Banquet on the Dead (21 page)

‘Indeed. What were these arguments about?’

Lakshman closely examined his thumbnail. ‘You know, I don’t blame Praveen for that. The old woman got under everybody’s skin. I bet there’s not one person in that house who is really grieving for her. You think Swamanayya is crying? He is glad that he finally has the money to pay off those communist idiots. You think Raja is crying? He is glad that he finally has all the money he needs for his movies and his cigarettes—and his women.’ His eyes rose up to them, and his lips widened in a sly grin. ‘Oh, you did not know that? He only lost the use of his hands and legs to polio, you know.’ He paused. ‘You think my father is crying? He now has all the money to pay off those land-grabbers in Puthoor. When a rich man dies, nobody really cries.’

‘That is an interesting thing you say, miyan,’ Hamid Pasha said, and Nagarajan saw that his eyes were now focused on Lakshman. ‘Did you say that your brother had a fight with your grandmother?’

‘Not one fight, sir. Repeated fights. Every now and then over the last two years.’

‘And these fights are over—what? A girl?’

Lakshman said cheerfully, ‘You must be a married man. You know a girl has to be involved somewhere. But she’s only part of it, you know. Praveen is not like me—he allows himself to get trampled on. When people ask him to bend over, he says “How much?” No one asks
me
to bend over, though, because I just ask them to...’ He stopped, and his voice, which had climbed steadily in intensity over the course of that sentence, dropped back to its conversational nature. ‘Praveen is not like me. He is
malleable
.’

‘What else was there apart from a girl?’

For a moment Lakshman did not answer. Out came his handkerchief to dry his face and hands, and back it went into his pocket. ‘You have to understand his psychology. Praveen has never done what he wanted in his life. If he wanted to wear a pink shirt when he was a child, the old woman would say he should wear a white one. If Praveen wanted to eat rice for dinner, the old woman would make chapattis for him. When Praveen said he wanted to go into sciences—he wanted to be a doctor like Kotesh Bava—but no, the old woman said there was no lawyer in the house, and he must remedy that situation.’ He paused. ‘One thing you have to remember is that even spineless people have spines.’

‘So the girl was simply the last straw, you mean to say,’ Hamid Pasha said.

Lakshman shrugged. ‘Who can tell? Praveen always came around. After every fight with the old woman he would go back to her the next morning and wag his tail for her and she would throw him a biscuit. But maybe this was the last straw. Especially when she did not have any problem at all with Kotesh Bava marrying outside the caste. And you know, Praveen has always been a bit of a shadower, always doing what Kotesh Bava does; imitating his hair-styles, his dressing, his words, you know how hero-worship is.’

‘What reason did Kauveramma give for saying no?’

Lakshman leaned back a little and laughed. Nagarajan saw that the man had a happy face, and he could easily imagine him being the star of gatherings if only he put his mind to it. He wondered where the bitterness had come from; if his resentment towards his grandmother was justified or if it was just a result of Kamala’s slow poisoning of his mind. But if that were so, why was Praveen not similarly affected?

‘She was of a lower caste, you see. All castes are equal according to my grandmother, which was what she said when Kotesh Bava wanted to get married. But some castes are more equal than others. I think there was a book with a similar saying about animals, wasn’t there?’

Hamid Pasha said, ‘And Praveen’s girl was not of an “equal” caste?’

‘No, of course not. Durga was from a Reddy family. Brahmins and Reddys are at the top of the tree, you know,
together
. Praveen’s girl happens to be a—well, it doesn’t matter what, she is not from either of those castes.’

‘But,’ Hamid Pasha asked very slowly, ‘are you saying that it is enough to make a man want to kill?’

‘Praveen also had a love of the stage,’ Lakshman said, as if Hamid bhai had not spoken. ‘When he finished his degree he said he will take a year off and go to Bombay. He said he will give acting a go—and guess who said no?’ He looked up and smiled. ‘Maybe taken one at a time, it is not enough to make someone want to kill. But take all these into account, one after the other, and take into account the kind of guy Praveen is—I tell you, when a man like him breaks, he breaks clean, in half.’

‘But,’ Hamid Pasha said, ‘was he even in the house on that day?’

‘He was in his office,’ said Lakshman. ‘But it is not a long walk from there to here.’

