In Your Blood I Run, page 2
‘Owwwww …’ she yelled, holding her head.
‘Lava! What are you doing here, you idiot?’ he stood, glaring down at her as she scowled back.
He walked over and sat on the edge of the bed, looking out of the window at the flickering street light, stroking his cheek where he had been slapped.
‘It’s just as well he found out,’ he said. ‘He’s nothing but a mean-minded jailor! Every time I listen to Jimmy Rodger’s ‘In the Jailhouse Now’, I think of him. I should play it right now at top volume … damn!’
Ratan was rarely this agitated. Lavanya tried to find a way to bring up the throbbing bump on her head.
‘I hate studying law. I hate living in this house. If I wake up in this bed one more day, I’ll go mad,’ he said.
‘But don’t you want to be a lawyer like your father? That’s all you’ve ever talked about …’ She couldn’t finish, she had located the bump and rubbing it was vaguely comforting.
‘I want to be … free!’ He turned to look at her to see if she understood.
‘Ah, only you and the rest of this country …’
‘Lava, right now, I don’t care about this country. I can’t. Right now, I feel I am more important than any country, any empire. And in this house, I feel chained. He wants to keep me locked up. Like he kept Ma. And she got away, didn’t she? I want to be on the road, Lava, I want to feel the wind in my hair and not have a single thought that has to live up to someone’s expectations. Definitely not his expectations.’
She didn’t say anything. Her head felt numb and there was the same sensation in her legs.
Ratan’s mother had left home one morning, a year back. She had left behind no note, nothing. His father had deployed all of his influence and a lot of his money to look for her. He had hired the best private detectives to comb the city but couldn’t find her. She had done a good job of disappearing.
‘You’re all packed … I had no idea …’ Lavanya’s voice trailed off.
‘I was going to tell you. Then all this happened. Look, I got you something.’ He walked over to his suitcase and pulled out something wrapped in thin pink paper, then flopped down on the floor beside her and put it in her hands.
‘Happy Birthday,’ he said.
She opened the folds of the thin, crackling pink paper to find a nose ring with a ruby red stone glittering at her. She folded the paper back and handed it back to him.
‘I can’t take this. It looks expensive. But thank you.’
He took her hand, opened it, and put the now crumpled pink paper back in her palm, closing her fist.
‘Shut up. I got Gattu’s father to give it to me for peanuts. He makes this stuff by the dozens, every day.’
She wondered if he had used some of the stolen money for the nose ring. It made her feel important. He had kept the paper box right next to his records in the suitcase.
‘What are you going to do? Where will you go?’
‘Something. Somewhere.’
‘All right. Before you go, I’ve been meaning to read something to you … remember to be kind.’
She grinned as she saw him wince.
‘I’m going to kill you with kindness,’ he said.
‘Pay attention!’ she said.
That was five years back. She hadn’t seen him since. He had given her an address to write to, of a friend from school, which she had used only once, to send him her first published book of short stories. The stories had appeared quietly in Voices, a new literary journal in Bombay, and were later surprisingly compiled into a book. For weeks, then months, she had waited and waited to hear from Ratan and then given up.
It was a strange coincidence that when her doorbell rang, Lavanya was putting the ruby nose ring on.
An evil plan
THE INSPECTOR FOLLOWED THE DOORBELL WITH A SERIES of firm knocks.
Lavanya made up her mind to tell off whoever was at the door. Ask them to come back some other time. She had promised her friend Noor, an actor, that she would see her at Bombay Talkies, a new movie studio started by Himanshu Rai and Devika Rani. She was meeting her on the set of Jeevan Mahal, a film Noor had recently signed on. Noor and Lavanya had been friends since they had first met in class five. When Noor, on her first day in school, had quite dramatically replaced her in the school annual day play. Lavanya had started out hating her. What was there not to hate? Noor was fairy-tale pretty, with a personality that made her the life of the classroom. She wasn’t unintelligent either and that hurt. Her hand kept shooting up as the adoring teachers would point at her, laughing. ‘Yes, Noor, do tell the class the answer.’ Yes, Noor, the class will never know, if you don’t tell them the answer, Lavanya would whisper through clenched teeth, to whoever was sitting next to her.
The days went by and as much as Lavanya resisted the famous Noor charm, Noor was determined to be friends. There was nothing Lavanya could do to keep her away. Soon, they were inseparable and they stayed that way through St. Mary’s, then the University of Bombay. And even now, when Noor had become one of the more popular actresses of the Bombay film scene while Lavanya remained an ‘aspiring’ writer.
It was an important meeting today. Lavanya was running out of funds and did not want to ask her brothers for money. If the director liked her story, she would get a signing amount there and then, Noor had said.
Of course, nothing was that simple. She put on her nose ring, deciding against even the pale brown lipstick she usually wore. She didn’t want the director staring at her mouth as she narrated the screenplay. Or worse, eyes travelling down and around to see through her khadi kameez to find her new Kestos lace-trimmed bra with three neat hooks at the back. She sighed, lingerie would remain her only indulgence. She was about to tie her tan-and-white, low-heeled Oxford brogues when there was another loud and persistent knock on the door.
