by Jai T J
“Then what do you have in your mind?”
Her phone began to buzz. She looked at the screen and it was Hiran. She picked the call and turned on the speaker.
“Hey, your stalker is alive, and he wants to meet you”
“Speak of the devil” Her father said moving his pawn on the corner forward.
“Why?” She asked.
“He said he wants to meet you for one last time. He says it’s very important, and he will be waiting at the diner you met him the first time”
“OK” she said wondering over his change of mind.
“You want me to come?”
“No, that’s OK. I will see by myself” She said and terminated the call.
She pondered over what he could still want after seeing what she showed him the early morning.
“What do you think it’s about?” Her father asked.
She didn’t have the answer. She just shook her head and wondered he could have come to her house, but he called Hiran. Her father rose up and went inside her bedroom. She looked down at the chess board and all the white pieces were in its initial position and only her blacks were scattered around.
The scene was exactly like the first time they met. The winds were blowing away the leaves along the sidewalk. The thunders clapped amidst the dark clouds. The only difference was that she reached the diner when he was already there. She was in her iconic black and saw him sitting on her usual seat near the dark corner of the hall.
He looked agitated and unrest. His eyes were worried and frightened at the same time.
“Thank you for coming”
“And do not call him again” She said.
“I won’t. Please sit down”
As she sat in front of him, the waitress bought the big bowl of red, tomato soup and kept it in front of her. “Your tomato soup. Anything else?” She asked. Devin shook his head, dismissing her.
He began the conversation after the waitress left. “I feel like I owe you this. You didn’t get to finish your soup that day so have it”
“Is this why you called me?”
“No, but before that, I just want to set things clear between us”
She looked at the steaming soup in front of her. “I am not going to eat this. Get to the point”
He was disappointed but ignored it and began his speech. “When I first met you, right in this diner, I felt like something strange thing happening in my life. I wanted to get to know you and then when you came into my house to threaten/kill me I felt a weird bond with you”
She realized where this was going. She wanted to pour the hot soup on him before he could finish what he intended to tell. This was exactly what she wanted to avoid – the distraction.
“More and more I got to know about you and your life, I gotta admit I wasn’t ready for it. As you respected my privacy, I want to return the same. I can only understand how much you must love your father but there is no chance in trying to persuade you to do something or to keep phase in with harmony”
“Don’t prattle. Just say what do you want to say?” The thunders clapped outside as she said with a bold voice.
“I am glad you didn’t become my friend and I yours too. This past few months have been really memorable to me and I have something which might give you the pleasure you are searching for”
“And what is that?”
“You wanted to start fresh. You wanted a clean slate, erasing everything from your past and more than that you want a FAMILY”
She stared at him intensely, wondering how he knew about that. There was no way her friends could have told him. She searched for loophole but none found.
“I cannot promise what I am about to offer might be something you desire, but I am sure you deserve it”
Her phone began to buzz, interrupting their tension building up in her. She looked at the screen and it was her lawyer. She cut the call with a reply message and looked back at him.
“I have a three-fold information. One is good, one is bad and one is good/bad. Which one you want to hear first?”
“The one which won’t make me regret coming down here” She said bluntly.
He inhaled deeply before speaking. “The main reason I called you is that you wanted to find out what happened to your father, I think I can help you find out”
This wasn’t what she expected. “What? How?” Her voice echoed in the empty diner.
“It’s Senandra. She can help you”
“What do you mean?” Her tone became serious. Finally, something positive happening in her quest in the fresh year.
“You remember the time when you met her alone in her room”
She nodded patiently but before he could continue she realized what he was talking about. The answer was right in front of her, and she couldn’t believe how she missed that. It was the time when she saw herself, her past in the mirror. Senandra showed her the fragments of her past. “She can show me what happened to my father?”
“She said she will show you what you have seen”
Finally, she got what she has been searching for. A brink of light in the darkest ocean. “Perfect. That’s more than enough” She said with growing energy of finding the answers to her long-lasting question.
“There is a problem” He said with a glum voice.
“What is it?”
“She wants you to make a deal with her”
“OK fine let's go” She said rising up from her seat.
