CHAPTER TEN
Zerxes and Fredun drove off together to Zerxes' flat. Zerxes opened the latch with his key and led Fredun, visiting his home for the first time, into the cool, well-designed drawing room.
Fredun was struck by an immediate impression of space and harmony, though the room was not particularly large in size. The colour scheme was at once striking and restful. One wall was pearl gray, with a cubist mural on it in shades of bottle-green, amethyst, salmon and ivory. The two walls flanking it were painted ivory. The fourth space comprised almost totally of a huge bay window, barring a wide ledge at a height of about two feet from the floor, set with Dholpur stone, which served as a window seat. The window overlooked the expanse of the sea which right then was ablaze with the hues of the setting sun. The sliding glass panel was open, the sound of the surf bringing the ocean almost into the flat. Scherezade, who had a passion for the sea, teased Zerxes that she had initially fallen for his flat, before succumbing to his own charms!
The furniture was to the minimum. There were no curios, no photographs, no knick knacks. Just two triangular brackets set in the corners created by the gray and ivory walls, with three glass shelves, each holding one single, exquisite, piece of crystal. Pots of unusual plants and ferns were placed with cunning unconcern all over the room, giving an impression of uncultivated greenery. Fredun recognized his daughter's hand in this.
Fredun waited in the drawing room while Zerxes went to fetch Scherezade. She was in the study-cum-office, glancing idly through a paper Zerxes had been working on for a forthcoming conference. She looked up with a poignant smile as he entered.
The study was all leather and wood. Almost complete wood panelling on the walls, leather upholstery on the chairs and the couch conveniently placed next to the table. Plants had found their way into the study too, but here they submitted to the discipline of the Law.
One of the walls was completely given over to law books and reports, with a vertical, rectangular-shaped window cleft between the shelves, overlooking the sea. The half of one wall contained books on other subjects, including a few novels and books of poetry, with a sheet glass window on the top. A little away from his desk was a small conference area. The wall to the right held a unit containing a Television, a Video player and a Sansui music system, with racks full of cassettes and compact discs. Pink Floyd, Leonard Cohen and Jethro Tull rubbed jackets with Mozart, Bach and Debussy.
Scherezade had put on a CD of Chopin which she had found hiding forlornly among other less self-indulgent composers. It was the Preludes. The CD had reached No. 20, which she had designated the 'Funeral March Prelude'.
Zerxes smiled grimly as he entered the study, then his lips relaxed as he bent his head to kiss her.
"Where's your mother?" he asked.
"Oh, she saw that I was perfectly all right, and went back home. She'll have to make an evening snack for her darling son! He should be home any moment now."
Ignoring this reference to her brother, he asked, "And how are you really feeling, my love?"
"Really absolutely fine," she responded with feigned gaiety. Her face changed as she looked up into his. " Darling! What's wrong?" she asked.
"We had a visit from the police at Dina's. They say there's a possibility that she did not die of natural causes," said Zerxes quietly.
Scherezade's eyes widened. "You mean, she committed suicide?" she asked in a horrified whisper.
"The police rather seem to think she was murdered," answered Zerxes a shade dryly, caressing Scherezade's hair off her face.
"Murdered?" she echoed incredulously. "Rubbish," she went on in a brisk ~one, sounding more like her usual self. "Why should anyone want to murder her? Who would want to murder her? There's some mistake. It can't possibly be murder . . . can't." She trailed off rather uncertainly, not quite liking what the look on his face indicated. "Why, she was all alone in the. house! Except for Fatima. And surely Fatima would never. . ."
She searched his eyes for the reassurance he could not give. Then she buried her face in her hands and started sobbing. Zerxes pulled her up off the chair, enfolded her in his arms and held her while she ventilated her feelings into his sustaining shoulder. After a while he held her a little away from him, took out his handkerchief and gently wiped her wet cheeks. She smiled tremulously, the tears still spangling her curling lashes.
Zerxes smiled back, a teasing yet reassuring smile. "Crybaby," he mocked softly. "Come - your father will wonder what we're up to."
"Dad?" asked Scherezade amazed. "He's here?"
"I thought it best to bring him down here straight from Dina's. Your Jamshed Uncle took Banoo home. On the way here, I explained to Fredun that you had been here the entire night."
A gleam of mischief stole into her tawny eyes. "You did! And how did he take such a direct approach? Usually Dad deals mainly in euphemisms when it comes to subjects he'd rather avoid. Or realities he'd like to wish away," she added sarcastically.
Frowning admonitorily, he shook her a little and propelled her towards the drawing room, ordering Krishna, who had come out of the kitchen, to get some tea and snacks to the living room.
"Where's your mother?" was the first question her father asked her, adding awkwardly, "and how are you? Are you all right?"
"Mother's gone back home. And I'm fine. Perfectly all right."
Fredun looked from her tight, suddenly closed-in face to Zerxes and back. "I suppose he's told you what happened?" he asked, his tone a shade too casual.
"If you mean about Dina Fui possibly being murdered, yes he has," she replied shortly. "Though I can't imagine who would want to murder her, or why."
"No, it is somewhat inconceivable," agreed her father shortly. He rose from the divan. "Are you coming home with me?"
At that moment Krishna walked in, bearing the tea tray. Fredun reluctantly sat down again. Scherezade poured. Fredun thought to himself, almost resentfully, that she seemed more at home in Zerxes's flat than in her own house.
She had been going around with Zerxes for two years now. Ever since she had met him in Court while doing a bit of free-lance journalism, writing an article on that sensational rape case involving a socialite and the friend of her boyfriend . . .
. . . It had turned out to be a case of parental pressure pushing the girl into complaining about what had really been consensual intercourse. Scherezade had initially been all het up on behalf of the girl, furiously lashing out against the Counsel who appeared in Court for the accused. Until the girl's testimony under cross-examination convinced even the prejudiced Scherezade that the girl had been lying, and that for once the man was the victim.
She had been impressed by the handsome young lawyer's courtcraft and had requested him for an interview. The request for the interview had been declined, but an invitation to dinner had ensued.
Followed by several dinners. Music concerts. Long drives. Out of town trips. Days and nights spent together. Fredun and Rashna, initially protesting, had ultimately been compelled to accept their unconventional relationship by the unacknowledged fear that Sherrie might move in with 'that fellow', if they tried to pressurize her into anything, including marriage . . .
After tea, Fredun didn't bother to repeat his question as to whether Sherrie would be going home with him. He realized that she and Zerxes would have dinner together before he dropped her home, if at all! Reassured that she had recovered from whatever bout of illness that had apparently attacked her, Fredun left.
* * * *
In the meanwhile, Patil and Rodricks had returned to the Cuffe Parade Police Station.
Rodricks had as yet never been able to enter that Station without experiencing the feeling of being caught up in a grotesque fusion of the two utterly discordant realities of that double-faced city. The opulent affluence of the five star hotel and the World Trade Centre on one flank, representative of the world of the super-rich, bristling with unbridled consumerism; and the grim struggling existence of the garbage-strewn shanties on the other, just opposite the entrance of the Station, with halfnaked, rickety children running around, drooling saliva and snot. Their elders eking out a precarious living on the strength of their unreliable wits and by the grace of a grudging God. And the Police Station itself, nestling in the improbable setting of the verdant Colaba Woods which sprawled almost all round, nacreously struggling to smother an unseemly intrusion, but not quite succeeding.
They walked in to find Sheriyar Irani leaning on the jamb of the open door of his cabin, frowning over a document. He looked up as they neared and held it out to Patil. "Read that," he rapped out.
"The Coroner's report?" queried Patil.
"You'll have to get to work, boyos," Irani spoke with some relish, slapping his thigh. It was not often that he got the chance to investigate the murder of the second wife of a rich and influential businessman with high-level political connections.
"Yessir," he cried, once more slapping his stocky right flank resoundingly. "You'll have to get down to some real solid work. Real quick!" He looked at his two subordinates from under his remarkable brows, his small, beady black eyes looking quite fierce. "The boyos up at Sachivalaya won't like this. Won't like this at all!" he prophesied with unholy relish.
He was quite right. In the corridors of power, the wires had already started humming. More than a few brows were creased in worry among the top echelons of the Administration. The Finance Secretary buzzed the Home Secretary who, in turn, was waiting to get the connection to the Law Secretary, who was out of station in some God-forsaken place where there were no STD lines.
The buzzing graduated to the Ministers and ultimately the CM himself who picked up his telephone and asked for Prakash Sattar.
He put down the receiver after a brief, terse conversation, apparently satisfied. He was a little taken aback though, at what Sattar had to tell him. Poor chap, he thought to himself, ringing for a second cup of coffee.
It was a good thing, he told himself, that that fellow Irani was in charge of the Cuffe Parade Police Station. A bit of a rough diamond, but he normally delivered the goods. And was quite a popular figure! Moved in fairly high social circles himself. Rich wife. Lots of chickoo farms at Dahanu and all that! Knew how to handle the better placed witnesses and suspects, as well as the run-of-the-mill criminals. And probably, they'd call the DCP in. Yes, that would be a good idea!
He wrinkled his bulbous nose in an effort of memory. Let's see now, that zone meant Tagore would be the DCP concerned. The stiffrumped stickler that he was, Tagore wouldn't like it if he spoke to him directly. Tagore did not brook political interference in his work. No! Better get on to the Commissioner himself. Get him to ask Tagore to oversee the investigation.
'Oversee the investigation'! That had a nice ring to it! Gulping down his coffee, he lifted his receiver again and asked for the Commissioner of Police. Then he stared at his empty coffee cup broodingly. He didn't like the smell of this business. And Sattar was a close-mouthed bastard. One never could tell with him, he thought, suddenly a bit uneasy. Even the good Lord didn't quite know what a murder investigation might throw up! And the elections so close! He sighed and ordered another cup of coffee.
While the most important man in the State sat thus, drinking coffee and brooding over a malignant Fate, a different kind of unease had gripped Jamshed and Banoo Maa.
Jamshed had persuaded Banoo Maa to have dinner with him and Shirin that night. Tehmul was dining out with an old school friend who had come over from Canada. Even Shirin's notions of propriety had not been offended by her son having a private dinner with an old school friend. That could not be termed 'dining out', she made the nice distinction in her mind.
Banoo Maa's tired mind had rebelled at the thought of having dinner that night of all nights, in Shirin's company. She did not mind Jamshed so much. Then she was guiltily ashamed of such thoughts. Shirin, irritating though she was, meant well. Banoo Maa felt guilty enough to accept the invitation.
Jamshed opened the door with his latch-key, ushered the old lady in, and called out to his wife. There was no response. Thinking she was in the kitchen, Jamshed made his way there, calling out her name again.
To get to the kitchen, he had to cross the passage past their bedroom. They had only one bedroom. Tehmul slept in the living room, converting the sofa there into a bed at night. The bedroom door was open, and through the bead curtain, a legacy from his wife's grandmother to all her grandchildren, he saw Shirin in front of the dressing table.
She seemed to have slumped on the chair, her head resting on the table against the tall mirror. Jamshed hurried in, calling out to Banoo Maa who followed him, alarmed at his tone. Shirin was semi-conscious, rambling incoherently. Banoo Maa caught something about 'a terrible headache'. Something about 'not a nice scent'. Whatever that meant!
Jamshed half carried, half dragged his wife gently onto the bed. He found Banoo Maa staring thoughtfully at the dressing table. His eyes followed her gaze, and frowned at what he saw. He shrugged, exchanged a rueful glance with her and went to the bedside cabinet to get some Eau de Cologne.
"I think I'll see if we can get hold of Dr. Dhondy," he told Banoo Maa, sprinkling the Cologne liberally on Shirin's forehead.
Banoo Maa did not answer. She had come to a quick decision. She rang up Fredun's place and asked to speak to Sherrie. She wanted Zerxes Avari's telephone number.
Rashna, who answered the telephone, informed her that Sherrie was still at Zerxes' and gave her the number. "What's up?" she asked casually.
"Shirin seems to be a bit unwell," replied Banoo.
"Oh! Fredun's not back, yet. Shall I ask him to come over, when he gets back?"
"No, but I'll let you know if it's anything serious. It may be nothing more than just a very severe headache." When she spoke to Zerxes, however, Banoo Maa did not try to hide her apprehension. She requested Zerxes to rush over, if he could. Fredun had just left from Zerxes' to go home.
Zerxes and Scherezade were over at Jamshed's within twenty minutes. Before leaving, he had called for an ambulance with directions to Jamshed's flat, overriding Scherezade's protests that they should at least have a look at Shirin Fui, before rushing the poor thing to a hospital. "She's a bit of a hypochondriac as well," she had ended.
"As well as what?" Zerxes had asked, looking at her narrowly. His 'cross-examining' look, as she called it!
Scherezade had hesitated. "Well, I'm not absolutely certain, but at times both Firdauz and I have felt she's a bit of a kleptomaniac. Nothing very serious, but she does pinch small things which catch her fancy. From people's homes."
"I see," Zerxes had looked thoughtful. "I think darling, let's not take any chances. In any case, at the hospital they'll give her a thorough check up, which can't do her any harm. Especially at her age. I'll see if I can get hold of Subhash again."
Fortunately, he could. Zerxes had requested him to come over to the Parsee General Hospital directly. "Be there at the reception. We may need you to get her admitted."
"I'll speak to the RMO beforehand," Sub hash had promised. "What's the lady's name, again?"
As soon as they reached the Dumasia residence, Zerxes explained what he had arranged. Jamshed was too bemused to protest. Scherezade went into the bedroom and sat next to Banoo Maa, on Shirin's bed. Shirin was beginning to turn blue. She was now glad that Zerxes had overridden her protests and called for the ambulance. Her gaze idly swept the dressing table, and she suddenly stiffened, catching sight of the bottle.
She remembered Dina Fui wearing 'Joy' perfume on her birthday. "A birthday gift from Prakash", Dina had said carelessly.
Noticing the direction of her gaze, Banoo Maa chuckled grimly. "Yes, she could not resist it! What use is perfume to Dina, now? It seems to be a new bottle too! She must have picked it up when she went into her room alone. Poor Shirin!" sighed the old lady. "I've tried so hard to cure her of that habit!"
Zerxes and Jamshed came into the bedroom. Banoo Maa rose, asked Jamshed for a bag, and started packing a few of Shirin's clothes and essentials into it. Jamshed too packed a small bag for himself. He'd be staying at the hospital, at least that first night.
Scherezade told Zerxes, in a whisper, about Shirin having pinched Dina's perfume bottle. The expression in his face gave nothing away, but she did not miss the sudden gleam of interest in his generally hard green eyes. Underneath that casual, almost indifferent exterior, Zerxes was thinking to himself, "Dammitall, there's no way I can stay clear of this, now! I'll have to take a hand in it. Maybe get Dad to give his opinion." His eyes met Scherezade's, looking up into his face, puzzled. He brushed a stray tendril off her forehead. The simple gesture seemed toreassure her. His touch had that effect on her. It was a balm as well as a stimulant.
Zerxes went up to the dressing table, unscrewed the bottle of 'Joy' and took a swift, tentative sniff before screwing on the top again. Watching him, Scherezade's eyes widened in horror. "Zerx . . . you don't think. . . it isn't possible. . .?"
"Hush, foolish child," laying a finger against her lips. "We'll talk about it later."
She caught his hand in both her small ones, giving it a tight squeeze. Her mind went back to Dina's saree. The one she had buried her face in, before she suddenly felt ill. That had reeked of 'Joy' perfume! Her eyes went again to the bottle of 'Joy' on Shirin's cluttered dressing table, among bottles of different brands of face cream and rather grimy looking lipsticks.
The ambulance and Dr. Dhondy arrived together. Peeved at being pre-empted, Dhondy allowed himself to be soothed by Scherezade's charming flattery. Jamshed and Banoo Maa went in the ambulance with Shirin. Jamshed had given the house-keys to Zerxes to lock up. Zerxes called up Fredun. Then, after Dhondy had taken himself off, he telephoned the Cuffe Parade Police Station. As he had expected, Patil and Rodricks were still there.
