Foreign Body (48 page)

Lifting the lid and placing it on the mantel, Veena held her breath while slipping her hand into the box. To her relief, her fingers immediately hit up against the oversized key, inspiring her to say a little prayer to Vishnu. Slipping the key into her front pocket, Veena took the time to replace the box's lid and return the box to its exact location.

With her shoes and pillowcase back in her grasp, Veena moved out of the library and darted back down the hall, heading now for the conservatory. It was then that she heard the thunk of the refrigerator door closing. Reflexively, she ducked into the hallway's shadows and froze. And it was a good thing she had. A moment later, Cal emerged into the hall with a fresh Kingfisher beer. He walked past Veena and headed toward the guest wing.

With such a close call, Veena panicked. Although she'd tried to act as normal as she could all evening, she'd known Cal had been suspicious and had even asked her if she were alright on more than one occasion. Later, after she'd excused herself and said she was going to bed, he'd even come to her bedroom with a flimsy excuse. And with him heading in that direction now, she had to assume he was bent on checking her yet again.

As soon as he had disappeared from view, Veena was off again. Now she was up against a time constraint. In the conservatory, she quietly let herself out into the garden, where she put on her shoes, then sprinted across the lawn. She met the driveway just before it entered the trees, and once in the trees, she had to slow to a walk in the darkness. A few minutes later, she reached the garage.

She unlocked the upper door and left it open to take advantage of the flashes of moonlight that filtered down through the trees as the night breezes rustled their leaves.

At the base of the stairs it was nearly total darkness, with only a bit of moonlight visible when Veena looked back up to the open door.

She used the key to rap on the door. "Miss Hernandez," she called out. "It is Nurse Chandra." Only then did she struggle to open it. The door swung in to utter blackness.

"Miss Hernandez," Veena called again. "I've come to get you out of here. This is no trick, but we must hurry. I have clothes and shoes for you."

Veena felt a hand touch her chest. "Where are the shoes?" Jennifer asked. She was leery, even though Veena said there was no trick.

"I have the shoes and the clothes in a pillowcase. Let's go upstairs and at least take advantage of the moonlight."

"Okay," Jennifer said.

Veena turned and mounted the stairs, moving toward the faint, flickering silver-gray light. She could barely hear Jennifer coming behind with her bare feet. As Veena emerged into the cool night, she glanced back at the house. "Oh, no!" she voiced.

Through the trees she could see there were now lights on. A second later, she heard something that made her blood run cold. She heard Cal's voice yell her name out into the night.

Jennifer loomed out of the stairway, peeling off the bathrobe in anticipation of putting on the clothes that Veena had brought.

"There's no time for the shirt and pants," Veena blurted. "But you must have something on your feet." She struggled to get the tennis shoes out of the pillowcase and handed them to Jennifer. Jennifer pulled the bathrobe back on and snatched the shoes from Veena.

"Why the rush?" Jennifer hastily questioned.

"Cal Morgan, the head man, has somehow realized I'm gone. If he hasn't already, he'll soon figure out that I meant all along to come out here and free you."

Jennifer pulled on the tennis shoes. "Where should we go?"

"Back through the trees away from the house. There's a fence, but it's fallen down someplace. We have to find it, and we have to put some distance between us and this bungalow or we're both going to end up back in that basement."

"Let's go," Jennifer said, cinching the bathrobe's belt.

The two women started through the trees. The denser the canopy, the more difficult the going. For about fifty feet, they moved purely by feel, keeping their hands in front of their faces. The main problem was the noise. They sounded like a couple of elephants moving through the brush.

"Veena, come back! We need to talk," wafted over the humid night air. Flashlight beams danced in the darkness, crossing the lawn from the bungalow.

With renewed urgency the women pressed on, eventually colliding with an all-too-robust chain-link fence topped with rusty barbed wire.

"Which way?" Jennifer demanded in a breathless whisper.

"No idea," Veena answered. The flashlight beams were now penetrating the woods.

