Sea of Innocence

by Desai, Kishwar

  Her hands remained steady, while the spray that splashed me from the sea felt hot enough to burn.

  I was probably half lying on the rocks by now, and I struggled upright. But my legs were refusing to move forward, locked by some invisible key.

  ‘Hold my hand.’ Veeramma’s voice sounded far away, and her shape changed and grew into a garuda, the great mythological bird. I blinked at her as I tried to move and found that I was completely frozen.

  Somehow she dragged me across what seemed a long line of sharp rocks. I couldn’t be sure of anything. I was in agony. Was I holding her hands or the garuda’s claws? Was the pain I felt from the outside or from inside my skin? Were my eyes open or closed?

  ‘Keep moving,’ said another voice, very, very close to me. Melvyn? But I shook my head and slid immediately into the waves, which were still leaping out to get me. My arms and legs were being pulled out of their sockets; I felt like a rag doll, bumped along, pushed and pulled.

  Veeramma’s voice grew fainter and fainter and the water entered my lungs and I, thankfully, stopped breathing.

  Chapter 7

  I woke up in my room, with my head still throbbing, and with Veeramma by my bedside. She sat on the floor, her forehead knotted with worry lines. Her colourful beads and fake-silver ornaments were spread around her as she sorted them out.

  I tried to sit up, but though the room still spun, I didn’t feel as bewildered as I had been. I was reminded of when I was seventeen and had announced that I was going to get very, very drunk to my college friends – and proceeded to do just that. I had passed out and it took me a week to recover.

  ‘You stupid or what?’ Veeramma said so firmly and abruptly that I did not mistake her meaning.

  An array of medicines was on my bedside table. On closer examination most of them seemed to be anti-nausea pills and vitamin-B tablets, with a few strips of paracetamol. Nothing serious, then. Obviously I hadn’t died as yet. And was not likely to do so anytime soon.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘You been sick all day all night,’ she said grimly. ‘The doctor said you drugged.’

  ‘Drugs? I’ve never taken them in my life. I don’t even know what they look like.’

  The fact that I could have been slipped a drug made me remember what had happened with Liza and Marian. To say that I felt foolish would be an understatement. I remembered how I had taken a high moral ground, mentally castigating Marian for leading her sister astray and accepting drinks from complete strangers. What had I done that was any different?

  Someone was definitely keeping an eye on me. Having successfully forced Durga and her friends to go back to Delhi, they were now trying to force me to do the same.

  I had very hazy memories of what happened to me yesterday, and my attempt to cross over the rocks to Anjuna while obviously flying as high as a kite. Ridiculous! I had done many crazy things in my life, but this was probably the most embarrassing of them all.

  I closed my eyes in despair, recollecting that at one stage I had crawled on my hands and knees, not caring who was watching. Obviously I hadn’t been given a very high-quality drug – instead of being enjoyable, the experience had been a nightmare coupled with extreme pain.

  I was lucky to be alive, since the slightest stumble would have seen me smashed against the rocks.

  So, as I had suspected while talking to the two men at Cozee Home, the whole thing had been a complete set-up. I had been lured there – and given a dose of what Liza had got. Except that Curtis was not interested enough to have raped me.

  Whose side was Marian on? And why had she taken me there, in the first place? Surely she knew I would meet Curtis, and why would she do something so brazen in which she was bound to be caught?

  Yet, puzzlingly she had spent the longest time with me, had taken me to Cozee Home. And, in between, I had been slipped those drugs.

  Why would she do this? After all, I was trying to help her find her sister. It made no sense at all.

  ‘I been sitting long,’ Veeramma volunteered. She had stopped sorting out her wares, and was now staring at me unabashedly.

  I was touched by her care. It was much more than any stranger was likely to give me. Especially after the way I had apparently behaved yesterday. I must have been frighteningly out of control.

  ‘Cost me a lot of money then, since you charge by the hour,’ I joked. But there was not a glimmer of a smile on Veeramma’s face.

