by Irene Black
“It’s Kashmiri,” Ashok said, adding, “Suits you.”
“Thank you. It’s very kind of you.”
“No problem.” After a moment’s pause, he continued. “You said something was wrong.”
“Yes.” On the flight to India, Hannah had felt an inexplicable accord with this man. Now, as they stood awkwardly in the doorway of her hotel room, the feeling had already been rekindled. But she had learned to be cautious. She didn’t feel inclined to pour out her heart. Not yet.
“Can I tell you about it later? Over a meal?”
Outside the hotel, they commandeered one of the waiting autorickshaws. Hannah scrambled in awkwardly and slid across the seat to make room for Ashok, who, despite having to bend almost double, managed the maneuver with a grace that had eluded her.
“Not designed for well-fed foreigners like us!” he commented. “Whoops…sorry…didn’t mean to imply...”
“Don’t worry. Been feeling like Dumbo’s mother ever since I got off the plane.”
“Dumbo’s mother? Dumbo, maybe, but his mother? That’s taking things a bit far.”
“Gee, thanks a bunch. You’ve made me feel a lot better.”
“Well, you don’t deserve to. Poking fun at elephants.”
“Sorry. Hope there weren’t any listening, though I suspect that at least one was.” Her eyes gestured to the little shrine, festooned with tinsel and wilted marigolds, sitting on the rickshaw’s dashboard.
Ashok smiled. “Aha, you can be quite sure Ganesh is listening. But he’s a god: son of Shiva, with head of elephant, not quite the same thing.”
“So how come you regard yourself as a foreigner? Thrown off the shackles of your native soil?”
“No, not at all. I suppose it’s a trick being played on my mind. It seems as if, when I’m in England, the Indian part of me yearns to be set free, but back here the Englishman in me sometimes slips out.”
The rickshaw pulled up at the end of a narrow alleyway, crowded with shoppers.
“Come on. Down there is Commercial Street. Great place for clothes.”
Ashok steered her through the crowds on the bazaar-like alley and out onto Commercial Street, where she was plunged into a world of noise and color and light. Shops and state emporia fell higgledy-piggledy over one another, bulging with advertisements and neon lights, crowded and cluttered with every kind of item imaginable on display: shops selling bags and suitcases, saris and shalwar kameez, cheap jewelry; heavily-fortified gold shops with entry-phones and guards; and fruit sellers and food stalls exuding mouth-watering aromas that drew Hannah’s attention to the length of time since her last meal.
They made their way slowly up the street, their progress hampered by beggar children and half-dissolved lepers tugging at their clothing, and by the sheer volume of people flowing past them. A man tried to sell them an umbrella that you wore on your head.
“How about trying out some local fashions?” Ashok said. “Much cheaper than trying to buy European clothes here. Better, too.”
“Brilliant! I’d love to...” She was about to add go native then stopped herself.
Two hours later, Hannah, clutching her purchases, found herself being ushered by Ashok up four flights of hotel stairs to a top floor restaurant.
“Power cut—no lift,” he said, “but I think you’ll find the climb worthwhile.”
Before they even reached the fourth floor, the aroma of freshly pounded spices wafted tantalizingly down from the restaurant to welcome them.
A table by the stairwell; roti-bakers at work across the room; the rhythmic slap, slap, slap of a score of hands beating out the dough into thin circles; the fires from many ovens playing on the bakers’ faces and rekindling them into works of art.
“You should have brought your camera,” Ashok said. “Plenty of faces among that lot for your next book.”
Hannah remembered telling him on the plane. Professional photographer. Going to India to take photos for a coffee-table book. Now she’d even lost the camera. How could she ask this man to help her and yet keep half the truth from him? But how could she level with him until she was sure about him? And if he turned out to be that Ashok Rao, wouldn’t it be harder, not simpler, to come clean? Take it easy, she told herself. Get to know him. At least test the water before you throw yourself in.
The food arrived. Little measures of different vegetable mixtures and chutneys carefully ladled onto their banana-leaf plates. Freshly baked rotis and bowls of rice.