‘So you are saying he came from his office, somehow made his way in without the two workers seeing him, went to the well without anybody in the house seeing him, waited for the old lady to come, pushed her over into the well, and then went back to his office the way he had come without anyone seeing him again, only to return later in the evening to “discover” the body?’

Lakshman nodded. ‘Yup. It is not as hard as you make it sound. Praveen is a gymnast. He can scale that wall quite easily.’ He nodded at the compound wall. ‘Oh, yes, quite easily. I think even I could, if you ask me.’

‘With the glass pieces on top?’

‘Yes,’ he said, scoffing. ‘That won’t stop a driven man, you know. What will they cause, a couple of scratches? We used to climb that wall as kids all the time, all of us.’

‘Who do you mean, “all of us”?’ asked Hamid Pasha.

‘Well, all of us—Praveen, me, Kotesh Bava...’

‘The girls too?’

‘What? Oh, no, not the girls. If you were to ask me who among the current lot would have climbed that wall with no trouble at all, I would say only Praveen. I could do it, but I would be huffing and puffing by the end of it. Kotesh Bava could, on his good days, but he doesn’t have many of them, does he?’

‘I say, miyan, what
is
the matter with him?’

‘None of us knows,’ said Lakshman gravely, and Nagarajan felt he saw genuine affection in the man’s face for his cousin. ‘He used to be the fittest of us all; still is, I reckon. But half the time he’s beat.’

‘And the same thing is wrong with his sister too, I imagine? Karuna?’

‘Karuna?’ Lakshman grinned. ‘Oh, she is an actress, that one. She has always been that way, since we were kids. She always managed to act her way out of trouble, and the old people always took her word over ours.’

‘You mean she is only acting?’

‘Oh, I would not go that far. But who can tell? She lives in Hyderabad. She only comes here once every—oh, I don’t know—three months, four months? Her husband lives in Dubai, and she has a child to look after. Surely she cannot be managing the house all by herself if she is as sick as she claims to be.’

‘But once again, you do not have any
evidence
, do you?’

‘Ah, humbug! What more evidence do you need but the things you see with your eyes, and the things you hear with your ears? My wife went to Hyderabad once and found out that Karuna was acting in a play at one of the auditoriums in Padmaraonagar. A play! Now are you going to tell me a lady who cannot muster up enough strength to cook has the energy to rehearse for—and act in—a play?’

‘The severity of the disease might be less in her case than in the doctor, could it not?’

‘Oh, it could. Anything
could
be the case. I only concern myself with what
is
. Do you know that until last year she was perfectly fine? All her medical complaints only began during the last twelve months. Very suspicious, don’t you think? No, I don’t believe her. She is just a drama queen. In fact, I seem to recall that she was the one who encouraged Praveen to give acting a shot after his degree. She told him she could get him into that school she is part of.’

‘Ah—now that is interesting.’

Lakshman looked up. ‘Is it? I suppose that gave the old woman another reason to say no. Is that what you mean? They did not like each other, those two. We always used to hear arguments from downstairs, between the three women—grandmother, her daughter, and
her
daughter.’

Hamid Pasha scratched his beard with vigour. ‘Indeed,’ he murmured. ‘And who won these arguments, generally?’

‘Oh, they were all big talkers,’ Lakshman remarked. ‘None of them gave an inch. Besides, when you were up there and when they were all yelling at the tops of their lungs, all three of them sounded alike. We used to play a game of “Who said what?” Invariably, the sharpest tongue belonged to Karuna.’

‘Why do they hate each other so much, the two of them?’

‘Oh,’ said Lakshman, ‘here I must side with the old woman, I must say. Karuna is the absolute black sheep of the family—or should that be something else? The black ewe, maybe? Yes, nobody likes her. In fact, everyone positively hates her.’

‘But there must be some reason for this hatred?’

‘I told you, sir. These things have little reasons which build up on one another, and suddenly the weight becomes too much to bear. Swamannayya and Karuna also hate each other with a vengeance.’

‘Oh yes? How do you know that?’

‘I have thrown a matchstick between them many times, and each time it resulted in a bonfire.’ Lakshman grinned that lopsided, cynical grin again. ‘But seriously though, it is not hard to see. You ask anyone in the house and that is rivalry number one. If Karuna had been a man he would never have been allowed into the house. Swamannayya would have seen to that.’