Making a sudden decision, Jennifer moved to her right, letting her hand trail along the fence. She could hear Veena following her, both women making more noise than they would have preferred. The fence continued on as hale as ever. Just when Jennifer was lamenting that the damaged section of fence must have been in the opposite direction, her hand contact disappeared. Bending down, she could feel that the fence was suddenly horizontal, having fallen outward.

"Here it is," Jennifer whispered forcibly. She stepped on it and it settled more.

Advancing timidly, she came to the barbed wire. Although she couldn't see, she took a chance and jumped. Luckily, she cleared it, and she told Veena so. A moment later Veena was next to her, and they pushed on. A few minutes later they broke out of the trees onto one of the wide but deserted avenues in Chanakyapuri.

"We can't stay here," Veena said urgently. "They'll be here any minute in one of the cars.

They have four cars."

Just as Veena spoke, a car came around the bend. The women pressed back into the bushes and flattened themselves on the ground. The car slowed, passing at walking speed. The women waited until it had rounded the next corner and disappeared from sight. At that instant they were up and running in the direction from which the car had come. At the next block they crossed the broad avenue and took a smaller street heading away from the bungalow.

"That was one of their vehicles," Veena said between breaths. "They are out cruising for us."

A moment later headlights appeared behind them, forcing them to duck behind a wall at the base of a driveway. Again, they flattened themselves against the ground. It was the same car, moving at the same speed.

The cat-and-mouse game continued until Jennifer and Veena came across an extensive squatter settlement along a relatively busy road. It was constructed of cardboard, scraps of corrugated metal, tarps, and bolts of fabric. Between the makeshift homes, the earth was beaten bare. It was apparent the commune had been in existence for some time.

"Here!" Veena said, out of breath. They had been running for more than an hour. "We'll be safe here." Without hesitation she entered, walking among the simple shelters and into the depths of the colony. It was quiet except for an occasional baby's cry. But the cry never lasted long. After walking away from the road a hundred or so feet, they met a woman returning from an almost-dry stream bed, which was used as the toilet, judging from the smell. Veena spoke to her in Hindi and the woman pointed. After a few more questions, Veena thanked the woman.

"We're in luck," Veena said after the woman moved on. "One of these structures is vacant. The problem is that it is close to the latrine. But we'll be safe."

"Let's move in," Jennifer said. "I don't think I can run anymore."

Five minutes later they found themselves sitting in a lean-to made with a length of cord strung between two trees and hung with a bolt of brightly printed Indian cloth whose ends were held down by heavy stones. Inside, the floor was a jigsaw puzzle of carpet scraps. Veena was leaning up against one tree, Jennifer against the other. Although the smell was rank from the proximity to the polluted streambed, the women felt safe, certainly safer than trying to hail a truck or other vehicle on the open road.

"Sitting down has never felt so good," Jennifer said. They could barely see each other in the half-light of the moon. "I see you are still carrying the clothes."

Veena held up the pillowcase as if she were surprised to see it. She tossed it over to Jennifer. Jennifer reached in and pulled out the shirt and pants. She felt the fabric. "Are these jeans?"

"They are," Veena admitted. "I got them in Santa Monica."

"So you lived in Santa Monica?" Jennifer commented. She eased herself out of the lean-to. Taking off the bathrobe and the sneakers so that she was completely naked, she pulled on the jeans, then the shirt.

Balling up the bathrobe to use to lean against, Jennifer climbed back into the makeshift shelter. She'd glanced briefly at Veena, who was motionless with her eyes closed. After Jennifer had gotten herself as comfortable as she was going to be, she again glanced at Veena. She did a double take. Veena's eyes were wide open and sparkling like diamonds.

"I thought for a minute you were asleep," Jennifer said.

"I need to talk," Veena said.

"Whatever you want," Jennifer responded. "I'm seriously indebted to you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for rescuing me. But your rescuing me begs the question: What on earth were you doing with those people?"

"It's a long story," Veena said. "I am happy to tell you, but first I need to tell you something about myself and my family so that what I will tell you subsequently might make some sense."

