Lethal Secrets

by Anju Gattani

  One wish. Surely, she was allowed one last desperate wish. On the seventh full rotation, she closed her eyes and tightened her grip on the thali in her hands. Let all the love from this woman’s marriage pour into my life. Give me her happiness. I want her marital bliss. Once. Just once. I want it all. A chilly breeze brushed the hairs on her arms. She raised the thali to her forehead as a sign of respect, lowered it, and opened her eyes. Silver bells skirted the perimeter. Megha’s thali!

  Dread filled her heart. No. This was wrong. All wrong! She quickly passed the thali and took her own in her left hand as the sun dipped behind the trees and raked in the last of the day’s light. She had to take back the wish before the sun disappeared. The sky turned a shade of gray. Too late.

  “Let the offerings of this Karva bring long life to my husband,” Mummyji’s voice wafted with the cold breeze, “and may my bhagya, my joyful state of married bliss, be everlasting.”

  Sheetal raised her gold thali to her forehead as the others did. The plate’s edge touched the sindoor in her part and she gulped.

  “May my death precede that of my husband,” Mummyji continued, “so that I can enter the chitta, the funeral pyre, as a bride.”

  In the nightmare before her wedding, she had dressed in bridal attire, perambulated the sacred fire behind her husband, and just before completing the seventh phera, stepped into the fire and burned alive.

  A hot wetness rolled down her cheek. The thali tilted left. Its contents slid. Her back grew hot. Very hot. Sheetal looked over her shoulder. Her thali hit the ground.

  "Arrey dekho!” a woman screamed.

  Sheetal jumped to her feet.

  The women shouted for water and help.

  “Bachao!”

  “Her pallu. Hai Ishwar!” Mummyji screamed. “Her sari pallu is on fire!”

  A storm of dhurries beat down on her. Her lungs clouded with dust and she fell to the ground. Everything in sight spun, from gray skies to sparkling lights to a tessellation of dhurries and the hoops of sari hems.

  “She’s in shock,” someone declared. “Her pallu accidentally touched the diya.”

  “Oh! What bad luck!” Mummyji exclaimed.

  Mummyji’s bad luck.

  The odor of burned fabric roasted the air.

  “No damage to her, thank God,” a deep female voice rose in sympathy. “But how unfortunate this should happen on such an auspicious day.”

  “Oh my!” Vinita gasped. “Bad luck. Truly bad luck.”

  Sheetal’s head spun. The pallus of the women’s saris filled her sight. All Mummyji’s fault for conducting the prayers and casting her widow’s shadow.

  “Choti Memsahib.” Janvi unraveled her from the cocoon of dhurries and patted her midriff with cold, wet towels. “You’re so lucky to be alive.”

  Sheetal coughed. Not luck. Bad luck. An omen from the gods.

  ***

  Sheetal had called Rakesh several times that afternoon but he didn’t pick up the phone. At ten-thirty, she reasoned that he should arrive home at any moment and made her way to the Marquette Dining Room.

  Through the sliding glass doors, she spotted Raj and Megha standing in the garden in a halo of moonlight. She angled toward the wall, hid behind a panel of curtains, and peeked past its folds. Raj, dressed in sparkling cream and burgundy kurta pajamas, watched Megha perform the final puja to mark the end of Karva Chauth.

  Supporting the puja thali in her left hand and a steel sieve in her right, Megha raised the sieve and peered at the moon through the silver mesh. Then she placed the sieve on a nearby bench, dipped the third finger of her right hand in red kum kum powder, then into grains of dry rice, and flicked the mixture toward the moon. After offering the moon a libation of karva water, she lifted the sieve and looked at Raj through the mesh.

  Sheetal’s chest constricted with the abyss of Rakesh’s absence. He must be on his way home. Perhaps he got stuck in traffic, she reasoned, aware that most husbands returned home on time to celebrate Karva Chauth with their wives.

  Raj lifted the karva, and Megha pressed the edge of her right palm against her lower lip. He tipped the karva over her open palm and water flowed toward her mouth and trickled down her chin. She drank seven sips, then Raj slipped a piece of sweet meat between Megha’s lips.

