by Sharon Maas
They were both out yesterday and I searched the office. Not a single letter from Aunty and Uncle. And that old phone book of Appa’s? You mean the one with the black cover that was falling apart? They threw it out long ago. They have a shiny new phone book. I once saw a letter with an American stamp on it in the waste paper basket, unopened. And later that day Aunty burnt all the paper in the yard. I think that’s probably what she does with all their letters: burn them. Sorry I can’t help. If I can do anything else let me know. When you find Asha give her a hug for me.
Damn it. Typical. There was only one option left for Janiki. She had to go there herself. Back to India. Somehow pick up Asha’s trail. She had just one hope remaining, and that lay in the email trail left by Asha’s captors. She’d have to read those mails, one by one; some, the ones in Hindi, she’d have to get translated. There must be a clue in there, somewhere. If there was a clue she’d have to follow it. She had to be present. But she had another idea too. Quite a brilliant one, in fact. Amma had been so impressed because Kamal Uncle was really a prince. And he came from a magical kingdom called Moti Khodayal. The name of the kingdom had stuck. There, he would have relatives. There, she would track him down.
Email from Janiki to Naadiya:
Just about to leave for the airport, see you soon; flying to Bombay. If I don’t find Asha I’m going to look for her father, Kamal Uncle. He needs to know. I have no idea where he is so I am going to see his grandmother, who apparently lives in a palace in Gujarat. Amma used to tell us that Kamal Uncle is really a prince from this old kingdom called Moti Khodayal. The kingdom no longer exists but the palace does – it’s where Kamal Uncle grew up. He’s bound to have family there and they will know where to find him. He needs to know. The more people looking for her the better. We will probably need money too and hopefully he has some, because I am dirt poor. Used every bit of my savings and sold my beloved PC to buy my plane ticket home.
Email from Naadiya to Janiki:
By the time you get this you’ll probably be here in India already but just wanted to say don’t worry about money. I have enough to help as much as I can. You should have told me earlier – you didn’t have to sell your PC! But no worries, I’ll buy you a new one.
Chapter 23
Janiki. Moti Khodayal, 2000
Rani Abishta pulled impatiently at the bell-rope. The big brass bell swung back and forth several times, clanging out an impatient summons.
Seconds later a servant, clad in a long gathered skirt and matching blouse of evidently the finest silk, hurried through the velvet curtain that separated the Surya Hall from the Corridor of Mirrors.
‘Your Majesty?’ she said, placing her palms together, lowering her eyes and bending forward from the waist.
Rani Abishta’s finger traced a languid bow and pointed upward, to one of the two television screens fitted into the ornate woodwork arch at the entrance to her cubicle. On one of the screens flickered the coloured pictures of a new video film Lakshmi, her lady-in-waiting, had brought the day before. A ravishing apple-cheeked heroine mouthed the words to a soundless song: Rani Abishta had pressed the mute button on the remote control. The other screen was black and white, and it was to this screen that Rani Abishta now pointed. The girl’s gaze followed the finger and she looked at the screen herself, rather nonplussed, for it showed nothing but the closed front gate and a lone figure standing outside it.
‘There is a stranger at the gate,’ said Rani Abishta. ‘A female. Find out who it is. And summon Lakshmi.’
Rani Abishta’s hand sank to the carved sandalwood table at her side, and her fingers closed around the remote control. She pressed a button, and with a thwack the television screen turned blank. The servant frowned; Rani Abishta hardly ever turned off the video. From dawn till dusk the moving pictures flickered; occasionally, during conversation or to issue a command, the film was mute for a short space of time, after which Rani Abishta would press the rewind button to replay what she had missed. Two or three times a week Lakshmi would sally forth into the town to Bisheswar Video Rentals and return with a bagful of new films, which Rani Abishta would consume without break over the next several days.
