I came upon Merch drinking coffee at the Irani Café on my way back from school. The café was crowded with Irani boys from Green Lawns swallowing in a manly manner, Adam’s apples bobbing with gusto. Merch sometimes gave them English lessons. Today he was sitting alone.
I waved my summons at him.
“Are you scared?” he asked after reading the entire thing.
“Yes, and no. Depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“Time and place,” I said. “I don’t think Woggle can control Kushal. I think he was outside my room again.” Yesterday, I had returned to Aeolia in the afternoon straight from the chowki and, tired after all my adventures and upheavals, slept straight through until midnight. When I awoke to use the bathroom, I heard the sound of someone peeing in the bushes outside my window.
“But why should Kushal have it in for you?”
I had figured that one out. “It’s the standard-issue Indian male syndrome. Mother and sisters on a pedestal on the one hand, and loose women and prostitutes below the boot on the other. And me, a good Marathi girl like his sisters, consorting with all of you wastrels and worse. Too confusing for him.”
This case had stirred up Panchgani. Though a small village, it had many disparate groups who lived in their own watertight worlds. But this case had sliced through the town from top to bottom. Everyone was involved: the white teachers, the brown teachers, the schoolgirls, the schoolboys, the shopkeepers, the police, the malis, the marginals. Everyone was in the pot. Everyone had an opinion. Some in batches, like the ayahs of Timmins who thought it was witchcraft, others in groups of two to five. It was hard to tell who all thought it was I, because some stared and others averted their eyes. I did not really care to judge who thought what. Only Merch. Only Merch knew my truth, and I wanted him to believe every word.
I wanted to convince him of my sense of imminent danger.
But on that matter, he seemed strangely detached. Scornful, even.
“Have you considered,” said Merch, lighting a cigarette and taking a deep, post-coffee puff, “that it might have been the girls who pushed Pin? Why should the girls be innocent? They were there that night, and one has to wonder.”
“It was a mischief thing, you know, breaking bounds,” I argued. It was not possible.
“But they could have pushed her over. There were three of them, and only one of Pin. It might be relatively easy,” he said looking gravely into the distance.
“But why should they?” I asked Merch. “Motive, one must have a motive at least. You don’t just get up and push a person over a cliff for the sake of it. I doubt if they harbored any deep feelings for her.”
“Schoolgirls are nasty creatures,” said Merch, “little savages. Socialization is still primitive at that age. Like Lord of the Flies.”
“You think those rustlings outside my window are them?”
“They could all be there tonight, and they could surround you and have their way with you,” said Merch, raising one eyebrow in a significant manner.
“Tonight, why tonight?” I asked.
“Didn’t Nandita say it would be tonight?” he said with a furrowed brow.
And then I saw the twinkle light up his eyes and a slow sweet smile spread across his face, and I saw that he had been having his way with me.
The girls were hysterical and Merch was an actor.
“This Panchgani is mad. The whole town. Why do all these people have nothing better to do than follow each other around?”
“Exactly, my dear Watson,” said Merch. “They have no drugs, no gambling, no bad habits. So they have a lot of time to plot and kill and rape. Bad habits—bad habits are the only hope for Panchgani.”
“And to top it all there is the missing Hindi teacher.”
I resolved to take him back to Aeolia with me that night. We would put off the lights and pretend to sleep and then we would steal out and look around. Stealthily signaling to each other with torches, we would trap young Kushal, or the girls, since Merch seemed to think it was them.
I decided to say nothing of my plans just yet. We went to his room and made love, and then fell asleep.
It was dusk when I awoke, heavy with dope. I lay looking at the sky go from gray to grayer in the frame of the window. It was that emptiness again, that yellow-fog-rubbing-against-the-mind kind of evening. Merch was sleeping, his lean, long body curled away from me, his springy hair tangled over his eyes. He wore soft khadi pajamas and an old black T-shirt that showed his concave stomach, the line of hair going down from his navel. I felt I was playing blind man’s bluff alone, groping around without anyone to touch.
Merch awoke and eventually shuffled to the kitchen. I pretended to be asleep. He pulled the chain of the naked bulb above the stove, and I heard the clinking of spoons. We had a somber cup of tea in the gloom, the dim light from the kitchen casting looming shadows of the two of us crouching on the bed. For the first time in my life, I felt a longing for Indore evenings. Bright tubelights and dinner at eight, served with the purposeful clanking of glass bangles.
“I want to go to Aeolia tonight,” I said.
“This must be connected to your supposed watcher,” he said, passing me a neatly rolled joint. I took two deep puffs, and soon it became crystal clear to me.
“Yes, I have to,” I said.
“Correct,” he said. “Be it man or beast.”
“Correct,” I said. “Be it Kushal or the girls.”
“Or the Hound of the Baskervilles,” he said.
Why did he need to convince me that this was a childish and hysterical pursuit? Was he foolish enough to think there was no danger at all in this world?
