The Darya Nandkarni Misadventures Omnibus: Books 1-3

by Smita Bhattacharya

  ‘Are you mad?’

  Darya let out a small smile. ‘Should I be?’ She could’ve kicked herself for how childlike she sounded, but she’d never been very good at hiding her feelings.

  He dug his hands into his pockets and muttered, ‘I’ve been busy.’

  ‘You don’t need to explain yourself to me,’ Darya said, busying herself with the portafilter. ‘I don’t care.’ But she did care, and she needed to know what had kept him busy, although … she didn’t know why she cared so much.

  ‘I had things to do,’ Brian said, a touch peevish.

  She was about to ask him what those things were, when Alina reappeared, her lips pursed, her brows knitted. ‘Darya, could you take the payment from table 9? They say they prefer to use card …,’and then grunted to herself, ‘… Now! Could have told me so before.’

  Darya put down the filter, wiped her hands, took the card reader, and left them. She glanced back once. Alina said something to Brian. He laughed in response. It had surprised Darya at that moment: the easy familiarity between the two.

  When she returned ten minutes later, both were gone. Bogdan pointed to the back door; perhaps he’d sensed the awkwardness in the air, or Alina had told him about Brian and her, so he looked sympathetic. Darya walked to the back—to say goodbye to Brian was what she told herself, but to check on the two of them was what it actually was—and saw them sharing a cigarette, leaning against the wall, deep in conversation. She didn’t want to interrupt them: either because she was upset with Brian or she didn’t want to enter the secretive bubble she imagined was around them at the moment.

  She walked away.

  Thirty minutes later, she waved half-heartedly to Brian who was on his way out of the café. He didn’t stop to talk to Darya or make plans to meet again, but returned her wave joyfully, as if all was well between them.

  A day later, Darya saw them again, entering the Harlequin this time, arm-in-arm. Alina had left the café earlier than usual, which was uncharacteristic for her; Darya and Bogdan had closed up in her absence. She wouldn’t say where she was going, but she’d seemed upbeat.

  So, this is what she had planned, dinner with Brian, Darya thought sulkily.

  Darya had followed them inside, throwing caution to the wind. She’d watched from a distance, hidden betwixt the folds of the awning, pretending to rummage through the menu placed on the nearest table. Brian and Alina were seated at the same table Darya and Brian were a few days ago. Their heads were lowered, and they seemed to be in deep conversation. At one point, Darya jumped when she thought Alina’s eyes had wandered to her. That was when she took to her heels and left.

  She resolved to ask Alina what she’d been doing with Brian; there was no point in playing games, but she was also afraid to do it. Ashamed rather. Of feeling this way. What did Alina or Brian owe her anyway? Why did it matter to her so much?

  Obsessive. Addictive. Damn. Let it go, man.

  So, she let it go, telling herself it was not worth pursuing. If they liked each other, well … good for them.

  Darya saw them at the café again three days later, and that was the last time she saw them together. He was at the door and waved to Darya when Alina came running to him. Grabbing hold of his hands, she asked him to follow her, adding something in an affected manner. In response, he guffawed, a sound she’d never heard before, and followed her through the tables and to the back.

  Darya’s heart twisted at the sight of the two. She’d reasoned by then it was not because she was in love with Brian and wanted him for herself (or anything silly like that). She simply felt inexplicably sorrowful, as if she’d been thrown out of a secret group she’d worked hard to be a part of.

  As they’d moved past her, she thought she saw Alina’s lips form the words—I have a surprise for you—but perhaps she’d been mistaken, or it’d been the result of an overactive imagination.

  Unable to help herself and after five minutes had passed—a legitimate waiting period—Darya made her way to the back.

  Of course! Brian was meeting with Mihai.

  The two stood in front of him, Brian nervous, and Alina giggling like a silly schoolgirl. They exchanged covert glances, as if announcing to Mihai their commitment to each other. Their faces glowed.

  Darya knew she was reading too much into it, but surely Alina hadn’t been a quarter as excited when she’d introduced Darya to Mihai a week ago. Look at her now. Look at Brian, she thought bitterly.

