Swear You Won't Tell?

by Vedashree Khambete-Sharma

‘And he just let her?’

  ‘She, medum, she,’ Ganesh smirked. ‘Dean is also woman. And you must be knowing what women are like, no? All emosanal they get.’

  Avantika bit back a response and turned her attention back to the forms. She smoothed it out against the wall next to her and held it there. With her other hand, she took a picture of it on her phone. It had a 5 megapixel camera. She could’ve printed out these photos if she wanted.

  ‘How did she know?’ she asked.

  ‘What medum?’

  ‘How did Dr Shweta know that the body was her friend’s? Was there some ID?’

  Ganesh looked worried.

  ‘Must’ve been, no? Otherwise how? I remember that body, the face was all… ,’ he made a face. ‘Nobody wanted to touch it also.’

  She handed the forms back to Ganesh with the five-hundred-rupee note discretely tucked inside it1.

  ‘Thank you for your help,’ she said. ‘If I need more information—’

  He rattled off a ten-digit mobile number, which she duly saved.

  ‘I’ll be here only, medum. I know this place inside and outside, every corner, I know. What all goes on, you ask me, I’ll tell everything. Gandhiji always said to tell the truth, no?’

  And then, with one last sneer for the road, he was gone.

  Half an hour later, Avantika was wolfing down a piping hot idli and sambar at an Udipi restaurant down the road. The sambar was thick and tangy, the idlis fluffy and fresh. She ordered a filter coffee to wash them down with and looked around. It was well past lunchtime so most of the tables were empty, except for the one in the corner, where a couple huddled over a gigantic Mysore masala dosa.

  As she waited for her order to arrive, she looked at the picture of the morgue form, zooming in to read it better. It had the barest details. The body had been brought in on 15 November by the cops, who’d found it washed up by the Mahim creek. Personal effects were listed as blue jeans, yellow t-shirt, innerwear, a single brown shoe, a black leather wallet and a ring. There were no suspicious bumps on the head, no signs of a struggle on the body, no traces of poison in the system. Cause of death: asphyxia due to aspiration of fluid into air passages, caused by submersion in fluid. Diagnosis: consistent with drowning.

  Could Laxmi swim? She couldn’t remember. But even if she was a halfway decent swimmer, all it would take was a combination of a deceptively low tide, followed by strong currents to turn even a stroll into the sea into a fatal mistake. The young and the terminally stupid discovered this fact every year at the city’s infamous Aksa Beach. But what would Laxmi be doing strolling into the sea, in the first place? The sea, Avantika had read somewhere was a bad place to die. Not that there were any good places to die, but still.

  She did a quick Google search on her phone and her expression darkened. It was a slow death, drowning. It could take up to eight minutes, a short time by ordinary standards, a lifetime—literally—while the water is slowly filling your lungs.

  She read on, feeling increasingly depressed. In India, one website told her, drowning was the most common form of suicide, especially among women. Another informed her that in the case of homicidal drowning, there were usually signs of strangulation or severe blows to the head. But if a person was rendered helpless or defenceless through alcohol or drugs, and the head was submerged for five to ten minutes even in shallow water, then drowning would occur without any traces of violence. She glanced at the morgue report. There was no mention of either drugs or alcohol in it. What if Shweta had found some in Laxmi’s system and not mentioned it in the report? But why would she do that? They were friends.

  She turned back to her phone. On a forensic pathology site she found the process of autopsy in cases of drowning. It was described in clinical terms, with words like centrifuged and supernatant, but unfortunately for her, she could guess the meaning, given the context, and imagine it in graphic detail. A wave of nausea rose in her and she hurriedly switched to another website. This one told her that in India, a drowned body could stay afloat for twelve to eighteen hours in the summer and eighteen to twenty-four hours in winter. It went on to add, without warning, that the process loosens the skin and nails and the skin of the hands and legs could be peeled off like a stocking after two to four days of this. She shuddered and shut the site with a decisive tap.

  The waiter disturbed her train of thought, as he kept a classic Madras-style steel davarah and tumbler, filled with foamy filter coffee before her. She took a sip—much too hot—and swallowed hurriedly. Pouring a little of the coffee into the wide davarah, she waited for it to cool.

