But even more than the threat of Lovely, Savita feared that Nimish would insist on leaving the bungalow altogether. He had always wanted to complete his education in England, to study at Oxford as if Bombay’s universities were all second-rate. If he were to go, Savita knew, he would never come back. He will lie in bed with those brazen white girls, convert to Christianity, and eat fish and chips! She forced herself to slow her breathing, realizing that above all she needed to keep her eldest securely planted in Bombay, tethered to their household for another generation. Sure, she allowed, Nimish was only seventeen, but the time had come. As soon as she could arrange it, she would get him married.
Yet, she knew he would not simply agree to her wishes in this matter, especially now that Lovely was in the picture. No, she had to trap him. And luckily for her, she knew exactly how.
Having finally spelled out her plan to herself, Savita fell into a pleasant, buzzing sleep for the remainder of the night, her door still locked. Jaginder and the boys slept together in the parlor, huddled onto thick mattresses. Parvati and Kanj, on water-elimination duty for the first half of the night, prowled around the bungalow with a stash of towels. Maji remained in her puja room, eventually slumping forward against the altar, exhausted. And the baby ghost hovered just outside, still ignorant of the plans for her imminent demise, waiting patiently for the Mittal’s’ powerful matriarch to emerge.
In the darkened hallways of Bombay Hospital, as the surly pediatrician took advantage of the quiet night and of a perky nurse named Nalini, Pinky felt herself falling from the window through a flickering, phantasmal fog, falling into a dark, timeless place. Winds whispered and moaned. Palm trees tossed above her.
A desolate coastline curved until it disappeared from sight. A sky-ful of black storm clouds held the moon hostage. The ocean surged towards her, flooding her feet in stinging salts and debris. Pinky kicked off her sandals and stepped across the sand with her bare feet. Just fifty meters further on, long wooden canoes with fierce, hand-painted red eyes on either side, rocked in the wind watching her like a row of demons trapped underneath jute netting.
Icy winds gusted through her thin, cotton pajamas where they encircled her ankles like lead weights. Up ahead, a skeletal trawler tilted precariously against a dilapidated jetty, bobbing and creaking with every wave. A terrible stench of fish carcasses and rotting jambul fruit filled the air.
I jumped, didn’t I? Pinky tried to place herself. Where am I?
Even as her mind raced with these questions, she knew that she was wide awake in a nightmarish reality. A gritty voice whispered all around her, the very one that had come out of Lovely’s throat the night she took Pinky from Malabar Hill.
There’s no other way out, Pinky decided, I must find that voice.
The green bungalow gate stayed firmly chained shut all morning, the only item to venture past it was the morning paper. A small item in the Indian Express read: The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jaginder Mittal of Mittal Shipbreaking Enterprises was returned unmolested to her home last night by Bombay’s intrepid P. I. Pascal. She was found alone on her street and taken to the hospital where she was diagnosed with a severe case of pneumonia. A separate article described Lovely’s continued disappearance. A suspect had been arrested, a St. Xavier’s College student by the name of Inesh Lele. The piece ended by summing up Inspector Pascal’s impressive track record of convictions.
Jaginder stared at the photo of the young man whom he had first seen at the Asiatica restaurant on Churchgate Street and felt a sharp stab of guilt. He wished that he had not revealed the boy’s name during his meeting with Pascal. Initially their exchange had not gone well; the inspector’s tone had been cold and hostile, almost as if he were interrogating a suspect. Take your niece’s case to the courts where it will rot long after your children are dead, Pascal had said when Jaginder had tried to bargain down the amount of the bribe. There are two crores—twenty million—cases backlogged in the courts. If you want justice, you have to either come to us or the underworld. Take your choice.
His pulse racing, Jaginder had felt the bat-wing doors of the private booth closing in on him, giving him the sensation that he was in a cell, his jailer sitting across the table from him. Briefly, he considered approaching the Anti-Corruption Bureau, thrilled at the idea of catching Pascal at his game. But if the ACB sleuths were to be involved, they would only focus more unwanted attention on Jaginder’s family. Pascal swore and stood up to leave. Without further delay, Jaginder slid the bundle of rupees across the table and gave up Inesh’s name.
