Fear Is the Key

by Juggi Bhasin

  Rahul’s mouth was dry and his heartbeat quickened as he put forth his next question. ‘What was the name of this senior manager?’

  Janki looked at him oddly and frowned. Her demeanour changed completely. She sounded and looked cross. ‘Hey, look mister, I don’t run the yellow pages out here. I fucked you this evening, and I have been answering all your questions. What have you given me in return? Tall promises and some crazy scheme of parallel networks. How do I know that you are not pulling a fast one? I give you information and you start your own scam, leaving us out in the cold!’

  ‘No, that is not my intention.’

  ‘Fuck you!’ Janki’s eyes blazed, and she suddenly got up with aggressive intent.

  ‘Calm down,’ counselled Rahul.

  ‘Let’s see some real intent here, mister! I am convinced that you scammed poor Dubeyji! Get up and start walking to the door. Don’t think you can take advantage of me at this time of the night!’

  Rahul held his hands up in mock surrender, and slowly got up. He went up to the sofa to take his jacket. His hands fished about inside the inner pocket of the jacket to take out a bulky packet. He tore off the envelope and threw a thick wad of notes on the table near the sofa.

  ‘That’s three lakh rupees,’ he told her. ‘It’s what I call an initial offering. I had planned to give it to both of you on my way out, but you doubted my intent. I feel betrayed. Maybe both of you just don’t have it in you to rise in life.’

  Janki rushed to the table and grabbed the wad of notes. She quickly checked them for their genuineness. She looked at Rahul, and her expression changed again.

  ‘Oh! You dear, dear, sweet boy! I am so sorry to have doubted your intentions. Forgive me. When you are down and out, then you turn away good fortune even if it comes visiting your house. How can I make it up to you, dear boy, for my temerity, for speaking to you the way I did. Come, lie down on the sofa. I will lift up my nightdress. You can fuck me again. All this excitement must have charged you.’

  Rahul’s hand shot out. He grabbed her breast and twisted her nipple. She wanted to scream but held back. He continued to twist her nipple in unabated fury. The veins on his neck stood up and his face was red. She screamed silently. He pushed her away and she fell to the ground. There was real menace in his voice when he spoke.

  ‘I am a businessman. I have invested in both of you. I know how to get my returns. Don’t you ever forget that. Let not this sweet, innocent face fool you. Now, what was the name of that senior manager?’

  Janki shakily got up and sat heavily on the dining chair. Her hair was in disarray, and she suddenly looked older than her age. ‘Her name was Simone,’ she squeaked.

  Rahul felt light, as if he was weightless. It made his head spin. His deep suspicions about the three men were slowly, but surely, coming true. Suddenly, a terrifying thought struck him. What if the three of them were connected in some way? He again had a sense that he was being pulled to the doorway near the column of light against his will. He forced himself out of this state of being.

  He steadied himself, dragged a chair and sat close to Janki. ‘Okay, so, let’s start afresh and stop monkeying around. My name is Arvind.’

  She replied quickly without any drama. ‘Janki, that’s my name.’

  ‘Okay, Janki, I will listen and you will talk. Tell me everything you know about this Simone, her company and your dealings with her. Don’t leave out even the most minor of details.’

  For the next two hours, Janki talked and Rahul listened attentively. Dawn was breaking as he staggered out of the Dubeys’ flat and made his way to his car. He sat in the driver’s seat, and for some reason, burst into tears. He had made a huge discovery, but he had paid a price for it. He had betrayed Simone even as he had his first inkling about what might have happened to her.

  CHAPTER 30

  Rahul parked next to two men warming themselves by a small fire lit from wood shavings collected from a nearby construction site. It was freezing cold. The temperature had dipped and the weatherman had predicted colder days ahead. The streets were thinned of traffic as everyone rushed home to escape the growing chill. The middle-aged man in the government-run liquor shop stood behind the counter, glancing at his watch and rubbing his hands at the same time. Rahul gestured to him to wait before he downed the shutters. A peanut-seller wrapped in a muffler and cap, sitting at the entrance of the shop, perked up at the prospect of a sale. Rahul got out of the car and ran up to the shop.

