by Anju Gattani
Sheetal listened, her heart cracking with every word. When Laal Bahadur finished, she blew across the surface of the coffee. Then she looked up. “Are you sure?”
He nodded.
“This stays between us. Understand?”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Awakening
Sitting on Megha’s bed, Rakesh scrunched the duvet between his fingers and ran his hand along the surface of Megha’s pillow. Six days had passed and still no news. Was she alone? Was she with someone? The image of Raj with his arm around Megha filled him with a fury that spread like hot metal. What if Raj had left her in a ditch somewhere? Or she had been attacked by—
No. He cut short the thought before another image came to mind. Then warmth spread along his right shoulder and he turned to look behind. Sheetal. He searched the browns of her eyes and his heart ached. She was right. He wasn’t a brother. He was a monster. “I—”
Sheetal pressed a finger to his lips. “She’ll come back. I know she will.”
***
Later that evening, Rakesh sat alone in his bedroom searching for any news of Megha in The Raigun Herald. The police still didn’t have any information on her whereabouts, and he had reached his wits’ end.
Pushpa marched in and sat down on a sofa. “We need to discuss something.”
Rakesh raised the paper to create a wall between them. “What now?”
“Sheetal is getting a little out of hand. I couldn’t help but overhear you two arguing in the TV room the other day. Hai Ishwar! I think we should speak to her parents about her behavior. This bellowing, screaming, just won’t do. Not in my house, I tell you. Today, you. Tomorrow, me.”
“Better late than never,” Rakesh mumbled.
“What’s that? Did you say something?”
Rakesh lowered the paper. “Sheetal is my wife. What I do is my business.”
“Yes, yes. I know that. But what are we going to— How are we— I don’t understand what we’re going to do with her.”
“Do? Nothing.”
“But—”
“The question is, when Sheetal takes over, what are we going to do with you? I married to build my image. But you know what? She’s the one thing I’ve done right. She knows me. She wants to understand me. She’s with me night and day when no one else is. My father was photographed for meeting prime ministers and presidents. In thirty years, not once did he tarnish our family name. Just look at what you’ve done. Created a media circus when you married. Mistress becomes millionaire. At least live up to my father’s name, if nothing else.”
“I am not your father,” Pushpa bellowed.
“I can see that.”
“What I do is my business.”
“Your business, to waltz in and ruin our lives.”
Pushpa was about to say something, but Rakesh didn’t give her a chance.
“You are the reason I hate women. You ruined my life, but I won’t let you ruin my marriage.”
Chapter Forty
Dawn at Dusk
When Sheetal returned from the gym, Mummyji paced beside the Fulton Whites, the telephone pressed to her ear.
“I see…well…yes… I tell you, that’s just how she was raised. Right from day one. Yes.” She nodded. “You know, servants at her beck and call.”
For seven days, there had been no news of Megha. Sheetal sat down, unable to resist eavesdropping in case some information had finally come.
Mummyji raised her voice, “I understand, but you must calm down. Speaking to Naina won’t make a difference, I tell you. I know my daughter.” She paused. “How can you expect me to explain things to her about your family, I tell you, when I hardly know your ways myself? Your family, your problems. You’ll just have to help Naina fit in.” She fanned her fingers against rays of golden light from the chandelier. “And if she can’t…well…then you’ll have to adjust. I’ve taught her well.”
Sheetal crossed one leg over the other. Who was she supposed to feel sorry for? Naina or the Malhotras?
Mummyji beeped off the phone and turned to Sheetal. “That was from Calkot. Mrs. Malhotra was calling to complain that Naina has made no attempt to fit in with their family. Really!” she huffed. “They say she’s over-pampered. Over-fussed. Used to too much luxury. But is it our fault, I tell you, if this is the life we lead? If I have been lucky to provide well for my family? Because I know what it’s like to have little.”
“You mean, poor? Is that it?” Sheetal asked. “Were you poor before you married Rakesh’s father?” Then the unthinkable rolled off her tongue, “Did you marry him for money?”
“How dare you?” Mummyji pumped a hand on her hip. “Who told you such a thing?”