  I picked up the prescription for the doctor’s phone number, calling from the landline in my room. I needed to find out what happened to me. I didn’t care even if that nosy receptionist was listening in.

  Dr Sunny Diaz told me in no uncertain terms that he had to caution me about taking drugs which did not suit me. There was a lot of chemical cosh on the beach, mostly coming from Pune. And that at my age I should be careful.

  I cleared my throat. ‘Doctor, could it have been just food poisoning?’

  There was a silence at the other end.

  ‘Miss Simran, you are a tourist here. And you must be careful with what you eat or drink. If you prefer to call it food poisoning then I will let you do that. Though rarely do people hallucinate with an upset stomach.’

  I was puzzled (and even more embarrassed) by his insinuation.

  I thought back to the various possibilities. The most probable way in which the drug could have been given to me was in the wine at Cozee Home. But then I remembered that I had felt a mild discomfort all morning, as well, especially after sharing my breakfast with Marian. Thus had she given me a dose in the morning and had Curtis D’Silva unleashed his peculiar brand of hospitality on me and spiked the wine later too? More importantly, had Marian warned him that I would be coming to the hotel? Looking back, his appearance – almost as though on cue – to instruct Melvyn to give me a drink was suspect. Of course, I had thought I had been very clever, outsmarting him by stopping him in the hotel corridor. He was obviously smarter than I was. And Marian was the absolute genius amongst us all, I thought bitterly. I still did not know what her game was, except that she had almost got me killed.

  ‘Madam, I tried telling that day. This not safe for you, if you still hunting for girl. She gone; forget her.’ Veeramma interrupted my chain of thoughts.

  ‘How can you say that?’ I struggled to sit up, while my neck and my head felt they would be dislocated any minute. My tongue was still swollen and I had developed a strange lisp.

  ‘I must look for Liza. Someone saw her again yesterday. Her sister told me.’

  ‘Sister, shister!’ Veeramma spat out. ‘Go see truth!’

  ‘Where? I have been asking you since yesterday. Why don’t you tell me what you know?’

  Her eyes flashed with such venom that even I shrank back on the bed.

  ‘Go ask her. She fool you. She no cry, no worry. Just pretend. Go see her at Arpora bazaar.’

  The angry tone in her voice made me remember that tonight was the flea market, an occasion which gave stiff competition to vendors like Veeramma. That could be one reason she was so angry – with me, with Marian, with the whole world.

  Every Saturday night the land adjoining the Anjuna beach at Arpora was converted into a giant bazaar, with hundreds of big and small stalls. It was a legacy from the hippie days, when foreigners who flooded into Goa needed money to buy their drugs, and they began to sell whatever they had with them. Slowly this became a weekly ritual, and while most of the original flower children had left, now all kinds of art and crafts were on sale. But the motivational factor had probably moved on from drugs to pure commerce. Music played in the background, and sometimes people danced and others performed. Temporary bars and long rows of restaurants selling exotic food sprang up overnight, ensuring the crowds which sometimes touched over a million would stay on till early morning. But while the sellers were both local and foreign vendors, the level of business was more organized than those of the wandering beach vendors. Many hundreds of thousands of rupees could be spent in a single
evening. It was a ‘flea market’ only in name.

  ‘Did you see Liza there as well?’ I asked curiously.

  Veeramma shrugged noncommittally. ‘Seen many like her.’

  Perhaps this was the time to show her Liza’s photograph, to confirm we were talking about the same girl. The last time she had refused to look at it. I hunted for my mobile phone, buried at the bottom of my handbag.

  Taking it out, I began scanning through for the message to which Amarjit had attached the photograph.

  For a moment my breath almost stopped.

  All the photographs and videos on my phone had disappeared. All my messages had been wiped clean. I went to my desk, and took out my laptop, quickly turning it on to check if, by chance, the videos and photographs were still in its memory.