Lakshmi was now sixty-six. Her legendary beauty had matured like quality silk. Her skin, nourished with rich oils and kept resilient by daily massage, held the patina of old gold. Not a wrinkle blemished her complexion; to her demanding mistress she had managed to smile through all the years of service, and not just with her lips but with her heart, so that her outer beauty remained undistorted by the inner ugliness of a disgruntled soul: Lakshmi had kept her dignity. She had gained weight, of course, and the folds of her sari now enclosed a solid form, thickset but without flab, and still shapely, curving in and out as befitting a woman in the ripeness of years. She was sorting through Rani Abishta’s saris when the personal walkie-talkie that connected her to her mistress rang. Rani was calling. Lakshi dropped everything and hurried down to the Corridor of Mirrors.
Breathless and flustered as she plunged through the bead curtain, she quickly collected her wits and approached Rani Abishta, gliding up with folded palms and a winning smile.
‘You called, Majesty? Shall I change the film? Did you not like that one?’
‘I want to know – who is that female visitor? What does she want?’
‘She wants an audience with you, Majesty. I tried to find out what her quest is but she said it is private. She wants to speak to the head of the household but when questioned she knew nothing. She does not even know that it is just you here. She asked to see the family.’
‘Bring her,’ said Rani Abishta, and a few minutes later Janiki was ushered into her presence.
‘Janiki Iyengar, Majesty. She says that is her name. She is from a place called Gingee in Tamil Nadu. Please take a seat, Miss Iyengar.’ She gestured to a puffed cushion opposite the grande dame.
Rani Abishta rolled herself a leaf of paan, her eyes fixed on the young woman before her, not saying a word. Under that unnerving gaze, Janiki fidgeted, adjusting and readjusting her legs beneath her. She was unaccustomed to sitting on the floor after several months in the States.
Lakshmi moved a small low table into reachable distance and a serving girl placed a jug of a clouded liquid and a bowl of mixed sweets on it.
‘Lime juice,’ said Lakshmi, pouring her a glass. ‘Very cold, very refreshing. And do have some nice sweets. Those laddus are delicious.’
Grateful for the distraction, Janiki reached for a laddu and bit into it; it was indeed melt-in-the-mouth delicious. She picked up the glass and sipped at the lime juice. Tried to avoid Rani Abishta’s gaze, which was fixed unwaveringly on her.
‘Well, Miss Iyengar, what brings you to me? You know I am a busy woman.’
Janiki cleared her throat, coughed, and began to speak.
‘I am looking for the relatives of Kamal Bhandari.’
Rani Abishta did not so much as blink. She kept her eyes on Janiki and took another deep drag on the hookah. Water gurgled; loud in the silence in the room. Outside, in the garden, a songbird warbled and far away a dog barked, but Rani Abishta only sat there gazing at Janiki. Those who knew her well, however, might have perceived a slight raising of the eyebrows, a very slightly heightened pulsing of a blood vessel near her ear.
‘So,’ said Rani Abishta at last, ‘and how are you acquainted with the person you mentioned?’
Janiki, so encouraged out of her discomfiture, stumbled over the words in her eagerness to explain.
‘Well, you see, Mr Bhandari, he has a daughter, she’s twelve now, and my mother, well, my late mother, I mean, she died a while ago, she was looking after the girl. Since birth. And I am like a big sister to her – I looked after her when she was small and we are very close. And now she is missing. Lost. I am trying to find her. And I need to inform Mr Bhandari that his daughter is lost as possibly he does not know. And I do not have his address so I was wondering, I was hoping, his family could contact him or help me find him.
It’s urgent you see. I think Asha, that’s the girl’s name, is in danger, and we have to find her quickly, and—’
‘Stop! Stop, stop, stop. That is enough. Did you know, young lady, that this Mr Bhandari broke off contact with me many years ago? How many years ago was it, Lakshmi?’
‘Fourteen, Your Majesty.’
‘Fourteen years. Not a letter, not a card, not a phone call. That is the gratitude I have earned from my grandson. My only grandson.’
Janiki’s heart clouded over.
‘Oh! You mean…’
‘I mean he has broken contact. Doesn’t want anything to do with me. I, on the other hand…’
She cackled.