If Mummyji had come from a poor family and was able to stake her claim on this turf, then there was no reason for Sheetal to live in fear.
“We married for love, I tell you. So what, if I had little at the time? He left me all this and the estate. But He was smart, I tell you. Way too smart. Made it clear in the will that should I turn away from my duties to this family, I lose everything. Which is why I’m stuck, I tell you. Stuck looking after all of you.”
Sheetal fished in her purse and handed Mummyji several sheets of folded paper. “Then you need to take care of this. My menu for the week. I’ll be giving you and Laal Bahadur one every Monday. Dr. Banerjee drew it up.” She handed Mummyji another sheet. “And this is a list of all the foods crossed off my diet.”
Mummyji ran her Kit Kat thick fingers down the page. “Aa-ee! No cream. No cheese. No paneer. No white flour. No white bread. Hai Ishwar! What will that poor man cook, I tell you?”
Sheetal crossed her arms. “He’s the chef, he can figure that out. It’s his job, isn’t it?”
Mummyji tossed Sheetal’s papers on the coffee table and placed both hands on her hips just as a servant entered the great hall.
“Memsahib, koi aaya hai,” he announced someone’s arrival.
“Who is it now?”
“A young man wear glasses,” the servant replied. “With short, black hair and—”
“I didn’t ask what he looked like! Hai Ishwar! Who is he? His name? What’s his name?”
“Oh, I not know. I not ask. But I no see him before.”
“Isn’t that helpful, I tell you.” Mummyji rolled her eyes.
Could it be Raj? Sheetal’s heart flipped. Was Megha with him? Had they decided to come home? She raced to the door.
“Stop, I tell you,” Mummyji called after her. “Those manners just won’t do. You can’t run around the house attending to strangers and doing the servants’ jobs.”
Sheetal turned the knob, pulled open the door and took a step back.
“Mrs. Dhanraj?” The stranger smiled. “I have a delivery.”
Sheetal’s heart sank. “Which Mrs. Dhanraj? There are two of us.”
“It’s from the Crowning Galleria.”
“Then it’s for me.” It was probably a check from the Crowning Galleria for the seventy percent balance amount due her.
Another delivery boy unloaded a large rectangular package from a truck parked outside and carried it to the front door.
Sheetal signaled for him to bring it in, signed the topmost sheet of paper on the clipboard and stepped aside.
“Oh! A package. Well, go on, open it,” Mummyji ordered the servant. “Hurry up, now, I tell you. I’m getting late for dinner.”
The servant opened the flaps, pulled out layers of packaging and Styrofoam, hauled out a canvas in a bronze frame, and turned it around.
Sheetal’s heart skipped a beat. It was Dawn at Dusk. Did the buyer suddenly decide he didn’t want it?
“It was sent for delivery to this address.” The young man ran his finger down the sheet of paper, “Signed by V. Swampat.”
Sheetal swallowed. Mukesh did mention that a gentleman had paid for the painting in cash and then left. But how did Vipul Sahib have the kind of money to buy her work?
And why would he have it delivered here? Unless…Rakesh? She bit her lip. Did he secretly buy this through Vipul Sahib to commemorate their love? Was this his way of showing he cared?
“Now, isn’t that interesting, I tell you.” Mummyji grabbed the list. Rakesh pays fifty-five thousand for a painting he could have kept for free. Imagine!” She handed the clipboard back to the delivery boy. “Paid for by the pocket that funded its creation in the first place. Hai Ishwar!” She threw her hands in the air. “It’s because we are so blessed that you young people take all the liberties you want.” She turned and trudged upstairs.
Sheetal secretly smiled. Mummyji would never understand. This wasn’t just a painting, it was Rakesh’s way of saying he loved her.
“And the other packages, Mrs. Dhanraj?”
“What other packages?”
“We have twenty-four more in the truck. All to be delivered here.” The delivery boy flipped to the next sheet and held it up for Sheetal to see.
All twenty-four had been signed for in Vipul’s handwriting. Clearly, the man didn’t have the money to buy one, let alone twenty-four. This had to be Rakesh at work. Blood rushed to her head. “Bring them in.”
