In Your Blood I Run, page 8
Her father used to say that Bombay was the only city teeming with people who had no interest in the ins and outs of your life. Somebody could get murdered next door and nobody would bat an eyelid. There were two exceptions though, Lavanya longed to tell her dead father. Bombay could ignore you as long as you were not a girl living alone and if they had not read about you in the daily paper.
Every newsreport came sprinkled with Donald Harper’s quotes. The Statesman, The Hindu, The Bombay Chronicle—all carried long-winded statements on how the police were working hard to get to the bottom of the case. No effort was being spared to dig up all the evidence to pin the culprit down. They had tightened security on all fronts and it was only a matter of time before Ratan was put behind bars. And finally, Harper appealed to readers not to succumb to the ‘evil plan’ behind the book aggressively in circulation. By reading the offensive book, they would create more demand for the filth in it. A few upstanding individuals had appealed to the government to take legal steps to ban the book. The author and publisher were, unfortunately, not cooperating, he said.
Surya Kant did his best to milk the frenzy around the book. He printed enough copies of the book to meet the curiosity of all those who couldn’t wait to read the famous ending. He called in favours from printers, publishers, calligraphers, illustrators and writers. If there is a patriotic bone in your body, he told them, sell this book. If there is love for the written word in your heart, sell this book. If there is hate for chains and things bent on tying you down, sell this book. Finally, he said, if you want business to pick up, you want to go home with some good news for a change, sell this book.
Lavanya was bemused to find copies of the book that had been lying in a dusty corner of Samarth Book Depot in Giraum Naka were now on display in the front window. Moreover, the Progressives, who had so far ignored her, were now inviting her to attend meetings. When her stories had first appeared in Voices, she had hoped some leading voices from the movement may pay heed, acknowledge her as a new, interesting voice, perhaps. No one had. Now that her book was linked to the killing, threatened with a ban in a court of law, both she and her writing were being hailed.
Lavanya locked up the house after the first day of madness, robbing her neighbours of a chance to show their concern with a shared cup of Lipton’s tea. She packed a small bag and left for Noor’s posh apartment, Krishna Mahal, on Marine Drive. She knew she would have to brave Aunty Jaddan Bai’s endless questions but she also knew Noor would help her manage her mother. Jaddan Bai was a formidable name in the Bombay film industry and already, Krishna Mahal had become famous for her salons, where actors, producers and directors would gather to pay court to her, in the hope of working with Noor.
The only person she sought out to clarify matters with before she left, was Ratan’s father. She let him know she had no idea of Ratan’s whereabouts, that he had never reached out to her, nor sent her a single word of news about himself or what he was doing all these years. Ratan’s father heard her out, a shrivelled man, looking much older than his years, his hands covering hers for a brief moment as he looked deep into her eyes.
‘Where did I go wrong? All I wanted to do was protect both of them …’
She had not known what to say. He had sought to protect. His wife and his son had sought to be free. People and countries, there seemed to be very little difference.
They sat in silence for a long time. It was when she got up to leave that he called out to her softly, ‘Lavanya … beta?’
She turned back.
‘You’re a good girl, Lavanya. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.’
She had nodded, her lips trembling, overwhelmed for no reason. It was pathetic, her insatiable need to be told she was a good girl. Completely in conflict with her need to do everything that was considered unsuitable.
The summons knew where to reach her even though her house was locked and she had left no forwarding address.
She was alone at Noor’s home. Noor had left with Jaddan Bai to discuss dates and payments for a forthcoming film. The servants too had fled, to gossip with the vegetable sellers and the shoeshine boys around the corner, glad to have a moment to themselves without her hawk-like eyes sweeping over everything they did. Lavanya was washing her hair, listening to Duke Ellington and his band perform ‘It don’t mean a thing’ on the radio, when the doorbell rang. She let it ring. Whoever it was, would get the message and leave. The doorbell kept ringing. She finished washing her hair to the now stopping, now whirring of the doorbell, and went to answer the door.
