He was reminded of two girls that worked in his office – first his unmarried Christian secretary and the second a divorcee girl of his own caste. Both of them found him attractive – Abhay believed – and would be quite open to a relationship with him. Because he was previously committed to his wife – extreme foolishness on his part – he had never encouraged their mildly disguised advances. But now he considered the attractive propositions with an open mind and began to imagine him with them alternatively. This time he ought to play it safe, he reasoned with himself; no inter-caste, inter-religion marriage for him; moreover Ritu – the girl that worked in the ticketing division- would be far more understanding and approving of him. Since she too had the wreck of a relationship behind her and would not have any starry tantrums or airs in marrying him that an unmarried girl was likely to have.
He also realized how bored he was with his wife, and the prospect of a relationship with a new woman appealed to his senses. Of course, he conveniently chose to ignore that he devoured in the same pleasure of adultery – if only mentally – that he was willing to crucify his wife for. It is basic human nature – to exaggerate a real or imagined error of others, while downplay or ignore one’s fallings – and Abhay wasn’t any exception. Perhaps that is why it has been said:
He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her – John 8: 7, The Holy Bible.
Abhay was only an ordinary man, in extraordinary circumstances that had turned his life upside down. Caught in a tornado or in the whirlpool, he had neither the time nor wisdom to reflect on such deep philosophy. The prospective relationship with an office-colleague may not have directly contributed to his decision to get rid of his wife and her daughter. However, it helped to strengthen his ugly resolve and dirty designs; just as Rudolf’s harangue about Payal’s adultery and danger to his life, influenced his shocking decision. With one stone he could kill many birds – he reasoned. As a Chinese proverb says: Every crisis represents an opportunity.
The lure or lust for another woman was the cream and cherry atop the cake – it made the shock of what he was about to do all the more tolerable. Coming after Rudolf’s revelations, his suspicions, fright of the past week, the mortal terror of the previous 24 hours, it was the final nudge that he needed that pushed him down the slippery slope of no return. Not knowing of course that he was the prey caught in the web of deceit spun by a cunning and wily spider or alternatively speaking, a puppet that was dancing to the tune of an invisible hand that controlled its strings.
It was already seven thirty by then. He realized looking at the wall clock that he had four and a half hours left to achieve his target. He started to work on the first phase of his plan straight away. He picked up the cordless phone and called the nearest restaurant and ordered non-vegetarian dinner for two persons, plus Butter-scotch ice cream brick as the dessert.
He hurriedly picked out a fresh pair of clothes from the wardrobe and throwing it on the bed, went into the attached bathroom with a towel. At ten minutes past eight, Abhay appeared at the doorway of the living room clean and shaved wearing fresh clothes. He cleared his throat and said, “Payal?”
Payal turned her head, sitting on the divan in the living room; she was unable to suppress the surprise reflecting on her face when she looked at her husband, who suddenly seemed to be full of life and joy, unlike the person he had been for the last couple of days. She looked at him with questioning eyes, waiting for him to speak first.
“I want to apologize for my shameful behaviour,” Abhay said in a sincere voice. “I have not been myself these last few days,” he said sitting on the sofa chair opposite his wife. “It was not me Payal; you know that, don’t you? That was not the real me; the person you had been seeing for the past few days was certainly not me,” he said stressing on his words.
“What brought about this sudden change of heart?” Payal asked suspiciously.
“It was the realization that it was most unbecoming of an adult and mature man; to behave like a naïve and selfish child. The more I looked at my behaviour towards you and Anshul, the more ashamed I felt. That is why I have come to sincerely apologize to you. I hope that as understanding and forgiving as only a woman can be and also are a big-hearted person. I plead that you are that you would give me one more chance to be the responsible and loving husband as I was before all this.”
“Do you really mean all this?” Payal asked raising her eyebrows.
