A Cut-Like Wound (43 page)

Nine days ago the flag had been hoisted at St Mary’s Basilica by the archbishop. God knows where they came from, but they did: countless men and women dressed in saffron. Everywhere one turned, there were people. On rooftops, thronging the roads, perched on walls. Some were merely curious onlookers. The rest were all devotees, each with a need in the heart and a prayer on their lips. Some held babies, who too were dressed in saffron. Mother Mary had to be thanked for blessing them with a child.

The evening sky was not the blue of September. Late in the afternoon, masses of clouds had been gathering to form a grey wool blanket that stifled the air. When a few drops of rain fell, the devotees stared at the skies in dismay. Not everyone had brought an umbrella. Besides, holding an
umbrella aloft while following the car procession would be almost impossible.

‘There has hardly been any movement,’ Santosh had said in the morning.

Gowda nodded. At the meeting, it had been decided to keep up the surveillance and start a serious manhunt (or woman hunt as ACP Stanley Sagayaraj corrected himself) for the killer before it escalated into something beyond their control. Gowda had officially been brought into the investigation on ACP Stanley Sagayaraj’s request.

‘The corporator is well informed about everything we do … and his household will be in on it as well. So, everyone will lie low for a while.’

Gowda’s eyes lit on the wall calendar. 8 September. What was the significance? There was something, he knew. And then it came to him. St Mary’s Feast. He thought of the crowds that would fill the streets. Even if Bhuvana, whoever she was, had decided to ease up for a while, she would step out this evening, certain that no one would notice her in the sea of saffron-clad humanity that would take over the streets.

‘There will be,’ Gowda said, cryptically.

Santosh stared at him, puzzled. ‘How do you know that, sir?’

‘This evening, St Mary’s Basilica will hold its car festival and she will come out knowing that she won’t be visible.’

‘She, sir?’ Santosh held his breath.

‘Bhuvana. That’s what she calls herself.’

‘It could be a eunuch,’ Santosh asserted.

‘It could be.’ Gowda put his hands on the table and stared at the lines on his palms. What did they signify? What did
the lines on the palms of the killer look like? Would they whorl in a way different from his? Would they twist and turn in some inexplicable fashion that translated a murderous thought into action?

‘Trust me, something tells me we’ll know this evening.’

Santosh nodded. He would see for himself if the sakaath sense attributed to Gowda was for real or one more of Gajendra’s fabrications.

‘Find a place on that street somewhere, by about four. And Santosh, you’ll be in mufti. Wear a saffron-colour shirt. Buy it if you don’t have one.’

Santosh was puzzled. But he understood once he arrived in Shivaji Nagar.

4.27 p.m.

Everywhere, saffron reigned. Shirts, saris, kurtas. It was the perfect cover for a policeman on surveillance duty.

Santosh found the CCB team in their room that was part of a cluster of offices above a wholesale timber merchant’s. The CCB had grabbed a room some months ago when they started this operation, setting themselves up amidst brokerage firms, marketing consultants, and even a dentist.

The room sat four floors up, looming over the adjoining building, with almost a direct view of the corporator’s street and his home.

They grinned, looking at him. Inspector Pradeep fingered the fabric of his shirt. The material hissed as he rubbed it between his fingers. ‘New, is it?’ He laughed.

Santosh flushed. ‘Thought it would be the best way to blend with the crowds,’ he said, then added as an afterthought, ‘Inspector Gowda asked me to.’

‘It’s a waste of time. The corporator knows that we are watching him. He’s being extra careful.’

Santosh gaped. ‘But how?’

‘A loose word, a paper carelessly left. Who knows? But Ibrahim seemed to indicate that the corporator had been warned…’ Pradeep spoke softly. ‘Did you want something?’

‘No.’ Santosh flushed. ‘I just wanted to check if something had come up.’

Pradeep shrugged.

‘I’d better get going,’ Santosh said.

‘Have fun,’ Pradeep threw at him as Santosh went down the narrow stairs.

