‘Where do you keep the diary,’ Maya asked. ‘When I spoke to you in the morning, you were on your way to college. I hope you don’t carry it around in your bag.’
‘It’s safe. It’s where nobody would think of looking for it,’ Veda said abruptly. ‘Better that you don’t know. And where have you hidden the key?’
‘It’s safe. It’s where nobody would think of looking for it. Better that you don’t know,’ Maya echoed, before she noticed Professor Kekobad’s disapproving frown.
Embarrassed, she added a footnote. ‘It’s safe in my bedroom. A very dear friend is looking after it for me.’
‘Shall we get to the point?’ Professor Kekobad intervened. He was hunched on a pew – and looking at him Maya felt a pang of compassion. Just 10 days ago, he’d appeared so sprightly and agile, but the last few days had left him shrunken and exhausted. It must be awful for him that people he had known for years and years—like Wagle and Father Furtado—were in danger. No wonder he was crabby.
Maya sat down and watched as Veda flipped through her tiny notebook and found her page.
‘Here is the bit that Father Lorenzo wrote about the saints. It’s surprisingly brief, so I’m not convinced that they have any special significance. Anyway …’ Veda said, clearing her throat and beginning to read, ‘The chapel has been graced with five stained-glass windows. The window in the centre is dedicated to Saint Anthony. The other windows are grouped in pairs on either side. These point to the trades and livelihoods of the citizens of Bombay, and the places in which they toil for common good. They are watched over by those saints who protect and guard them.’
‘Then he writes,’ Veda continued, ‘remember, these windows are more than purely decorative. They also show the true path. Those seeking answers must meditate on the words.’
Maya jumped to her feet. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ she squawked. ‘He’s giving us so many hints. True path. Seek answers. Meditate on the words.’
Veda wore a mulish expression. ‘The diary is full of such stuff,’ she said. ‘So you’d go pretty mad if you took each remark as a clue. Still, Professor Kekobad has offered to translate the Latin inscriptions for us.’
Maya pulled out her pictures of the saints, with Mr Gomes’ red scrawls and checked them against each window.
The first stained glass showed two men in a boat, on a bright blue sea. One held a fishing net, the other clutched a long object in his hand. The two figures filled the lower part of the long, glass window. Above them were more details – small boats on a sapphire sea and a squat, white structure from which a tower sprouted.
Maya stared till the picture swam before her eyes. Meanwhile, Veda was reading out the Latin inscription to Professor Kekobad. ‘Tibi dabo claves coeli,’ she repeated, till he nodded his head.
‘I think I know what this means,’ he murmured, leafing through the frail pages of an ancient dictionary. ‘My Latin is rusty. But if it is what I think it is, Maya may well be right.’
Maya and Veda waited with bated breath, and after a moment the professor announced, ‘To you I will give the keys of heaven. The words that Jesus said to Saint Peter.’
‘Keys,’ Veda exclaimed.
‘St Peter,’ Maya said, rustling the papers in her hand. ‘The saints in the picture are St Peter and St Andrew.’
Veda pulled out her phone and got onto Google. ‘My data bill this month will be crazy,’ she said. ‘Ah here. Andrew and Peter were brothers. Fishermen. Patron saints of fishermen, rope-makers, textile-makers, singers … protection against whooping cough … convulsions. Is any of this helpful?’
‘Maybe,’ Maya said, taking feverish notes. ‘But I don’t know what exactly. The boats at the back of the picture seem to be fishing. So maybe that’s the important bit. The saints are protecting the fishermen, I guess. Doesn’t that white building thing in the picture look familiar?’
Veda was staring at the structure when the chapel door creaked, and both girls glanced furtively at the door. Brother Francis glowered at the trio, ‘I have to prepare chapel for special mass. When you will go?’
‘Twenty minutes,’ Professor Kekobad said.
Brother Francis looked put out, but thock-thocked away.
‘Let’s hurry,’ Veda said. For the next 22 minutes, they worked without interruption to translate the Latin inscriptions and examine each picture.
