30
Bristol
R
ia stood outside the imposing iron gates of the historic manor house. A bronze plaque announcing the heritage of the building and a dedication to the family who had donated it for use as a sanitarium was inlaid into one of the two high brick columns housing the gates. It was a shaded residential street, and she could have been standing outside a wealthy friend’s house waiting to be let in for breakfast.
A short buzzing sound indicated that the gate had been unlocked. Ria made no move to go inside. She had been inside the building only once before, ten years ago, when she had signed the admission papers. Even then, she had only gone as far as the administrator’s office, waiting there while Vijay Kaka and Uma Atya made sure all the arrangements were acceptable.
Over the years, Vijay and Uma had visited regularly. At first Uma had filled Ria in after each visit, but it had made Ria almost catatonically withdrawn and Uma had stopped telling her about it. They had never asked Ria to join them on their visits and Ria had never considered doing it by herself. Maybe if she’d had the courage to face up to what she was going to become, she might have had the sense to keep away from Vikram.
She gripped the cold iron gate with one hand and stared at the stone façade. The one lone connection she had with this godforsaken place was the checks she wrote twice a year. It was the one thing she steadfastly took care of herself, refusing to let anyone help in any way.
I won’t let you leech off my son.
Who would sign the checks for Ria? Who would make sure the arrangements were suitable? Would the money she had collected be enough? What if she outlived it? The buzzer went off again, breaking through her morbid thoughts. She tried to get herself to push the gate open, but she couldn’t. Withdrawing her hand, she stared at the beautiful building that housed all her grotesquely ugly fears, unable to go in.
She had done this every morning for the past week. It had taken her a few days before that just to leave the flat she had rented half a mile away and make her way to the sanitarium gates.
When DJ had asked her what her plans were, Ria had surprised herself by asking him to find her a flat in Bristol. It had just popped out, but she hadn’t taken it back. Like everything else, DJ had taken care of it quickly and efficiently. All Ria had to do after that was pack up all her possessions and leave.
Her maid had helped her put everything into boxes. Every time Tai liked something they were packing, Ria asked her to take it. She gave her everything in the kitchen, utensils Ria had never used, electronics she had never needed. Tai was the one who had used the stuff anyway; it belonged to her. Finally, the poor thing had stopped exclaiming over things, afraid that Ria would give her more.
“Babyji, God is there, just keep the faith. He is there,” she kept saying, pointing at the ceiling as if her God sat on the ceiling fan. As she sat there sorting through the mess of Ria’s life in her simple sari, with hair that had turned silver without ever seeing a stylist, and sun-worn skin that had never seen a moisturizer in its long hard life, she was overwhelmed with guilt to be taking things from Ria. Things Ria had no use for.
By the time they were ready to tackle Ria’s wardrobe with the obscene amount of clothes and shoes and belts and scarves piled in unending stacks, Ria felt buried, tied down, and ashamed. She had worn most of those things only once. But the maid’s eyes lit up. Before Ria could ask her to take it all, she cut Ria off. “Babyji, I just had a fantastic idea! Why don’t you give all these clothes away to those crazy people who are so angry with you?”
Although the “crazy people” themselves had no use for the clothes, the charities that took care of them could make a lot of money from all this stuff. Most of it had made appearances in Ria’s films and had to be worth something. For the first time since she had left Chicago, Ria had voluntarily touched someone. She had given Tai a quick hug, making her tear up. Then Ria had done exactly as she suggested and given all of it to the mental health charities.
For the rest of their time together, as they wrapped and packed and taped boxes shut, tears had leaked down Tai’s cheeks. When she left for the last time, all her new possessions crammed into the Tempo van her son had borrowed from his friend, she had sobbed like a baby.
“
Achha,
Babyji
.
I’ll be coming now.” It was what she always said when she left Ria’s house, not wanting to tempt the evil spirits by saying she was going away. “You’ll keep me in your memory, no?”
As if Ria could ever forget her.