* * * *
Seated behind his large desk in his spartan office, Patil had read the PM report through and passed it over to Rodricks who glanced through it speedily and looked back at Patil, eyebrows raised, an expression of almost comical dismay on his face.
"Well!" he breathed exaggeratedly. "Talk about a high class, recondite murder! Aniline . . . benzene . . . nitrobenzene . . . what the hell is this stuff?"
A hint of amusement crept into Patil's normally austere eyes. "1 thought you were looking for something unusual, Drew," he remarked, a touch of malice edging his carefully bland tone.
Unlike the phlegmatic Avinash Patil, Andrew Rodricks had had dreams of entangling with desperate terrorists and matching wits with ingenious murderers, when he had stunned his family by joining the Police Force a couple of years ago, after his post-graduation in psychology. He had not really expected to realize his ambition of getting his teeth into a 'real killer of a murder case', as he put it, so early in his career! And he was to be the Investigating Officer!
Aniline. . . benzene. . . nitro-benzene. . . !
"Parsley sage, rosemary and thyme," he hummed inappositely, the half forgotten song of his college days coming back to him rather inappropriately at that moment. Now why the hell should he suddenly think of that?
It was at that moment, that the telephone bell shrilled.
Patil picked up the receiver and spoke into it. A lazy, distinctive voice floated down the wire. "Inspector Patil? So glad to have caught you in, Inspector. Are you in the mood to take a trip?"
* * * *
On the way to Jamshed Dumasia's house in the police jeep, Patil's mind went back to certain paragraphs of the report, now suddenly intelligible in the light of what Avari had briefly told him over the telephone.
"There are traces of aniline in the brain, and in the blood," he had read in the autopsy report. "There has been clear formation of methaemoglobin in the blood, pointing to the possibility of some form of benzene poisoning. Could be benzene, could be nitrobenzene, could be aniline. The poison was not ingested by the deceased. It was absorbed through the skin, and by inhalation of vapour containing the toxic substance. The vapour of all the three substances mentioned earlier is extremely toxic and noxious. Also, it can be absorbed through the skin, causing cyanosis due to the deoxygenation of the haemoglobin in the blood, so that oxygen is no longer transported to the vital organs of the body, resulting in respiratory failure, and ultimately death."
In such a case, normally, the medium through which the poison had been administered would have been almost impossible to trace, mused Patil. This was almost certainly a case of chronic poisoning. Such cases were the nightmare of the investigating agencies: not only the medium, even the time of the actual poisoning was impossible to fix, rendering every alibi suspect! According to the Docs, the time taken by benzene or nitrobenzene, or aniline (which was a product of nitrobenzene, formed by chemical reaction), to cause death differed from person to person, depending upon individual metabolism, the amount imbibed, the level of dilution, etc. . . it could take a few hours, or even a few days!
Patil admitted to Rodricks that they might well have cause to be thankful to Avari! "Normally, he's busy getting in our way, criticizing our procedure and getting the blokes off in Court. This time, it appears at least that he's trying to help us. I wonder why!"
"I wouldn't trust him an inch," muttered Rodricks darkly."Reminds me of a cobra. All coiled, and ready to strike! Green eyed too," he added, with a prejudice strange in one normally so liberalminded.
Zerxes and Scherezade had waited until Patil and Rodricks arrived at the Dumasias' flat and picked up the bottle of 'Joy' perfume for analysis. Then they had raced over to the hospital. Shirin was showing signs of improvement. They'd taken a sample of her blood for chemical and spectroscopic examination, at Dr. Subhash Chitaley's insistence. Which had been prompted by Zerxes.
* * * *
Zerxes' guess was proved to be correct, the next day. Laboratory analysis showed that the poison was in the bottle of 'Joy' perfume. And it was nitrobenzene.
As to the presence of that bottle in Shirin Dumasia's bedroom, well, Avari and Scherezade Vatcha both had given the explanation for that. But they'd have to question Shirin Dumasia herself and also her husband, later on.
But now, for Mr. Prakash Sattar!
*
Showing posts with label The Turning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Turning. Show all posts
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
The Turning - Chapter Nine
CHAPTER NINE
Prakash gazed numbly at the brother-in-law who had never acknowledged him as such, apparently unable to take in what he had been saying.
"She's dead. Dina's dead!" he repeated in a dazed voice. Then a spark of anger entered his eyes. "And you've sent her body away to some hospital without even consulting me, without even waiting for me to return?" he asked, accusingly.
It was around 5.30 pm, the day after Dina's death . . .
Prakash had received Fredun's message late night the previous day, but, giving in to the demand of a suddenly querulous Sonali, had waited until after a leisurely breakfast the next morning, to start the drive back to Bombay. He had arrived to find his house invaded by his wife's relatives. Banoo Maa, Fredun, and surprisingly Zerxes, but no Scherezade!
Zerxes had left Scherezade asleep, a note for her on the bedside table, and had driven over to Dina's by around 11 in the morning. He was immediately questioned by Rashna, as to how Scherezade was. It transpired that Fredun had phoned his residence, and Firdauz had given him a sketchy report about her bout of ill-health the night before.
Zerxes made the mistake of giving the true report. He was unprepared for Rashna's reaction.
"What? She actually had to be given oxygen?" she asked sharply, glaring accusingly at Zerxes. "Firdauz didn't tell me that!"
Zerxes shrugged. "1 guess he didn't want to alarm you," he suggested.
Rashna ignored him and looked at her husband. 'Tm going. I must go and see Sherrie. Is she still at your place?" This last was flung at Zerxes. Rashna had visited his flat a couple of times, without her husband.
"Yes she is," replied Zerxes coolly. "Please go over," he continued, as Fredun opened his mouth to speak. "Go over and make yourself at home. Why don't you take your car? I'll bring Fredun there later, after Sattar deigns to land up and we all can leave from here."
Banoo Maa had been tom between wanting to rush over to her Scherezade, and to stay and sort out things for her Dina. Perform this last office for her! Zerxes persuaded her to remain.
Shirin had surprisingly elected to stay at home that day instead of accompanying her husband to Dina's. Jamshed had gone out for a while, having turned up quite early in the morning. As the hours passed without any sign of Sattar, those waiting for him started chafing a bit. Zerxes, in particular was getting quite restive, worried as he was about Scherezade. The only thing that kept him from going back to ensure Scherezade was okay was the knowledge that her mother would be with her. Also, Krishna could be relied upon to telephone him and let him know, if something went wrong.
So, it had been Fredun, Banoo Maa and Zerxes, who had formed the reception committee for Prakash when he arrived from Poona . . .
It was Zerxes who picked up the gauntlet flung by Prakash.
"There was no question of consulting you, or anyone else," he said coolly. "Dina's Will made her intent very clear. It had to be honoured, her wishes carried out, without undue delay. As for waiting till . . ." But here he was interrupted.
"A Will?" echoed Prakash incredulously. "Dina died leaving a Will?" "Yes, she had made a Will." It was Banoo Maa, her voice weary. "Dina was well aware of your phobia about making a Will. She told me that nothing would induce you to make one. Maybe that was why she did not tell you," she shrugged indifferently. "But she herself had made a Will all right."
"Who had attested it?" Prakash demanded.
"I was one of the witnesses," said Banoo quietly.
"You and who else?"
"I say, layoff, will you," broke in Fredun angrily. "What the hell do you think you are doing? Cross-examining Banoo Maa?"
Before Prakash could respond to this, Banoo Maa spoke, casting Fredun an affectionate glance, "I can take care of myself, dear boy. Prakash has a right to know. Besides, it's no secret. Or soon anyway, it will no longer be one." She looked at Prakash steadily. "Fatima was the other witness.
And," she went on firmly, forestalling the exclamation that rose to his lips, "If you'd like to discharge her from your service, kindly let me know right now. I'll engage her myself and take her back with me straight away."
Prakash ran a tired hand over his face, looking defeated. He said in a stiff voice, "I did not mean to offend any of you. But I can't just take all this in! It's too much! Too much!" he repeated. Then almost as though he couldn't help himself, he asked, "Is it a secret, or may I know the contents of the Will? Apart from the disposition of her own body?"
Banoo Maa's answer was drowned in the imperative ringing of the doorbell. Fatima came in, looking frightened, followed by two gentlemen. One was in the uniform of a ranking police officer; the other was in plain clothes, but clearly also a member of the Police Force.
"Good morning, Madam, Gentlemen," said the uniformed Officer politely. "I'm Police Inspector Avinash Patil from the Cuffe Parade Police Station, Crime Cell. This is Sub-Inspector Andrew Rodricks, the Investigating Officer."
The shocked silence was broken by Prakash. "Indeed! May I know the reason for your presence here?"
"Certainly," answered Avinash Patil. He was a man of around forty: slightly over medium height, slim built, with a direct gaze from behind metal-framed spectacles, and few airs or graces. His Sub Inspector was of a more cheerful aspect, a slightly tubby man with a just-about-noticeable beer belly, in his mid-thirties.
Patil looked at Prakash. "You are Mr. Prakash Sattar?" he hazarded.
On Prakash confirming that he was, Patil went on, "We are here to inquire into your wife's death, sir. There appears to be some doubt about her having died a natural death."
Prakash, stunned though he was for a moment, made a quick comeback.
"Indeed?" he said, in the time-honoured phrase used to buy time when one wasn't sure just what to say. "Indeed?" he repeated. "So what did she die of, Inspector, if not natural causes?" he blustered.
"We are not sure, as yet," Patil responded in a soft, polite tone.
"The matter has been referred to the Coroner. We are awaiting the autopsy results." Andrew Rodricks glanced rapidly around the room, appreciating with the eye of a connoisseur the expressions ranging on the faces of the relatives of the deceased. On all except that handsome foreign-looking chap with those curious green eyes. His face was an impassive blank.
Cold-blooded looking chap, thought Rodricks to himself.
It was he who spoke, his tone 'just slightly disdainful. "50 what happens now, gentlemen? I take it we too await the results of the autopsy with . . . er . . . bated breath?" Before either of the policemen could answer, Zerxes supplied his own. "Yes, we do that! What I can't understand is," he frowned, furrowing his brow in feigned puzzlement, "the premature presence of you Gentlemen, here. Unless of course," he I went on with a slightly ironical air, "you have come, as a matter of courtesy, to inform us that the Coroner has ordered an autopsy, and that Mrs. Sattar's body is under his jurisdiction?!" His look held both challenge as well as amusement.
"You are related to the deceased?" asked Patil.
"Not quite," was the amused answer.
Fredun felt that it was time someone performed the introductions and did so, referring to Zerxes as his daughter's 'fiance'.
Patil turned back to Zerxes. "To answer your question, Mr. Avari, yes, that was part of our reason for calling on Mr. Sattar. To inform him that Mrs. Sattar's death has been referred to the Coroner. And also to make a few preliminary inquiries, in case the doctor's suspicions prove justified." For once Patil was not quite successful in making the statement sound so casual as he desired.
Prakash Sattar almost rounded on him. "Doctor's suspicions?
Which Doctor's suspicions?" he asked sharply. "I understand her family doctor was perfectly satisfied that my wife died of natural causes. Dammit, he has given a certificate to that effect."
"Well Mr. Sattar, this won't be the first time a Doctor's certificate will be proven wrong! That is, if it is proven wrong, of course!" Patil spoke coolly, almost soothingly.
Really, thought Zerxes to himself, Patil's manner was a bit too polite. A dangerous manner in a policeman! Zerxes was well aware that during his tenure thus far, Patil held the record in the Force for the highest number of confessions elicited by any policeman. And he had the reputation also, of not resorting to third-degree methods. His genius lay in wearing down his suspects with relentless, unflagging questioning. And trapping them in the contradictions of their replies.
Zerxes glanced a little uneasily at Prakash, who was beginning to look choleric. "You haven't answered my question. Who had these socalled suspicions?" Prakash rapped out.
"The Doctor who dissected her body at a demonstration class at JJ Hospital," said Patil, his expression deadpan.
"Remarkably quick work, for a teaching hospital," commented Zerxes before Prakash could get an edge in. "Dissecting a cadaver as soon as it was brought in!"
Patil did not rise to bait. Nor did he think it necessary to explain the one in a thousand coincidence that had occurred in Dina Sattar's case, exposing an almost perfect murder. A murder which would have passed off as a natural death, had it not been for a series of accidents.
First, of course, was Dina's own act in donating her body for anatomical research in her Will. The second, the body being delivered at the hospital just as the lecture-demonstration given by the visiting German forensic expert was in progress, with the Coroner and the Professor of Anatomy at JJ both being present. . . the German deciding to give an unscheduled demonstration on post-mortem procedure, and demanding a cadaver . . . the chaps at JJ wheeling in the fresh cadaver that had providentially just come in . . .
Jovially cutting open Dina Sattar, making the usual macabre jokes, the expert had suddenly halted in his work, twitching his bony nose in a sniff. The smell of benzene was really quite unmistakable - it wafted even to where the Coroner was seated. The lecture-demonstration was aborted abruptly, as the German forensic expert and the Coroner went into a huddled conference, joined in by the Dean of Anatomy.
All three agreed: there seemed to be some form of benzene or aniline present in the body. This would require further testing, and detailed investigation. The possibility that this was not a natural death, that the deceased had been poisoned by some form of benzene or aniline, could not be ruled out. The Coroner authorized chemical and other tests of the viscera. . . the police were informed. . . and that had brought Patil to the doorstep of the deceased. . .
Patil, a fervent believer in the pre-ordination of human destiny, was convinced that the murderer's fate was sealed. After such a chain of coincidences, the murderer had to be caught and apprehended! He glanced around quickly at those present.
Prakash's face reflected a stunned daze. And something else mingled in it . . . a flicker of fear. . . or was it guilt? Fredun looked ill at ease. But that, Patil knew from experience, could mean anything. Or nothing. The old lady, Miss (he believed) Banoo Kanga had closed her eyes, the very lack of expression in her face revealing the depth of her anguish:
Zerxes A vari was impassive. Unperturbed. Patil smiled to himself. He knew something about Mr. La-di-la Avari, as some waggish cop had nicknamed him. He was certainly a little too well dressed for the scruffy Sessions Court he mainly practised in. But there was no denying his already formidable reputation. Even the most case-hardened cops dreaded having to face a cross-examination by Zerxes Avari. He so often succeeded in making them look like fools!
The doorbell rang. A sniffling, swollen eyed, sullen Fatima opened the door. Jamshed walked into the room and stopped short, casting an inquiring look at Fredun.
Fredun met his gaze briefly, giving a slight, warning flicker of the eyelids. "Come in, Jamshed. Prakash is here. And these are two Officers from the Cuffe Parade Police Station, come here with a rather incredible story." Turning to the two Inspectors, he went on, "This, er . . .
Gentlemen, is the ..er. . . Mrs. Sattar's sister's husband, Mr. Jamshed Dumasia."
Turning to Jamshed again, Fredun said, baldly, "The Police seem to think Dina was poisoned."
Jamshed's mouth opened, then closed again. He appeared to visibly collect his thoughts together. "Think?" he echoed, looking at Patil almost accusingly. "You mean you aren't sure? Then why couldn't you have waited till you were sure, instead of trying to create a scandal in our family?"
Patil was tmperturbed by the attack. He rather welcomed it. When persons connected with the case got a little rattled, one came to learn things one never might have, otherwise. How the devil did that Vatcha chap come to the conclusion that the deceased had been poisoned? But then, fair-mindedly he conceded that poison seemed to be the obvious method used in this case, if this was indeed murder!
What interested Patil more was this Dumasia chap's rather curious response to the news. This was not the way a chap would react, on being told that his sister-in-law had apparently been murdered, surely! Moreover, Patil had a shrewd suspicion the supposed poisoning of Dina Sattar was not the 'scandal' this Dumasia chap was referring to! He said mildly, "We thought it best to inform the family of the deceased that the matter was in the Coroner's hands," thinking of the scene at the Police Station when the call had come through from the Coroner's office.
* * * *
The call had been routed through to the Senior PI: the bluff, burly Sheriyar Irani, who had immediately summoned both Patil and Rodricks.
