Lethal Secrets

by Anju Gattani

  “Car, sir.”

  He could have the manager drive to the next station and board the train there.

  “But it’s not safe, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “Heavy riots in Dholakpur. People have blocked traffic and the city is under curfew. Few cars enter without a vehicle getting burned or stoned.”

  “I need to get through.” Rakesh gritted his teeth.

  “They will smash and beat you down. These Hindu-Muslim riots are getting out of control.”

  Debris battered the Maruti’s belly. The car tilted dangerously left around a curve. “Is there another way?”

  “The Delhi Mail Express leaves at four in the afternoon.”

  Bile fizzed up Rakesh’s throat. “I know that! I already have tickets, but it’s too late. We either make it there on time or you drive me through Dholakpur.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. Rev up and keep your fucking eyes on the road!”

  ***

  After several minutes of tinkering and walking from one end of the vehicle to the other, Jatinder closed the hoods and tried the ignition again. The Ambassador gave a full-throated, muscular holler. “Chal, Chamkeeli!” Jatinder bellowed, stomped the accelerator, and sped off into the night.

  ***

  “Hurry!” Rakesh bellowed. “Can’t you go faster?”

  “I’m trying my best, sir.” The car bumped over chips of rock. The manager swerved.

  From out of nowhere, an overhanging branch loomed into view. Rakesh raised an arm to shield his face and screamed.

  ***

  The Ambassador braked outside the crowded station and Sheetal jumped out. “Thank you, Jatinder Singh.” She clutched the bag and passed a fifty-rupee note through the open window.

  “No time you thanking, Madame,” Jatinder hollered amidst honking traffic and an angry stream of headlights from cars waiting behind. “You go. Hurry up. Ten minutes. Arvind Bhai meeting you on train. Now, run.”

  Sheetal stuffed the note in the bag and pushed her way through the crowd. She shoved between people and rushed past coolies and mothers clutching wailing toddlers on their hips. She broke hand-chains linking children to parents as calls of “Garam chai” and “Garam nescoffee” added to the noise and chaos. “I’m sorry,” she called to an irate mother she separated from her son. She hurried through a sea of moving bodies reeking of garlic and onion sweat, ran up the ramp and across the footbridge lit by yellow bulbs. A shifting ocean of people in faded and tattered clothing thronged the platforms below. She elbowed aside travelers, clutching the bag to her chest, in search of the right platform. Smoke billowed from engine smokestacks. One...two...three.... Six! She took a right down the stairs, but her knees buckled and she fell forward, pushed by the mob behind. She grabbed the banister and landed with a thud several steps below. She regained her feet, replaced the string bag on her back, tossed the loose end of the dopatta over her shoulder so both ends hung loose down her back, and rejoined the moving tide of people. With hands free, she took the steps two at a time and ran across the platform.

  She dodged past a cluster of laborers and someone shoved her aside. Coolies carrying trunks and suitcases on their heads knocked her shoulder. She frantically searched for and read the numbers printed on each carriage. Three-nine-zero-zero-one, three-nine-zero-zero-two.... She ran alongside the train parked on her left, past first-class coupes toward the second-class carriages. Someone called her name. The crowd rushed forward and swept her in its tide. She strained to see past the crests of heads and bodies drifting north, to see who was calling, but passengers climbing through open carriage doors blocked her view.

  “Sheetal!”

  Arvind?

  Breath knotted in her throat as she searched for the caller. The sea of strangers thickened and reeked with the stench of scotch.

  “Sheetal!”

  She looked behind her and glimpsed a sickly-yellow body weaving through the rush of sturdy browns.

  Rakesh!

  “Here! Sheetal! The train. Up ahead.”

  The guard’s whistle screeched.

  The train was about to leave. Which train? Passengers were filling both trains on each side of the platform. She turned north, the direction the train on her left would soon head. Someone, somewhere in the distance called. She drifted with the stream of people and then saw him. Arvind! He stood at the edge of a carriage doorway, three coaches ahead, and waved for her to hurry.

  “Sheetal!”

  Thick, black smoke clogged her lungs. She ran, pumping her legs, closing the distance between her and Arvind, two coaches away.