It was only when they retreated into the quadrangle, and out of range of Brother Francis’ ill-humour, that Maya remembered her decision. ‘We can work on these clues, of course,’ she began weakly, ‘but do we really need to? The Shadows think they have one key. So won’t they get suspicious if we keep hunting for the other keys? Isn’t it better that we just stop? If we have one key, they can never open the box.’
‘On the contrary,’ the professor said in a tired, scrapy voice, ‘we should use this period when they have been lulled by a false sense of achievement to complete our task.’
‘But …’ Maya protested.
‘I think we should end this, once and for all,’ Veda interrupted. ‘The Shadows are capable of anything.’
Maya remembered the dark figure in the window of Sea View, and her throat constricted. Still, she attempted a nonchalant shrug.
‘Veda, you’re giving them too much credit,’ she said, as they walked out of the college. ‘What can they do to us now?’
CHAPTER 31
Maya’s taxi had stopped at a signal under one of the tall shady trees that lined the streets of Fort when she noticed that a small leaf had detached itself from a branch and was drifting first one way, then another, before it fell onto the windshield.
‘Make a wish, make a wish,’ Maya could hear Priti’s voice clamouring in her head.
As little girls, Maya and Priti had been obsessed with making wishes and had researched the subject with the same thoroughness that Genghis Khan planned his military campaigns. They knew that you could make a wish on a falling star or a wishing well, of course. But you could also wish on a ladybug or a dandelion.
Or on a leaf while it was falling from the tree but before it hit the ground.
‘I must make a wish,’ Maya thought frantically, as the leaf swirled downwards towards the ground. ‘I wish … I wish … I wish Sanath sends me a message.’
The moment the wish popped into her head, Maya knew it was a waste. ‘What a stupid wish,’ she thought. ‘When I could have wished for so many things. That Sanath likes me … that Sanath is not a Shadow … that these horrible Shadows just disappear … that I can trust Lola fully …’
Still, she thought she might as well check if her wish had come true. She fished out her phone, clicked on it and found five messages waiting for her.
The first was from Sanath. Maya’s heart speeded up till she saw the message. ‘Can I call? Needed to check something in the notes.’
Maya snorted. So much for Sanath’s message. So much for the falling leaf.
The next messages were from Priti.
‘Who dat in yr prf pic?!!!!!!!’
‘Call!!!’
Maya read them twice and felt desolate. The Priti who had wished on falling leaves and looked for red mail vans was gone, replaced with this new person who used exclamation marks instead of vowels. Who was only interested in her friend because she had a cool profile picture (featuring Lola, looking especially snazzy and Maya looking not too bad).
The last two messages on Maya’s phone were from Lola.
‘Hot gossip. Call when free.’
‘I ate yr dosa. U mind?’
Maya called Lola, who answered on the first ring. ‘Hiyyeeee. I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist the pull of hot gossip. Now listen to this. Remember all that business about Sharanya and Denzil and Minty?’
‘Obviously I remember. It happened yesterday,’ Maya said. She was in no mood for meandering conversations.
‘Apparently Denzil and Minty the Model went for Jungle Book yesterday and then to Pizza Express where they spent THREE hours chatting,’ Lola
said. ‘Minty was most interested in Denzil’s family. Including that missing priest, Father Furtado. She told Denzil that she really wanted to meet Father Furtado and could Denzil arrange it.’
Maya listened in puzzled silence. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked. ‘Who told you?’
‘Sharanya and Mandira were talking about it,’ Lola replied. ‘Denzil told his two Metallica-obsessed soulmates. Who told somebody, who told somebody, who told Mandira.’
‘It makes no sense,’ Maya muttered, as the taxi scattered a throng of terrified German tourists near Electric House. ‘Father Furtado has disappeared. Even the police can’t find him. We thought that the Shadows have kidnapped him. But if they’ve kidnapped him, why are they trying to meet him?’
‘Maybe they haven’t.’
‘What?’
‘Maybe the Shadows haven’t kidnapped him.’
‘Then where’s he?’ Maya protested.
