The Stolen Girl (9 page)

B
angalore is throbbing with noise
, swollen with people. It assaults Vani’s senses; it crowds out the pain and emptiness yawning inside her, which is a good thing.

Hawkers thrust their goods at her, aggressively wanting her to buy dusty flowers, multihued glass bangles with gold engravings, garish plastic toys. The smell of earth and hot oil competes with the odour of decomposing vegetables and rotting blossoms. A woman sits behind a little stall displaying vibrant yellow piles of turmeric, mounds of greenish brown coriander powder, a tower of chilli powder the shiny crimson of the kumkum her ma used to wear… Her mother’s beautiful face, her eyes shining with love, floats briefly before Vani’s eyes only to be replaced by the bloated caricature the villagers dragged out of the river.

Grime swirls, dirty red, noise crescendos, vehicles honk and threaten to run Vani over, a rickshaw almost scraping her leg, and Nagappa, who has accompanied her to the city, yells, ‘Lo!’

The rickshaw is long gone, careering over potholes, the driver turning back to grin lasciviously at Vani. Nagappa shakes his fist at him. ‘Keep your eyes on the road in front of you,’ he shouts in Kannada before resuming squinting at the address from over the top of his spectacles which sit awkwardly on his nose and gleam with a coating of dust, his face shiny with suspended sweat globules. A lone shimmering globule wobbles off his chin and is absorbed into the twirling dirt.

People urinate by the side of the road, standing companionably side by side, their lungis hitched up, chewing paan and gossiping as they do their business. Cows join them, lifting their tails with a swish and depositing warm brown spatters of dung right onto the middle of the rutted road. An auto drives over the dung droppings, sketching coffee patterns upon the dust.

‘Not much longer,’ Nagappa says, his voice weary with the effort it is taking to find the house. ‘Must be right here.’

He has asked two or three people for directions since he and Vani got off the bus and each one has given a different answer. He looks tired and flustered, sweaty and in need of a cool drink and a seat.

Vani is assaulted by a sudden pang for green swathes of fields billowing in the sun, the quiet gentleness of the village that has been home all her life, punctuated here and there by the cawing of crows, the barking of dogs and the laughter of people who have known each other since childhood. One dust road runs through the village, dotted by a smattering of huts on either side and flanked by the river where the villagers wash their clothes and bathe and fish, that fateful river that turned on them, claiming Vani’s parents for its own…

All at once a high compound wall, topped by glinting blue and auburn shards of glass put there to deter burglars, materialises up ahead. There is an imposing iron gate which Nagappa rattles, and a khaki-clad watchman appears, looking at them appraisingly. Vani looks away. Nagappa gives him the letter, points to Vani, tells the watchman that she is the new servant they are expecting. Another assessing look. Vani makes herself very small, hides away in the confines of her mind.

Then the gate is opening with a deafening screech and they are inside and it is as if the noise and bustle have melted away and they are in paradise, a completely different world to the mess and chaos just beyond the wall.

A wide expanse of garden looms, dotted by gardeners who douse the greenery, which is as stridently uniform as the fields in Vani’s village are cheerfully haphazard, with pumps gushing silvery waterfalls. Like the watchman, the gardeners too assess Vani curiously as she walks past.

The grounds are endless, the sun bakes her head, the quiet is uneasy, forced, as if it is levied against its will. Sounds drift in over the high wall from outside every once in a while, dispatches from an inferior universe.

Just when Vani opens her mouth to ask Nagappa if they can stop for a bit so she can gather her breath, the mansion emerges ahead. Daunting, huge like a prison, she thinks and immediately shoos the thought away. And yet, even though the house looks grand and beautiful, like something one might find amongst the pages of books, it gives her the creeps. She shivers as Nagappa reaches up, rings the bell and an incongruous nursery rhyme reverberates within the bowels of the house.

A servant opens the door, leads them into a room huge enough to house all the inhabitants of Vani’s village. Chandeliers sparkle, ornaments gleam; everywhere there’s evidence of great wealth. It is like being in a museum, or a palace where nobody lives. The servant moves noiselessly, disappearing somewhere inside the house.

Nagappa and Vani exchange glances. He looks impressed, awed.

‘This is where you will be living,’ he says, and there is envy and self-congratulation in his voice.

Take me back,
Vani thinks.
This place scares me.

The woman who comes down the stairs is regal and has a brittle, inaccessible beauty, the kind that one sees but does not experience. Unbidden, her mother’s smiling face rises before Vani’s eyes and she sways on her feet as it is immediately replaced by the bloated effigy. It is only when Nagappa nudges her that she realises the woman is addressing her.

‘So you are Vani,’ the woman says, her voice making Vani feel as if she is being steeped in icy water.