4.42 p.m.

Santosh had walked up and down the street, eaten a stick of pink cotton candy, drunk a cup of tea and had finally found a group seated on the steps of a shop diagonally across from the gate. A group of saffron-clad men and women. They had beckoned him over. ‘It’ll only start at five, sir,’ one of the men said. ‘Sit when you can. Once the chariot starts moving, you will be swept along.’

Santosh squeezed in. A woman with tightly plaited grey hair smiled at him. ‘Is this your first time?’

He nodded, wondering how she knew.

‘I’ve been coming here for twenty-five years. I missed it only once, when my brother died. So I can tell when it is a person’s first time.’

Santosh smiled. Were all seasoned pilgrims the same, he wondered. The fervour, the need to initiate the new to the ways and nuances of the pilgrimage, the inability to stop
a practice once they had been doing it a few years. Last year, he had been to Sabarimala. And he had seen it there as well.

‘It’s a rather special sight, the chariot!’ the elderly woman spoke.

‘Don’t spoil it for him, Nirmala Jessy amma. Let him feel the grace for himself,’ one of the men smiled.

The skies were dark. A streak of lightning flashed. Santosh flinched.

‘Trust me, it won’t rain,’ Nirmala Jessy said. ‘Mother Mary won’t allow her children to be drenched.’

‘Did you go towards the Basilica?’ someone else asked.

Santosh shook his head.

‘It’s a splendid sight. The tall illuminated cross on the steeple. Against this sky, it will be spectacular. We can take a quick walk there and get back here in time before the procession begins,’ the young man offered.

Nirmala Jessy looked up and her arm on the young man’s tightened. ‘No, don’t go.’

‘Don’t fuss, Mummy.’ He shrugged her arm off and stood up.

Santosh glanced at his watch. ‘How long will it take?’

‘Ten minutes, bro. We’ll take the alley route. The main roads will be choked up.’

Ignatious Arul, that was his name he said, led the way through a maze of alleys. ‘My mother believes I was born only because Mother Mary blessed her. She brought me here as an infant and, ever since, has insisted that I come with her.’ He smiled.

Suddenly they were in front of the Basilica. Santosh saw the sight he had been promised. The steeple rose high into the sky and its apex was the illuminated cross. ‘One hundred
and seventy-two feet high,’ Ignatious murmured, enjoying the look in Santosh’s eye.

Santosh saw something else. Gowda, leaning against a police vehicle, his eyes lazily surveying the crowds.

Santosh swallowed.

‘We’d better get back,’ he said, turning.

The street had filled up in the time they were gone. Pilgrims with candles and flowers, and a few vendors selling balloons, cotton candy and plastic toys. A roar seemed to emanate from the crowd. ‘The procession has started,’ Nirmala Jessy’s animated voice cried out and she stood up, unable to help herself.

‘Relax, Mummy,’ Ignatious said. ‘It’ll take a while before it gets here.’

They could hear the sound of singing from the distance. The old woman wrung her hands. ‘Next year, Ignatious, we must find a place closer to the Basilica. This is too far away. I want to join in when they sing Ava Maria.’

‘You can sing it when the chariot comes this way,’ Ignatious Arul said, throwing Santosh a wry look.

The corporator had set up a long table outside his gate. Four round-bellied terracotta pots were placed on it. Two men manned the table, offering water and buttermilk in plastic cups to anyone who wandered in that direction. Santosh watched the gate lazily. Gowda’s sakaath sense wasn’t working this evening, he thought. The table was placed in front of the gates so no one could enter or leave.

‘He’s a good man, the corporator,’ Nirmala Jessy said.

Santosh stared at her.

‘Every year he organizes water and buttermilk for the pilgrims. Long before he became corporator or had this house or all that he has now,’ Nirmala Jessy said.

Ignatious Arul nodded. ‘He made a hefty donation to St Mary’s Association in Lingarajapuram. That’s where we are from. He said all mother goddesses have to be venerated.’

