The Stolen Girl (24 page)

He loves her. They could have the life she’s imagined. The life the family sleeping behind her have. But would they ever be happy when they have begun their life tainted by someone else’s unhappiness, coloured by her despair?

As if reading her thoughts, Ram says, once again, his tone urgent, distressed, ‘You don’t have to.’

Then she will try and kill herself again. And if she succeeds, her death will be on me.
The unspoken thought hovers. How can Vani live happily knowing she has caused someone else’s life to end? How can she bring children into the world knowing how much Aarti wanted one, thinking, always,
if only I had given her what she wanted
…

‘You will do it,’ his voice is flat.

Vani nods, her head moving of its own accord on the weary stalk of her neck.

She will do what Aarti wants, like she always has, bending to her will like a sapling dancing to the tunes of a whimsical breeze that cannot quite make up its mind which way to blow.

‘I will be waiting after. I love you, Vani, only you. Give her the child, then come to me.’

He leans close and she feels his warm, spiced breath on her cheek, her eyes, feels his lips on hers. She wants to stay here forever. In this man’s arms. In this man’s embrace that encompasses her. This man who loves her, who has just vowed that he will have her even after she has borne another man’s child.

They both know it is not that easy. Vani will give Aarti the child. But Aarti will want more, she will want something else. She will have Vani, own her, possess her until Vani dies. Or…Aarti does.

A
arti is
a pale replica of herself, a ghost haunting white hospital sheets, sprouting myriad tubes.

Vani takes Aarti’s hand. Aarti’s eyes, barely there lashes like butterfly wings, flutter.

‘Vani?’ Her voice is the swish of dust particles. It is the quiet of a flower opening under cover of night, a gift to the dawn. ‘Why?’

Vani holds Aarti’s hand, her insubstantial, bony, icy hand, and lets the tears fall. She does not know if she is crying for Aarti or for herself, crying for the litter of lost dreams scattering the streets of Bangalore as a devastated Ram transported her silently back to the hospital, back into Aarti’s world, back into her life with Aarti as parasite, leech, sucking the lifeblood out of her.

‘I will do it,’ Vani says, thinking of Ram.

‘Marry me,’ he had said. ‘We will have a family together.’

All she’s ever wanted. A family to call her own. Children. Love like she had with her parents. They could have been happy, so happy.

She lets the tears fall in that room reeking of cloying flowers and bitter medicine and crushed hopes, huge sobs that rock her body like a boat in a storm. She sobs like she did that day when Aarti held her and it all began.

This time, no one holds Vani as she sobs. This time, all there is is a smile, Aarti’s flimsy lips the soft pink of a summer morning tilting upwards. A suggestion of a smile on the face of a ghost sealing Vani’s fate.

I
t works
. Aarti’s plan works. They both come running back. The two people who are
her
world, the people
she
loves the most. But, she realises when Vani runs away, it isn’t the same the other way round.

When they comprehend how desperate Aarti is, how seriously she wants a child, how her life depends on it, literally, they agree to do it. Both of them. A chastened Sudhir and Vani.

She shares her husband with Vani. Three tries is all it takes. So supremely easy for Vani. Impossible for Aarti. And a baby is created. Nestling within her closest friend, sister and now proven traitor’s belly.

Sudhir is just as excited as Aarti knew he would be when it sinks in, finally, that he is going to be a father, responsible for a new being that he has created.

I was right all along,
Aarti thinks.
We will be a proper family now,
she thinks.

She will keep them all together by overdosing on pills again if need be, making sure she is found before it is too late, of course. She wants for her child the childhood that Vani enjoyed. And her child will get that. It will have a family, adoring parents and an ‘aunt’ to look after it.

Sudhir asks after Vani’s health, he is attentive to her and just as insistent as Aarti in cajoling Vani to eat plenty of fruit and vegetables, to take vitamins and folic acid. It heartens Aarti to see her husband so excited, so involved. Nevertheless, she watches them together, Vani and Sudhir, but there is nothing there. She knows this. This, at least, she knows.