  ‘Just in time, mister. I was going to bring the shutters down. So, what will it be? Some whisky to warm you and your friends up?’

  ‘Well, okay, half a bottle. But give me a dozen bottles of chilled beer.’

  The man behind the corner did not mask his surprise. ‘Chilled beer in this weather?’

  Rahul took out his wallet and told him. ‘You should try it sometime. A cold one in the cold works like a dream.’

  The shop employee shook his head as he packed the order. It had been simpler when he was growing up. Now, these educated youngsters with their newfangled ideas had changed everything.

  Rahul added some packets of peanuts to his order and walked back to the car. He looked at his watch. There was no time left for the session. He unlocked the car and called Tanya. She sounded cross.

  ‘I don’t like being stood up for a session, Rahul. I know you pay for each one but I am a stickler for rules. If you feel these sessions are not helping you, we can take a break.’

  ‘My deepest apologies, Tanya. There’s been a lot of unexpected activity these last few days. I missed today’s session because I am real close to unearthing something of significance. If it makes you feel any better, it is you who made it possible. Your counselling has taken me out of the black hole I was in. I feel charged and optimistic . . .’

  ‘Listen to me, Rahul!’ Tanya’s rebuke cut him off mid-sentence. ‘You are playing with fire. You are still tender from your wounds. It will take a lot for your mind to heal. You are rushing into things half-cocked. These are matters for the police to decide. You are in a state of unnatural excitement . . .’

  ‘I have to go, Tanya. I believe in you. You need to have some belief in me. I am compelled to do whatever I do to reach a logical conclusion. I will make it to the next session. That’s a promise.’

  He cut the call before she could reply. He turned the car keys and sped all the way to Usman’s house in Jamia Nagar. The street light leading to Usman’s tenement was not working. The entire area was plunged in darkness. A few lights bobbed in the straggle of houses along the unlit street. Rahul walked up to Usman’s door and stood still. He put his ear against the door. He heard someone shuffling inside. It stopped, and then he heard a scraping sound. There was some silence, after which the familiar, muted sounds of panellists verbally arguing on a news show came through.

  Rahul knocked. The sound from the TV went off and Usman opened the door. He stood leaning on a cane, surprised to see Rahul.

  ‘Hyder Ali. This is an odd time to come visiting.’

  ‘I was in the neighbourhood and thought I would check on you. Sorry if it’s presumptuous of me. I can come another time.’

  ‘I did not mean it that way. You are always welcome. You are my rehnuma. Come in.’

  Rahul held up the beer pack in the weak light, and Usman looked pleased. Rahul walked into the room that looked even more frayed than before.

  ‘How’s our wounded soldier?’ he asked.

  ‘Healing but not as fast as I had imagined. It’s very frustrating to be confined to this room.’

  ‘Well, it’s nothing that some beer and shots of whisky cannot set right.’

  A wolfish smile came up on Usman’s face. He arranged a table for the beer and peanuts. Rahul made the whisky shots and Usman raised his glass.

  ‘So, what are we drinking to?’

  Rahul watched Usman carefully and raised his glass. ‘To finding the right woman wherever she might be.’

  Usman laughed wholeheartedly. ‘
I will drink to that, rehnuma, even though it’s not going to happen for me in this lifetime.’

  ‘Why do you say that, Usman? You are a good-looking and strong man. You are a man of great energy. You will get there, I have no doubt about that.’

  ‘If you say so, Hyder Sahib, but deep down I know I am a bum. If I wasn’t one, I would not have lost the woman I loved . . .’

  Usman downed two shots in succession and followed them up by drinking straight from a beer bottle. He lit an unfiltered cigarette and inhaled deeply, passing the stick to Rahul.

  Rahul declined and prepared another whisky shot for Usman. He knew Usman was ready to spill out what had been troubling him. He gave him a casual nudge without appearing to be too interested in such matters.

  ‘Oh! Perhaps you are referring to that girl you met in the swimming pool. What was her name? Ah, Simone . . .’

  ‘Simone . . . yes . . . Simone.’