Sheetal had every painting removed from its box, unwrapped and lined up against the Fulton Whites. A squirrel chewing on a nut. A deer in a forest. A waterfall running down the slopes of a mountain. Porcelain vases partially draped in sheets of white satin. Defined by her imagination and crafted by her hand, each painting was like her child, her true assets.
Sheetal gave the delivery boy a hundred-rupee tip, dismissed him and paced the hall. What was Rakesh trying to prove by purchasing half the collection? And why? And what about the other twenty-five? Were they real sales? Or fictitious?” Her head spun and the air thickened. To think she had trusted Rakesh, believed he was doing this for her. For them.
Her attention fell to Dawn at Dusk and she took a deep breath. “Janvi!”
Janvi hurried into the hall.
“I want every one of these paintings taken out back into the clearing. Tell Maali Kaka to get firewood and kerosene ready.”
“But Choti Sahiba—”
“Do it,” Sheetal commanded. “I’m coming in fifteen minutes.” Sheetal went up to the room she and Rakesh shared and made straight for his walk-in closet. She opened Rakesh’s vault, yanked the princess-cut diamond ring off her finger and tossed it in. The ring rolled into a corner and clanked against the back wall. Sheetal peered in, and a long, slithering item of jewelry caught her attention. She reached for it, and her heart skipped a beat. It was the Belgium diamond-drop necklace from her wedding dowry.
***
Precisely fifteen minutes later, Sheetal marched to the clearing at the back of the Japanese Garden. Maali Kaka had stacked a pile of dry branches, left a can of kerosene, and placed a match box to one side. Sheetal poured kerosene on the pile of kindling, struck a match and threw it atop the branches. Flames danced on thin, wooden sticks and spread in yellow waves.
Sheetal turned to the several servants, lined on the left, who held her works. “Bring that here.” She pointed to one of a waterfall.
A servant stepped forward and flinched as a breeze blew the flames in his direction. “Choti Sahiba, what are you doing?”
Sheetal wound her orange sari pallu, tucked it at the waist and grabbed the painting. Then she marched toward the flames, swung her arms back and tossed the waterfall atop the fire. The fire hissed. Sheets of black smoke rose from the bed. Sheetal tossed in painting after painting, scenes of waterfalls, forests, wild animals, and snaps and crackles whipped the air as nine months of labor turned to ash. The servants begged her to stop, but Sheetal called for Dawn at Dusk.
“She-e-e-tal!”
Rakesh? Was this how he’d intended to get rid of all her work, without leaving a trace of evidence? She grabbed Dawn at Dusk from Janvi and approached the flames. This time she was going to burn every stroke, every detail of their relationship.
“She-e-e-tal!” Rakesh’s voice floated toward her on a cloud of smoke.
She pulled her arms back and was about to throw the painting in when she noticed Rakesh from the corner of her eye and gritted her teeth. Just because he’d organized an exhibition didn’t give him the right to organize her life.
“Holy shit!” he screamed. “What’s wrong with you?”
She turned her back to the fire, lost footing, staggered, and stumbled on stones and broken twigs that snapped under her sandals. Heat pricked her skin and beads of sweat oozed down her back. Rakesh reached out, but she shoved his hand aside. “Your money can buy you everything, but it can’t buy you me.” She backed away, toward the flames.
He inched toward her, but every step made Sheetal inch closer to the fire. “It’s the painting we did together. Remember?”
“You wanted to know what impression my paintings will leave behind. How people will remember my work.” She grew closer to the bed of coals and flames. “I’m going to erase it all just like you did. Give no one reason to remember me.”
“Let’s talk—” He coughed and turned away from the blast of heat and smoke.
Rage burned her heart. That’s all anyone ever did. Talk. She inched farther away. She tripped once, lost balance, but staggered to her feet, determined to end it all. Right here. Right now.
“Stop, Sheetal!” Rakesh lunged, but Sheetal swung the painting away from his reach. The sari pallu slipped from her waist and fanned open like a tail.