“Wait, that’s the second part of what I wanted to tell you. If you go into her deal, you can’t get out of it unless you die and more than that, it is a horrible thing and you do not want to do that”
“I will do whatever she asks if she can help me find him. Let’s go meet her”
“It’s not that easy. You have to give her your child” He finally broke out what he has been holding up.
“My child?” She asked confused.
“Yes, your child. That was the plan-B she suggested. It’s quite a dangerous one. If you agree to her deal, then you have to get pregnant and give birth to a child and when you do that, you will be under her possession, and she will have what she has been waiting for”
“Then what happens?”
“She will leave this world” He replied. “Along with her child”
“She will kill the child?”
He kept quiet, staring at the steam flowing out of the bowl of red.
“What else she wants?”
“That’s it. She will leave forever and you can continue with your life. If you want to discuss anything, you can come and speak to her directly. Before you do anything I want to warn you -”
She stood up abruptly and walked away from him, out of the diner. He sat there looking at the hot soup just like his previous visit.
A dark figure walked toward the gate, holding the umbrella in the devilish rain. He couldn’t see his visitor but as he came near to the gate, he saw her standing in front of the gate, drenching in the rain on her black dress. He unlocked the gate quickly and allowed her to enter.
“Oh, dear. You are soaking, come under the umbrella” He said.
Yuleika got under the umbrella, hugging herself in the cold night and began walking along with him.
“What kind of emergency makes you come in this hell of rain?” He asked.
“Can we go inside and talk father?”
“Sure. You could have waited till the morning at least. You are freezing, dear” They both went under the shade of the building. “There is a towel there, dry yourself”
She opened the velcro and began to pat her face. He pushed open the door and went inside. She kept the towel back and began to follow him. When she got inside, she saw two tiny candles burning at the end of the hall, illuminating the long cross mounted on the wall.
She sat on the bench near the door and the priest sat in front of her on the opposite side. She trembled in the cold, her mouth cluttering and her fingers shaking.
“Dear, take that off. You might
get sick”
“You have always been an advocate of forgiveness” She started ignoring his instruction. “Do you think no matter what happened, a person should always forgive?”
“Why are you asking this now?” He asked her.
“I think I found him”
He understood who she was referring to. “What do you feel like doing now?”
“I want to do so many things. I want him to feel the same pain I felt. I want to crush his head. I want to feed him his very – I’m sorry. I am just... I don’t think I can forgive him. I want to make him feel the hell but that very ‘want’ is the main reason why I became the victim. I don’t want to do that”
“Forgiving is a very hard thing and it won’t even feel good even after you do it. Your life is not going to turn back and you are not going to regain what you have lost but remember when you forgive someone that does not mean you condone their action or you are going to forget what they have done. Forgiving doesn’t mean you are going to shake hand with him. It’s simply you are letting go of your hand from clutching his throat”
“What if I don’t want anyone else to suffer what I underwent?”
“Mankind is a selfish being. We never wanted to get rid of something unless it bothers us. We care for even a tiny life like a mosquito. We want them to live but just not in our house”
“But if I don’t act on it then it’s going to spread like a disease. Isn’t it for good to stop and prevent the spread of the disease?” She asked innocently.
“You are right. It is necessary to stop it but you can not stop a disease by spreading even more powerful disease like vengeance”
“Are you asking me to just walk away?”
“I am not asking you to do anything. I can only illustrate the consequences and you have to choose your path. Let’s speak reality. Your prayer was unanswered that day. God didn’t help you when you needed one. Now it’s your choice. Your truth. No one will bring you anywhere. It’s your mind and let it do what you want it to do”
She sat indecisively in silence. Her burka dripping all around her place and the rain was striking outside brutally with loud thunders.
“So where is that man now?”
“I don’t know” She said.
“But you said –”
“It was Devin. He has a way to find him but I need to do a sacrifice for that to happen. I wanted to know whether that sacrifice is worthy”
“Giving something to get things you wanted is how this world usually works but will you be happier when you get the new thing or will you be regretting more over losing your existing thing?”
“I am not sure if I will be happier once I achieve it, but I am sure I will be regretting not doing it for the rest of my life”
“Then try to bring back the equilibrium. Create a counterbalance based on your decision. What is that thing you will be losing?”
