"Ernst," he exclaimed returning Ernst's embrace, "I knew you would come back. The guru had told me. Bury half a Mango and 3 Cowries under a Banyan tree and your son will realize his mistake in disobeying his father and return to you. And now you are here. He was right, like always."
He kissed Ernst on the cheeks and hugged him even tighter.
"Oh, son," he said, "you don't need to apologize. You have come back and that is enough for me. Let me call your mother. Carla dear, come here," he said facing the door to the room, “look who’s here. Our son is back, he has left the wretched Police. Bring some tea and biscuits."
Ernst’s feeling of concern for his father increased multifold. Not just was he physically weak, his father had grown senile. He seemed to be under the impression that he was in his house. Ernst plucked himself away from his father and increased the intensity of the lamp. He was in a small wood-paneled room with no furniture apart from a cot in the center. On the wall opposite the door was a white portrait with a large red spiral drawn upon it. It was this portrait that his father had been gazing into when he had entered the room. The room smelled a strange mixture of decay and fragrance. He found out the reason soon enough. The room was littered with half a dozen plates of uneaten food, and in a corner of the room was a collection of incense sticks which smoked insouciantly. His father had locked himself in a room without eating for three days and he was hallucinating.
But what had led him to this condition. His father was not a weak man. Certainly not when it came to matters of the head. What had made him lose his mind?
What was happening here?
"Come darling," Ernst heard his father say again to no-one, "keep the plates on the table. It’s time to celebrate our son’s return to the bank.”
Ernst felt a little scared in the company of his father who was under the impression that the door was his wife.
“Why aren't you eating these biscuits, Ernst,” his father offered him an imaginary tray.
"I... I am not hungry."
"No this wouldn't do. Eat!" his father picked up some air and took a bite.
"Lovely," he exclaimed, "I half think that it is your mother's biscuits which have pulled you back to the house."
Ernst loosened a button of his coat. He was feeling slightly asphyxiated in the smoky room. Ernst suspected that the incense sticks had something to do with it as well as his father's strange behavior. He quickly went over to the corner where the sticks burnt and crushed them under his feet. He did not feel any instant improvement but at least the room wouldn’t grow any more polluted. He then sat down on the floor and began to think about taking his father out of the place. It would certainly not be as straightforward as entering here had been. Going by the welcome that he had been accorded in the morning, he could not imagine what these men might do to him if they found out that he was a policeman and had entered the room by deceit.
Another thought struck Ernst. Could it be possible that the reason policemen were not allowed in the ashram was that something illegal was going on inside the premises? The smoky meditation rooms which made the devotees hallucinate were certainly something that would not be ignored in the event of a police inspection. The strict security around the place would also be explained by that. But Ernst could worry about it later. Right now his main concern was taking his father out of the ashram.
"Can you refill my cup dear," said his father
And this was not going to be easy.
FOURTEEN
Harold Wilson's Cabin
The circus camp was spread over an acre and half of barren land, surrounded by a six feet tall boundary wall. In the center of the ground was the main tent with the circus ring where most of the acts were planned to happen. To its east were the kitchen and the menagerie tent while to the west was the residential area, which consisted of two large dormitory tents, one each for the men and the women as well as two wooden cabins, which had been rented along with the ground. One of the cabins was being occupied by Harold while the other by his brother Bill.
Since Harold had spent the last three hours of his life in this cabin, Maya had decided to start her investigation from this place. She opened the door with the hoop of keys that she had found in the forest and peered inside. The small room was flushed with light pouring in through a large window. A mattress lay in a corner of the room along with a single wooden chair and an iron safebox. Under the chair was a stack of newspapers.
Maya was surprised that Harold had taken to reading newspapers. From when she knew him, he had no interest in any news not related to his circus.
She opened the safebox whose key was also a part of the hoop but found it empty apart from a few hundred Cowries in money. She closed the safe and focused her attention on the room. Whatever had compelled him to jump to his death had happened here.
Maya took out her magnifying glass and squatted on the wooden floor to look for any clues. Generally, she found footmarks very informative. Shoe marks could tell her how many people had been on the scene of the crime, the dirt that they might have dropped had the possibility to tell her where they had come from, the depth of impression could even tell her whether the person was in haste or had a lot of time up his hands. Today though, she found the study of footmarks futile. The wooden floor was not cleaned often and it was littered with so many marks and smudges that it was hard to tell when these marks were made and who they belonged to. She moved towards the mattress and patted it. Dirt motes rose in an ominous cloud and disappeared through the open window, Maya let go of her magnifying glass and settled on the mattress. She felt a pang of nostalgia nudge her heart. Mattresses like this were used by all the other circus artists. She too had slept on an identical bed when she was here. She ran her hands all along the surface, then removed her sandals and eased her feet upon it before leaning backward and lying down. There was something magical about the mattress, its touch felt like that of an old friend. Maya closed her eyes for a bit to savor the experience fully.
She didn’t realize when she fell asleep.
FIFTEEN
Nadia and Natasha
“Who is she, papa?” asked little Natasha running towards her father who had just gotten off a carriage holding the hand of a girl she had never seen before.
