No Trespassing

by Brinda S Narayan

  I was struck by another thought. I hurried across our petunia-lined pathway and entered the servant’s room. Reeling inside the musty mixture of camphor, oil and sweat, I quickly glanced under the single bed and inside the toilet. Mariamma’s things were still around. At least that. If she planned to disappear, why would she leave her stuff behind? There wasn’t much: a few calendar pictures of Krishna and Rama stacked against the window, and her large steel trunk. I’d have left the room then, almost missed it, because I wasn’t looking for anything like that. Something black and snake-like, something hairy sticking out from the trunk. That child’s braid! The one that Mariamma had affixed on Rhea once. As a sharp sensation speared into my gut, I opened the trunk. My hands still shook but I started breathing again. The braid wasn’t attached to a body, it was loosely coiled on her soft cotton saris and blouses. It struck me now as it hadn’t struck me then. Was this braid Mira’s, her daughter’s? Had Mariamma stowed it inside as an ominous reminder?

  I was about to leave the room when my eye was drawn to a Fantasia layout flattened on her striped bedding, a pullout from the brochures we had received at Fremont. The gloss had worn off the sheet, and the folds smudged with white streaks but the text and pictures were clear. Everything in our layout was depicted - the four clusters with their eighty numbered villas, the lake, golf course, forest, Zen garden, clubhouse. What drew my startled gaze was this: on a few villas, she had affixed crosses with a red marker pen. One on Villa 65 in the Arcadia cluster. Bijoy, my speechless little helper lived there. And then, Villa 12, Joanne’s home. Then suddenly, with a pounding fear hammering my chest, I read the other numbers. 37, the home of that couple who had departed when their baby had that muscle issue. Then 2. That was Kalpana’s, where Gaurav had attention issues. There were other numbers too, but what shook me was that all the special children I had spotted had been marked out. Even if she’d overheard my stray conversations with Manas, I had rarely mentioned villa numbers. Was she, an uneducated woman, the mastermind?

  I heard a sound in the kitchen. I thought I heard voices too. My chest expanded with an airy lightness. My daughter was back. I quickly shot out of Mariamma’s room, and climbed over our backyard hedge, like a prowler. I reentered our villa from the front door, expecting to encounter Mariamma stirring about our kitchen, with her ingenuous smile: ‘Tea, Madam?’ But it wasn’t Mariamma, just Thambi, licking sugary crumbs from the kitchen counter. Every muscle inside my body throbbed as my mind convulsed across the past few years. Why hadn’t I spotted her? Had her ginger teas, her caring smiles, her deft handling of tedious household tasks lulled me into complacence? Even when the others had suspected her, I’d stayed mulishly defensive. I should have known that such an industrious, uncomplaining worker was likely to harbour a shadowy other side.

  I had been constantly seeking danger outside, but the real threat had been lurking inside my own home.

  I called the gate guards and frantically told them that my daughter was missing. I asked them to comb the complex, especially the lakeside path and the golf course area. Hurriedly, I also warned them about Mariamma and the milkman. ‘Don’t allow them to leave the complex,’ I said. My voice was screechy and I wasn’t sure if the guards were sufficiently convinced. But I didn’t have the time to get into the story. I needed to head to the tree-house and then to the generator room. If I didn’t find them in the next half-hour, I planned to involve the police.

  FORTY

  AS I BOUNDED INTO the woods, my heart beating faster, my lungs constricting inside my chest, I felt like everything was calling out to me. I saw Rhea everywhere, on the trees, inside bushes, her face puckered among leaves, her voice riding on the breeze, her trusting eyes peering out from every dark shadow. I was just a quarter-way through the woods, when something hurtled into me. Bijoy, the child’s face as white as a sheet. What had he seen? ‘What is it, Bijoy?’ ‘Ree, Ree, Ree,’ he said, tugging me with a desperate urgency away from the trees towards the Shangrila villa that overlooked the forest path. Rhea was at Damini’s villa? I could have hugged Bijoy just then, but I was too eager to see my daughter. ‘Wait here, Bijoy. I’ll go check.’

  I rushed towards Damini’s front door. It was almost dusk, and just then, the Fantasia streetlights were turned on. Across, the forest glared with dark, menacing greens. Perhaps it was the light, or perhaps my nerves were taut, but a shadow fell across the pathway leading to her front door and I screamed. ‘Madam?’ said a voice behind me, while I held my palm clamped against my mouth, and turned to encounter the portly Chief Security Guard. ‘You are needing help?’ he said, his smirk visible even in the dim light. Had the gate guards dispatched him here?