  Usman said her name with a sense of finality. He looked lost, red-eyed from the drink, staring at some imaginary point on the wall. He took the shot and was ready to talk.

  ‘When I look at my wretched life I think of her as the only good thing that happened to me. She came in unexpectedly and she . . . left unexpectedly. I remember I was preparing the monthly roster at my desk near the changing rooms. She came and stood in front of me like a vision from jannat. She looked so vulnerable and yet so understanding, as if she could see through my soul. She was blessed with this unique contradiction, which can be so appealing to any man.’

  He smiled at Rahul and reached for another bottle of beer. He tasted the brew and continued with his narrative.

  ‘I was drawn to her immediately. Not in any sentimental way at first. It was pure lust when I looked at her. I would wait in the evenings for her to come by and then I would coach her, lovingly running my hands over her lithe body, touching her in the guise of teaching her. She took her time, but slowly she began to respond.’

  For a moment or two, Rahul did not hear Usman describe the short, raunchy narrative of their mutual attraction. It was like he had suffered something that, in television terms, could be best described as a loss of transmission. He felt betrayed, but oddly, he was very calm. He felt reconciled to the idea that Simone was many things to many people. She probably led a different life outside the space she shared with him. He was not sure about his feelings for her now. He had let the process of finding her overpower the emotion he might have felt for her. He felt more and more fascinated with knowing her fully as a person. That was all that really mattered to him.

  Usman then reached a crucial point. ‘One day, both of us acknowledged the pull we felt for each other. It was an evening like this. It was closing time at the club. There was no else in the pool but us. We came out after her lesson, and she went to the ladies changing room for a bath. Two minutes later, she asked me to come in. There was no one around. She took me to a corner and kissed me passionately. Then she untangled herself and pushed me away. Till this day I cannot forget her words: “I am very confused at this stage of my life, Usman. I feel so drawn towards you. But I cannot lead you to a place where both you and I will be completely lost. That would be immoral and wrong. We are two different planets spinning away from each other. You are not from my world and you never will be. After you have made love to someone, you have no choice but to wake up in the cold light of the day. So, let it end here. I am so sorry . . .’

  Usman lit another cigarette and leaned on his cane to pace the room. He was clearly agitated. He looked at Rahul as he continued. ‘Let me tell you something about love, Hyder Sahib. It is an exaggerated feeling. When it possesses you, you feel you can move mountains. But it has a short life span. If Heer and Ranjha had got married and lived to be old, they would have probably ended up hating or divorcing each other. The emotion of love is basically flawed in its make-up. It is irrational to start with, and it ends by making you and leaving you irrational.’

  ‘What are you trying to tell me, Usman?’ asked Rahul quietly.

  Usman made no attempt to conceal the fury that had gripped him. He took an empty beer bottle and hobbled to the kitchen sink to smash it. He picked up a piece of glass and put it in his palm, crushing it in his fist. The shard broke into tiny pieces and rivulets of blood sprang out from between his fingers. Rahul ran up to him and forced him to open his palm. He held his hand under the tap, picked out the glass and washed the blood off his hand. Then he tore a piece of clean cloth and bandaged his palm.

  ‘Have you gone crazy, Usman!’

  Usman hobbled back to his chair and drank straight from the whisky bottle. He faced Rahul with fiery eyes. ‘This is what she reduced me to. She broke my heart and would still come every day to complete her swimming lessons. Do you have any idea, Hyder Sahib, what I felt at that time?’

  ‘No, tell me.’

  ‘By rejecting me, she reminded me, as nothing else could, that I was a bum. I was born a bum and I would die one. It would take me several lifetimes to reach her status. I hated myself, my circumstances, my class of people, and everything about myself. I suddenly realized that my swagger, my Tata Sumo, the manner I would brush back my hair, the Ray Ban I would stylishly wear, the flash I would display . . . all of it was one big lie. In reality, I was a creature of the gutter, a lower form of life who in his miserable existence had become lucky for a few days when a girl like Simone took a fancy to me. It was just that. Whatever stirrings of love I might have felt for her had vanished. She had, in a sense, forced me to look into the mirror where there was written in red lipstick “gutter worm”. I changed every day after her rejection. I became a dangerous animal that is rabid, whose tunnel vision tells it to pass on the disease to others. Others like Simone . . .’

