by Monabi Mitra
‘While you had yours, I suppose.’
For the first time in the interview, Monica Sarkar refused to meet his eyes.
‘You have a boyfriend,’ persisted Bikram. He had a strong feeling that something was being kept back here.
‘Do I?’ She drawled her answer and raised her eyebrows but there was fear in her eyes.
‘Leena Mukherjee’s husband,’ said Bikram.
There was a perceptible slackening of tension and Monica Sarkar’s mouth relaxed. Bikram had a feeling of deep unease as Monica Sarkar said, ‘Well, what of it? She was rotten to him.’
So there was someone else whom they did not know about. And may never do, he thought.
A vision of a pink government file with angry comments bemoaning the investigating officers’ inefficiency flashed in his mind. She could have killed Piloo Adhikary with a trumped- up alibi but how was he ever to prove it unless she cracked? Brain-mapping, polygraph tests, shouted an imaginary Toofan Kumar in his ear. What will I tell the press unless you arrest her double quick?
‘Give us the names of some of your husband’s friends. People we can talk to.’
Sheena Sen had picked up the shopping bag and was sorting out the contents. Bikram held out a pen and pushed a piece of paper before Monica Sarkar. She frowned and remained still for a moment, then wrote down some names on the sheet. Bikram watched her as she wrote in block letters, a little falteringly, as if writing was not an everyday affair with her. There were five names on the paper she returned.
Leena and Chand Mukherjee
Ram Sen
Malavika and Heera
There were addresses alongside the first three names, but nothing for the last two.
‘Don’t know,’ she answered laconically. ‘We met at bars and other places but I always knew them by their first names only. Said they lived somewhere in Picnic Garden but I can’t confirm that either. Piloo liked the girl and gave her a part in his movie. They’re living in sin now, so if you can track them down, you’ll find them together.’
‘And Ram Sen?’
‘Another friend. He was there at Leena’s house that evening. You can talk to him to check up on my alibi. Incidentally, he had bummed money off Piloo once and they had a quarrel over the bad rate of interest, but Piloo made up with him. We used to meet once in a while. Still owes us money.’
‘How much?’ asked Sheena Sen.
Monica Sarkar yawned.
‘Can’t remember. Five lakhs, I think.’
‘What was Piloo’s rate of interest?’
Another mild question from Bikram.
‘Twelve per cent. Because he lent out money with no questions asked.’
‘I take it you mean twelve per cent per month?’
‘Yes. With that rate he usually recovered the sum he lent out in the first few months. No running to the police for a cheating case. Saved you all a lot of trouble, my husband did. Look at the way you’re treating me now.’
‘And did he use this ill-gotten money through usury to finance his movies and soaps?’
‘Perhaps! He wouldn’t always tell me.’
‘But you were married to him.’
‘I find your question offensive but the answer is yes and no. I know what I am and what my marriage was—an arrangement of convenience made by someone who began life poor. I never probed too much into his affairs.’
‘And what is your line of business?’
‘But I told the men who were down here on the night he was killed. I own a beauty parlour. They have the address in a file somewhere, I’m sure. Would you like to go there for a session?’ She asked Bikram the question blandly, and Bikram knew she was playing with them now and laughing at them inwardly.
Obviously he was asking the wrong questions because her manner had become relaxed and easy.
‘There,’ she said suddenly. ‘I think that’s enough for now. Can’t stand it any more.’ She stood up and called out. ‘Bibi! Bibi! Come here!’ The black-and-white mongrel bounded in and put its paws on its mistress’s knee, then trotted around the room before flopping down at Bikram’s feet.
‘Goodbye,’ said Monica Sarkar to Sheena Sen.
‘We’ll meet again,’ said Bikram on his way out.
In the car Bikram and Sheena Sen held conference.
‘A nasty, cunning woman,’ said Sheena Sen tossing her head. ‘Impudent too. Did you see the way she answered our questions, as if she was doing us a favour? Dogs and a beauty parlour! Sounds disgusting.’