“Yes, please do believe me. Please give me one more chance Payal; I know that I don’t deserve it because of my shameful and unforgivable behaviour of the preceding days, but I implore you to give me this opportunity to make amends, if not for my own sake then for the sake of ‘us’! I don’t know what I have done to deserve such a dutiful and loving wife like you. Please don’t take yourself away from me; I will break, shatter into a thousand pieces without you and our child; please do not be so cruel to me for my foolishness. I will never be able to live if you left me with Anshul,” he said taking her soft hand into his.
“All right, all right, I forgive you; if you really mean what you have said,” Payal said with slight hesitation.
“No, say it from your heart,” Abhay pestered her.
Payal gently kissed Abhay on his lips and then said, “Now you believe me? I forgive you.”
“I would never be able to repay you Payal, never ever for this favour.”
Payal took his hand and made him sit on the bed beside her. “By the way, aren’t you afraid anymore?”
“Do you think that there is something fishy about my changed behaviour?”
“No, no, of course not,” she said hurriedly,” if you don’t want to discuss it then its fine with me.”
“It’s perfectly all right to be a little suspicious at such a sudden change of behaviour; I know I would have done the same if I had seen it in any other person. The thing my dearest wife is that I have decided to heed your advice; you know, of facing the situation bravely instead of lying down in the bed all the time. From tomorrow, I am going back to my office; I will also contact Bharoo Shah tantrik and ask for his help, I will go and try to talk sense into Rudolf if I have to. And if none of it works, then I will follow a man’s way and take it as and when it comes,” Abhay sounded absolutely sane in his statement.
Payal thought it prudent not to argue with him that Bharoo’s powers counted for nothing before Rudolf and that the latter could not be talked sense into. She instead said, “I am pleased to hear that.”
“Should I take it then that you are not going to Shimla with my little angel?” Abhay asked picking up Anshul from her cradle and kissing and fondling her pleasantly.
“Yes,” Payal answered with a tension free smile on her face.
“Why don’t you then call the travel agent and cancel the ticket you have booked?”
“What agent? What ticket booking?”
“You mean …Oh, Oh; you are one clever woman, Mrs. Payal,” he said in a pleased voice.
“That’s because you need one clever woman as your wife Mr. Abhay,” she said in a similar voice.
The doorbell rang suddenly, interrupting their conversation. “That must be the boy from the restaurant,” Abhay said,” I took the liberty for ordering dinner for both of us.”
“How very thoughtful of you; trying to please your wife, eh!” Said Payal jokingly.
“Would you please get the dinner from downstairs; take the money from my wallet, it’s in the first drawer of the dressing table in the bedroom.”
“I know, I know,” she said. The doorbell rang again, “Coming,” she shouted and went towards the bedroom to got Abhay’s wallet.
Abhay’s facial expressions changed completely once Payal was out of the room; he took off his hand from Anshul – whose hair he was caressing as if he could not bear to touch her. So far so good, he thought to himself, his plan was working superbly. Payal had fallen for it; all that was needed then was to guide the plan to its logical end without a hitch. She should n
ot get suspicious, should not get wind of his true intentions and motives; he thought to himself. How hateful it had been for him to apologize to that promiscuous bitch! But now he had earned her trust – at least for the moment and swallowing his pride for a few more hours, he had to single-mindedly pursue his goal.
Payal came back with the dinner packet and they both ate it sitting on the dining table. The pleasant small talk continued throughout the supper; indeed, it scantly would have appeared to an unknown observer, that till only half an hour earlier they were an estranged couple. And it was rather amusing the way both of them behaved; it would have been next to impossible for a chance observer to comprehend who amongst the couple was pretending or acting and to what extent?
By the time dinner was over, Anshul was sleeping soundly on the divan. “I’ll take her and put her in a cradle in the bedroom,” Payal said gently picking her up.
Abhay nodded as he went to the washbasin outside the kitchen to wash his hands. When Payal came out of the bedroom she was wearing Abhay’s favourite pink coloured silk nightie; she smiled looking at him affectionately. “You are killing me!” he declared.