  I didn’t know if I could trust this man. What if he was the milkman’s assistant? So I waved him away.

  ‘No, I’m fine.’ I scurried down the path that led down Damini’s garden. I wasn’t aware then, as I heard the guard retreat from that lane, if Damini was at home or in the country even. Fortunately, the porch light was on and I could see an upstairs bedroom dimly lit, so someone was home. It was unlikely to be her son or husband, since they were rarely around. On the few occasions I’d met her husband, he seemed hesitant, like he was waiting for cues before he said or did anything. But any man married to Damini might have wilted like that - she was, after all, strong and domineering. A strength I was suddenly glad she possessed.

  When I reached her porch, I turned to see if the guard had really left or if he was still watching me. No one was visible beyond the hedge, but the sky had darkened so much, anyone could be hidden in the leafy forest cover. I rang her doorbell. There was no response. I rang it again. And again.

  With relief, I heard Damini rushing with quick steps to the door.

  ‘Vedika?’ she said, opening the door a notch. She broke into a familiar, broad smile. ‘I was just trying to reach you on the intercom. Your daughter’s with me.’

  ‘Thank God, Damini. You’re my saviour. How did she get here?’

  ‘The milkman was darting out of the woods, with Rhea in his arms. I was pottering about in the garden then, so I asked him what happened. He said the child had fainted in the tree-house and he was carrying her home. I asked him to drop her off here, and said I’d call you myself. He seemed reluctant but I insisted. You wouldn’t want the milkman carrying your child around, would you darling?’

  No I wouldn’t. Not that hateful man. ‘Of course not. Damini, you don’t know what you’ve done. You’ve saved Rhea’s life. Thank you so much. Where’s she? Where’s Rhea?’

  Just then my daughter’s face peered from the banister. ‘Mama,’ she shouted and scrambled down the stairs to hug me. As I held her close, and breathed in the sweet powdery odour that always surrounded her, I felt like an immense weight had fallen off my back. My body felt so light, I could have floated. ‘Can I go back upstairs? Auntie’s letting me play a game, can I come later, please?’

  ‘What happened to you, sweetie? Where’s Mariamma?’

  ‘I don’t know. I fainted, then when I woke up, Auntie was with me.’

  ‘You don’t look well, Vedika? Why don’t we sit down in the Reiki room. With some Australian wine. I’ve just received a new case.’ She headed towards her Reiki room and beckoned me inside. ‘Don’t you love this room, darling? So peaceful.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, briefly glancing at her white walls. This wasn’t the time to dwell on anything else.’Damini, I’ve made some shocking discoveries.’

  An hour later, I was so relieved. I should have known Damini, who was always willing to attack the builder, would support me. I should have come to her first and avoided that skirmish with Raj.

  ‘Darling, we need to nail the bastard,’ she said, when I had narrated the whole series of events, starting from Sajan’s accident to the lab report to Rhea’s abduction. ‘He’s with them on this, he’s a bloody crook, and a dangerous one at that. I’ll be back, I need to check on where he is and then we’ll get the police on his trail. Mariamma and Venkiah are just m
inions, but he’s a beast...’

  Just then, Rhea darted into the room. ‘Ma, please, can I drink this?’ She held a tall glass of Coke topped with ice. Coke was usually forbidden at home, but the rule seemed immaterial just then. ‘Yes, sweetie,’ I said.

  Damini left us alone for more than a few minutes. I was still very jittery. Where were Mariamma and Venkiah? Were they still watching us or had they already absconded? With my eyes peeled on the window, I wondered how Kusro was connected with the Dhoolvansh incident when Rhea interrupted my thoughts.

  ‘Ma, can I leave the rest? I don’t like it.’ She had sucked in most of her tall drink. ‘Doesn’t taste nice.’

  ‘Leave it there on the chest of drawers. I’ll tell Auntie.’

  As she placed it on the top, some of her drink slopped out. Trickles of sugary fizz seeped into the drawers’ crevices. ‘Rhea, careful. What have you done, baby?’ Rising from the couch, I wiped the spill with my scarf. Opening the first drawer to mop up the seepage, I spotted a framed photograph of a plump child. A floppish fringe fell on her forehead and her shirt was tucked out of her shorts. My first thought was, such a cute child! And dressed like a boy in shorts. Shorts?