  Therefore, it was Alina who’d known Brian better than anyone in Sibiu. At least that’s what she’d thought for the longest time.

  And there was one other thing.

  Two days after Brian’s meeting with Mihai, Alina’s phone had lit up on the till.

  You’re a goddess …

  The glow died and the phone returned to the silent, to the harmless object it had been before.

  But the damage had been done.

  Darya, who had been wiping the booth, stood stock-still, her breath caught in her throat. She turned over her shoulder to see if she was in the clear and tapped on the phone. It asked for a password. Damn.

  But for Brian to write something like that … so intimate and provocative … surely, Alina and he must’ve been dating?

  Week 12: The Present Day

  ‘Alina?’ Ana-Maria said, her low voice ringing with incredulity. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘I grappled with doubts about her for a brief while,’ Darya answered. ‘I felt bad about it when I did. She’d been good to me, after all. I was an outsider, a foreigner, and she’d made me a part of her inner circle in a blink. Our birthdays are close together.’ She let out a dry chuckle. ‘Often we felt as if we thought alike, like sisters.’ She paused and stared at her hands. It was incredible how they’d gotten so close so quickly. Alina had also been flexible, when Darya said she needed time away from the café, knowing it was only a temporary gig for her, which helped Darya as she went about doing Ana-Maria’s bidding.

  ‘So, why?’

  Firming her voice, because she had a job to do, Darya answered, ‘I had my reasons, to think what I did.’

  Week 3: 4 weeks before Brian goes missing

  Darya and Alina grow close. Alina gives Darya a brief about the Rosetti family. Darya meets Mihai, Irina, and Oleg for the first time. She is out of touch with Brian and it’s only a week later that she meets him at the café.

  Darya had sauntered into the café to enquire if they would hire her. On her first visit there—when she’d gone merely to get a coffee—she’d noticed straightaway they were understaffed; only two employees, and the spate of patrons was unending. Alina had greeted her and introduced herself, and Darya had taken a liking to her immediately. She had followed it up with a rapid exposition of her qualifications, when Alina had interrupted, with a pretend-long-suffering look on her face, ‘When can you start?’ But it was not the job alone that Darya was thankful to Alina for; it’d been her who’d eased Darya into the local ways of life and that early orientation had held her in good stead in her months in Sibiu.

  Therefore, it was Alina who’d led Darya into the confounding world of the Rosettis, letting her know who was who, and a brief history. It was important for her to know about them, Alina said, if she was going to be staying in Sibiu for longer than a tourist visit.

  ‘I’m a second cousin on the Popescus side … that’s Mihai’s family,’ she said. ‘That’s how I know so much about them.’

  ‘But Mihai goes by …’

  ‘Rosetti, I know. A clever move on his part,’ Alina replied, chuckling. ‘After communism ended in Romania and its economy opened to the world, some families got rich quickly, whilst others … most others, in fact, got poorer. The Rosettis belonged to the first set, proof of what Romanians can achieve being in the right place, at the right time, with the right connections. They did everything right. The Popescus, on the other hand, struggled to do well, and held on to their communist ideals for the longest time. Some continue to hold on to th
em, continue to struggle, like me.’ She gave Darya a wry grin, ‘Some were more practical, like Mihai. He took on his wife’s surname, to enhance his social status.’

  They were having this conversation at the end of Darya’s first week at the café. The doors had been shuttered; it was 10 p.m. The two of them sat slouched on either side of a table, cans of beer between them. Darya had barely touched hers, resolute in her pledge of abstinence, while Alina was warming up to her story with each sip.

  The Rosettis and the Popescus had been neighbours in Sibiu since the 1930s, Alina told her. The families moved together to Birmingham, England, after World War II—of which Sibiu had seen little impact—Romania being a part of the Axis in the beginning, switching to the Allies towards the end. But it was really the communist state they’d wanted to escape from—an outcome of the Soviet occupation after the war. Both the families took very little with them when they left, relying on cousins settled in the UK to help them.

  But while the Rosettis got plenty of help to build themselves up after they moved, the Popescus struggled.