  Sheetal’s stomach growled as a warm wetness rolled down her cheek. Where could Rakesh have gone?

  Raj reached for Megha and they locked in an embrace.

  Sheetal clenched her sides tight at the salt of her own tears.

  Chapter Nine

  Living Canvas

  Sheetal leaned against the wall of the train’s luxury coupe and tucked her feet under her hips, keenly aware no one would sleep on the upper berth tonight. Janvi had fallen ill that morning, As the train pulled out of Raigun Station, she rested her left elbow on the train’s narrow windowsill, cupped her chin in her palm, and watched the concrete fringes of the city recede, replaced by metal awnings, roofs of shanty huts, and make-shift homes supported on bamboo poles recede. In the distance, spread a mosaic of lush fields, blue sky, and mounds of gray-and-white clouds.

  She swayed with the train’s rickety motion, becoming lulled by the thaka-thaka-thunk of metal against track. How she hoped there’d be no delays. She couldn’t wait to hug Yash, smother his face with kisses, and run her palms down the sides of his face.

  The air condition’s breeze and mini, whirring ceiling fan puckered goosebumps along her arms. She pulled the pashmina shawl over her shoulders.

  The sun inched across the sky as the train rolled west. Brush and wild grasses swayed in the train’s breeze while mud houses with thatched roofs, acres of farmland, ponds, and mudholes brimming with silt-brown water provided an ever-changing view. On the horizon, lush green mountains sliced in thirds and quarters by waterfalls rose toward a denser padding of clouds. A group of ragged boys on a pond’s edge swung wooden sticks, flailed their arms, and yelled at a herd of black buffaloes that were submerged in dirty gray water. The beasts rose on all fours, lumbered toward fields of yellow grass, and the disturbed water lapped its banks. The yellow fields gave way to an uneven tessellation of rice paddies.

  Sheetal pressed a palm against the window, reaching for the warmth of the outside world, but the cold glass made her tuck her hand beneath her shawl and snug the soft fabric against her chest. What if the train got delayed and the taxi wallah hired to drive her to Upper Mansali abandoned her? What if she got caught amidst a robbery or riots or the train derailed? Who would she turn to for help?

  The train chugged on and a never-ending cascade of calamities plagued her imagination.

  Someone knocked on the coupe door.

  Sheetal jerked her head up. An orange and pink sky loomed over scenic mountains lit by the final rays of the setting sun. She didn’t realize she’d dozed off.

  “Kholiye,” a man demanded that she open the door. The knocking resumed, louder. “Ticket checking. Conductor,” he said in broken English.

  Sheetal removed two sheets of paper the size of her palm from her handbag, rose, and headed for the door. She snapped open the lock, slid the door right several inches, and offered the ticket through the opening. The conductor plugged the gap with his shoe and yanked the ticket from Sheetal’s grip.

  The train entered a curve and screeched, throwing Sheetal against the door. She grabbed the handle in time to prevent the door from sliding open further.

  The conductor caught the door’s edge and held on, his knuckles turning a lighter shade of brown. “Aap akele?” he asked if she was alone. “Such a long journey—thirteen hours—for a woman to be alone.”

  That was none of his business! “There are two of us.” She handed over Janvi’s ticket and the confirmation slip bearing both their names. He tried to peek in, but she blocked the narrow gap with her body and slanted her foot against the door in case the conductor hoped to take advantage of her. If he so much as tried, she would kick his foot out of the way, slam the door against the wall, and
lock it shut. Never mind if his fingers got in the way.

  “Next stop, Dholakpur. Must keeping door locked, Madame. Don’t open even anyone begging. You understanding, Madame? Problem area. Hooligans. Always catching free rides and looting passengers. All this religion and politics doing no one good.”

  The twenty thousand residents of Dholakpur were destined to a lifetime of farming and other menial jobs. The impoverished town had suffered religious unrest for several months, and the curfew had lifted last week.

  “We are locking doors from inside of all carriages. Still, I am warning you and other passengers not coming out. Not open doors if anyone knocking. About fifteen minutes train stopping. Stay inside for some more time even after train moving.” The conductor returned the tickets, placed a blue cap on his head, and left.