‘I, on the other hand, know all about him. I have kept track. I have my methods. I have my spies. I know the date he married and the name of the white foreigner he married. I know the date the two of them flew out of America and returned to India. I know the name of the family they put up with in Gingee – you are correct, it is Iyengar. I know that he first worked at the Aliyar dam at Coimbatore and then at the Tehri in Uttarkund. I know the date of his daughter’s birth and the date his wife flew back to America and the date she divorced him. I know the name of the company in Dubai who employ him to this date. And I have his phone number at that office. Why don’t you just phone him and tell him what you told me. Lakshmi, bring the phone and dial Kamal’s number for me. It seems it is time we used it.’
And a minute later Janiki was holding the phone to her ear and it was ringing, somewhere in Dubai.
Somebody answered, spoke in a foreign language, presumably Arabic. Janiki placed her hand over the phone and with wide-open eyes mouthed to Rani Abishta, ‘I don’t understand!’
‘Just ask for Kamal,’ said Rani Abishta.
Removing her hand, Janiki said: ‘May I speak to Mr Bhandari, please.’
In perfect BBC English, the voice said, ‘Mr Bhandari is unfortunately abroad. Can I help you?’
‘Oh, um, no – when will he return?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t help you with that. Shall I take a message?’
‘No – but can you please ask him to ring me when he returns – it’s urgent.’
‘Certainly – but may I know who’s calling?’
‘Oh – oh sorry, yes, of course – my name is Janiki Iyengar. I need to speak to him urgently. My number is – hold on a moment…’
Janiki fumbled in her handbag for her address book, flipped the pages until she found Naadiya’s number. She spoke it into the receiver.
‘Will he be back soon? Like, in a day or two? Or has he gone away for longer?’
‘I’m sorry I can’t tell you that, ma’am,’ said the soothing, polite voice on the other end. ‘However, we certainly don’t expect him back this week.’
‘Oh! Well, it’s very urgent, a personal matter – I need to speak to him! Do you have an email address for him? Any way I can contact him urgently?’
‘I’m sorry, ma’am, I cannot give out his private email address. I can gladly let you have his business address. You can write to him there.’
‘Yes, but will he be checking his business mail in the near future? It’s really terribly important. An emergency. A private emergency!’
‘Ma’am, unfortunately I can’t tell you when Mr Bhandari will be checking his business email. Can I help you further? If not perhaps you’d like to write it down. Do you have a pencil to hand?’
‘Just a minute.’
Janiki made frantic writing-in-the-air signs. Instantly Lakshmi handed her a ballpoint pen and she scribbled down the address dictated by the voice.
‘Is that all, ma’am?’
‘Yes – no. Just, if he calls, tell him it’s very urgent.’
‘I will, ma’am. Thank you for calling. Goodbye, and have a nice day.’
The voice clicked off; the line began the buzz of emptiness. Janiki handed the phone back to Lakshmi and turned to Rani Abishta.
‘He’s gone – he’s not there! Seems whoever you have stalking him isn’t quite up to date.’
Rani Abishta chuckled and held out her hand for the phone. She punched it a few times and then spoke in a language Janiki did not recognise – possibly Gujarati.
‘I’ll have that information within the hour,’ she said. ‘In the meantime, shall we have a little chat?’
The words, though framed as a question, were spoken as a command, and Janiki, who did not feel in the least like chatting, found herself in the middle of an interrogation. At many points, she wanted to say ‘None of your bloody business,’ but couldn’t. Meekly she answered Rani Abishta’s questions; it was as if she were under a spell, and could no more resist than she could resist eating when hungry or drinking when thirsty.
‘You are very beautiful – how old are you?’
‘Twenty-six, ma’am.’
‘Are you married?’
‘No, ma’am.’
‘You are very old to be still single.’
‘That is because I want to finish my education before I marry. Actually, I am engaged to be married.’
‘Where is your fiancé at this time? Did he allow you to come here on your own?’
‘My fiancé is working in Delhi, ma’am, and he is a modern man – he does not control me.’
‘Aha. So you are a modern couple? Arranged marriage or love marriage?’
‘It’s a love marriage, ma’am.’
‘So not binding I assume. No contract between the parents? Your parents would not be angry if you broke it off?’
‘My parents are dead, ma’am. Surely you know that, the way you keep tabs on Kamal Uncle’s life.’
