She was flustered when we headed out towards the village.’Why again? Papa said it’s not safe.’ I could hardly tell her that Fantasia, despite its allure, held something brutal, something dark enough to snatch her away. I gripped her hand more tightly, drew her closer, with a whispered ‘Shush! Don’t talk so loudly’. Don’t draw attention to yourself Rhea, because the force may be targeting you next.
Under the lambent yellows of flickering street lights, we headed towards a row of small kirana shops. Every two feet, I instructed Rhea to sidestep turds of cow dung and human shit covered with flies. Then a diaper. Then a broken bottle. Then a chicken-bone. Then wet slush that washed onto the pavement. We barely lifted our heads for fear of mucking up our shoes. ‘Why do we need to walk on this dirty road, can’t we go back?’ she said.
With my eyes rooted to the ground, I almost didn’t notice the familiar figure standing at the Sairam General Store, a kirana that sold everything ranging from orange-coloured candies to cigarettes and onions. At first, only the woman’s back faced me, but she must have heard my approaching footsteps and turned around. Her face was haloed by the kirana shop’s glow. At once, I spotted the burn mark near her lower lip, the forward-thrusting chin. Gowri? Had she returned? I waved out, eagerly. Her eyes widened and a deepening flush crept into her cheeks. Then she turned again, and fled into the warren of little alleys that constituted the village beyond. Was she afraid of me? Why?
We started following her in, stepping across a dog lying at the entry to the alley, curled up like a comma. My daughter bent down at once to ruffle its neck with a soft ‘Doggie, doggie.’ ‘Don’t Rhea, that’s not safe, it’s a stray dog.’ The dog started growling. Rhea continued to stroke its head. The growls amplified, first one dog, then two more, then four more. Before I knew it, we were amidst a pack of mangy stray dogs. One snapped at Rhea’s heels, and followed us, snarling. Aroused from their torpor, the others followed suit, growling and scampering behind us while I quickened my steps and urged Rhea towards the turning ahead. Panicking, my daughter shrieked and tore across the street. Her hysterical response goaded them into excited pursuit.
I stopped paying attention to where Gowri had disappeared and ran after Rhea. There was no sight of Gowri, in any case. The dogs yelped louder. I could barely hear myself above their fierce barks. ‘STOP, Rhea, STOP.’ But Rhea was terror-stricken, and she bolted ahead, while the dogs, gathering speed, had almost caught up with her, to my horror.
Under a sparking street light, I spotted a familiar face smoking a cigarette at the plywood shop by the crossing. Our Fantasia dhobi! For a few seconds, I could have sworn he relished our plight, the mirth on his face ill-concealed. Slowly masking his wicked smirk, he flung a small sharp stone at the pack, and shouted: ‘Oye, hogo.’ I wasn’t sure which dog was hit, but I heard whimpering and then a hesitant retreat. I rushed ahead towards Rhea, my precious little child, flushed and whimpering, but unbitten. I hoisted her on my hips and turned back to the dhobi.
‘Do you know where Gowri’s gone?’ I asked, warily watching the strays disperse into the darkness. He had made it clear that he knew the rules of his world as I didn’t, couldn’t.
‘Who’s Gowri?’ he said, the smirk still smeared across his face.
‘The woman who just walked ahead, she has a scar here.’ I pointed to the region below my lower lip.
He laughed. ‘That’s not Gowri. That’s Bharti.’
‘Can I meet her?’
He shrugged his shoulders, and pointed me in the direction of the Fantasia gates. ‘Madam, you don’t come here, it’s not safe. The village is not for people like you. Better you stay inside.’
The village, lit here and there by dim bulbs, seemed to hiss in agreement. Enter at your own peril, its evil, fitful lights seemed to say. Two drunks staggered towards us, then stumbled over jagged pavement stones, cackling as they collapsed into clumsy heaps. I had already come this far and what choice did I have? I ignored his warning and headed towards Gowri’s home, lifting a heavy Rhea to my hips. Because it was Gowri, wasn’t it, despite what this man was saying? Surely, two women were unlikely to share the same scar? Besides, she had recognised me. When I reached Gowri’s dwelling, I was mocked again by the locked door. There wasn’t any chalky clown this time, but the rangoli near her threshold was laid out in a bizarre pattern. A circle, with two more circles inside. It could have been a face with two eyes. No lips, no grin, but the spectral laughter echoed between my ears.