  Her father had taught her that. They had gone to pick up admission forms from Ruia College and he had taken her to Mani’s Lunch Home and taught her how to cool a bit of the coffee in the davarah, then pour it back into the tumbler, so the temperature averaged out to just the right degree of hot. And thinking of him, she remembered Laxmi’s father. Tall, dark, imposing. An authoritative voice, that would ring out in every PTA meeting. A disapproving face that would soften as he sat in the audience during every school play Laxmi was in. And an invisible force that slammed drawers and banged cupboards shut in his room, even as Aunty told them in hushed tones to study quietly because Uncle was “a little tense today”.

  Avantika thought of him lying silent and speechless in shock and felt her breath catch in her chest. She dipped a finger in the cooling coffee. That should do. She poured it back into the tumbler and took a sip. Perfect. Now, back to the highlights.

  Laxmi had drowned. Had she gone into the sea alone or was someone, let’s say, the mysterious Ajay, with her? Did she drown or was she drowned? Was she alive when she stepped into the waves in the first place? Avantika bit her lip. And why was there a wallet on her? It must’ve had something that made Shweta identify her. What was it? A picture, perhaps? Was it important? And what woman carried a wallet on her person? How did one even do that? Shoved in the back pocket, like a man? Or awkwardly in the front pocket?

  She knew no women who did that, but all right, let’s say it’s an eccentricity. Was there money in the wallet? If there wasn’t, maybe Laxmi was mugged and killed. But no, that didn’t make any sense. If she was mugged, why would they put her wallet back in her pocket? No, strike that. So that left her with … what? Nothing. Nothing except questions she still couldn’t answer. She pulled out Laxmi’s diary and rifled through the pages. There were no diary entries as such, just page after page of passionate, heartfelt, slightly corny poems. Here was one:

  What is it, they say

  Who is it, they ask

  Hiding our love, darling

  Is the easiest task

  For look where they may

  Try as they might

  They’ll never think to find

  what’s hidden in plain sight.

  Okay. The rhyme was a little … childish, frankly. But hiding your love from the world wasn’t very uncommon. If you were certain your parents wouldn’t approve of your boyfriend, then not telling them about him was probably a wise move. Especially in a country where an entire village could spontaneously burn a couple alive for the shameful act of falling in love without their parents’ or community’s permission. Not that Laxmi would have faced any such thing. Her father was pretty strict, but Avantika didn’t think he’d go to such extremes.

  So, Laxmi was dating someone—presumably this Ajay character—and her parents didn’t approve of him or wouldn’t have, if they found out about him. But they must’ve known him. Known of his existence, in any case. What else could ‘hiding in plain sight’ possibly mean? But exactly how inappropriate was he, for Laxmi to hide the affair from her parents in the first place?

  Different caste? Different religion? Different political views, but no, surely that was more of an American thing? Nobody in India cared that much about politics. Sure, they cared enough to out-type each other on social media, but in real life, one did tend to look upon those with strong political beliefs with a little pity. Indian politics was …
Indian politics. Any new government, any new party, would slowly become just like its predecessors. First the victims, then the champions of the same, rusty old system. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, as The Who put it.

  But Laxmi had been an Indian woman over thirty. One would think her parents would dance for joy if she married just about anyone. Avantika knew her own parents would probably throw a party, or more realistically a Satyanarayan pooja2, the day she announced she was going to get hitched. But what if marriage wasn’t on the cards for Laxmi? What if it could never be on the cards and that was the reason she was keeping the whole thing a secret? Could Ajay already be married perhaps? Unwilling to leave his wife? What if he had decided not to leave his wife and had decided to break up with Laxmi and Laxmi had refused to be disposed of so easily and he had decided to dispose her off, the terminal way? Avantika thought about the girl she knew in school. That girl didn’t seem likely to do any of this stuff. But that was a long time ago. People change, don’t they? Maybe Laxmi had too.

