by Reet Singh
Mohini snorted, but the two-timing cat squeezed a disdainful snout back into a tiny space under Aalok's arm and ignored her palpable outrage.
Chagrined, Mohini snatched up her phone and jumped to her feet. Her brain working furiously, she headed not to the main house and to bed, but to the East annexe. The man couldn't have both Tiger and Raja. She'd rescue Raja and hide him away in her room.
Hah! She'd show Aalok who was boss!
Four
Mohini marched into the East Annexe and made straight for the room Aalok had indicated he'd be occupying. Switching on a pedestal lamp rather than the bright overhead light - all the better to not alert the giant sleeping in the open air a few meters away - she waited till her eyes accustomed themselves to the dim illumination. Her gaze went first to the rocking chair, but Raja wasn't sitting there as was customary. Nor was he under it. Or anywhere else that she looked.
Dash it! What had Aalok done with her old toy?
Could Raja be under the covers? It was disturbing to have to check - the sheet was rumpled as if Aalok had lain down at some point. She was being prudish, not wanting to sully her virginal hands by touching a strange man's bedclothes, except that she was not a virgin. She'd been married, and had crumpled more bedsheets than she could count, but this large man with his annoying intrusiveness made her all quivery-quavery as if she knew nothing about men.
Still, since it was a matter of utmost urgency - the rescue of a beloved toy before Aalok woke up - she yanked back the covers.
Nothing - no sign of her playmate.
Perplexed, Mohini perched on the very edge of the bed and tried to think. Where could Raja be? Her eyes roved about the room, more carefully this time, but without any luck. Then her entire demeanor changed as her gaze landed on something she had no business examining. A man's wallet!
It lay on the night stand and the sight of it made Mohini sit up straight. Her eyes gleamed. To give her credit, she shook her head almost immediately, but it was just too tempting. It wasn't as if she meant him harm - she wasn't about to steal anything. Since Aalok was being needlessly secretive, she really had no choice - the contents might tell her something about the man.
Raja was forgotten as she debated with herself - as she fought the urge to investigate his wallet and maybe even rifle through the suitcase that lay half open in the corner.
She toyed with her phone - why not just call Ritvik and sort it out with him? But it was close to midnight now. Mohini scrunched up her nose. She'd never be able to sleep if she didn't find out soon.
She tip-toed back to the main entrance of the annexe and held her breath as she listened for sounds of movement. Her heart thundered in anxiety and she wondered if it would be better to simply ask the big man himself in the morning.
Who are you and why are you here?
It couldn't get more direct than that, but what if he hemmed and hawed like he'd been doing all evening? What if he lied?
Mohini shivered, suddenly scared. Could he be someone from the past - someone who had known Govind and had a score to settle? She clutched at the door for support. Her mouth was dry and her limbs had turned into jelly. She was letting her imagination run away with her, but it felt real. Her fear was validated by her gut instinct that the man was trouble.
How had he tracked her down? Why now? Govind was gone - snatched away from her. What could anybody want from her three years after the fact? She had nothing. No secret information, none of Govind's personal effects, no locker keys, no bank accounts, nothing.
Except for Ria.
And the cardboard box that she had never opened because she hadn't wanted any more lies - hadn't wanted to discover more deception, not then and not ever since.
Mohini began to feel sick. She had just cause to hate mysteries and the only way to calm down was to see if, at the very least, he was indeed who he said he was.
Shaky but determined, she peered out into the moonlit garden to make certain there was no chance of her being discovered, and sped on rubbery legs to the night stand. Flipping the wallet open with hands that shook, her nerveless fingers dropped it and she cursed. Picking it up off the floor, she rifled through it and sighed in relief. The driving license carried his picture and his name.
The wallet also contained a wad of money, at least three credit cards - all in the name of Aalok Ahuja - and a strip of condoms. Flushing, she stuffed everything back and dropped the wallet on the night stand. Of course it didn't land where she wanted it to and she had to pick it up off the floor again, hating to touch it now that she'd seen the items it contained.
Blasted condom-carrying libertine, never mind if he had been telling the truth about being Aalok Ahuja!
Hard on the heels of her mental castigation of Aalok Ahuja's morals came the shrill sound of a ringing cellphone.
Hers.
She fumbled to silence it, but before she could, the door to the annexe creaked on rusty hinges and Mohini's ambushed ears heard the deafening thwack of slippers on a concrete floor. Meanwhile the phone continued to ring leaving her with nowhere to hide.
§§§
'You're in here?' Aalok stopped in surprise.
The idiotic ring tone that had blared out just as he let himself into the annexe should have warned him, but he was still taken aback to find Mohini in his room.
She looked as startled as a fawn anticipating imminent slaughter, and he frowned.
'What are you doing here?' he asked, although he had a good idea from the way she shoved her hands behind her back like a guilty little child. As she fumbled for words, his annoyance began to mount. She'd been going through his things, had she?
He allowed his eyes to very pointedly move to his suitcase, and she colored up, incriminating herself as far as he was concerned.