‘You’ve done the dogs, now you’ll have to go over the beauty parlour.’ Bikram seemed undisturbed by the abrupt manner in which Monica Sarkar had terminated their interview. ‘But I agree. There’s an atmosphere about that house. It does feel rather like a . . . a . . .’
‘Horror serial on Zee TV,’ said Sheena Sen. ‘Stagy and unreal. Except the dogs! The sick one looks ready to meet its Maker.’
Bikram gave a start and looked at Sheena Sen with surprised admiration. She’s quite good, he thought. Sometimes!
* * *
Shona Chowdhury did not like attending parties, press meets and publicity launches any longer but they plagued her and were inexorably thrust upon her every day.
She had risen high in her profession because she was beautiful and acted well and had managed her affairs deftly, maintaining an air of gravity for those who hoped she would be easily accessible. Then she met Bikram and her life had changed drastically since.
Here was someone who loved her for being Shona, the woman, not Shona, the film star, and could scratch her shining glamorous surface and reach the recesses of her mind. To keep their love true they ensured it remained an inviolable space of their lives, far away from the pestilences of policing and the pettishness of the entertainment business. Their relationship was one of advance and retreat, thrust and parry, smiles and tears and the fun of being so far apart in their professions and yet so tantalizingly together in their minds.
Right now there was blight. Bikram’s leave had coincided with the festive season rush and their meetings had been patchy and difficult. Then he had been sick and immediately afterwards he had got busy with a homicide case and been especially irascible. So when invited to the premiere of a new movie at a plush multiplex, with the owner following it up with a starry dinner and dance, she said ‘yes’.
She arrived late, hoping that the film would have begun but it did not till all the guests had been exhibited and paraded before the clot of press photographers and reporters. A man in a white shirt and pink tie received her, escorted her in the lift and handed her over to another man wearing a green tie, who walked her to the banquet room.
From afar she could see a small group of middle-aged men, women and some college students, gaping at the various entrances and trying to get in the line of the flashlights and cameras. Shona deliberately kept herself out of their view.
‘Hi Shona! How are you?’ ‘Nice dress!’ ‘Busy?’ ‘Have a drink!’
Shoals of collagen lips and Botox-ed faces swam around the room greeting one another. There was a hum all around, the room was warm in spite of the air-conditioning and Shona, feeling somewhat like a bee, joined a swarm and sipped her lemon juice. Photographers walked up and clicked her photographs while a reporter in a sloppily cut dress asked her for a one-liner to sum up the evening. Shona, who was almost thirty, was gratified to see that heads still turned at her entry and faces came up to wish her. One year more, she thought, and I’ll quit! A swansong at the height of my allure! She thought of Grace Kelly and Greta Garbo and instinctively smoothed her hair while her diamond earrings trembled in a blaze of fire.
Now it was time to go in for the movie. The shoal swam towards the hall and Shona dropped back. She did not want to stay for the post-movie dinner and dance and wanted a seat at the back of the hall, near the wall. So she pretended to be immersed in her mobile phone and trailed in absent-mindedly as the stars and very important people decorously fought for the best seats.
Beyo
nd the entrance the floor sloped downwards and Shona stumbled for a second. She collided with a tall and burly man with thin lips and a scornful expression. ‘Pardon me, madam!’ The man sprang aside and in turn bumped against another man bending over a seat. ‘Excuse me . . . It’s all right, oh hello, Toofan . . .’ They shook hands.
Shona, wondering how to manoeuvre herself towards a corner seat, felt her heart lurch. So this was Toofan Kumar! She vaguely remembered meeting him once at a party, a year ago. She lifted her chin and said in a honeyed voice, ‘May I move to that seat, please?’ She pointed towards the seat. The two men immediately leapt aside and she arched her back a little more and walked between them to the end of the aisle. She could feel the whispers and significant looks between the two men behind her and smiled inwardly. They would be discussing her and Toofan Kumar would be caught in the limbo of having to be nice and polite to his hated junior’s girlfriend.