"Better inform the husband straight away," Irani had ordered. "He's a big noise in fairly high circles. Close to the Home Minister, Finance Minister, etcetera. . . etcetera. . . etcetera. . . I believe this was his second wife. One of those convenient converts. A bit of a hush-hush thing! First wife died just recently. Apparently a case of suicide. Wrists slashed. Gamdevi were on that case. PI there seemed satisfied that it was indeed a case of suicide."
He had shot his two subordinates a keen glance from under shaggy, untidy eyebrows. "Better tackle him tactfully. I want top priority given to this case. Less chance of any interference, if we move very quickly. As I've said, the husband's quite a big shot. And from what I've heard of him, a big bastard, as well! See what info you can get about the set up, reactions, etc. But don't get Sattar riled, for the Lord's sake! We haven't anything concrete to go on, as yet, and I don't want the Commissioner on my back. This'll be a bit sticky,"· he had prophesied gloomily.
* * * *
Rodricks, as was his wont, examined Sattar closely without appearing to. A distinguished-looking man, he thought to himself. Tall, slightly stooped, with iron-gray hair, iron gray moustache, and hooded dark eyes under thick dark brows, almost meeting over the bridge of his nose without any break. The effect was marred, however, by a receding, rather weak chin and a full, sensual lower lip supporting a disproportionately thin upper one. Hedonist or ascetic? wondered Rodricks. The mouth was a combination of both.
The hands were those of a voluptuary: the palm well padded; short, thick fingers, the lower phalanges more fleshy than the others. Hairy hands, noted Rodricks, taking in the expensive gold wrist-watch strapped over bunches of curly black hair which did not allow even a millimetre of the skin of the wrist to show.
SI Rodricks' breezy, casual, almost faddish manner, so deplored by his Superiors, was misleading. He was a highly efficient and capable officer, perceptive and astute. The perfect foil to Patil, who was shrewd, painstaking and meticulous. A man who did not miss much, with a quiet, laid-back manner of working.
Patil turned to Prakash again. "Did your wife complain of illhealth or uneasiness at any time during the last few days?"
Prakash took his time before replying. Then he said, slowly, deliberately, "Your queries will have to wait, Inspector, till you have established that there is a need or a basis for an inquiry. Till then, I would be obliged if you would refrain from invading my privacy at this time".
Rodricks seemed about to say something, but Patil quelled him with a slight frown. "As you wish," he replied equably and nodded at Rodricks and both officers tok their leave.
After they had left, Fredun seemed more ill at ease than ever. "I say, was that wise?" he asked Prakash. Prakash gave a short grim laugh that came out rather like a snarl and walked over to the Bar. "Let them establish there was a case of poisoning, before they start digging into our lives," he said curtly. "These policemen are getting too damn officious."
He picked up the decanter of whisky and looked around inquiringly. "Care for a drink, any of you?"
Banoo Maa looked revolted at the suggestion. The men declined politely. Prakash, past caring about the sensitivities of his wife's relatives, poured himself a generous measure.
Fredun broke the awkward silence, saying, "Well, I'd better be leaving," looking inquiringly at Zerxes, upon whom he depended for a lift.
"Yes, let's all push off," said Jamshed. "Prakash has had a long drive, then all this. . . Come with me, Maa, I'll drop you home," he told Banoo Maa.
Whilst passing out of the door, Zerxes, who was the last, said over his shoulder to Prakash, "I suggest we inform each other if there's any further development in the matter."
Prakash stood frowning into his glass, vouchsafing no reply.
After they had all left, Prakash strode over to the telephone and called Vinod. "I want you to come over here. Immediately," he almost barked into the receiver. "Don't ask questions now, just come. And Vinod - don't inform anybody at home that you're coming over here."
Then he called Sonali Roy and made a formal appointment to see her at her clinic at Pedder Road the following day.
*
Prakash gazed numbly at the brother-in-law who had never acknowledged him as such, apparently unable to take in what he had been saying.
"She's dead. Dina's dead!" he repeated in a dazed voice. Then a spark of anger entered his eyes. "And you've sent her body away to some hospital without even consulting me, without even waiting for me to return?" he asked, accusingly.
It was around 5.30 pm, the day after Dina's death . . .
Prakash had received Fredun's message late night the previous day, but, giving in to the demand of a suddenly querulous Sonali, had waited until after a leisurely breakfast the next morning, to start the drive back to Bombay. He had arrived to find his house invaded by his wife's relatives. Banoo Maa, Fredun, and surprisingly Zerxes, but no Scherezade!
Zerxes had left Scherezade asleep, a note for her on the bedside table, and had driven over to Dina's by around 11 in the morning. He was immediately questioned by Rashna, as to how Scherezade was. It transpired that Fredun had phoned his residence, and Firdauz had given him a sketchy report about her bout of ill-health the night before.
Zerxes made the mistake of giving the true report. He was unprepared for Rashna's reaction.
"What? She actually had to be given oxygen?" she asked sharply, glaring accusingly at Zerxes. "Firdauz didn't tell me that!"
Zerxes shrugged. "1 guess he didn't want to alarm you," he suggested.
Rashna ignored him and looked at her husband. 'Tm going. I must go and see Sherrie. Is she still at your place?" This last was flung at Zerxes. Rashna had visited his flat a couple of times, without her husband.
"Yes she is," replied Zerxes coolly. "Please go over," he continued, as Fredun opened his mouth to speak. "Go over and make yourself at home. Why don't you take your car? I'll bring Fredun there later, after Sattar deigns to land up and we all can leave from here."
Banoo Maa had been tom between wanting to rush over to her Scherezade, and to stay and sort out things for her Dina. Perform this last office for her! Zerxes persuaded her to remain.
Shirin had surprisingly elected to stay at home that day instead of accompanying her husband to Dina's. Jamshed had gone out for a while, having turned up quite early in the morning. As the hours passed without any sign of Sattar, those waiting for him started chafing a bit. Zerxes, in particular was getting quite restive, worried as he was about Scherezade. The only thing that kept him from going back to ensure Scherezade was okay was the knowledge that her mother would be with her. Also, Krishna could be relied upon to telephone him and let him know, if something went wrong.
So, it had been Fredun, Banoo Maa and Zerxes, who had formed the reception committee for Prakash when he arrived from Poona . . .
It was Zerxes who picked up the gauntlet flung by Prakash.
"There was no question of consulting you, or anyone else," he said coolly. "Dina's Will made her intent very clear. It had to be honoured, her wishes carried out, without undue delay. As for waiting till . . ." But here he was interrupted.
"A Will?" echoed Prakash incredulously. "Dina died leaving a Will?" "Yes, she had made a Will." It was Banoo Maa, her voice weary. "Dina was well aware of your phobia about making a Will. She told me that nothing would induce you to make one. Maybe that was why she did not tell you," she shrugged indifferently. "But she herself had made a Will all right."
"Who had attested it?" Prakash demanded.
"I was one of the witnesses," said Banoo quietly.
"You and who else?"
"I say, layoff, will you," broke in Fredun angrily. "What the hell do you think you are doing? Cross-examining Banoo Maa?"
Before Prakash could respond to this, Banoo Maa spoke, casting Fredun an affectionate glance, "I can take care of myself, dear boy. Prakash has a right to know. Besides, it's no secret. Or soon anyway, it will no longer be one." She looked at Prakash steadily. "Fatima was the other witness.
And," she went on firmly, forestalling the exclamation that rose to his lips, "If you'd like to discharge her from your service, kindly let me know right now. I'll engage her myself and take her back with me straight away."
Prakash ran a tired hand over his face, looking defeated. He said in a stiff voice, "I did not mean to offend any of you. But I can't just take all this in! It's too much! Too much!" he repeated. Then almost as though he couldn't help himself, he asked, "Is it a secret, or may I know the contents of the Will? Apart from the disposition of her own body?"
Banoo Maa's answer was drowned in the imperative ringing of the doorbell. Fatima came in, looking frightened, followed by two gentlemen. One was in the uniform of a ranking police officer; the other was in plain clothes, but clearly also a member of the Police Force.
"Good morning, Madam, Gentlemen," said the uniformed Officer politely. "I'm Police Inspector Avinash Patil from the Cuffe Parade Police Station, Crime Cell. This is Sub-Inspector Andrew Rodricks, the Investigating Officer."
The shocked silence was broken by Prakash. "Indeed! May I know the reason for your presence here?"
"Certainly," answered Avinash Patil. He was a man of around forty: slightly over medium height, slim built, with a direct gaze from behind metal-framed spectacles, and few airs or graces. His Sub Inspector was of a more cheerful aspect, a slightly tubby man with a just-about-noticeable beer belly, in his mid-thirties.
Patil looked at Prakash. "You are Mr. Prakash Sattar?" he hazarded.
On Prakash confirming that he was, Patil went on, "We are here to inquire into your wife's death, sir. There appears to be some doubt about her having died a natural death."
Prakash, stunned though he was for a moment, made a quick comeback.
"Indeed?" he said, in the time-honoured phrase used to buy time when one wasn't sure just what to say. "Indeed?" he repeated. "So what did she die of, Inspector, if not natural causes?" he blustered.
"We are not sure, as yet," Patil responded in a soft, polite tone.
"The matter has been referred to the Coroner. We are awaiting the autopsy results." Andrew Rodricks glanced rapidly around the room, appreciating with the eye of a connoisseur the expressions ranging on the faces of the relatives of the deceased. On all except that handsome foreign-looking chap with those curious green eyes. His face was an impassive blank.
Cold-blooded looking chap, thought Rodricks to himself.
It was he who spoke, his tone 'just slightly disdainful. "50 what happens now, gentlemen? I take it we too await the results of the autopsy with . . . er . . . bated breath?" Before either of the policemen could answer, Zerxes supplied his own. "Yes, we do that! What I can't understand is," he frowned, furrowing his brow in feigned puzzlement, "the premature presence of you Gentlemen, here. Unless of course," he I went on with a slightly ironical air, "you have come, as a matter of courtesy, to inform us that the Coroner has ordered an autopsy, and that Mrs. Sattar's body is under his jurisdiction?!" His look held both challenge as well as amusement.
"You are related to the deceased?" asked Patil.
"Not quite," was the amused answer.
Fredun felt that it was time someone performed the introductions and did so, referring to Zerxes as his daughter's 'fiance'.
Patil turned back to Zerxes. "To answer your question, Mr. Avari, yes, that was part of our reason for calling on Mr. Sattar. To inform him that Mrs. Sattar's death has been referred to the Coroner. And also to make a few preliminary inquiries, in case the doctor's suspicions prove justified." For once Patil was not quite successful in making the statement sound so casual as he desired.
Prakash Sattar almost rounded on him. "Doctor's suspicions?
Which Doctor's suspicions?" he asked sharply. "I understand her family doctor was perfectly satisfied that my wife died of natural causes. Dammit, he has given a certificate to that effect."
"Well Mr. Sattar, this won't be the first time a Doctor's certificate will be proven wrong! That is, if it is proven wrong, of course!" Patil spoke coolly, almost soothingly.
Really, thought Zerxes to himself, Patil's manner was a bit too polite. A dangerous manner in a policeman! Zerxes was well aware that during his tenure thus far, Patil held the record in the Force for the highest number of confessions elicited by any policeman. And he had the reputation also, of not resorting to third-degree methods. His genius lay in wearing down his suspects with relentless, unflagging questioning. And trapping them in the contradictions of their replies.
Zerxes glanced a little uneasily at Prakash, who was beginning to look choleric. "You haven't answered my question. Who had these socalled suspicions?" Prakash rapped out.
"The Doctor who dissected her body at a demonstration class at JJ Hospital," said Patil, his expression deadpan.
"Remarkably quick work, for a teaching hospital," commented Zerxes before Prakash could get an edge in. "Dissecting a cadaver as soon as it was brought in!"
Patil did not rise to bait. Nor did he think it necessary to explain the one in a thousand coincidence that had occurred in Dina Sattar's case, exposing an almost perfect murder. A murder which would have passed off as a natural death, had it not been for a series of accidents.
First, of course, was Dina's own act in donating her body for anatomical research in her Will. The second, the body being delivered at the hospital just as the lecture-demonstration given by the visiting German forensic expert was in progress, with the Coroner and the Professor of Anatomy at JJ both being present. . . the German deciding to give an unscheduled demonstration on post-mortem procedure, and demanding a cadaver . . . the chaps at JJ wheeling in the fresh cadaver that had providentially just come in . . .
Jovially cutting open Dina Sattar, making the usual macabre jokes, the expert had suddenly halted in his work, twitching his bony nose in a sniff. The smell of benzene was really quite unmistakable - it wafted even to where the Coroner was seated. The lecture-demonstration was aborted abruptly, as the German forensic expert and the Coroner went into a huddled conference, joined in by the Dean of Anatomy.
All three agreed: there seemed to be some form of benzene or aniline present in the body. This would require further testing, and detailed investigation. The possibility that this was not a natural death, that the deceased had been poisoned by some form of benzene or aniline, could not be ruled out. The Coroner authorized chemical and other tests of the viscera. . . the police were informed. . . and that had brought Patil to the doorstep of the deceased. . .
Patil, a fervent believer in the pre-ordination of human destiny, was convinced that the murderer's fate was sealed. After such a chain of coincidences, the murderer had to be caught and apprehended! He glanced around quickly at those present.
Prakash's face reflected a stunned daze. And something else mingled in it . . . a flicker of fear. . . or was it guilt? Fredun looked ill at ease. But that, Patil knew from experience, could mean anything. Or nothing. The old lady, Miss (he believed) Banoo Kanga had closed her eyes, the very lack of expression in her face revealing the depth of her anguish:
Zerxes A vari was impassive. Unperturbed. Patil smiled to himself. He knew something about Mr. La-di-la Avari, as some waggish cop had nicknamed him. He was certainly a little too well dressed for the scruffy Sessions Court he mainly practised in. But there was no denying his already formidable reputation. Even the most case-hardened cops dreaded having to face a cross-examination by Zerxes Avari. He so often succeeded in making them look like fools!
The doorbell rang. A sniffling, swollen eyed, sullen Fatima opened the door. Jamshed walked into the room and stopped short, casting an inquiring look at Fredun.
Fredun met his gaze briefly, giving a slight, warning flicker of the eyelids. "Come in, Jamshed. Prakash is here. And these are two Officers from the Cuffe Parade Police Station, come here with a rather incredible story." Turning to the two Inspectors, he went on, "This, er . . .
Gentlemen, is the ..er. . . Mrs. Sattar's sister's husband, Mr. Jamshed Dumasia."
Turning to Jamshed again, Fredun said, baldly, "The Police seem to think Dina was poisoned."
Jamshed's mouth opened, then closed again. He appeared to visibly collect his thoughts together. "Think?" he echoed, looking at Patil almost accusingly. "You mean you aren't sure? Then why couldn't you have waited till you were sure, instead of trying to create a scandal in our family?"
Patil was tmperturbed by the attack. He rather welcomed it. When persons connected with the case got a little rattled, one came to learn things one never might have, otherwise. How the devil did that Vatcha chap come to the conclusion that the deceased had been poisoned? But then, fair-mindedly he conceded that poison seemed to be the obvious method used in this case, if this was indeed murder!
What interested Patil more was this Dumasia chap's rather curious response to the news. This was not the way a chap would react, on being told that his sister-in-law had apparently been murdered, surely! Moreover, Patil had a shrewd suspicion the supposed poisoning of Dina Sattar was not the 'scandal' this Dumasia chap was referring to! He said mildly, "We thought it best to inform the family of the deceased that the matter was in the Coroner's hands," thinking of the scene at the Police Station when the call had come through from the Coroner's office.
* * * *
The call had been routed through to the Senior PI: the bluff, burly Sheriyar Irani, who had immediately summoned both Patil and Rodricks.
"Better inform the husband straight away," Irani had ordered. "He's a big noise in fairly high circles. Close to the Home Minister, Finance Minister, etcetera. . . etcetera. . . etcetera. . . I believe this was his second wife. One of those convenient converts. A bit of a hush-hush thing! First wife died just recently. Apparently a case of suicide. Wrists slashed. Gamdevi were on that case. PI there seemed satisfied that it was indeed a case of suicide."