Thimakka’s home, when I eventually found it, was locked too. Already? She had called me only a few hours ago. Enquiries directed at neighbours elicited shrugs and indifferent mutterings: ‘Don’t know.’ ‘Didn’t tell us.’ Why did I get a sense again, that the whole village was complicit in this malevolent game? The natural curiosity, the commonplace meddlesomeness of such dense spaces, was all strikingly absent.
The next morning, after a restless night, I decided to stop by the tree-house and confront the dhobi again. After all, the man seemed to know something. He had seemed playful the previous evening, even malicious, but surely inside Fantasia, he wouldn’t dare be that cheeky? At least he would grant me the respect due to a ‘Madam’ inside our community.
After dispatching Rhea to school, I set out on the forest path with its shaded canopy of trees. During the day, his ironing cart was usually parked by the generator unit, and could be approached from here or from around the golf course. I had walked through the forest many times. On gloomy days, when all the trees and plants were droopy, roots gnarled by recent rains. On dank days, when even the air inside the forest stank - of wild animal droppings, of dead leaves rotting in scattered piles. On such walks, all I encountered was nature’s squalor—creepy insects, wet slime crusting scaly trunks, mosquito-infested pools of green water.
But that morning, Shangrila blazed with rainbow colours, fulfilling the builder’s covenant: Fantasia: A Rainbow Dale. Violet rays drizzled through tangled branches, rich and mottled greens filled the leaves, fiery reds dotted bushes. Everything glistened with a syrupy perfection, as if Kusro himself had paintbrushed the forest with his Photoshop tools. Trampling on rich yellow pathways filled with squashy copper pod droppings, inhaling spiky eucalyptus scents, my thoughts rode the sing-song of the cicadas.
I must have been more than a quarter of the way through the three-mile pathway, when I heard wings flapping behind me. At first, I thought I was fooling myself. After all, the woods were hardly silent at that time, with its myriad creatures droning, buzzing, purring. It could have been any bird, a parrot or crow even, flying above the thorny brambles and thick bamboos that hung over the pathway. For a few minutes, I stopped and gathered airy, pink flowers that left milky trails when snapped off their stems. The flapping had stopped. I walked again, and I could hear the wings beating behind me. Almost as if some large bird were trailing me. My pulse raced, but I tried to temper my breath, calm my thoughts. Maybe it was all in my head, I told myself.
When I reached the banyan tree, I encountered another winged danger I hadn’t foreseen. The bottom of the tree-house hung thick with bats, some small, a few large and furry. The idea of one flying into my face seemed worse than encountering some other feathered creature. For a few minutes, I stood by the patterned trunk, warily watching those upside-down bats, with their eyes shut and wings folded. The noise halted, too. Why was my courage constantly fleeing when I needed it most? Then I thought of Sajan, my little boy, bravely foraying outdoors, heedless of the dangers that lurked. And of little Rhea, enthralled by the parks in our place. Gingerly, I climbed the ladder that the Fantasia fathers had propped into place, and scooted into the tree-house. Below, the forest continued to warble and chirp, but the medley of noises was hushed inside the tree-house. As my eyes widened, inside the dim light, my foot stumbled over something rubbery. A deflated black balloon. Who had left this here? Stooping carefully, I picked it up to examine its dirt-encrusted mouth. Of course, the kids came here frequently, so one of them must have droppe
d it here. But I was reminded of that poor bird in Manjushri’s backyard, the one with a balloon tied to its feet. That balloon had been black too. But why would something as innocuous as this bother Thimakka?
Just then, I heard something rattling the ladder to the tree-house. Was someone or something climbing up, after me? For a few seconds, frozen by fear, I couldn’t move. The ladder rattled again and I convinced myself that it was just the wind and thrust my unwilling body towards the entry.