  “Sheetal!”

  A sea of bodies slowed her progress. She attempted to lunge through them but the dopatta tightened around her throat and she was dragged her back against her will while everyone else charged ahead.

  “Sheetal! Fucking bitch!”

  The platform vibrated beneath her feet.

  She clawed at the dopatta, twisted her head, and escaped its noose as a knife glinted and people screamed.

  The engine sighed loudly followed by a chug. She whirled and ran, one foot pounding ahead of the other. She couldn’t breathe.

  “Run! Sheetal, run!” Arvind bellowed.

  The train chugged forward. The whistle shrieked, drowning the crowd’s hollers. The blood rushed to her head. The train was leaving without her!

  With a hand gripping the vertical handrail, Arvind leaned away from the chassis and held out his free hand for her to grab. “Run!” he screamed. “He’s behind you.”

  “Get back here, bitch!” Rakesh bellowed as the train picked up speed.

  The toes of Arvind’s shoes were two feet ahead. His hand waited to link with hers.

  She grabbed the metal handrail with her left hand and reached for Arvind’s arm with the right. He caught her forearm and swung her up. For a split second, she hung suspended between worlds, then Arvind hauled her up against the deafening grate of metal against track and pulled her away from the deadly track below. He clutched her to his chest and the train’s unsteady floor anchored her.

  Arvind slammed shut the open train door. “You made it.”

  “He...he was there.” She shuddered. “Right behind me. He almost strangled me.”

  “I know.” Arvind cupped the left side of her face and ran a thumb over the wound on her cheek, his jaw tightening.

  Sheetal slid her arms round his waist and all the ghosts of the past disappeared in that moment.

  “M-M-Mum?”

  Yash! Sheetal withdrew from Arvind’s embrace, realizing the awkwardness of being in another man’s arms in front of her son, and reached out to hug Yash.

  “Are you ok-k-kay?”

  She hugged him tight. “I’m okay. More than okay.” She was more than she had ever been in a long time.

  ***

  An hour later, seated between Arvind and Yash on a lower berth, Sheetal swayed to the train’s rickety motion as the Red Fort Express plunged across lakes and rivers, tore past open fields, and crossed mountain terrain.

  Yash slept with his head on her lap, his head swaying to the train’s rhythm, his body taking up the remainder of the lower berth. She shuddered to think what could have become of Yash had they been forced to return to Raigun. She would get Yash help—find a doctor and start treatment right away. No, she reminded herself. First, they had to find safety. Sheetal slid a hand along the berth and curled her fingers around Arvind’s hand. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “You know.”

  “No. Tell me.”

  “Yash. Me. I...you. What will you do now? You have no job at Stonewall. You’re a teacher.”

  “Was a teacher,” he corrected.

  “You can’t go back.” Her gaze fixed on the floor. “You gave up everything for me. For us.”

  “For you, yaar, again and again, if I had to.”

  “I ruined all you had.”

  “I was ruined without you.”

  He h
ad waited ten years, ten long years, for her, and Sheetal would wait another ten if she had to, for him. If Arvind refused to change his mind, she would accept that, because life wasn’t just about marriage and having children or being a good wife, daughter, and mother. Life was about having choices—living free.

  The train curved around a bend, chugging on and on toward an unknown future. She closed her eyes. Everything she needed was right here.

  She slept as she hadn’t slept in years.

  ***

  Sheetal startled awake to darkness, a scream ringing in her ears. Smoke made her breathing labored.

  Muffled cries for help came through the walls.

  She coughed, which made breathing harder.

  Karva Chauth. My pallu’s on fire!

  She reached for her neck but she wasn’t wearing a pallu or dopatta. Then she remembered Yash and reached to her lap, touched hair, found his too-thin shoulder.

  “Kholo! Darwaaza kholo!” People pounded on the surrounding walls, demanding she open the doors.

  Dholakpur? Were they in Dholakpur? Hooligans trying to get on board? She lifted Yash’s head off her lap, rose, was knocked aside, and grabbed for the upper berth to halt her fall. She gripped something that felt like a dangling branch, but that support fell with her and pinned her to the floor. She shoved off the weight—a body—that rolled aside.