  It was both a result of the seed funding they received and their own tenacious nature that the Rosettis did very well in the years that followed. Zaltan Rosetti, Ana-Maria’s grandfather, had a head for business and he flourished. He bought pockets of distressed land in and around Birmingham, refurbished it using impoverished immigrant labour, employed all the marketing tools at his disposal, and resold, at a significant profit, commercial real estate back to companies looking to set up. Later, he built supermarkets on them, at a time when the concept was just surfacing. Within a decade, the family had had enough to buy an apartment at Kensington, with maids and butlers, motor cars, and stables with horses. Their daughter, Andrea, was enrolled in an exclusive private school in Soho, and the family went for vacations to Tenerife and Tangier.

  In contrast, the Popescus—zealous socialist academics—had a hard time. Nevertheless, they lived a dignified enough life, and Mihai went to the same school as Andrea did, and apprenticed with Zaltan, who considered him almost a son.

  As everyone had predicted, Andrea and Mihai got married to each other when they came of age. Mihai took on the Rosetti surname. They had their children quite late in their married life, immersed as they were in Zaltan’s businesses, but they had plenty of help when they did. The children grew up well cared for by their doting grandparents and a bevy of attentive house helps.

  Andrea and Mihai returned to Romania after the death of the communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, in 1989, nearly fifty years after they’d left as children. They told everyone in Sibiu they’d returned to connect with their roots, but the family knew it was Zaltan’s wish that his children set base in their home country and expand their businesses. The Rosetti name should never be forgotten in Sibiu, he told them. Given his advanced age and failing health, the family doctor advised him to stay back in Birmingham. Andrea promised to do her best without him in Sibiu; she’d make him proud.

  Zaltan died two years later; his wife another year afterwards. Neither could return to Sibiu to witness how well their daughter had done.

  After both her parents died, Andrea sold their assets in England and invested the money in their fledgling businesses in Sibiu. Within a decade, they would become millionaires.

  ‘Because women didn’t run businesses then, and Romania has always been a conservative country, to all outward appearances, it was Mihai who ran the show. But we, in the family, knew it was Andrea who made the decisions. We were terrified of her and secretly felt sorry for Mihai. He was under her thumb and did what she said. Always,’ Alina commented.

  ‘Sorry for him?’ Darya was puzzled. ‘But he’s so rich! A friend told me he owns half of everything in Sibiu.’

  ‘That was mostly Andrea’s doing,’ Alina murmured. ‘Mihai only does … did … what she asked. He’s a lovable darling, Mihai. Life’s handed him a rough deal. First, he was under Zaltan’s rule, and later, under Andrea’s. He’s meek as a mouse. Comes here every Friday … you’ll know what I mean when you meet him.’

  Darya found herself looking forward to it, just to see what Alina was talking about.

  Alina continued with her story.

  Back in Sibiu, Andrea, supported by Mihai, put together a formidable empire, and within a decade they were owners of scores of apartment complexes, supermarkets, and pharmacies …

  … whilst their children took a little more time to settle in.

  When they landed in Sibiu, their daughter Ana-Maria was sixteen, and son Radu was fifteen. In terms of their nature, the siblings were as different from each other as chalk and cheese.

  Radu was a silent, self-effacing boy, barely noticeable in a room. School was particularly rough on him, as he was frequently bullied. So, he begged to stay at home; to stay away from monsters, he said. Eventually, his mother appointed a governess so he could be home-schooled. Radu was devoted to his sister, though; some said excessively so. He followed her around the house, imitated her mannerisms, and wore the clothes she left behind. Ana-Maria did not return this adoration; in fact, she did not seem to acknowledge it even. The one time she caught him in her stained overalls in her bedroom, prancing before the mirror, she beat the shit out of him. Relations between the two soured after that and they barely spoke to each other. Mihai intervened, promising to make Radu behave, to appease both Andrea and Ana-Maria, both of whom had taken to loathing the impressionable and vulnerable young boy. Thus, Radu struggled at both home and school, and it took a direr toll on him than anyone realised at that time.