  Not only had everything been deleted, I couldn’t even get into my email because my account had been hacked and my password had been changed. A lot had happened while I was sleeping off the effects of whatever drug had been slipped into my food or drink.

  In a state of shock, I sat back.

  So that was the reason I had been drugged. I wondered if Veeramma had managed, somehow, to get the messages deleted from my phone and computer. She was smart enough to do so. But she was still with me, and it was unlikely she would take such a huge risk.

  Yet someone had realized that I had these damaging videos and decided that they needed to get rid of them.

  I was beginning to feel hunted, and intruded upon. Violated and assaulted. Whoever was keeping a track of me was doing an extremely good job. Both the people who had sent me the videos and the others who had wiped them out were aware of what I was doing here. While one side was trying to keep me going, the others were obviously trying to intimidate me. I wondered where this would eventually lead. It could be more dangerous than I had thought. In fact, if I had actually fallen off the rocks and died, and everything had been wiped from my computer and mobile phone, no one would ever know what had happened to me.

  And it was ironic that Marian who had warned me that everyone on the beach had colluded to cover up Liza’s disappearance, because of their close associations with each other, might herself be part of that close-knit group. So what was her link with everyone here? It was pointless asking Veeramma, who seemed to have a pathological hatred for her.

  Besides, Veeramma could be involved in the cover-up as well. Rather than looking after me right now, she was probably keeping an eye on me. Could her dislike for Marian just be a spoiler, so that I wouldn’t know who to trust?

  Thanks for saving my life,’ I said to her slowly, trying to sound genuine and to remember exactly what had happened yesterday.

  How could I find out if she was involved? How could I be sure which side she was on?

  I took out a handful of 500-rupee notes from my wallet and thrust them at her. I knew I was both thanking her and bribing her, but I needed to know more.

  I knelt next to her, pushing the money into her hand, and said as earnestly as I could manage, despite the weakness I was beginning to feel, Tell me where you found me and how you brought me back here.’

  She took the money and tucked it into her saree blouse. And to my surprise she shook her head.

  ‘Not me, madam. Hotel call me. They say you calling my name. Then they call doctor.’

  ‘But I was walking over the rocks to Fernando’s. I slipped, and almost fell into the water. And then you came and helped me. You dragged me to safety.’

  A slight smile crossed her face this time. ‘What you say, madam? You lying in room when I came.’

  Had it all been a nightmare, then, just another part of my drug haze? Had I imagined everything – the rocks, going towards Anjuna, Melvyn appearing there, Veeramma rescuing me?

  She looked sympathetic, and waved one hand around my head. ‘Madam, drug do this to you. You dream everything.’

  I decided not to question her any more about my behaviour. I got up, and looked down at my jeans, which I had been wearing since yesterday, and found that though they were torn in a few places, I did not seem to be as badly hurt as I had imagined. I recollected the pain and then realized that Veeramma might be correct after all. I had been hallucinating.

  ‘Did anyone touch my phone?’

  She shook her head. ‘I no see, madam. Your bag lying here. You check money, passport all there? Too many thieves on beach.’

  I already knew that my wallet was where I had zipped it in. My passport and credit cards were fortunately in the hotel locker here in my room. So obviously only my phone and my computer had been tampered with.

  She began to get up.

  ‘I go now. Be careful, madam. I told you the other day that all this big trouble for you. Big big sharks. Go back to daughter.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll see you on the beach.’ I nodded to her feebly as she left the room.

  When Veeramma mentioned Durga, I was jolted into remembering that I had promised to call her and my mother. Pushing aside my sickness, I rang home, resigned to a familiar harangue from my mother as she checked whether I was alright and, of course, if I had met anyone ‘significant’. Over the years this had become her code for asking if I was finally going to bring home a partner for myself. But as time flew by, to her disappointment, though there were quite a few very special men, none of them had grabbed my hand permanently.