“Didn’t realize how hungry I was.”
“Enjoy. We call this baingan bharta. It’s from the north—a favorite of mine.”
Hannah scooped a little of the mixture onto a corner of her roti and tasted it. Her eyes opened wide. “But this is incredible. This is exactly what my grandmother used to make. It was a favorite of mine, too.”
“Your grandmother made baingan bharta?”
“Yes—well, she didn’t call it that. I think she just called it mashed eggplant. But the ingredients must have been very similar…”
“…aubergines, tomatoes…”
“…chilies, onion—I think the onions were raw, but that’s the only difference.”
“Amazing.”
“Yes, amazing. My grandfather came from Romania—he taught Grandma how to make it.”
“Perhaps not so amazing then. They say the Romanies came from India and some traveled west via Romania. Perhaps you have Romany blood.”
“Maybe I have Indian ancestors.”
By now, any residual formality had been swept aside. Words tumbled between them like acrobats.
Hannah took more food from her banana-leaf plate and transferred it to her mouth via the roti, using her fingers as deftly as if she had been eating this way all her life.
“That’s pretty good,” Ashok replied. “Yes, you must have been an Indian in another life. Incidentally—that chudidar looks great on you.” He nodded at her simple, silver-gray outfit: long dress over loose, tapered leggings, gathered round the ankles, matching chiffon dupatta slung back across her shoulders. “You wear it well. A true Maharani.”
“That’s made my day.” Her smile faded. “Perhaps it’ll make me less conspicuous.”
“So…what’s it all about?”
“It’s a long story.”
“We’re not in a hurry, are we?”
Hannah took a deep breath and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Okay then.” She looked at him steadily for a moment before continuing. “Someone’s following me.”
“Following you? What—an Indian?”
“No. It started a long time before I came here.”
“When?”
“Just over a year ago. Someone began to follow me home from the Red Fox—my local pub. I ran the local photographic society. We met in a room above the pub on Saturday nights.”
Hannah kept the details brief: a will-o’-the-wisp in the hedge; a shadow that lurked beneath her window at night.
“So—who?”
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be here. Tried everything: stayed awake, kept watch. Once I managed a glimpse of his back. He was in the garden one night. I went after him. But he was off like a shot. Seemed puny…” She laughed shortly. “…but still managed to outsmart me.”
Ashok was staring at her.
“What?” she said sharply.
“Whatever I say, you’ll tell me I’m being sexist, so I’ll keep quiet.”
“I knew it. You’re just like the rest of them. Next you’ll be blaming me for leading him on.”
“I didn’t say that. It’s just a little—unusual. But carry on telling.”
She threw him a dubious glance, but his obvious concern dissipated her anger. “First I didn’t know if I was going mad, or whether it really was happening to me. The surer I became it wasn’t just in my head, the less the police believed me.”
“So you decided to get away?”
“I’d been planning a photographic trip to India for years. So I came.
”
“But whoever it is has followed you here?”
“Yes. Which is why I called you. So before you have any more digs at me, even I know when I’m out of my depth. After events in Hyderabad and Chennai—”
“What events? What’s happened?”
“The thing is, it will all sound so silly. Overactive imagination, hysteria even. But it’s not. You’ll have to take my word for it.”
“I’ll believe you. Honestly. I can tell a sane person when I see one.”
For the first time since the whole business had begun, Hannah found she could talk freely. All inhibitions seemed to evaporate in the heat from the roti fires and in the empathy that was written in Ashok’s eyes. Something Maighréad had written in one of her crazy letters flashed into Hannah’s mind.
I trust him to the end of the earth. He’s the gentlest man I’ve ever known. But such inner strength. He has built a house of brick around my frailty.
The next bit. It’s your house too, Hannah.
Yes, she thought. There is no doubt. It is him. How prophetic Maighréad’s words had turned out to be.
She told him about the events in Hyderabad and Chennai—the burkha-clad figure who had rushed at her with a knife in the Qutab Shahi Tombs; Willi’s suspicious disappearance and subsequent unconvincing note; the intruder in her room at the Pandava in Chennai; the ghoulish taxi ride in the dark and her escape from the driver.
