The Darya Nandkarni Misadventures Omnibus: Books 1-3 Page 3

But there was no response. The woman picked up her folder, shifted her feet, and glanced at her watch. Her eyes focused on the far distance as if she were deep in thought.

  Weird woman.

  Thinking she knew what the problem was, ‘Paritosh Nandkarni is my uncle. He used to stay in this house,’ Darya said and jerked a thumb towards Sea Swept.

  ‘Sad to die so young,’ the woman murmured. Then training her eyes back on Darya, ‘My name is Bobby, by the way. Vidisha is coming to visit in a few days. She can take you around. I can't do it, you know, without her permission.’

  Darya had a hard time imagining the limp-haired, sad-eyed Vidisha being friends with the likes of Bobby. Darya remembered Vidisha as an erratic, moody girl prone to melodrama and exaggeration, a snitch, a cry-baby, whom the other kids, especially her brother Gaurav, teased to no end. She knew Vidisha had married well; her husband was an indulgent, rich simpleton with an uncanny sense of business. She lived in suburban Mumbai now, a large bungalow, two children, loving in-laws, parties, pujas, and the annual European holiday being among her many achievements.

  And to imagine, Vidisha's parents had once pointed to Darya and told Vidisha to be like her.

  What would they say now?

  Darya sighed. ‘How's Vidisha?’ she asked.

  ‘The usual,’ Bobby muttered. Darya got the impression she didn't think much of her.

  ‘When is she going to rent the house out?’ Darya asked.

  ‘It's ready to be let out,’ Bobby said. ‘I don't know what her plans are.’ Glancing at her watch, she said, ‘Can't wait any longer. I've to go.’

  ‘Back to Red Tulip or back to Mumbai?’

  ‘Red Tulip and then Mumbai. I'll need to be back again soon anyway.’ Then with a cheerful —’See ya!’—she turned to leave.

  ‘I'll phone you to do up Sea Swept,’ Darya shouted to her retreating back.

  ‘Don't count on it,’ Bobby replied, waving her red-painted fingernails in the air.

  Odd woman. Odder encounter.

  Darya watched as Bobby got into a blue Toyota Corolla and sped away. Then as she walked back, she wondered if her father would be open to the idea of giving Sea Swept up on rent. If Vidisha could show her how Constellation looked now, and tell her how much she had spent and what plans she had for it... She hoped Vidisha no longer remembered their choppy childhood relationship, that there would be no awkwardness between them.

  She stopped at the balcao and stared at her reflection in the window.

  Oval face. Olive skin. Large, down-slanting eyes, a nose she'd always thought was too sharp for her face, a tumble of thick, black hair down to the waist, overgrown fringes on a narrow forehead. Every day, she looked more like the Roma Gypsy Spandan used to say she was. She needed to take better care of herself.

  Sighing, she stepped inside the house. She was loath to resume her task. How can a house by the sea be this depressing? Glancing up at the crumbling walls, she muttered to herself. Precisely in this way.

  The memory of her uncle had faded considerably since the last time they'd met... over twelve years ago. Recollections of her aunt was akin to a mangled reality which smacked of being high on dope. Darya wasn't sure how much of it was true, and how much of it had really happened. How old had she been? Eight? Nine? For over twenty years, Uncle Pari had lived in this frozen tomb, trying to preserve the memories of his wife inside.

  Darya lowered herself and sat cross-legged on the floor. She had swept the room earlier in the day to avoid being bitten or climbed upon by suspicious creatures. Thank God she hadn't found any. Tomorrow, she was going to spend the day disposing off stuff. Try and bring a semblance of order to the mad-house.

  Leaning over, she lifted a photo album to her lap; it was the only one she had found in the house. Wrapped in richly textured, brown velvet, two butterflies stuck to a corner of the front cover, one of whose wings were chipped. The pages inside were of soft black paper, bound together with string. There was one photo per page, placed inside corner mounts, the ends of a few beginning to curl.

  She paused at the first page.

  Words in Persian. Right to left. Cursive. Beautiful. Underneath, possibly, the paraphrase in English.

