Monsoon Memories (34 page)

She nodded. ‘I know.’

‘I wish I was going with you. I wish I could be there for you when…’ He pulled her into his arms and after a bit, she rested her head against his chest and listened to his heartbeat.

‘I’ll be fine.’

He stroked her hair. ‘You are the bravest person I know.’

She looked up. ‘Really?’

He met her gaze. ‘Yes. Really.’

I’m scared, Vinod. If she’s asking for me, does that mean she has forgiven me? And Reena. Does she know? And if she does, what then? What of me?
She did not voice her doubts. Instead, she stood on tiptoes and, ignoring the instinct that held her back, put her hands around his neck, pulled his face down to hers and kissed him. And right there, among her clothes, half in and half out of the open suitcase, she gave herself to him. All of her. No holding back. No flinching. To this man who had stood by her, who had stayed with her through those dark, dark days and nightmare-populated nights after. And who was still here with her, a barren woman who couldn’t give him the one thing he desperately wanted... What sane Indian man would do that?

Afterwards, ‘Where was this temptress hiding all these years?’ he teased, and she heard the smile in his voice. She raised herself up on one elbow, her breasts brushing the springy, curly hair on his chest, his spent member growing under her gaze. She looked in his eyes and said the one thing she knew he wanted to hear, but which she found so hard to say: ‘I love you, Vinod.’

His eyes flashed with sudden tears and he pulled her close. ‘I love you too,’ he whispered. And they made love once more, she wanting to hold on to this man, her rock, before she went back into the world that had shunned her, her eyes wide open and holding his as he moved deep inside her.

* * *

Heathrow Terminal Three was a bustling throng of people, all shapes, sizes and races, all pulling huge trolleys overflowing with luggage, all in a hurry. Shirin and Vinod made their way to the Air India check-in desk.

Here time slowed. It was as if they had left the airport behind, like they were in India already. Women in saris and churidars, children and grandparents in tow, milled around, straying from the queue. In the corner, a Sikh family squatted in a row and ate chapattis and aloo sabji from stainless-steel tiffin boxes.

Once her luggage was checked in, Vinod walked her to the security desk. He was not usually demonstrative in public. Their Indian upbringing saw to that. But now, he pulled her close and kissed her on the lips, surprising both of them. ‘Shonu...’ he whispered, ‘I will miss you. Look after yourself. And call me.’

‘I will.’ She could not let go.

‘I love you.’ His eyes were soft, his face creased from the effort it took to hide his worry.

Shirin nodded and pulled away before she admitted she was scared or burst into tears. ‘Bye.’

She waved until she could no longer see him, until he had disappeared in the swarm of people, until his face swam before her eyes. Why was she doing this, going back, risking rejection? She was happy with Vinod; she had a wonderful friend in Kate and a job she loved. And then she thought of her mother, in pain and asking for her.
I am not coming back because you want me to. I am coming back because I want to. I have had enough of hiding away, punishing myself, colluding with you and your blasted pride. I refuse to be shunned. I want my daughter to know me. My daughter.
Reena
… Briskly she made her way towards the departure gate, clutching her handbag tightly for support. When she reached the gate and saw the words, ‘Flight AI 105 to Bangalore’ scrolling on the monitor, she sank down into a chair, feeling lightheaded all of a sudden.

It was happening. She was so near home that she could smell the rich, earthy odour of rain-drenched mud, hear the distant roar of the sea. So near that she could almost touch the beads of sweat glistening on top of Madhu’s upper lip as she cleaned, scaled and prepared the fish for dinner.

After eleven long years, she was, finally, going home...

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Dark Silhouettes

‘S
he’s coming as soon as she can,’ Aunt Anita announced after she’d disconnected the call. Tears were streaming down her face, but she didn’t seem aware of them. ‘She sounds just as she used to: gentle, soft, slightly hesitant... God, I can’t believe I just spoke to her.’

They went by car. Deepak drove, Preeti beside him. Reena sat in the back with Aunt Anita. Outside, dark silhouettes whizzed past, their headlights briefly relieving the absolute black of night. Reena imagined the car eating up the distance between Bangalore and Taipur, desperate to reach Mai, to take her loved ones to her, to alleviate her pain. She pressed her face against the cool glass pane of the window, cocooned in air-conditioned comfort, and looked at the lights shining from the isolated little huts they passed, and imagined the ordinary lives that were being lived inside.