  Rahul lost his equanimity when he heard that. A sickening sense of what inevitably followed sank into him. He struggled with himself not to smash a bottle over Usman’s head and cut his throat with a jagged edge. He asked Usman with eerie calm.

  ‘What did you do next?’

  Usman’s head sank to his knees, and he closed his ears to block off imaginary screams.

  ‘What happened, Usman?’ asked Rahul with unconcealed urgency.

  Usman looked up. There were tears in his eyes.

  ‘Hyder Sahib, I got drunk one night just as I am now. I barged into her apartment. I forced open the door on her. It all happened so quickly. She was stunned as I sprang on her. With both hands, I gripped her throat and began to choke her. She thrashed around trying to throw me off, but I was on top of her like a leaden weight. She went blue in the face. I was seconds away from snuffing her life out. Then I released her. She was gagging and coughing violently. I tore off her T-shirt and she lay helpless and naked under me as I pinioned her arms at the back of her head. I held her in that posture and suddenly, she stopped struggling and looked grimly into my eyes. I got up and unzipped myself. She then said something that stopped me in my tracks:

  “Usman, you can rape and kill me. But how will you look at yourself in the mirror every day, knowing what you did to the girl you loved more than anything else in the world?”

  Rahul got up. He could no longer pretend that a vein of red hot anger had not opened up in him.

  ‘What did you do next, you miserable bastard?’

  ‘The violence and the lust went out of me, Sahib. I felt emptied. I took off the cover from the dining table and covered her nakedness. I felt incapacitated to say or do anything after that. I walked out of her apartment.’

  Rahul was trembling violently as he looked at Usman. ‘You are lying aren’t you, Usman?’

  ‘No, rehnuma. I am not. I have bared my soul to you . . .’

  ‘You are lying, you son of a bitch, are you not! You did not stop at that? Tell me . . . what did you really do?’

  Rahul screamed his lungs out, and Usman was convulsed with deep, uncontrollable sobbing. He got up and banged his head repeatedly against the plaster. A deep gash opened up but he did not care. He kept on banging hi
s head and repeating himself. ‘I am not lying, Sahib! She saw through me at that moment when I had lost all control. She knew I loved her more than anything else. You tell me, how could I have raped her after that? I had to let go . . . I had to let go . . .’

  *

  It was close to 9 p.m. when Tanya locked up her clinic. It had been a bit of an out-of-sorts day for her. She had cancelled all other appointments after Rahul registered a no-show. She sat in her office brooding, preoccupied, mulling over Rahul’s situation. She ordered a light snack but left it untouched after it arrived. She had spoken to Suhel before she left the office.

  She drove her car to a tree-lined avenue in Westend, an upmarket part of town. She went up two floors to Suhel’s apartment. She spent close to an hour there, and finally, she trudged down to her car. She reached home a little after 11 p.m., feeling a headache coming, one that was growing worse by the minute.

  CHAPTER 31

  ‘I am back.’

  ‘So you say. Are you really? You look most unlike yourself. I would say you look completely distracted.’

  ‘You think so . . . yeah, maybe . . .’

  Rahul stopped pacing around in Tanya’s counselling room. He went up to the shuttered window and opened it. He looked out and tapped the window sill repeatedly. He then put his hands deep into his trouser pockets and fished about for some imaginary coins. He again looked out and sharply drew in the air, then closed the window and came back to sit on the chair. He looked intensely at Tanya. His fingers beat a rhythm on the armrest of the chair.

  ‘I want to talk to you, Tanya. I want to talk about so many things. My mind is in a whirl. Help me make sense of things.’

  ‘Okay. Where do you want me to start? Or should I take the lead?’

  ‘Sure, you decide.’

  ‘Fine then. I would like to talk to you about Simone today. Shall we?’

  ‘No . . . not her,’ he said, a note of dullness creeping into his voice.