  Sheetal locked the door and returned to her berth. She was seated as the train slowly screeched to a halt. Low voltage bulbs suspended from thick black cables hung below a station’s roof, lighting “Dholakpur” in the curled Hindi alphabet where the characters huddled under a solid horizontal line. Hawker boys, Yash’s age, wheeled their carts under the luminous glare of the flickering fluorescent tube lights that lit the platform. Woks of hot oil and sizzling griddles steamed above fiery jets serviced by portable gas cylinders. Cries of “Khana garam,” “Pakoras,” “Garam nescoffee,” and “Garam chai” reached her, muffled, through the thick glass.

  Sheetal sniffed to inhale the aroma of hot dinners, vegetable fritters, steaming coffee and tea, but ended up breathing more rusted metal odor and recycled air. Her dinner, perfectly packed by Laal Bahadur’s skillful hands, waited in aluminum foil and portable, mini hot cases in a black carry-on below her seat. Cramped from rocking side to side for over six hours, Sheetal stretched, then pressed her left cheek against the sheet of window glass while craving a hot drink.

  A hawker boy busy serving several passengers cups of chai and packs of food through open windows of second-class compartments, grabbed several rupee notes handed to him, dug in his pocket, and returned the passenger’s change. With no calculator or cash register to handle the transaction, dressed in ragged clothes and barefoot, he clearly possessed a gift of a strong mind and the will to endure. Surely, he would survive any odds life threw his way. Sheetal knocked on the glass. He didn’t pay her any attention. Is this what it felt like to be invisible or to be a still-life on canvas? Sheetal felt around the edges of the window for some way to open it but the glass was sealed to the wall and she remembered the conductor’s warning to stay put.

  Wasn’t Dholakpur a fifteen-minute stop? She looked at her watch. The train should be moving soon. A thump on the other side of the coupe door rattled the metal hook in the notch and the hairs on her neck stood on end. Hooligans. Bandits? Sheetal lowered the shade on the window and squeezed into her corner. The train jerked, whistled, inched forward, and the thumps stopped. Another knock. Another thump. Sheetal waited, fearing the door would slide open as the train pulled out of Dholakpur.

  She focused on the door as she rocked gently from side to side.

  “Arrey, jaldi karo, Bhaiya! Saman ootaro!” someone called on the other side of the door for help to unload their luggage as footsteps pounded back and forth, and doors slid open and shut in a frenzy.

  Sheetal startled awake, jumped to her feet, and raised the window shade. Harsh daylight flooded the coupe. Passengers had spilled out of the train with their luggage and clumped in groups. Coolies and porters dressed in red shirts with bronze tags on one arm, unloaded beddings, suitcases, and metal trunks onto the concrete platform.

  “Kholo bhai kholo.” Thump-thump-thump. A man commanded she open the door just as an open-air kiosk outside with “Mansali Chai Wallah” in Hindi caught her attention.

  Confusion whirled with the crowd spilling onto the platform. The train jerked, whistled, and Sheetal stumbled. She grabbed the upper berth for support, lunged toward the door, and slid it open. The carriage was empty. “Arrey koi hai? Sunno.” She called for assistance, begging to be heard.

  An elderly coolie in a red shirt and tattered white pajamas popped his head out from an adjacent cabin.

  “Mera saman!” She pointed to her suitcase and hand-carry tucked below the berth, grabbed her handbag, and hitched its strap over her shoulder as the train eased out of Mansali Station.

  The coolie dragged out the luggage and swung both onto a mini turban coiled on top of his head. He hurried Sheetal down the corridor toward an open door on the left as the train inched forward.

  Sheetal grabbed hold of the vertical metal bars on both sides of the door, angled her body sideways, and attempted to descend three small steps. The platform passed like a thick gray ribbon as a hoard of passengers made their way up a staircase to a footbridge. The train rolled forward at a lazy momentum as wind rushed past.

  “Jump, Behnji.” The coolie called her “Sister” out of respect.

  She looked over her shoulder as he balanced her luggage on the coiled turban. “I can’t. The train’s moving.”

  “If train catching more speed, then you really can’t jump.”

  Sheetal released the right handgrip as the gray platform thinned to an abrupt cut-off ahead, and a tessellation of rice paddies filled the horizon.