'I'm here to get Raja, my old teddy bear,' she managed.
'Raja will have to wait,' Aalok said, only half believing her. 'I've been looking all over for you.'
It was true. He'd even tentatively ventured into the bedrooms in the main house, and had discovered, in one of them, a frilly white cotton nightgown draped over the bed. But no Mohini to be found anywhere, not inside the rather vestal - and ironically sexy - garment, nor outside of it.
Although the memory captivated him, he couldn't dwell on the imagery since he had to apprise his hostess of something. He had been woken from a restless slumber by a subdued but persistent knocking at the front door of the compound.
'There is a woman asking to be let in. I couldn't catch the name, and I couldn't find the key to the monstrous padlock. And of course,' he gestured to where she stood next to his bed, 'I couldn't find you, so....'
Mohini's eyebrows twisted into a frown. Her lovely eyes widened, and she looked like a startled fawn again - not one about to get slaughtered, but one that was very surprised. He got the gist - she wasn't used to receiving guests at that hour.
'I'll - um - I'll go have a look,' she offered, having found her voice at last.
Just then, her phone shrilled again and Aalok lost his cool. 'Answer the darn thing, won't you?'
'It's probably for you,' Mohini snapped, looking ready to fling it across the room at him. But she stilled when she caught the caller's name flashing away. She struggled but managed to press the green button, and holding the phone close to her ear, blurted into it, 'Hi, Tina. What is it? Is everything all right? Is Ritvik ... .'
Curious, Aalok moved closer to where Mohini stood in the narrow space by his bed. She was listening intently now, but before he could reach her she turned about and ran past in a mad rush.
'That was Tina,' she threw over her shoulder. 'Tina's here. I've no idea....' And she was gone, banging the door behind her with complete disregard for the ancient fittings that held it in place.
Aalok winced, but he hurried after her. She was nearly there, in the portico that sheltered the main entry to the vast property. The key refused to turn the zillion tumblers in the ancient padlock and she groaned.
Just then, b
eyond the magnificently carved, gigantic wooden gate that led to the outer world, they heard a woman sobbing. Galvanized, Aalok grabbed the large key from Mohini's trembling fingers and had the lock open in seconds.
§§§
The heavy doors had barely swung apart when a slim, disheveled figure flew in over the threshold.
'Tina!' Mohini gasped. 'What is it? Why ...?'
The woman didn't say a word - instead, tossing a rather shabby, overly stuffed rucksack on the ground, she flung herself at Mohini, nearly toppling them both over in the process.
Mohini, finding her arms full of her weeping sister-in-law-in-waiting, couldn't help but notice when Aalok placed strong hands on her shoulders to steady her.
Shrugging Aalok's support away as politely as she could, she drew the other girl with her towards the front porch. It was disturbing to see Tina in this state. She needed some answers and she needed them fast.
Tina, driven by a frenetic energy that Mohini had never seen before, refused to be led anywhere. Digging her feet in, and still sniffling, she balked at the door to the main house.
'Not in there,' she growled, and made a beeline for the garden swing. By the time she reached it, she had composed herself, although she still drooped and wouldn't speak for the longest time.
Mohini took hold of Tina's hands and stroked them gently. 'Tina,' she said, as firmly as she dared given the fragility of the other girl's emotions, 'Is Ritvik all right?'
At her question, Tina yanked her hands free and leaped off the swing. 'Don't talk to me about that man!' she shrieked.
Mohini, startled at the reaction evoked by her perfectly harmless query, stuttered in confusion. Quailing as Tina let off a stream of adjectives that described Ritvik in highly uncomplimentary terms, she was relieved when Aalok appeared out of the shadows with Tina's rucksack in tow.
'Oh! Hi, Aalok,' Tina said, in her usual, lovely contralto. 'I didn't know you were here. What a coincidence. How are you?'
'By the way,' she continued, her pitch rising to near shrieking again, 'I've broken it off with your friend - the blackguard charlatan, the philanderer, Mr Ritvik Kapoor.'
Tina laughed, an ugly sound that reverberated in the air around a shell-shocked Mohini. She heard snatches of the one-sided conversation between a bitterly shrill Tina and a grimly silent Aalok. 'I'm free now,' Tina confirmed, winking in grotesque imitation of a coquette. 'Available,' she leered, 'if you know what I mean!'
Aalok, to do him credit, kept perfectly quiet even as Mohini flinched.
The words had barely made it past Tina's lips when she broke down again. Collapsing on the damp grass, she sobbed into her dupatta indicating to her audience that despite her brave words her heart was broken.
Five
It took Mohini and Aalok a great deal of concerted effort to get Tina to the point where she could talk without breaking down - and without cursing Ritvik till she was blue in the face. Several cups of jaggery tea, a mere half-katori of left over dal, water, some more tea, an ice pack on bruised, swollen eyelids, and finally they were on the threshold of discovering the root cause of the broken engagement.