Amrit Singh whipped out a brown paper package and handed it to her. They didn’t need to exchange any words. There was a small note with the package, which she read first. It was on Superintendent Donald Harper’s stationery.
Hello Miss Shriram. Hope this court summons finds you in the pinkest of health. If you’d be so good as to sign it. See you in Simla and then, in court. Eagerly, Donald Harper.
She crumpled the note and held out her hand as Amrit Singh, caught off guard, took it from her. Then not knowing what to do with it, slipped it into his pocket. She ripped open the crown-embossed ‘COURT SUMMONS’ with her heart beating and her hair dripping. Sinatra on the radio insisted, with a crash of the drums and a flourish of the trumpet, that it didn’t mean a thing, if you aint got that swing. This summons seemed to have a decided swing.
The towel holding her hair in place had dropped and she didn’t even know it. In less than a month, she was to appear in court in Simla to answer the charges of ‘writing documents offensive to public morale and capable of inciting criminal acts in a civilized society’.
Instinctively, she looked behind her to see if her mother was watching. How could she not? This was the precise moment she had predicted all along. She should be peering over her shoulder with that ‘I told you so’ look. Well, it had. What a relief to get it over and done with, right Ma? She watched the words swimming in and out of focus. Her eyes stinging but dry, her wet hair dripping over the summons, smudging the Queen’s order. It wasn’t as terrifying as it looked, actually, she concluded.
Amrit Singh took the summons from her hands with a soft but sternly muttered, ‘May I, Madam?’ Brandishing a pen in his hand and keeping the papers at a safe distance from her hair, he gestured for her to sign her acceptance.
She did. He had another envelope for her which had her tickets for Simla. She nodded at him, she had noted the date, the time and she would be there. He nodded back at her. He left. Barely three meetings and they were already communicating like old friends with minimal gestures and nods.
She expected her brothers to seek her out, sooner or later. Surendra, her elder brother, was the first. He called Noor on her telephone connection at home, that evening. By the time Lavanya came on the line, he had worked himself up quite a bit.
What was this new mess she had got herself into? People at work were asking him all sorts of questions about her, he didn’t know what to say. How did she think that made him look? Why hadn’t she called him the minute she got to know about Ratan’s involvement in the crime? Why didn’t she come at once to Delhi and lock up the house in Bombay? She calmed him the best she could and assured him she would do just that, come to Delhi soon. By the time her younger brother Virendra called, she was spent. They got off on the wrong foot immediately.
‘Lavi, the police? The police? All that nonsense you write! I knew there was something terribly wrong with that rat, Ratan, why on earth did you keep in touch with him?! Thank God Ma is gone or she would have had her second heart attack now …’
She didn’t tell him about the court summons. What was the point?
‘Viru, you little runt, have you called me to add to my troubles or maybe offer some brotherly support, you good-for-nothing!’
‘What can I do? Can’t even take leave for something like this, can I? What do I tell my boss, exactly? Sir, my sister is in trouble with the police for writing dirty stories, then sending them to a criminal who is on the run, I have to go and make sure she’s okay … I mean, how does that sound to you?’
‘It sounds like the most interesting thing your boss will have heard all day, if not all his life! Definitely more inspiring than having you for a subordinate, you useless …’
And so they had gone on for a while, calling each other names, familiar names and familiar insults, just worded differently, given the context.
‘Seriously, do you want me to come, I could be there in two days …’
‘Tomorrow, I will be on the train to Simla, so please don’t bother.’
‘Are you going alone? I forbid it …’
‘Who are you, exactly? My “younger” brother, so stop acting like you rule over me. Anyway, I’m going to be accompanied by the police, so I will not need protection, dear brother, don’t get your rakhis in a twist, just as yet.’
‘I pity the police, I do, you’re impossible …’
She had hung up then. He hadn’t called back. It was all good.