The other girl, dressed in a pink frock, her dark hair tied in a ponytail, saw Natasha charge towards her and tried to pry her hands from Harold’s grasp. She wanted to run away back to her house. To her mother. She knew that her mother was waiting for her, though the house was no more, she must still be there, in the street perhaps, in front of the grocery store where she usually hung out with other ladies.
“She is Nadia, your cousin,” said Harold, dragging the child in his arm and pushing her towards Natasha, “Do you remember Aunt Gloria, she is her daughter. She will live with us now.”
Natasha smiled observing her cousin curiously.
“Do you know how to play stapoo,” she asked but Nadia was still hesitant. She tried to break free from Harold’s grasp once more. She did not remember the way back to her house but she was sure she could find it. She knew she had to take a right turn from the big red post office building and then go around Edoardo’s chocolate shop to reach her house.
“Answer her Nadia,” said Harold smiling kindly, “did you play stapoo at your house? If not Natasha can teach you. Do you not want to learn?”
Nadia rocked her head vigorously, “I want to go back to mummy,” she said still struggling to free herself.
Harold thought for a moment that he might cry, but he resisted the impulse by biting his lips. He picked up Nadia in his hands.
“Your mother has gone away Nadia,” he said, “we will go and meet her when she comes back.”
“Now,” said Nadia, “I want to see her now.”
“You cannot,” said Harold feeling slightly helpless, “she has gone very far away, on a large ship to an island. No one else is allowed there.”
“She would let me in,” said Nadia, large drops of tears now slippin
g down her cheeks, “let me go.”
Natasha was tired of the fussing child. Though for a few moments she had harbored the hope of having someone of a similar age to play with (no one in the circus was her age), she did not think she could stand this cry baby for much longer. She turned to continue her game alone.
“No, child,” said Harold, “please don’t cry. Two terrible monsters guard the island. They eat little girls.”
Nadia flailed her arms and tried to wriggle away. “Mummy!” she wailed.
Harold fidgeted uneasily looking for help. Natasha had never caused so much fuss and he had no experience of dealing with any other child.
“Okay," he said finally, “If you don’t cry, we would take the first train tomorrow morning and go to see your mother.”
The lie seemed to work. Nadia stopped crying and looked into Harold’s eyes trying to ascertain the truth in his statement. She was satisfied apparently as she stopped struggling.
“How long would it take to go there?” she asked
“Very long,” said Harold, “So you need to rest now to be strong for the journey.”
Nadia nodded.
“Are you hungry,” asked Harold. Nadia nodded again wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her frock.
“Let’s go and eat then.”
Harold took Nadia to a tent and put her on a brown mattress spread on the floor. He left her there for a few minutes and returned with two bowls of porridge. He gave the smaller one to Nadia and settled on another mattress lying nearby. Nadia hadn’t eaten for a day and gobbled up the bowl in no time. She patted her stomach and yawned.
“You are tired,” said Harold collecting her empty bowl, “sleep. You need to be fresh to see your mother.”
He put the bowls in a corner, then lay Nadia down and pulled a sheet upon her. He returned back to his own mattress to get some rest, thinking vaguely about his day. It had been a harrowing experience, worse even than he had anticipated when he had received the cursed telegram.
There was nothing that scared Harold more than telegrams - the devil's messenger, as he called them. Those sinister little bits of paper brought only doom and gloom to his life. It was a telegram which had informed him about his father’s death a decade ago, and another telegram which carried the news that the ferry that his wife was traveling in had been gulped by the Arabian sea. And in the morning today, another wretched piece of paper had turned up at his doorstep to announce the death of his sister and her husband.
Gloria was Harold’s youngest sibling and, growing up, he had loved nothing more than his little sister. In the absence of their mother and with their father being largely busy in his circus, Harold, eight years her senior, had cared for Gloria like his own child. He would make breakfast for her, feed her with his own hands, then bathe her, tie her long brown hair in ponytails and dress her in little bright frocks that looked like they belonged to dolls.
She had been a precious little toy to him and, though he didn’t show it, when she had married a merchant from Bombay and left the circus, a piece of his heart had snapped.
In the nine years since her marriage, she had drifted so far apart from Harold that he had lost all contact. Her husband's business took her to all parts of India and it was not easy to stay in touch. He had heard from her last five years ago when she had recently shifted to Cardim with her husband, who had opened a shop there. He had been meaning to visit her but had been too busy with the circus.
And now she was dead. Her little sister.
The telegram that Harold had received said that the apartment building in which Raman, Harold’s brother in law, lived had collapsed, killing him and his wife along with around 20 others. Since Harold was the sole remaining relative of Raman in the council records, the authorities wanted to know if he would be interested to adopt his daughter who had been miraculously pulled alive from the rubble of the building.
Why wouldn’t he?
When he had seen Nadia first, scared and grim among the scores of other survivors of the collapse, she had seemed just like Gloria when she was small. The same dark brown eyes and long black hair. The same little hands and feet and a similar way of crying. She was even dressed in a pink frock just like he used to dress his little sister.