He had shot his two subordinates a keen glance from under shaggy, untidy eyebrows. "Better tackle him tactfully. I want top priority given to this case. Less chance of any interference, if we move very quickly. As I've said, the husband's quite a big shot. And from what I've heard of him, a big bastard, as well! See what info you can get about the set up, reactions, etc. But don't get Sattar riled, for the Lord's sake! We haven't anything concrete to go on, as yet, and I don't want the Commissioner on my back. This'll be a bit sticky,"· he had prophesied gloomily.
* * * *
Rodricks, as was his wont, examined Sattar closely without appearing to. A distinguished-looking man, he thought to himself. Tall, slightly stooped, with iron-gray hair, iron gray moustache, and hooded dark eyes under thick dark brows, almost meeting over the bridge of his nose without any break. The effect was marred, however, by a receding, rather weak chin and a full, sensual lower lip supporting a disproportionately thin upper one. Hedonist or ascetic? wondered Rodricks. The mouth was a combination of both.
The hands were those of a voluptuary: the palm well padded; short, thick fingers, the lower phalanges more fleshy than the others. Hairy hands, noted Rodricks, taking in the expensive gold wrist-watch strapped over bunches of curly black hair which did not allow even a millimetre of the skin of the wrist to show.
SI Rodricks' breezy, casual, almost faddish manner, so deplored by his Superiors, was misleading. He was a highly efficient and capable officer, perceptive and astute. The perfect foil to Patil, who was shrewd, painstaking and meticulous. A man who did not miss much, with a quiet, laid-back manner of working.
Patil turned to Prakash again. "Did your wife complain of illhealth or uneasiness at any time during the last few days?"
Prakash took his time before replying. Then he said, slowly, deliberately, "Your queries will have to wait, Inspector, till you have established that there is a need or a basis for an inquiry. Till then, I would be obliged if you would refrain from invading my privacy at this time".
Rodricks seemed about to say something, but Patil quelled him with a slight frown. "As you wish," he replied equably and nodded at Rodricks and both officers tok their leave.
After they had left, Fredun seemed more ill at ease than ever. "I say, was that wise?" he asked Prakash. Prakash gave a short grim laugh that came out rather like a snarl and walked over to the Bar. "Let them establish there was a case of poisoning, before they start digging into our lives," he said curtly. "These policemen are getting too damn officious."
He picked up the decanter of whisky and looked around inquiringly. "Care for a drink, any of you?"
Banoo Maa looked revolted at the suggestion. The men declined politely. Prakash, past caring about the sensitivities of his wife's relatives, poured himself a generous measure.
Fredun broke the awkward silence, saying, "Well, I'd better be leaving," looking inquiringly at Zerxes, upon whom he depended for a lift.
"Yes, let's all push off," said Jamshed. "Prakash has had a long drive, then all this. . . Come with me, Maa, I'll drop you home," he told Banoo Maa.
Whilst passing out of the door, Zerxes, who was the last, said over his shoulder to Prakash, "I suggest we inform each other if there's any further development in the matter."
Prakash stood frowning into his glass, vouchsafing no reply.
After they had all left, Prakash strode over to the telephone and called Vinod. "I want you to come over here. Immediately," he almost barked into the receiver. "Don't ask questions now, just come. And Vinod - don't inform anybody at home that you're coming over here."
Then he called Sonali Roy and made a formal appointment to see her at her clinic at Pedder Road the following day.
*
Saturday, January 10, 2009
The Turning - Chapter Six
CHAPTER SIX
On June 26, her birthday, Dina awoke to the alarum of a deafening clap of thunder, and was astonished to find that it was already past 9.
The monsoon that year was even more erratic than usual. Days of bright sunshine would be followed by a sudden deluge, which would last a day or two.
June 26, 1994 was a wet, gloomy day. All signs of the sun had been successfully obscured by the heavy downpour that roared furiously from a gray sky. Noisy gusts of rain-laden wind blew into Dina's bedroom, causing the lace curtains to writhe in wild frenzy, and made the connecting door between her bedroom and Prakash's rattle.
The persistent knocking ultimately made Dina realize that it was Prakash, and not the wind, rattling the connecting door. Prakash was awaiting her permission to enter.
Pulling the bedclothes more securely around her, she bade him enter.
"Happy Birthday," he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed, giving her cheek a hurried peck and thrusting a package into her hand at the same time. "I hope you like it. It's. . . er perfume again," he said almost apologetically, thinking of the bottle of 'L' Air Du Temps' his secretary had got last year, when he had asked her to go and get a bottle of perfume for his wife. The light, summery scent was about the most unsuitable for Dina's personality! But there had been no help for it.
This year he had played safe. Asked his peon to go and get a large bottle of 'Joy'. The gift-wrapping had been done by the secretary. For the last couple of years, his imagination had been unable to go beyond a bottle of perfume when it came to choosing gifts for his wife.
Dina's lips curved into the semblance of a smile. She had no illusions about the amount of time and thought expended by Prakash in choosing her birthday present.
"That's all right," she said in reply to his sheepish semi-apology, her eyes on the silver-wrapped package he had pressed into her hand. Looking up at him she said quietly, "It's the thought that counts."
For some reason, that remark annoyed him and added to his sense of guilt where she was concerned. For a brief moment, he fantasized Sonali sitting on the bed where Dina sat: her long hair rippling down her shoulders, her liquid eyes smouldering with a fire Dina had never known. With something of a shock, it suddenly struck him that he and Dina had never been able to sexually climax with each other. Whereas with Sonali . . .
. . . "Prakash, don't," she had giggled, the first time he had undressed her.
Her 'Don't' was an invitation. She never said 'Do!' Her husky voice was an allure in itself. . . unlike Dina's clipped, often sarcastic tones. And as for her body . . . not that Dina was bad, but Sonali was lush . . . voluptuous! And she knew how to drown a man in the honey of her tongue as well as the treacle of her lips . . . she was soft, seemingly subservient; while Dina was almost aggressive, putting him on the defensive where his own sexuality was concerned.
Dina threatened his maleness; Sonali flattered it. He remembered those clandestine hours stolen from his work, at her clinic . . . on her couch. . . on the patient bed. . . ultimately, on the floor, to give full rein to Sonali's expertise. . . she was like a Khajuraho statue come to life, thought the besotted Prakash, after Sonali had initiated him into yet another way of making love . . . he had no idea it could be such fun in the standing position, with his back against the wall, one leg straddling her soft, yielding hips, the other supporting her rounded thigh, her long fingers guiding him expertly, unerringly, while she gyrated rythmically against him, as agile as a belly-dancer . . .
He got off her bed. Dina's bed. "I'll go and shower, then we'll have a quiet breakfast before your family descends upon us." Now he hadn't meant to say that about her family. But it had slipped out. Shrugging with mental resignation at the hopelessness of it all, he went back to his own room.
Dina slowly untied the gold thread, unwrapped the silver wrapping paper and opened the bottle of perfume after he had left. 'Joy'! At least he had chosen the right perfume this time, she mused wryly.
It had gone wrong. It had all gone wrong with Prakash too, almost since the Nikah. They had been lovers before, but then their relationship had had a different flavour altogether! Prakash was one of those men for whom the chase is more thrilling than the conquest. Shortly after marriage had ended the reason for that marriage. And as Dina became more and more aggressive, both in bed and out of it, Prakash, with purely chauvinistic notions about women,
was repulsed by her almost to a stage where he couldn't perform. And he began to blame Dina, hate her, for that. Adding to Dina's bitterness.And exacerbating her feelings of guilt.
The breakfast a deux brought to Prakash's mind hazily, the words of an almost forgotten Neil Diamond song. Something about a man and a woman and no words between them. No conversation. That was the situation between him and Dina, now. No conversation. Just resentful silences on her part, a rising, resolutely curbed frustration on his. Relieved only by the moments snatched with Sonali. And the time spent with.. .
The telephone bell shrilled, breaking into his thoughts. It was for Dina, said Fatima. Dina rose from the breakfast table and passed through the bead-curtained door into the drawing room to take it. She looked slightly flustered when she returned. Prakash looked at her narrowly. He had a shrewd suspicion of who had been on the line. Well, he did not care! Not any longer. He did not have much time left for caring, one way or another. Soon all this would end, he told himself almost thankfully, his mind going back to what the Doctor had told him. Subsequently confirmed by a tearful Sonali.
The doorbell rang. Fatima woodenly announced that a lady called Nivedita Shahane had come to see Dina Memsahib.
Casting a glance at Dina's set face, Prakash told Fatima, "Ask her to wait in the Hall. The Memsahib will be with her shortly." He then steeled himself to meet Dina's eyes.
"You knew she was coming." It was a statement. Dina managed to turn it into an accusation as well.
"She is keen to build bridges now. She thought the best way to start would be to come and wish you on your birthday." His words sounded hollow even to himself. His tone betrayed the struggle to remain casual.
"When did she tell you this?"
"She telephoned me earlier, while you were asleep."
Dina looked at him steadily. "You hadn't gone out of town for work." Again, it was a statement. And the accusation even more evident.
He drained his coffee and rose. "! don't wish to have any arguments with you today. You may think what you choose. But Nivedita's in a slightly sensitive frame of mind right now. At least try and pretend to return her sentiments." There, now that's tom it, he told himself wryly. Might as well have admitted where he'd been, the last couple of days!
He had to pass the Hall, (he had persistently resisted all Dina's efforts to get him to call it 'drawing room'), to get to his room. Both the bedrooms, his and Dina's, opened out into the Hall, apart from being internally connected with each other. On the other side of the flat, the bedrooms opened out onto the balcony which also led directly to the small lobby which was the main entrance, often used by Dina as a get-away, if Prakash was entertaining some of his business cronies in the the Hall. The Hall was designed as a central focus, opening out into two of the four bedrooms, the dining room, and the lobby leading to the entrance.
Nivedita was hovering near the door of Dina's bedroom, rummaging in her handbag for something. At his "Hallo," she started violently and looked up almost guiltily. "The child's nerves are shot to pieces," thought Prakash to himself worriedly. "I wonder if she realizes what she is getting into, wanting to meet Dina in this frame of mind!"
"Do you want me to be here when you meet her?" he asked his daughter gently.
"N..no," she stammered somewhat breathlessly. "I think it's better if I do it on my own."
Prakash went back to his room and started packing. He had to leave for Poona in the evening. Hence the lunch party with her family, instead of the more convenient dinner. As it was a Sunday, that had been possible.
Jamshed had retired a year ago as the Headmaster of a reputed boys' school; his wife had never worked in her life; their son Tehmul worked in a Bank; Fredun worked for a fairly reputed private limited company as the General Manager (Finance); no school for Rashna, who was a teacher in a girls' school. Scherezade was a trainee copywriter in one of the larger, more reputed ad agencies, having joined just about a couple of months ago. Zerxes was a rapidly rising criminal lawyer, acquiring a formidable reputation for cross-examination. Both he and Scherezade often worked on Sundays for a few hours, mostly at Zerxes' home, in his study. But they'd agreed to make an exception on Dina's birthday.
Dina was determined to preserve appearances in front of her family members. They mustn't know that this marriage too had failed. Else she'd never live it down, she thought to herself, blanching at the thought of the malicious "I told you so's" that she was sure would ensue.
By around noon, Dina had still not come out of her room. Prakash knocked on her door. "What time are your people coming?" he shouted through the closed door.
"Around one o'clock," replied Dina, coming out of the bedroom, fully dressed. She led the way to the drawing room.
"Er.. how did the meeting with Nivedita go?" asked Prakash hesitantly.
"It didn't," was the cryptic reply.
"Meaning?" asked Prakash puzzled, a hint of foreboding stealing into him.
"Meaning that she appeared to have changed her mind about wanting to 'build bridges', and had disappeared by the time I left the dining room and went out into the Drawing Room," responded Dina acidly.
"Poor child, her nerve must have failed her at the last moment," murmured Prakash.
"Possibly," answered Dina in a tone indicating clearly that she wished to have no further discussion on the subject.
* * * *
Nivedita had rushed home and wandered out onto her sanctum, the terrace. She glared in vexation at the passion flower. The Krishna Kamal. The Kaurav-Pandav Phool, as the mali had explained to her, insisting that the deep purple outer calyx numbered a hundred petals in all. The Kauravas. Then came the five greenish-white Pandavas, cherishing in their midst the single, graceful green stamen, Draupadi.
Nivedita had ever since been fascinated by that flower. Good, Evil, Beauty. All in one. All fused together to form a complete whole. After all, good without a touch of evil is insipid; evil without any good at all, intolerable; and as for beauty - beauty is its own justification, in a way that poor virtue alone can never be!
As always during the monsoon, the Krishna Kamal creeper bloomed in profusion, throwing out new shoots almost every other day. A lot of them had got entangled with a tall thorny cactus growing wild, close by. Nivedita tried to disentangle the tendrils of the Krishna Kamal from the cactus, getting badly scratched in the process. At last she gave up. Let the creeper remain entangled! The tender, pliant tendrils were clinging too tightly to the thorns of the cactus. Sighing in exasperation, she- turned her attention to the rock garden.
* * * *
While Nivedita had been busy on the terrace, Dina's luncheon guests had arrived almost en masse. Over lunch, Dina assumed a brittle gaiety which her guests pretended to accept at face value. Prakash was clearly ill at ease. It was a strange, strained luncheon party.
"Deadly undercurrents," murmured Zerxes Avari in Scherezade's ear. "One pinprick, and all hell will break loose!"
Banoo Maa's smiles were even gayer and more determined than Dina's. But all the while her heart bled for her.
Fredun gulped down his lunch as one anxious to complete a distasteful job as soon as possible and get it over and done with. Rashna was composed and distant. Firdauz had excused himself. "Some impossible-to-break prior engagement," Rashna had politely explained on his behalf.
The usual birthday greetings were conveyed, presents given, and Fredun wondered how soon he and Rashna could take their leave without seeming rude. Sherrie, he knew, would leave with Zerxes.
Fredun had accepted his daughter's relationship with the brilliant thirty-two-year old lawyer, as he had always accepted anything his daughter had ever done. Without disapproval and without understanding.
Shirin was even more effusive than usual, her sharp acquisitive eyes darting over the curios and the crystal in the fabulously furnished apartment. Prakash had really minted in the last few years! And of course, he had become a bit of a 'big noise' in the city. His name was quite often in the papers. And the tabloids mentioned 'what he read,' 'where he ate,' etc. . . etc. . . etc. . ., thought Shirin, who had her own perception of fame. Her own husband was his usual retiring self, unobtrusively controlling his wife if he thought she went too far. And Tehmul was only interested in his lunch.
Zerxes had been looking rather narrowly at Dina. She had embraced him when he and Scherezade had entered, "now that he was almost one of the family," and Zerxes' fastidious nostrils had wrinkled at the strong aroma of 'Joy' that emanated from her. She appeared to have been drinking rather heavily before they had got there! Her gait was a shade unsteady and her colour a bit too high. Possibly the lashings of perfume were meant to drown the smell of liquor, he thought cynically. He had few illusions about his Scherezade's Dina Fui.
And even fewer about the man she had supposedly married.
He wondered if Prakash Sattar, as he now called himself, realized the legal consequences of his actions. After all, he did have two children of his own, no matter how strained their relations!
"So, how are you two celebrating this evening?" Shirin's slightly shrill voice broke in upon Zerxes' thoughts. She was smiling brightly at Dina and Prakash, oblivious of Dina's frown and Prakash's indifferent shrug. Dina was forced to break the awkward silence, ultimately. They had just about finished lunch, and the dessert, orange souffle, had been served.
"Prakash has to go to Poona for work," she said shortly.
"Oh! But surely he won't be leaving today itself?" gasped Shirin, putting her other foot into her mouth. "Jamshed would never dream of leaving me alone on my birthday, would you, darling?"
