The Stolen Girl (21 page)

V
ani is
happy for Aarti and just a teeny bit envious. She cannot imagine someone loving her the way Sudhir loves Aarti, with that complete and utter adoration.

One evening, Aarti comes up to Vani after she’s been out with Sudhir, and Vani knows from the look on Aarti’s face that something momentous has happened. Aarti takes Vani’s hands in her own cold ones. She sits Vani down on the bed, her face grave.

Vani feels apprehension engulf her chest, making it hard to breathe. Has Aarti read Vani’s innermost thoughts, her feeling of being trapped, of wanting to run away?

‘What’s the matter?’ Vani asks, trying and failing to keep the worry out of her voice.

A luminous smile blooms on Aarti’s face and she is transformed, a divine butterfly. She looks like a heavenly being in her ethereal white salwar kameez, tendrils of blue-black hair framing her delicate features. ‘Sudhir and I are getting married.’ There are tears in her eyes.

Vani flings her arms around Aarti. ‘I am thrilled, so very pleased for you.’

‘The wedding is in two months. Not much time to prepare, I know, but I didn’t want to wait.’ She holds Vani at arm’s length, looks around the room. ‘We have to start packing.’ She means Vani has to, of course. ‘Do you think two months is enough time to pack my entire life?’

‘I’ll try my best,’ Vani smiles. Inside, she is thinking,
I packed my entire life into one little bag in half an hour when I left my village to come here.

‘I will be mistress of a castle, Vani.’ Her eyes shine. ‘This house is tiny compared to Sudhir’s pad. Wait until you see it.’

Afterwards, Vani wonders how could she have been so thick, how could she not have seen it coming? She stands there, shocked, trying to get her bearings. She should have known, of course. But she didn’t make the connection. She was reminiscing about the move here from the village, that time of intense upheaval in her own life.

‘Vani, what are you looking like that for? You will not be staying in servants’ quarters, don’t you worry. You will have the room right next to mine. Ours, I should say, mine and Sudhir’s.’ A blush creeps into Aarti’s voice, colouring it the red of blood oozing from flesh pricked by a thorn.

Vani’s world uprooted again. To go to a new house with an already established hierarchy of servants, to have to bear their hostility… It is too much to think about. She smiles, she tries to. But the smile wobbles.

Aarti pouts, she sulks. ‘I thought you would be happy for me.’

And Vani does what she has become an expert at doing. She hides her angst, her fears and says in a voice with just the right amount of cheer, ‘Of course I am. So happy. Now, when do we start packing?’

Aarti is married in a breathtaking ceremony that is ‘the event’ of Bangalore, a wedding unsurpassed in the entire south of India, or so Vani is told via the papers which she can now read because she is fluent in English. She does not attend of course. Invited guests only. The crème de la crème of India. No servants masquerading as so-called sisters.

Vani packs both of their belongings and says her goodbyes, counting down her days in the house that has been a refuge after her parents died, while Aarti is away on honeymoon in the Seychelles. She sees the newly married couple’s pictures in the tabloids, reclining on loungers, wearing shades and looking deliriously happy, holding the obligatory cocktail which Vani knows Aarti will bring up later. Has Sudhir found out yet, she wonders, and decides almost immediately that he hasn’t. Aarti is adept at hiding her condition even from those closest to her. Only Vani knows that Aarti never allows anything except vegetables to stay down. Only she knows.

The day before Aarti and Sudhir are due back home from their honeymoon, Aarti calls. Vani has just finished the bulk of the packing when the cook shouts up the stairs, ‘Vani, it’s for you.’

She is looking at her bags – three bulging suitcases full of assorted belongings and thinking of how when she arrived she had one little bag and that hardly full. In many ways, Aarti is very nice, prickly, difficult to live with at times, but kind. Generous. Giving. The three swollen suitcases are proof.