  Darya read aloud:

  Awake I for Morning in the Bowl of Night

  Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:

  And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught

  The Sultán's Turret in a Noose of Light.

  While Darya made no claims to literary mastery, she knew that the lines were poignant. They held a deeper meaning. The script suggested Aunt Farideh had penned them. In any case, her uncle was hardly the poetic kind.

  Did her aunt make up these verses?

  Darya wouldn't put it past her. She'd heard a lot about her aunt's abilities, especially from her Pa, more so when he was drunk.

  Farideh Qumza... a creature of such beauty, poise, and intelligence... as if raising a toast to her. Surprisingly, it never made her Ma jealous.

  If only they had found the body, it would have ended his pain, her father used to say. Knowing why and how she died, giving her a proper cremation... that would have made things easier for all of them. It was important to have closure, and no one knew it better than Darya. Since her aunt died twenty years ago, her family had lived under a cloud of doubt and grieving. It was as if a veil was wrapped around their beings, preventing any sort of real intimacy.

  Darya remembered her aunt in the soft stepping of her feet on the marble floors, in the swish of her kaftan, in her lilting laughter ending in a soft gurgle, her gentle hand on Darya's head, the warm twinkle in her eyes.

  Fading snapshots. Much like the photos in the album she held.

  Darya turned the pages. Flapped away clouds of dust. A few photos slipped from their corner holds. She tucked them back in.

  As Darya rummaged through the pictures, she lost track of time. Afternoon passed, dusk fell, but she didn't let go. The stories in each of those pictures seemed to her like living and breathing beings. They talked to her.

  Her father and Uncle Paritosh holding a glass of wine in intertwined hands.

  Farideh, her mother, and Zabel Aunty cooking in the Primavera kitchen. (How young and carefree Ma looked!)

  Paritosh and Farideh smiling next to a newly purchased Onida TV. (Where was it, by the way?)

  The three couples of Heliconia Lane gathered on the beach for a picnic and another one with them holding hands around a bonfire. (One of the kids must have taken these.)

  Happy stories sprang up in her face, page after page.

  Darya had expected to find more albums in the house; her father kept so many. And she hadn't found any with her or the children in it. It would've been nice to see snapshots of the summers she had spent here. She didn't remember half of it. She had been twelve years old when she visited last. Her uncle visited them in Mumbai after that, whenever he could or wanted to.

  With some effort, she brought her mind back to the present, to the task at hand. She realized she needed to organize everything into folders and boxes, and she would need to go to Panjim to buy them.

  Her father's instructions came to her mind again.

  ‘Be practical when you think about what you need to get back, not nostalgic.’ Nostalgia, according to her father, was the root of all human problems. ‘Make new memories,’ he said. ‘Anything in the past is dead. Rotten.’

  Darya decided to give him an inventory of all the things. He could choose. It was a pity she had left her laptop behind; she could've mailed him. But then again, where was the Internet connection? Her mobile was connecting sporadically too, not that she minded that. She was ignoring all calls and texts anyway.

  She stretched her feet on the floor, flattened her toes, hoping to shake the unease out of them.

  Then she picked up a bunch of newspaper cut-outs. Counted eight of them. Began to read.

  And as she read, her chest tightened.

  As she'd suspected, they were reports of her
aunt's disappearance in the days following the incident. The coverage had been sensational in the first two days, then trickled down to a hundred-word paragraph in the following months, tucked in the inside pages.

  She read the first one that had appeared in The Goa Times along with a colour photo of Farideh's smiling face, cut out from a picture of the couple taken on their wedding day:

  Woman disappears from Valsolem, feared kidnapped or drowned

  By Harriet Gonzales

  Published: 22 May 1989

  The Panjim police are looking for a woman reported missing from her house at Valsolem. The disappearance was reported by her husband Paritosh Nandkarni, 26. The missing woman, Farideh Nandkarni, 23, was supposed to meet her husband and a group of friends for a birthday party at Evolucion, a shack recently opened up at the beach. When she did not show up even after the designated time, her husband went to look for her and found his house ransacked and wife missing. Her clothes, jewellery, and shoes were on the floor, indicating that a struggle had taken place. A source familiar with the matter said the police are registering a case of abduction.

