I wrote that for you, Piku, so they would read it and get you out of there, and get the others out of there. They would come to know what went on in the ashram, then they would go and see for themselves.
*
Out there, far away, years later, I found a picture of Guruji on the internet and glued it to a wall. I looked him in the eye every day, I stuck pins into his face. He will not scare me again, not from a distance, nor when I stand face to face in the same room with him and say I was there: I was there from the start, I know everything. In my dreams I tell everyone the truth, I leave nothing out, even if it makes me sick to the stomach.
You are standing beside me. You haven’t changed at all. You cannot speak, but you still smile the same way.
*
It was when Latika had worked through half the vodka that a radio somewhere began to play an old Geeta Dutt song. “Piya aiso jiya mein samae gayo re, ki main tun-mun ke sudh-budh gawa baithee,” the voice from years ago sang. “My lover has so dissolved into my being / That I have lost all control over my mind and body.”
She was sitting alone in the hotel verandah. Below the verandah were the tops of young palm trees and beyond, the sea, which heaved and sighed. The fronds of the coconut palms were tossed in the rising wind. After the heat of the day, the mild night air spread a gentle languor through her limbs. Her head felt as if someone was slowly, very slowly, stuffing it with clouds. The whoosh of the sea became a roar in her ears.
They had come back from the market without Gouri. The day had ended in calamity. Latika tried to digest what had happened, but her thoughts kept wandering and Vidya’s voice, when it came, came from far away. What was she saying? Something about getting things under control, organising a search party. The hotel manager had gone with a few other men, driving around to look for Gouri. Jarmuli was a small town, they were sure they would find her, after all she had only gone missing in the market and it had been just a few hours. Of course the darkness made it difficult, but they would not give up. If they did not find her by midnight they would go to the police. Vidya approved of this plan. She had found her runaway secretary long years ago, and that was in a big city. This was almost a one-street town. They would cover every possible angle.
“I’m so desperate I even looked in her room, Latika. On the off chance. . she wasn’t there of course. I told the manager to search the Vishnu temple. Remember how she kept saying she wanted to go back there? If there’s anywhere she’d be. . but it’s such a maze. . how will they ever find her even if she is in there? I phoned that guide for help — Badal — he knows the place inside out. But he was so rude. Just said he was too far away and could not come! Latika? Latika! Are you listening?”
Vidya sat down beside Latika and looked at the third chair in the row. Empty. How perfect and peaceful it had been until yesterday: the evenings in that verandah, the three of them chatting late into night, the sea, this trip, the hotel, life itself. Everything had been in place. It was as if, overnight, a tornado had ripped things apart. Suraj was probably in Jarmuli, maybe in trouble, and they had lost Gouri. She would have to phone that pompous son of Gouri’s to tell him if they did not find her. Because Latika was too tipsy — could that be possible? — certainly too tipsy to make a difficult phone call. Really, she was no help at all. Latika drunk. What could be more unreal?
“Oh Latika, what are we to tell her son!” It was a despairing cry.
Latika opened her eyes with an effort. “The manager will find her. He’ll do it. He is a. . most capable man.”
“But he isn’t God. Latika, how can you be this way when there is such a crisis?”
Latika had another sip of the vodka. She took off her glasses, closed her eyes, and rested her head against the wall. When she spoke her voice was so soft that Vidya had to lean forward to catch her words before the wind threw them away.
“I was in college when I fell in love with a man who lived at the other end of my street. He was from a religious, traditional Konkani family. Handsome, green-eyed, tall, Greek-looking, as Konkanis can be. His family had a beautiful house with ancient tamarind trees, sculptures in the garden, tame doves. They were very rich. We met because he would come every day in a grey car to pick up his daughter from the junior school next to my college. One day he gave me a ride home along with the girl. Over some weeks it became a habit and nobody thought anything of it because he was married and a neighbour and of course his daughter was in the car with us. Then we started meeting each other in secret — I would skip a class and he would come earlier to the college so that we had an hour in the car without the child. I knew it was mad, but there was nothing I could do to fight it. We loved each other. It didn’t feel wrong or bad. But of course nothing was possible and then bits of gossip began floating around. . someone saw me getting into the car alone, someone else saw me with him far away from home. My brother was ragged about it in his school. . so that was it. I was packed off to Bhopal to live with an aunt. It was an overnight train I had to take and my brother was sent with me to guard my chastity. Those old second-class coaches. The bunks on top were divided with such a low partition you could touch someone on the other side through it if you tried. My Konkani had somehow managed to get the next bunk. All night, we held hands through that jolting partition. I could hear him crying. Not sobs, but ragged breaths, sniffing sounds, as if he had a cold. My wrist ached, it got a bruise from being twisted through the partition. I felt as if I could hear my heart break. I was very young, you see. My brother was sleeping just a few feet below me in the lower bunk, and he had no idea.”
“And then?”
“Then. . nothing. The Konkani got off the train before daybreak. His family moved to some other town altogether, so we couldn’t meet even when I came home for holidays. I never saw him again.”
The hotel was in darkness, and now that the radio had stopped they could hear the frenzied barking of dogs in the distance.
“I haven’t thought about all this for years,” Latika said. “Why am I babbling this way?”
Vidya opened her mouth to reply, but Latika went on,
“It’s the sea. The sound of it. It brought back so many old things I thought I had forgotten. I should have been thinking of Gouri, not myself.”
“Do you think we will find her?” Vidya sounded too tired now for despair.
“We will,” Latika said. “Tomorrow the sun will be up again and everything will change.”
There was nothing in their ears but the deep roar of the ocean.
Latika looked beyond the verandah’s banister, at the sky. It had a pale red glow, a storm was imminent. The moon and stars, so clear the evening before, were hidden behind low clouds.
“Shall we go for a stroll?” she said.
“Might as well. We have to stay up till the manager comes back with his search party.”
The hotel staff had furled and tied away the big striped umbrellas that dotted the lawn. In the yellow glow of its submerged lights, patterns of blue and green rippled across the surface of the swimming pool. Latika thought she saw a frog swimming in it. The grass of the lawn felt dew-wet already, and they could taste salt on their lips. They walked down the path to the gate at the back of the hotel’s garden and unlatched it.
A guard came running out of the darkness and shouted, “Aunty! Madam! Where are you going?”
“We want to walk to the sea.”
“It’s not safe this late. A storm is coming, can’t you see? I cannot let you go. I’ll lose my job if you are swept off the beach. It’s too dangerous.”
Latika walked ahead and opened the gate. The sea brimmed at the horizon. The charging waves ate up most of the sky before flinging themselves onto the sand, battering the upturned boats. Not another soul there, nothing apart from the shadows of two men further down the beach, one apparently kneeling in the sea, another emerging from it. The man coming out of the water was very tall. The man kneeling was trying to get up.