Vani runs down the stairs. The telephone is portable but of course the cook would not deign to bring it up to her, or ask one of the others to. She is a servant, not the boss. She can jolly well climb down and take the call.

It is Aarti and she sounds breathless. ‘Vani, I’ve missed you. How have you been? I have had a great time but it will be nice to come back, see you. I have so much to tell you.’ The words tumble out in a winded rush.

Aarti had wanted to take Vani with her on their honeymoon but Sudhir had laughed at her suggestion, thought she was joking. ‘There will be plenty of help over there, you know. We are staying at a five-star hotel; there will be someone to cater to our every need.’

Aarti had laughed right along with him, her lips curving upwards but her eyes spearing Vani in a panicked stare. Aarti needed Vani; she had told herself she could not function without her friend.

Vani enjoyed being so important in Aarti’s life and she hated it.

‘You don’t know how hard it’s been without you,’ Aarti’s saying. ‘Nobody gets me like you do.’ She takes a breath at last. ‘Now, we are arriving tomorrow but going straight to Sudhir’s place. I do not want to stay a minute longer in my parents’ house. Have you finished packing?’

‘Yes, but…’ Vani begins.

‘Okay, listen. Ram, Sudhir’s driver, will be round with the car this afternoon. He’ll help you load everything, and you can go to Sudhir’s place with him, unpack and get our room ready for when we come home tomorrow. One of the servants will show you to our room and yours. Sudhir has briefed them. Bye. See you tomorrow. Can’t wait.’

Vani stands there a minute, head resting against the wall, the smell of frying onions drifting from the kitchen, the cool feel of cement on her forehead, and then she rushes upstairs to finish packing.

At three o’clock, Vani notes the progress of a sleek black car from her vantage point on the landing, where she loves to stand and watch the sun rise, a habit gleaned during those sleepless nights in her first year here when she was desperately missing her parents and the home she had with them. Of a morning, while the household slumbers and the air in the house staggers under the weight of myriad dreams, she likes to stand on the landing and snatch a few moments of peace for herself before starting the day and giving herself over to Aarti’s needs, her whims and fancies. She likes to watch for her parents’ faces in the clouds, asking them permission to live another day without them, asking them to make this day a good one. This is her morning prayer, her Suprabhatam, as tantalising rays peek from the verge of the horizon, streaking the inky black the pink of a baby’s smile, the orange of its laughter and the red of its wonder, staining the horizon with hope, injecting it with the promise of a brand new day.

She will miss this landing, her silent morning communion with the sky and her parents, she thinks now, as she watches the car screech to a halt just outside the front door, raising a screen of dust in its wake and startling the crows nestling serenely amongst the jacaranda trees lining the drive. She watches as a man jumps out, every bit as jaunty as the car, as he pats his hair in place and walks up to the door.

Just before he reaches the door, he stands back and surveys the mansion curiously and, even though she is pretty sure he cannot see her, his gaze lingers on the window, where she is standing, for longer than necessary. She moves backward a step and almost falls down the stairs. She rights herself and cautiously peeks out of the window again, and there he is, staring right at her, his coffee eyes twinkling, a smile streaking across his lively face.

She turns away and clatters down the stairs before Suggi, the cook’s helper, opens the front door and yells for her.

‘Do you make a habit of assessing every house you see or just this one?’ Vani asks, surprising even herself with the aggression in her voice. She is annoyed that this man caught her out.

He grins at her, unfazed. ‘Annoyed that I caught you staring?’ he asks, and Vani takes a step backward again, nonplussed.

‘So where is this luggage then?’ he grins.

He is the most cheerful man she has ever met, she thinks grumpily. There should be a law against being this merry when the person you are meeting clearly isn’t. Her emotions are in disarray at leaving this house that has sheltered her since her parents’ death.

The man – Aarti did tell Vani his name but she has forgotten it and does not want to ask him – carries all the stuff downstairs and loads the car, not letting her lift a thing, which, perversely, makes her even more annoyed.

