‘It’s okay. I’m on my safe period. Hopefully!’ she winked at him. He kissed her. Danny flipped her once again, bringing her on top of him. She placed her ears on his chest and could hear his heart beat fast. He held her tight in his arms. They slept in that position for a good five hours. When she woke up with a start, it was close to lunchtime. The fact that she should have been at work made her sit up. But right then, a strong pull made her collapse on the bed again.
‘No office today,’ Danny said in a groggy tone.
‘Why?’
‘Because I said so. One more day of leave won’t change anything.’
Rivanah looked at him and caressed his already ruffled hair. To her, he seemed like the most desirable man on the planet. She picked up her phone and texted her teammate to manage without her for one more day. Next, she called her parents and told them she had reached Mumbai safely and would have called sooner had she not slept. The moment she put the phone down, Danny pulled her towards him and pinned her hands to take control of her.
‘Relax. I’m not going anywhere,’ she said, with a warm smile.
‘Yes, you are,’ Danny said.
‘Huh?’
‘To fairyland.’
Before she knew it, Danny was kissing his way to her navel. She somehow managed to push him away saying, ‘Let’s eat something first.’ She climbed down and took out a pair of shorts and a spaghetti top from her wardrobe. She could sense Danny’s eyes on her all the time. It made her blush. As Rivanah went to the kitchen to fix a meal, Danny came from behind and scooped her up, lifting her off the kitchen floor.
‘Danny!’
Before she could say anything, he took her to the bathroom and placed her under the shower. As the water came cascading down, she knew how much he had missed her. And with every kiss, she realized how much she too had missed him.
‘I want to eat her first,’ he said. She knew what he meant as he went down on his knees, putting the tip of his tongue on her belly button. Rivanah gripped his hair tightly. He had always been passionate in his lovemaking. The pleasure hormones released by Danny’s touch made her feel lucky, accepted, wanted and thoroughly desired. Danny stood up. As they smooched under the cold shower, she realized whatever had happened was for good. Now she won’t have to fight guilt. Ekansh was finally history and so was whatever had transpired between them.
After a prolonged fondling under the shower, they finally had lunch. Having catered to the two most basic requirements of human beings—sex and food, they collapsed on the bed. Rivanah and Danny slept in a tight embrace, as if never wanting to let go. Listening to Danny’s soft snores, she too closed her eyes.
Rivanah woke up startled and anxious. She had had a nightmare . . . someone was following her . . . she was running in a forest . . . all alone . . . discovering a wooden house . . . and then seeing herself in a sexual act with a man whose face was hidden . . . and as he tried to press her throat and kill her . . . Rivanah relaxed when she realized she was lying beside Danny. It had been some time since she had had a nightmare. In the silence of the room, she could hear her heart beating fast. Danny shifted slightly asking her if there was any problem. She said no and asked him to go back to sleep, got down from the bed to fetch some water when she heard a bell ring a couple of times. She went to the window and saw an ice-cream wallah who had brought his small van inside their building—Krishna Towers—for eager children. An intense desire for ice cream propelled her to leave Danny alone in the flat and rush out to get one.
As she was coming back after buying an ice cream for herself, just when she was about to step into her wing, someone threw a bucket full of water on her—or so she thought. Looking up towards the terrace, she hurled an abuse at whoever it was. But she stopped dead when a staunch smell of kerosene infiltrated her nostrils. She had been drenched in kerosene! And when she looked up again, she saw a flaming arrow approaching her. She knew she had to move away or else . . .
8
The arrow fell right beside Rivanah’s feet. The ground where the kerosene had spilt caught fire immediately. Survival instinct pushed Rivanah to dash towards the building entrance. The fire trailed her rapidly. It was about to touch her when one of the two security guards seated at the entrance came and poured an entire bottle of water on it, extinguishing the trail. The guard looked up at Rivanah who was screaming her lungs out. He tried to calm her down but her screams only escalated. A few residents of the colony peeped out of their windows. Rivanah stopped her screams and said, ‘He will kill me.’
‘Take her to her flat,’ one of the inhabitants shouted at the guard from the first-floor flat.