"Dina's a more independent woman than you, my dear," was her spouse's diplomatic response, dodging her question and drawing a chuckle from Fredun, who was gulping down his souffle.
"I really have no choice, but to leave this evening," said Prakash irritably. He gave a short laugh. "As Jamshed seems to appreciate, Dina and I don't live in each other's pockets, you know!"
"You really must give me the recipe for this orange souffle, Dina" intervened Banoo Maa serenely, ignoring the earlier exchanges, turning the conversation into safer, more general channels.
Scherezade chipped in with a recipe for a really sinful chocolate souffle.
As even the culinary discussion seemed to be in danger of petering out, Fredun, seeing that everybody had finished dessert, judged it was time to leave, and rose, nodding at his wife. That seemed to be the signal for general dispersal. Dina did not rise to see her guests off. She seemed both tired and off colour.
The morning's downpour had settled into a steady drizzle, as Dina's guests left. Scherezade, getting into the car with Zerxes, had expressed a desire to drive down to Aksha beach. Zerxes had agreed almost absently. He seemed rather preoccupied during most of the long drive, responding to Scherezade in monosyllables.
As they turned off on to the highway, he suddenly asked, "What's bugging your brother Firdauz? Why didn't he turn up?"
"Because he's a pompous ass," Scherezade replied, scorn for her brother vibrating in her normally musical voice. "He's been even more snooty about this conversion business than Dad himself. And God knows, he's been snooty enough!"
"Snooty? In what way?" queried Zerxes, at last succeeding in overtaking a road-hogging, exhaust-emitting truck just ahead of them.
Scherezade answered slowly, choosing her words with care, "Dad adored Dina Fui. Especially when they were small. Even afterwards, when I was a child, I remember she and Khurshed Fua were always in and out of our house. Hanoz came along much later. Dina Fui often dropped in alone without Khurshed Fua. I think at times Mom used to get quite fed up of her." Scherezade wrinkled her brow in the recollection of those far-off memories. "Dad is her younger brother, you know! He actually used to hang on her words -'- her opinions, her advice."
"Both of which no doubt she gave quite freely," cut in Zerxes.
The note of satire in his tone was evident. Scherezade wrinkled her brow again. "Umm . . . come to think of it, perhaps she did!" she admitted reluctantly. "But she always meant it for the best," she added defensively.
"They all do," Zerxes murmured sarcastically. The car bumped over a pothole he couldn't avoid. "But go on . . . you were saying, your father respected his sister's advice. And your mother resented it."
"I did not say that!" flashed Scherezade, turning round in her seat and glaring at him. "Stop twisting my words!"
"Okay, okay," he gave a lazy grin, glancing at her amusedly through green eyes gleaming behind half-closed lids, his left hand flung up from the steering wheel in a gesture half of surrender, half of conciliation. The hand found its way to her delicate nape beneath the swathe of heavy brown hair and caressed it. "Don't take on so, my Baby! You're feeling guilty because you think your loyalties are divided. But you needn't! You can love both, your parents and your aunt, you know," he said softly, adding bracingly, "and you can tolerate both their points of view without yourself accepting either."
"I suppose you're right," Scherezade murmured, sinking her chin into her cupped hands, elbows resting on bunched-up knees. "But tell me," she urged, her voice quickening, her quicksilver mind darting back to something he had said earlier. "Why did you say Dina Fui didn't seem 'quite normal' to you?" .
By now they had reached the turn-off on the highway, leading to INS Hamla. Zerxes negotiated the bend, murmuring as he did so, "Well, she's either been drinking too much, or she's taken a particularly heavy dose of sedatives, or she's on drugs." "You must be joking." Scherezade stiffened.
Zerxes did not comment on that. Which was comment enough, for Scherezade.
Her face suddenly clouded. Hesitantly, almost tentatively, she asked in a small voice, "Do you honestly think she's on drugs?"
"Could be," he answered briefly, casting a shrewd, sideways glance at her exquisite profile, with its chiselled cheekbones, and the lovely, lovely line of the jaw. A study in uncertainty.
"But why? Why is she changed so?" She whispered almost to herself.
"Do you really need me to answer that question?" was the amused query.
"I suppose it's this damned conversion business. But tell me, would it have bothered you, so much?"
"The question really doesn't apply. Either to you or to me. Because we don't give a damn for 'what people say'. But your Dina Fui obviously does! That being the case, taking the refuge of secularity, she changed her religion to give a semblance of respectability to an otherwise invalid marriage."
She knit her brow. "Are you saying that her marriage to Prakash is invalid?"
"Let's say, of doubtful validity," he temporized. "In the opinion of quite a few eminent jurists and legal experts, if the only reason for conversion is to avail of the benefit of a second wife without otherwise believing in and following the tenets of Islam, both the conversion and consequently the second marriage would be invalid. But that's a gray area still. The legal position on this aspect is not quite clear cut. Nor will it be, unless in some such case the first wife initiates bigamy proceedings against the husband and the so-called 'second wife'."
"I'm sure Dina Fui still considers herself very much a Parsee, Zerx." She looked so troubled that Zerxes overlooked the corruption of his name. His left hand left the wheel again and clasped both her small ones, agitatedly worrying each other on her lap.
"Stop thinking about it, darling," he told her gently. "Whatever it is, now Dina has to live with it. She was no child when she took that decision. She knew well it would be irrevocable. I shouldn't worry too much about it." But he himself was worried. Worried about the mental and physical condition of his Scherezade's favourite aunt. And the state of her doomed 'marriage'.
"This is what happens," he thought to himself savagely, "when people rush into things without bothering to examine the possible ramifications, the consequences. On themselves, on their families!"
"You don't think she'll do something drastic, do you?" Scherezade asked suddenly, her implication clear in her tone.
"Now, Sherrie," he mimicked, deliberately malicious. "Have we come on this drive to talk about your wretched aunt and her problems?" By now, the concrete structures on either side of the road had given way to the lush greenery that signalled the proximity of the beach they both loved. Scherezade shook her head, brightening perceptibly at the changed scenery. She shook back her hair and gave him a mischievous, sidelong glance. "1 have better things in mind!" ''I'm relieved to hear that," he returned a trifle dryly, bringing the car to a halt outside the Motel Blue Ballerina and giving her a bruising kiss before getting out of the car, opening her door, and dragging her out with an ungentle hand. Then he slid his arm round her waist and led her out onto the sands and the surf.
* * * *
While Zerxes and Scherezade were strolling on the beach, inter alia, getting thoroughly drenched in the process, Shirin was regaling her spouse with hot bhajiyas, freshly made; hot coffee, freshly ground; and hot gossip, most of it made up.
Jamshed, who hadn't been able to go through the Sunday papers at his leisure that morning, had piled them up on a low cane stool next to his easy chair and was glancing through them one by one, his legs comfortably propped up on the sliding arm of the easy-chair. Six Sunday papers was the one extravagance he indulged in, to the volubly expressed perplexity of his wife. He grunted from time to time when Shirin paused for breath, his eyes on the paper.
Shirin ultimately, inevitably, came round to the subject of her younger sister. "Poor thing's been more sinned against than having sinned, that's what I've always said and that's what I say," she said, nodding defiantly to an imagined audience. The spoon rattled in her cup as she stirred the sugar vigorously.
"Seduced by that man, that's what she was. Pregnant, no doubt," she went on, as is usual with most gossips, hitting the nail on the head without realizing it.
This was too much for her husband to ignore. "My dear," he protested mildly from behind the shield of the paper, "If that were really the case, what's happened to the baby?"
"Dead," pronounced his ever-fertile wife with ghoulish relish. "Must have miscarried it," she added as a clincher.
Jamshed slowly lowered the paper and looked at his wife thoughtfully. The reasoning advanced by her now seemed rather obvious, in the circumstances surrounding his sister-in-law's second marriage. And in his experience, the obvious, the predictable, was often the truth. That was what made his wife such a very dangerous woman!
* * * *
A few kilometres away from the Dumasias' home, Rashna Vatcha entered a pretty old building in the tree-lined Laburnum road and trudged up the two steep stories to her flat, struggling with the heavy bags in both her hands. She stopped outside their flat door, panting for breath, put down one of the bags, and fumbled in her handbag for the latch-key. There was always such a lot of rubbish in her bag! She really must clean it out sometime soon, she told herself yet again. The drizzle had progressed to a steady shower. She was dripping water from her rain-proof skirt and wind-cheater onto the doormat while she hunted for her key.
Opening the door at last and entering the passage that led to the living room, she found her husband dressed and apparently on his way out. Surprised, she asked him if he was going somewhere. He hadn't said a word to her earlier about going out anywhere!
Fredun looked a little uncomfortable. He mumbled indistinctly, "Er . . . yes. Something's come up. Have to go out for a while", edging past her towards the door.
"Something at work?" Rashna asked sceptically.
"No. . . not really," snapped Fredun, irritated by the questions. "One of my friends. He's got a slight problem. Will be back soon, darling." He hurriedly opened the door and stepped out.
* * * *
The shower had progressed into a relentless deluge. Nivedita watched the sheets of rain lashing her pots on the terrace. The roses were flooded. But she no longer cared. No longer cared about mixing sand. About ensuring drainage. But the roses still bloomed. And if their roots had started putrefying, that was not as yet apparent in the plants above the soil.
She took out the handkerchief from her pocket - her handkerchief! Disregarding the pouring rain, she went out to the rock garden, lifted a few rocks, and pulled out the figurine. The new figurine that she had specially got. Today was the day, she told herself with certainty. The time had come! She took the figurine and the handkerchief to her room and locked the door. This was going to be the one secret she would not share even with Vinod!
She got to work.
The time was right.
Dusk had fallen.
* * * *
While Nivedita was thus engrossed, a rather shabby looking man was arguing with the newly appointed watchman on duty in Dina's building, demanding to be allowed to go up to the Sattars' flat. The watchman looked at the stranger dubiously, reluctant to phone Dina on the intercom, knowing that she was alone except for her maid. Sattar sahib had left to go out of town, a short while ago. Ultimately giving in to the man's insistence, he buzzed Dina's flat on the intercom.
"A man here wants to come up to your flat, ma'am. Says you've called him with regard to some problem with the television," said the watchman, his respectful tone barely disguising his disbelief. He listened for a moment and then nodded to the man. "All right," he said brusquely. "Go."
Dina answered the doorbell herself. She had just sent Fatima out on a long errand. Fatima had left by the servants' lift. Now that Sattar Madam had vouched for the chap, the watchman didn't dare to insist that he use the servants' lift.
Dina opened the door and let the man in. Then she closed the door and faced him resolutely.
*
On June 26, her birthday, Dina awoke to the alarum of a deafening clap of thunder, and was astonished to find that it was already past 9.
The monsoon that year was even more erratic than usual. Days of bright sunshine would be followed by a sudden deluge, which would last a day or two.
June 26, 1994 was a wet, gloomy day. All signs of the sun had been successfully obscured by the heavy downpour that roared furiously from a gray sky. Noisy gusts of rain-laden wind blew into Dina's bedroom, causing the lace curtains to writhe in wild frenzy, and made the connecting door between her bedroom and Prakash's rattle.
The persistent knocking ultimately made Dina realize that it was Prakash, and not the wind, rattling the connecting door. Prakash was awaiting her permission to enter.
Pulling the bedclothes more securely around her, she bade him enter.
"Happy Birthday," he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed, giving her cheek a hurried peck and thrusting a package into her hand at the same time. "I hope you like it. It's. . . er perfume again," he said almost apologetically, thinking of the bottle of 'L' Air Du Temps' his secretary had got last year, when he had asked her to go and get a bottle of perfume for his wife. The light, summery scent was about the most unsuitable for Dina's personality! But there had been no help for it.
This year he had played safe. Asked his peon to go and get a large bottle of 'Joy'. The gift-wrapping had been done by the secretary. For the last couple of years, his imagination had been unable to go beyond a bottle of perfume when it came to choosing gifts for his wife.
Dina's lips curved into the semblance of a smile. She had no illusions about the amount of time and thought expended by Prakash in choosing her birthday present.
"That's all right," she said in reply to his sheepish semi-apology, her eyes on the silver-wrapped package he had pressed into her hand. Looking up at him she said quietly, "It's the thought that counts."
For some reason, that remark annoyed him and added to his sense of guilt where she was concerned. For a brief moment, he fantasized Sonali sitting on the bed where Dina sat: her long hair rippling down her shoulders, her liquid eyes smouldering with a fire Dina had never known. With something of a shock, it suddenly struck him that he and Dina had never been able to sexually climax with each other. Whereas with Sonali . . .
. . . "Prakash, don't," she had giggled, the first time he had undressed her.
Her 'Don't' was an invitation. She never said 'Do!' Her husky voice was an allure in itself. . . unlike Dina's clipped, often sarcastic tones. And as for her body . . . not that Dina was bad, but Sonali was lush . . . voluptuous! And she knew how to drown a man in the honey of her tongue as well as the treacle of her lips . . . she was soft, seemingly subservient; while Dina was almost aggressive, putting him on the defensive where his own sexuality was concerned.
Dina threatened his maleness; Sonali flattered it. He remembered those clandestine hours stolen from his work, at her clinic . . . on her couch. . . on the patient bed. . . ultimately, on the floor, to give full rein to Sonali's expertise. . . she was like a Khajuraho statue come to life, thought the besotted Prakash, after Sonali had initiated him into yet another way of making love . . . he had no idea it could be such fun in the standing position, with his back against the wall, one leg straddling her soft, yielding hips, the other supporting her rounded thigh, her long fingers guiding him expertly, unerringly, while she gyrated rythmically against him, as agile as a belly-dancer . . .
He got off her bed. Dina's bed. "I'll go and shower, then we'll have a quiet breakfast before your family descends upon us." Now he hadn't meant to say that about her family. But it had slipped out. Shrugging with mental resignation at the hopelessness of it all, he went back to his own room.
Dina slowly untied the gold thread, unwrapped the silver wrapping paper and opened the bottle of perfume after he had left. 'Joy'! At least he had chosen the right perfume this time, she mused wryly.
It had gone wrong. It had all gone wrong with Prakash too, almost since the Nikah. They had been lovers before, but then their relationship had had a different flavour altogether! Prakash was one of those men for whom the chase is more thrilling than the conquest. Shortly after marriage had ended the reason for that marriage. And as Dina became more and more aggressive, both in bed and out of it, Prakash, with purely chauvinistic notions about women,
was repulsed by her almost to a stage where he couldn't perform. And he began to blame Dina, hate her, for that. Adding to Dina's bitterness.And exacerbating her feelings of guilt.
The breakfast a deux brought to Prakash's mind hazily, the words of an almost forgotten Neil Diamond song. Something about a man and a woman and no words between them. No conversation. That was the situation between him and Dina, now. No conversation. Just resentful silences on her part, a rising, resolutely curbed frustration on his. Relieved only by the moments snatched with Sonali. And the time spent with.. .
The telephone bell shrilled, breaking into his thoughts. It was for Dina, said Fatima. Dina rose from the breakfast table and passed through the bead-curtained door into the drawing room to take it. She looked slightly flustered when she returned. Prakash looked at her narrowly. He had a shrewd suspicion of who had been on the line. Well, he did not care! Not any longer. He did not have much time left for caring, one way or another. Soon all this would end, he told himself almost thankfully, his mind going back to what the Doctor had told him. Subsequently confirmed by a tearful Sonali.
The doorbell rang. Fatima woodenly announced that a lady called Nivedita Shahane had come to see Dina Memsahib.
Casting a glance at Dina's set face, Prakash told Fatima, "Ask her to wait in the Hall. The Memsahib will be with her shortly." He then steeled himself to meet Dina's eyes.
"You knew she was coming." It was a statement. Dina managed to turn it into an accusation as well.
"She is keen to build bridges now. She thought the best way to start would be to come and wish you on your birthday." His words sounded hollow even to himself. His tone betrayed the struggle to remain casual.
"When did she tell you this?"
"She telephoned me earlier, while you were asleep."
Dina looked at him steadily. "You hadn't gone out of town for work." Again, it was a statement. And the accusation even more evident.