The lights flickered and slowly went out and Shona relaxed her shoulders. The Dolby ad came on, then the censor certificate, and finally, the production house banner before the movie started. Shona watched for two minutes and felt her attention slip. She leaned back and closed her eyes.
Flickering screen lights bothered her, especially after days of strenuous shooting, and she supposed she must be getting old. Will he want me then? she thought and felt a familiar panic begin. There was also the other feeling, the haunting sense of longing for him. I will phone him, she thought. No, you mustn’t be so clingy, another voice from within said. Look for a sign, said a third voice inside her. If someone coughs while we count twenty we will give him a call, settled the three inner voices together. Shona began to count and there was a loud sneeze from her right. That’s it, she thought, and rose to go.
Red velvet sofas had been placed in the empty space outside the hall. The tea, coffee and lemon juice service was beginning to pack up and stewards wearing white gloves paused in their work to look at her. One of them came forward. ‘Tea, coffee, madam? A glass of juice?’
Shona shook her head and sat down on the sofa. She dialled his number, wondering what to say if he answered. Mercifully it was busy. There were messages on her phone and she began a quick survey.
Suddenly there was a voice at her ear. She looked up to find that someone was smiling and nodding genially, and holding out a hand. It was the man who had greeted Toofan Kumar!
‘Shona Chowdhury, right? The great actress! We remember your face from the movies!’ he said enthusiastically.
‘Have we met before?’ asked Shona coldly.
The man’s eyes twinkled and a gleeful look filled his face. ‘We haven’t been introduced yet. My name is Gaur Lal Mohan, though my friends simply call me Gaur Mohan. Does the name mean anything to you?’
Shona kept a straight face though her heart was pounding. She knew what Gaur Mohan did—they all knew—he arranged good deals in movies and prominent roles in successful television soaps in return for services rendered. Chic young aspirants flirted with him and kept him company in sophisticated apartments on weekday afternoons.
‘No,’ she said shortly.
The man shrugged. ‘Your loss, then. Care for a cup of coffee?’
She shook her head.
‘A drink, then. We can go somewhere else. The movie is too noisy and I was wondering how a beautiful girl like you could stand it. At your level, you must be tired of all this.’
‘Were you keeping some kind of watch on me? That was very forward of you and doesn’t sound very nice.’
‘Very good,’ said Gaur Mohan, laughing till his body shook in obscene bobs. ‘I like your spirit. I enjoyed your snub. I will give you more time.’
Shona stood up and prepared to leave. A flood of revulsion and humiliation at being marked out for the casting couch almost knocked her over. Also, the floodgates of memory broke and she remembered with distaste her early days in the profession: how she had flinched at what the director had suggested, how his offer had been a leaden weight for a whole night till she had sat up in the morning and stoically accepted the path before her. Some benign power above had saved her and she had got her first break without much damage but the danger always lurked. Deep in her heart she knew why Bikram hated her job and why it made him angry.
Gaur Mohan had been watching her all this while. He was astute enough to notice the flitting emotions on her face. He said smoothly, ‘Actually I heard about your boyfriend from Toofan just now. Some young chap in the Crime Branch. Well, you just go and tell your police friend that I may have something to tell him about the case he’s working on now. You just go and tell him that, and we’ll take it from there.’
They stood looking at each other for a few seconds, and then, Gaur Mohan made an elaborate and respectful namaste that seemed filled with irony, before waddling back to the movie hall. Shona gathered her purse and walked towards the exit.
The man in the green tie appeared out of nowhere and asked her why she was leaving and would she not stay back for the party? But she heeded him not as she waited for the lift. Perhaps she had managed to communicate some inner tumult, for the man became quiet and escorted her in the lift without a word. Someone shouted into a microphone and her car drew up. Shona slid gratefully into it just as her telephone buzzed.
‘You phoned?’
‘No. Yes, I mean, no.’
‘What does no-yes-no mean?’
‘Nothing. I’ll tell you later.’
There was silence, and then Bikram said, ‘You’re upset.’
Shona kept quiet.