That evening, they had a visitor. Noor had finished packing Lavanya’s suitcase, insisting on fitting in some trinkets that Lavanya had assured her she would never wear. Jaddan Bai who had swished in earlier with a packet of meethi supari, handed it to Noor with a prim ‘Baby, you’ll see, Lavanya will thank me later for this.’ When Deven kaka, Noor’s aged help of many years, announced the presence of a certain Surya Kant Sahib in the living room, Noor had just shut the suitcase and was going to pour them a large peg of Green Crown Whisky smuggled surreptitiously from Jaddan Bai’s room.
They found him sitting on the edge of the armchair as if he might want to leave at any moment. The initial niceties over and a tall, fortifying glass of sherbet in his hands, he still looked awkward. Lavanya didn’t know what to say, she appealed to Noor with a glance. Noor flashed a dazzling smile and showed her dimples.
‘I’m going to suggest to my directors that the film industry should shift to Simla too, in the summer, then it will be like Filmla in Simla …’
It had the desired effect. He laughed and said it was a wonderful idea, indeed.
He started out being apologetic for the late hour but not overtly.
‘It’s late, yes, but I thought it was important to speak to you before you left for Simla.’
‘You will be coming soon too, won’t you, Surya Kant Sahib?’ Lavanya asked.
‘Please call me Surya. Yes, I will let you know when. Is there anything that is bothering you? Do you need any money?’
Lavanya hesitated. It was nice to be asked.
‘I’m all right. Thank you,’ she said.
‘You’re not to refuse. The book is selling handsomely. I just want you to know. If you need anything, you have simply to ask. When you get back, we will settle things better.’
She nodded. She caught Noor looking at him, openly admiring.
Surya handed her a card. It had the painting of a buxom naked woman napping under the initials ‘AS’ that rose like a tree. This was Amrita’s calling card? She would have to call on her if things got dull in Simla.
‘This is the artist Amrita Sher-Gil’s address in Simla. I’ve sent her a telegram letting her know you will be arriving. You must look her up. You have my contact details too. Please do not hesitate to call if you need anything.’ Lavanya nodded, she would. There was something else on his mind. She waited for him to find the words.
‘Everybody calls me a recluse and they aren’t wrong,’ he said, taking a large sip of the sherbet. ‘I have scarcely had reason to leave my home, my press, but that has changed now. This is important, this is purposeful, Lavanya. We have a right to our stories, whatever they may be. Why must we be told they are good or bad or dirty or clean? It’s unthinkable that they are in our country, exploiting us, our resources, our minds, our lands, but we have to listen to them on what we choose to read and write? I’m going to do my best to not let that happen. As your publisher, I’m going to do everything I can to keep your words free, Lavanya. If we have to go to court to do that, let us.’ But he hadn’t quite finished. ‘I also wanted to let you know that I’ve decided to act as the lawyer for our hearing. Unless, of course, you have any objections. I have studied law and may I say, studied it well enough. You should have no reason to complain.’
‘I’m so glad. This is the best news I’ve had all day,’ Lavanya said, smiling. Noor had held her hand all the while Surya had been speaking.
He left soon after. Noor tried to get him to stay but he had said what he had wanted to say.
If Lavanya was honest, she felt a sense of panic as he left. To be on her own from thereon, suddenly felt terrifying. She even considered not turning up at the station the next day, even disappearing from Bombay, going away to, say, her brother’s home in Delhi. Not telling anybody, not even Noor. Then, as hurriedly as it had come, the wave of panic subsided. There was no way back, she simply had to keep moving.
Surya Kant’s presence had been so comforting, it had paralyzed her. Made her feel like she wanted to lean on him, to take the weight off herself. Men had that quality, she had to admit. Good men had that quality, she corrected herself. It’s just that there were too few of them. So leaning on herself, however troublesome, was a more reliable option.
