The Accidental Apprentice (45 page)

The dark and foreboding house matches my mood as I step inside it. The musty smell of mould and damp assails my senses, making me sneeze. I stumble through to the dining room and open the blinds. A shaft of light pierces the gloom, refracting off the dust molecules dancing in the air. In that soft, ambient glow I see a room coated in a thin layer of grey dust. Cobwebs hang from the high ceiling like stalactites. Rat droppings litter the hardwood floor. But for my sense of familiarity with the place, it would seem positively spectral, straight out of a horror film.

As I venture deeper into the house, whispers of the past overcome me. With every room I step into, memories and recollections flood my mind. The living room, where we used to watch TV while munching on peanuts; the study, where Alka made her final mutiny; the master bedroom, with that little alcove that Ma had converted into her own private shrine; the bay window in Neha's room, from where we used to spy into No. 18; and finally my bedroom, where, propped up against the pillow, I used to scribble in my secret diary and fantasise about becoming a writer one day. Alka's bedroom is the only room I am unable to gather the courage to enter.

Everything about the place looks different now. This isn't the house of my dreams any more. The vast, empty, furniture-less rooms seem like empty shells without souls. Suddenly I feel like a trespasser in an alien house.

Some memories, I realise, should be allowed to remain memories, lying undisturbed in some deep, dark corner of the mind. Bring them into contact with the open light of reality and they instantly combust, turn to dust.

*   *   *

Having surveyed the entire house, I decide to make it my temporary abode. Its notoriety as a haunted site will keep out the peeping Toms. And holing out here for a few days will enable me to recharge my batteries before going after AK. But first I need to do something about my appearance.

Shalini's emergency kit comes in handy once again, as it contains a pair of scissors. I enter my former bathroom and look at myself in the old, cracked mirror, still splattered with my toothpaste stains. Just the memory of standing before this mirror every morning and brushing my teeth overwhelms me, brings tears to my eyes. I know those halcyon days will never return again.

The thought also makes me inexplicably angry. What have I done to deserve this fate, this life of a hunted animal? Seething with an almost atavistic fury, I attack my hair with the scissors, chopping off a lock.

Every cracked mirror, every shuttered window, every cobweb in these rooms speaks to me of the past. And with every flash of memory I cry some more and snap the scissor blades.

Within a couple of minutes my long locks are gone, to be replaced by a super-short bob. Once my tears subside, I also get rid of the smelly salvar suit and put on the skin-hugging jeans and black T-shirt contained in Shalini's brown bag.

When I put on the sunglasses and observe myself in the mirror again, I see a fashionable stranger staring back at me. Somehow the new look feels appropriate. For this is what I have become: a stranger in my own house.

Fortunately, the water still runs from the taps, and the gas cylinder in the kitchen still contains some gas. So I spend the rest of the day thoroughly cleaning the house, and getting the kitchen ready. I remove the dust from my bedroom, the dirt from my bathroom, and the thin film of grime that has settled over the kitchen counter like moss. This spell of uncustomary domesticity is just what I need to distract me from the increasingly depressing turn my thoughts are taking.

*   *   *

With the first stirrings of darkness comes the confidence to venture out of the campus. Sticking largely to the shadows, I make my way to Thapa's Provision Store situated just outside the school gate.

Thapa, the proprietor, is a wizened old Nepali with close-cropped hair and a smile ruined by bad teeth. He peers at me with his muddy eyes. ‘I've never seen you before. Would you be Miss Nancy, the new biology teacher at the school?'

‘No,' I reply, trying to keep my voice neutral, casual. ‘I'm Mrs Nisha, from Nagpur.'

For more than ten years I bought groceries from Thapa, yet he was unable to recognise me tonight. I chalk it up as a small victory and go on a buying spree.

Half an hour later, when I surreptitiously return to No. 17, I have enough provisions to last me a week. There is tea, milk, sugar and a loaf for my mornings; matchboxes and candles to illuminate my evenings; noodles and ready-to-eat meals for instant lunches and dinners; and sufficient toiletries to stay clean.

After a hasty, unappetising dinner, I wander out of the back door. The night air is chilly, and, even with my kameez draped over my T-shirt, I feel a little shiver.