Tina lay in a dejected stupor on the swing while Aalok sat cross-legged on the grass by Mohini's side. His knee didn't care that it occasionally grazed hers, and Mohini rolled her eyes at his persistent disavowal of personal space rules. This wasn't the time to worry about things like that, so she pretended that it did not faze her.
Feeling slightly breathless, probably in anticipation of Tina's full disclosure, she fidgeted, but tempted though she was, she did not move away from Aalok.
She did look at the glowing dial of her wrist watch, though, and groaned inwardly. In a few hours it would be dawn. Waiting for Tina to divulge all, she gave permission to her eyelids to droop, but they were lined by sandpaper now, and her delicate corneas protested.
'He's seeing somebody else!'
Tina's bald statement, made through a waterlogged throat, and steeped in a wretched hopelessness, forced Mohini's eyes open.
'What? No!' she stuttered. 'That's utter rubbish.'
She knew Ritvik. He was hot-headed and fiercely impassioned about his causes, true, but he was also kind and honest and utterly devoted to Tina.
'No,' she said again, getting up on her knees and clumsily closing the short distance to where Tina lay in a heap of angst on the swing.
Aalok, stone-still, seemed shocked into silence. A fervent rebuttal from him would have helped the cause, but he didn't oblige and Mohini felt a moment of alarm. Did he know something that she didn't? She shook her head immediately. Not Ritvik. Not her darling, upright, generous big brother. He wasn't the cheating kind.
'Tina,' she pleaded, and reached for the distraught woman, but Tina resisted her embrace. Instead, she sat up abruptly, causing the swing to rock violently. 'There was a naked woman in his room. On our date night.'
She glared at Mohini as if it was her fault.
Mohini gulped. 'In Ritvik's room?' Somehow that changed things. A naked woman in Ritvik's room couldn't easily be explained away.
Kneading an aching temple, she looked to Aalok for help. He wasn't a stone any more, thankfully, but he offered nothing more than a shrug of massive shoulders and a contorted expression that spoke of utter bewilderment.
'Are you sure?' Mohini turned back to Tina. 'Are you certain ... that she was naked. I mean...?'
'I know what I saw!' Tina shrieked. 'It wasn't a hallucination, if that's what you're implying. She was naked. Naked, naked, naked!'
Mohini shrank back at the vehement pronouncement. Sinking down on the damp grass, she sensed Aalok move closer. He put an arm around her and squeezed a shoulder. Mohini let him. Tina's disclosure was horribly disturbing and she needed all the support she could get. She slumped into the comforting warmth the man offered, knowing she would hate herself later for showing weakness.
His hand slid from her shoulder to her waist as he pulled her in. Mohini, although surprised that her spine seemed to be missing, and her body was behaving like molten lava, melded into him. The firm, muscled chest against which she rested was fabulously reassuring, and though her heart beat a peculiar tattoo against her ribs, and his fingers burned through the thick fabric of her khadi kurta, she had no will to move away.
Tina, meanwhile, seemed calmer when she spoke again. Drawing in a long, shuddering breath, she put a hand to her heart while the other wreaked havoc on the tassels of a cushion.
'He asked me to pick him up because he was going to be delayed at work. It was date night, you see, and we always go to......I think he didn't have the guts to tell me in so many words .... he rigged it so I'd ...' she stopped, apparently overcome by unhappy memories of what she'd witnessed in Ritvik's apartment.
Mohini moved to speak - to say something in defense of her brother - but Aalok tightened his arm around her, shushing her. His lips were practically touching her ear and she shushed right up - not so much because she thought he was right about letting Tina get it all out of her system, but because his warm breath against her ear, then up against her temple, paralyzed her. He mercifully straightened before she embarrassed herself by swooning in his arms.
Tina rolled over on the cushioned seat of the swing so that she faced them. Her eyes had a fierce glitter and her pretty mouth was twisted.
'She was very, very naked. I could tell even though she lay under the sheets. Your cheating brother had his back to me, but she was on the bed - our bed - all seductive and showing her bare shoulders and bare legs to all the world - and to him. She never noticed me. He didn't either, until I hit the side table on my way out and broke that lamp - the one I got him from Singapore? I'm glad that's gone.'
'What did he say? I'm sure there's a good explanation,' Mohini croaked, although she couldn't imagine what - what could justify a naked woman in her brother's bed?
Mohini tilted her head so as to glimpse Aalok's face out of the corner of her eye. She raised both eyebrows at him, but he shrugged. Clearly he d
idn't know either - couldn't think of anything that would explain away the woman.
'I wasn't about to wait around to find out where he'd met her, or what she meant to him,' Tina confessed. 'I didn't need to know. How would that have helped anything?'
'What if...?' Mohini began, but she was peremptorily cut off by an imperious Tina.
'No more,' she said, rising from the swing like a monarch who was done addressing her court. 'I need a loo. And some night clothes. I left mine in his apartment. His new woman can use them for all I care.'
She swept off in the direction of the main house, leaving Aalok and Mohini flummoxed in her clamorous wake. At the door, she turned around, her eyes glittering with pain.