  Avantika drummed the table-top impatiently. She was trying to think dispassionately about this, but all she had so far were dead ends that stopped at Ajay. He was the key. She had to find him, or at least, find out something concrete about him, before she could get any answers. She gulped down the rest of the coffee. In her mind’s eye, she saw a smiling girl with serious eyes and a long, black braid—her legs dangling playfully, as she sat on top of her desk during the big recess. ‘An ant walks up to an elephant and whispers something to him,’ Laxmi said wide-eyed. ‘The elephant laughs and laughs and laughs. What did the ant say to him?’ And without waiting for an answer, she grinned. ‘I’m pregnant and it’s yours!’

  Avantika sighed and called for the bill. In her mind, Laxmi laughed, a clear ringing laugh brimming with joy. She paid the bill and left.

  Eleven

  ‘Avantika! How nice to see you! I had no idea you still worked here.’

  Nathan was looking cheerily at her over the top of his spectacles. Avantika bit back a reply and gave him a tight smile. Beside her, Uday shifted in his seat. His prediction had come true the day before. Nathan had called her into his cabin and given her a high-octane yelling, featuring words like responsibility, absenteeism, work ethic and her personal favourite, not acting like a senior reporter.

  ‘You have what, ten years of experience?’ he had barked. ‘Shouldn’t it show somewhere?’

  And he was right. All this amateur detective work she was doing, it was on his time. She was managing to finish the work assigned to her, but that didn’t excuse running away from office every time a brainwave popped up. She had tried making up stuff about how she was working on an interesting news story, but he hadn’t been in any mood to listen. And now he was bringing things up in the edit meeting! And giving her an opening, in the process. She took a deep breath.

  ‘Yes, sorry about that. I … I’ve been chasing a story and—’

  ‘Story? No, no, you mean a feature, don’t you?’

  ‘Erm, no—’

  ‘Are you sure? Because that’s what we pay you for, I thought. Ten filters you have to have on your Instagram? Home Remedies for Monsoon Maladies? The Five Best Burgers in Bombay … sorry, Mumbai. No?’

  She took another breath. No, she was on the back foot today. Sarcasm wouldn’t be a wise move. ‘I mean a news story. The kind Uday writes.’

  Uday gave her a ‘Why are you dragging me into this?’ glare, just as Nathan turned his attention to him. He smiled pleasantly and several people in the room were instantly terrified.

  ‘Ah, yes. Uday. And did Uday know you were, how did you put it? Chasing a story?’

  ‘No. Nobody knew.’

  ‘And you didn’t feel the need to … oh, just for the fun of it, tell someone?’

  ‘I should have. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.’

  Nathan’s smile slid off his face a little. He gave Avantika a deeply suspicious look, which she returned with a totally blank one of her own. His eyes narrowed, as if daring her to expose her contrition for the façade he knew it was. She looked downward and said nothing.

  ‘Hmm,’ he said, a little thrown by her docility, ‘make sure it doesn’t.’

  She nodded without looking up. The meeting began for real and Nathan got busy handing out assignments.

  Avantika thought she could see a pattern now. If someone looked like they were having a good time, they were instantly given a story they were sure to hate covering. If they protested, they were given a similar story the next week. If they didn’t, they got something more in keeping with their own interests and talents. She had always wondered why Uday got the most interesting stories to cover and for the first time since joining, it struck her that she’d never seen him complain about an assignment. He had covered with equal equanimity the sanitation workers’ strike and the Titwala1 Flower Show. And in return, he had received without asking, the chance to cover the Sion murder case and before that, the sensational daylight robbery of the State Bank of Rajasthan, by two teenagers armed only with a carrot and a stick.

  She confessed her suspicions to Uday after the meeting. He shrugged. ‘Never thought about it. Maybe you’ve got a point.’

  He sank into his chair and opened a Google search page on his computer. She sat next to him, at her own desk, drumming her fingers on the keyboard, but not really typing anything. ‘But you do get the meaty stories. And you never complain, if you’re given the shitty ones.’

  ‘Food and crap in the same breath. You have a special gift.’

  ‘Oh, big talk from the fancy journalist! With me you’ll say stuff like that, but if tomorrow Nathan tells you to cover, I don’t know, the Annual General Body Meeting of … the Lokhandwala Out-of-Work Actors Union—’

  ‘I’ll cover it. That’s my job.’

