Chapter 7
A MIND DISEASED...
One week later..
Capital City,
Arnav's permanent residence.
Arnav woke up to the annoyingly discordant sound of the alarm clock and sleepily extended his arm to slap it shut. It was good to be back in his own apartment. The apartment he had rented for use during the course of his last assignment was anything but comfortable. The assignment, a covert sting operation to catch an agent who was suspected to have 'turned' during one of his long sojourn in a neighboring enemy country.
Along with his lover and accomplice, Khushi.
An acute sense of disquiet entered his heart at the mere thought of her. For some reason, he hadn't been able to completely thwart a feeling of self doubt that had been gnawing at his heart ever since he had seen the light turn off in her eyes, when he had said those words to her...
And the absolute stillness and silence that had encompassed her like a mantle after that, even as she walked away from him...
"Could they be possible wrong about..."
His mind didn't allow him to complete this question. He was forgetting a very important principle of his line of work that in wars and in war like situations, a person was either a friend or an enemy and under all circumstances, you can judge an enemy just by your brain and not your heart.
The evidence against her was irrefutable, he thought with his eyes hardening, but as he got of the bed, he felt a strange exhaustion wash over him. For the first time he was thankful of his bad knee which had made it necessary for him to take an early retirement. This was his last assignment, he thought with a sigh of relief.
For some reason, his heart wasn't in it anymore.
He looked forward to his week long vacation. He was going to their family home, which one of his more adventurous ancestors had had built high in the mountains. Though he had long accepted that peace was an entity that would never find a place on his mind, that house on the mountains was the only place that brought some semblance of a 'peace' like sensation. And he attributed it mostly to the presence one person in that house. His dadi.
Around her, he always felt he could breathe a little easier, feel a lightness in his chest that made his world seem a just little less dark. Even though, darkness was something he had become become used to...and had long accepted to be an indispensable part of his existence. It was his own personal hell and he lived in it without any complaints.
After all, he was the one who had sentenced himself to it. With absolutely no reprieve.
He was gulity of murder. He had sinned. He deserved to suffer. He did not deserve to be happy. Period.
And without even realizing, his heart long deprived of the self censored happiness, had gradually shriveled and hardened and become increasingly insensitive to a point that he had slowly become a person, he no longer recognized as him.
Being in his childhood home, around the solid, comforting presence of his nani, he sometimes had glimpses of his old self again, bringing a much needed though insufficient relief to his burdened, weighed down, perpetually despondent heart.
RAIZADA MANSION
A HILL STATIONThere was a flurry of activity in the Raizada Mansion as Devyani Raizada quietly supervised over a team of servants kept busy with the task of readying the mansionto in preparation of the arrival of her grandson, son of her late daughter who had died during childbirth.
Climbing up the curved flight of stairs, she opened the door to his slightly musty room and walked over to the window to draw the heavy curtains apart.
Bright sunlight streamed in and fell on a picture kept on the side table. Picking it up, she stared at it with her old eyes welling with sudden warm tears...
It was Arnav's picture taken in the year, he had passed out of the National Defense Academy. Handsome in his uniform, he had good humored, smiling eyes and a mischievously curved mouth. Who would have thought what terrible fate lay in store for him?
Her heart wrenched at the thought of the self decreed darkness he had shut himself in for the past eight years...
She closed her eyes and whispered in an inadequately expressed, silent supplication, "He has suffered enough...please...".
Memories of that day which was no less than an apocalypse came rushing to her causing her to sink down to the edge if the bed with her shoulders drooped wearily.
An apocalypse which had splintered Arnav's world and hers as well into a million pieces. And while she was clueless how to go about fixing it, Arnav seemed to have just accepted the prospect of spending his whole life in a dark, splintered world. That assuaged the heavy burden of his guilt just a little bit and made the spots on his hands just a little fainter.
Her heart wrenching for him, she instinctively murmured heartrending supplications under her breath, tears running down her wrinkled cheeks.
"Forgive him, please forgive him. He didn't mean to...he wasn't well...he has punished himself enough, he has been punished enough...".