Ria turned away from the iron gates and started walking away. Going in would have to wait another day. The past week in Bristol had gone by like a slow, suspended dream. Ria took turns hurtling between feeling like a clean slate and a ten-ton truck loaded with baggage, both ancient and newborn, sullied and pure as freshly tilled earth. Through it all, Vikram stayed with her, inside her. She clung to him. To the warm, soothing memories of him. It was all she had, it was all she would ever need. It hurt. Sometimes the pain was slow and aching, sometimes stark and maddening. She savored every bit of it like a gift. She would not give it up for anything. He was finally safe from her. She would never see him again, but she had this.
“Excuse me, miss,” someone called from behind her.
She sped up, lengthening her stride across the cobbled sidewalk that edged the high sanitarium wall. The sun was just about making an appearance. Mottled sunrays sifted through the flaming red leaves that clung to branches one last time before they let go. A thick carpet of brown leaves crunched beneath her feet.
“Miss Parkar!” The voice came closer. Ria had no desire to engage in conversation with anyone. After the first wave of scandal had passed, the reporters had targeted her with renewed fervor. They were everywhere, clamoring for a sound bite. Apparently, now that the furor of all the other voices had died down, it was Ria’s turn to be heard.
She had made it a point to leave the flat before dawn and return before the town woke up in earnest, and she never went anywhere for the rest of the day. No one should have known where she was. But somehow someone had figured it out. She hadn’t heard him follow her, but then she hadn’t been listening for it. Her mind had been too preoccupied with dredging up courage. He had to have been waiting for her, watching her as she stood at the gates too afraid to go inside.
“Ms. Parkar, why didn’t you go inside?” The footsteps behind her sprinted toward her, gaining on her.
She tried not to let the sick violated feeling slow her down.
He was just behind her now, almost at her shoulder. His voice had that overfamiliar reporter quality that grated against her nerves. She broke into a jog.
He ran past her, stopping in front of her on the narrow sidewalk, blocking her way, and shoved a recorder into her face. There was no apology, no hesitation in his actions. He believed he had the right to do this to her. She stepped onto the grass and tried to keep walking.
“Come on, Ria, just one question.” He moved to block her path as she tried to get around him.
“Please leave me alone,” she said, without looking at him. Stopping and saying words made her feel like a victim, cornered and helpless. She had to keep moving. She considered turning around and walking back to the manor house, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that. She rocked back and forth on her heels. Every time she tried to take a step he moved, dodging her footsteps, not letting her pass. He wasn’t going to let her go.
“I’ve been waiting here all night. Just one question. Come on, Ria.” Every time he said her name she wanted to gag, the need to slap him so violent it made her shake.
“I said no!” She shoved at his shoulder with all her strength. He stumbled back and she tried to run for it. But he grabbed her arm. She tried to snatch her arm away, but his fingers dug into her skin, and held her too tight. Trying to stay calm, she reached for the phone in her coat pocket with her free hand.
“When was the last time you visited your mother?” His tone was no longer pleading, but angry and demanding.
“Let me go.” Her panic slipped into her voice. Forget staying calm, she had to get away. She started to struggle and pulled frantically at her arm.
His arm flew off her. She fell forward, but found her balance. He screamed and she swung around to see him flattened against the wall, whimpering. A figure in a long wool coat pinned him in place with one massive arm and loomed menacingly over him. Her body reacted instantly, recognizing the achingly familiar form even before her mind made the connection. Her entire being lurched into alertness.
“Viky? Viky, get off him! You’ll kill him, let him go.”
Vikram turned around and looked at her. Such raw emotion softened his eyes it was a miracle her legs held her up.
“She asked you to leave her alone! Didn’t you hear her?” he said, his deep, honey voice harsh with anger, but his eyes never left Ria.
The man let out a whimper and thrashed about. Vikram’s arm, a crowbar against his chest, rippled with so much power he couldn’t have moved if his life depended on it.
“Viky! Seriously, let him go. Please. He’s only doing his job.”