Her gaze evaluates Vani, taking her in, from top to muddy toe, and Vani is ashamed of herself; her dirty, dust-encrusted clothes, the grime on her cheap chappals which has stained the pristine floors of this hallowed room, her dishevelled appearance.

‘Hmm…you are younger than I expected, but you can help look after my daughter. Come, let me take you to her. She needs to be up and ready for her shoot.’ The woman’s voice is as cold as her looks, and just as distant.

Nagappa waves goodbye as Vani follows the woman up the intricate, winding staircase. Vani is trembling inside, very aware of how alone she is as the ornate front door closes silently behind Nagappa and all connection with her previous life is severed, just like that. She is now at the mercy of this woman and her famed daughter, the supermodel, Vani thinks, the reality of her situation, until now lost in the haze of missing her parents, dawning on her as she follows the woman’s clackety heels up the stairs.

Vani has forgotten the daughter’s name. Will they expect her to know? She shivers as she follows in the woman’s wake along an endless corridor, beautiful sculpted wooden doors leading off either side.

At last the woman stops in front of a room and knocks. There is no answer from within. In a fit of impatience, the woman pushes open the door.

The room is huge and dark, and Vani blinks, trying to make out shapes in it. The woman clicks her tongue and walks up to the curtains, pulls them open. There is a sound, a whimper. Vani makes out a vast bed in the middle of the room, a mosquito net draping it gracefully. There is movement from within.

‘Wake up, Aarti,’ the woman huffs, her voice impatient.

Oh, her name is Aarti,
Vani thinks, relieved. Though of course she cannot call her that. What
will
she call her? Ma’am? Yes, that sounds respectful. If she doesn’t like it, the girl can correct her but at least this way she will not be insulted.

The girl mumbles. Even through the impediment of mosquito net, Vani can see that she is stunning, although perhaps a bit too thin. Her face looks flushed. She can barely open her eyes.

‘You’ll help her get ready for her shoot, won’t you?’ the woman asks of Vani and without waiting for an answer, flounces out of the room.

A
arti wakes with a headache
, sore throat – the works. Honeyed sunlight trickles in despite the barricade of curtains, assaulting her head, inflaming her face. She opens her mouth to yell for a servant but her throat is too raw. She is used to the soreness of course, it comes with being sick last thing every night, but today, along with it, she seems to have misplaced her voice. She has two photo shoots scheduled; she will have to cancel both she thinks, her head heavy. She closes her lids, which feel weighted down by hot bricks, and drifts in and out of a shallow, nightmare-infested sleep.

She is startled awake by the sound of a voice that is somehow out of place, the noise like cymbals clashing in her brain. She blinks, and the effort it takes to move her eyelids is immense. She is hot all over and yet, she is shivering inside. Is she dying?

‘Wake up, Aarti,’ the shrill not-in-the-right-context voice reverberates in her head. It jars and jolts as if someone is juggling hot bricks in her skull. ‘Don’t you have a photo shoot to go to? Do you know what the time is? 9:30! If you don’t turn up, they’ll give the contract to Nidhi. You know she’s been angling for the top spot, don’t you?’

Her mother. In her room! When was the last time her mother had deigned to enter her room? A year ago? Two? She cannot think. Her head feels heavy, too heavy. She just wants to sleep.

The curtains are drawn back with a screech that echoes in her hot, ailing head. Sunlight dances on her face, demanding entry behind weighted lids. She manages to lift a sluggish hand, scrabbling around blindly for a pillow to cover her face.

The next moment, golden orange spots of light abuse her closed eyes as the pillow is pulled away, hard. She is shaken harshly, rough fingers bruising tender skin.

‘Wake up; you have to leave
now
if you are to make it. Oh, and here’s the reason I came in search of you. This is Vani, your new servant. I have sacked Bhanu; she was useless that girl. Vani, make sure Aarti’s up and ready for her shoot, won’t you?’

And with that, she hears the swish of her mother’s skirts, the bang of the door as it slams shut behind her – her mother never leaves a room without making a hell of a racket – Aarti experiencing the reverberations like a physical blow, her sore head screaming, feeling like there’s an elephant sitting on it, crushing it.

She can sense the silence in the room settle like a soft sigh in the wake of her mother’s departure. Once more, she gropes around for the pillow to pull back down over her aching eyes, bruised sorely, despite being shut tight, by the light streaming in through the window.

Soft hands cool on her face. A gentle voice filled with concern, ‘Ma’am, you’ve got a fever, you are boiling.’

Tell me something I don’t know,
she thinks. ‘Curtain,’ she manages to whisper.