‘Are you always this bad-tempered?’ he asks, when she has plonked herself beside him, the back seats and the boot full to overflowing, even though the car is huge.

‘Are you always this cheerful?’ she counters and he throws back his head and laughs.

‘Are we ever going to move?’ she snaps as he fumbles with the key and he laughs even harder, pulling out a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his eyes.

He finally manages to start the car after two tries, he is laughing so much.

‘Just take me safely there,’ she spits out, looking straight ahead.

On the drive over, he talks non-stop, filling her in on the servants and the hierarchy.

‘Are they very annoyed with me?’ she asks.

He turns to look at her and his eyes are soft, full of an expression she does not recognise. ‘A little.’

He hesitates and she clicks her teeth, saying, ‘Just tell me.’ Somehow, even though she’s only just met him, she’s comfortable with this man, at ease in his company, perhaps because he’s so laid-back, not riled by her bad humour, unfazed by her caustic comments.

He sighs, ‘You see, the rest of us have to make do with separate servants’ quarters in an annexe behind the main house – no running water, one communal bathroom, while you, the newcomer, get the en-suite adjoining the boss’s room.’

Vani exhales the breath she’s been holding. It is as she expected. What the servants don’t know is that the en-suite bathroom is there for a reason: that Aarti will be using it to be sick, to keep her condition from Sudhir. Vani leans her head on the backrest and closes her eyes at the thought of the unpleasantness ahead.

‘Don’t worry, they are not that bad. And seeing as how charming you are, you will win them over in no time,’ he says.

She opens her eyes at that and squints at him. He winks at her, grinning widely.

‘Keep your eyes on the road,’ she yells.

‘Very charming,’ he mumbles loud enough for her to hear.

She cannot help the smile that escapes the corners of her mouth.

‘See, you look so pretty when you smile, you should do it more often.’

She blushes to the roots of her hair. ‘Will you please keep your eyes on the road?’ she mutters.

‘If it’s any consolation,’ he says, his voice soft, serious, ‘you have charmed me.’ He looks right at Vani and she feels another blush suffusing when the first one hasn’t even faded yet.

‘Well, here we are,’ he says and she turns round abruptly to see that they are at a very imposing gate which is swinging open to reveal a wide expanse of equally imposing driveway, surrounded by grounds even bigger, even more beautiful and well maintained than at Aarti’s house.

We could be at a palace,
she thinks, her heart beating wildly as the car races past pristine gardens and myriad gardeners standing in the sun, wiping sweat off their foreheads as they water the lawns. The drive goes on and on until, at last, the car pulls up at a mansion every bit as daunting as Vani expected it to be.

A
arti is waiting
up for Sudhir when he stumbles home, drunk, at 1:00 a.m. in the morning.

They have been married six months, a glorious whirlwind of a time in which Aarti has experienced so many highs. The high of walking into a room on the arm of her husband, soaking up the envy in the eyes of the women, basking in the admiration of the men. The high of being heralded the ‘better half’ of ‘the golden couple’. The high of landing a part in a movie opposite her husband and discovering that she is a natural at acting. The high of her career going from strength to strength. The high of living away from her parents, not having to care about what they think or having to listen to their ridiculous opinions. The high of becoming more successful than
they
have ever been. The high of having two people, Vani and Sudhir, in her life who love her, for whom she is the most important person in the world.

‘Where were you?’ she asks and she tries to keep her voice on an even keel. She doesn’t sound like she has succeeded. It is high-pitched, squeaky. She is tired. She is hungry, her stomach an irritable animal wanting feeding. Normally the grievances of her hollow stomach populate her dreams, the constant hunger a feeling that colours her sleep. But she hasn’t been able to sleep without Sudhir by her side. Even though they have been married for just over six months, she has got used to his constant, reassuring presence beside her.

Now she is crabby, exhausted. And she has a film shoot in the morning first thing.