Stupid boy, Jaginder thought, imagining Inesh and Lovely sitting across one of the Asiatica’s newspaper-strewn tables, he reciting a badly written love poem while she demurely sipped her tea. Jaginder couldn’t conceive that the boy, so innocent in his lovelorn state, had lured Lovely into harm’s way. Yet, without another suspect, the blame would have rested on Pinky and, by extension, his own family. P. I. Pascal, Jaginder gathered, was one of those cutthroat, overly ambitious types who had his eye on the top post of Police Commissioner. He could ruin Jaginder and his family without blinking an eye. He even had a paid contact in the press, Jaginder surmised, while scrutinizing the byline of the article, someone who was retained to make him into a veritable celebrity in the eyes of Bombay’s masses. Yes, Jaginder told himself, he had done the right thing.
He folded the paper testily, placed it under his arm, and wished for a cup of warm chai. But chai was no longer freely dispensed in the household. Jaginder had to haul himself to the back garage where Maji had organized their meals on a strict schedule. Tea at 9 a. m. , breakfast at 10. Lunch followed at 1 then tea at 4, dinner at 7, and tea again at 9. There were to be no snacks in between, no cool drinks, no Duke’s sodas, not even water, nothing that was not regulated.
“Kanj! Kanj!” Jaginder roared irritatedly from the back steps, vigorously rubbing his chest hair. “I need some chai.”
“It’s only 8:30, Sahib,” Cook Kanj called from the interior of his garage in his most deferential voice while a nude Parvati nibbled on his ear. “So sorry, Sahib, Maji’s orders.”
Jaginder cursed. “What more do I have to bloody tolerate?”
Even now, Jaginder had difficulty believing in Maji’s story of ghosts and whatnot. Is she turning senile? Yet, something had happened the previous night. Savita’s breasts. He remembered the thick milk in his throat—choking him—and vowed to behave for the four-day purgatory. It was a test just like Princess Sita’s trial by fire to prove her fidelity in the epic Ramayana. In the end, Jaginder wanted his past misdeeds to be cleansed by his current suffering. And so he sat impatiently, on the steps, halfheartedly reading about the world outside the green gates, while casting furious looks at Kanj and Parvati’s garage where, if he strained his ears, he could hear the rolling sounds of laughter.
Cook Kanj finally emerged at 8:45, languidly retying his lungi and offering Jaginder a satiated smile before setting the pot to boil. The rest of the household was slow in arising. Yet, when Kanj called out “Chai!” at exactly nine o’clock, eyes flew open and family members ran outside, elbowing each other as if they were trying to board a crowded bus.
“It’s worse than a bloody canteen!” Jaginder spat out, swatting Tufan out of the way with a sweep of his arm.
“What a disgrace,” Savita said in a martyred voice. “My sons think only about themselves.”
Duly chided, Nimish grabbed the first steaming cup right out from under Jaginder’s nose and handed it to his mother.
Jaginder’s face grew tight. Wasn’t it his right to be served before his wife? And yet, even as he thought this, he felt shamed by his selfishness. He bit his tongue, remembering his resolution. Perhaps Nimish was testing him. In fact, Jaginder thought with growing interest, if he categorized all the things that irritated him about his family as tests of his newfound resolve, they were somehow easier to bear.
“Come, darling,” Savita said to her husband, handing him her cup. “You’re the head of ou
r family after all.”
Delighted by this unexpected deference and grateful that his mother was not around to hear it, Jaginder accepted the steaming cup with a puff of his chest. Savita smiled.
Maji limped out to the back steps. She had not slept well the previous night, uncomfortably curled into the tight rectangle of the puja room. Yet, somehow, she felt safe in there with the gods watching. And whenever she woke to shake out a sleeping leg, she conveniently rang the tiny silver bell on the altar and said a quick prayer. Surely the gods would reward such piety.
Savita eyed her mother-in-law, noticing her fatigue. “Perhaps you should rest Maji,” she said sweetly. “You look ab-so-lute-ly worn.”
