Chapter 79

72. Scream

'I won,' Lily snapped shut the ludo game and grinned at the tiny shrew.

'No, you cheated!' Radha flipped open the game once again and began setting the red paws on the board.

'I am not playing anymore. Go and read your book.' Lily, picking up her phone, turned away to surf the net.

'One. Only one,' Radha scrambled down the cot and toddled to go and stand in front of her game partner, directing the full force of her doe-eyes at Lily.

'What? I said I am not playing.' Lily was swiping through home decor ideas.

'One more time. Last. Pakka. Promise,' she tapped Lily's thighs. Remembering that Lily had wanted to play with yellow pieces and she hadn’t let her because she didn’t like the look of yellow, she bargained. ‘Your yellow,’ she wandered to the leaflet, arranging yellow pieces for Lily. When Lily paid no attention, she began to push Lily towards the game.

Annoyed, Lily put back the paws in the transparent square box and shoved the ludo cardboard beneath her leg.

‘It is my Ludo. Give it to me,’ Radha protested, trying to pull the board but when realized it was in vain, she yielded, moving inside the house but was stopped by Lily who pulled her back by her arm. ‘Where are you going?’

‘To Kirti,’ she had picked the way others addressed Kirti.

‘Don’t disturb her. She’s unwell.’ Kirti had been complaining of a severe headache for the last two days. Lily had advised a doctor’s visit but Kirti had waved off her concerns.

‘Sit down here and read the book. Kirti tells me you can read very well. Can you?’

Radha nodded in response, then climbed up next to her. Opened the book, and began reading, ‘Pat has a cat. The cat is fat. He sits on a mat.’

Lily couldn’t help but smile at the sight before her. An absorbed Radha in a shirt and shorts with a book in her lap as her cute fingers trailed the picturesque tales in her book.

Assisting Radha whenever she got stuck, Lily was engaged with a few DIY videos on Pinterest when she heard footfalls on the stairs and turned around waiting for the visitor to emerge.

Their visitor was a tall woman dressed in a hand block print kaftan and pants. Her skin was milky white and her cinnamon-brown sleek hair parted in the middle and combed down to the sides had quite the length and enviable volume. Long earrings shook as she pushed her aviators up her head.

‘Kirti Singh?’ She asked.

‘She’s inside, sleeping. Who are you?’ Lily asked, standing up. Her book forgotten, Radha now gawked at the glamorous woman.

'Go and tell her, Her mother is here to meet her.’

'Mother?' Living in the same neighborhood, she was aware of the rumors associated with Kirti's mother.

Ahilya's finely plucked eyebrow lifted in question. 'Yes, mother. Any problem?'

Lily felt uneasy.

'It's not my place but this isn't the right time. She is unwell.'

Ahilya smiled - it was more of a snarl. 'Yes, darling. It's none of your business. If it's too much of an effort, then let it be. I will do that on my own.' She said, looking behind Lily, at the other identical houses.

'No!' Lily's voice came out stronger than she meant it to. 'I will go inform her.' Kirti did not deserve this surprise attack especially when she was down.

XxxX

'Kirti,' Lily knocked at the door. 'Kirti? I am coming,' she said and pushed open the door.

Kirti lay on her mattress, bundled in a honeycomb-patterned velvety blanket. 'Are you well?' Lily asked, touching her forehead. It was warm.

'I think I have a fever. It's okay. I have taken paracetamol. It will go down. Did you need anything?' She asked, rising. 'Is Radha being naughty? Send her to me, I am okay now.' Kirti assured.

'Your mother is here. She wants to meet you.'

Kirti's face went pale.

'Do you want me to go tell her to come some other day?' Lily asked, kindly.

'No, it's okay. I will go see her. Let's get done with this. Tell her to wait.' She folded and folded the blanket until it refused to take any more torture.

Lily moved out and saw Radha yapping at the woman. 'Matida goes here and then jumps there. She has claus,' she curled her fingers impersonating Matilda pointed claws, 'and if you make her angry she will scatch you.'

'She's coming. Wait here,' Lily instructed. 'Radha, go wear your sandals. We are going to get milk.'

XxxX

She drank two glasses of water and paced the room. The hands of the wall-clock moved steadily.

Kirti had scrubbed her face clean, donned a pretty Kurta, combed and clipped back her hair. She had highlighted the black of her eyes with kohl.

She should look unassailable and confident but the mirror kept reflecting an anguished face. She continued seeing the fearful eyes of a eight-year-old.

Keeping her anxiety at bay, she drank another glass of water. Kirti was gathering courage when the visitor herself entered, making Kirti draw back in surprise. The tumbler slipped from her hand with a rattling noise, the water splattering over her cream palazzo.

