Читать книгу The Forbidden Daughter - Shobhan Bantwal - Страница 10

June 2006

Isha listened to the relentless rain beating down on the roof as she coaxed Priya to finish her dinner. The monsoons were in full swing. Late evenings seemed drearier than the rest of the day for some reason, perhaps because it rained even harder, or because she dreaded dinnertime. It almost always followed the same pattern: the meal started with stilted conversation, then deteriorated into emotional arguments, and finally sank into sullen silence.

It was nearly two months since Nikhil and she had informed Ayee and Baba about the baby’s gender. As expected, their reaction had been shocked silence followed by disappointed sighs.

Then one evening, they had nonchalantly introduced the subject of abortion. From that point on, it became almost the sole topic of discussion, and also a bone of contention. The relationship between the younger and elder Tilaks had begun to fracture immediately. With each passing day it became more strained, more resentful, even turbulent at times. The bitterness and animosity seemed to accelerate at about the same rate the baby grew in her womb and kicked with more intensity.

“I wonder why Nikhil is not home yet,” said Isha’s mother-in-law, interrupting Isha’s gloomy thoughts. Ayee had made the remark for the second time in ten minutes, frowning at the wall clock in the dining room.

Baba was in the drawing room, watching television. They were all waiting for Nikhil to return home from work.

“He’s probably taking care of a last minute customer, Ayee,” Isha explained to ease Ayee’s obvious agitation—although she’d been wondering about the same thing herself. Nikhil knew his parents’ tendency to worry excessively about him, so he indulged them by keeping them informed of his whereabouts as much as he could.

So where was he at the moment? Why hadn’t he called?

“Priya, it’s getting late.” Isha threw her daughter a no-more-arguments frown. “Now finish what’s on your plate!” A fussy eater, Priya usually toyed with her food and wasted a lot of what was served, so she needed to be prodded into eating.

Priya shook her head, making her pigtails bounce. “I’m not hungry.” Her large hazel eyes had that familiar stubbornness about them.

That particular expression was so much like Nikhil’s when he got mulish about something that it made Isha smile inwardly. Like father, like daughter! But they were such beautiful, expressive eyes. She was glad her child had inherited them from her father, because her own light brown eyes weren’t all that spectacular.

“If you don’t eat, you don’t get a bedtime story,” Isha warned her. The enticement of a bedtime story was rather trite, but it almost always worked with Priya.

The little girl reluctantly shoveled the last of the rice and lentils into her mouth, then slid off the chair and skipped out of the dining room. Isha motioned to the maid hovering nearby to remove the empty plate and rose to her feet.

The clock read 8:56 PM. Ayee was sighing audibly. There was still no sign of Nikhil. Isha threw another anxious glance outside the window. No headlights coming up the driveway. The phone remained silent. The first real frisson of apprehension tiptoed through her mind.

Where was her husband?

Nikhil usually left his office around 8:00 PM and came home well before 8:30 every evening. Now Baba was getting impatient and pacing the floor, so Isha called the shop to find out what was keeping Nikhil, but there was no reply. The voice mail came on and she left a message asking Nikhil to call home right away.

But he didn’t call back; and several minutes after the clock struck nine, and there was still no sign of Nikhil and no call, either, Isha and her mother-in-law exchanged worried looks.

Ayee’s frown became deeper. “Why is he not home yet?” she repeated, echoing Isha’s thoughts. “He always informs us if he is going to be late, no?”

Dinner was getting cold, so Isha encouraged the elders to eat. Besides, they were rigid in their eating schedules.

A little later Isha read Priya her promised story and got her settled in bed, then decided to wait up for Nikhil in the drawing room along with her in-laws. She kept trying both the office land-line as well as Nikhil’s mobile phone every few minutes, but both came up with voice-mail each time.

At 9:49 PM, Baba, dressed in white pajamas and a loose muslin shirt, was pacing the drawing room floor more furiously than before, his jaw clenched tight. For a sixty-two-year-old he was in excellent shape, trim-bodied, smooth-complexioned, and in full control of his faculties. Despite his shock of silver hair, he looked ten years younger than he was. Technically he had handed over the business to Nikhil and retired, but he was very much involved in its overall operation.

He finally stopped pacing and turned to Isha. “This is going on too long. Call Patil, the Superintendent of Police. Maybe there was an accident or something.”

So Isha called Mr. Patil’s home number and explained the situation. The superintendent was a family acquaintance, and he immediately offered to send out a couple of men to discreetly find out if there was any sort of trouble at Nikhil’s office.

Ayee looked even more distressed than Baba. Her hair was done in a braid in preparation for bed, and she had on a soft cotton kaftan. At fifty-eight, unlike her young-looking husband, she certainly looked her age, perhaps because she frowned so much and had wrinkles in her brow.