  ‘All evidence leads in the direction of kidnapping’ the source told The Goa Times.

  Farideh is an Iranian national who made India her home after marrying her husband. They met while studying in New Delhi. Her husband works in seafood sales and marketing. The couple lives at Heliconia Lane on the secluded Valsolem Beach.

  ‘We are shocked and deeply saddened by the incident. We hope and pray the police are able to bring Farideh home. We ask for privacy as her family and friends go through this difficult time,’ her neighbour Filip Castelino said.

  Two days later, another piece appeared in the Goa Herald:

  Kidnapped woman now feared dead

  By Vimal Waze

  Published: 25 May 1989

  The search continues for the missing Valsolem woman who disappeared from her house on the night of 22 May. The Panjim police have organized a nationwide search but are losing hope.

  In a statement, the police said ‘We cannot rule out foul play in her disappearance. We are following up some leads. Divers are searching the sea for a body. Police dogs have sniffed around multiple areas... yet nothing has revealed any information about what happened to Mrs. Nandkarni. ‘

  ‘A few of her things were scattered on the beach,’ a source close to the police said. ‘It was high tide that day. She could have drowned.’

  Farideh's family and neighbours describe her as a kind and gentle soul who loved India and Goa. They are appealing to members of the public to come forward if they have seen or heard of something that may help with the case. Farideh is twenty-three years old and of very fair complexion. She is thin with long brown hair and light brown eyes. According to her family, she is 5-feet, 6-inches tall, and weighs approximately fifty kilograms. She has a tattoo in Persian of her husband's name, Paritosh, on her right forearm.

  Darya scanned through the other cut-outs quickly. There were news articles of unidentified bodies washed up on the beach, abandoned in a hotel, found by the police or by tourists, but nothing mentioning her aunt specifically. Darya sighed, feeling pity for the man. Her uncle had kept up with his obsession for years after the death of his wife.

  Nostalgia and hope, those were mankind's problems.

  Wait—

  What was that?

  A soft scrape. A snap.

  The hair on the back of her neck rose. Goosebumps broke out on her skin.

  She'd heard something. A noise. Out of place.

  She held her breath. Put the papers on the floor. Looked around.

  Nothing.

  Somewhere, in the margins of her consciousness, she heard the sound of the sea... the waves lapping against the shore... then... the sleepy whirr of the ceiling fan above. She noted that the yellow bulb made the room look dull and wet, like phlegm.

  Nothing seemed to have changed. It was the same as before...

  ...yet, she felt it in her bones... something was not quite right.

  Someone was there.

  She turned her neck to scan the door. Nothing. The windows were closed. All but one. She turned to it. Behind the four-poster bed.

  Heliconia Lane stretched at the back of it like an indolent masterpiece. Dark silhouettes of the neighbouring houses alternating with streetlamps that threw yellow puddles on the street.

  She waited. And listened. Heard her breath accelerate. Rise and fall.

  Nothing. No one.

  She tried to shrug it off but couldn't. The air around her felt stagnant.

  Why was her heart thudding so hard? She'd heard something, but what?

  She got down on all fours and crept closer to the window behind the bed.

  Froze.

  She saw the chequered balaclava first. Then the pair of eyes over it. Bloodshot and narrow. Staring back at her.

  Darya gasped. Her hand flew to her mouth.

  What... who is that?

  What the hell!

  The face ducked.

  She scrambled to the window and shouted, ‘Hey!’ Heard the sound of feet scurrying over grass. ‘Hey! Stop!’ Darya shouted. Leaned out.

  A loose blue ganji flapped in the wind over a workman's beige trousers as the man slipped past the main gate and sprinted down the street. He was tall and lithe and seemed to skip rather than run. He stumbled once but otherwise looked like he knew his way around.

  Pushing open the front door, she dashed out after him. Ran outside into the garden, towards the front gate.