Too loud for it to be polite, is what Lavanya thought, eyebrows furrowed, patting the wavy curls at the bottom of her bob just above her shoulder. She was still getting used to the idea of living alone. Hardly a day went by without some ‘very concerned’ neighbour stopping by to tell her how inappropriate it was for a young girl to live alone after the death of her parents. Why not go to live with your brothers, in Delhi or Calcutta, by turns? Or you must get married soon, they would conclude, pursing their lips, and waiting for Lavanya’s reaction. Lavanya would sip her tea and listen to them thinking, why don’t I tell you what I’ll do: I’ll put your hairy lip, your mean mouth, your large sniffing nose, and your dark, odorous concern in my next story. That’s what I’ll do.
She opened the door to find the biggest man she had ever seen in a policeman’s uniform outside her door. He carried a small attaché case and was looking at Lavanya like he couldn’t imagine she was the person he had come to see.
‘Lavanya Shriram?’
‘Yes …?’
‘Madam, I am Inspector Amrit Singh from Simla Police. I have been sent to meet with you on a most important matter. May I come in?’
Lavanya, trying to make sense of his overwhelming presence at her door, stepped aside to let him in. The neighbours’ constant vigil of her front door will pay off today, she thought to herself. She cast a glance at the windows and doors across the street. Doors not quite shut, curtains not quite drawn. Look, look, dear neighbours, not a lover, not a man but a policeman.
Like a big bird, he took his time settling down on the diwan. She kept her purse clasped close to her as she sat down next to him on a moda.
‘Madam, I will come straight to the point. Do you know Ratan Seth?’
That name after so long. That too from a policeman’s mouth. It should have felt odd but it didn’t.
‘Yes, he used to live next door. Is he … all right?’
He was looking at her to see if the concern in her voice was genuine. Then he spoke like he was speaking to a child. That’s the only way men knew to speak to women, Lavanya thought. They have to pretend they are speaking to a nine-year-old, only then can the conversation be understood.
‘Madam, I cannot tell you how he is because we do not know. We are looking for him. That is one of the reasons I am here. He is wanted for the murder of Mrs Sara Davenport, the wife of a very senior army officer. Would you happen to know where he could be?’
‘What? No, of course not. He has been gone a long time.’
This was the worst trouble Ratan had ever got himself into.
‘We have of course visited his father before coming here. We are aware the two of you were very close friends. Yes?’
Poor Uncle Seth. It must be devastating to hear Ratan was implicated in such a serious crime. They would often pass by each other on their street. He would look sharply at her and then look away before she could nod at him. Like she was the reason Ratan had left.
‘We have not been in touch since he left home, officer. From what I understand, this has nothing to do with me. I must leave now, I have to see a friend in half an hour. I’m sorry, I would have asked you for a cup of tea but I am in a hurry …’
Lavanya had already started moving towards the door, thinking he would follow.
‘Madam, a minute, please? Is this familiar to you?’
Lavanya turned around to see he had not budged from the diwan. His attaché case was now open and in his hands was a book. Covered in dusty cellophane, it looked very strange but familiar. It was her book of short stories, the only one published. It felt so strange to see the book in the policeman’s big, dry, calloused hands.
In a daze, she walked back the few steps she had taken and sat back down.
He was removing something else from a diary inside the case.
‘Is this your handwriting?’ Now he was showing her the note she had written to Ratan, slipped inside the book. Wrapped in cellophane too, the note looked tiny in his hands.
Dear Rat
Where’s your evil plan?
Here’s mine.
That note. That inside joke. It was funny how relationships faded, became something unrecognizable, and yet the inside joke remained. It seemed to have the ability to withstand everything. Lavanya felt the blood rushing to her face. She forced herself to answer the inspector’s question.
‘Yes. It is. I sent him this book to read. But I don’t know if he read it. I never heard from him.’
What was the joke again? Yes, every time Ratan had something nice to say about what she had written, she would look at him, hands clasped. In her best British accent, she would say, ‘Oh, you are too kind, Sir, too kind!’ And Ratan would say in the same affected accent, eyes small and mean, ‘That’s the evil plan, darling, to kill you with kindness.’
She would play along. ‘But why, kind Sir, why?’
‘So that I never have to say anything nice about anything you’ve written ever again’. He would say and laugh some kind of an evil laugh.
Lavanya would pretend to look shocked at this revelation and cup her cheeks in mock horror.
It was such a silly routine but it never failed to amuse them.
Even as she wrote the note and slipped it inside, she imagined him reading it, his eyes crinkling with laughter.
As evil plans go, this too had a shelf life that seemed to have expired.
She looked at the inspector, hoping he would not ask her to explain the note.
It was impossible to explain an inside joke to a third person, let alone a policeman, and get the same reaction.
Amrit Singh’s eyes were no longer curious, they had become hard and condemning. Lavanya stiffened.
‘Madam, you are aware this book has objectionable material inside?’