Aarti takes a break from work, cancels all her modelling and acting contracts. She invites the most notorious gossip amongst the tabloid journalists to tea and drops hints about how her doctor has advised her to take it easy and has recommended bed rest for at least nine months. As she expected, the news of her pregnancy is in all the newspapers and gossip rags the next day. ‘Top model and actress Aarti Shetty takes a break from work to have a baby with her husband, actor Sudhir Shetty.’ Aarti rubs her flat stomach and smiles, pleased beyond words to see it in print.

This is the best way,
she thinks as she hears Vani retch in the bathroom – morning sickness – and come hobbling out, her face the greenish yellow shade of a ripening mango. Vani’s belly is thickening and her face is rounder than before.

Aarti looks at her own face in the mirror. The pumping of her abdomen in hospital to get rid of the residue of the sleeping pills she overdosed on has helped immensely. She is the thinnest she has ever been.

This is the best way,
she thinks and she hears an echo from the past, her mother saying to her friend, ‘I never wanted children. The havoc they cause to the figure.’ She flicks recollections of her mother away, but not before the thought that her mother was right flits across her mind. She watches Vani hobble towards her with the teapot, her green face, her expanding girth.
This is definitely the best way all round,
she thinks as Vani pours tea for Aarti, as she cuts up fruit the way Aarti likes, as she covers her mouth when she’s finished and rushes to the bathroom again.

Sudhir comes home one day, and from his sheepish expression Aarti knows to expect something that will rock the world she has created so carefully.

‘I have to go to London for a shoot,’ he says, studying the curtains, looking out of the window, his eyes darting everywhere but in her general direction.

‘Don’t you care about our child?’ she asks, trying to keep her voice on an even keel.

‘Of course I do. You know that. It is only for three months.’ He smiles that smile that used to charm her once, but only serves to infuriate her now.

‘Only three months!’ she explodes. ‘You will miss the scans; you will miss so many developmental milestones.’

‘The baby isn’t even here yet!’ he yells back, eyes flashing.

‘And what message are you giving it by not being there? The baby isn’t even here but you are already escaping.’

His shoulders droop. As with every other argument, as he has always done, he walks away.

She cannot leave him alone in London for three months. She will have blonde girls with lithe bodies and great sexual prowess to contend with in addition to the usual: his co-stars and myriad starlets who are always making a play for him in the hope that this will give them a lift up the career ladder. No, it will not do, not when he is on the cusp of becoming a father, settling down. She cannot keep an eye on him from here; she has to go too. But she cannot leave Vani behind. Not after what’s happened. She does not want to come home and find that Vani has vanished, taking Aarti’s one precious jab at playing families with her.

And so, Aarti tells Vani she is coming with them to London, that they are accompanying Sudhir on a shoot.

‘We’ll be back before the critical stages, by the time we are six months pregnant.’ She is always careful to say ‘we’. It is a joint endeavour after all.

Vani nods, her eyes empty. She has been missing something, some spark since she came back from wherever she disappeared to, since she said yes to having the baby. Vani goes through the motions but it is as if the girl Aarti knew and loved isn’t there anymore, a vacant shell, a lacklustre robot having taken her place.

Aarti telephones the gossip tabloid journalist, confirms the rumours of her pregnancy. She has been careful not to be photographed in public much, and when she hasn’t been able to avoid going out, being seen, she wears loose kaftans and maternity trousers that give the impression of pregnancy, of expanding girth. Aarti informs the journalist that the doctor has given her permission to travel to the UK to accompany Sudhir on his shoot. She asks if it is possible to keep the news quiet, to avoid media coverage until after the baby is born. She promises that if this is the case, this journalist will have first dibs on baby pictures and an exclusive photo shoot with the new family.