‘I heard,’ Hamid Pasha said cautiously, ‘that it got much worse after your uncle went to stay at Karuna’s place last year?’

‘Once again, that was the last straw,’ Lakshman said. ‘Many things built up on one another all their lives, and that was the last straw. After that they just simply cannot stand each other. Until then they were at least civil to one another. Cold, but civil. After that, it has been open war— correction, open
wars
; many open wars.’

‘Do you think, then, that she could have wanted to kill the old lady?’

Lakshman paused in thought, as though the idea had struck him for the first time. ‘You ask an interesting question; it’s an interesting angle. I confess I have not thought of it. What could her motive possibly be? She would not get any money out of it—well, not much, anyway, because she is the old woman’s daughter’s daughter. There is too much filtration there. Practically nothing would trickle down to her.’

‘So you think she had insufficient motive?’ Nagarajan saw that though Hamid Pasha was asking the questions in a seemingly innocent tone, his eyes were darting up and down Lakshman in close scrutiny, sizing him up along with his replies.

Lakshman too, Nagarajan saw, was not completely oblivious to Hamid bhai’s probing stare. He returned it with a hint of mischief, as though letting him know that he enjoyed the attention. ‘Is hatred enough to make someone kill someone else?’ he asked reflectively. ‘Even if it is, I think a less subtle way—my way—of killing would have been expected if it was a crime of hatred.’

‘Oh,’ said Hamid Pasha, ‘hatred can evoke different responses from different people, no, miyan?’

Lakshman shrugged. ‘Even if Karuna did want to kill her, she did not arrive until in the evening.’

‘Yes, that is there.’

‘Rather inconvenient, isn’t it?’ said Lakshman. ‘It would suit everybody in the house just fine if she were the killer.’

‘I cannot make her the murderer just to satisfy your whim, miyan—where were
you
on the day, by the way?’

‘Up there, in my room.’

‘All day?’

‘Most of it, yes. My wife had gone to her mother’s place in the village, so I was pretty much by myself.’

Hamid Pasha paused delicately for a minute and then asked, ‘What is it that you do, for a living?’

Lakshman said cheerily, ‘They all say I am a useless bum. I say I am a gentleman of leisure, and an occasional businessman.’

‘An occasionally
successful
businessman?’

‘I would not say that, no.’ His tone was still light, though a tiny edge had crept in.

‘So you were in the house all day from morning to evening?’

‘I was in my room, yes. I was taking care of some business.’

‘And you were sitting by window over there, yes?’ asked Hamid Pasha, pointing at it.

‘Yes.’

‘So you must have seen everything that went on down here along this path.’

Lakshman nodded dreamily. ‘I saw most of it, yes.’

‘Will you tell us whom you saw down here that day and at what times?’

‘Well,’ said Lakshman, ‘the timing might be a bit off here and there, but yes, I can tell you. First, the old woman goes up the path and disappears around the bend. Then half an hour or so later, I look up from what I am doing and I see Durga go up to the well, and then soon after, the servant-girl goes as well.’

‘And you saw
nobody
else go?’

‘
I
didn’t, but I was not watching the path continuously, sir. I was doing some work, as I told you. I only looked up every now and then. For instance, I did not see either Durga come back from the well, though I suppose she must have done so at some point.’

Hamid Pasha nodded slowly. ‘But you saw Gauri come back?’

‘I did see her come back from the well, but she did not walk back to the house. She took the right turn and walked towards the gate. Maybe she had an errand to run? I don’t know.’

‘Ah, so you say that she walked back to the gate?’

‘Yes, so she did. And she had wrapped the end of her sari around her head. I thought it strange that she did so, because it was not particularly hot on that day. But I didn’t give it any more thought.’

‘And was Ashok still by the front wall when Gauri left by the gate?’

Lakshman frowned in thought. ‘I would not know that. I would guess that Ashok had already left by then, because this was around two-thirty, and the matinee show in Vijaya Talkies starts at one-forty-five. I remember Swamannayya gave him a free matinee ticket, so I am going to guess Ashok was not around then.’ He paused and ran a hand through his moist beard. ‘But I do seem to remember Ellayya was there, near the front gate.’