“Your father told me what a devoted wife you were,” Anita said, hoping for some reaction.
“I did everything a wife is to do.” She spoke with a dullness that Anita attributed to the shock of her husband’s death; but then, all of a sudden, she became animated. “Did I not tend to his pain? Did I not tell him stories and jokes when he was bored? Did I not make his favorite foods? Did I not come to him without calling?”
A breeze rustled the bushes near the compound wall, and the night grew cooler. “Were you happy living here? The two of you?”
“Where else would we live?”
“He was happy with his job?”
“It was a good job,” she said, leaning back against the counter. “Enough for us, the two of us.”
“It is how he died that confuses me most,” Anita said. “I don’t understand what happened. Tell me how it went.”
Reki crossed her arms over her waist, her worn, red-bordered white sari reflecting the moonlight, her eyes suspicious and dark. She pulled the end of the sari around her shoulders against the evening chill and let her gaze drift around the room. Panditji and her mother had settled on the front veranda and were engaged in one of their many bickerings; Poota was nowhere in sight.
“The mantrakara performed his puja, but no one was guilty of stealing someone else’s jewelry,” she said with a sneer, “so he had to leave. He was disgraced.”
“What happened after that?” Anita was taken with her defiance; it was so different from her histrionic display of sorrow earlier in the day.
“We had our supper — lentils and puris, very simple. And then we are sleeping. At midnight my husband whispers to me that he is unwell. And then he is dead.”
“Just like that?”
“Yes, madame detective, just like that!” She burst into tears and ran from the room.
The Ganesh Timber Works lay along a main road leading down to Trivandrum, next to a long, one-story building housing a number of new shops. Anita strolled up the hard-packed dirt road to the small, whitewashed office. It was early, and although workers were preparing to move huge tree trunks into the sawmill area, the office was closed. She kicked at a pile of wood chips and the air was filled with the fragrance of freshly cut wood.
“You are looking for someone?” A stocky man in a white shirt and white lungi greeted her from among the timber. “Office is not opening until ten o’clock.” Anita explained her business. He shook his head and scurried around the logs. “A terrible thing, yes, terrible.”
“What sort of employee was he?”
“The ordinary sort. Reliable, steady, eager to advance, but not too bright. Young but able.”
“Good enough,” Anita said. “Did he ever say he had trouble at home?”
The man stifled a laugh. “We should all have such trouble at home.”
“Meaning what?”
“Such a devoted wife he had. She came here a few times, just to bring him a meal or a sweater when it was cold, or to clean his office or help where she could.”
“I’ve heard she was devoted,” Anita said. He went on laughing. “Why is that so funny?”
“You are Panditji’s friend who is part American? I have a cousin in Chikagoo and he tells me the expressions of your people.”
“Such as?”
“Closing the barn door after the horse has run away.” He seemed to think this was hilarious and slapped his leg while he laughed.
“It’s an old expression, yes,” Anita replied.
“But you live in skyscrapers! You have no horses.” Suddenly he grew serious. “But that was Reki, I am thinking. She is closing the barn door but the horse is escaping.”
“That’s quite an accusation, if I’m understanding you correctly,” she said.
“There is a reason she has no child,” the man said in a near whisper. “His seed was worn out.” And he went on chuckling.
The man let Anita wander around the timber yard for more than an hour while he went about readying the office to open. Other employees drifted in, and after a few words of explanation, gave her a humorous welcoming smile and went about their duties. At the end of her visit, Anita had a very good idea of how the sawmill machinery worked and was maintained, how the logs were transported and managed, and how the finished wood was shipped out. It had never occurred to her before how a chair got to be a chair, but now she knew.
The village street was just waking up to the busyness of the day when Anita left the timber yard. A bus careened past her and lumbered around a corner, spitting dust along the road. A sari vendor spread stacks of saris across the covered floor of his small shop sitting high up on its plinth; from there he could chat with villagers passing by, calling the women to admire his wares. The bank manager lolled in the doorway, trying to stay cool until the power returned and started up the ceiling fan. He ushered Anita in and she pulled out her ATM card. Already bored, he was ready for a chat, and Anita was glad to accept a cup of tea and visit.
“We are looking and looking for you,” Reki said when Anita returned to the house. “We are thinking you have gone out without your breakfast. My father was very worried. Come!” She led the way to the eating room. Anita followed without comment and settled down to a late breakfast. She was too preoccupied with her morning discoveries to notice much around her. She could feel answers forming in her mind — her stomach had that tightness that always preceded the perception of truth, and with it, the confidence that she was right.
“I have wasted your time,” Panditji said, coming into the room. “You must go home. I will call for a car. Do not fret,” he said holding up a hand when she tried to speak. “I shall pay.”
“With what?” Anita said. “Your wife’s bangles?” She heard the gasp from the kitchen doorway.
“What are you saying?” Chennamma stood transfixed. “You know where my bangles are?”
“Your husband knows.” Anita waited for Panditji to deny the accusation, but of course he couldn’t. She looked down at her banana leaf, at the iddlies and special chutney that reminded her of the many times she had enjoyed breakfast with Panditji when she was a child. “Tell us, Panditji,” Anita said in a gentler tone.
“Yes, Papa, tell us.” Reki stood behind her mother. “You have the bangles yet you accused my husband. All your accusations and anger drove him away. Why?”
“You don’t know the truth,” Panditji said to Anita. “You only think you do.”
“I know enough.” Anita rose, folded up the banana leaf, and passed it to Poota. Anita waited until the servant had left the room, knowing even so that the other woman would listen at the door. “You stole the bangles for the obvious reasons. The bank manager told me you brought bangles in to pawn,” Anita said. “Just before Chennamma also brought in two bangles to pawn.”
“You stole my bangles?” Chennamma clasped her hands over her mouth and swayed.
“You have been pawning bangles without telling me?” Panditji said in surprise.
“Both of you looked at Chennamma’s pile of bangles and knew that there should have been more, but neither one of you told the other that you had pawned bangles secretly,” Anita said.
“But you accused Moonu!” Reki said, coming forward. “You almost throttled him.”
“If Moonu didn’t steal the bangles, why did he die after the mantrakara’s puja? What killed him?” Chennamma asked in a whisper.
“Not what. Who,” Anita said. She looked behind Chennamma, to Reki. Both parents followed her gaze.
“How can it be?” Chennamma grabbed her daughter and crushed her to her bosom. But Reki pushed her away.
“Is it true, child?” her father asked.