"You have my full attention."

"What I'm going to tell you will bring great shame to my family, but it is no longer a secret. My father abused me throughout my childhood and I did nothing to stop it."

Jennifer recoiled as if Veena had slapped her.

"You may wonder why. The problem is I live in two different worlds, but mostly in the old. In the old India, I am duty-bound to respect my father and obey him no matter what.

My life is not for myself. It is for my family, and I'm not to talk about things that would bring shame, like revealing his bad behavior. My father also told me if I did not obey, he would turn to one of my sisters." Veena then went on to tell the whole story about shady Nurses International and the promise to move to America. She told about stealing the patient data and how it turned out to be too good.

"It was at that point that Cal Morgan decided to change what we nurses were doing,"

Veena explained. "And he told me that he could make sure my father behaved himself with me, my sisters, and my mother forever and bring me to America for a new life if I would do something special for him."

Veena paused and stared at Jennifer. The pause's duration stretched out as Veena tried to find the courage to continue.

"What did Cal Morgan want you to do for him in return for freeing you from the clutches of your father?" Jennifer asked. She was becoming incensed as the minutes ticked by. She was beginning to fear what she was about to learn.

"He wanted me to kill Maria Hernandez. I killed your grandmother."

Jennifer recoiled for the second time, although this time it was a lightning bolt of pure anger. For a nanosecond she wanted to leap to her feet and strangle the woman in front of her. She'd been correct about her granny's death, and here was the perpetrator within arm's reach. But then somewhat cooler thoughts flooded into her consciousness. Here was a young woman caught in perhaps the worst psychological trap that Jennifer could imagine, especially from having experienced it to a degree herself, but with no chance of freedom.

Jennifer took a series of deep breaths to get herself under even more control. "Why did you save me tonight? Guilt?"

"To some degree," Veena admitted. "I regretted what I did to your grandmother. I even tried to commit suicide, but Cal Morgan saved me."

"A real attempt, or a gesture?" Jennifer asked with little sympathy and some skepticism.

"Very real," Veena said. "But since I was saved, I thought the gods were satisfied. But I felt badly and continued to feel badly and tried to get them to stop. Then, when I was confronted with you and realized they were probably going to get rid of you, it was too much. These people have no morality. They don't kill people themselves but think nothing of having others do it for them. All they think about is achieving their success."

"Since you have told me your secret, I'm going to tell you mine," Jennifer said suddenly.

"I, too, was abused by my father. It started at age six. I found it very confusing."

"I was the same," Veena said. "It's always made me feel guilty. Sometimes I used to think I'd brought it on myself."

"Me too," Jennifer agreed. "But then around the time I was nine I suddenly knew it was all wrong, and I cut my father out of my life. I guess I was lucky. I didn't have any cultural pressures telling me I had to respect him no matter what. Of course, I didn't have any sisters to worry about, either. I can't imagine your situation. It must have been awful. Worse than awful. I cannot even conceive of it."

"It was terrible," Veena agreed. "And as a teenager I tried suicide, but it was definitely more a gesture then. I was trying to get attention, but it didn't work."

"You poor thing," Jennifer said sincerely. "I used to feel sorry for myself because I thought my father had ruined me and no one would want me, but I never even thought about suicide."

A bit more than an hour later it began to get light in the eastern sky, but Jennifer and Veena were unaware until the sun actually rose. All of a sudden they realized they could clearly see each other. They had been talking nonstop for two hours.

Emerging from the lean-to, they looked at each other's faces and, despite the continued threat from Cal et al., they laughed. They were both a mess, with their hair in tangles and actual dirt smeared on their faces, as though they were commandos. "You look like you've been through a battle," Jennifer commented, especially since Veena's garments were as dirty as her face. Jennifer reached back into the lean-to and pulled out the bathrobe. When she shook it out, it looked every bit as bad as Veena's clothing.

As they walked back through the colony, other people were just emerging from the rickety, impermanent shelters. There were mothers with infants, fathers with toddlers, children, and old people.