  I knew she had given my number to Amarjit in the hope that perhaps now, as a fresh divorcee, he would show an interest in me. I could hear her sigh when I told her that I had no clue if he was going to be back in Goa anytime soon.

  Calling home made me yearn for some normalcy in my life again. Compared to my Delhi life, my Goan experience seemed increasingly strange, and I longed for the few peaceful days I had enjoyed here before Amarjit had sent me that video.

  My mother, unaware of my present plight, told me that Durga was out with her friends, while Sharda, her sister, was learning new recipes for making Italian food from my mother. So tomatoes were being whizzed in mixers, pasta being boiled and markets rapidly denuded of oregano and parmesan cheese. Or so I was told.

  And then we discussed the Delhi gang rape survivor whose every breath the nation was praying for. Indeed, I too felt compelled to search for Liza because of this young girl’s courage. Despite her terribly fragile state, she had identified and named each one of her rapists in a detailed statement to the district magistrate. One hoped that thanks to the media focus, the promised fast-track courts would come up and that her case, unlike that of Scarlett and so many others, would not languish for years.

  Meanwhile, the news I conveyed to my mother, as can be imagined, was quite limited. I could hardly tell her that while I was hunting for a girl in Goa who had been raped and molested, I had apparently been drugged, and had hallucinated about walking on a beach calling out for a woman who sold sarongs and silver jewellery. It definitely did not sound reassuring.

  Instead, after stating that I was still on the lookout for a potential husband, I said goodbye and gingerly tested my legs once more. Surprisingly, I was feeling better already, and I sat down again at the desk to make a forward plan, as well put down some notes.

  I also needed to let Amarjit know what had happened so far. I ordered a couple of hardboiled eggs and some toast. I was suddenly feeling very hungry, as I realized that I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast yesterday; but I didn’t want to risk anything more elaborate.

  Just to be on the safe side I also decided that I would visit Fernando’s tomorrow, but without telling Marian, as I wasn’t sure if I could trust her. Today I would go out only in the evening, when I was completely recovered.

  If I were to trust Veeramma’s version of events, I had somehow come back to the hotel, or collapsed somewhere near it. The hotel staff had then brought me to my room, and because I was calling out for her, asked Veeramma to sit by my side till I woke up. But somehow I just couldn’t believe it.

  It was indisputable that I had passed out at some stage, and someone had b
rought me back, and perhaps it was that same person who had wiped the videos and photographs from my laptop and phone. Even if I asked the hotel management about who had brought me back, I had a feeling no one would give me any straight answers.

  Nonetheless, I rang the inquisitive Maggie, who normally was never short of answers or questions, to find out if she knew anything.

  There was a silence while she obviously thought about what to say.

  Finally, very cautiously she said the general manager had been out for lunch at the time, but she would inquire from the rest of the staff and call me back. She personally knew nothing about the incident. Her unusual reticence made me wonder how much she really knew. Of course she wouldn’t call back, of that I was sure.

  I put the phone down, wondering how I would ever learn what had really happened to me.

  I took off my clothes and stood in front of the mirror on the wardrobe, twisting and turning, reading the evidence on my body. The scratches on my legs and bruises on my arms proved that I had slipped on the rocks but I could also have been dragged along or at least had been pulled and pushed a little. I ached all over, but thankfully there seemed no reason to suspect anything worse than a bit of rough manhandling.

  Wondering who had seen me in that condition, and who had picked me up, made me feel further humiliated. Thankfully, Durga and her friends were not here any more.

  Registering a fresh email account, I sent a long message to Amarjit, describing yesterday’s curious events. I requested him to re-send me Liza’s photograph and the two videos which had been deleted.

  I also asked him, once again, if he had got anything further to share with me, especially any information on the men who were with Liza in the videos, and, if so, to send it to me as a matter of great urgency. In just two days my life seemed to have turned upside down and I seemed to be getting sucked deeper and deeper into this case. Now after what had happened to me, I felt outraged and more determined than ever to find Liza.