‘Don’t be rude, just answer my questions. I am asking you all this for a purpose. Why is your fiancé in Delhi and you are here?’
‘Because, ma’am, I am trying to find my little sister. She’s important to me.’
‘Kamal’s daughter?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘But you are also trying to find Kamal, is that not true? That’s why you came here?’
‘That is true. Because Kamal Uncle needs to know—’
‘Could it be that secretly you are planning to seduce my grandson? A beautiful young woman like you?’
Janiki jumped to her feet, hot with anger.
‘What a preposterous thing to say! Of course not! How dare you insinuate—’
Rani Abishta threw back her head and laughed. She waved at Janiki, downward movements with both hands.
‘Sit down, sit down, girl, and don’t act so offended. You foreign-returned ladies are all the same – always taking offence. Listen to what I have to say.’ As if again under a spell, some power she could not resist, Janiki fell back onto her cushion. Rani Abishta continued, in a soft, soothing voice: ‘There’s nothing wrong with a beautiful woman trying to seduce a man. Men are weak when it comes to that. Most men, that is. Unfortunately not my Kamal. I tried my best with so many beautiful women. Tried to arrange his marriage with the most exquisite maidens – any man would have fallen for those girls. Instead, he got angry. Finally he wrote me a rude letter and cut the connection to me. Then he married that blonde ferengi, that foreigner. I would never have allowed it but what say did I have? Luckily she left him, divorced him, married another. He is ripe for the plucking. I need a great-grandson – I need him to remarry. Unfortunately it seems he has taken a vow of celibacy and is hard to pluck. He lives like a monk, blind to the charms of women. So my private detective tells me. But I will crack him yet. Every man has his weak spot. It was written in his stars that he would be a monk. It never happened – but he is a half-monk. Living like a monk but holding down a job. I suppose it is all destiny but destiny can be broken. I do not believe in that mumbo-jumbo. Just as an engagement can be broken, destiny can be changed. It is all a matter of will. Your fiancé doesn’t sound very attached to you. Why don’t you try to marry Kamal, once you find him? All this will be his one day. He is a very good catch, if you can catch him.’
She spr
ead her arms and waved them around, to demonstrate what ‘all this’ was.
Janiki, reeling from the effects of that outrageous, rambling discourse, jumped up indignantly.
‘That’s just – that’s just – it’s ridiculous! Just crazy! I’m engaged! I adore my fiancé! And Kamal Uncle – he’s old! Why would I even – I never once thought – that’s just crazy!’
‘Not so crazy, not so old. Only twelve years older. That’s perfectly reasonable. My husband was twenty years older than me and we were perfectly happy. The younger you are, the more likely you are to succeed. Older men like younger women. It’s in their blood – it’s biology. Young women to carry their seeds. They can’t help it. A young, beautiful woman to wake up Kamal from this half-monk nonsense. He married once, he can marry again. It’s my job to facilitate a marriage but he is not communicating with me. But if you can find him it might work, if you don’t mention that I sent you. Of course you would have to be subtle about it, use your feminine wiles. All you have to do is act helpless and sweet, bat your eyelashes a bit at him. How could he resist? What do you say?’
Janiki bent down to pick up her handbag. With her absurd proposition Rani Abishta had broken the spell. The woman was out of her mind, Janiki realised; living under an obsession, an illusion, and trying to make her party to that fixation. She would have none of it. Ignoring the last preposterous suggestion, she said, ‘Thank you for your information, for letting me use the phone. It was very helpful. Hopefully Kamal will contact me through my friend. Hopefully I can make some headway and find Asha. Goodbye, Mrs Bhandari.’
She turned away. Lakshmi leaned towards her ear. ‘Your Majesty. You must address her as Your Majesty.’
‘Well, I won’t,’ Janiki spat back, but under her breath. ‘She’s just a crazy lady.’
‘Ha! I heard that!’ Rani Abishta laughed. ‘We will see. Goodbye, young lady, and good luck with Kamal. In every respect. Kamal Uncle? Ha! Very funny.’
Out in the Corridor of Mirrors, Janiki turned to Lakshmi.