The beautiful, almost century old mansion was perched atop a rocky mountain ridge, providing a breathtaking vista of the verdant mountain valley. A place where each sunset was like an amalgam of an artist's genius brushstrokes and every sunrise a beautiful symphony of colors, shadows and melodious birdsong. Arnav was staring at one such sunset on his first evening there with his eyes softened by the dusk's golden light, reflecting his inner violent turmoil.
Her thoughts had chased him all the way here...
Her voice, her words, her tender touches, her eyes were not letting him live in peace, haunting him ceaselessly. Her eyes suffused with vulnerability and hopelessness seemed to be firmly imprinted in his mind and no distraction, no cynical thought, no amount of alcohol seemed to be successful in erasing their memory.
"I really like you though I don't know why. There is no reason to".
"There, I touched your face. Now what are you going to do about it".
Her voice seemed to be seeking a vendetta as it chased him relentlessly wherever he went..
His own words, his unabashedly wicked lies seemed to vie with hers for the sole purpose of torturing her...
"There you are...Jumping the gun again! Who the f*** said anything about sleeping together?Here I am, trying hard to romance a girl in this beautiful moonlight but sadly, her mind is full of filth".
"I told you that day, there's something about your eyes that first brought me to you and that keeps me coming to you..".
"Your eyes have intoxicated me, they don't let me sleep, they haunt me everywhere I go".
"Why should it even matter to cheap s**ts like you?
Closing his eyes, Arnav made a last ditch effort to thwart, to strangle all those persistent voices...
"She is probably just a fine actress like all women are. And why should you feel sorry for a woman like her, who not only lacks scruples about carrying out an affair with a married man but is a traitor to this country too."
"Everything is fair in war", he told himself silently in a voice that was fast losing conviction...
Later in the evening, as he lay in bed, he turned the TV on and stared at the flickering black and white images with unseeing eyes. A play was coming...
Doctor: Not so sick, my lord, as she is troubled with thick-coming fancies that keep her from rest.
Macbeth: Cure her of that! Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain, and with some sweet oblivious antidote cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon her heart.
Doctor: Therein the patient must minister to himself.
For some reason, his mind latched on to that line and repeated it silently...
"The patient must minister to himself.."
Hearing a knock at his door, he turned the TV off and said "Come in".
It was his grandmother, who had been worried about him all day because she had noticed an indescribable, undecipherable change in him that she hadn't been able to lay her finger on. She wasn't even sure if the change was positive or negative but whatever it was, it had unsettled him to the point that it was clearly noticeable. Like an unexpected breeze rushing over a lake's stagnant surface and causing it to break out in ripples..
Sitting down next to him on the edge of the bed, she asked, "Is something bothering you, Arnav?
"Just something at work..", he answered looking at her with the slightest hint of a smile.
"A mistake I might have done..".
Nani looked at him curiously and without having the slightest inkling of what he was talking about, she said gently, "If you did do that mistake and the mistake is reversible, find out if it can be corrected or not. If it can be corrected, do it".
Arnav looked up up at her with his gray eyes flickering with sudden emotion..
What about the mistakes that are irreparable, he asked her silently, not able to vocalize the words that were weighed down by eight years worth of pain.
But his grandmother heard him.
"A mistake is still a mistake and all mistakes are forgivable. Don't be so harsh on yourself, Arnav, it's been eight years now...", she said gently, putting her hand over his.
It was after another two weeks that Arnav learned the hard way that it's not necessary for your mind to be always right, sometimes heart can instinctively feel things that your mind can't see, despite all it's streamlined operations based on cold reasonings and emotionless logics and purportedly irrefutable evidences.
The SIS(Secret Intelligence Service) and IB( Intelligence Bureau) were brother organizations, while SIS was like the main submerged body of an iceberg, IB was like it's visible tip. IB was what carried out all the work that needed to be done out on the open, in the public domain, while most of SIS's endeavors were covert, shrouded in secrecy and far removed from the public domain. SIS had a specialized wing that only a handful of people within SIS possessed any knowledge of. It was unimaginatively named as WRA, Wing for Research and Analysis at the time of it's inception in 1954 and it's sole mission was stated as constant surveillance of it's own agents to detect those who had turned and weeding them out in a timely, effective manner. Weeding being an accepted euphemism for death in encounter. Protected by a right of non disclosure, they were notoriously ruthless in their choice of modus operandi, but very effective nonetheless in keeping SIS free of double agents. It being a matter of national security with stakes dangerously high, morals and scruples were often relegated to the backseat.