‘Maybe somebody else has hidden him to keep him safe from the Shadows …’
‘Who? Professor Kekobad? Wouldn’t he tell us?
‘Or Father D’Gama.’
‘Father D’Gama … they are related … but is Father D’Gama connected with all of this? It’s all very confusing.’
‘I’ll talk to Professor Kekobad tomorrow,’ Maya said, as the taxi drove past the long white wall of Sassoon Dock. ‘Thanks, Lola. I’m hanging up now. I’ve just reached home and I have to pay the guy.’
Maya pulled out her battered, brown wallet – which always made Lola wince. She paid for the taxi, shoved the change into her bag and rushed into the building, almost knocking down a little girl who was standing near the chowkidar’s desk. There were always children underfoot during the summer holidays, she grouched. Then she felt contrite. ‘I’m becoming a real nasto,’ she sighed to herself. ‘The heat. Doubting Lola. Tackling bossy Veda. Things just can’t get any worse.’
As soon as Maya stepped into Flat 502 though, she knew she was wrong. Something had clearly gotten worse.
Her father’s shoes were in the corridor, but a curdled silence filled the house.
Both her parents were in the living room, on the green sofa, staring straight ahead at the blank TV screen. Mrs Anand’s eyes were red. Mr Anand’s face was the colour of whey. They jumped when Maya entered the room, and stuck synthetic smiles on their faces.
‘What’s happened?’ Maya asked.
‘Nothing, nothing,’ Mr Anand said with fake bonhomie. ‘Just a touch of flu.’
Mrs Anand shook her head. ‘We have to tell her. If things go badly, she’ll be hit worse than anybody else. Maya, the office is holding an inquiry against your father. Some sensitive information was leaked. Only four people knew about it. They say he leaked it.’
‘I think it’s best I just resign,’ Mr Anand said. ‘But at my age, with a cloud hanging over my head, will I find anything else?’
‘Rohan,’ Mrs Anand countered. ‘Don’t give up so easily. The inquiry can never find you guilty.’
‘They’ve decided I’m guilty. I’ve been suspended till the inquiry is completed. We’ve been told we will have to vacate this house within a week if I’m found officially guilty. At least to me, it sounds as though they’ve made up their minds.’
‘I still don’t understand why you were even part of that meeting. What do you even have to do with mobile phone service strategies?’
Mr Anand rubbed his forehead and said, ‘I don’t know either. There was only Purohitji himself and Mr Homi Unvala, who has been with the company for 40 years and is the most upright human being alive.’
‘And …’ Maya asked.
‘And no one … oh, yes, Purohit Junior was there. He comes for meetings sometimes and sits and plays games on his phone.’
‘Who?’ Maya asked, imagining a six-year-old brat.
‘Pratik Purohit,’ her father replied. ‘He’s Purohitji’s son. He studies in America, but he’s here at the moment—’
‘Yes,’ Maya said in a steely voice. ‘I know exactly who he is. He’s at St Paul’s all the time. He’s disgusting. He fondles girls in public, is obnoxious to canteen boys and passes offensive remarks.’
‘Maya, he’s not done anything to you, has he?’ her father demanded. ‘There are all sorts of stories. But if he has—’
‘Of course not,’ Maya replied, touched by her father’s protective response. Usually, Mr Anand was the most un-Alpha male alive. He left that side of the business to Mrs Anand.
Maya got up, gave him a quick hug and ran into her room before bursting into tears. The Shadows were using Pratik Purohit to torment her kind, harmless, gentle father. There wasn’t a smidgen of doubt in her mind. ‘But I will have the last laugh,’ she raved. ‘I am going to laugh my head off when you dissolve into a stinking mass of wrinkles and bones. All of you.’
The venomous joy she felt alarmed Maya. The darkness that the Shadows carried within them was contagious, and she felt it travel through her bloodstream.
Pushing aside the thought, Maya pulled out her phone. There was a message from the 8787 number, and she instinctively knew what it would say.
‘Get to work. And this story can have a happy ending.’