‘Is there someone living with her?’ asked another.
‘Call the police maybe,’ said a third.
A woman who lived on the ground floor took Rivanah to the elevator with the help of one of the guards and then to her flat, while the other guard went to the terrace and the other flats to try and find out who could be behind all this.
Danny was shocked to see Rivanah shuddering when he opened the main door all confused. She hugged him tightly. The guard felt awkward and, without clarifying, left the couple and went up to the terrace to join his colleague. Danny closed the door behind.
‘What happened, baby? When did you go out? And why are you smelling of . . .’ Danny sniffed and added, ‘kerosene?’
‘He tried to kill me.’
‘He?’ Danny’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Who is this he?’
‘Argho Chowdhury.’
‘Who is this guy?’ Danny said, cupping her face and compelling her to make an eye contact.
‘He works in my office.’ And I am sure he is the Stranger. But she couldn’t tell Danny that.
‘Why the hell would he try to kill you? Are you hiding anything from me, Rivanah?’ Danny’s eyes showed evidence of genuine care. And what she had for him was a lie.
‘No.’
A guilt-laden no. That’s all she could manage before averting her eyes.
‘Then is he a lunatic to try to kill you?’
Rivanah looked up at him and said softly, ‘I’m scared, Danny.’
He hugged her tighter.
‘You don’t have to be as long as I’m with you,’ he whispered in her ears. ‘First, take a shower and get rid of this smell.’
Danny guided her to the shower and closed the bathroom door. Rivanah took off her clothes and stood under the shower. The image of the fireball flashed in front of her eyes. What if she had not seen it coming? She would have had burnt to death by now. She slowly applied the shower gel to get rid of the kerosene smell, all the while trying to get a grip on herself. Why the hell does Argho want to kill me? Revenge? For what? Have I forgotten something the way I forgot about Hiya Chowdhury a few days back? Am I suffering from amnesia or Alzheimer’s?
Rivanah came out of the shower after almost an hour. She was feeling and smelling fresh. Danny was working on his laptop.
‘How are you feeling now?’ he asked.
‘Better.’ She came to him and kissed him on the cheeks.
‘For you,’ he said as he pushed a mug with steaming black coffee towards her.
‘Thanks.’
‘The guards told me they didn’t notice anyone or anything odd in the terrace.’
I was sure they didn’t, Rivanah thought.
‘Now tell me what you haven’t told me yet,’ Danny said.
Rivanah’s heart skipped a beat.
‘Who is Argho?’ he said.
Rivanah swallowed a lump and then spoke, ‘I think he is the Stranger.’
There was a deep frown on Danny’s face.
‘You mean . . .’
Rivanah nodded as if she had read his mind.
‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ He sounded cross.
‘I never thought it would come to this.’
‘That’s not the point. The point is that you didn’t tell me about it.’
‘I’m . . . sorry . . . Danny.’ Only she knew she was ap
ologizing for more than one thing.
In the silence that followed, they stood hugging each other with Danny caressing her back.
‘I was just talking to a friend. He said he has good connections with the police.’
‘Hmm,’ Rivanah said, feeling Danny break the hug. As they settled on the bed, Rivanah picked up her phone. Should I message the Stranger and ask him what the fuck he wants from me? She scrolled down her Contacts. It had been some time since she had had any sort of communication with him. But was there any point in messaging him? He had made his intention clear: he wants her dead—for reasons best known to him. If Ishita was to be believed, they had together guessed that the Stranger may have killed Hiya as well and projected the entire incident as a suicide and was now pinning it all on Rivanah. But . . . why? She heard Danny’s phone buzz.
‘My friend messaged saying he will take us to his uncle who is the assistant commissioner of Mumbai,’ Danny said.
‘Thanks, Danny,’ Rivanah said. It was time something was done about the Stranger.