The feel of air in the room shifts, becomes cooler, lighter somehow, as the curtains are drawn.

‘I’ll see if I can get you some medicine, ma’am,’ the voice says and she hears quiet footsteps exit the room.

‘Wait,’ she wants to say. ‘Please. Stay with me. I need you. I need company.’

But it is too late. The door is opening with a quiet whine, a burst of noise – one of the servants calling for another – drifting in on a gust of air smelling of the imported coffee her father favours and the sandalwood air freshener the servants spray liberally through all the rooms of the house on her mother’s orders. Somehow all her senses are on super alert; she can experience every ache in her sickly, throbbing body that feels like it has been battered, run over by a lorry.

She is afraid to fall asleep, to drift into that heavy state she has been flitting in and out of, pursued by dreams she cannot quite remember but which leave her terrified, gasping, her heart a living thing trapped in her rib cage, thundering for release.

She wants the person back, the new servant, anyone at all. She doesn’t want to be alone. She wants her mother. A part of Aarti had imagined, hope blooming like the first rose of summer in her ailing chest, that her mother had come into her room because she somehow realised, with that instinct mothers are supposed to have, that all was not well with her daughter. That she had come to hold Aarti in her arms, nurse her better.

Why does she keep doing this to herself? Setting herself up for rejection over and over. When will she learn, she chides herself, her head and heart aching.

Just as she is drifting into a heavy stupor, Aarti feels a cloth, blessedly cool on her heavy forehead. She feels gentle hands cupping her face. And she marvels, her traitorous heart lifting joyously in the beleaguered prison of her chest, that her wish has come true. Her mother is here. Her mother has finally come when Aarti has needed her. Her mother loves her.

And then a soft voice says, ‘Ma’am, open your mouth please, just a tiny bit, for me to slip these pills in.’

Aarti does as she’s told, even though it hurts to move her jaw. She almost gags on the bitter pills. She savours the water that swiftly follows, deliciously cold on her hot, parched tongue. She swallows, pushing the medicine past her enflamed tonsils and tells herself that the scorching tears squeezing out from between her eyes and mingling with the wetness dripping from the cloth is because she is ill, that is all. Because she is so ill.

The new servant tends Aarti through her illness. She stays with her through the unending nights, when Aarti wakes up from nightmares wheezing and terrified, and is grateful for the shadowy figure beside her bed, offering comforting words and the warmth of her presence. The new servant bears witness to Aarti’s ramblings and delirious mumblings, her soft hands administering medicine and cool cloths.

Aarti’s mother does not come to check on her again.

On the third day of her illness – or is it the fourth? – Aarti opens her eyes which, blessedly, do not feel like paperweights any longer, and gets a good glimpse of the angel who has cared for her all this while. The girl is slumped on a chair beside her bed and is staring fixedly at the chink of light streaming in through the tiny gap in the curtains which dances on Aarti’s bedspread, creating cream patterns in the dark stuffiness enveloping the room. The girl does not realise she is being watched; she is lost in her thoughts, her head inclined towards the window, eyes angling for a glimpse of sky as if she wants to escape into the heavens.

A slight shadow of a girl, long messy hair, dark circles under sunken eyes that reflect a torment that seems strangely familiar. Something about this girl speaks to Aarti. She too is hurting, Aarti realises suddenly. She too is lost, like Aarti. Somehow, looking at this girl’s eyes, which gaze wistfully at the sliver of blue visible through the chink in the curtains, is like seeing herself – her pain, the turmoil that she keeps hidden so carefully reflected back at her. But how can this servant girl have anything in common with Aarti? Her illness is making her fantasise, spin stories out of nothing, make connections where there are none. She cannot get close to a servant. She cannot allow herself to be vulnerable in their eyes, in the eyes of anyone really. She is a supermodel, adored and envied by millions; she will not have anyone pity her, no.

‘Who are you?’ she asks, wincing internally at the coldness, the imperiousness in her voice.

The girl startles, her gaze jolting away from the perusal of the window to settle on Aarti’s face.

‘My name is Vani, ma’am.’ The voice is soft and seemingly meek, but with a hint of iron in it.

‘The cloth on my head is hot.’ Aarti says, coolly.

Without a word, the girl starts sponging Aarti’s forehead. Her expression hasn’t changed but a hood has dropped over her eyes, like a door closing. They are empty now, devoid of emotion.

The room smells of stale air, heavy and weighted down with illness, thick, porous and swilling with germs. It tastes muddy brown, of remorse. Why is Aarti like this? Why can’t she talk normally, without upsetting those around her? And since when did she start worrying about distressing a servant girl? This illness has made her soft in the head. First, she imagines connections that aren’t there. And now she’s feeling bad for asking the girl to do what she is paid to do!