I was restless.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” I said when he smoked a cigarette and pondered if he needed another cup of tea. I felt a sense of urgency, when really and rationally there was none. I was pacing up and down the room, Hindi notebooks in hand.
“Steady,” he said as he would to a horse. “We’ll have dal fry at Kaka’s and we’ll walk on to Aeolia. The time will be ripe then.”
“Ripe, ripe for what?” My voice rose a register. I knew I was sounding nervous, if not outright hysterical, but I could not stop myself, this was how I felt. In the light of reason, Merch was right, of course. There was no way of judging whether earlier was better than later.
I sat myself down on the mattress on the floor, folded my legs under me, and lit a cigarette. Did he really want me to believe that the girls were dangerous?
I could not remain seated. It was as if I were tied to a string offstage. My knees refused to stay folded, they jerked themselves up, and I began to pace again. The room felt like a pressure cooker. I walked onto the balcony, finished my cigarette, and threw it, watched its burning arc swing down the valley, and then went into the room determined to get him out.
Merch was still in his white khadi pajamas. He took me into his arms and nuzzled his head between my breasts. He ran his hand through my hair and nibbled on my ear. I felt a flash of impatience. I saw suddenly how easy it would be to slip and slide into a slothful life and then dissolve into a little brown puddle.
He should be rushing up with me, with shining sword in hand, ready to hold my hand and fend off all evil at short notice.
But no, not Merch.
He did not want to come with me. He would not come with me. Why lead a horse to water when he is not going to drink? Everyone knows that.
“Merch, just stay a goof for me, all right?” I said. It was an impulsive thing, popped out before I had thought it through, but as soon as I had said it, I knew what I was going to do.
“Ayi chi shappat,” he said with a bemused smile. “I promise.”
I turned and left him, and did not look back to see if his face registered shock, dismay, or surprise at my sudden exit. I had the definite feeling that the night would go better without him. Perhaps, even, my life. I loved him, how could I not love Merch my whole life? I would, I assured myself as I walked to the bidi stand and bought a packet of Wills cigarettes. I would surely love him my whole life. But not tonight. Tonight I hated him for sending me out alone.
“I’ll sound nervous and intense and mysterious. Just give me five minutes, before she can ask questions, and then come and call me and I can pretend I did not want you all to know.”
“And then we’ll go up and finish her off, just as we did with all the others,” Shobha would cackle, rubbing her gnarled hands. Akhila would hoot with glee, the shadow of her hooked nose and pointed chin thrown large against the wall.
I was walking to Aeolia, my heart thudding against the brown-paper-covered Hindi notebooks clutched to my chest. I had passed the Government Holiday Home, the garage of the chained cheetah, and the last loop to Aeolia, where the streetlights stopped. Murderers were passing before my eyes like jerky early film clips. The schoolgirls, Mr. Blind Irani, Shankar, and even the plate-throwing little Jacinta, mewing because of our illicit love.
My legs began to shake violently, and I sat down in the middle of the road under the last streetlamp. I could turn around and smile my way back into Merch’s room. He would never even bring it up.
Good teacher that I was, even when I flounced out of his place, missing the swing of my plait behind me, I had remembered to take the books. I looked at them lying in a neat pile on the road and, on an impulse, took the first one and flung it up in the air and watched it land spread-eagle in the culvert beside the road. The moonlight filtered in through the swishing silver oaks that the British had kindly planted for our benefit.
And then I threw up another book and another, and then I stood up and started flinging them with abandon—some like discuses, slicing through the air, some simply launched as high as they would go. When only one book was left, and I still wanted to rip and hurl, I began to tear the pages and make them into arrows or crumpled balls and fling them around with passion. I could not quite read the name, but the writing seemed to be that of Ranjana Kothari. When I finished, the road was strewn with papers, and brown-paper-covered books lay around me with gay abandon.
When I started the throwing, I fully intended to pick them up and chastely take them home. But now that I had torn and destroyed one, there was no point in saving the rest.
There was no point in going back tomorrow. There might not even be a tomorrow, for I might die tonight. I might as well burn my bridges, I reasoned. I went back to the brown notebooks lying scattered like dead soldiers on a medieval battlefield, lit a match and set one afire, and then another and another and another. The wind picked up, and burning leaves were churning around me like Diwali rockets gone awry.
They would be found tomorrow. By which time I could well be choked or bludgeoned or pushed off a cliff.
The burning had calmed me down. I felt clear and strong. I could not go on trembling with imaginary ghosts.
I could always shout for the family of the drunken mali. The eldest son was a strapping lad, and he would not be drunk. He would handle Kushal or Raswani or the girls or the Hound of the Baskervilles. I considered taking him with me. But I thought of how I would have to knock on the door of their hut and then they would shout, Kaun hai, who’s there, and I would lean close and whisper, Charu from next door, but they would not hear, and so they would shout, Who? and then I would have to shout back loudly, Charu, it’s me, Charu from next door, and then she would shout Who? and with all that noise my stalker would slide out and stalk another day. No, I must know tonight, once and for all.