She’s coming home. Aunt Shirin is finally coming home. What’s going on in her mind right now? What is she feeling?

What am I going to find out?

Don’t think about that.

Lights twinkled in the darkness just ahead. Coaches, Lorries and cars had pulled into the muddy field beside a little shop making brisk business selling tea, coffee, beedies and snacks. A small shack beside it passed for a toilet.

Deepak pulled up next to a coach which declared boldly in capitals, ‘Durgamba Express’, and in smaller letters, ‘Bangalore to Mangalore, Kundapur, Mumbai’, across the front and sides. It was packed full of weary travellers, some of them fast asleep, their mouths open, heads resting against the window, the turmeric glow from headlights playing hide and seek with the shadows on their faces.

‘Time for a break,’ Deepak said, his voice determinedly cheery.

No one moved. Reena looked at the coach looming above. A child’s face was pressed against the glass pane of the window opposite. Curious eyes framed by curly hair peered down at her. The boy smiled, revealing yellow cavity-ridden teeth. Reena shivered.

‘Come on, I need a coffee,’ her dad said and they all slowly piled out of the car.

The rest of the journey was quiet, uneventful. They were each lost in their own thoughts. Reena managed to doze off a couple of times. The silence was broken by Aunt Anita when they neared Mirakatte.

‘Oh, my God!’ she exclaimed, clamping a hand on her mouth.

In the open space where the weekly market congregated were the charred remains of what had once been a bus. The market was deserted. There was nobody about, which was unusual for this time of the morning. Even the rickshaws which stood in a line, waiting for passengers beside the main bus stop were abandoned. There were no rickshaw drivers milling around and gossiping while smoking beedies, their lungis hitched onto their waists, or trying to persuade people laden with bags to hire them instead of taking the bus. The butcher’s shop and the little grocer’s shop by the corner were shut. The ‘Medical Store’ was shut too. Mirakatte looked like a ghost town.

‘This is worse than I thought,’ Preeti said, just as a rock came out of nowhere and hit the back of the car.

‘Speed up,’ Anita urged and before they knew it they were driving over the bumpy pipes in front of the gates of the ancient hospital, put there to deter the stray cows from wandering in, where Reena had got her foot stuck and sprained her ankle once, when she was little.

‘Whew. I never thought Taipur would get dangerous. I always imagined it to be the safest place in the world.’ Aunt Anita sounded distressed.

‘Everything changes. And nothing is ever as it should be,’ Deepak said tiredly, sounding like a weary old man as he got out of the car.

The hospital, thankfully, was just the same, busy and humming with activity. It smelt the same, too: of bitter medicine and raw fear.

‘They wouldn’t dare do anything to us. We treat anyone who needs medical attention here—Hindus, Muslims and Catholics alike. And they know it. They need this hospital. They need us. All the wards are full because of the riots, and we’ve had to send the really bad ones to the big hospital in Manipal.’ The nun who was taking them to see Jacinta spoke so fast that Reena’s tired mind had to work extra hard to keep up. ‘This can’t continue. It will stop, sooner or later. The Bishop arrived yesterday and he’s been trying to reach a peaceful agreement with the Hindus and Muslims.’

She paused outside a closed door.

‘Now, I must warn you, she doesn’t look too good. She has had some severe second-degree burns. But she’s responding well to treatment and should be able to go home soon.’

The nun opened the door and announced cheerily, ‘Jacinta Bai, look who’s come to visit!’

It was a cramped room, with hardly enough space for all of them. Madhu sat hunched beside the bed, wearing the faded sari she lived in. Her hair had completely escaped her bun and was everywhere. There were more lines on her face than there had been the last time Reena had seen her, just a month ago. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. She had been crying.

Jacinta looked tiny in the huge bed. She wore a loose housecoat. There were welts and blisters on every bit of exposed skin. Her face was swollen and red. She opened her eyes with difficulty when they came in. She looked at each of them in turn, her gaze finally settling on Reena.

Her lips moved.

‘What is it, Ma?’ Deepak asked gently.

‘Shirin.’ Her whisper was loud in the quiet room. She beckoned to Reena with her eyes.