Outside, a V-shaped shadow briefly darkened the forest pathway, and then vanished again. A large bird’s wings? I knew I couldn’t stay in the tree-house forever, paralysed by my wooden limbs. I rapidly clambered down the ladder, and sprinted all the way through the woods. Racing ahead despite how out of breath I was, my knees spiking with pain, I arrived at the open area by the generator.
The dhobi stood there, smoking. He was a bony man with a scraggly beard. There was something skittery about him, a sense of constant turmoil in his fidgety hands. But I was so relieved to spot another human being, I could almost have embraced him. It took a few minutes to slow my breath down, to gather the energy to talk to him.
‘Madam?’ he said, with the same mischievous glint of yesterday.
Looking back, my eyes still peeled on the woods, I asked him about Gowri’s whereabouts. ‘You have to tell me where she is, I will reward you.’
For a fleeting minute, he seemed to hesitate. ‘How much?’ he asked.
‘Thousand rupees.’
‘Three thousand.’
‘Fine,’ I said.
‘Gowri’s dead. But her ghost lives here.’
‘In Fantasia? Where?’
He was smiling again, the same wicked smirk he had worn yesterday. Was he fooling me? Was he part of this game, whatever it was? He waved his hands in the direction of the forest. ‘I can’t tell you more.’
‘In the woods? She lives in the woods?’
He had stumped his cigarette out, and was ironing again.
‘What about Thimakka? Do you know where she’s gone.’
‘Village,’ he said.
‘Are you sure she’s gone to her village?’
‘Her brother had accident.’ His hand and head moved with the heavy coal-heated iron, as he swept its flat, hot bulk against a cotton T-shirt. I was annoyed with him. Why had I promised to pay for his curt statements? I was almost about to snap at him, when I saw the face staring at me, from his ironing cart. From the kid’s cotton T-shirt that was being gently flattened with each brisk sweep. The clown. That evil clown glaring at me again!
‘Whose T-shirt is this?’ I froze and sensed beads of sweat gathering on my upper lip. What was it about that face that brought on such jitters?
‘You are paying for this also?’ he said. ‘How much?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Two thousand.’
‘I will give it it you tomorrow. Tell me whose T-shirt this is?’
‘Villa 65,’ he said.
Villa 65? Why did that number sound familiar? It wasn’t anyone I knew well, or visited often. Yet, it seemed to jog some memory.
Just then, there was a loud rustle in the woods. Shortly, the Chief Security Guard - a bald, hefty man, with a rounded, muscular tummy - emerged from the pathway. His long shirt was untucked from his trousers, flapping against his thighs. Like a bird’s wings. Had it just been him, walking a few yards behind me? Fantasia guards had been instructed to comb the woods every now and then, to keep a watch on children darting inside. Had someone specifically directed him to stalk me though?
I called the clubhouse security guard for information about Villa 65. ‘Ghosh family,’ he said. It still didn’t ring a bell. I hadn’t interacted with any Ghoshes closely. ‘Do they have any children?’ I asked. ‘Bijoy, Madam,’ he said. Bijoy? Did it matter that the sweet, tongue-tied kid possessed a clown T-shirt? Or that his home contained something that shook Thimakka? Why had she directed me to the tree-house?
That night, Manas returned with an unusually fatigued expression. He sank into our living room couch and said his company was running out of funds. He was desperately trying to get other investors on board.
‘Are you sure you want to continue with this? Maybe you should just close shop and start working.’
‘Really? And maybe you should stop your origami bullshit and get a real job.’ Something shook inside me. My husband had never disparaged my craft till then. He was one of the few who believed in its worth.
‘Bullshit? Is that what you think it is? What about your company’s app? Why is that not taking off? Where are the millions of customers?’
‘Where are your buyers and collectors? Why aren’t you making money with your art?’
‘Who’s running the house and doing the parenting? Are you paying me for that?’
‘I can’t deal with some feminist spiel right now, I have investors barking at me. I don’t need you adding to it...’ He slumped back in our settee and held his face in his palms.
‘Manas, I think we need to move out of here. I don’t know what’s happening but Rhea’s in danger. Thimakka warned me about something and then disappeared.’