I sit down by the oak tree, silently watching the lake. Under the star-studded sky, the rippling dark waters are alive with a kaleidoscope of swirling patterns formed by the bright lights of the Boat Club merging with the shimmering neon of downtown Nainital. It looks so beautiful, it is almost melancholic.

My thoughts move seamlessly towards my family and friends. I wonder how Neha is doing, how Ma is coping. I want desperately to speak to Shalini, and I want to believe that Karan is on his way to India. It is heart-breaking to be cut off from the people who matter to me the most.

Finally, exhausted from my own thoughts, I return to the house, lie down on the cold floor of my old bedroom, and go off to sleep.

*   *   *

In Rohini I used to wake up to the high-pitched klaxons of trucks rumbling past the LIG Colony. On the Windsor campus I am woken up by the sound of bird-song. I look out of my bedroom window to find a blue-capped redstart perched on a convenient pine branch. The air is clear as glass and I can see for ever, even to the far horizon, where jagged, snow-covered peaks are staking a bold claim on the nascent sky. Delicate pink clouds float across the hills, looking like balls of candyfloss in the first light of dawn. A gentle breeze whispers through the wild sunflowers, still wet with sparkling dew. I feel blessed, comforted by the aloof, serene grandeur of Nainital. To return to the mountains is to return to a world of softness and colour, after the grey, concrete harshness of the city.

I also notice a rolled-up copy of today's newspaper lying in the porch of No. 16. The newspaper boy must have delivered it quite early. An irresistible urge to check the news makes me creep into my neighbours' front yard and steal their newspaper.

It turns out to be a mistake. The newspaper is full of depressing bits of information about me. The police are calling it the biggest manhunt since the terror attacks of 26/11 and have announced a reward of ₹200,000 for information leading to my arrest. Even though I no longer have the revolver, I am being described as ‘armed and dangerous'. There are attempts being made to implicate me in Rana's death as well. The only pieces of good news are that Constable Pushpa Thanvi has been suspended and Shalini Grover has got bail.

I also learn from the business pages that the board of the ABC Group has approved the acquisition of the company by Premier Industries. There's a picture of Ajay Krishna Acharya grinning in front of Kyoko Chambers. With each passing day, the mastermind behind Acharya's murder is strengthening his position, and I am still a suspect on the run.

I tear out the picture and begin gouging out AK's eyes, slashing at his mouth, shredding him into tiny pieces, venting all my fears and frustrations on that bit of cheap newsprint.

*   *   *

Time passes between tedium and terror. My waking hours are spent in paranoid anticipation of a police raid. My sleeping hours are a swirling phantasmagoria of dreams, flashbacks and nightmares. Cooped up in the dark, cold house, I am going stir-crazy. Have I exchanged one prison for another? I wonder.

Every night I make a new plan to unmask AK, only to dismiss it in the cold light of day as impractical, pointless, or just plain dumb. I don't even know where AK lives. And, without a gun, without a partner and without the element of surprise, collaring the industrialist seems as impossible as trying to scale Mount Everest in rubber slippers.

By the end of the fourth day, a paralysing lassitude descends upon me. I don't feel like eating, I don't feel like sleeping and, most of all, I don't feel like thinking.

Karan is my only hope now. Only he can do the miraculous, locate some clinching piece of evidence that will unravel AK's sinister plot and get me back my freedom.

*   *   *

It is 8 p.m. now and I am sitting in the dining room. A single candle anchored with melted wax on the hardwood floor provides the only light in the room. In its gentle glow I try to psych myself up for the battle with AK. I scour my mind for a new plan, any plan. But, no matter how hard I try, I keep drawing a blank.

Simply to divert myself, I take out my remaining cash and begin counting it. After my grocery shopping, I am left with only ₹1,420. I upturn Shalini's bag to see if I have missed anything, and a five-rupee coin tumbles out. Like a loose hubcap, it goes rolling along the wooden floor. I follow it with my eyes as it briskly traverses the smooth floorboards, but then it curves to the right, and keeps going across the short hallway till it slips under the door of Alka's room and disappears from view.

With a frustrated groan I stand up and pluck the candle from its waxy nest. Then I pad softly out of the dining room.

I hesitate for a moment in front of Alka's door, as though it still contained a malignant spirit that must not be allowed to escape. I think I can hear strange, whispery voices calling out from the room, speaking in an indecipherable tongue. I dismiss them as figments of my imagination from seeing too many ghost movies. But then I detect a low scrabbling sound, as if someone or something is moving across the hardwood floor inside the room. It makes me shrink back in sheer horror.