  Ana-Maria, on the other hand, was everyone’s favourite. While her initial months at the school were lacklustre, things turned around when she joined an exclusive clique of popular students, and after that there was no turning back. She became head girl in her final year at school, and aced at her studies and sports. She was beautiful and had a kind of joie de vivre which brightened up everything around her.

  Andrea adored her daughter. In a party organised to celebrate Ana-Maria’s final year at school, she let it slip to the gathering of friends and family that she was going to groom Ana-Maria to take over the reins of the family businesses.

  ‘What about Radu?’ Darya asked. She was enraptured by the unfolding tale and barely moved a muscle, lest she missed something.

  Alina shrugged. ‘Like I said, he existed at the peripheries. No one cared or thought much about him.’

  Andrea had big hopes for Ana-Maria, but regrettably, none of them came to pass.

  Shortly later, after an awful altercation with her mother, Ana-Maria left home and Sibiu. She was to return to Sibiu only after her mother’s death—at her father’s behest—eighteen years later. Nevertheless, in the years she was away, she’d made a life for herself in Scotland, atypically, as a primary school teacher, in a school for challenged kids.

  If Andrea had been alive, Ana-Maria might never have come back home. Mihai wouldn’t have asked her to either—she seemed happy where she was—but he had had little choice.

  Owing to his failing health, Mihai could no longer manage the businesses on his own. He was suffering from a rare form of muscular dystrophy, a slow muscle deterioration that had begun to severely affect his face and upper body. He had been diagnosed at thirty, but his symptoms had blown up after Andrea died, doubtless spurred by loneliness. The muscle degeneration caused him to have difficulties in talking, moving, even swallowing. He could communicate only through gestures. He moved around minimally and could only do so with help. Doctors said he had many more years left to his life, but it was going to be painful; he was going to lose all function of his limbs and faculties gradually and would depend on assistance until the day he died.

  Mihai hadn’t merely been mourning the loss of his wife. His son, Radu, too had died; barely a few months after Ana-Maria had left them.

  His parents claimed they did what they could for him, but Radu was beyond saving. He kept bad company and fell into drug abuse. He was also battling severe mental
and behavioural problems. One night, he ransacked his mother’s safe, where she’d stored several thousand leu, and ran away from home. Two nights later, the police called to inform the family that his body had been found in a park at Oradea.

  Radu had died of a drug overdose. He was eighteen years old.

  ‘The family decided not to have a funeral,’ said Alina. ‘Mihai shed a few tears. He loved Radu more; only he never said it out aloud.’

  With Radu gone, there was only Ana-Maria. She hadn’t married, so was free to leave everything behind and go to Sibiu when her father called. They’d heard of her being diagnosed with cancer a year before she’d arrived in Sibiu, but it was in remission, she said, and except for her altered, ragged appearance, and slower gait, they saw no evidence of it. Ana-Maria was known to be strong and resilient; she’d beaten every misfortune lain on her.

  ‘What Andrea did to the Rosetti businesses, Ana did manifold,’ Alina said. ‘And she took care of Mihai.’ The first thing Ana-Maria did after she returned to Sibiu was to hire a full-time nurse to care for her father.

  ‘A sound choice it was, too. Irina,’ Alina said, chuckling. ‘To employ for him an Orthodox nun.’ She shook her head and corrected herself, ‘An ex-nun.’

  Darya had seen Irina once; she’d come to the café on her day off and Alina had introduced them to each other. Irina Brasovnski was thirty-three years old, with a round, childlike face, full lips, and a large forehead. She was dressed traditionally: hair tucked inside a black headscarf, knotted at the nape of her neck, covering her ears; a boxy dark skirt that fell up to her ankles; a baggy monochrome blouse concealing all her curves; sensible clods on her feet.

  Irina had been training to be a nun, but the church she was in had closed and she’d needed a job. She’d seemed eager, industrious, and dedicated, and so Ana-Maria had taken her in.

  In the years that followed, Irina served Mihai faithfully, attending to his every need, sticking to him like a shadow. She rarely spoke, only doing so when Mihai needed something said. As his words got more difficult to understand, it was Irina who interpreted and conveyed what he wanted.