The agents working for the this wing were handpicked and had such deep covers that only the topmost officials within the SIS knew who they were. Most of them belonged to an army background and were never actually seen inside the SIS headquarters.
Major. Raizada had been a part of WRA for almost three years. He had successfully completed a term of public service, counseling for anger management and treatment for PTSD, when he was approached by a top official. The reasons behind approaching him were mufti fold. Notwithstanding the unfortunate event in his personal life, which despite his acquital had resulted in him being stripped of all decorations and dismissed from active duty, his bravery and his patriotism were legendary and unquestionable. It was also thought that his infamy along with the resulting visibility in the public domain would perversely serve as a cover for him.
And the reason behind Arnav accepting the offer was only one. To escape from his demons.
This had been Arnav's last assignment and since breaking away from WRA was a highly
painful, complicated process, he was visited by a WRA official who was walking him through the process, which involved among other entities, pledges to uphold it's non disclosure policy.
"No publishing of 'Memoirs of an ex WRA agent'", the offical joked, holding a document for his signature.
With a corner of his mouth lifting almost imperceptibly, he scrawled his signature and then paused, looking at the official with an indecisive expression in his eyes.
After a few moments, he couldn't stop himself from asking, "So Shyam succumbed to his injuries last week?
"Yeah...", the official said.
He opened a leather briefcase and while carefully arranging all the documents in it, he murmured, "He was a bas***d of the highest order..".
Unable to hold himself any longer, Arnav finally blurted out, "And what about Khushi, his mistress..?
Shutting the briefcase with a snap, the official said casually, "Oh...she was clean".
"Coerced into doing a lot of things, she had no clue about".
"Like what?
"Dancing at bars. Six different ones in the past two years. Acting as a go-between for messages passed between Shyam and bar patrons".
"How can you be so sure, she was not a willing participant?
"Several things. Her background is completely clean. A small town girl, daughter of a school teacher, totally fair and square. And yes, we discovered several other virtues that should be added to that bas***d's obituary. One is his predilection for polygamy. He had hidden his first marriage from her family, when he married her two years ago. She had spent the first year of her married life thinking she was actually married to him, and when she found out about his first marriage, he had her under such control, that escape wasn't even an option. Didn't provide her with money, so she would have no choice but to keep working in these bars".
Since the middle-aged official had two daughters himself, his voice shook with anger as he continued, "Lots of evidence of physical abuse, clear cut evidence of suicide attempts...so there was no way, she could have been a willing accomplice..".
Glancing up at Arnav, the official frowned. He looked unnatutally pale with his eyes suffused with a strange, undecipherable expression..He was so used to Arnav's usual and cutomary, impassive countenance that he spoke out worriedly..
"Arnav, are you feeling okay?
Ignoring his question, Arnav asked, "Suicide attempts?
"Yes, her left wrist is full of scars from cutting herself at several different times...Pretty deep too...the kind one would get from running out of courage at the very last moment".
"Why do you always wear that?, he asked suddenly, looking up at her.
Averting her eyes, she smiled a little, then said, "It's a new fad, it's called cowardice bracelet".
After what had seemed like eons, Arnav felt a stirring, a softening in his heart, a sensation he had thought he was no longer capable of..
Teaser for next part, coming tomorrow.
"No, I won't let you throw your life away like this..", Arnav said, standing in front of her..
"Let me pass, Major Raizada, it's not nice to keep a customer waiting", Khushi said coldly, with her hazel eyes looking right through him.
As Arnav, didn't budge, she looked up at him and said with her speech slightly slurred, "And anyway, why should it even matter to heartless bas***ds like you?
Hey friends,
I know this story is difficult to read and I really appreciate you all for sticking to it :)
It's difficult to write too and I almost wish I hadn't started it :(
Anyway, I'm OCD about finishing what I start...so I'm going to wrap it up in the next two updates...:)
Love you all and love reading your feedback,
Jenny..:)
CID
35