“You will have to wait a little more for that; I will go and make cold coffee for both of us…Hey! Hey! What are you doing? Don’t get started in the lobby itself!”
“Tell you what honey,” Abhay whispered with his face touching Payal’s neck and his arms around her waist,” tonight I will make coffee for both of us.”
“You?” Payal said raising her eyebrows. “I thought that you hated to work in the kitchen.”
“But this is a special night, won’t you agree? I mean the night of the reunion,” he hastened to add, “the night after reproach….the night we are fortunate enough to find back the love, lost because of petty selfishness.”
“How very nice of you,” she said unsuspectingly in a pleased voice.
“Believe me, you don’t know how nice I can really be,” Abhay said in a deep voice. “You go to the room and relax,” he gently pushed her towards the bedroom, “I will be back before you know.”
“Don’t be long …I will be waiting,” said Payal impatiently.
The smile of purest joy on Abhay’s face vanished just as the door of the bedroom closed on him. He turned to the kitchen with eyes shining with success of achievement; if Payal could see the smile which danced on his lips at that moment, she would have been astonished, as to how much that poisonous smile resembled the smile of Warlock! He hurriedly made cold coffee and poured it in two large glasses; he took out a small glass bottle from the pocket of his trousers. Taking two pills out of it, he grounded them, making a powder of them, which he in turn mixed in one of the glasses with the help of a spoon. Because of his complaints of tension and insomnia, the doctor had prescribed him those sleeping pills. The powder of those pills was now mixed and untraceable in one of the glasses of the cold coffee, the one he had chosen for his ‘faithful, loving and caring wife.’
Abhay cautiously switched on the zero-watt bulb on his side of the bed and instantly turned towards Payal. She was sleeping soundly, completely unaware of her surroundings, much less aware of the dim light switched on by him. He took up the timepiece from the shelf and held it close to the light of the red bulb; it showed half past ten. He was ahead of schedule and was glad about that. It had proved to be most pleasure-less physical encounter he ever had with his wife. He had to try desperately hard to hide his disgust and even more so to pretend pleasure.
The darkness in the room had been very much to his advantage; else the expressions on his face while making love to her alone would have given him away. But all was well then; just as had envisaged, Payal had drunk the coffee and was not going to wake up till late in the morning of the next day. He regretted very much of having made love to his promiscuous wife, who was trying everything in her power to get him killed, but it had proved to be imperative, the demand of the situation and he had been left with no choice but to tag along. Only when she was soundly asleep and out of his way he hoped to launch the final phase of his ambitious plan, which was to save him from the vicious jaws of death, from the terrifying power that a tantrik had unleashed upon him on express orders of his adulteress wife.
Abhay got out of the bed; picked up his clothes from the collective heap of both their clothes that lay on the floor and went to the bathroom. He came back after dressing himself and combing his hair; he pulled out his boots from under the bed and wore them. His body was still running a fever, but he was determined to go through with his diabolic plan. He once again looked apprehensively at Payal; she had changed her posture, during the time he had gone to the bathroom; but was still soundly asleep nevertheless as revealed by her snoring. He slowly opened the drawer of the dressing table; tied the watch on his right wrist, slipped his wallet in the rear pocket of his trousers and was ready to leave. Well, almost …his heart was pounding in his chest; he felt drops of cold sweat rolling down his back as he slowly and carefully walked towards the cradle of Anshul on the other end of the room.
His eyes fell on the face of his wife yet again as he noiselessly approached the cradle. Was she really asleep or merely pretending it? He carefully took out Anshul from the cradle and held her next to his chest. That was it; if Payal was only pretending to be asleep, then she would rise up and confront him at that very moment. He gazed at her and waited with an anxious breath, trying to look at the face of his wife in that semi-darkened room. But nothing happened and she made no move. He took a long breath of relief and walked noiselessly to the door of the room.