Vani had warned her not to stay up. ‘Have a good night’s sleep; you’ll feel much better tomorrow,’ she’d said soothingly, rubbing Aarti’s back like she was a little child, the way Aarti liked, as Aarti sobbed in her arms.

Sudhir tries to focus his eyes on her, fails. She cannot see the breathtakingly handsome man she fell in love with in this cross-eyed, dishevelled caricature. His gait is measured, careful, and yet he stumbles and she quells the instinct to extend her hand to help him.

‘You know where I was,’ he slurs.

What makes it worse is that she could have gone tonight. But she didn’t want to. She was tired.

All those parties, all that eating, all the secrecy surrounding being sick, are taking their toll on her. Thank God for Vani. She stands guard at whichever bathroom Aarti is in, warning her when someone is coming, warning people off, telling them the toilets are flooded, making all sorts of excuses. Vani accompanies her everywhere: on set and to parties, where she manages to fold herself off into a corner. Vani has a great talent for blending in, a talent that, Aarti will realise in the years to come, Vani will put to good use.

Hiding her bulimia from Sudhir is taking its toll. Aarti’s mood swings upset him. She blames hormones. He rolls his eyes and tells her to get pills. She is finding it hard to keep up the subterfuge, but she cannot afford not to. Being Sudhir’s co-star has afforded her a glimpse into his world of fawning females, adoring fans. Sudhir is a charmer; he flirts effortlessly with all his myriad admirers.

When Aarti confides her fears in Vani, she says, ‘It’s all an act. He loves
you
. You are his wife, the one he shares a life with. You are the one he cares for.’ She can be very romantic, can Vani.

Aarti had told Sudhir she didn’t want to go to the party and she had thought he’d say, ‘Okay, we’ll stay home.’

Instead he said, in his usual cheerful offhand way, ‘All right, babe, I’ll go then. You relax.’ He smiled at her fondly.

‘But…’ Her face fell. ‘Don’t you want to stay home with me?’

‘No, I’ll go. I want to go.’ He was still smiling but a hint of steel had entered his voice.

She did not want to protest, make a big deal. So she smiled, waved a hearty goodbye and rushed to the bathroom, was sick violently, again and again, savouring the sensation, trying to draw comfort from it. She felt Vani beside her, holding her hair away from her face and leading her to bed after. She gave in to Vani’s ministrations as she sobbed.

‘Nothing has happened,’ Vani kept saying. ‘He’s just gone to a party, that’s all. He’s not cheated on you.’

Aarti stilled, stared at Vani, clutched her hand. ‘What did you say?’

When she called him at ten, there was no reply. At eleven, he picked up and said in a voice she didn’t recognise, in the slurred vowels of a drunk, as if he was searching for words and they were slipping off his tongue, tumbling around in his mouth like marbles, ‘Swill be home soon.’ She heard feminine laughter in the background. At twelve, he didn’t pick up; twelve-thirty, the phone was switched off.

He stumbles home at one, is sick violently and crashes into bed stinking of wine. She sleeps in Vani’s bed in the adjoining room and Vani sleeps on a mat on the floor. Her husband doesn’t even notice. He is dead to the world and snoring in two ticks.

He doesn’t mention anything the next morning and so neither does she. She goes to her shoot, comes home to find he has left sometime during the day. He didn’t turn up at the set so she doesn’t know where he has gone. When she calls him, he doesn’t pick up. He saunters home at 10:00 p.m.

‘Where were you?’ she asks and this time she doesn’t bother to hide the ire in her voice.

‘Didn’t I tell you?’ he smiles, undeterred by her anger, his eyes shining tenderly down at her. ‘It was Raja’s thirtieth birthday. A few of us were meeting up. I thought I left you a message, darling. You were supposed to meet me there.’