9
Rivanah was the first to wake up the next morning. Giving a peck to a sleeping Danny, she went to fetch the milk packets and the day’s newspaper from her doorstep. As she crossed the living room to reach the kitchen, she noticed a sketch board. She frowned; she hadn’t noticed it lying there before. She tossed the newspaper on the sofa and sauntered to the kitchen to put the milk packets in the fridge and then came right back to stand in front of the board. There was a sketch of a pair of eyes, a nose, lips and ears but the contour of the face was missing. Danny never told me he sketches, she wondered and checked the sketches under the first one. Each of them had her name signed at the bottom-right corner. She was about to turn around when she felt a pair of hands around her waist.
‘What are you doing, baby?’ It was Danny.
‘Did I sketch these?’
‘Of course, you did,’ Danny said and licked the back of her ears subtly. It tickled her senses but her mind was elsewhere. If she had sketched them, why didn’t she remember it? Just like she didn’t remember Hiya Chowdhury? Why did Ishita have to relay everything she had experienced herself only days back? Rivanah was deeply immersed in her thoughts.
‘What happened?’ Danny said, sensing a certain stiffness in her.
‘Nothing.’
‘Not in the mood?’
She gave him a weak smile.
‘I understand. Anyway, get ready,’ he said, giving her a peck on the cheek. ‘We need to go to the police first. Then I have to meet the producer of my film.’
‘How is the film going, Danny?’ Rivanah said and felt a tad guilty for not having asked sooner. She had been so preoccupied with what was happening in her own life that she had forgotten that Danny’s life too, somewhere, touched her. The last time she had inquired about him was when she had talked to him on phone from Kolkata.
‘So far so good. Two more shoot schedules left. One in Mumbai and the other one in Delhi.’
‘Great. By the way, I have to go to office today. I can’t take any more leaves.’
‘That’s why I said, get ready quickly.’
Danny and Rivanah picked up his friend from Bandra, and together they went to the friend’s uncle’s place in Mumbai Central. All through the drive, Rivanah kept quiet but her mind was constantly probing the reason for her forgetfulness. First Hiya, and now the sketches. This, she understood, had to be the second dot—forgetting Hiya was the first. But she had never forgotten the Stranger. Were these two dots exclusive of the Stranger? Or, would she get the third dot only when she joins the first two properly? Every question was a dead end and it made her all the more frustrated. Moreover, now she only knew as much about Hiya Chowdhury as Ishita had relayed to her. What about the stuff she may have known earlier? How the hell had she become so forgetful?
Danny’s friend took them to his uncle, Assistant Commissioner Dharmesh Waghdhare, whose house had a constant influx of constables. At fifty-five, Mr Waghdhare had a rather amicable personality for a police officer. He met the trio over breakfast. It was Danny who narrated what had happened the previous night.
‘So nobody has seen the person who threw kerosene on her?’
‘No. I asked the security guards and other people this morning, but nobody saw any one,’ Danny said.
‘Aren’t there any CCTV cameras in your building?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Do you suspect anyone?’
Rivanah glanced at Danny and then said, ‘There is a senior in my office.’
‘Argho Chowdhury,’ Danny added.
‘And why would he do such a thing? Spurned lover, you think?’ Dharmesh asked, finishing his poha and taking a sip from his mango shake.
‘I never got any love-struck vibes from him, which is why I’m all the more confused—why would he do something like this?’ Rivanah wondered aloud, fully aware that she wasn’t making much sense. She wanted to disclose the Kolkata incident to Waghdhare and that a complaint had already been registered with the Kolkata Police, but, because of Danny’s presence, she didn’t. She had still not told him about it and disclosing it now would only put a strain on his trust. According to the Kolkata Police, Argho had an alibi. He flew out of Kolkata a day before the incident. But he could have bribed someone else to come to her house and create the deadly mess.
‘Hmm, you don’t seem to know of any possible reason, but you still think Argho could be trying to kill you? That’s a big allegation,’ he said. Waghdhare had years of experience which had sharpened his instinct for crime. He felt Rivanah was hiding something. Or that some important part of the puzzle was missing.
‘The thing is, I can get this Argho guy picked up for interrogation, but I would rather catch him red-handed. If he is guilty, that is.’ He looked at all of them one by one as he spoke. ‘So I’ll ask one of my men to follow him for a week or so. Let’s see what comes up.’
