Tulip Season (29 page)

“Tell me more about your new love,” Mitra said in a conspiratorial voice. “What's he like?”

“Are you jealous?” Kareena said jokingly, giving a short laugh. “I saw you deliberately bumping into him. He has millions of women fans, so I don't blame you. He has so much charm. He can win over anybody, although I've seen him get angry with the paparazzi, and it can get out of hand.”

“Does he ever get angry with you?”

“He hit me once, missed my face, but my forearm—oh, that hurt. He swore in the name of God Rama, he'd never do it again. And he's kept his word.”

A burst of laughter came from a nearby table, making Mitra realize how tense her face was. “I find it hard to believe you took abuse from a man, you who counseled battered women.”

Kareena touched her diamond necklace. “The next day Jay came home with a dozen yellow roses and this necklace. He knelt before me, kissed my hand and feet, and asked for my forgiveness. He recited a poem he'd written for me. Have you ever seen the moon rising on the Red Fort on a summer evening in Delhi? If so, you'd know the feeling. I forgave him. We became even closer. He's my perfect match and there'll be no other from now on. He calls me his kokil bird, his brightest diamond, his sunrise. Our house is filled with music, dancing, wine, and poetry. We laugh so much. It's paradise.”

Mitra stared bleakly at Kareena. Glamor, glitz, baubles, poetry. How long before her ill-gotten happiness evaporated? How long before the sand burned under her feet? How long before she followed her mother's pattern and left the guy or he dumped her?

“It's been a painful few weeks, trying to figure out what happened to you,” Mitra said. “Now that I've found you, I'd like to fit the puzzle pieces together, put my mind at rest. Did Adi know your going-away was pre-planned?”

Kareena's eyes darted to the window. She launched into an explanation. Adi who knew about the affair from the beginning figured out what was going on. Even so, he contacted the police and
reported her missing. As events unfolded, the police could have traced the lovers and arrested them. But Adi didn't want that kind of publicity to circulate the community—his reputation meant much to him. She finished by saying, “Adi figured out the rest, I'm sure, especially when he got the ransom note.”

“Ransom,” Mitra said, hiding her sarcasm, “that's so clever, Kareena, so cool.” That was so terrible, she thought. “Whose idea was it?”

“Jay's. He has a lot of debt. He could no longer get any financing from his usual channels. With another movie in mind, he needed funds badly. I didn't have much of a savings, so I couldn't help him out. He said, ‘We'll get money from your rich husband. How would that be?’ At first I didn't approve of his plan. But eventually, I went along with it. Adi's loaded. And I'm sure he didn't want to get on the wrong side of Jay, knowing how powerful he was. We hid in Tacoma for several weeks, waiting to collect the money.” She paused. “I'm so in love with Jay. I'll do anything—anything—for him. I've never felt this way about any man.”

Mitra's eyes stung. She saw it now: Jay needed funds to finance his films and pay off his debt and so he and Kareena staged a kidnapping, demanding a huge ransom from Adi. Kareena had lied and cheated, all for a money-hungry gangster, however charming he was. This was not the same Kareena she thought she knew. Her obsession for Jay had changed Kareena's character. She was criminally liable as an accomplice to an extortion campaign. But Mitra had to keep her rage to herself. If her intentions were known, Kareena wouldn't continue to talk so freely. Mitra would lose a chance to record her statement in the voice recorder. And she wouldn't be safe in this restaurant or in this town. Jay would make sure of that.

“You're not eating?” Kareena asked. “This cake is delicious.”

Mitra picked up her fork and shoveled a bite of cake into her mouth, but couldn't taste it. “How did it sit with Jay when Adi paid only half the amount?”

“He was furious. I don't know why Adi didn't pay the money. Did he not want me to come back? Was he just being cheap? Jay was on the phone with his buddies in Mumbai for hours, working on Plan B.”

Kareena seemed to be justifying her declaration of guilt to herself as much as to Mitra. She had participated in a crime of extortion, even though she hadn't received the full benefit. How did a woman once cherished by all get knotted up in this mess?

The waiter refreshed their tea. “Adi went broke, I think,” Mitra said. “I'm sure he meant to pay the rest.”