He drained his coffee and rose. "! don't wish to have any arguments with you today. You may think what you choose. But Nivedita's in a slightly sensitive frame of mind right now. At least try and pretend to return her sentiments." There, now that's tom it, he told himself wryly. Might as well have admitted where he'd been, the last couple of days!
He had to pass the Hall, (he had persistently resisted all Dina's efforts to get him to call it 'drawing room'), to get to his room. Both the bedrooms, his and Dina's, opened out into the Hall, apart from being internally connected with each other. On the other side of the flat, the bedrooms opened out onto the balcony which also led directly to the small lobby which was the main entrance, often used by Dina as a get-away, if Prakash was entertaining some of his business cronies in the the Hall. The Hall was designed as a central focus, opening out into two of the four bedrooms, the dining room, and the lobby leading to the entrance.
Nivedita was hovering near the door of Dina's bedroom, rummaging in her handbag for something. At his "Hallo," she started violently and looked up almost guiltily. "The child's nerves are shot to pieces," thought Prakash to himself worriedly. "I wonder if she realizes what she is getting into, wanting to meet Dina in this frame of mind!"
"Do you want me to be here when you meet her?" he asked his daughter gently.
"N..no," she stammered somewhat breathlessly. "I think it's better if I do it on my own."
Prakash went back to his room and started packing. He had to leave for Poona in the evening. Hence the lunch party with her family, instead of the more convenient dinner. As it was a Sunday, that had been possible.
Jamshed had retired a year ago as the Headmaster of a reputed boys' school; his wife had never worked in her life; their son Tehmul worked in a Bank; Fredun worked for a fairly reputed private limited company as the General Manager (Finance); no school for Rashna, who was a teacher in a girls' school. Scherezade was a trainee copywriter in one of the larger, more reputed ad agencies, having joined just about a couple of months ago. Zerxes was a rapidly rising criminal lawyer, acquiring a formidable reputation for cross-examination. Both he and Scherezade often worked on Sundays for a few hours, mostly at Zerxes' home, in his study. But they'd agreed to make an exception on Dina's birthday.
Dina was determined to preserve appearances in front of her family members. They mustn't know that this marriage too had failed. Else she'd never live it down, she thought to herself, blanching at the thought of the malicious "I told you so's" that she was sure would ensue.
By around noon, Dina had still not come out of her room. Prakash knocked on her door. "What time are your people coming?" he shouted through the closed door.
"Around one o'clock," replied Dina, coming out of the bedroom, fully dressed. She led the way to the drawing room.
"Er.. how did the meeting with Nivedita go?" asked Prakash hesitantly.
"It didn't," was the cryptic reply.
"Meaning?" asked Prakash puzzled, a hint of foreboding stealing into him.
"Meaning that she appeared to have changed her mind about wanting to 'build bridges', and had disappeared by the time I left the dining room and went out into the Drawing Room," responded Dina acidly.
"Poor child, her nerve must have failed her at the last moment," murmured Prakash.
"Possibly," answered Dina in a tone indicating clearly that she wished to have no further discussion on the subject.
* * * *
Nivedita had rushed home and wandered out onto her sanctum, the terrace. She glared in vexation at the passion flower. The Krishna Kamal. The Kaurav-Pandav Phool, as the mali had explained to her, insisting that the deep purple outer calyx numbered a hundred petals in all. The Kauravas. Then came the five greenish-white Pandavas, cherishing in their midst the single, graceful green stamen, Draupadi.
Nivedita had ever since been fascinated by that flower. Good, Evil, Beauty. All in one. All fused together to form a complete whole. After all, good without a touch of evil is insipid; evil without any good at all, intolerable; and as for beauty - beauty is its own justification, in a way that poor virtue alone can never be!
As always during the monsoon, the Krishna Kamal creeper bloomed in profusion, throwing out new shoots almost every other day. A lot of them had got entangled with a tall thorny cactus growing wild, close by. Nivedita tried to disentangle the tendrils of the Krishna Kamal from the cactus, getting badly scratched in the process. At last she gave up. Let the creeper remain entangled! The tender, pliant tendrils were clinging too tightly to the thorns of the cactus. Sighing in exasperation, she- turned her attention to the rock garden.
* * * *
While Nivedita had been busy on the terrace, Dina's luncheon guests had arrived almost en masse. Over lunch, Dina assumed a brittle gaiety which her guests pretended to accept at face value. Prakash was clearly ill at ease. It was a strange, strained luncheon party.
"Deadly undercurrents," murmured Zerxes Avari in Scherezade's ear. "One pinprick, and all hell will break loose!"
Banoo Maa's smiles were even gayer and more determined than Dina's. But all the while her heart bled for her.
Fredun gulped down his lunch as one anxious to complete a distasteful job as soon as possible and get it over and done with. Rashna was composed and distant. Firdauz had excused himself. "Some impossible-to-break prior engagement," Rashna had politely explained on his behalf.
The usual birthday greetings were conveyed, presents given, and Fredun wondered how soon he and Rashna could take their leave without seeming rude. Sherrie, he knew, would leave with Zerxes.
Fredun had accepted his daughter's relationship with the brilliant thirty-two-year old lawyer, as he had always accepted anything his daughter had ever done. Without disapproval and without understanding.
Shirin was even more effusive than usual, her sharp acquisitive eyes darting over the curios and the crystal in the fabulously furnished apartment. Prakash had really minted in the last few years! And of course, he had become a bit of a 'big noise' in the city. His name was quite often in the papers. And the tabloids mentioned 'what he read,' 'where he ate,' etc. . . etc. . . etc. . ., thought Shirin, who had her own perception of fame. Her own husband was his usual retiring self, unobtrusively controlling his wife if he thought she went too far. And Tehmul was only interested in his lunch.
Zerxes had been looking rather narrowly at Dina. She had embraced him when he and Scherezade had entered, "now that he was almost one of the family," and Zerxes' fastidious nostrils had wrinkled at the strong aroma of 'Joy' that emanated from her. She appeared to have been drinking rather heavily before they had got there! Her gait was a shade unsteady and her colour a bit too high. Possibly the lashings of perfume were meant to drown the smell of liquor, he thought cynically. He had few illusions about his Scherezade's Dina Fui.
And even fewer about the man she had supposedly married.
He wondered if Prakash Sattar, as he now called himself, realized the legal consequences of his actions. After all, he did have two children of his own, no matter how strained their relations!
"So, how are you two celebrating this evening?" Shirin's slightly shrill voice broke in upon Zerxes' thoughts. She was smiling brightly at Dina and Prakash, oblivious of Dina's frown and Prakash's indifferent shrug. Dina was forced to break the awkward silence, ultimately. They had just about finished lunch, and the dessert, orange souffle, had been served.
"Prakash has to go to Poona for work," she said shortly.
"Oh! But surely he won't be leaving today itself?" gasped Shirin, putting her other foot into her mouth. "Jamshed would never dream of leaving me alone on my birthday, would you, darling?"
"Dina's a more independent woman than you, my dear," was her spouse's diplomatic response, dodging her question and drawing a chuckle from Fredun, who was gulping down his souffle.
"I really have no choice, but to leave this evening," said Prakash irritably. He gave a short laugh. "As Jamshed seems to appreciate, Dina and I don't live in each other's pockets, you know!"
"You really must give me the recipe for this orange souffle, Dina" intervened Banoo Maa serenely, ignoring the earlier exchanges, turning the conversation into safer, more general channels.
Scherezade chipped in with a recipe for a really sinful chocolate souffle.
As even the culinary discussion seemed to be in danger of petering out, Fredun, seeing that everybody had finished dessert, judged it was time to leave, and rose, nodding at his wife. That seemed to be the signal for general dispersal. Dina did not rise to see her guests off. She seemed both tired and off colour.
The morning's downpour had settled into a steady drizzle, as Dina's guests left. Scherezade, getting into the car with Zerxes, had expressed a desire to drive down to Aksha beach. Zerxes had agreed almost absently. He seemed rather preoccupied during most of the long drive, responding to Scherezade in monosyllables.
As they turned off on to the highway, he suddenly asked, "What's bugging your brother Firdauz? Why didn't he turn up?"
"Because he's a pompous ass," Scherezade replied, scorn for her brother vibrating in her normally musical voice. "He's been even more snooty about this conversion business than Dad himself. And God knows, he's been snooty enough!"
"Snooty? In what way?" queried Zerxes, at last succeeding in overtaking a road-hogging, exhaust-emitting truck just ahead of them.
Scherezade answered slowly, choosing her words with care, "Dad adored Dina Fui. Especially when they were small. Even afterwards, when I was a child, I remember she and Khurshed Fua were always in and out of our house. Hanoz came along much later. Dina Fui often dropped in alone without Khurshed Fua. I think at times Mom used to get quite fed up of her." Scherezade wrinkled her brow in the recollection of those far-off memories. "Dad is her younger brother, you know! He actually used to hang on her words -'- her opinions, her advice."
"Both of which no doubt she gave quite freely," cut in Zerxes.
The note of satire in his tone was evident. Scherezade wrinkled her brow again. "Umm . . . come to think of it, perhaps she did!" she admitted reluctantly. "But she always meant it for the best," she added defensively.
"They all do," Zerxes murmured sarcastically. The car bumped over a pothole he couldn't avoid. "But go on . . . you were saying, your father respected his sister's advice. And your mother resented it."
"I did not say that!" flashed Scherezade, turning round in her seat and glaring at him. "Stop twisting my words!"
"Okay, okay," he gave a lazy grin, glancing at her amusedly through green eyes gleaming behind half-closed lids, his left hand flung up from the steering wheel in a gesture half of surrender, half of conciliation. The hand found its way to her delicate nape beneath the swathe of heavy brown hair and caressed it. "Don't take on so, my Baby! You're feeling guilty because you think your loyalties are divided. But you needn't! You can love both, your parents and your aunt, you know," he said softly, adding bracingly, "and you can tolerate both their points of view without yourself accepting either."
"I suppose you're right," Scherezade murmured, sinking her chin into her cupped hands, elbows resting on bunched-up knees. "But tell me," she urged, her voice quickening, her quicksilver mind darting back to something he had said earlier. "Why did you say Dina Fui didn't seem 'quite normal' to you?" .
By now they had reached the turn-off on the highway, leading to INS Hamla. Zerxes negotiated the bend, murmuring as he did so, "Well, she's either been drinking too much, or she's taken a particularly heavy dose of sedatives, or she's on drugs." "You must be joking." Scherezade stiffened.
Zerxes did not comment on that. Which was comment enough, for Scherezade.
Her face suddenly clouded. Hesitantly, almost tentatively, she asked in a small voice, "Do you honestly think she's on drugs?"
"Could be," he answered briefly, casting a shrewd, sideways glance at her exquisite profile, with its chiselled cheekbones, and the lovely, lovely line of the jaw. A study in uncertainty.
"But why? Why is she changed so?" She whispered almost to herself.
"Do you really need me to answer that question?" was the amused query.
"I suppose it's this damned conversion business. But tell me, would it have bothered you, so much?"
"The question really doesn't apply. Either to you or to me. Because we don't give a damn for 'what people say'. But your Dina Fui obviously does! That being the case, taking the refuge of secularity, she changed her religion to give a semblance of respectability to an otherwise invalid marriage."
She knit her brow. "Are you saying that her marriage to Prakash is invalid?"
"Let's say, of doubtful validity," he temporized. "In the opinion of quite a few eminent jurists and legal experts, if the only reason for conversion is to avail of the benefit of a second wife without otherwise believing in and following the tenets of Islam, both the conversion and consequently the second marriage would be invalid. But that's a gray area still. The legal position on this aspect is not quite clear cut. Nor will it be, unless in some such case the first wife initiates bigamy proceedings against the husband and the so-called 'second wife'."
"I'm sure Dina Fui still considers herself very much a Parsee, Zerx." She looked so troubled that Zerxes overlooked the corruption of his name. His left hand left the wheel again and clasped both her small ones, agitatedly worrying each other on her lap.
"Stop thinking about it, darling," he told her gently. "Whatever it is, now Dina has to live with it. She was no child when she took that decision. She knew well it would be irrevocable. I shouldn't worry too much about it." But he himself was worried. Worried about the mental and physical condition of his Scherezade's favourite aunt. And the state of her doomed 'marriage'.
"This is what happens," he thought to himself savagely, "when people rush into things without bothering to examine the possible ramifications, the consequences. On themselves, on their families!"
"You don't think she'll do something drastic, do you?" Scherezade asked suddenly, her implication clear in her tone.
"Now, Sherrie," he mimicked, deliberately malicious. "Have we come on this drive to talk about your wretched aunt and her problems?" By now, the concrete structures on either side of the road had given way to the lush greenery that signalled the proximity of the beach they both loved. Scherezade shook her head, brightening perceptibly at the changed scenery. She shook back her hair and gave him a mischievous, sidelong glance. "1 have better things in mind!" ''I'm relieved to hear that," he returned a trifle dryly, bringing the car to a halt outside the Motel Blue Ballerina and giving her a bruising kiss before getting out of the car, opening her door, and dragging her out with an ungentle hand. Then he slid his arm round her waist and led her out onto the sands and the surf.
* * * *
While Zerxes and Scherezade were strolling on the beach, inter alia, getting thoroughly drenched in the process, Shirin was regaling her spouse with hot bhajiyas, freshly made; hot coffee, freshly ground; and hot gossip, most of it made up.
Jamshed, who hadn't been able to go through the Sunday papers at his leisure that morning, had piled them up on a low cane stool next to his easy chair and was glancing through them one by one, his legs comfortably propped up on the sliding arm of the easy-chair. Six Sunday papers was the one extravagance he indulged in, to the volubly expressed perplexity of his wife. He grunted from time to time when Shirin paused for breath, his eyes on the paper.
Shirin ultimately, inevitably, came round to the subject of her younger sister. "Poor thing's been more sinned against than having sinned, that's what I've always said and that's what I say," she said, nodding defiantly to an imagined audience. The spoon rattled in her cup as she stirred the sugar vigorously.
"Seduced by that man, that's what she was. Pregnant, no doubt," she went on, as is usual with most gossips, hitting the nail on the head without realizing it.
This was too much for her husband to ignore. "My dear," he protested mildly from behind the shield of the paper, "If that were really the case, what's happened to the baby?"
"Dead," pronounced his ever-fertile wife with ghoulish relish. "Must have miscarried it," she added as a clincher.
Jamshed slowly lowered the paper and looked at his wife thoughtfully. The reasoning advanced by her now seemed rather obvious, in the circumstances surrounding his sister-in-law's second marriage. And in his experience, the obvious, the predictable, was often the truth. That was what made his wife such a very dangerous woman!
* * * *
A few kilometres away from the Dumasias' home, Rashna Vatcha entered a pretty old building in the tree-lined Laburnum road and trudged up the two steep stories to her flat, struggling with the heavy bags in both her hands. She stopped outside their flat door, panting for breath, put down one of the bags, and fumbled in her handbag for the latch-key. There was always such a lot of rubbish in her bag! She really must clean it out sometime soon, she told herself yet again. The drizzle had progressed to a steady shower. She was dripping water from her rain-proof skirt and wind-cheater onto the doormat while she hunted for her key.
Opening the door at last and entering the passage that led to the living room, she found her husband dressed and apparently on his way out. Surprised, she asked him if he was going somewhere. He hadn't said a word to her earlier about going out anywhere!
Fredun looked a little uncomfortable. He mumbled indistinctly, "Er . . . yes. Something's come up. Have to go out for a while", edging past her towards the door.
"Something at work?" Rashna asked sceptically.
"No. . . not really," snapped Fredun, irritated by the questions. "One of my friends. He's got a slight problem. Will be back soon, darling." He hurriedly opened the door and stepped out.
* * * *
The shower had progressed into a relentless deluge. Nivedita watched the sheets of rain lashing her pots on the terrace. The roses were flooded. But she no longer cared. No longer cared about mixing sand. About ensuring drainage. But the roses still bloomed. And if their roots had started putrefying, that was not as yet apparent in the plants above the soil.