“My child”
“Your child?”
She began explaining everything about him - the deal with Senandra and about her father and another reason behind why she wanted to meet the man who did this to her.
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing in his holy place. He realized she got caught between her delusional dad and the deal with the dead.
She sat there quietly pondering over her thoughts. She forgot about her shivering fingers. She forgot the freezing weather under the warm ambiance and the burning thirst for a solution to her conflict.
“There is one more thing” She said. “This Devin, I thought he will leave but somehow he has entangled in my life. I don’t know what to do of him?”
“Do you like him?”
“I... I don’t hate him anymore. The thing is if I take him as my friend, he will leave me. He has some childhood issue and always leaves his friends. If I see something more than friendship in him then my father will not be there anymore. I don’t know why such dilemmas are occurring all at once”
Every move had its own disadvantage. There was no way to get what she want without losing something she values the most.
“It will be my father or Devin or the child. Either way, I will be losing someone. I don’t know what to do?”
“Whatever you are going to do decide, make sure it doesn’t create more regrets than you already have. So think carefully, will you kill someone to save someone or will you kill someone to know what happened to the already killed one?”
“Will you choose a living one over imaginary one or will you choose a loved one over a stranger one? I can not answer these questions. Close your eyes and search for the answers. When you open them, you will know”
Chapter 27
PERSONAL REVENGE
Devin opened the door, rubbing his eyes. Yuleika’s knock woke him up from the deep sleep. She got the answers to her question. She prepared herself for the consequences of her doing. There was no stopping her.
“What are you doing now?” He asked with half opened eyes. “What time is it?”
“I have decided. I’m ready”
“Okay, come in. You could have waited a few more hours at least”
“Why did you offer this now?” Her tone turned into her usual condescending voice.
“What?”
“You could have told this before but you didn’t. Why now?”
“Because of what you told about your father. I felt good to help you in that but I’m sorry my help always comes with drawback”
“And?”
“And what?”
“You are only telling the half-truth. What are you hiding?”
He stared at her with squinting eyes. “I don’t want to die now. That’s the main reason”
“Why?”
He scoffed at her question. “I need to meet my sister. I have some unfinished business to do”
“And you were sure I will save you?”
“Oh, that? Senandra told me you were desperate to know your past but I didn’t know you would go such extreme”
“It’s not what I want. It’s what I have to do”
“Now you know the path to find the answer for your past. So, what about your future? Your family?” He asked.
“You have some kind of proposal for that too?”
“Actually that’s the third thing I wanted to tell but before that, you vanished just as always”
“Can it wait until I finish this?”
“It’s the high priority actually”
“What is it?”
“You know Eva, right? Her mother was in a situation, and she asked me to do something for her and - ”
She saw a movement from the corner of her eyes. Senandra was standing near the end of stair in her smokey figure with glowing eyes and her hands protecting the belly.
Yuleika went toward her slowly and knelt before her. “Devin told me everything and I understand what I am getting into but I have one condition” She said looking deep into her burning eyes “I will make the bond only after I find that guy”
Yuleika pulled the large plastic container out of her freezer and closed the door behind. She finally got what she wanted. She saw her nightmare. She remembers now every feature of that blurry part. His greasy hair, angry expressions, the red drunken eyes, and all the other aspects.
She brought the box toward the island and kept it next to other items. The infamous gold chain with pendant, 9mm pistol, Polaroid, a rough pencil sketch of that man, bunch of surgical as well as regular knife along with an already packed travel bag was spread across the island.
She opened the container and pulled out the transparent plastic cover full of clothes. She slit the cover with the knife and took the clothes out of it. A ripped red skirt with multiple tears and a black sweater with a long stitch across the front.
A Flash of that night came to her eyes. When she opened the sweater, a tiny envelope fell out of it. She took it up and saw the wax sealed cover. She recognized it was the last letter she wrote when her father came back into her life once again. The day when she star
ted wearing a burka. Out of thousands of concerning mail she received after that incident, only one of them made her to reply back. She recalled working on that for day and night, writing over and again until she got what felt right to her, but sadly she couldn’t send it.