  She pursed her lips and rounded on him, ‘Don’t tell me you enjoy that kind of stuff!’

  He shrugged, not taking his eyes off the monitor. ‘What’s there to enjoy or not enjoy? I’m writing something that’s true. Something that some people find interesting. And above all, something that is important to people. In this case, the brave men and women who hang out at the Lokhandwala Café Coffee Day at all hours, in full make-up, in case Karan Johar happens to drive by.’

  He lowered his voice and leaned in conspiratorially.

  ‘And tomorrow, if I’m doing a story involving Bollywood, I can call up my friend, the Chairman of the Lokhandwala Out-of-Work Actors Union, who is bound to know people, who know people who know someone who was there when it happened.’

  She shook her head in amazement. ‘You opportunistic ass,’ she said.

  He puffed on an imaginary cigar and said in an immaculate Sean Connery impression: ‘Take notsh, kid, take notsh.’

  ‘And here I thought you were all noble and ethical,’ she said, rolling her eyes.

  ‘Those are tricky words for someone in our profession, babe. I mean, we have to make choices other people don’t. If I have a source who tells me the current location of Dawood, for instance, what do I do? If I print it, he knows we know and makes a run for it. If I tell the police, how do I know I’m telling an officer who’s not corrupt? If I tell the Home Minister and he ends up sending guys to pick up the man, I have still not done what I’m supposed to, which is print the news because my first duty is to my readers.’

  Avantika held out a hand to stop him. ‘I feel like I’m back in the Ethics in Journalism lecture with Rangachari. It is because of crap like this that I quit proper reporting, you know.’

  ‘No, you quit because it was the easy thing to do.’

  ‘Hey! That is not—’

  ‘Avanti, it’s okay. You don’t have to justify your decision to me. I know it’s easy to get disillusioned with the system and its flaws and loopholes, because God, there are so many of them.’ He ran a hand through his hair, rumpling it in the process. ‘What happened with you, it’s depressingly common. Hell, at least ten people from our batch in college have
quit their jobs with newspapers and TV channels and switched to something less … sapping.’

  She looked at him, silent for a moment. ‘Then why do you do it?’ she asked. ‘How can you still go on reporting when you know that half the things you write about won’t change anything, and the other half will get drowned in procedural nonsense?’

  He looked embarrassed. ‘You’ll think it’s daft.’

  ‘Probably. But tell me anyway.’

  ‘It’s about starfish. See, one day—’

  At which point, obeying the ancient laws of narrative irony, Shibani flounced between them, waving an A4 sheet of paper.

  ‘Is he going with her?’ she asked Avantika. ‘Has he said something to you?’

  Avantika threw up her hands and looked blank, the universal sign for ‘Say what?’

  ‘Dhruv!’ Shibani exclaimed. ‘Is he going to the U.S. with his sister? Because he still hasn’t turned in that photography piece!’

  ‘We were talking, you know,’ Uday said conversationally.

  Shibani turned to him. ‘Yes,’ she said. Then turning back to Avantika, she went on, ‘Also, did he say when he’s free to meet me for drinks? Because I called him? And he didn’t answer?’

  Avantika shook her head again, and held Shibani by the arm. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Shib.’

  Shibani made an impatient sound. ‘Dhruv? Juneja? His sister? Aisha? The designer? She has a show in LA in two weeks. Her PR people sent out this release,’ she said, holding out the paper in her hand. ‘Probably to boost sales here,’ she added. ‘It makes such a difference, no? Knowing that a designer is selling in the States also.’

  Ignoring Shibani, Avantika skimmed through the press release. Aisha was going to have a trunk show at the W Hotel in San Francisco next week. Reps from Macy’s, Sears and JC Penney were expected to attend. It was a high-profile event, to be certain, perhaps the most important in Aisha’s career so far. A part of her wondered how Aisha would deal with the pressure of such an event, with Laxmi’s death so fresh in her mind. People move on, another part of her said, they look forward. After all, how long can you mourn one dead friend? How long do you let her death be a factor? She couldn’t speak for Aisha. They were both very different people. Happily oblivious to all this, Shibani prattled on.