A score settled
THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN BABU HAD KILLED THE haggard farmer and hidden the body somewhere it could never be found. Ratan didn’t recognize himself as he looked sideways in the gigantic ornate mirror in the Summers’ dressing room. The European suit fit him well. The last touch was the hat. Ratan had taken one look at the dusty closet bursting with hats of all shapes and sizes and shut it, only to open it again a while later and choose one, unleashing a minor dust storm in the big airy room. He had just got used to being bathed and clean, and looked at the particles of dust like they didn’t belong in his world. None of the grime that came with his recent past seemed to cling to him at this moment as he lingered, catching his scrubbed, clean reflection first from one angle, then another. He tried not looking in the mirror mid-centre but off it. Coming to it from the side, from the edge at times, looking back to catch a glimpse and nothing more. He couldn’t bear to see himself in the centre of the mirror in these clothes. Vanity, his fondest flaw, was fast fading.
Intellectual vanity, no sign of it, his father was fond of saying every time he caught Ratan angling himself in the mirror.
Dear Papa,
That was another letter he had begun and not finished.
Dear Ma, too.
The time for letter writing was gone. For sitting at a desk, asking, telling, reassuring, promising, sending. He had to keep moving.
Ratan found the car in the garage, a 1920 Double Cabriolet by Barker, not long before he found the keys which were in a bedside drawer on the first floor. Once in the car, he could hear himself think better. The one thought that kept his eyes bloodshot was Shyam’s betrayal. To think that all that time he was sheltering Ratan in that rat-infested shed, Shyam was planning to throw the noose around him. He must have been waiting for the award money to be announced. Once a petty gambler, always a petty gambler, Ratan should have known. He looked sideways at the cricket bat he had carried with him from the bungalow. What pleasure it would be to break it on Shyam’s head.
Soon, he was moving slowly on the winding road leading down to the Ridge and the Davenport House. Shyam should be on his way there now to pick up Sir Richard and bring him to work.
Luckily, the Davenport House was in the most secluded part of the row of bungalows where the British army officers lived. Wedged in a corner, with vast grounds on either side, he could easily hide the car in the forest area behind it. From inside the car, he could see all the cars going into the compound. He waited.
After a while, the Benz he had driven every day until just a few days ago, came riding up the hill. Ratan got out of the car to get a better look. He had blocked the road at the turn just before the wrought iron gate to the residence, with a massive shrub. Ratan clambered over quickly to get to the side of the road just in time to see Shyam getting out of the Benz.
Except, it wasn’t Shyam. It was Davenport’s ADC, Marc Easton. Where was Shyam? Davenport was so particular about who drove him, it had to be Shyam, just like for Sara, it had to be Ratan.
He saw Marc look around concerned, then peer at the shrub with two elegant fingers stroking his chin, before dragging it to the side of the road. Marc, with his long, lean, angular looks had always appeared an artist in an army uniform to Ratan. Except when you caught the military glint in his eyes. Ratan watched as Marc dusted his hands meditatively, got back into the Benz, and slowly drove in.
Ratan remained crouching, long after the Benz disappeared from view. Where was Shyam? If Shyam was sick, he would be at the farm but going there again would be idiotic. By now, the police would only have stepped up their vigilance in the area. He got back in the car and looked at the cricket bat. Shyam owed him some answers. Tyres on dry grass exploding in his ears, he pulled out as softly as he could.
Cocking his hat at a slant, he glanced at the mirror. That’s what an idiot looks like, he thought. Sara would tell him that all the time. Tousling his hair and playing with one lock from the middle of his forehead so that it curled up like a question mark right above his nose. She would do that and say, ‘Now that’s what an idiot looks like.’
She often said, he was so naive that she was certain it was bordering on stupidity. That he had been dropped at birth and that had done his mental faculties a lot of damage. He never minded. She liked teasing him. It was usually preceded by yet another spectacular instance of his attempts to help someone backfiring on him. He would tell her about it, pacing up and down, unable to make sense of what had happened and she’d break it down for him. What was not apparent to him was dead clear to her. And once she did, he had to agree he had been stupid. He should have seen it coming all along.
Why hadn’t she warned him about helping Shyam?
What would Sara break down for him now? What wasn’t he seeing, for God’s sake?