“What I don’t understand,” Ashok commented, “is why? Why is this person following you? Haven’t you any idea?”
“Not really. For a long time, I thought he was just trying to frighten me, God knows why. Began to think the police were right. It was all in my mind. The rest started to make sense then.”
“There’s something you haven’t told, isn’t there?”
“How d’you know?”
“Just a feeling. How you looked when we first met on the plane. Haunted. A woman who goes out alone on a manhunt at night doesn’t scare easily. There must have been something else to push you into packing up and getting out.”
“I wasn’t pushed. I came to take photographs.”
“Ah, yes. Of course you did.” He inclined his head. “So—do you want to tell me?”
Tell him? Doubts flooded back, jolting her mood of release like heavy raindrops. What the hell was she thinking of? Ashok was a stranger, after all. And a man. She was entrusting intimate details of her life to someone she scarcely knew. Turning herself into a victim. Making herself vulnerable. Dropping her guard.
“I don’t know. Don’t know anything anymore,” she heard herself mutter.
Ashok’s hand was on her arm, and she felt her uneasiness subside.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here and find somewhere quiet.”
* * * *
When Duncan came home, after his hastily arranged two-day trip to New York, the Guildford streetlamps were already lit at three in the afternoon. They diffused their sodium light, giving the smart, upmarket terrace of town houses a soft, almost Dickensian glow in the icy fog of December twilight. The scene hinted at warmth and of neat and ordered lives. Duncan, drained and exhausted despite Concorde, dragged his feet up the steps through the small courtyard to the front door. He turned the key in the lock and let himself in.
“Duncan!” Felicity almost ran as she came to the door to greet him.
She threw her arms around his neck. “Why didn’t you phone? Could have picked you up at the airport. You look exhausted. Here, let me take your bag. Sit yourself down. I’ll get you a drink. Missed you so much.”
Duncan pushed her away impatiently. His mind was flooded with confused feelings. He had been looking forward to coming home. He’d had plenty of time to think things through on the flight from New York. Thinking about Felicity had taken his mind off Hannah and the mystery of Bannerman’s disappearance. At least he’d thought it was a mystery. As soon as Hal had told him, the obvious connection had leapt out at him. Bannerman...Hannah’s stalker. Perhaps he’d misjudged her. At any rate, he’d had to go to New York to discuss the whole matter with Hal. Now it was time to spill the beans. Waste of time, as it turned out. Hal couldn’t tell him anything new, and he scoffed at the idea that Bannerman had spent the past year stalking Hannah.
“Not his style,” Hal said. “In any case, he hasn’t been gone for more than a couple of months.”
“Well, he could be paying someone. Or popping back to the States every now and then to allay suspicion.”
Hal simply looked at him and shook his head slowly in amused disbelief.
Duncan had returned to Guildford with his theory dented by Hal Brodsky but not sufficiently for Duncan himself to discard it. He’d mulled it over for a while on the flight then turned his attention to Felicity. She’d been so different for the first few months after she’d moved in with him. It had all happened very quickly. He had finally had to accept that there was no hope of Hannah rekindling their affair. It had hit him hard. So he’d needed a woman.
Felicity, a temp at the office, was sexy, fun, and therapeutic. As the months went by, their relationship seemed to undergo a subtle change. Duncan began to see beyond Felicity’s undoubted accomplishments in the bedroom. He realized that he enjoyed having her around and missed her when she went away to visit her sick brother, Terry, in Manchester every couple of weeks.
At least, that’s where she said she went. At first he’d had no earthly reason to doubt her. But after a while the sick brother excuse began to sound hollow. He tried to probe deeper, and it led to bitter arguments. She wept, she threatened to leave, she berated him for his lack of trust. And as if to prove her integrity, she suddenly became over-solicitous to the point of driving him crazy. She’d have tied his shoelaces for him if he’d let her.