She is somewhat mollified. She hasn’t checked her messages. Later that evening, after he’s asleep, she checks them and there is no message from him. The serpent of doubt and fear uncoils, strikes. She cannot sleep. She wanders to the window on the landing and tries to ascertain answers in the overcast sky the dark black of deep despair, relieved here and there by dots of silvery stars twinkling like Diwali lights. She is a wreck.

After that she goes to every party with him but it is not quite the same. He often gives her the slip. Tells her he will be somewhere and doesn’t turn up. It is as if he
wants
rid of her. When she tells him so, he is by turns shocked, outraged and defensive.

‘What if I do?’ he says, every word a challenge thrown at her. ‘What if I want to occasionally spend time with the lads? You and I…we work together, we sleep together… Once in a while I want to be on my own with the friends I grew up with.’ These last said in a softer voice, his gaze gentle.

She doesn’t notice. ‘Why do you never take my calls?’ she cries.

His expression hardens like milk thickening to whey. ‘Because then there is no point; I might as well stay home with you,’ he yells.

She cannot get the much publicised affairs he had before he met her, the feminine voice she heard that time she called him, out of her mind. And misgiving eats away at her like the constant hunger gnawing at the lining of her stomach.

And then one morning, as she is sipping tea, she asks Vani for the newspapers as usual. Vani brings them round, smiling, flicking through them as she does, choosing articles that Aarti might enjoy.

Teaching her to read English was the best thing I did,
Aarti muses as she gazes absently out of the window.

The sun is just rising, casting the glittering emerald lawns in a soft yellow glow. Pink, orange and red roses sing in the arbours, and hibiscus flowers the dark purple of night wave hello to another glorious morning. A lone crow is silhouetted against a whitewashed sky. Sudhir is sleeping in, having no shoots scheduled for that morning.

‘Come on, Vani,’ Aarti says languidly, ‘Isn’t there anything at all interesting for me to look at?’

Vani’s face is frozen in a grimace that she wipes clear when Aarti looks at her, replacing it with the farce of a smile, the papers slack in her hand.

‘What’s the matter? Not feeling well?’ Aarti asks, a sliver of worry nagging at her spine.

She cannot have Vani falling ill. Not again. The last time she did, Aarti went to pieces.

‘Shall I give you some of my pills to nip whatever it is in the bud?’ She cannot operate without Vani. Who will ward off people barging into the loo while she is being sick? Who will come up with excuses for her not being able to attend this or that party? Who will answer her phone, comb her hair, prepare her fruit salad the way she likes it? Vani is
essential
to Aarti’s well-being.

‘I am fine,’ Vani says and this time her smile is almost normal. ‘I’ll just…’ She starts to take the newspapers away.

‘I haven’t read them,’ Aarti says, pleased now all is well with her world.

‘Nothing exciting happening at all,’ Vani’s voice is cagey.

‘I will decide that for myself. Bring them here at once,’ Aarti commands, her voice sharp. Vani’s face is ashen. ‘What is it with you this morning?’ Aarti complains, snatching the newspapers, her rare good mood threatening to disintegrate.

She spreads the newspapers on the table in front of her and blinks. Once, then once again. Words swim before her eyes. She cannot, will not make sense of what she is seeing. It cannot be true.

This time, when Vani reaches for the newspapers, Aarti lets her. The teacup wobbles in her hand, the remaining tea spilling onto the tablecloth, muddy brown seeping into cream, staining it the dark russet of sin.

She runs to the bathroom and retches, again and again. But emptying her stomach does not offer the comfort it normally does. Try as she might, she cannot rid her mind of the picture that swims before her eyes, the picture that graces the front page of all the tabloids, that Vani, bless her, was trying to keep Aarti from seeing. Sudhir and the newest actress to hit the screens, an eighteen-year-old nubile beauty. They are standing too close for it to be an innocent shot. His hand is on her arm and she is looking up at him. And the look on their faces…the same look that had been captured so many times by the self-same tabloids when her husband,
her
husband, was courting her…