A week before they are due to fly, they go for a scan, all three of them, to the discreet private clinic where celebrities have their abortions and their facelifts, where paparazzi are not allowed, and gossip, the whisper of a rumour, is anathema. The pregnancy is twelve weeks in. Vani is strapped onto the bed and a machine moved across her stomach, which is not distended, not yet. And as if by magic, on the screen a picture appears. A blurry tadpole, frantically moving its tiny appendages, squirming and squiggling. The music of the little heartbeat,
glug, glug, glug
, punctures the reverential silence of the room.

Aarti is overwhelmed. Sudhir squeezes her hand and she sees the awe she feels reflected in his eyes. And then, she looks at Vani. Vani is transfixed. Tears fall down her eyes, traverse her cheeks and soak the pillow she is lying on. She is mesmerised, her unblinking gaze devouring the tiny being that shakes its minuscule fists at the air, at them.

Afterwards, on the drive home, Vani is silent as a tombstone, still as a corpse, staring out of the window unblinking, at traffic-clogged, dust-soaked, noisy, jostling Bangalore. Aarti talks into the heavy, uncomfortable silence, worrying about how much packing still needs to be done, complaining of the heat even though she is ensconced in an air-conditioned car. She muses about the cold in the UK; she hopes the weather will cooperate and Sudhir will get his shoot wrapped up in three months, seeing as it is notoriously rainy there.

‘Wish we could take you along, Ram,’ Sudhir says, patting Ram’s elbow as they step out. ‘Doubt we’ll get a chauffeur of your calibre there.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Ram says, but his voice too is distant, somewhere else.

Vani maintains her deathly silence as if she has taken a vow of muteness, not acknowledging Aarti when she asks Vani to eat her vegetables, not saying a word as she combs Aarti’s hair and plaits it, a ritual before bed.

‘Wasn’t it amazing seeing our baby?’ Aarti says, and Vani’s reflection in the mirror winces.

Aarti turns, stares at her. Since Vani ran away, Aarti has felt ever so slightly out of control, suddenly finding that there are depths to Vani she cannot fathom, realising that Vani is her own person and not just the acquiescing meek girl she has come to expect.

‘What’s the matter?’ Aarti asks. ‘You know you can tell me anything.’

Vani’s eyes do not meet Aarti’s. Her gaze wavers, it falters.

‘Come on, Vani; tell me what’s on your mind. We are sisters, remember?’

Vani clears her throat, and one hand, the hand not holding the comb, goes protectively to her stomach, rubbing it gently in concentric circles, as if she is soothing the baby.

Aarti does not like that gesture. It is too proprietary. ‘Why are you doing that?’ she asks, and the irritation she has been trying to contain colours her voice.

The hand drops to Vani’s side. She looks up at Aarti and her eyes are flinty, dark grey like storm clouds reflected on a violent sea. ‘I want this baby,’ she says.

‘Of course you do,’ Aarti smiles, relieved. ‘We all do.’ She turns to the mirror. ‘I can’t do this without you, Vani. We’ll bring the baby up together like your parents brought you up.’

In the mirror, she sees Vani flinch again.

‘What is it?’ Aarti’s voice is rising, she cannot help it. Vani is carrying Aarti’s child, she is living in this house like a guest. Aarti has forgiven her for her desertion, has not said a word about how she broke the pact, driving Aarti nearly to death. What more does she want?

‘I…I do not want this baby to treat me like a servant, a mere possession. I want this baby to call me Ma, to love me, to acknowledge me as its mother.’

Now she has gone too far. Aarti stands up to her full height and looks down at this girl with her temerity, her cheek. Her mother used to always say, especially when Aarti got too attached to a servant when she was little, ‘Give them a little and they want the lot. You have to keep them in their place.’ She hasn’t thought of her mother in years, she doesn’t much care for her mother’s opinions, but in this, Aarti realises now, she was right.