‘And I can dimly hear street sounds, which means you’re on your way back home in the car. Or going somewhere, judging by the time and what you usually do.’
‘Stop badgering me, Bikram. I hardly go out nowadays and you know that. Such antagonism towards how I live and what I do is getting hateful.’ Her voice shook and the tears she had been trying to hold back flowed down her cheeks, and she wasn’t entirely sure that was because of him. ‘You haven’t made any commitment till now, so why such annoyance? You’re not my husband yet and I have a fair idea of what a girl is to expect, should you become one.’
‘I’ll be home in a little while. Come to my flat,’ Bikram sounded tense.
‘No, I won’t go to your flat or anyone else’s. You men are all the same. I shall go home and sleep.’ She disconnected the line, pressed the red button and turned the phone off. She caught her driver stealing a curious glance at her through the rear-view mirror and moved irritably to the other side of the seat. The casuarina trees flashed past as their car drove down what was once called Casuarina Avenue and the green grass beyond lay shrouded in smog. Her sister, Dolly, was waiting up for her at home.
‘You’ve been having a row,’ she said languidly. ‘He asked me to ask you to please call him back. Have you switched off your phone? Was it that bad?’
‘Mind your own business,’ snapped Shona as she flung her purse on the bed and slammed the door shut. After ten minutes she felt herself weaken and switched on the mobile phone.
The call came through almost immediately.
‘Are you going to erupt again?’ asked Bikram.
The line was not clear and he had to repeat himself.
Outside, the sky was littered with stars that could be glimpsed even through the thick October air. Standing on the balcony of his fourth-floor flat, Bikram watched the night-time traffic clunk up, and in the distance, the white glow of the ten-thousand-watt Eden Gardens stadium lights created an artistic chiaroscuro effect.
‘No,’ said Shona sadly.
There was a long silence. Bikram shifted uneasily and said, ‘I don’t know how to settle this . . . thing between us.’
He waited for a few moments and said, ‘Are you there?’
‘Yes, I am. Let’s talk of something else.’
With an effort Shona made her voice sound brisk. ‘I was asked to give you a message by someone I met today. He said he knew something about the murder case you’re working on now, some
thing about the murdered man.’
‘What was his name? The one who sent the message?’ Immediately there was alarm in his voice.
‘Gaur Lal Mohan.’ Her voice tightened. ‘People in my world know him as Gaur Mohan. He’s some kind of powerhouse who lends money to finance things discreetly.’
‘What does he get in return?’
‘You find out!’
‘Did he proposition you?’
Though she had been with him long enough, Bikram’s powers of deduction still startled her.
‘Yes, but in a clumsy and half-hearted manner, as if that was expected of him. He was laughing at us actually, like a kitten worrying a ball of wool. He was with your Toofan Kumar before that and they must have talked and found out about you and me.’ She hesitated and continued, ‘I slipped out when the thing started because I wanted to hear your voice. I would have gone home anyway and thought . . . he caught me as I was making the call.’
Bikram stared wrathfully at the sky, now decorated with scudding clouds. Their worlds often collided but this time, somehow, the spinning and convergences were too coincidental for his liking.
There seemed nothing more to be said. Each saw the other as withdrawn and bitter. They muttered hurried goodbyes and disconnected their phones.
Bikram attempted to leaf through a few of the files that came and went with him every day, to and from office. After half an hour he abandoned the effort, gazed at his shapely fingers, tapped a thin tune on the table and dialled a number.
‘I’m busy,’ said a harsh voice at the other end.
‘You sound harassed. Reporters seem to be getting ruder than policemen under pressure.’
‘Oh, it’s you! I thought it was someone else I knew. Is it a tip-off? I didn’t hear of any arrests. Another blast by the Maoists, is it?’
‘I’ll be sent to track landmines in the forest if you don’t help me. It’s about the Piloo Adhikary thing. What do you know about a Gaur Mohan?’
‘I’ve heard of him but vaguely. I can’t remember where . . . wait a minute, he sends us a lot of tender notices to be printed. Hold the line while I check it.’