  “Arvind!” She fanned her arms through air, struck a flat surface. She strained to breathe. “Yash!” She fought to stay conscious. “Arvind!”

  “Band. Darwaaza band hai!” someone shouted that the doors were locked.

  “Bachao!” someone screamed nearby. “Mum! Bachao!”

  “Where are you, Yash? Keep talking.”

  “Aag! Aag!” people yelled, “Fire!”

  Feet pounded. Fists beat walls. Screams. Gut wrenching shrieks. She struggled to stand.

  “Yash!” She got to her feet. A hand grabbed her ankle, began clawing up her shin and knees as people rushed past and slammed her against a berth. She reached down, struck a mass of hair. The figure hugged her, crying and screaming all at once. “M-Mum!” He coughed. “M-Mum.”

  “It’s me, Yash.” She grabbed his arm, pulled him from the partitioned, doorless cabin, and stumbled left down the aisle.

  “M-Mum!”

  She headed toward the coach door, located it, and shoved. The door shifted but didn’t open.

  The screech of twisting metal and creaking iron filled the carriage. A hoard of passengers packed the narrow doorway, pressing her against the jammed door. She was not going to be trapped again. She was not going to die. “Help!” she screamed. “Someone help open the door.”

  “Move, Behnji.” A man yelled midst cries and thundering footsteps as more people crowded into the packed carriage. “We have to break it down.”

  Sheetal was gripped and shoved out of the way. She groped for Yash’s head, but he was gone. “Yash.” She coughed as more people jammed into the narrow opening.

  “Ek, do, teen!” Two men body-slammed the door and the carriage rattled. “We need more force!”

  “Sheetal. Yash,” Arvind called from the carriage’s interior.

  “Ek, do, teen!” The men rammed the door again. The carriage tilted and passengers screamed as the carriage rocked.

  “Yash? Sheetal?” Arvind yelled above the din.

  “I’m here. Yash!” She coughed and pressed against the crush of bodies. “He was here, Arvind! I don’t know where—”

  “Stay near the door. I’ll find him.”

  “Push harder!” someone yelled.

  “Yash!” Her eyes burned. People knocked into her.

  “Ek, do—” The door crashed open. Sheetal looked over her shoulder as smoke billowed through the open door and orange lit the graying sky.

  “Jaldi karo! Ootro, bhai ootro!” an ocean of voices yelled to hurry and get off the train as passengers jumped.

  “Jump!” Someone dragged her toward the door. “The coaches are burning.”

  Who was setting the coaches on fire? Why? She clung to a berth and shouted, “Yash! Arvind!”

  The person released her.

  “I’ve got him,” Arvind yelled. “Jump off, Yash! Run as far from the train as you can.”

  A pair of arms gripped her waist as more passengers swept past and headed for safety.

  “M-Mum!”

  She reached for Yash, hit his narrow shoulders, grabbed him by the arm and pulled him toward the door. “Jump down and run.”

  “I can’t see.” He coughed.

  She shoved Yash between people. “My son,” she pleaded. “Please, give us way. I need to get him off.” They reached the doorway.

  “Mum!” Yash cried.

  “Right behind you, Beta.” She grabbed his wrist and flung him through the gapping doorway, felt his hand slip, and let go.

  Yash landed on a bed of gravel, rolled, rose, and sprinted.

  Black smoke billowed past the platform’s edge several carriage-lengths away. She looked back for Arvind. Passengers elbowed her aside as they plunged to safety. “Arvind!”

  “Get out, Sheetal!”

  A press of bodies slammed her through the doorway. She fell, struck gravel, yanked her arm free of A body that fell across it and scrambled to her feet. She ran through smoke and a line of approaching men armed with sticks and metal pipes who rushed toward the train. Wails and sirens deafened cries for help. She ran the direction Yash had run, until the toe of her shoe slammed into something solid and she flew head over heels and rolled to a bruised stop. She whipped her head around and looked back.

  Armed men shoved Arvind and other passengers back inside the train and barricaded the carriage doorway. A crowd attacked the armed men but were beaten back.

  “M-Mum.” Yash hugged her from behind and held on tight.