The room reeled in front of Kirti's eyes. She felt adrift, the ground under her feet losing significance. Curling her palms around the blunt edge of the slab, she tried gaining back equanimity.

'I am sorry I came in. You were taking too long.' The woman who did not look anything like her mother spoke.

Bile rose to her mouth. She was livid! How dare she use a plaintive tone with me!

'Was I? She said, frigidly. 'Longer than twenty years?'

'How have you been?' Ahilya asked, gently.

The gall of the woman!

'Why are you here?! Did your minion not inform you about my lack of interest?' Kirti realized her teeth were chattering with rage - a rage that she was trying to control.

'He did. But I was desperate to see you.'

'Get lost!' 

'Sorry?' Ahilya blinked in confusion.

Her sense of entitlement nauseated Kirti.

'I cannot do this. I don't want to. Get out of my sight right now!' Her headache had intensified a million times.

'But Kirti,' she pushed, 'Give me a chance to tell my story?'

'Okay. Have you been in Bombay this entire time?'

When Ahilya didn't respond, Kirti said, 'You were. Go away, Mrs. Lokhande. You understand right that you cannot force me to have a conversation? Your lawyer must have told you? When you are standing here on my property and I do not want your presence, it's a breach of my privacy.'

'Look Kirti. I know what you think about me. It's all correct. But can you give me a chance to explain? And explain I can! What you know isn't the full truth.' She had covered the distance between them and from up close, Kirti could see the traces of her mother in this woman. Those big eyes, the glittering nose-pin. That mole, she had so often tried to rip off in her childhood innocence

Chimera. It's all trickery, Kirti had to remind herself.

'Are you unwell?' She asked, making all Kirti's efforts to portray a face that had seen a serene and easy life go in drain.

'Beta,'  She stretched out an arm to touch Kirti's cheeks and all hell broke loose for Kirti.

'Do you not get it? Jayein yahan se aap! Go away!' She shoved her away.

Turning on her heels, she dashed to her room where she locked herself. Unsteady on her feet, she slumped down on her bed.

'Kirti…Kirti. You are making this hard. It doesn't have to be so dramatic.’

XxxX

‘Kirti, you are burning. Let’s go to the doctor,’ Lily had returned to a somber and eerily silent house. Kirti had locked herself  and Lily’s chest had tightened. Thankfully, she had an extra pair of keys to the room. She had opened the lock to reveal a dark room, a red crest of a blanket hiding her huddled form on the mattress.

‘I don’t have the strength. Let me sleep, please.’

‘But Kirti,’ Lily protested. Radha had also come to sit next to Kirti’s head and peering down at her with worried eyes.

‘Tomorrow, I will go to the doctor. I just want to sleep it off tonight. Just do me a favor. Do you believe in God? In Ganpati?’

‘Uhm,’ Lily was a little uncomfortable with the question.

‘Let it be,’ Kirti dismissed the query. ‘I don’t have energy for evening aarti. That’s why. But I decided, he let me reach this condition. He must bear some of the inconvenience, too.’

‘Do you want to eat something?’ Lily asked.

‘Will you get it for me?’ Kirti asked with burning eyes.

‘What?’ Lily wanted to be of some use.

‘There’s this store that sells Angoori Gulab jamun.’ 

There was a scream stuck in her throat, hurting like a knife lodged in her chest. If the magic potion could do something about it.

XxxX

‘That woman abandoned us! She remained away for more than twenty years! And suddenly she wants to explain! And you are telling me I should have listened to her! Why should I?’

‘Fine, fine don’t get hyper now. You’ve still not recovered. Should I get you a Santa Banta joke-book?’ Biplab, hearing about his sister, had flown to Mumbai.

‘I just want one answer. Why did you not tell me that she had approached to meet you?’ They were alone in the house, sitting out on the cot. ‘I can’t even bear to look at you now. Tumne ek baar nahi socha how betrayed I would feel once I get to know?’

Biplab looked at the criss-cross of the woven jute, unseeingly.

‘Do you know how I felt, Biplab?’ Her voice had begun to shake again. ‘I had no control over my body. My heart was hammering so hard that I thought I was getting an attack. I was reduced to that little girl, confused because I could not find my mother by my side. You will not remember, but you continued to cry and cry and I hated you because when you cried, I had to hide my tears. After all, Dadi would have a hard time managing us two.’

‘How selfish of her to come and stand before me and force me to talk. Why should I? Matlab jab mann chor do and jab mann aa jao…’

‘I don’t feel bad when others lie to me. But you, Biplab? When did she contact you? When you were here for the house sale? Or was it much before that? When Dadi drifted into coma? Because that’s when you had started making mention of that woman. She could be alive...what if she comes back...How long did you keep me in secret?!’

‘Fifteen years,’ he replied, looking up.

[MEMBERSONLY]

[NOCOPY]