Reena walked towards her, slowly. Madhu moved away, making space for Reena beside Jacinta. With great effort, Jacinta opened the fingers of her palm. Reena understood what she wanted. She laid her hand on Jacinta’s swollen one. Jacinta’s skin was feverish, hot. Slowly Jacinta closed her fingers around Reena’s hand.

‘Mai,’ Reena’s voice was soft. She hoped it didn’t betray the anguish she felt at seeing her grandmother like this. Did this happen because she had been angry with her Mai? Had she caused this somehow?

‘Shirin...’

‘She’s not Shirin, Ma. She’s Reena, our daughter,’ Deepak said gently.

‘Shirin’s daughter, Reena...’ Jacinta nodded slowly, every movement an effort, her gaze tender as it rested on Reena.

‘No, Mai,’ Reena started to protest but stopped when she saw the same expression mirrored on the face of every other person in the room. It was the expression she’d sported the time her mother caught her with an adult magazine. None of them would look at her. It was as if some secret they had all been privy to had been inadvertently exposed...

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Spilt Coffee

‘M
a’am, please could you step out of the queue; I need to look at your passport.’

Shirin felt a stab of alarm. Why had they singled her out? What had they found?

‘Your passport, ma’am. Can I have it please?’

As the official flicked through her passport, flashing a glance at her to compare her face to the one in the photograph, her panicked mind reached back to the dreary weekend morning, their second winter in the UK, when, after a particularly bad night of being harangued by nightmares—Prem’s face, his accusatory eyes—she’d asked Vinod, ‘In India, do I have a criminal record?’

Vinod. She wanted him now. By her side. To sort this out, whatever it was. She fingered the phone in her purse. Should she?

That winter morning so long ago—suddenly crystal clear in her mind—Vinod had looked up, startled at her question. In her mind’s eye, she saw the
Financial Times
spread out around him, the orange pages strangely obscene on the pristine white duvet. ‘No, Shonu. You don’t have a criminal record. Not in India. Not anywhere. I can’t believe you’ve lived all this while with this fear. My parents bribed the police. If you give the police a large enough sum of money, Shonu, they will turn a blind eye to anything... And anyway, that stab wound...’ Shirin had flinched then. Coffee had sloshed, a drop falling on the
Financial Times
, brown stain leaching through flimsy orange paper onto the snowy duvet. Shirin had closed her eyes. Blood had seeped in behind closed eyelids. Her hands touched Prem’s shoulder, his head, tried to stem the flow, came away bright red, sodden. ‘Shonu, you didn’t kill him.’ Vinod’s voice in her ear, soft, tender. She didn’t deserve it. She pulled away. ‘Shonu, there wasn’t even a formal police report. I checked. To find out if we were implicated in any way, before I applied for visas to come here.’
I don’t deserve the pristine, untainted pages on my passport. Nothing changes the fact that I stabbed him. I committed the crime. It was me. If I hadn’t stabbed him, he wouldn’t have fallen. Hit his head. Those empty eyes, unseeing...

‘Here, ma’am, you can go.’ The official handed her back the passport, flashed a smile.

She nodded at the man. Eyes the palest shade of blue, like the sea at dawn. ‘Thank you, sir.’

She arrived at gate 25, found a seat by the glass window looking out onto the tarmac and stared unseeingly at the giant wing of the plane that was going to take her home.

‘It was the same that other time too,’ Vinod had said that day.

That gave her pause. ‘What other time?’

Vinod had swallowed, not meeting her eyes. Guilty. ‘It was when Prem was a teenager. He had been out with his gang. Those rich boys that got him into all this. They got drunk. The next day, the parents of one of the girls turned up at our door, accusing my brother of rape, demanding that he marry their daughter. They threatened to go to the police. My parents begged and pleaded, and in the end paid them off...’

Shirin was shocked. ‘So he had done it before?’

Vinod was having trouble working his throat. ‘Just that once, Shonu. He was sixteen. My parents kept a strict eye on him from then on. He couldn’t give up the alcohol, but he stayed away from the girls. He was all right. Until... I should have known he had it in him all along. I should have known that the brother I felt sorry for was a monster underneath. I should have known...’ Vinod had bunched the duvet, hard. ‘I was going to kill him that day, Shonu. I would have...’