Lethal Secrets

by Anju Gattani

  She sliced off some brown paint, angled the blade against the upper third of the canvas, and began creating the skyline of the mountains.

  While she worked, trees in the front yard rustled in the breeze, reminding her of Yash’s laughter. Morning sunlight flooded a portion of the marble floor with the warmth of Yash’s smile and her heart melted.

  She laid the knife to rest, relaxed her shoulders, closed her eyes, and imagined the tip-tap of Yash’s shoes coming up behind her. How she longed to hold him.

  She opened her eyes, and her heart sank at the surrounding emptiness.

  She picked up a clean, two-inch-wide brush and began creating a lake at the foot of the mountains. Another pretty picture to hang for public satisfaction and to alleviate the starkness of some wall.

  Fifteen minutes later, footsteps thudded on the carpet behind her and grew louder by the second. Sheetal continued to highlight the trees that bordered a waterfall. The scent of mint preceded the intruder’s arrival. Rakesh.

  His breathing filled her ears and the fabric of his shirt flattened against her spine.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  Sheetal exchanged the brush for another coated in blue, dabbed the bristles in brown and then white, and whipped clouds above the highest peak. A storm. She stepped away from the lure of his masculine pull because custom ordained it wrong for them to stand in such close proximity with the studio door wide open. If anyone saw them, she would be labeled “shameless,” “too broad-minded and outgoing,” and “too western” in behavior. She might lose her reputation as an example for women to follow. Besides, why give in after yesterday’s rejection?

  The warmth of his tobacco breath teased the hairs on her nape. He snaked a blue shirtsleeve-covered arm around her bare midriff and pulled her tight against his body. His silky-smooth Geoffrey Beene shirt wrinkled between them. He wants me, after all.

  “I have something for you.”

  His deep, throaty “you” clenched a knot within as he came around and handed her an envelope.

  “What is this?” She looked at him.

  “Two-way train tickets to Mansali to bring Yash back for the holidays.”

  A week-long holiday in the Himalayas at the end of October, close to Yash’s campus, would give them quality time away from Mummyji, Naina, and the business, and ease some of Rakesh’s stress.

  Sheetal pulled three tickets out of the envelope and read the names on each. A one-way ticket for Yash. A return-ticket for her. A return-ticket for Janvi. She froze. The maid servant? Why was Janvi going? She checked the envelope again. Empty. “Where’s yours?”

  “I’m not going. I told you.”

  “I’m not going alone, either. You said tickets for two.” Road and rail offered the only modes of transport to and from Mansali. However, rural areas of India were considered unsafe for a woman to travel alone.

  “I said two-way tickets. Janvi and you. Janvi will accompany—”

  “But I thought—”

  “Think less and listen more.”

  Didn’t he understand that a vacation meant alone time?

  “You’ll get the usual six days in Mansali before you return.” He spun on his heel and left.

  “Rakesh!” She followed him down the south wing, past richly carved marble balustrades on the right and a series of closed doors on the left. He was probably heading to their bedroom. Sheetal lengthened her stride to catch up, but Rakesh turned right, strode past their bedroom, and descended the stairs that sliced through the middle of the north wing and flared on the ground floor’s tessellation of black and white marble squares.

  She leaned over the balcony that circled the inner perimeter of the mansion. “Rakesh?”

  Two monstrous chandeliers, suspended equidistance on either side of the stairs, illuminated a nine-seater Bradford Brown sofa on the left and a sixteen-seater Fulton White seating arrangement on the right.

  “Rakesh, what about you?”

  He paused on the stairs and looked up at her. “What now?”

  “Aren’t you coming? You promised you would.”

  “No.”

  She hoisted the front pleats of her sari and made her way down the stairs, but her flat sandals slipped on the carpet. She lunged forward and slammed against Rakesh’s chest. He caught her in time.

  “Careful.”

  He does care. She pulled away from him and straightened, crushing the envelope in the process. “I don’t want to go alone.”

  The muscles covering the sharp slant of his jaw and cheek bone tightened. “Sheetal,” he whispered, “I have to focus on the loan right now. I might have to travel again. On business.”