“Adi, Adi, Adi. What's gotten into you, Mitra? Why are you so concerned about him? You didn't much care for him, as I remember. There's no Adi anymore. I've put the past totally behind me—I'm getting a divorce.” She patted the proud round of her belly. “We'll raise our child in Jay's village in bliss. She'll grow up speaking Bengali.”

Mitra glanced at the streetlight outside the window. “I worry about you, Kareena. How many lasting Bollywood marriages do you know of?”

Kareena tucked a lock of hair behind an ear. Her necklace glittered. “You're a sweet person, Mitra, but you seem to get tangled up in other people's affairs. You don't have a love life—that's why. You don't know how to give yourself to a man.”

She'd hit Mitra at a tender spot. Mitra acknowledged the truth quietly and sat in a dreadful silence.

Kareena broke the silence. “Why are you acting like an amateur detective all evening?”

“Detective?” Mitra shrugged. “No. I'm still the gardener you knew. Hey, did you ever meet a German guy in Seattle by the name of Ulrich Schultheiss?”

Kareena startled. “Oh, he was just a play thing—you know what I mean?” She smirked. “You look so shocked. Why would I find an uneducated carpenter interesting for very long?”

Mitra saw the two faces of her sister: a kinder side that helped battered women; a dark secretive side that stepped out on her husband.

Mitra leaned back. “Never mind. Let me mention a number of worrisome incidents that happened to me in Seattle. I was frequently followed by a white Datsun pickup truck.”

Again Kareena startled and paled. “Oh, Jay told me he was having a pest followed. I didn't know that—”

Leaving her sentence unfinished, Kareena turned her face toward the window. An uneasy silence dominated, as though a big hammer had just finished hitting a nail. The ceiling light washed the table's glass surface. It reminded Mitra where she was and the urgency of getting to the bottom of this.

She collected herself and caught Kareena's eye. “Oh, by the way, Adi wanted me to tell you he loved you.”

Kareena frowned at the table. Despite her bright rouge and even brighter lipstick, she didn't look well. “You've seen him recently?”

“Yes, for the last time.” Mitra's voice faltered. “I called Seattle just before coming here and got the news. Something bad has happened. Adi's dead.”

Kareena raised her head. “What?”

“He was kidnapped,” Mitra said in a teary, bitter voice. “An assassin killed him, just like that, and dumped his body in a park.” It sickened her to continue. “The police don't know the motive. Like a movie script, don't you think?”

Kareena sat immobile, her face gray. In her mind, she probably saw it as a script from one of her mother's flicks—a married woman falling for a scoundrel, a batterer who was broke. To finance his habits, his directorial flops, their union, he demanded ransom money from the husband. Otherwise, the lover threatened, he'd go public with their liaison. He'd have the husband assassinated. In her infatuation, her love for the high life, she agreed with his scheme. The husband couldn't make the full payment and …

“The script ended with a twist,” Mitra said.

“Adi—” Kareena choked and let the sentence dangle. Her eyes bulged in grief and panic. A single gray hair showed itself near her temple.

“It was his baby, wasn't it?”

Kareena didn't answer. She didn't need to. The answer was clear to Mitra.

She pictured Adi's sad eyes, the weariness about them. How happy he would have been if he were alive and received this news.

“Are you saying you didn't know Adi's life was on the line?” Mitra asked, angry at Kareena's naïveté, but keeping her voice level.

Kareena shook her head. After a while, she said, in a thickened voice, “Jay only told me he'd sent him a threatening note after a full amount had not been received. And I made the conclusion that was all that would be required.”

Now that they'd talked and her fantasy was gone, Mitra saw her sister in her plain skin. Her chest ached with trepidation. She wanted to say:
You did all this for love— what you thought would bring you happiness. It's not working, if you ask me. There's still time for you to change your ways, dear sister.

Mitra touched Kareena's hand. “Do you realize the trouble you're in? You're hanging out with criminals. They could kill you, too, if you cross them. Listen, don't go back to Jay. Come with me.”

Her eyes unfocused, Kareena appeared to be processing the information. “I have to go now.”

“Wait,” Mitra said, “I've been dying to tell you something really big. Something that has changed my life. We're half-sisters. Aunt Saroja told me the whole story. We share the same father.”

Kareena frowned, as though she'd just heard the most ridiculous piece of news. “What are you talking about? I need to go now.”