‘I will look for the keys,’ Maya pounded onto her long-suffering phone. ‘But on my terms. First my father gets his job back. Then the accusations against him are withdrawn and he gets an official apology.’
‘First you find the key.’
‘No. I don’t trust you.’
‘The inquiry starts on Monday. If you find one key by Saturday night, the inquiry can still be cancelled. After that it might be too late.’
‘Will he get an apology?’
There was no response for 10 minutes, then a terse, ‘OK’.
‘How can I trust you?’
‘Do you have an option?’
CHAPTER 32
Maya sat down at her desk and spread the photographs of the saints, her hasty notes and the Latin translations on her desk. She got up and drew her curtains against the hazy memory from last night. Then she got to work with an expression that her teachers would have recognised instantly.
This was Maya in class-topper mode.
An hour later, she had a summary in place:
Window 1:
St Andrew and St Peter standing in a boat – they were fishermen
Other details in background of picture – fishermen in boats, a low white structure like a big gate (sloping roofs, a short tower in the middle)
Patron saints of fishermen, rope-makers, textile-makers, singers, people with convulsions, whooping cough …
Inscription — To you I will give the keys of heaven
(FISHERMEN seems important)
Window 2:
St Jerome sitting with a book – was a priest and scholar
Other details in pic – figures in background reading books, a pretty, brown building (two storeys, arched windows and a short tower-like structure in the middle makes it look like a mansion or palace)
Patron saints of scholars, librarians, libraries, archaeologists, students
Inscription—Omnia tempus habent—All things have their time
(BOOKS? SCHOLARS? LIBRARIES?)
Window 3 (central window):
St Anthony holding a baby – was a priest
Other details in pic – black and yellow star pattern in background
Patron saint of lost objects (many other things but this is most important – and relevant for us)
Inscription –– Ad sidera tollere vultus – Raise your face to the stars.
(LOST OBJECTS? Obvious?)
Window 4:
St Homobonus wearing a cap and holding a small bag – was a generous merchant
Other details in the picture – market scene, people with baskets and fruits, a large brown building (big, rambling building with a small, pointed tower)
Patron saints of tailors, merchants, businesspeople
Inscription—Quaerite et invenietis—Seek and you shall find
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br /> (MERCHANT? MARKET?)
Window 5:
St Brendan – monk, figures in legends about sailing and seeking lost islands
Other details in pic – Men in white clothes on ship, long white structure (looks like a long wall with a round-topped tower popping out from it)
Patron saints of sailors, mariners, travellers
Inscription—Si monumentum requiris, circumspice—If you seek a monument, look around you
(SAILORS?)
There was definitely a pattern here. It was just a matter of finding it. Was it in the Latin phrases? Did they make any more sense together than they did individually?
‘To you I will give the keys of heaven
All things have their time
Raise your face to the stars.
Seek and you shall find
If you seek a monument, look around you’
Maya switched her attention to the pictures. Then she picked up her phone and called Veda. ‘Have you noticed something? All the structures have towers.’
‘What?’ Veda sounded zapped.
‘The stained-glass windows, Veda,’ Maya explained. ‘Each window shows a structure, remember? Each of those structures has a tower.’
‘Oh yes, that,’ Veda said with a dismissive sniff. ‘So what? Do you recognise any of them? In my opinion, we need help.’
‘Meaning what?’ Maya demanded, suddenly alert.
‘Have you read the translations of the inscriptions? Remember the last two? Seek and you shall find. If you seek a monument, look around you. To me it’s obvious that Father Lorenzo is telling us to look around and find the monuments.’
‘That makes sense, I guess.’
‘I’ve been staring at those photographs till I got a migraine. But I couldn’t recognise those buildings. What about you.’
‘No,’ Maya admitted. ‘A couple of structures look familiar but … no … I’m realising that I don’t really know Mumbai that well. If they are structures in Mumbai, of course.’
‘But we know somebody who does know Mumbai well.’
Maya had that ‘Oh no, not again’ feeling. ‘Who?’ she asked, although she really didn’t need to.
What Maya Saw Page 20