  Always traveling. Always business. “But—”

  “Be by yourself for a while.” He ran his palm along the length of her arm. “Learn to be a little independent. Do things on your own.” He let go.

  “What exactly will I do?”

  “Paint...stuff,” he murmured. “Walk. Take tours. See the mountains.”

  “But—”

  “Look, I can’t be around all the time. Learn to be alone.”

  How much more alone was she supposed to be when they spent most of their time away from each other? She tightened her grip on the crushed envelope.

  “I’ll use the time to finish up meetings and work before Yash arrives. Promise.” The pale skin around his eyes tightened, which meant he wanted her to leave. “Anything else?”

  Unspoken words lodged in her throat.

  “Ah, there you are!” Mummyji arrived at the foot of the stairs. “I was looking for you. I’m on my way to the club, I tell you. I have lunch and a game of cards today.” Most days, Mummyji ate lunch with the Royal Society Ladies Group and spent her afternoons playing cards. “Now, run up and bring down my purse, I tell you, because Janvi’s gone out. The white one with flower beads.” Janvi and Roshni were the only servants allowed in the bedrooms and whenever Janvi left on an errand, Mummyji made Sheetal her personal maid.

  With over twenty servants in the house, surely one could fetch the purse. Sheetal marched down past Rakesh and faced Mummyji. “What about Roshni?”

  “Hai Ishwar! Not Roshni.” Mummyji pumped both hands on her hips, her Amul chocolate lips curved in a sneer.

  “But—”

  “No buts in this house, I tell you. I would get it myself, but a trip upstairs will ruin my sari pleats. You go.” She flicked an index finger.

  The order bore no connection with sari pleats but did account for the cellulite that pleated every fold of Mummyji’s skin. Over the last eight years, Mummyji had doubled in dimension. She also owned a closet full of white purses that matched every white sari she owned. White, the color of Hindu widows, reflected the subdued lifestyle a woman was expected to lead after her husband’s death. Widows didn’t dot bindis on their foreheads, adorn their wrists with colorful bangles, or participate in religious festivals meant for married women.

  After Ashok Dhanraj died, Mummyji, thirty-five at the time, compensated for her forced sedentary lifestyle by replacing all her rubies, emeralds, and sapphires with diamonds and pearls. She sacrificed her gold zari-bordered saris for silver ones and replaced multi-colored bracelets with diamond bangles.

  “I said, I need my purse.” Mummyji waved a thick, brown finger in the air.

  Sheetal clenched her jaw. “I’ll bring it down in five minutes. First, I need to talk to my husband.” She was about to pivot on the step when Mummyji frowned and a spiderweb of wrinkles raked her round face. “Now, Naina is on bed rest. Spend some time with her, I tell you.”

  Sheetal would much rather spend time with her Mama, who had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer six months ago. Sheetal accompanied Mama to monthly chemotherapy treatments and couldn’t wait for the day Mama would be diagnosed cancer free.

  “I expect you to have all of Naina’s meals wheeled up to her room while I’m away and check in on her, I tell you.”

  Naina’s marriage to Ajay Malhotra had held all the pomp
and glory of a nine-hundred-million-rupee wedding. However, Ajay and the Malhotra in-laws soon discovered Naina’s clinical depression and accused the Dhanrajs of duping them. The illness Mummyji had hidden for so long inevitably led to Naina’s divorce, and sunk Naina deeper into depression.

  “Now then.” Mummyji waddled over to the Fulton White sofas, the barrel of her white sari swinging with each step. She tripped on the front sari pleats, flailed her arms, and collapsed on an ottoman. The flab around her midriff compressed and protruded like two tires, one atop the other. “Hai Ishwar! What else can go wrong? Servants keep mopping floors all day. No wonder I keep slipping. They have nothing better to do, I tell you.”

  “Perhaps the servants shouldn’t mop the floors so frequently then,” Sheetal suggested.

  “Yes, my fault—no? Is that what you’re saying? You young women now a days. No sense of respect. No consideration for....”

  During her initial years of marriage, Sheetal had tried to strike a cordial balance with Mummyji. However, Mummyji made it clear from day one that she was the matriarch in the Dhanraj household and, in accordance with customs and the extended family system, Sheetal was expected to comply with her decisions. If Sheetal chose to break away, the family would label her a rebel and consider her an outcast.