  A discomfiting heat surged into my face. Something about the shape of her legs below her shorts revived that ghastly memory of the evening behind the bush…Who was this child? Was it Damini? With trembling fingers, I slid the second drawer open. A pigeon feather rested on a sheaf of ruled paper. Below the heap of stationery, lay a pair of thick white gloves and a plastic mask: some of the accoutrements of our killer clown.

  Behind me, I heard a door being swung open. My heart was thumping loudly against my chest, but my vision was clear. On the opposite wall, under the faint lighting, fell a familiar shadow: a hefty silhouette I would have recognised anywhere. Venkiah? The milkman? The Clown? But no, this wasn’t Venkiah. This person was bald. The Chief Security Guard? No, it wasn’t him. Raj? What was he doing here? Suddenly someone brightened the lights, and the person stepped up behind me to reveal his... her face! It wasn’t Venkiah or Raj or the Chief Security Guard. That burly shadow belonged to Damini - the woman, completely bald, looking manlier than ever without her hair. My voice was almost choked. ‘Your hair? What have you done to it?’

  ‘A wig, darling,’ she said, her voice huskier than I remembered it.

  I could no longer deny the uncomfortable awareness welling up inside, something that I must have intuited earlier but had blinded myself to. Damini wasn’t the ally I thought she was. Her fluid and compassionate face had been replaced by something unfamiliar: a frightening steeliness. She, not Venkiah, was the clownish villain.

  ‘I trusted you,’ I said, quelling the flutter in my stomach, ‘I didn’t realise you were with us that evening. When Mira died. Because you wore shorts, I always remembered you as a fat boy.’

  ‘Darling,’ she said, ‘we’re childhood friends.’

  ‘Friends?’ Something was rising inside me, a foamy wave that threatened to overtake my being. ‘You killed my son.’ A bellowing fury roared between my ears, as I remembered the Reiki sessions, where I had spilt my feelings to a kindly listener.

  ‘I had no choice. We had to replicate the atrocity in your kind of territory. You see, when it happens to the poorest, no one cares. But lead poisoning in Fantasia? This will interest the press like nothing else.’

  ‘But you killed Sajan. How could you have done this?’ I tried to quell the rising hysteria in my voice. From the corner of my vision, I spotted something shiny and metallic, something round-bottomed like a vase, that came crashing down on my head.

  A few hours later, when I woke up with an achy head, the room swam before me, the objects careening into each other, the cabinet and the brass gong and the Reiki massage table coalescing into a sweet fog. I was woozy, I wanted to give in, sink into a long sleep. But I rubbed my eyes, and tried to focus on the buckling walls.

  A molten fear moved through my innards. I had been imprisoned inside the Reiki room. Rhea was with me, lying prone on the Reiki table. With a spiking panic, I moved closer to her, held my palm against her nose. She was breathing. Alive, but unconscious of her surroundings. ‘Rhea, baby, Rhea,’ I called. But my daughter was too woozy to wake up. Outside, I could hear voices and frantic scraping noises. It sounded as if Damini and her crew were packing up, readying for a quick departure.

  ‘Here, put this here,’ ‘Pull this there.’ Damini’s booming voice rose, and then dropped again, as if my ears were shutting down. Like my eyes, that just wanted to close, and slip into a heavenly unconsciousness. It wasn’t just the knock on the head. It was the wine! Damini had drugged me. And Rhea, with that Coke. I tried to fight the feeling that overwhelmed my senses, the desperate urge to disappear into a sweet wooziness, and forget my surroundings. My eyes burned and a strange, acrid taste seeped into my throat. Was it the drug? Had it entered my bloodstream now, and started taking control?

  I heard Mariamma’s voice responding to Damini, then shuffling familiar footsteps. I had risen to a sitting position, my legs resting on the floor, my back leaning against the wall. I had charged my mobile on the flight, I could sense its hard rectangular presence inside the pocket of my jeans. I tugged it out, frantically punched the phone log. The battery warning popped up: Low battery. Oh, no, please God, let me make one call. I dialled Manas’ number. But before the call connected, my head dropped forward, and I fell unconscious again.