Then a scream like the cry of a dying animal escaped Rakesh’s lips. He was peeling off his blazer. But there was no turning back. A surge of heat erupted like a volcano behind her.
“You’re on—”
A matching fury errupted within. “Get out of my life!”
And then everything went black.
Chapter Forty-One
Shanti (Peace)
A speck of light beckoned Sheetal. Wrapped in a cocoon of silky innocence, she rose weightless, like a cloud. Then a shard of light sliced the silence.
“Sheetal…Sheetal.”
She parted her lips, but a torrent of water gushed down her throat. She was drowning once again.
Chapter Forty-Two
Parajay (Loss)
Her hair fanned the pillow like broken cobwebs. Her face was smeared with soot. She lay on the bed, draped in a white sheet, like an angel.
Dr. Pratik, a gentleman in his late forties with a toothbrush mustache, gave Sheetal a tetanus shot, then disposed of the syringe in a seal-lock plastic bag. He adjusted the thin rubber tube that snaked out of Sheetal’s arm to a bag of glucose, clipped to a drip stand, as Nandita, a nurse, monitored the flow of liquid. “I’ll prescribe antibiotics which you should start her on tomorrow. I’ve already administered some through I.V. Make sure she takes it with food and she drinks plenty of fluids and stays hydrated.”
Rakesh nodded, unable to peel his attention from the orange sari discarded in a corner of the room. Holes gaped through the fabric, rimmed in charcoal black. He closed his eyes, and the image of Sheetal gripping Dawn at Dusk haunted like a still-life. He could still see the bright yellow flame, dancing on the pallu’s end, clamber and chew it to ashes. His screams still echoed in his head. He’d lunged to pull her away from the bedrock of burning logs and then the flames flared like a cobra on fire.
He peeled his jacket and took a step forward, but she inched away. The servants yelled and screamed at her to stop. He froze, the flames like an aura behind her. “You’re on—”
“Get out of my life!” She swung her arms to catapult Dawn at Dusk when he leapt and took her to the ground.
“Bachao! Bachao!” He rolled her on the grass, beating the flames with the jacket, as servants rushed to aid. “Doctor ko bulao,” he ordered the servants to call the doctor, then scooped her into his arms and carried her inside. The odor of burnt flesh, fabric and wood cindered his lungs.
“Rakesh, are you okay?” Dr. Pratik asked.
“She’s in shock. It’s obviously been traumatic and taken a toll. Just thank Ishwar you were able to put out the fire before it did more damage.”
The memory of Janvi cutting open the remainder of Sheetal’s blouse and petticoat made his insides curdle. Blistered skin covered her back like a broken map of welts. Janvi and Pushpa soaked white towels in cool water and positioned them on Sheetal’s back, shoulders, arms and legs to bring down the swelling, as per Laal Bahadur’s instructions. They peeled off her bangles, removed her jewelry, and continued to apply cool compressions while waiting for the doctor.
Rakesh touched Sheetal’s shoulder. Heat still radiated from her body. Blisters puffed along her shoulders and down her back in angry, red patches.
“You’re lucky they’re not third degree.” Dr. Pratik closed his medical bag. “In some areas, there’s been damage to deeper layers of skin. Obviously, those will take longer to heal.”
“Is there anything we should do?”
“Just give her time to heal. Make sure she wears loose, airy clothing. Nandita will be with you for the next week to dress her wounds. For now, a loose bandage is all. And I’ll write a prescription for antibiotic cream. You should expect to see bubbles and pus, typical of second-degree burns, but keep a watch for increased redness and fever. Anything over a hundred-and-one-point-five degrees, call me.”
“How long will it take to heal?”
“Two to three weeks, is my guess.” Dr. Pratik headed for the bedroom door. “Provided there is no infection. No showers or bath. Nandita will help Mrs. Dhanraj with sponge baths, depending on her recovery. Keep her on her stomach, so the pressure’s off her back, and keep her dry. Oh yes, Ibuprofen for pain. I’ll give you a prescription with dosage and instructions.”
Rakesh tried to remember the list in his head.
“You have my number. Call me if you need anything.” Then he left.