  “I don’t need your sympathy or advice, I tell you. God knows what I did to deserve this.”

  Sheetal’s throat tightened. “This” referred to her presence in the Dhanrajs’ lives, not the current incident. Sheetal turned around, but Rakesh had gone. She trudged upstairs, returned with Mummyji’s purse, and went back to her studio. A storm. Wasn’t that where she’d left off? She dragged the bristles of a brush through dark blue paint and pressed the tip against the canvas, but the magic of her earlier moment was gone.

  Chapter Five

  Truth or Dare

  On the rare occasions when Rakesh returned home early from work, Sheetal shared time alone with him in the Japanese garden behind the mansion. A Paris Evening tea set, part of her dowry, held Sheetal’s coffee in one pot and Rakesh’s cardamom, cloves, and saffron spiced chai in the other. Sheetal swirled a silver spoon through her coffee while Rakesh raised a cup to his lips for the fifth time in the last three minutes, took a sip, and returned the cup to the saucer, clinking porcelain against porcelain. He didn’t gulp quick mouthfuls like other men, and from the lethargic motion of his hands, he didn’t appear to care if steam clouded his eyes, a brown skin formed on the liquid’s surface, or if brown rings from his cup stamped the saucer beneath. He withdrew his hand and placed it on his lap.

  Sheetal parted her lips to speak, but Rakesh reached to the tea trolley, opened the cigar box, pulled out a thick, brown cigar, and lit the tip with precision. Sheetal sipped her coffee and watched from the corner of her eye as he chewed on the end, gulped, and exhaled.

  Now that he’d released the day’s stress, he might listen. “Meghaji called this morning.”

  “Oh?”

  Twenty-seven-year-old Megha, the youngest of the three Dhanraj children, had married Raj Saxena for love at the age of nineteen. The couple had eloped and tied the knot with a quick wedding ceremony at the local temple because, otherwise, Rakesh would have forced Megha to marry a man of his choosing.

  Having reached her second trimester, Megha had called Sheetal to discuss having the baby at the Dhanraj’s in accordance with the Indian custom for first-time mothers to have the baby at her parents’ home.

  Rashmi Dhanraj, Rakesh and Megha’s biological mother, had died twenty-seven years ago, and Mummyji wanted nothing to do with Megha or the Saxenas because Megha was another woman's daughter and therefore not Mummyji's responsibility. So responsibility for the baby’s birth fell on Sheetal.

  “Megha’s due in May, so I figured we should speak to the Saxenas ahead of time so she can have the baby here.”

  Rakesh looked up.

  “I think you should talk to the Saxenas,” she said.

  “I think you should figure this out.”

  Sheetal changed the topic. “There’s an appointment with Dr. Kishore this week. Wednesday, at five-thirty. I can meet you at—”

  “What appointment?”

  “He asked to see you. Remember?”

  “I said no. Remember?”

  “It’s important.”

  “Nothing is, unless I say so.” A shaft of evening sunlight struck Rakesh’s left cheek, slicing the space between them at a diagonal.

  “He wants to talk—”

  Rakesh stood, turned, and left.

  Sheetal watched him return to the Marquette Dining Room, enter, and slide closed the glass door.

  ***

  The next day, Sheetal ended work early so she could accompany Mama to an afternoon chemotherapy session. As she neared the ground floor, sniffles caused her to slow her gait. She looked left. Naina sprawled in her favorite place on the Bradford Brown sofas.

  The informal seating arrangement adjacent to the mansion’s main entrance offered visibility and access to all those who came and went. The dark brown fabric of the cross-sectional sofa camouflaged Naina’s five feet tall, weedy frame.

  A stumpy vase of artificial white buds centered on the Russet Legacy coffee table and several issues of New Woman, Vogue, and Elle magazines haphazardly stacked on a corner table presented two bright spots in the drab seating area.

  Naina trailed a stubby brown finger along the hump of a black telephone beside the magazines as Sheetal stepped onto the ground floor.