Santosh’s phone trilled. Gowda.

‘Sir,’ he murmured into the phone.

‘How’s it going?’

‘It’s very crowded. And very hot. Luckily Corporator Ravikumar has set up a table in front of his gate, offering water and buttermilk.’

‘There’s another gate.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yes, I thought you wouldn’t know. A small gate on the other side opens onto a street that’s a dead end. Keep an eye on it.’

‘I will, sir.’

‘Call me the moment you spot anything or anyone.’

Santosh put his phone back thoughtfully. He saw Ignatious look at him. ‘My landlord,’ he said in explanation. ‘He’ll be joining me, he said. I’d better go and meet him. He said he’ll come to the end of the road.’

Nirmala Jessy nodded. ‘That’s how it should be. What did you say your name is?’

‘Santosh.’

‘And your church name? Didn’t they give you a Christian name when they baptized you?’

Santosh’s eyes flashed wildly. Christian name. Suddenly he remembered the fish shop on Hennur Road.

‘Jonah!’ he said.

‘Are you with the police?’ Ignatious asked.

‘No, why do you ask?’ Santosh mumbled, remembering to switch on a puzzled look.

‘Something about you … the hair,’ he said with a grin, and then added slyly, ‘the way you stand, with your chest puffed out, your shoulders pulled back and your arms behind you, surveying the world as though you own it.’

Santosh flushed. Fuck!

Nirmala Jessy smiled. ‘He wants to join the police … that’s his dream. Why don’t you write the test too?’

Santosh heaved himself up. If he hung around here any longer, she would find him a bride and plan his pension fund as well. ‘I should be going,’ he said.

5.12 p.m.

All afternoon they came, each seeking to lay their dreams at the feet of a goddess and hoping for succour.

She lay on the bed, staring at the fan. The sound of the crowds intensified. Akka had walked in briefly to say, ‘The pilgrims will fill up the entire place in a little while. There won’t be a square inch left.’

At night she couldn’t sleep. Each time she closed her eyes, memories pressed down upon her, making her want to flee to some distant place.

Everything that had been beautiful in her life had been corrupted. Everything was tainted and ugly. All of it had been ruined. Again and again.

But she wasn’t that boy any more. She would never again be that powerless, frightened creature. She would never again allow anyone to decide the course of her life. Over the years, she had learnt how to wrest control into her hands and keep it there.

She sat up suddenly and hugged her knees.

Something tugged at her. A need to get out. A need to be
someone else. Only that would cease the ache in her. Only that would allow her to forget, at least for a bit.

Bhuvana giggled. A snickering sound of girlish glee at what she had planned. A little laugh that demanded: What are you waiting for?

She switched on the series of light bulbs that circled the mirror and opened the make-up kit and started working quickly, smiling shyly at her reflection in the mirror.

Then she drew out her six vials of attar. This evening she didn’t even bother with sniffing at the mouth of the vial.

It would be her favourite Jannat ul firdous.

And saffron, so she would blend in.

From one of the drawers, she pulled out a petticoat and blouse. Then the padded bra and the matching panty. She was still humming as she adjusted the blouse and pinned the sari so it hung low, showing off her waist.

From the shelf on top, she chose a wig of shoulder-length hair.

She fastened her pearl earrings that had just come back from the jeweller. In the mirror she saw herself and shook her head in delight.

I am the most beautiful woman I know. Where were you until now, Bhuvana? When you went away, Bhuvana, I was lost.

On the heel of that thought came another. Without Sanjay there would be no Bhuvana.

Once, this had been for him. But none of it remained. A tear grew in her eye. For him. For her. For the end of a dream.

And then a voice whispered: look up.

She did. In the mirror was someone else.

Kamakshi, with twice as much spirit and power. It was Kamakshi who placed the tip of her finger against her glossy
lip and murmured. Tonight, tonight … She gazed at herself in the mirror and struck a pose, placing her hand on her hip and thrusting her hip to a side. What a slut you are, Kamakshi!