Vikram turned to the man and lifted him up by his collar, his feet shuffled and kicked air. “If you ever look at her again, let alone touch her, you won’t be able to so much as jerk off with those hands. You hear me?”
The man moaned and tried to nod and the camera around his neck swayed.
“Did you take pictures?” Vikram asked, reaching for his camera, and the man started struggling with renewed fervor.
Anger ripped through Ria like an explosion. He had been standing there taking pictures while she struggled with her obscene struggle. Her violation was so fierce she ran at him and grabbed the camera, trying to yank it off his head, surprising Vikram so much the man slipped from his grip. The bastard took the opportunity to knee Vikram in the belly and took off.
“Stop!” Ria shouted and raced after him. He would not get away, not with her pictures, not while she lived. She leapt across the distance between them and jumped on top of him, taking him down.
He slammed into the ground beneath her, screaming like a madman. Ria struggled with the camera, pulling it off his neck, anger slamming in her chest like a fever. Hands lifted her off, pulled her back. Vikram reached for the man again and pulled him up by his collar.
Ria was about to smash the camera to the ground when the man started sobbing. “Don’t. Please don’t break it. It’s not even paid for yet. My wife’s pregnant. Please. I needed the money.”
“Shut up.” Vikram twisted his arms behind his back, but the man was sobbing so hard Ria couldn’t do it.
“Get the SD card,” Vikram said to her.
She popped the card out. “You’re a bastard,” she said to the man, and dropped the camera on the grass. The man had stopped struggling and Vikram let him go.
“I’m sorry,” he said, tears and snot leaking from him. He picked up the camera with both hands, as though it was a precious pet, and walked away.
Ria threw the card on the concrete path and stomped it with her boot heel and kept on twisting and crushing until it was nothing but black powder.
“Sweetheart, it’s gone. It’s done.” Vikram said to her.
For a moment neither one of them moved.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
They spoke almost simultaneously, and then Vikram took a step closer.
“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” He glanced at her arm, but he didn’t reach for her.
She shook her head. “You?”
He shook his head too. They stood there like that for a moment. Their gazes meeting and retreating, their bodies paralyzed with feeling. Then his shoulders started to shake. “I don’t think the bastard will ever be okay again. What the hell was that, Ria?” he asked, and she started to laugh too.
For a long time they stood there like that, laughing, unable to believe that she had actually jumped on top of someone and taken him down. An indescribable alchemy of emotions stirred inside her—disbelief, anger, embarrassment, shock, but also pride and an entirely unexpected heady sense of power. And of course that tingle, that joy that blossomed whenever he was near.
“You want to try and go inside?” he said finally, nodding in the direction of the high gates. Ria’s heart sank to the pit of her stomach. She looked at her toes.
He took a step closer and tipped her chin up. Her eyes flickered up to meet his, the comforting gray so steady, so strong, her insides grew calm. All the weight she’d been carrying shifted to his outstretched hand. That barest touch of his bolstered her. For the first time since they had been apart she felt safe.
She reached for that sense of power that had nudged at her moments ago and took his hand when he held it out. Together they walked back to the gates. She pressed the bell and told the receptionist who she was.
“Good morning again, Ms. Pendse.” The receptionist didn’t even attempt to hide the sigh in her voice and unlocked the gates.
This time when the buzzer rang, Ria let her hand push against the cold weight of the iron bars until the gates swung open. Her legs faltered, but Vikram’s hand tightened around hers and she kept walking.
She didn’t let herself falter again after that. Not when the warden unlocked a smaller iron gate leading to a long corridor, not when they followed him into the back wing of the manor house. They walked past more locked gates that led into more long sweeping corridors with high ceilings and polished terrazzo floors wrapped in silence. The tapping of their footsteps echoed against bright white walls. Ria had to force herself not to read the names hanging on the closed doors as she floated past them, her arms, her legs, all of her weightless, formless. She had no mass, no shape. All she had was Vikram’s palm pressed against her own, his fingers tight against her own. Not so much support as proof that she existed in this moment. She had fought the moment so hard but it had arrived all the same.