  But... where was he? He had just run out. How far could he have gone?

  But she was staring down at an empty road.

  Some rustling. Then silence.

  What the...

  Had she imagined it? Who... where was he?

  Nothing stirred in front of her. No creepers. No trees.

  The three streetlights gazed down at her like sentinels.

  Had there really been someone? Had she really seen a man?

  Her mind in overdrive and her breathing ragged, Darya tried to think.

  Who was that man? A thief? A tourist?

  The possibilities were too frightening for her to even contemplate. She wished she had taken care to latch the front door and shut the windows. Not that the man had come inside, but he could have!

  Darya had always known Heliconia Lane to be one of the safest places in the whole state—wasn't that what Filip Uncle said? But he was growing old and was retired now, and Goa wasn't the same as it used to be.

  She would have to be careful from now on and perhaps talk to Filip Uncle about getting some security for the lane. There had been too many casualties already.

  New Friends And Old

  Darya went over to the Castelino house in the morning and saw Filip puttering about in the garden.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said, hardly feeling it herself.

  Filip set the hedge trimmer down and waved back. Walked to her. Once closer—

  ‘I found a strange man staring at me yesterday through the bedroom window,’ Darya announced without preamble.

  He stopped and stared at her. Then cocked his head to one side.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A trespasser... an intruder was in Sea Swept yesterday,’ she spoke slowly, as if to a child. ‘He was peeping inside Uncle Pari’s bedroom. I was in there, clearing his things.’

  ‘At Heliconia? Are you sure?’

  Heck! What does he think Heliconia Lane is, Fort Knox?

  ‘Yes, I chased him out,’ Darya said, not expecting this half-truth to impact the story much.

  ‘I heard nothing,’ he said, scratching his ear lobes. He looked worried. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, Uncle,’ Darya said, exasperated. ‘He was tall and sort of thin and ran really fast. But with an odd gait.’ She showed him.

  ‘Never seen anything like that before,’ he murmured. Darya wondered if he meant the gait or the break-in. She waited for him to explain. When he said nothing for a few seconds, s
he asked, ‘What can we do about it?’

  ‘Do you want to inform the police?’ he asked uncertainly.

  ‘Can you help me with it?’ Darya asked. ‘You know people in the police, right?’

  He shrugged and looked downcast when he said, ‘Not anymore.’

  ‘Come on, Uncle.’

  ‘No one listens to me anymore. I am retired.’

  ‘Okay, then I'll go alone,’ Darya said and threw him a look she hoped was accusing enough.

  Filip shuffled his feet. ‘Maybe you saw wrong? Makka Kalna. I don't understand. This has not happened before.’

  ‘I think we should tell the police,’ Darya insisted.

  ‘Must have lost his way.’

  Darya pursed her lips. Folded her arms across her chest. ‘It's dangerous, Uncle,’ she said. ‘He could've been a robber. Or worse. You should get a security guard for the lane.’

  ‘Only a few more years of our lives left,’ he mumbled. ‘Why take the trouble?’

  ‘So, what should I do?’ Darya asked, feeling angry and dejected at the same time. She had hoped that, as always, Filip would take charge of things. She had little idea about who to call or what to do to hire a security guard in Goa. And she wasn't sure if the incident was severe enough to involve the police. She knew from past experience how complicated reporting a crime was, especially reporting a break-in for which she had no proof.

  No, can't do police station alone, and... that guy could've been lost.

  But what about the balaclava? Then... perhaps... a tourist in a costume... or a druggie who didn't want to be recognized or...

  ‘Telling you, he lost his way,’ Filip said. Then clasping his hands together as if in supplication, ‘No one comes here. It is too inside. It can only be a mistake.’

  A thought struck her.

  ‘Uncle, has anyone been in the house after Uncle Pari’s death?’ she asked.

  He looked at her with surprise.

  ‘No, your father was here for a day and the house was locked after that,’ he replied.

  ‘A few things seem to be missing,’ she said. ‘I don't know for sure, but I'd assumed Uncle Pari had them. They have to be somewhere.’

  ‘What things are missing?’