‘Vedika, I’m not in the mood for this. I’m tired of your half-baked theories. You don’t know why she’s in danger, but you just want to move? I need Raj on my side. I’m not going to shut shop, I have employees, we’ve just started getting customers. Raj has opened so many doors for me. Don’t talk to me about this again. I think the problem is with you. You need a job, something to keep you occupied. Something to stop you from digging around this place.’
By then, we were both hot and sweaty and breathing hard. So it was almost inevitable that one of our worst arguments segued into make-up sex. Manas, kissing me hurriedly and fiercely, carrying me out from the living room to the upstairs master bedroom. That night, he slammed into me with such vigour and rage, it was both exhilarating and frightening. What was this place doing to us?
TWENTY-THREE
OVER THE NEXT FEW days, I was angry and frustrated. Where had Thimakka disappeared to? It was common knowledge inside Fantasia that maids were often drawn back to their villages by various crises. But Thimakka had been prowling around those kids’ rooms. Was she in trouble? In some sense, bumping into Gowri had been vaguely reassuring. If she was still around, perhaps Thimakka too had just headed to her village like the dhobi said.
In the meanwhile, I had to deal with unwashed dishes and unswept floors. My mother had always prided herself on running our home without help, neglectful about its undusted corners even as she flaunted her fierce independence, and grounded middle-class values. I couldn’t see myself running a home like hers, subjecting myself to such harsh penitence. Soon after moving to Fantasia, I had become accustomed to the leisurely mornings and indulgent afternoons, to the indolence that characterised upper-income Indian homes. Wasn’t this part of the promise?
Most Fantasia women were fastidious housekeepers who were wised up to their maids’ wiles. They shifted couches from their usual positions to check for regular sweeping, and moved the crockery in dining cabinets around, to detect tell-tale signs of subterfuge: dust, cockroach eggs, cobwebs. Many were disgruntled that they were paying more than the ‘Classic’ or ‘Mansion’ norm for shoddy work, when they found cobwebs and dirt tracks. Given how lenient I was about my maid’s sweeping and dusting, how oblivious to unseen spaces, I was dismayed at how quickly the housework piled up now.
For two whole weeks, I did what my mother used to. Cooked, mopped, cleaned and laundered. Manas helped as much as he could, but given his strenuous timings and soaring stress levels, there was only so much he could contribute. Besides, after losing such an important lead, I wasn’t in the best of spirits. I tired easily and rested frequently.
To add to everything, Rhea was turning antsy. She wanted to play outdoors, but I couldn’t let her scamper about with the other kids, unsupervised. Kids always knew how to make the best of a bad situation. And my daughter was as canny a
s the others. She sensed my hesitance about imprisoning her indoors and she bargained for an extra gift, a barking stuffed pup that she had discovered on Amazon. ‘If you get me that, I won’t ask to go out.’ It was blackmail no doubt, and despite my parenting instincts to resist it, I succumbed. It was fatiguing to fight so many forces at once.
The toy, ordered on Prime, arrived at our doorstep the next day. Like most things these days, the bubble-wrapped plastic version was less enticing than its online avatar. Still, for a day or two, ‘Swarna’ pacified Rhea’s urges to break out of her boring indoor confines. Then, the inevitable pleas returned. Rhea wanted to take the pup out, show it off to the other kids. She wanted to wear her favourite jumper like always, and flaunt the new toy in her life. Eventually, I acceded. I knew more searingly than anyone else that kids rarely enjoyed their toys in isolation. Since much younger kids were venturing out on their own, surely Rhea could too? While I constantly feared something befalling her, I was also afraid of trapping her inside my own anxieties.
Strangely, that was also the time we discovered that her favourite denim jumper was missing. I called the dhobi, but he said it wasn’t with him. When I called a bewildered Manas at work, he wondered if Thimakka might have taken it but I refused to suspect her. I knew her well enough, she wasn’t a thief. Distressed by her missing jumper, Rhea bargained for more outdoor time than the negotiated forty-five minutes. ‘Ma, nothing will happen,’ she said. So she left our home everyday for a heartstopping hour, while I tried not to dwell on all the dangers that lurked inside our place.
For two weeks, I waited for my lady, but by the middle of the third week I frantically hunted for a replacement. I couldn’t let housework distract me. I needed to focus on my investigation again, before the scents wore off.
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