Harold had fallen instantly in love with Nadia.
Harold yawned. He would have two daughters from now on. Nadia and Natasha. Their names matched as well. What a queer coincidence.
He suddenly felt someone by his side. It was Nadia.
She raised the sheet that he had upon him and carefully snuggled close to him.
“What happened?” he asked her, but Nadia did not answer. She was already asleep.
SIXTEEN
The Intruder in a Black Cloak
Maya woke up with a start. She had heard footsteps in the cabin. As she jerked up, she saw a figure sneak out of the door and rush towards the left.
She got up from the bed to find the safebox gaping. She was sure that she had closed the door of the safe after her examination. Maya rushed towards the safe to find the money still inside, the intruder had opened the safe but not stolen the money. The pile of newspapers in the corner had also been disturbed. The trespasser was looking for something. But what? And who was he?
She stepped out of the cabin to look around. But there was no one in the vicinity. Towards the center of the ground, some workers were still trying to put up the menagerie tent but they didn’t seem like they had broken into the cabin.
Maya had seen the intruder run towards the left, he had covered himself in a black cloak and had a tall and lean built. Maya peered towards the left. There was a cabin in that direction that belonged to Bill, and a large dormitory tent for the male workers. The women’s tent was on the opposite side of Harold’s cabin. Going by the size of the intruder, as well as the direction of his cabin, Bill seemed to be the prime suspect. But Maya did not really want to confront him about the event. She didn’t think she would be able to control herself and she didn’t want to land herself in trouble for fatally injuring Happy Billy.
Maya stood at the door contemplating the problem. Her search of Harold’s room had produced no specific leads to pursue, and the intruder was the only yarn that she could tug on if she hoped to make any progress on the case. What could the intruder be looking for? Not money certainly, he had not touched the money in the safe. He was looking for something else, what could he be searching for in a stack of newspapers? A letter of some kind?
Maya wouldn’t know. Not until she banished her hesitation and faced Bill. She took a deep breath and started towards his cabin.
“What are you doing here?” barked the one-eyed man thoroughly disgusted upon Maya’s sight.
His disgust was exceeded by Maya’s. “Why did you break into Uncle Harold’s room?” she came straight to the point.
“I did not break into any room. I have been sleeping in this room for the last two hours.”
Maya shifted her eyes to his feet. “You mean to say that you wear shoes to bed?”
Bill looked at his feet and shuffled uneasily. “Yes I do, do you have any problem? Now get lost.”
Maya had in this time done a quick scan of the room. Going by Bill’s reaction to her accusation, she was sure that he was indeed the one who had broken into Harold’s room and she was now looking for a place where he might have hidden the black cloak that she had seen. There was wet mud outside his cabin door, and though fresh footmarks were present all over the room, there was a noticeable concentration near a small wooden trunk. She was certain that the cloak was in there. Was it possible that it also contained whatever Bill had been looking for in Harold’s room?
“I know it was you,” she said to him, “what did you want?”
“Did you not hear what I said? I have been in this room for the past two hours, I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Then what is under that cot,” Maya said pointing to the mattress lying in one corner of the room. As soon as her uncle turn
ed to look at the bed, she swiftly ducked under his arm and jumped to the trunk. It wasn't locked and before he could pull her away she had reached inside and pulled a black cloak out.
“Thief,” he roared at her, “get out of this room and the circus grounds now.”
“I am not a thief,” said Maya coldly, “but this cloak proves that you are. Tell me what you were looking for in Uncle Harold’s room.”
Bill’s face grew redder by the second as his one eye glared into Maya’s face. Then suddenly, as if possessed by a stray spirit, he snatched the cloak from Maya’s hand, which snapped and tore in half, then pushed her outside the door and shut it at her face.
“Do not come into my sight again,” he shouted from inside the cabin, “or I will break your big nose.”
Maya got up from the mud seething with anger. If she was to succeed in her resolve to not hurt her one-eyed uncle, he needed to improve his manners. Soon.
SEVENTEEN
The Wilson Brothers
Maya hadn’t managed to clean herself properly when Helena emerged out of the ladies' tent and came trundling towards her.
“I heard Billy shouting,” she said to her, helping dust her back, “What is with you two. You cannot seem to get along for a minute.”
Maya ground her teeth trying not to shout vulgarities at her uncle. It proved hard but she managed it by kicking on his cabin’s door instead.
“There is a reason that we don’t get along,” said Maya loud enough so that Bill inside could hear, “This man is a coward and a thief and I have a strong feeling he was involved in his brother’s death.”
Helena, scandalized from Maya’s accusation, put her hands upon the young detective’s mouth. The door to the cabin opened once more and Bill emerged with a razor blade.
“If you ever say that again,” he said waving the blade dangerously at Maya, “I will make sure I use your blood to paint my clown’s face.”
“You wouldn’t need my blood for that,” shot back Maya, “I bet you have collected Uncle Harold’s blood in a jar.”
The Mystic's Miracle Page 7