He weighed it over and over in his mind and finally convinced himself that he was overreacting. Seeing problems where there weren’t any. Things would be fine when he got home, he told himself.
But no, things weren’t fine, were they? Here she was again, being overly effusive, desperate to please. What other conclusion could there be? Felicity was having an affair.
* * * *
They walked for some time in silence, down a straight, wide, tree-
lined road in the warm Bangalore night. There was little let up in the traffic, but the pavements were wide, giving some illusion of space and solitude. A high granite wall ran alongside the uneven granite paving stones, and beyond were more trees. The lights from the traffic did not reach the footpath, and only the merest suggestion of moonlight relieved the darkness. Ashok shone a small torch onto the path ahead and held Hannah’s elbow lightly.
He waited for her to continue her story, feeling inadequate because she still seemed reluctant to talk. He suddenly thought of Maighréad, one day soon after they had met, when she was still in the hospital. You’ve done so much, she’d said, simply by listening to me. I feel I can tell you everything.
Now he willed Hannah to feel as safe and free with him as Maighréad had felt.
“Do you want to go on with your story?”
Hesitantly, her voice spoke to him from the darkness.
“It’s still not easy to talk about. Laughable really. I spend my life dealing with other people’s traumas, and I can’t handle my own.”
“What do you mean? I thought you were a photographer only.”
“Oh. Yes. I am. I’m talking about friends.”
They were walking more slowly now. Just enough to keep moving, without seeming to go anywhere.
Hannah pointed ahead into the torchlight. “Has the wall come down just ahead? Let’s sit on that rock for a while.”
Ashok focused the beam on the disintegrating section of wall. A huge slab of granite had dislodged itself from the top and now masqueraded as a perfect bench.
For a moment, they sat silently, side by side, their faces no more than silhouettes in the darkness, light from the torch playing absently at Ashok’s feet.
Flatly,
as if reporting something that had happened to someone else, Hannah articulated her fractured memories.
* * * *
It was a particularly cold, rainy November. Even the cosseted gardens in the tiny Surrey village of Burfold were beginning to turn to mud. Only Hannah’s cottage garden seemed impervious to the weather. It was a wilderness garden; at least that was how Hannah described it. Minimum interference, partly through lack of time but mainly because she liked it that way. During the summer, she kept the grass down with the old motor mower in the shed. Apart from that, she allowed the bushes and trees to prosper unmolested.
That night she had gone to bed at ten o’clock, tired after a book-signing trip to Liverpool. Duncan had left a thick file labeled “South Africa” and a note suggesting it as a subject for the photographic mission they’d discussed. He’d said he’d call in again later to see how the trip had gone. Not tonight, please, she willed. Duncan had a habit of turning up after midnight on some feeble pretext that involved an element of official business. Hannah knew the real reason. He was so transparent. Felicity. Another row, renewed doubts, exasperation, or simply the need to get away from her. And the need to run back to Hannah. Granted, Hannah was normally still awake, but tonight company was the last thing she wanted. So she’d locked up, switched off the downstairs lights, and taken the file to her bedroom.
Propped up in bed, she looked through the file for some twenty minutes. Duncan’s proposal was undeniably interesting. A pictorial study of South Africa during the first two years after Mandela’s release. But Hannah, too, had been thinking about ideas for the book. One place kept pushing itself to the front of her mind. India. For the last five years, the idea of it had haunted her, and when Duncan had suggested the book, it had all seemed to fall into place. She hadn’t mentioned it to him yet. He would know exactly why she felt such compulsion to go there. She wasn’t sure how he’d react. But she knew she couldn’t let this opportunity pass her by. She needed closure.
Exhaustion defeated her attention span. She set aside the file and switched out the light. As she lay awake in the darkness, her mind turned to the stalker. Dare she hope that the nightmare was over? She hadn’t seen him for a couple of weeks. Maybe the cold had beaten him; maybe he’d grown tired of her resilience and gone to pester someone else. Or maybe, she hated to admit it, maybe he had been a figment of her imagination after all. Finally she fell into a fitful sleep.