‘How dare you?’ Aarti’s voice is a high-pitched squeak. She cannot help it; she is at the end of her tether. ‘Look around you. Does any other servant have what you have? You are living in this house with us. I haven’t yelled at you, haven’t said a thing about you running away, breaking our pact, nearly killing me in the process.’

Vani recoils as if she has been slapped, her face pallid, the colour of ash.

‘Everything you are is because of me.
Everything.
And now you want my baby.’

Vani’s hand goes to her stomach again. ‘It is
my
baby.’

Aarti pulls the hand away. ‘The baby is mine and we both know it. You did not want it, remember? You ran away when I asked you to have it. Now stop this nonsense, Vani. It is not good for my nerves.’

She runs to the bathroom and is violently sick, regurgitating the lemon sherbet she has drunk, the papaya she has eaten, retching over and over again. Vani does not come like she usually does; she does not hold Aarti’s hair back and rub her shoulders. She turns and walks away, leaving Aarti to her misery.

Alone in the bathroom, Aarti is convulsed with fear. What if Vani runs away like she did before, but this time taking the baby with her? No, she cannot bear that. She cannot.

She runs to Vani’s room and finds her lying on the bed, one hand caressing her stomach, tears making tracks down her cheeks and smearing the pillow like they did in the room while the ultrasound was taking place.

She stands over Vani’s bed, glowers at her. ‘Don’t you dare run away again,’ she spits out. ‘You know Sudhir and I have contacts, influence, money to spare. We will find you. No matter where you hide, whether it is in the deepest corner of the country, we will find you. We would have found you when you ran away last time, if I wasn’t almost at my deathbed, thanks to you…’ Aarti takes a deep breath, making sure the words have sunk in. Vani’s eyes are wide open, sparkling tears staining her profuse lashes. ‘If you take my child away from me, I will kill myself and my death will be on you.’

She reaches down and, ignoring Vani’s recoiling, lays a proprietary hand on her stomach. ‘This baby is mine. Ours. I will share it with you. I am nothing if not generous. But if you run away, we will find you. And you will lose everything. Everything.’ She takes a pause, gathers her breath. ‘You want this child to call you Ma, but you are not thinking of this child at all, are you?’

She watches Vani’s eyes widen, flash ochre with rage.

‘Without us, where will you go? How will you feed it, look after it? It will get a great upbringing here, the very best of everything, the world at its feet – and you know it. Do you want it to have a good life or a cursed one, my death hanging over its head?’ Aarti pauses and then goes in for the kill. ‘A mother always puts her child first. If you do not want to give your child the very best, if you want it to live with the consequences of your actions, your selfish desires, then what kind of a mother are you?’

With that, she walks away, knowing her words have gone to roost.

The next day, Vani brings in Aarti’s tea and newspapers, combs Aarti’s hair and irons the outfit Aarti is planning to wear, as usual.

‘Looks like another sunny day,’ she says. ‘Shall I finish the packing today? Which outfits do you want to take?’ she asks.

And Aarti tells her. They are back to their normal relationship and Aarti is glad. Not a word about the previous night’s altercation passes between them.

The following week, they travel to the UK, Aarti wearing a loose kaftan and tucking a shawl inside it to give the impression of a bump, just in case the press turn up despite her request for privacy, she and Sudhir flying business class and Vani economy. Aarti makes sure Vani is ensconced in her window seat, hemmed in by two other passengers, before she makes her way to Sudhir.

Their second month in the UK, Vani comes to her, face glowing. Vani is brimming with joy, beaming with barely suppressed excitement. For a brief moment, the old Vani, the girl Aarti used to know and love, is back.

Vani takes Aarti’s hand and places it on her stomach. After a bit, Aarti senses a flutter, like the whisper of wings, the baby talking to her from inside the womb, the baby making her acquaintance. And then they are grinning, falling about on the bed and laughing together, their hands on top of each other on Vani’s stomach, feeling the baby dance beneath. And it is like the old times. Just like the old times.