I could creep into my room without switching on any lights. There were two knives in the kitchen, both blunt and rusted. I could die of stab wounds or tetanus if the mystery interloper should run out with a sharp object too. I remembered Merch’s Swiss Army knife that he forgot in my room the other evening after using it to burn off a chunk from a ball of hash. I would walk with my soft flat Kolhapuri slippers without a sound. I would walk with swinging arms down the paved passage to the kitchen with the pocket knife pointing out. I crept into my room.
I found the knife, and found that my hand was shaking as I pried it open. Merch had bought it from a Rajneesh hippie at Poona Station, and he was very proud of it. It had the full sixteen attachments, including the bone toothpick. I decided to open all the instruments on one side. The knife, the corkscrew, the scissors, and some others, all sharp.
And then I thought, Kushal will be much more wary this time around. He’ll probably gag and bind me before I can lift a finger. I would be better off going in with a bullhorn, like the one Miss Manson used on sports day, so I could shout for the mali before I was gagged. If I had thought this through, I would have picked that up off the hook in the staff room.
Pin’s whistle—I had Pin’s whistle in the suitcase below my bed. I had found it lying neglected in her cubbyhole in the staff room after her death. I remembered her coming back from evening sports, her hair ruffled, patches of sweat on her blouse, and the whistle still around her neck. I had taken it in a sentimental fit when I was alone in the room, kissing it because it had touched her lips. I slid the suitcase from under my bed and dug it out. Pin’s whistle would bring me luck.
With a whistle to my mouth and a sharp octopus object in my right hand, I walked past the mali’s smoking hut and was turning the corner to the kitchen when I heard hoarse muttering. Was there more than one person outside my room?
I followed the sound to the back of the kitchen building and paused at the corner. It was a dark night, but by now my eyes were open and I could see quite clearly. It was a woman in a sari, crouching. Her gray hair was no longer in a bun, and her sari was torn and rumpled. She was talking to herself. It was the Hindi teacher.
She appeared stooped and tired. She got up when she saw me turn the corner, moved two steps in my direction, and then collapsed against the wall. I could see that she was panting. She got up and tried to run as I walked towards her, but she did not have the strength. I held her hand as I led her to the mali’s hut, but it was more for support than restraint. She seemed broken by her time in the wilderness. She was nodding and muttering; she did not look at me and seemed not to know or care who I was or where I was taking her.
The mali’s wife made her sit on a blanket in the corner and gave her water in a tall steel glass. Raswani grabbed the glass with both hands, drank the water in three greedy gulps. Then she lay down in a small curled ball like a kitten and fell asleep.
The mali opened up the drawing room of the main house, from which I phoned Inspector Wagle, who said he would gather his hawaldars and arrive shortly.
But it was Merch who landed up first. I heard a knock on the window of my room and then another. In the dark, from the small slit of a window in the mali’s hut, I could see nothing. I sent the mali’s son to look into the matter, and he came back with Merch in tow.
In the dim light of the single naked bulb, Merch’s eyes were bewildered, accusing. I don’t even know if he registered the prese
nce of the sleeping Raswani in the corner at first.
“Why did you just run away without telling me?” he asked in the angriest voice I have ever heard from him. “I thought you’d gone for a walk, or to wait at Kaka’s. I came here as soon as I could.” I could see his breath still came fast. The mali’s wife gave him water in the same steel glass.
The Woggle was in a lather when he finally turned up. He had no place to keep Raswani for the night. “Mahtari,” he said, snorting in a derisive manner. “This Panchgani lockup was not designed for old women. I will have to keep her in the school with a hawaldar on duty.” He muttered morosely, not relishing the task of awakening those virginal white women in the middle of the night.
As it happened, he did not have to. When he got there in the white Ambassador car, with Raswani in the back between two hawaldars, the school was in an uproar of blazing lights and scurrying girls in flannel pajamas. Nandita had just been found halfway down the table-land cliff. She was unconscious and in critical condition and was being rushed off to hospital.
When she came to, Nandita named the murderer. It was Miss Raswani, she said. Miss Raswani had pushed her over the cliff, shouting garbled nonsense from the Bible, just as she had pushed the Prince.
When I had come upon her behind my kitchen wall, she was returning from the struggle, exhausted and frightened by what she had done. The roaring was finished. She had gone out like a lamb.
Her story was on the front page of the Poona Herald, and the third page of the Times of India. It was on the front page of the Evening News:
HINDI TEACHER ARRESTED IN GIRLS’ SCHOOL
The recent mystery of the death of the British teacher of Miss Timmins’ School for Girls in Panchgani under suspicious circumstances has taken another sinister turn with the attempted murder of a student at the same school, a fifteen-year-old girl.
Miss Timmins' School for Girls Page 37