  When I woke up a few minutes—or was it hours?—later, I groaned. My sides—my hips, my shoulder, my twisted neck—were aching. I had fallen on the floor, and there was drool by the side of my mouth. The marble floor below me was as cold and unyielding as ice. It took me a few seconds to shake off the fog that had enveloped my senses. I looked around the room, expecting to encounter the familiar objects inside my bedroom. The bedside tables crammed with books and clocks, a collage filled with Sajan’s photographs. But this cold, dark place, with its Reiki table and gong, I realised with rising despair, wasn’t home. This was Damini’s room. I sat up with a start. My mobile was gone. Perhaps it had fallen somewhere on the floor? Groping along the walls, I reached the door and tried to twist it open. But it was firmly locked. I banged on the heavy wooden barrier with my fists. There was no response, no sounds outside. Had Damini and her team already vacated the premises? My head was heavy, pounding. How would we escape?

  My eyes roamed along the dim shapes inside the room, along the bare walls. A single window was tightly locked. It had no bolts on the inside, and the vertical grills were too closely wedged for anyone to wriggle through. Were we completely walled in? I slithered along the unadorned walls, feeling for the light switches. On the fourth wall, besides the inset that held the brassy gong, I found a light switch. Toggling it ushered a gleaming luminescence into the space around me. I had been afraid that Damini might have turned off her mains before leaving. Or perhaps, the silence outside was deceptive and she hadn’t left yet? I looked around at once, and tried to spot my mobile. But it wasn’t anywhere on the floor. Damini must have come back in, and seized it.

  I crawled towards the cabinet and slid all the drawers open. I was hoping to find something heavy inside, something to smash the window with. The first two drawers contained only stationery, the gloves and the mask. The third drawer was filled with an assortment of black-and-white photographs, notes, newspaper cut-outs and other documents.

  With an impatient heave, I flung all the papers on the floor. I picked up a photograph of a young Damini posing with her family. Her mother was beautiful in an old-fashioned way, thick-lipped, long lashed, round-cheeked. Her father had smallpox scars on his face, and piercing eyes that gazed intently on the woman by his side. Even if I hadn’t recognised the scars, I would have spotted those probing eyes anywhere. Damini’s father was Nitish Patel. By Damini’s side, was a little boy in a wheelchair. Hadn’t Damini mentioned once that her brother was disabled? Was this him? Was he struck, like Raj’s baby, with cerebral palsy?

&nb
sp; My attention was drawn to a typed article by Nitish Patel: ‘The principal of the Missionary School, Mr. Wilson, who had personally witnessed the behavioural changes in his school kids, agreed to testify. But before the hearing, he chickened out. Frightened off by Mira’s swinging body. The judge at the Dhoolvansh court, a man named Abdul Khan, had been bribed by the builder. So had the Pollution Control Board scientist, Debashis Roy. The miner and builder, Shyam Mehta, did not appear in court. He dismissed all our pleas. He called us, on separate occasions, ‘bird brains’ and a ‘bunch of clowns.’ Such is the state of justice in our country. We should question if we are really better off post independence or not,’ wrote Patel. Pinned to the article was a short rejection note from the editor, a man named Thomas Mathew. Hadn’t Simi mentioned once that Jacob’s father was a Senior Editor, called Mathew?

  Just then, I heard noises rise outside the room. A wheelchair was being hastily moved down a corridor and Damini’s voice was shouting, ‘Careful with Kusro!’ Kusro? Was Kusro the name of Damini’s brother?

  Many other pieces of the puzzle started falling into place. Most people in the village outside Fantasia must have been from Dhoolvansh. Perhaps, Sajan’s toys had been deliberately recycled from the village and planted inside Joel’s room? If Damini was the mythical builder, she had access to our surveillance systems. She must have been constantly spying on us, watching me unravel her setup and waiting for the right moment. Till after more kids had been significantly affected?

  I walked back to the window and peered into the darkening hedges and plants. I rubbed my eyes that seemed ready to shut down again. Rhea seemed to be stirring about slightly, but she was still too dopy to move about. Then I remembered Bijoy, the little angel, who had led me to Damini’s home. Was he still waiting outside as I had instructed him to? Just then, I remembered the heeled shoes I had doffed inside the threshold. Were they still there? With a hammering heart, I rushed towards the door. My chest lifted when I found them, propped against a wall. They were slim enough to fit between the window grills. I flung them, one at a time, at the window. Three times, they merely bounced back. But the fourth time, I heard a crack. I squeezed my fists through the grills and pounded them against the jagged, watery line. Shards of light showered into the room. My knuckles were now webbed with a criss-cross of bloodying cuts. Could anyone hear me?