  “Hurry, Sister, ” the coolie urged. “Just step down and jump.”

  Wind pricked Sheetal’s eyes, rushed past her ears, and pressed the blue salwar suit against her body. She tightened her grip on the pole. One...two.... She let go, jumped, and slammed against concrete as the train whizzed past. Her head spun. She struggled to sit up, her body burning from the impact.

  “Are you all right, Sister?” the coolie asked from several feet away.

  She had grazed her palms and elbows. She reached for her handbag. “I think so. And you?”

  “I doing it all the time. My everyday job.” He got on his feet, dusted himself, coiled the loose turban, and adjusted the cloth on his head. Then he hoisted her luggage, approached, and held out a hand.

  Sheetal declined the offer and got to her feet.

  The coolie headed toward the ramp.

  She followed.

  “So many tourists coming to Mansali, Behnji, but government not allowing trains to stop more than five minutes. Everyone always rushing in, out, in, out train. One day, someone will fall and die on tracks.” He paused and turned around to look at her. “Hurry up, Behnji!”

  Sheetal struggled against a tide of descending human traffic, while the red of his shirt blurred with other coolies’ uniforms and she couldn’t make out where he’d gone.

  “But it will be too late by then.” He paused, turned, and waved. “No compensation for small people like us. If someone big”—meaning wealthy—“dies, that is cutting the government’s nose and forcing them to do something.”

  Sheetal quickened her gait.

  “Last year, Madame, one coolie, a union member, losing leg when unloading luggage. Foot gets stuck between steps of the train. Can’t pull out. Train starts. No time to pull chain and stop train. He is dragged for so long with a dangling foot.

  Sheetal shuddered.

  “And what is Railway Minister doing? Sending letter of regret with barely enough to cover his medical expenses. Finished.” He took a left on the footbridge and charged past the crowd.

  She struggled past the thronging crowd, terrified by several leering men who brushed past and “accidentally” knocked her with their elbows and groped a breast.

  “Now Behnji, he is selling tea on same platform with one leg and making living somehow. Half of what he is making before, which not enough to feed his wife and seven children....”

  “Can you slow down, please?” Sheetal called above the din.

  The coolie stopped and Sheetal caught up with him. “If I getting hurt today,” he continued, “nothing. No difference to anyone. But a big person like you?” He surveyed her from head to toe and Sheetal instinctively crossed her arms. “Uproar. Headlines in tomorrow’s paper. Government
is coming down to railway track, making a fuss, and cutting Railway Minister’s nose.” He pivoted and strode ahead. “Our lives, Sister, having no value because we are poor.”

  Free, Sheetal wanted to correct him.

  “You having someone? A taxi? Waiting?”

  She nodded and followed him to the station’s entrance. Cycle rickshaws and autorickshaws tr-r-r-inged and buzzed through a claustrophobic maze of queued traffic. Tonga drivers held up placards with arriving passengers’ names written in Hindi as their horses clip-clopped and flicked their tails at swarms of flies. The odor of diesel, urine, fodder, and manure overwhelmed as she followed the coolie down the stairs and to the left, where sturdy Ambassadors and beetle-shaped Fiat cars cluttered the station’s parking lot.

  A dark, short, stout man in a green turban who gripped a placard that read “Dhanraj” ran up to her. He slid a pair of thick, black sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. “You are Madame Dhanraj?”

  “Yes.”

  “Namaste.” He pressed his palms together and nodded. “I am coming from Holiday Inn. Upper Mansali.” He referred to the higher elevations of Mansali that comprised half of Mansali’s population. “Car is there, Madame. Fourth from left side.” He led her toward a queue of Ambassadors, signaled for the coolie to follow, and helped unload the luggage into the trunk.

  “How much?” Sheetal turned to the coolie.

  “My apologies, Behnji, for speaking more than I should.” The coolie smiled, revealing several missing teeth she hadn’t noticed till now. “We small people sometimes getting carried away with our stories. You give a poor, old man whatever you feel.”

  Sheetal fished in her purse and pulled out a fifty-rupee note. “Here.” He could use the extra money.

  “No, Sister.” He shook his head. “Too much. Twenty is good.”