He walked discreetly, sticking as close to the wall as he could; he stopped at the corner and carefully looked towards the driveway and the iron gates beyond.

  The driveway was completely empty and the watchman was resting somewhere inside the wooden cabin which was near the gates. He dropped to his knees and moved like a cat on his all fours towards the rear door of the Land Cruiser Prado. He noiselessly opened the rear door and entered Rudolf Schönherr’s station wagon; he closed the door behind him and hid under a blanket right up to his chin. He intended to spend the next one and a half hour in the Prado, after which he was to go inside again when the girls came back to the changing room to change their clothes.

  At precisely four in the afternoon, Rudolf Schönherr walked into the huge dance hall. He was wearing a black nylon outfit. His hair was wet and the way it had been combed; it brought out the bones of his temple. About thirty or so young women were waiting for him in that hall.

  “All right class,” Rudolf Schönherr said clapping his hands, “today I’m going to teach you some new steps. Meena, put on the music,” he ordered.

  A woman named Meena – who Payal later found was the assistant dance instructor, who took over class in Rudolf Schönherr’s absence – walked to the wall of the hall. There on a small table was placed a Sony C.D. player; Meena put on a C. D. of dance music. The music reverberated in the large dance hall devoid of any furniture.

  Soon everybody was dancing, trying to imitate Rudolf Schönherr’s dance-steps; who was dancing literally on his toes. The way he was dancing he seemed to be charged with electricity. The girls could hardly keep pace with Rudolf Schönherr; Payal had to admit to herself, whatever else was true or not true about him, his dancing talent was undoubtedly exceptional.

  Rudolf Schönherr slowed down with the next song and by the third number, he had stopped altogether, looking at his students dance, and correcting their movements whenever they took a wrong step. Payal was unable to decide that whether Rudolf Schönherr was only being an enthusiastic teacher or whether Neeta’s revelations about him were true – whenever he put his hand on a young woman’s waist or took her hand into his to correct a dance-step or movement.

  The class continued till five in the evening when Meena, the assistant dance instructor finally stopped the music on the compact disc player. Rudolf Schönherr was sweating profusely, even in the chill of winter evening. “Alright students, listen up,” he said wiping the sweat from his forehead and face with a small towel that his assistant had given him. “Miss Meena would take the class tomorrow, I will be back only on the day after tomorrow. And make sure that you ladies don’t skip the class just because I personally would not be conducting it. That is all, class dismissed,” he said and walked out of the hall.

  All the girls walked to the changing room, to get into their own clothes. None of them, of course, knew about the unknown pair of eyes, which looked at them from the narrow opening in the cupboard. Soon all the girls left, while the master of those pair of eyes jumped into the room behind and yet again sneaked out and hide in Rudolf Schönherr’s Land Cruiser.

  “You are going home?” Neeta asked Payal as they came out of the bungalow.

  “Yeah, where else?”

  “Where do you live? I can give you a lift it’s on my route,” Neeta said opening the door of her Toyota car.

  “I’m staying with a friend of mine in a flat near ‘Hyatt Regency’.

  “Well, you’re just in luck; my bungalow is in Punjabi Bagh. Hop in, I’ll drop you on the ring road outside Hyatt,” Neeta said entering her car. She opened the other door of the car and Payal got inside. She saw the numerous cars parked on both sides of the street; her newly found friend was right about that at least. Rudolf Schönherr was indeed the soul behind his institute; he seemed to draw women in flocks. Something about him was so unexplainably magnetic, Payal thought to herself. The journey to her home was spent in small talk and the usual girl-gossip about movies and fashion.

  CHAPTER 5: RAISING A CORPSE

  Changu and Mangu were addicted to Ganja (Cannabis). They were both in their late thirties and had once been casual labours, who were willing to pick up any work to make ends meet. Their favourite haunt was the Shamsan in Mehruali, which they used as their personal chandukahna (opium house). The other thing they had in common was their addiction to sex and ‘flashing’. They took a fetish delight in exposing themselves to unsuspecting women.

  ‘Changu Guru, aaj to nasha nahi ho raha. ( I am not getting a kick)

  “We just started; wait till you take a few more puffs.”

  “My wife, she has such sexy body; here no woman as good. Those G. B. Road prostitutes give me no pleasure.”

  “That’s why you getting no high; thinking about your wife. I never think of mine; who knows where she
is satisfying herself.”

  “Guru (Boss); this farmhouse beyond the baad (fence); who’s place is this?

  “Don’t know; the gardener who use to come there earlier told me his Sa’ab did not like company.”

  “Someone told me that the previous owner was a dabang; said that this Sahamsan (cremation ground) and karbristaan (graveyard) both were part of his farmhouse.”

  “Why should we bother about this?”

  “But this present owner not interested in court cases.”

  “Really big farmhouse he has; what will he do with Shamsan and Kabristaan?”

  “But Guru; people say that there are strange lights and sounds that come from the direction of the farmhouse.”

  “Now you are getting high; so talking rubbish. Anyway; if Shamsan and Kabristan do not have ghosts, which place will have them?”

  “That is what I say Guru; surprising part is that it is not Shamsan or Kabristan but farmhouse, which seems to be haunted.”

  “You idiot; how will spirits know where baad (fence) is, where Shamsan ya Kabristan finish and farmhouse starts? They will go where they wish.”

  “Jeh pate ki baat Guru, (This makes sense boss). Also, here people come all day, to burn & bury. Farmhouse, no one goes, and ghosts can live there in peace.”

  “Yes; and see the baad is broken at so many places; anyone can go there.”

  “No Guru; you forget those dangerous dogs that roam the ground. They almost killed a man who strayed to the farmhouse one day.”

  “Leave it; what do we care. You listen to my hot talk with Kallo.”

  “Nahi Guru; you get charged up and use me, if you find no woman.”

  “So; I allow you to have fun with me in return. When we have no money to buy a woman, we have to either please ourselves or please each other.Now listen, what Kallo told me...”

  Changu spent the next half an hour in a monologue, telling the juicy details of his dirty-talk with a prostitute and the graphic description of his explosive sex with her. While Mangu merely nodded his head in disinterest. After nearly two hours of such talk and ganja-smoking; Changu dozed off to a drug-induced sleep. His junior companion Mangu also lay down under the Pipal tree and tried unsuccessfully to sleep. After a while, he got up and with uncertain steps went into the direction of the graveyard and lay down on the comfortable grass and bushy undergrowth between the graves of Nazma and Ruhi. He often fantasised about the two girls who had died young and imagined in his mind that they were both lying naked next to him in a king-sizedbed, when he slept there.