Chapter 33: Monsters and Men in Capes
He loosened his tie and walked to the bed. Just as he was about to take his glasses off, he noticed the newspaper that had been haphazardly stuffed underneath the pillow. He looked back towards the door through which she had just exited and then turned back to the pillow to pull out the newspaper. It was one of those trashy mid-day ones that he was surprised his wife would read. The surprise lasted only until he found what she had been looking at. "A Fox in the Chicken Coop" - the title read, before the letter started.
He wasn't surprised to see his own writing staring back up at him; he had been wondering when it would show up like this. But the pseudonym â what had made his wife so curious â Trojan, that was ⌠amusing. His father must be in a proper rage by now. He wondered where Vidya had found this paper. His wife was certainly full of surprises.
That night at dinner, there was a distinct tension around the table. Everyone was walking on eggshells around his father. Aditya was still out, which was just as well. It was always taxing for his mother to take on her faux cheerfulness in front of her younger son when her husband was determined to be a beast. His father similarly thought it necessary to keep aside his temper in front of Aditya, which made him even worse with everyone else.
"There was a fox in our chicken coop last night." Bauji announced suddenly towards the end of dinner.
He felt as if everything happened in slow motion after that. The only sound to be heard in the silence that followed was the clatter of his mother's knife to the floor. Bauji looked entirely unrepentant at his proclamation and innocently reached for a cluster of grapes. Sweety was intently looking down at her plate. Imli and Jaggi were standing to the side as if someone had yelled out statue. His mother â this was always painful for him to watch â looked as if she wanted to disappear. Just as he turned to his father, Brahmanand stood up from his seat, pushing his chair back with force. He gave a withering look to Bauji before walking away from the table. His mother turned to give Bauji a look, which his grandfather acknowledged only with a wink.
Later that night, he walked into the bedroom later than usual, hoping that Vidya would already be there. He saw that she was⌠she was standing by the window looking out and did not turn when he opened and shut the door.
Just as he thought of a way of start a conversation, she spoke. "I have many feathers to help me fly. I have a body and head, but I'm not alive. It is your strength which determines how far I go. You can hold me in your hand, but I'm never thrown. What am I?"
His relief at the return of her puzzles was so deep that he wanted to fall back on the bed and into a long dreamless sleep.
But he remained standing and leaned against one of the bedposts before answering, "An Arrow."
She turned towards him, sitting back against the windowsill.
"Someone took aim today." She said when she finally looked up at him.
He was surprised that she brought up the matter thus.
"You think it was me?" Even as he asked, he was amazed at how quickly she had arrived at that inference.
She merely tilted her head without answering.
"You think I am plotting to overthrow my own father while living in his house?" He asked again, walking over to the sofa to pull out his bed.
"There are many things about this house that I don't know⌠that I am only starting to find out⌠to understandâŚ" she said in return, once again turning to look out the window.
He kept himself busy with putting the sheet on the bed so that he could listen to her without calling attention to his own reactions.
"I know the monster of the night and the wily fox of the day. Now, I only need to know who wears the cape."
"No one wears the cape. Everyone is selfish; it only matters to what extent the actions are self-serving." He said without thinking.
"How can you be sure?" she asked.
He looked up, realizing what he had said, and when he found her still looking out the window, he amended what he had just said, "Human nature. It is what it isâŚ"
"HmmâŚ" she leaned her elbows on the edge of the sliding pane of the window.
"Shall I tell you a story, Gaurav? Then you tell me whether the cape is real or not. A few days ago, a girl at my coaching place missed her bus. It was just starting to get dark and she did not want to wait longer so she asked one of the other students for earlier bus times and she was told of another bus stop nearby. She got lost walking there and ended up in an abandoned alleyway. In a somewhat surreal turn of events that you see in the news or in movies, there was someone loitering there that she did not see until she had walked quite a bit through. It was too far to walk back then and so she continued on her way. He followed her. She walked faster and so did he, now making no efforts to hide that he was indeed after herâŚ"
He had stopped messing with the bed; in fact, he had stopped doing anything by then and had started walking towards her.
"He managed to reach her quickly enough and just when she turned around with her bag to give him her purse, he reached for the sleeve of her blouse instead." She continued as if narrating the story of a new release at the multiplex, taking her time in drawing out the anticipation.
She continued after a beat. "He got a hold of it, but it startled her and she jerked back, thus ripping her blouse. She turned around to run, but he was faster and now grabbed onto the pallu of her sariâŚ"
"What happened then?"
"It was the strangest thing. Someone actually appeared. She imagined that it was a man in a cape. She is a bit fanciful like that⌠but someone or something did come."
"Someone came and did what?" he asked when she paused.
"He pulled the man back from her and told her to run. She did, but just before she rounded the corner, she looked back."
She paused again, but he knew what was coming, although he still asked,
"What did she see?"
"The Man in the Cape cut off the offender's hand."
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Edited by sridevi27 - 14 years ago
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