‘What if he attacks again?’ Rivanah blurted.
‘My man will be there. Any suspicious activity, and Argho Chowdhury will be taken into custody.’
Rivanah moistened her dry lips anxiously and glanced at Danny. ‘So we will leave now, uncle,’ his friend said, as he stood up.
‘Sure,’ Dharmesh said and turned to Rivanah to say, ‘My man will contact you in some time. Give him all the details of Argho Chowdhury, and when you are in office, make sure you don’t make it obvious that he’s a suspect. Also, remain alert always.’
‘Sure, sir,’ Rivanah said, and left with Danny who dropped her to her office. Once Rivanah was in, she was extra conscious of Argho’s presence. Though their cubicles were far apart, if she pushed her chair back a little, Argho’s cubicle would be visible to her.
Argho came in half an hour late. The promised phone call from the policeman came within minutes of Argho’s arrival in the office. Rivanah told him whatever she could about Argho. The policeman, Sadhu Ram, asked her to calm down and to make sure her suspicion wasn’t obvious. The rest he would manage since he had already collected Argho’s photograph, address and phone number. Though Rivanah had piles of work, she kept her eyes on Argho. If he went to the washroom, she excused herself and paced up and down right in front of the men’s washroom. She was sure Argho would message her from inside the washroom from one of the Stranger’s numbers. But nothing happened. Instead, there was a momentary, awkward eye contact with Argho when he came out of the washroom.
‘Hey, congrats,’ he said.
‘Huh?’ Rivanah was stumped.
‘I saw you at the convocation ceremony in Kolkata.’
‘Oh!’ She could feel a cold sweat forming right behind her ears. ‘Thanks,’ she managed to say. What else did he see? Ishita and me following him to his cousin Hiya’s place? she wondered as Argho moved on.
Once she was back at her cubicle, they exchanged a few casual glances, but nothing out of the ordinary. Rivanah was slightly embarrassed by the thought that if Argo was really the Stranger, then he had seen her in all kin
ds of nudity; both physical and emotional. How do you face a person in that case? Later in the day, she somehow controlled the itch to keep an eye on him, reminding herself that all will be clear in a week’s time. One week, Rivanah leaned back on her chair and wondered, and finally the whole mystery will end. Talking of mysteries, it struck her that she should continue sketching if she knew the craft. The sketches at her place told her she wasn’t exactly a novice. But one more issue still remained: why did she forget about the sketches, like she had forgotten about Hiya?
‘Come on, let’s go,’ Rivanah heard one of her team members say. She opened her eyes and sat up straight on her chair and saw most of the employees rushing off somewhere. She quickly caught up with one of them.
‘What happened? Fire drill?’ Rivanah tried to guess.
‘No, yaar,’ Rekha, her teammate, said. ‘You weren’t here last week. It was announced that Samir Bajaj would deliver a lecture on successful business start-ups. He is here.’
‘Samir Bajaj?’
‘The entrepreneur of the year: Samir Bajaj. Of Bajaj Corps.’
‘Oh,’ Rivanah said, making a face as she followed Rekha to the boardroom. The whole thing sounded dead boring to her.
The boardroom was packed with employees, making Rivanah feel claustrophobic. The two chairs in the centre were reserved for Samir Bajaj and the CEO of her company, Anil Khanna. There were a few mineral-water bottles kept in the front, a bouquet and couple of small trays with Ferrero Rochers on it. They were her weakness. She went near the chairs and as others were busy chit-chatting and tapping on their mobile phones Rivanah picked up a handful of chocolates and stealthily went and stood in a corner.
The lecture was exactly as Rivanah had predicted: BORING. Sometime in the middle of it, she managed to step out of the boardroom, popped one of the chocolates into her mouth and went back to her cubicle. There was nobody in the entire floor except for few office boys. She had last seen Argho in the boardroom with his colleagues. Rivanah thought of checking her Facebook but what she saw on her desktop monitor made her go numb. A Word doc was open and had bold, red-coloured words in font size 36:
Forget Me Not, Stranger Page 5