  Eight years ago, Ajay Malhotra’s divorce announcement occurred in this enormous living room. Since then, Naina spent the majority of her time flipping through magazines and answering the telephone even though servants had been designated to the chore. From the manner in which she trailed her finger over the receiver and glared at Sheetal, she appeared eager for Sheetal’s marriage to unravel.

  “So, are you feeling better?” Sheetal asked.

  “Eh na? What makes you think I’m sick?”

  “I didn’t say you were. It’s just that I haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “A while” usually meant several weeks with Naina locked in her room in a state of depression.

  “I just thought you might be on bed rest.” Sheetal headed for the door.

  “I’ve been busy, na.”

  “Busy” meant Naina had been going through her wedding albums or trying to figure out some cosmetic remedy to enhance her scant beauty.

  “So, Bhabhi,” Naina used the term of respect reserved for an older brother’s wife, “where are you going?”

  “To my parents’ place. I’m meeting Mama at the hospital for chemo first.”

  “Will it take long?”

  “The rest of today.” Sheetal quickened her steps, thereby minimizing the opportunity for Naina to interrogate her further.

  At that moment, Megha, dressed in a creamy brown salwar kameez suit trimmed with white leaves and vines rose from the Fulton White sofas and headed toward her, sweeping the air with the vanilla-fruity fragrance of Sure deodorant. Because tomorrow’s Karva Chauth involved a day of fasting and numerous guests joining them for evening prayers, Megha would stay over for the next two days.

  Megha’s tummy formed a tiny mound behind the knee-length kurta that hung over a pair of baggy white trousers, cuffed at the ankles. A brown and white tie-dyed chiffon stole formed a U-shaped drape from shoulder to shoulder and the remaining fabric drifted behind her like two pigtails. “Bhabhi. You’re leaving?” Megha asked, her voice as delicate as wind chimes.

  “Mama’s chemo is at three and I’ll stay overnight with her,” Sheetal replied, “but I’ll be back tomorrow morning.”

  “Eh, na, did you check with Mummy?” Naina called.

  “For what? Permission to take my mother for chemo?” Ten years ago, Sheetal had needed Mummyji’s permission to go anywhere. Since then, she’d taken control of her life, her marriage, and her career.

  “I expect to see you back home tonight, I tell yo
u!” Mummyji ordered.

  Sheetal craned her neck and found Mummyji standing at the upstairs balustrade. “I’ll return tomorrow morning. Rakesh knows.” As long as Rakesh knew, no one else’s opinion mattered.

  “Bhabhi?”

  A note of worry in Megha’s tone drew Sheetal’s gaze back to her face.

  Megha’s hazel eyes darted left then right, as if in search of something. She blinked. “I—” she pushed a lock of hair behind the curve of an ear. “You will come tomorrow morning, right?”

  “Of course. It’s Karva Chauth. I have to be back.”

  Megha leaned close. “I’m not used to...you know...being here without you.”

  Ten years ago, Megha spoke in stammered gushes of nearly incomprehensible speech. After Sheetal married Rakesh, Sheetal helped Megha gain enough confidence and femininity to blossom into a woman. Now, eight years later, Megha prepared to be a mother.

  Unlike Sheetal, who stayed home while Rakesh travelled abroad, Megha accompanied her cardiologist husband, Raj Saxena, a private practitioner, to several medical conferences. A month ago, the couple had returned from a New York trip, their first time abroad, and Megha couldn’t stop talking about American women. She fawned over how their blonde hair sparkled like gold in the sun, and praised their blue and green eyes, comparing them to the colors of the ocean, and went on and on about their breathtaking beauty. She described their career-oriented, determined personalities, and marveled at their ability to balance work and family without the help of servants.

  Did Rakesh spend the majority of his trips abroad with these blue- and green-eyed beauties and return to find her lacking? “There are some interesting articles I dog-eared in those magazines.” Sheetal pointed to the stack on the corner table. “Some are silly, like the article on how to put love and romance back into a marriage.”

  “Why silly?” Megha asked.

  “Because reprinted articles from America make great fillers, but Western ideas simply don’t work here. Don’t tell me a bag of tricks can put your marriage back on track especially when we have to work harder on our relationships because we don’t have their easy-going culture.”