A big bulky uniformed chauffeur, possibly also a bodyguard, appeared at the door. He signaled Kareena and favored Mitra with a glare.

Kareena rose, tossed a shawl over her shoulders, and took a tentative step. Mitra saw the tears streaming down Kareena's cheeks, running through her makeup. She didn't want to acknowledge the tight situation she was in, the bleakness facing her, or the hard edge of saying goodbye to a “friend of the heart.”

If she let Kareena leave now, that'd be the end of everything. Their close ties would become a dot in the past. Their sisterhood wouldn't even be in the picture. Mitra jotted down Preet's cellphone number and Mother's address on a napkin, stood up, and pressed it into Kareena's hand. “Come to my mother's place tonight. We can hide you there. You can fly back to Seattle with me. If you want to break free of this life. If you want your child to—”

Kareena glanced at the napkin, folded it, and put it in her purse, taking time to do so.

“Please call me tonight,” Mitra said.

Kareena turned toward the door.

“Kareena, please.”

She halted and swiveled to face Mitra. A woman from a nearby table frowned at both of them.

“I'll stay up waiting for your call.”

Kareena took a step, nearly tripping on the front pleats of her sari, and disappeared through the door.

“See you soon, sis,” Mitra whispered, burying her face in her hands. If it had been hard for her to let go of a friend, she found it harder still to let go of a sister.

FORTY-NINE

MITRA EXITED THE CAFÉ.
It must have been late by now, for all nearby businesses had switched off their lights. Her high heels hindered her movements, as did the unfamiliarity of this neighborhood. Feeling drained, she paused momentarily on the sidewalk and breathed the warm night air. No one was about. Occasionally, a car whizzed by. Kind of scary. Arnold and his taxi would be waiting for her somewhere in an alley a block away.

She was about to take the cellphone out to call Arnold when she noticed a handsome man, about 5′11″, clad in an expensive black leather jacket, standing at a distance of few feet, in the direction she was going. A loiterer? No, he was dressed too spiffily. Should she go back inside the café and make her call from there?

The man nodded at her pleasantly, making her feel foolish. She needn't have been so paranoid.

The man took a deep drag on his cigarette, then tossed the cigarette butt on the sidewalk with a sudden force, and looked around.

His gestures startled her.

He whipped around, glared at her. She stiffened.

Run, Mitra, run.

But in these high heels? In this semi-darkness?

She cursed her stiletto heels and tried walking past him when he suddenly flew at her and tripped her. She slipped and tumbled on to the pavement. He stood over her, ready to strike again with a fisted hand.

“Who the hell do you think you are, Miss?” he said in a menacing tone. “How dare you step on my toes?”

“I did not step on your toes.” She made a move to rise. “But I'm sorry if—”

“Now you'll be really sorry.”

He kicked her. A pain shuddered through her body. Her stomach felt queasy. She closed her eyes, moaned, and gathered all her strength, ready to shout for help, but her voice was gone. She dreaded a worse blow, every nerve in full alert.

Without warning, she threw up all over his shoes. It poured out of her—the tea and the cake and all the grief. Even in her distressed condition, shrinking on the sidewalk, she couldn't help but notice that his black leather moccasins, new and pricey, Gucci possibly, were now soiled. His socks were drenched with vomit, too.

“You fucking shit,” he hissed. He quickly stepped aside, shook his feet, and shook his head. “You've ruined my best shoes. I should send you to hell for this.”

He was distracted. Now was the moment. Scooting into a seated position, she assessed her chances of escape. Could she run? No. He'd grab her again.

It flashed in her mind, the self-defense moves she had once mastered.

She stood. He grabbed her by the shoulders and twisted her around. With her bracing against him, he placed his hands around her throat from behind. His cold fleshy fingers squeezed her throat tighter and tighter, wiping out the lights as well as the darkness before her. She felt herself tilting, falling.

Fight Mitra.
Kareena had advised her long ago.
Don't ever let a man harm you.

A feeling of power surged in her, an animal power. She stomped on his foot with her spiky stiletto heels. Shrieking with pain, he let go of her throat. She slammed a knee to his groin, just the way she'd been taught. Then again with vigor. And one more time.

He hunched over, cupped his crotch with his hands, bared his teeth, and moaned. His eyes were closed.

Here was a break.
Be quick, Mitra
.