‘I’m sorry, what? I don’t understand what you mean …’
‘This book, Madam, was found near the body. We have, therefore, read what is inside. The book has objectionable material that we believe could well have provoked Ratan to commit the crime. These, you will agree are not simple stories. They have been written to provoke, yes?’
‘All stories are written to provoke, Inspector.’
Seeing her cellophane-wrapped book cradled in the policeman’s hands, Lavanya had a flash. Her mother telling her yet again that her writing was never going to amount to anything good.
‘All your stories are written to provoke a crime?’ he sounded aghast, despite himself.
‘No, of course not, how could my stories have led to a crime?’
‘Madam, no woman in these stories, is being fully clothed. That is true or not?’
Was this person a critic or a policeman? Her head was reeling.
‘Inspector, these stories are about very brave women in very difficult circumstances. If that is what you are asking.’
It was exactly like talking to her mother.
‘So you agree they are about obscenities?’ he said.
This was what Ma had often struck her head for. Right till her dying day. With a mind like that, why couldn’t she have been a boy? Why couldn’t she accept she was a ‘girl’, why couldn’t she sew and cook and keep house for some nice boy in a government job? Did she know what they thought of dark-skinned girls like her?
‘No, they are about love and desire,’ she heard herself say.
The inspector seemed to have reached a conclusion of sorts. He was placing the cellophane packages back inside, handling them like they were bombs that might go off at any second. He shut his case and turned to look at her resolutely.
‘Madam, I have to ask you to come with me to the police station for questioning. Your publisher has been called too. Superintendent Donald Harper will ask you a few questions regarding this book. It is procedural.’
If Lavanya still wrote in her diary, she would have noted the date. 16 February 1936, the day that started the spinning of a web she would have no control over. What is it they say about webs? They were created to hunt their prey, and hunt they must. Not only because it’s the law of the world but because it is the thread of life itself.
A book and a body
WHILE SIMLA SLEPT DURING THE EARLY DAWN, RATAN was wide awake.
There was a rat under his bedding. He just couldn’t find the vile creature. He stood beside the lumpy mattress that had been his bed for the last three days, with a stick in his hand. He had been beating away at the mattress, hoping to produce the hurried exit of the rat, but the mattress lay still, no sign of life stirring under it.
After a while, Ratan was no longer sure if he had imagined the rat’s slithery presence or if it really did exist. He continued to stand there, ready to bring down his stick as soon as the rat appeared. Tired, he let his arm drop and the stick fell with a clatter on the floor, startling him. What was he doing? The rat was just a momentary distraction compared to what lay before him.
In the shaft of light streaming in from the barred window in the small shed, Ratan loomed larger than life. The light accentuated his broad back which tapered down to a slim waist and thick-set legs. In the shadow that fell across the wall, the figure wielding a stick in his hand looked nothing less than ominous. He looked like he could kill.
He had woken with a start. It was the same chilling thought that would wake him up every morning. What if she wasn’t dead? What if he had left her there alive, still breathing, hoping to be rescued? Was it possible he had deserted her when she needed him most?
Clutching his heart, feeling the palpitations increase as he scrambled to get control of his panicking mind, Ratan grabbed an old crumpled Times of India from the stack in the corner and started reading aloud.
Gandhi Interviewed in Jail; Asks Full Freedom for India
His Resisters, He says, Will Fill All the Prisons, Making Government by British Impossible—Calls Campaign ‘Mad Risk But ‘Justifiable One.’
The letters started swimming in front of his eyes. He let go of the paper and held his head in his hands and went over that night again. Then again. The running shadow of a man in the trees. Sara, leaning against the tree, her hand on her throat. His legs barely moving in that cold, cold night. Sara falling across the rose bushes. The thorns digging into her flesh. Sara breathing with great difficulty. Blood all over the fallen white champa flowers. Blood all over his hands. Him, running. Dragging his feet but running.
On that foggy winter night, he had been clear-headed enough to know if they caught him with her dead in his arms, it would be the end of him. Nobody would believe he was innocent. He knew what happened to Indians in prisons. The punishment was only the starting point. The jails were designed to break Indian prisoners in a slow and methodical way. The breaking especially wrung out if an Indian had had the temerity to attack a European. There were too many innocent Indians in jails already. He would lie in some godforsaken damp cell, beaten, wasting away forever. For not telling them the ‘truth’. There was only one version of the truth they would want to hear. That he had killed Lady Davenport. One lousy Indian had killed a high-ranking army official’s wife. There was no doubt in his mind. It would be the end of him.
He had run. He had left the car there and run. He hadn’t known where to go. He was afraid to go back to his quarters, so he had started walking down to where the fields were. Further and further down, past the Ridge where all the wealthy, distinguished British officers lived, past the tier below where the Anglo Indians lived, past the Mall Road and finally past the Lower Bazaar, which stank of the sewage runoff from above, even in the dead of night. This was where he lived, along with the rest of the working class—coolies, labourers, rickshaw pullers, maids and dhobis. He didn’t look in the direction of his room. He didn’t stop till he could see where the town ended and the fields began. It was a blur how long he walked, ran, stumbled, fell, on and on for hours before the fields come into view.