For a few moments the only sound ringing in my ears is my own shallow breaths and the thudding of my racing heart as I summon the courage to face my demons, both imaginary and real. Taking a deep breath and emptying my mind of all thought, I boldly grab the handle and push the door open. A small rat scurries out with a squeak, making my stomach knot in disgust.

The whispery voices become louder as I step into Alka's room. The flickering candle casts grotesque shadows on the wall, making the surroundings seem even more eerie. The room is completely bare, but in my mind's eye I can see Alka's wooden bed. Almost involuntarily my eyes roam upwards, to the ceiling, and Alka's dead body flashes upon me, like a dark scene lit up for an instant by a sudden crack of lightning. I can see her face clearly as she dangles from the fan, her head hanging to one side, a yellow dupatta knotted around her neck. That grisly memory floods my senses completely, so real that I gasp.

It takes all my willpower to block out the searing image from my mind. I loved this room once, I remind myself, recalling the sunny days I spent within these four walls sharing jokes with my sister, the nights when Alka would snuggle up to me in her pyjamas and I would regale her with instantly made-up stories of wise kings and evil sorcerers.

Having restored my mind to an equilibrium, I try to push Alka out from it completely as I concentrate on the task at hand: finding that five-rupee coin. I cannot see it on the floor. In the smoky light of the candle, I look in every direction, search in every shadowy corner, but fail to locate the coin. It seems to have vanished without a trace.

Since I have never believed in magic, it can only mean one thing: the coin has slipped through a crack between the floorboards. Crouching down, I begin tapping the boards with my knuckles, looking for a loose one. It takes me a while, but I hit pay dirt in the exact centre of the room, where Alka's bed used to be. The wood is pale here, more worn than the rest, and the board emits the hollow sound I am looking for.

I try to pull the board out, but the gap between the edges is not large enough for me to insert my fingers and grip it. Not to be deterred, I retrieve the penknife from Shalini's bag and use it to pry up one end. My hand reaches out, grabs the raised edge in between my fingers and this time the board lifts up.

I remove the floorboard and peer into the hollow cavity. The five-rupee coin glints atop a small mound of accumulated dust. But below the coin there is something else, a narrow cardboard box.

More dismayed than intrigued, I pull out the box. A musty, rancid smell radiates from it, tickling my nose. With trembling fingers I open the box and discover a cache of letters. For a moment I feel guilty, like a voyeur caught looking at something meant to be private or forbidden. Then my curiosity gets the better of me and I begin to thumb through the pile. Full of passionate endearments and manic declarations of love, the letters are all addressed to ‘My darling Alka' and signed simply ‘Hiren'.

Hiren. That word triggers something within me, but it flickers at the edge of my memory, and slithers away before I can track it down. Disturbingly, some of the letters appear to be written in blood, and some are adorned with Satanic symbols. One declares chillingly, ‘You're my light in the darkness. I will seek out and destroy whoever stands in the way of our everlasting love.'

Below the pile of letters is a solitary birthday card, doubtlessly given on the occasion of Alka's fifteenth birthday. As I flip it open, a handful of colour photographs slip out. I take one look at them and feel the world around me beginning to spin, my body turning numb.

The photos are of a handsome boy, tall and well built, with straight, black hair falling over his forehead and a bushy moustache providing a finishing touch of virile masculinity. It is only the eyes that give him away. I would have recognised those eyes anywhere.

No, it can't be him, I try to tell myself, but I know in my heart that he is the one. An inscription behind one of the photos gives me his full name, too. ‘ALKA SINHA + HIREN KARAK = WORLD'S GREATEST LOVE STORY'.

So Alka's lover was Hiren Karak. My mind is a raging inferno of conflicting emotions as various scenes flash through it. I remember Shalini's words about Indus owner Swapan Karak's link with Rana. I recall Lauren's boyfriend James telling me at Jantar Mantar that he had seen Karak Junior at Nirmala Ben's fast. And Papa's dying words reverberate in my mind like an echo in a cave. Lauren thought she heard ‘
hiran
' – ‘deer' – but now I know Papa was actually saying ‘Hiren'.