  Sheetal rose to her feet, turned Yash away from the sight, and locked him in an embrace as attackers threw canisters through the open windows and barred passengers from exit.

  Arvind! Get out!

  Screams and sirens. Screams and sirens.

  Arvind reached the door, was shoved back. She lost sight of him.

  A voice over a megaphone urgently shouted for people to get away from the train. Emergency vehicles reversed. People started running. The fighters scattered.

  Arvind reappeared in the doorway, clinging to the handrail. He jumped as a deafening explosion and a ball of fire erupted.

  Epilogue

  April 6th

  The Raigun Herald

  New Delhi, India

  Fifty-seven people, mostly women and children, were burned alive yesterday when a train loaded with passengers was torched by a mob in Northern India, authorities said. Police across India are braced for outbreaks of retaliatory violence.

  Shortly after the train attack, two men were stabbed to death and shops, buses, and cars were set ablaze by angry mobs.

  Twenty-five women and fifteen children are confirmed dead after mobs armed with stones and kerosene descended on the Red Fort Express at Dholakpur. The train carried hundreds of tourists homebound from the northern town of Mansali.

  About sixty-five other passengers were injured, thirty-eight critically, in the inferno that gutted four coaches and charred some victims beyond recognition.

  The train’s emergency brake was engaged as it started to pull away from Dholakpur, and attackers, described by a state official as religious activists, swarmed the passenger cars. They jammed the doors from the outside before setting fire to the coaches.

  April 6th

  The Imperial Hotel

  New Delhi, India

  Rakesh paced the hotel’s conference room as he twirled a pencil, his heart pounding.

  The Dhanraj & Son board members who occupied half of the thirty-seater, rectangular meeting table waited in silence.

  A drop of sweat ran down Rakesh’s neck. He traced the line of dampness with an index finger, but the drop had reached the collar of his shirt and disappeared.


  Like Sheetal. He tightened his grip on the pencil. She had betrayed him. Taken their son.

  Rot.

  “Rakesh?”

  In.

  “Rakesh?”

  Hell.

  A weight pressed his left shoulder. He stopped, tensed, took a breath, and turned. Vipul Sahib stood before him. The board members of Dhanraj & Son, prim and pristine in formal business attire, watched him as if waiting for a cue.

  “You don’t look well. I think you should go home,” Vipul Sahib said.

  Home? Rakesh snapped the pencil in two.

  “We can handle the meeting. The whole team is here.”

  Rakesh straighten. He had told Vipul Sahib that his family had been kidnapped, taken aboard a train, and they’d been missing since.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Rakesh stepped back.

  “All of us understand. You just lost your family. I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”

  Rakesh tightened his grip, but the pencil was gone. So is Yash.

  She took my son.

  “It’s all over the news. Go home, son. I’ve explained the situation to the Japanese. They understand. There’s a flight to Raigun in four hours. You have time—”

  “I’m staying. We need to wrap this up.”

  “I don’t think you’re in any condition to—”

  “It’s my decision, Uncle. Not yours.” He faced the board members and cleared his throat. “This deal is crucial. The entire company is at stake. I’m sure we’re all aware we have to close this deal swiftly. No mistakes. No excuses.”

  What excuse would he give the Saxenas? Megha had been waiting for an answer and she was going to hate him after tomorrow’s call when he’d say no. On the phone, Janvi had described Pushpa as a nervous wreck. Since Naina’s death, Pushpa couldn’t handle herself, much less Megha’s delivery. Now, he’d have to handle Pushpa, too. How? Show her to Dr. Kishore? Put her on antidepressants? Or something else?

  As if he didn’t have enough to deal with.

  He winced. With Naina declared dead on arrival at the hospital and Sheetal and Yash missing, The Raigun Herald would have a field day. If the Japanese found out, they might bail, and then he’d lose everything.

  Vipul Sahib signaled, then took a seat beside Rakesh’s empty chair. The assistant opened the door and a string of Japanese men filed into the room and took their places on the vacant half of the table. Crystal pitchers of water surrounded by glasses, positioned at regular intervals along the length of the polished tabletop, divided the representatives of each country.