She took out the handkerchief from her pocket - her handkerchief! Disregarding the pouring rain, she went out to the rock garden, lifted a few rocks, and pulled out the figurine. The new figurine that she had specially got. Today was the day, she told herself with certainty. The time had come! She took the figurine and the handkerchief to her room and locked the door. This was going to be the one secret she would not share even with Vinod!
She got to work.
The time was right.
Dusk had fallen.
* * * *
While Nivedita was thus engrossed, a rather shabby looking man was arguing with the newly appointed watchman on duty in Dina's building, demanding to be allowed to go up to the Sattars' flat. The watchman looked at the stranger dubiously, reluctant to phone Dina on the intercom, knowing that she was alone except for her maid. Sattar sahib had left to go out of town, a short while ago. Ultimately giving in to the man's insistence, he buzzed Dina's flat on the intercom.
"A man here wants to come up to your flat, ma'am. Says you've called him with regard to some problem with the television," said the watchman, his respectful tone barely disguising his disbelief. He listened for a moment and then nodded to the man. "All right," he said brusquely. "Go."
Dina answered the doorbell herself. She had just sent Fatima out on a long errand. Fatima had left by the servants' lift. Now that Sattar Madam had vouched for the chap, the watchman didn't dare to insist that he use the servants' lift.
Dina opened the door and let the man in. Then she closed the door and faced him resolutely.
*
Saturday, September 6, 2008
The Turning - Chapter Two
CHAPTER TWO
"What did you expect, that they would have welcomed you with open arms?" Dina Sattar asked her husband sarcastically. "The prodigal father returning after ten years to condole with his children on the death of their mother? His wife?"
Her tone grated harshly on his already defensive ear. Her words sliced through the layers of indifference accumulated over the years, touching a nerve that had not, as yet, been rendered insensate. He winced at the bitter, spitefully enunciated 'wife'.
Prakash knew that that had always been a sore point with Dina.
That he should have remained legally married to his first wife also.
Dina was in the position of 'wife number two', as a malicious acquaintance had commented deliberately in Dina's hearing.
Karuna had flatly refused to give her husband a divorce. Her own bed had been barren for years! She would not let him go, to spill his seed into that hoity-toity Parsee bitch!
Long hours spent with his lawyer friend had convinced Prakash that he himself had no ground for divorce. That any petition filed by him would be thrown out, probably after a long drawn out battle, into which Dina too was bound to be dragged. What better way out, than to embrace a religion that welcomed proselytism and permitted four wives?
He looked rather anxiously at Dina. At the hard, almost bitter lines that marred her once attractive face. The years had worked their stamp on her, though she was still attractive at forty-eight, in a hard, haggard fashion. The thin lips had acquired a bitter, closed-in look, even in repose. The eyes too often held a haunted look. As though she had been trapped into something she now wanted to get out of. At any cost. . . to anybody. . . except herself.
Prakash wondered, as he often had in the past few years, if they had done the right thing ten years ago. With a sudden, unaccustomed perception, he realized why she was so particularly bitter today. Today was their tenth Wedding Anniversary. And he had not even wished her! Ten years of marriage to Dina . . . and his first wife had begun the day by slashing her wrists . . . he had celebrated the tenth Anniversary of his second marriage by attending the funeral of his first wife. It was an irony he did not have the stomach for.
Prakash was tired. He felt trapped in the web of his own making.
The guilt of proselytism gnawed deeper into his flesh with the passing years. A yearning to return to the faith he was bred in struggled for fulfillment with a violence he was compelled to suppress.
And now this! Nivedita's denunciation. The final rejection by his own flesh and blood. Alien! That was what his children had become to him. Alien. He almost hated Dina in that moment. If only. . . he caught himself on the thought, horrified by the depth of his own bitterness, and cast a resentful look at Dina.
She caught the look. And gave a caricature of a smile, as she intuitively divined his thoughts. He wished her dead! He dared not risk the scandal of a divorce, a 'talaq', right now! Dina was well aware that the new Finance Minister had advised Prakash against taking her with him to official functions. His business depended too heavily on the goodwill of politicians, for such advice to be ignored.
That several politicians depended on Prakash's 'goodwill', financially, was a matter they themselves preferred to ignore! And Prakash had made his fortune too quickly, too precariously, to rock the boat. One could never tell, in these unpredictable times, just whose survival would be threatened by a scandal!
Prakash averted his eyes, embarrassed. "I didn't expect to be welcomed with open arms," he blundered into speech. "I thought they would be pleased to see me, after all this time," he faltered, not needing Dina's contemptuous smile to tell him how inane he sounded. This paradox had persisted all through his second marriage. The successful, confident businessman reduced to a defensive, guilt-ridden husband at home.
They completed their meal in silence and almost immediately retired to their bedrooms. The connecting door had not been opened in a long, long time. Resentment can fuel the sexual drive only in the very young.
Dina desultorily flicked a few pages of the novel she was reading before laying it down, ultimately tired of the pretense of reading. Her thoughts strayed to her divorced husband, Khurshed. If he died, would she be tempted to attend his funeral? Would she be allowed to? The thought entered her mind unbidden. Unwelcome.
Suddenly, Dina sat up in bed with something of a shock. This was a thought she had always deliberately blocked out from her mind. Now it impinged itself upon her consciousness inexorably.
"What will happen to you when you die?" The voice inside taunted her.
Feeling claustrophobic, Dina got off the bed and walked up to the open window, taking deep gulps of air.
"Don't do it, Dina . . . . Don't. 'Tis a sin you are committing," her Banoo Maa had pleaded, horrified when she had disclosed to her what she was going to do.
"You're being narrow minded, Maa," she had asserted with the bravado of the insecure. "After all, all religions are the same."
"Then how come you had never thought of changing your religion, till now?" had asked that shrewd lady, then in her sixties. Banoo Kanga, her mother's sister, was the only mother Dina had ever known. As had her sister Shirin and brother Fredun.
"Admit it to yourself, at least, if not to me," the old lady had said, in a last ditch effort to try and get Dina to change her mind. "This sudden urge for conversion is only so you'll be able to 'marry' this man. If you can call it marriage at all!"
"You don't understand, Maa! I have to get married to him!" She had then confided in Banoo Maa her reason, her desperation, her exhilaration.
Dina closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. "Banoo Maa, Banoo Maa," she despaired. "Why didn't you stop me? Surely you must have guessed how it would be?"
The first traumatic shock shortly after the marriage. The feeling of being utterly bereft. And then the feeling of being imposed upon. The distrust and the hostility of his children by his first wife. The neveracknowledged, ever-present guilt where Karuna was concerned. Poisoning everything including their sex life. Especially their sex life! The differences and misunderstandings that were stifled and repressed till they ossified into implacable hatred. The corrosion that set in, eating into her every time the name of her Prophet automatically came to her lips. Not being able to go to the Fire temple or the Doongerwadi. After that disastrous incident, when an old friend had asked curiously why she was sitting outside with the non-Parsees instead of inside the bungli, she had stopped going altogether.
Yes, the end had been present in the beginning itself. Banoo Maa had seen that. Wise old Banoo Maa. If only she had!
The poison had been eating into her entire psyche gradually, almost imperceptibly changing her. She had of late seen that reflected in the faces of her relatives. . . her beloved Banoo Maa . . . her brother and his family . . . her cherished niece . . . her elder sister and her husband . . . Thinking of Shirin, she frowned in annoyance. She and Prakash would have to go over to Shirin and Jamshed's, the day after tomorrow. It was their thirtieth Wedding Anniversary. And her family had always been scrupulous in inviting her and Prakash to all their functions! Her pride forced her to attend, pretending a gaiety she did not feel, in the face of those covert, speculative stares, just waiting for her composure and her marriage to crack.
Only her niece had understood. Always. Stood up for her, been her sole outspoken champion. Her darling little Scherezade! Though Dina wasn't comfortable about that fellow Sherrie was involved with.
Dina turned away from the window. As so often in the past, her eyes wandered to the bottle of sleeping tablets lying on her bedside table. And lingered there. And then the spectre raised itself again.
"What will happen to you when you die?"
Trying to shut the thought out of her mind, Dina opened the door leading to the balcony and walked out. The balcony ran the length of the outer side of the flat, overlooking the sea. Casting a swift glance at the door of Prakash's bedroom next to hers, she was relieved to find it shut. His air-conditioner was on. Prakash couldn't sleep without the AC, whereas Dina preferred open windows and fresh air.
She leant her arms on the balcony railing and struggled to relax her tense body, feeling the shroud of the night close in upon her. The moon was a sliver of silvery sickle. Twenty stories below, the inky waters of the Arabian Sea rippled with the compulsion of gravity. Dina gazed fascinated at the neon lights reflected in the sluggishly undulating waters. The fingers of fear crept towards her once more. Relentlessly, with a gravity of their own that she could do nothing to repulse.
Dina shuddered, trying to overcome the feeling of someone having walked over her grave.
What would it be like for her? A hurriedly dug up grave, unsanctified by the prayers of the Faithful? The chanting of the Parsee Priests, she could forget about! She was bitterly aware that none of her relatives would even try to give her a Parsee funeral at the Tower of Silence. Except perhaps her Sherrie. But she would not succeed. She could not succeed! Not in the face of the disapproval of her own parents. Not against the intransigent orthodoxy of the Priests who would not allow it, if they knew of Dina's conversion. And somebody from among her relatives was bound to spill the beans, she thought, grimacing.
Her fingers closed on the cold hard railing of the balcony till the bones of her palms pressed painfully against the unyielding metal. It had started drizzling.
Dina went back into her bedroom, gulped two sleeping tablets and lay down, imploring oblivion to her aid.
*
"What did you expect, that they would have welcomed you with open arms?" Dina Sattar asked her husband sarcastically. "The prodigal father returning after ten years to condole with his children on the death of their mother? His wife?"
Her tone grated harshly on his already defensive ear. Her words sliced through the layers of indifference accumulated over the years, touching a nerve that had not, as yet, been rendered insensate. He winced at the bitter, spitefully enunciated 'wife'.
Prakash knew that that had always been a sore point with Dina.
That he should have remained legally married to his first wife also.
Dina was in the position of 'wife number two', as a malicious acquaintance had commented deliberately in Dina's hearing.
Karuna had flatly refused to give her husband a divorce. Her own bed had been barren for years! She would not let him go, to spill his seed into that hoity-toity Parsee bitch!
Long hours spent with his lawyer friend had convinced Prakash that he himself had no ground for divorce. That any petition filed by him would be thrown out, probably after a long drawn out battle, into which Dina too was bound to be dragged. What better way out, than to embrace a religion that welcomed proselytism and permitted four wives?
He looked rather anxiously at Dina. At the hard, almost bitter lines that marred her once attractive face. The years had worked their stamp on her, though she was still attractive at forty-eight, in a hard, haggard fashion. The thin lips had acquired a bitter, closed-in look, even in repose. The eyes too often held a haunted look. As though she had been trapped into something she now wanted to get out of. At any cost. . . to anybody. . . except herself.
Prakash wondered, as he often had in the past few years, if they had done the right thing ten years ago. With a sudden, unaccustomed perception, he realized why she was so particularly bitter today. Today was their tenth Wedding Anniversary. And he had not even wished her! Ten years of marriage to Dina . . . and his first wife had begun the day by slashing her wrists . . . he had celebrated the tenth Anniversary of his second marriage by attending the funeral of his first wife. It was an irony he did not have the stomach for.
Prakash was tired. He felt trapped in the web of his own making.
The guilt of proselytism gnawed deeper into his flesh with the passing years. A yearning to return to the faith he was bred in struggled for fulfillment with a violence he was compelled to suppress.
And now this! Nivedita's denunciation. The final rejection by his own flesh and blood. Alien! That was what his children had become to him. Alien. He almost hated Dina in that moment. If only. . . he caught himself on the thought, horrified by the depth of his own bitterness, and cast a resentful look at Dina.
She caught the look. And gave a caricature of a smile, as she intuitively divined his thoughts. He wished her dead! He dared not risk the scandal of a divorce, a 'talaq', right now! Dina was well aware that the new Finance Minister had advised Prakash against taking her with him to official functions. His business depended too heavily on the goodwill of politicians, for such advice to be ignored.
That several politicians depended on Prakash's 'goodwill', financially, was a matter they themselves preferred to ignore! And Prakash had made his fortune too quickly, too precariously, to rock the boat. One could never tell, in these unpredictable times, just whose survival would be threatened by a scandal!
Prakash averted his eyes, embarrassed. "I didn't expect to be welcomed with open arms," he blundered into speech. "I thought they would be pleased to see me, after all this time," he faltered, not needing Dina's contemptuous smile to tell him how inane he sounded. This paradox had persisted all through his second marriage. The successful, confident businessman reduced to a defensive, guilt-ridden husband at home.
They completed their meal in silence and almost immediately retired to their bedrooms. The connecting door had not been opened in a long, long time. Resentment can fuel the sexual drive only in the very young.
Dina desultorily flicked a few pages of the novel she was reading before laying it down, ultimately tired of the pretense of reading. Her thoughts strayed to her divorced husband, Khurshed. If he died, would she be tempted to attend his funeral? Would she be allowed to? The thought entered her mind unbidden. Unwelcome.
Suddenly, Dina sat up in bed with something of a shock. This was a thought she had always deliberately blocked out from her mind. Now it impinged itself upon her consciousness inexorably.
"What will happen to you when you die?" The voice inside taunted her.
Feeling claustrophobic, Dina got off the bed and walked up to the open window, taking deep gulps of air.
"Don't do it, Dina . . . . Don't. 'Tis a sin you are committing," her Banoo Maa had pleaded, horrified when she had disclosed to her what she was going to do.
"You're being narrow minded, Maa," she had asserted with the bravado of the insecure. "After all, all religions are the same."
"Then how come you had never thought of changing your religion, till now?" had asked that shrewd lady, then in her sixties. Banoo Kanga, her mother's sister, was the only mother Dina had ever known. As had her sister Shirin and brother Fredun.
"Admit it to yourself, at least, if not to me," the old lady had said, in a last ditch effort to try and get Dina to change her mind. "This sudden urge for conversion is only so you'll be able to 'marry' this man. If you can call it marriage at all!"
"You don't understand, Maa! I have to get married to him!" She had then confided in Banoo Maa her reason, her desperation, her exhilaration.
Dina closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. "Banoo Maa, Banoo Maa," she despaired. "Why didn't you stop me? Surely you must have guessed how it would be?"
The first traumatic shock shortly after the marriage. The feeling of being utterly bereft. And then the feeling of being imposed upon. The distrust and the hostility of his children by his first wife. The neveracknowledged, ever-present guilt where Karuna was concerned. Poisoning everything including their sex life. Especially their sex life! The differences and misunderstandings that were stifled and repressed till they ossified into implacable hatred. The corrosion that set in, eating into her every time the name of her Prophet automatically came to her lips. Not being able to go to the Fire temple or the Doongerwadi. After that disastrous incident, when an old friend had asked curiously why she was sitting outside with the non-Parsees instead of inside the bungli, she had stopped going altogether.
Yes, the end had been present in the beginning itself. Banoo Maa had seen that. Wise old Banoo Maa. If only she had!
The poison had been eating into her entire psyche gradually, almost imperceptibly changing her. She had of late seen that reflected in the faces of her relatives. . . her beloved Banoo Maa . . . her brother and his family . . . her cherished niece . . . her elder sister and her husband . . . Thinking of Shirin, she frowned in annoyance. She and Prakash would have to go over to Shirin and Jamshed's, the day after tomorrow. It was their thirtieth Wedding Anniversary. And her family had always been scrupulous in inviting her and Prakash to all their functions! Her pride forced her to attend, pretending a gaiety she did not feel, in the face of those covert, speculative stares, just waiting for her composure and her marriage to crack.
Only her niece had understood. Always. Stood up for her, been her sole outspoken champion. Her darling little Scherezade! Though Dina wasn't comfortable about that fellow Sherrie was involved with.
Dina turned away from the window. As so often in the past, her eyes wandered to the bottle of sleeping tablets lying on her bedside table. And lingered there. And then the spectre raised itself again.