But she had the gorgeous hazel eyes, high cheek bones, and chiseled features that her son, her daughter, and all her grandchildren had inherited. She must have been a lovely woman in her youth. Baba and she still made a handsome couple.

Isha and her in-laws waited a long time, willing the phone to ring. The tension in the room was oppressive, especially when Baba kept switching the television on and off every few minutes and murmuring under his breath. But it wasn’t Isha’s place to tell him to cut it out, stop pacing, and sit down for heaven’s sake. He was driving her crazy with his slippers going clop-clop on the marble-tiled floor.

It was nearly an hour later that Mr. Patil himself came to their door, looking uncomfortable as he stood under his dripping umbrella and shuffled his large feet. He was a tall, stiff man with a somber face, and a heavy mustache that was just turning gray. Maybe it was his profession that made him so glum.

The moment Isha opened the door to him, her heart sank. Instinctively she knew he was the bearer of bad news. Why else would he come all the way out here in person? She had no idea what the details were, but somewhere in her gut she knew something horrible had happened to Nikhil. The negative vibes she’d been feeling since the clock had struck nine had been rising with every passing minute.

And now, looking at Mr. Patil’s face, she knew her instincts had been right. Nonetheless she joined her trembling palms in the expected greeting. “Namaste, Patil-saheb. Please come in.”

He stepped inside with some hesitation and discarded his wet chappals and umbrella near the door. “Namaste, Mrs. Tilak.” He greeted the elder Tilaks in the same manner.

Both Ayee and Baba immediately bombarded him with questions. “Did you find out anything? Was there an accident? Is there any news of our son?”

Patil remained silent. Baba shot him a blistering look. “Have your men been sent to check on Nikhil or not?”

Patil chewed on his lower lip for an instant. “Yes, sir.”

Isha looked up at Patil, the tightening in her chest reaching the point of strangulation. “And?”

He stroked his luxuriant mustache and blinked a couple of times. It took a moment for him to look her in the eye. “The news is bad.”

Baba’s face contorted into a ferocious scowl. “What kind of news?”

“I’m coming to that, Tilak-saheb,” said Patil, patting the air with both hands. “My constables went to your shop. The lights were off. They assumed the store was closed. But when they tried the door, it opened, so they went in and turned on the lights. It looked like—”

“Like what?” interrupted Baba.

“—there might have been a robbery.”

Feeling weak and nauseated from not having eaten for several hours, Isha moved to the nearest chair and sank into it. “Robbery?” It’s not serious…calm down. She took a deep, calming breath. A few stolen tires…can’t be the end of the world.

Patil gestured to her in-laws to sit down on the sofa. “When they rang me, I went out there to look for myself. It looked like all the staff had left and Nikhil was closing up the shop and someone came inside and tried to rob the store. He must have tried to fight them off.”

“What about Nikhil?” Isha demanded. All she wanted to know was how her husband was.

“They…they stabbed him.”

The breath left Isha’s lungs in that instant. “Is he badly hurt?” she managed to whisper.

“He was stabbed to death.” Patil shut his eyes tight for a moment, the anguish clear on his face. “There are multiple wounds…a lot of blood.” He fell silent before adding, “He probably tried to wrestle with them and things became violent.”

“But Nikhil’s a strong man…and very capable. He won’t lose a fight.” She quashed the tide of ice-cold panic flooding her. She couldn’t lose hope. “He can’t.” He used to be an athlete.

“But, madam, this is…” Patil made a helpless gesture with his hands.

“Did you check thoroughly to see if it was Nikhil or someone else? It could be one of the men who work for Nikhil.”

Patil shook his head. “It was Nikhil. I am one hundred percent sure. I know…knew Nikhil quite well.”

“But did anyone check his pulse?” Baba demanded.

“Yes, sir,” replied Patil, his voice brimming with regret.

“How can you be so sure?” Ayee demanded.

Patil took a deep, audible breath. “I’m sorry, Tilak-bayi. I wish I could say I wasn’t sure, but I cannot.”

The small bubble of hope Isha had been desperately clutching at popped.

All at once her mind went blank. The red upholstery on the furniture, the reds in the hand-woven area rug and in the curtains seemed to turn gray. Everything around her changed to the same shade of ash.

The tightness in her chest started right in the center and then radiated outward, slowly exerting a choke hold on her lungs, but the expected sobs and drenching tears never came. She could only stare dry-eyed at the grave man sitting across the room from her.

He was the one who had told her she was now a widow. The dreaded W word.

All she could remember later was the silence that descended over the room that night. She had no idea what her in-laws were doing at the time, but she had remained motionless and speechless. Even if she had tried to say or do something, there probably wouldn’t have been a sound emerging from her throat or a muscle that would have cooperated.

All her systems had shut down, as if they were operated by a single kill switch.