A sudden noise made him stop dead in his tracks; his hand seemed to be welded to the knob of the open door of the room. He expected Payal to pounce upon him any moment; but when nothing happened for a long time, he slowly turned around his head. He saw Payal still soundly asleep; his eyes fell to the floor next to the bed.
There, even in the dim light of zero watt bulb, he succeeded in seeing his lucky charm lying on the floor. He tip-toed and got hold of the Japanese coin, which has fallen out of his pocket and rolled over to that part of the room. He switched off the bedside light and went out of the doorway holding Anshul next to him. He did not forget to close the door of the bedroom noiselessly behind him; he picked up the keys of his S.U.V. from the living room and went downstairs.
Abhay unlocked the door of his car and got inside with Anshul; he carefully placed her on the next seat. Luckily for him, she had not woken up during all that time; he took off the cloth that Payal had put on the baby and tied her firmly to the seat with it. That way he could ensure that she would not fall down from the seat during the journey; he hurriedly got out from the car, went to the end of the driveway to open the iron gate. He came back and took the driver’s seat, put the key into the ignition and started the engine, switched on the headlights and put the car in gear and drove out of the bungalow.
Just when the red tail lights of the S.U.V. vanished on the turn at the end of the road; the powerful engine of a car came to life. Standing at a little distance from Abhay’s bungalow, out of the dark shadows of trees a car came on the road. Its skilled driver discretely followed Abhay’s station wagon without switching on the headlights. Unaware of the vehicle following him, Abhay kept on driving his car through the inroads of the locality of Rajouri Garden. He took the right turn and put his car on the brilliantly lit Ring road; going towards the direction of Raja Garden and Punjabi Bagh. By then the strong surface winds had developed into a dust storm; it took only the flick of a button to lift up the glass of the power-window on his side of the car and he continued to drive with complete concentration.
The small electronic watch on the dashboard showed five minutes past eleven. What irritated Abhay most was the fuel indicator; it showed that he was out of fuel and would immediately have to get the tank refilled. “That’s all I needed,” he mumbled to himself and again looked at the ring road through the windscreen of his car. The dust storm had now been replaced by rain; the traffic was scarce on the roads tha
t hour of the night and no traffic Policemen were visible. The traffic signal free ring road with flyovers made for easy driving and Abhay hardly encountered any other vehicle on the road, except some occasional trucks, passing him speedily.
He drove his station wagon inside the all-night-open petrol station and stopped it under the roof of the compound lit by several L.E.D. lights. He gave the keys to the attendant and told him to fill the tank. Abhay was careful to open the glass of the window only momentarily, and then also he took an extra precaution of keeping his body between the attendant and the adjoining seat. He was thus confident that the attendant of the petrol station had not seen Anshul on the adjoining seat. He hurriedly took back the keys and giving two 2,000 rupee notes drove out speedily. The vehicle which had stopped a little behind the petrol station speedily resumed following Abhay’s car at a discreet distance without switching on its headlights.
Abhay noticed that the barricades manned by policemen were also deserted. He was glad about the dirty weather, which had proved to be only a blessing in disguise for him. He put his left hand on the pocket of his trousers and felt the piece of red cloth inside it; while he kept on his eyes on the road, lit by two powerful beams of his car. Keeping his right hand on the steering wheel, he inserted his fingers to feel the lucky coin kept in his pocket. He was now very confident of his victory over his evil wife and her accomplices.
He took a right turn after crossing Punjabi Bagh club and drove it towards Moti Nagar. He stopped his car in a deserted area that overlooked the Najafgarh drain. Abhay sat quietly in his car under the heavy downpour; the light of the distant tube light on the street side pole appeared blurred in the rain. The wipers were constantly removing the rain-water from the windscreen of the car. As the rains continued pouring, the night became darker and darker.
Valley of Death Page 16