“I’m just fine.”
“Come, Nimi,” Savita said, beckoning him to her side. “Read your Mummy something from one of your books and make this day pass more quickly.”
Surrounding her like bodyguards, all three boys escorted her back into the bungalow where she promptly marked their ears with black dots and kept them close until breakfast was served at ten.
Hovering just inside a window, the baby ghost watched the family’s new routine with curiosity. Except for Savita and Maji, all the other members of her family now slept in the sitting area. And instead of using the dining hall, they took their breakfast outside. The bathrooms, the toilets, and the sinks remained stubbornly dry and the kitchen and storage room had been emptied of all liquid contents. Even Savita’s breasts had begun to dry up. The strength that the ghost had gained since the outbreak of the monsoons had already begun to wane without continued intake of water. This new weakness made her feel frightened, territorial.
She watched intently as Cook Kanj served breakfast outside, dipping a steel cup into a large urn of water. Her eyes were fixed on the clear liquid, shimmering with a thousand colors. Slowly, she gathered herself to go outside. True, it was daytime and her powers were at their weakest. Even a sprinkling of haze overhead would have lent her strength. But there was not a single cloud in sight this morning. She knew, however, that she might not make it through the day without water. So hesitating no more, she drifted towards the open door and toward her salvation.
An unbelievably searing pain made her jerk back in panic. She tried again to cross the threshold and again she was repelled by a terrible burning. She let out a long, gasping wail while her glossy mane coiled around her body as if a sheath. Just then, she noticed a faint trail of ash at the door’s threshold that snaked its way along the bottom of the bungalow wall, creeping up and down at regular intervals to the windowpanes. The baby ghost followed the ash around the entire bungalow until she ended up once again at the back door. Suddenly she understood. Black Magic. Maji had used sorcery to trap her within the waterless bungalow.
A single tear fell from her wide, dreamless eyes. And then it turned silver like a moonlit lake, like the merciless glint of a sword.
She was being sacrificed.
THE HAUNTED COASTLINE
The phone call from the hospital came just as they finished breakfast, striking Maji like Lord Indra’s thunderbolt. How could she have been taken? she shouted into the phone to a trembling Nurse Nalini. Weren’t you on duty? Weren’t the windows barred? And because the reply to all three was affirmative, there was no doubt in Maji’s mind that Avni was responsible. Avni, their former ayah, who had been blamed for one granddaughter’s death, now seemed intent on destroying the other.
Marooned on the haunted coastline, malevolent whisperings all around her, Pinky took a heavy step forward. Wet algae grabbed her feet, slowing her down.
Coconuts, hundreds of them, lay in the sand decaying. Some were cracked open, the flesh eaten away by sharp-beaked birds. Others were still whole and hirsute. She bent down now to grasp one, and was surprised to find it warm, hot even, as if it contained fire. She clasped it to her chest, the heat entering her body.
The coconut contained a memory of a long ago day, the morning of Avni’s birth, when her father saw her for the first time. Nothing, not the rush of the water, the thrill of pulling up a net straining with fish, nor the rise of the sun on the ocean’s surface compared to seeing this creation of his.
See, the blind midwife spoke, pointing to the infant’s extra toe. An inauspicious sign.
He placed his roughened hand on her silky scalp, determined to counteract her prophesy with his will.
Avni’s mother, still shaking from the after-pains, called out to him; Don’t go today, she implored, too ashamed to tell him that the sea inside her had spilled out, that his newborn daughter had already defiled the ocean goddess. The goddess was not pleased; my prayers were not finished.
But Avni’s father, secure in the ancient belief that a fisherman is safe at sea as long as his wife remains chaste, smiled and said, Today the gods have blessed us with a child. The seas, too, promise to be bountiful.
Then he took with him a coconut as an offering to the mighty sea god Varuna.
The morning sky turned gray, the winds grew fierce.
Storm! Storm! the midwife called from the front oti, pointing to the skies.