‘Open the window,’ she commands, and the girl stands up to do as she is told.

Her new servant is petite and very young, Aarti notes. But she walks with the hunched bearing of a much older person, her shoulders stooped as if from years of carrying the weight of the world on her slight frame. She flings open the windows and honeyed golden light floods in, instantly dispersing the pall, the gloom that has settled in the room like smog. Fragrant early afternoon air, smelling of roses and earth, tangy and sweet, floats in, enveloping Aarti in its soothing warmth, voices drifting in its wake.

Aarti knows that if she walked to the window and peered down, she would see the head gardener squatting on the dry red mud, lungi hitched up, sharing paan with the driver, the two of them surrounded by the green, manicured lawns which the gardener’s minions have just finished watering, the crimson heads of hibiscus nodding in the breeze, flies buzzing and dust swirling in a thick reddish-brown cloud, pink and yellow bougainvillea bursting down the wall, singing in riotous colour. She knows that they will be sitting where they have a good view of the kitchen and can stare at Gangamma and her posse of girls as they chop onions, grate coconut and grind masalas for the evening’s dinner. Gangamma will come out in a bit when she has set the pot of curry to boiling and has made sure the girls are occupied; she will then reprimand the gardener and driver for distracting her girls. The gardener and driver will fake surprise, asking how they could be accused of distracting anyone when all they are doing is taking a much deserved break from their duties and minding their own business.

‘You know exactly what you are doing,’ Gangamma will yell. ‘Those girls do not need an excuse to shirk their duties. All they’ve done for the last twenty minutes is simper and blush, thanks to you.’

Gangamma will continue her tirade without pause for a further ten minutes until finally, when the men’s eyes have acquired a glaze, she will inhale a huge gulp of air and, on the expelled breath, ask them to come inside and have a cup of tea and some bondas. They will smile and follow her into the kitchen, mission accomplished, and Gangamma’s girls will giggle and nudge each other and avert their eyes as they serve them.

‘Why are you here?’ Aarti asks Vani who is standing at the window, silhouetted by amber light and a sky the bluish white of eggshells.

‘Pardon, ma’am?’

Vani’s face is in shadow, her hair haloed by sun, gleaming around her face. She could be pretty, Aarti thinks idly, if she took a bit more notice of herself, if she was a tad more animated, if her face was not so empty, expressionless. As soon as the thought takes root, Aarti wonders,
why am I thinking like this? What do I care?

She remembers Tara, the servant who had the gall to pity her and the vow she made to not get too close to anyone, to not let anybody feel anything for her except envy. It’s worked a little too well, of course. She has no friends at all, no confidantes. But she likes it that way. Doesn’t she?

I should sack this one,
she thinks.
I’ll give her a couple of days, though. After all, she’s just nursed me back to health.

But she knows she will give this girl more than a couple of days. The burden this girl lugs speaks to Aarti. She is a kindred soul.

‘I said,’ Aarti says, raising her voice ever so slightly, steel entering into it, ‘why are you here?’

Something crosses the girl’s face. A shadow. For a fleeting moment, it takes over her face, envelops her, snuffing out what life there is in that forlorn visage. Then it is gone. The girl speaks and when she does, her voice is steady, monotonous as if she is discussing the weather. ‘My parents died. I was sent here because your family is distantly related to mine and you needed a servant.’

That is what it is, the load this girl is hefting. Her parents are dead. And Aarti’s might as well be for all they care about her.

‘Were they nice?’ She asks and this time her voice is soft, a yearning note entering into it without her meaning it to.

The girl turns away, her back to Aarti, but not before Aarti sees her face crumple. And somehow that sight arouses something in her. She wants to go up to the girl, comfort her, she is galvanised by the impulse. Before she can think of what she is doing –
Vani is a servant, for God’s sake,
a voice in her head yells – she pushes aside the bed linen and tries to stand up. She tries. But she is too weak, she has no strength left after days of illness and she falls to the floor in a jumbled heap, a shocked, involuntary cry escaping her mouth. In an instant, Vani is beside her, helping her up, her soft hands easing Aarti onto the bed.

Aarti lies back on the nest of pillows too tired to do anything except close her eyes. But before she drifts into a healing sleep, Aarti looks up into her new servant’s eyes, empty again, and yet behind that blank screen she can spy glimpses of shimmering hurt, and says, ‘I am sorry. So sorry, about your parents.’

She is asleep within seconds but not before she feels drops of something hot land on her hand like offerings – the girl’s tears escaping from between eyes squeezed shut against the flow.

Aarti sleeps. She dreams of a curtain ripped open by wave upon wave of water, salty and tasting of sorrow.