"What will happen to you when you die?"
Trying to shut the thought out of her mind, Dina opened the door leading to the balcony and walked out. The balcony ran the length of the outer side of the flat, overlooking the sea. Casting a swift glance at the door of Prakash's bedroom next to hers, she was relieved to find it shut. His air-conditioner was on. Prakash couldn't sleep without the AC, whereas Dina preferred open windows and fresh air.
She leant her arms on the balcony railing and struggled to relax her tense body, feeling the shroud of the night close in upon her. The moon was a sliver of silvery sickle. Twenty stories below, the inky waters of the Arabian Sea rippled with the compulsion of gravity. Dina gazed fascinated at the neon lights reflected in the sluggishly undulating waters. The fingers of fear crept towards her once more. Relentlessly, with a gravity of their own that she could do nothing to repulse.
Dina shuddered, trying to overcome the feeling of someone having walked over her grave.
What would it be like for her? A hurriedly dug up grave, unsanctified by the prayers of the Faithful? The chanting of the Parsee Priests, she could forget about! She was bitterly aware that none of her relatives would even try to give her a Parsee funeral at the Tower of Silence. Except perhaps her Sherrie. But she would not succeed. She could not succeed! Not in the face of the disapproval of her own parents. Not against the intransigent orthodoxy of the Priests who would not allow it, if they knew of Dina's conversion. And somebody from among her relatives was bound to spill the beans, she thought, grimacing.
Her fingers closed on the cold hard railing of the balcony till the bones of her palms pressed painfully against the unyielding metal. It had started drizzling.
Dina went back into her bedroom, gulped two sleeping tablets and lay down, imploring oblivion to her aid.
*
Thursday, August 28, 2008
THE TURNING - Prologue
June 8, 1984.
The incessant rain, which normally aroused pleasurable emotions in her, today was an added source of annoyance for Nivedita.
Like everything else that was happening. Like her brother's casual attitude, his nonchalant shrugging of shoulders wherever she tried to raise that topic with him.
Like her father's sudden intransigence, which would not permit him to even disucss the matter with his hitherto beloved daughter.
Like her mother's air of martyrdom, resigning herself to what she considered was her fate.
Like the pattering of the rain outside on the mosaic-tiled terrace, flooding her precious pots of roses.
Irrelevantly Nivedita acknowledged, in some stratum of her consciousness, that the monsoon that year had caught her napping. That she had not taken the precaution of mixing sand in her rose pots in time.
Drainage, after all, was the important thing where roses were concerned. The excess water could not be allowed to collect, else it would putrefy the roots. Drainage. That was so important! How could she have forgotten?
"Day dreaming again, sis?" Vinod Shahane's voice roused her out of her abstraction.
"Bhaiyya ... do something ... talk to Papa ... don't let him go through with this!" Clutching at his hand and gripping it tight, almost convulsively.
"There's nothing you or I can do," said Vinod shortly, detaching his hand. "It's his life and he should be left free to do what he wants with it."
Resentful of the rejection she thought she sensed, Nivedita rose and started pacing about the room agitatedly, all arms and legs, her awkward adolescent figure almost ungainly in its agitation. Vinod watched her, strangely detached. Curious thing, hysteria ... he thought ... and the attendant compulsions that nourished it, nurtured it. As he watched, she put both her hands on the nape of her slender white neck and pushed up the heavy swathe of black hair in a gesture at once despairing and provocative.
Vinod's eyes narrowed. Probably for the first time, he really noiced her for what she was. An adolescent with a strangely potent sexual promise. Her uncontrolled agitation somehow enhanced the raw sensuality latent within her - the wide curve of the long lip cleaving towards the slash of the high cheekbones; the heavy lids dropping over the elongated slanting eyes veiling depths of passion within; the thin wiry body awakening to its own compulsions. His eyes roved over her young limbs, holding the promise of feline grace beneath their adolescent awkwardness.
Her voice intruded. Resentful. Petulant. "Is he so besotted with her that he can't think what this will do to us? All of us? To mother?" she demanded, the last a trifle belatedly.
"It happends, you know," Vinod ventured, trying to placate.
"What happends?" Nivedita's slanting eyes widened a ther brother's acceptance of the unacceptable. "What happens? This?" Her voice shrilled on the verge of hysteria, her words running into each other. "He must become a Muslim? Just beacuase Mama won't give him a divorce? What'll become of us? What'll we do? Where will we be? ... Hindu children of a Muslim father?!"
Vinod frowned. That aspect of the matter had not struck him. Then he shrugged. Hell, what did it matter? His thirteen-year old sister, a good twelve years younger than him, took things too much to heart.
"This business is going to be the death of her," he thought to himself, with sudden foreboding.
****
June 13, 1984.
At exactly 10.30 am, Prakash Shahane, born and bred a Hindu, married Dina Soneji, born and bred a Parsee, by a Nikah ceremony. After they had both converted into Islam and Prakash had changed his name to `Sattar' in an imagined compromise between the two faiths. That marriage was unusual in more ways than one: it contained within itself, the genesis of murder.
****
Prakash had done what he had to do, undeterred by his wife's sullen silences or his daughter's wan looks. He left early in the morning, before the rest of the family had risen.
Karuna, awakening in a bed bereft of her husband, remained closeted in the room she had shared with him till that tday, shutting the world out. Including her children. Especially her children! They reminded her of him.
Vinod went to the hospital as usual. Nivedita sat on the terrace and worked out in her mind what she wanted to do. What she had to do. Hatred for the unknown Dina had turned into an obsessin. The maid, Shantabai, came looking for her. To get her ready for school. Nivedita surprised her by getting into her uniform docilely and going off.
In the evening, Nivedita deliberately missed her school bus and took the publisc BEST bus home. She got off at the Church on her way back home and bought a wax figurine from the vendors outside.
She had always a fascination for the Church. She would listen avidly to her Catholic friends when they spoke of the mysterious `Box' into which they disappeared, to confess their misdemeanours and be absolved of their sins. Nivedita was seduced by this benign God who apaprently granted absolution for the mere confessing. As yet, she knew nothing of penitence.
Her simplistic perception was fostered by her particular friend, Shirley. Shirley had a deep rooted hatred for the Maths teacher who had once caned Shirley's bottom in front of the whole class as a punishment for cheating from her neighbour. Shirley had told Nivedita that Ms. Savant was soon going to die. Met with hesitant disbelief, Shirley triumphantly produced a smnall wax figurine, stuck with several pins.
"See, this is Ms. Savant. If you keep poking pins into her, she'll die!" she announced gleefully.
"But this is wax! It will melt after some time," objected Nivedita, anxious to find a pin-prick in her friend's plan for Ms. Savant's early demise.
"No, it won't, you dumbo," was the scornful answer. "And even if it does start to melt, I'll get another wax figure to stick pins into. You must keep on at it," she informed Nivedita ghoulishly.
Nivedita was more than receptive. Shirley's words not only took root, they germinated in her disordered mind. Fascinated as she was by the concept of guilt and its expiation, Nivedita was even more fascinated by the possibility of getting rid of the despised Dina by a process so innocuous as sticking pins into a wax figurine. The day her father left to get married to Dina, the idea flowered into a desire for experimentation.
Taht night in the privacy of her room, Nivedita set up the figurine on a crudely built pedestal of black pleistocene, mumbled some prayers and viciously stuck a pin into the figurine. Then she hid the figurine outside on the terrace, under some loose rocks in the rock garden she had so painstakingly made.
She followed this practice faithfully ever since, on the thirteenth of June every year. And the pins multiplied.
****
The year Nivedita turned fifteen, Vinod caught her at it. Foung her hiding the figurine in the rock garden. Outraged, he dragged her from the terrace into his room and locked the door. Then he stripped her of her skirt, pulled her over his knee and began thrashing her backside, causing her enough pain to drag out yelps of protest from time to time.
After a while, however, the pain gave way to a newer sensation in Nivedita, finding is echo in Vinod. The hard slaps of their own volition smoothed into a quite different touch ... and his desire to punish was overwhelmed by a more elemental desire, rising to fulfill the girl's awakening need ... his roving hand aroused her to a pitch beyond herself. Nivedita yielded to him, not fully realizing what she was doing, yet past caring of the consequences. Some of the ache inside her seemed to diminish, overwhelmed by the physical pain that Vinod was causing her ... a welcome pain, blinding her to all else but her initiation at the hands of her brother, her demi-God ... and the blood that spurted from her virgin hymen was symbolic to her disturbed mind ... like that from a sacrificial cockerel, at the altar of a heathen rite ...
This would now become part of her ritual with the figurine. and it would be their secret ... hers and Vinod's ... their very own secret!
Savouring this second delicious secret of her young life, Nivedita was prepared to share the first, with a suddenly approachable elder brother who seemed to accept her compulsive need to find a physical, tangible outlet for her feelings towards Dina.
Her ritual with the figurines continued. Her death-wish gained in strength, crystallizing into a tangible objective.
*
The incessant rain, which normally aroused pleasurable emotions in her, today was an added source of annoyance for Nivedita.
Like everything else that was happening. Like her brother's casual attitude, his nonchalant shrugging of shoulders wherever she tried to raise that topic with him.
Like her father's sudden intransigence, which would not permit him to even disucss the matter with his hitherto beloved daughter.
Like her mother's air of martyrdom, resigning herself to what she considered was her fate.
Like the pattering of the rain outside on the mosaic-tiled terrace, flooding her precious pots of roses.
Irrelevantly Nivedita acknowledged, in some stratum of her consciousness, that the monsoon that year had caught her napping. That she had not taken the precaution of mixing sand in her rose pots in time.
Drainage, after all, was the important thing where roses were concerned. The excess water could not be allowed to collect, else it would putrefy the roots. Drainage. That was so important! How could she have forgotten?
"Day dreaming again, sis?" Vinod Shahane's voice roused her out of her abstraction.
"Bhaiyya ... do something ... talk to Papa ... don't let him go through with this!" Clutching at his hand and gripping it tight, almost convulsively.
"There's nothing you or I can do," said Vinod shortly, detaching his hand. "It's his life and he should be left free to do what he wants with it."
Resentful of the rejection she thought she sensed, Nivedita rose and started pacing about the room agitatedly, all arms and legs, her awkward adolescent figure almost ungainly in its agitation. Vinod watched her, strangely detached. Curious thing, hysteria ... he thought ... and the attendant compulsions that nourished it, nurtured it. As he watched, she put both her hands on the nape of her slender white neck and pushed up the heavy swathe of black hair in a gesture at once despairing and provocative.
Vinod's eyes narrowed. Probably for the first time, he really noiced her for what she was. An adolescent with a strangely potent sexual promise. Her uncontrolled agitation somehow enhanced the raw sensuality latent within her - the wide curve of the long lip cleaving towards the slash of the high cheekbones; the heavy lids dropping over the elongated slanting eyes veiling depths of passion within; the thin wiry body awakening to its own compulsions. His eyes roved over her young limbs, holding the promise of feline grace beneath their adolescent awkwardness.
Her voice intruded. Resentful. Petulant. "Is he so besotted with her that he can't think what this will do to us? All of us? To mother?" she demanded, the last a trifle belatedly.
"It happends, you know," Vinod ventured, trying to placate.
"What happends?" Nivedita's slanting eyes widened a ther brother's acceptance of the unacceptable. "What happens? This?" Her voice shrilled on the verge of hysteria, her words running into each other. "He must become a Muslim? Just beacuase Mama won't give him a divorce? What'll become of us? What'll we do? Where will we be? ... Hindu children of a Muslim father?!"
Vinod frowned. That aspect of the matter had not struck him. Then he shrugged. Hell, what did it matter? His thirteen-year old sister, a good twelve years younger than him, took things too much to heart.
"This business is going to be the death of her," he thought to himself, with sudden foreboding.
****
June 13, 1984.
At exactly 10.30 am, Prakash Shahane, born and bred a Hindu, married Dina Soneji, born and bred a Parsee, by a Nikah ceremony. After they had both converted into Islam and Prakash had changed his name to `Sattar' in an imagined compromise between the two faiths. That marriage was unusual in more ways than one: it contained within itself, the genesis of murder.
****
Prakash had done what he had to do, undeterred by his wife's sullen silences or his daughter's wan looks. He left early in the morning, before the rest of the family had risen.
Karuna, awakening in a bed bereft of her husband, remained closeted in the room she had shared with him till that tday, shutting the world out. Including her children. Especially her children! They reminded her of him.
Vinod went to the hospital as usual. Nivedita sat on the terrace and worked out in her mind what she wanted to do. What she had to do. Hatred for the unknown Dina had turned into an obsessin. The maid, Shantabai, came looking for her. To get her ready for school. Nivedita surprised her by getting into her uniform docilely and going off.
In the evening, Nivedita deliberately missed her school bus and took the publisc BEST bus home. She got off at the Church on her way back home and bought a wax figurine from the vendors outside.
She had always a fascination for the Church. She would listen avidly to her Catholic friends when they spoke of the mysterious `Box' into which they disappeared, to confess their misdemeanours and be absolved of their sins. Nivedita was seduced by this benign God who apaprently granted absolution for the mere confessing. As yet, she knew nothing of penitence.
Her simplistic perception was fostered by her particular friend, Shirley. Shirley had a deep rooted hatred for the Maths teacher who had once caned Shirley's bottom in front of the whole class as a punishment for cheating from her neighbour. Shirley had told Nivedita that Ms. Savant was soon going to die. Met with hesitant disbelief, Shirley triumphantly produced a smnall wax figurine, stuck with several pins.
"See, this is Ms. Savant. If you keep poking pins into her, she'll die!" she announced gleefully.
"But this is wax! It will melt after some time," objected Nivedita, anxious to find a pin-prick in her friend's plan for Ms. Savant's early demise.
"No, it won't, you dumbo," was the scornful answer. "And even if it does start to melt, I'll get another wax figure to stick pins into. You must keep on at it," she informed Nivedita ghoulishly.
Nivedita was more than receptive. Shirley's words not only took root, they germinated in her disordered mind. Fascinated as she was by the concept of guilt and its expiation, Nivedita was even more fascinated by the possibility of getting rid of the despised Dina by a process so innocuous as sticking pins into a wax figurine. The day her father left to get married to Dina, the idea flowered into a desire for experimentation.
Taht night in the privacy of her room, Nivedita set up the figurine on a crudely built pedestal of black pleistocene, mumbled some prayers and viciously stuck a pin into the figurine. Then she hid the figurine outside on the terrace, under some loose rocks in the rock garden she had so painstakingly made.
She followed this practice faithfully ever since, on the thirteenth of June every year. And the pins multiplied.
****
The year Nivedita turned fifteen, Vinod caught her at it. Foung her hiding the figurine in the rock garden. Outraged, he dragged her from the terrace into his room and locked the door. Then he stripped her of her skirt, pulled her over his knee and began thrashing her backside, causing her enough pain to drag out yelps of protest from time to time.
After a while, however, the pain gave way to a newer sensation in Nivedita, finding is echo in Vinod. The hard slaps of their own volition smoothed into a quite different touch ... and his desire to punish was overwhelmed by a more elemental desire, rising to fulfill the girl's awakening need ... his roving hand aroused her to a pitch beyond herself. Nivedita yielded to him, not fully realizing what she was doing, yet past caring of the consequences. Some of the ache inside her seemed to diminish, overwhelmed by the physical pain that Vinod was causing her ... a welcome pain, blinding her to all else but her initiation at the hands of her brother, her demi-God ... and the blood that spurted from her virgin hymen was symbolic to her disturbed mind ... like that from a sacrificial cockerel, at the altar of a heathen rite ...
This would now become part of her ritual with the figurine. and it would be their secret ... hers and Vinod's ... their very own secret!
Savouring this second delicious secret of her young life, Nivedita was prepared to share the first, with a suddenly approachable elder brother who seemed to accept her compulsive need to find a physical, tangible outlet for her feelings towards Dina.
Her ritual with the figurines continued. Her death-wish gained in strength, crystallizing into a tangible objective.
*
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