Hours passed agonizingly until it was time for the canoes to return to the stone-and-wooden jetty. The women set forth in the rain to meet them, clapping their hands with relief when they spotted the boats struggling to shore amidst the formidable waves. Once they finally arrived, the women eagerly claimed the first catch of the season: pomfret, lobsters, saranga, surumayi, kolambi, and bangdi from the bigger boats; clams, prawns, jhinga, manderi, and bombil from the canoes. The women sorted the catch right there on the jetty, chatting excitedly, despite the rains whipping at their faces.
Avni’s mother stood alone, eyes on the horizon searching for her husband, until night. When she returned home, the midwife was standing at the front oti. Her tobacco-stained mouth hung open as if it could not contain the proclamation it held. The child’s cursed, she said, handing Avni back. She cannot stay here past the day she begins to bleed.
Please—
She must go when she bleeds! The midwife spat a glutinous blob of saliva upon the sand. Otherwise, she will bring disaster upon us.
Avni’s mother stood with head lowered, accepting the indictment against her daughter, and believing in a dark corner of her heart that it was somehow true.
Pinky crouched down, gently placing the decaying coconut upon the sand where it blended in with the hundreds of others. Her eye caught a glint of green further down the shore, the sole raw coconut upon the desolate beach, and she was inexplicably drawn to it. As she grasped it to her chest, a memory of a recent day unfolded inside her head, witnessed as if from a perch in the tamarind tree.
A window opened and Lovely climbed out, her dupatta fl uttering around her like a golden halo, her lips stained red.
From the adjoining wall further back in the garden, Nimish emerged into the downpour, his white kurta soaked, ghostly in the night.
They came together under the tamarind tree, its branches swaying mournfully in the deluge.
They stood, heads pressed together.
And then, a kiss.
Thunder shook the earth as if Lord Indra were riding his regal chariot across the heavens, his mighty lightning bolt striking the earth a devastating blow.
With a snap of wind a branch reached out, its mossy oval leaves caressing Lovely’s blushing cheek, its sharpened end cutting into her luminous skin.
A darkened spirit slipped from the inauspicious tree like falling rain, moistening her face, working its way into her delicate jaw, across her earlobes dangling with enameled gold, and then downward, downward, trying to find a way to her heart.
Lovely abruptly pulled the dupatta tightly against her shoulders, racing from the tree, from him, from the smoky blackness spreading down her throat.
Inside the bungalow, hidden behind a window, a third figure awaited— Harshal—his ugly face twisted in rage.
Lovely climbed into her room, to gather the courage to carry out her plan, to run away, to leave Nimish
behind.
Unexpected fingers grasped at her neck, throwing her onto the bed.
Hands clutched at her breasts.
A tongue invaded her mouth.
She fought back.
Possessed by his lust, his fury at her affections given to another man, Harshal ripped at her salvar pants.
The darkened spirit readied itself, poised.
With full erection, he thrust himself into his sister.
A hymen was torn.
At the outpouring of blood, impure blood, the darkened spirit drew power enough to complete its task.
Lovely stopped thrashing.
With a muffled cry, she surrendered her voluptuous, desired, beautiful body at last.
Not to her brother but to a fisherman’s daughter, an outcast.
To Avni.
Dropping the coconut and the memory it contained, Pinky fell to the sand gagging, understanding at last Lovely’s words, her wild eyes, her bloodied leg, her unnatural powers. She felt sick, unfamiliar cramping in her belly, an ache in her back.
Up ahead she noticed a small flickering light on a decaying trawler and began to run towards it, losing her footing in the sand.
‘“I believe,’” she heard herself strangely reciting from the Lone Ranger Creed, ‘“that sooner or later . . . somewhere . . . somehow . . . we must settle with the world and make payment for what we have taken.”’
Yes, something had most certainly been taken. The baby’s life. Possibly Lovely’s life.
And now as she ran towards the eerie lantern glow, the ocean spray spitting at her face, Pinky knew that the time of reckoning had finally come.
The bungalow became a crucible, a vessel heated beyond the boiling point by the fears of its inhabitants, by their strained propinquity, their battle to cull away the perceived pollutants in their holy brew.
Haunting Bombay Page 31