ISSUE 38

The morning of the sixteenth had been clear and bright.  It was mid-month, when, as Gauri knew, the home budget froze up considerably and bitterly. But she was thinking of the weather, and that for once, the forecast of the night before had been right. The clearness hadn’t lasted, though. Late in the evening, the humidity had stuck everywhere cloying, and it had begun drizzling.

Little wet needles had stung Gauri full on the face as she went out into the small walled-in courtyard to gather the clothes. Over the flapping clothesline, across the low line of uneven bricks, she looked up at the high-rise that loomed over her and the shacks around, just a few lights on in its fifteen floors. As she looked on, a window somewhere went dark. The next moment she had seen Hasmukh Singh, the first time that entire day having successfully avoided him all day.

He stood there, a menacing shadow framed by a high window, his arms stretched out, holding onto the panes, then throwing them open wider so he could see her clearly in her courtyard, far down. The way he had gazed in the beginning, when he had followed her from room to room, his hand on the door jamb or handle, like a threat. Gauri stopped mid-thought and stood still, knowing for sure that his eyes were trained on her, that in the glow of the lightbulb in the courtyard, she was clearly visible.

Gauri pulled the bedsheet, now dry, from the clothesline. She could even cover herself with it. But, it seemed, he opened the window wider, and she felt an urge to laugh. She was safe here, where he could not make a grab for her, his wrinkled gnarled hands scaly on her skin. For the briefest of seconds, she saw his hand black, almost fly-like, outlined in the light that came from behind him. The next moment, the wind fluttered, and the clothes slapped against her face. The shape at the window high up took on a darker hue, it shook in the rain, and she heard a low dull thud. The sound of something falling on hard cement not too far away, but just then the rain increased, a steady drumming in her ears.

From inside, the familiar signature tune of a tv serial drifted out and she knew it was ten. It was time to make the rotis for dinner. Gauri warmed herself by the gas stove, shivered, rubbed her eyes. She did this several times, blinking often, trying to clear her vision. She thought of the shadow high up and knew she had started seeing things, like that woman on tv who often saw her long-lost son as she travelled around the city. All Gauri now longed for was a good, long night’s sleep. She bent over the low fire, and not too far away, she heard her daughter Mamta’s mumbled voice. The girl quickly straightened, but it was too late, she had almost fallen asleep over her book.

‘Sit up,’ Gauri thwacked her on the shoulder, gently with her ladle and then again, a bit harder. The girl looked set to cry, but even Mamta knew that tears were of little use in the world, even at home. Mother and daughter looked at each other angrily.

‘If you’re not serious about your studies, why should I work so hard?’ Gauri beat the ladle on the floor, ‘You can end up like me, your whole life spent cleaning other people’s houses. I don’t need to take loans.’ Almost on cue, her husband raised the tv volume. Between the two of them, father and daughter, they’d rather she just worked herself to the bone for them.

Gauri threw the pan at him; she knew it was empty and light, so would not hurt. But he sprang from the bed, showing a vicious energy as he came toward her. But she held him off, with the tongs now hot from the fire, and she heard her daughter scream from behind. Every day ended like this. She, living in terror of Hasmukh Singh and then in fear of her husband and his unexpected tantrums.

This evening, the reflection of the stove’s thin orange flame died down as she saw the rage dim in her husband’s eyes before he turned away. The rest of the evening passed in silence. They did not look at each other, her husband only nodding as she pushed the rotis and potato curry toward him. Her daughter shaking her head to the milk she offered.

Gauri persisted, pushing half a cup in front of her, placing it next to Mamta’s thick math book, and her old pencil box, with its multiple scratches and cello-taped edges. The girl never said much. Gauri saw her pull the old bedsheet over herself, and a wave of tenderness assailed her. It seeped into her fatigue, and she wanted to weep it all away. Instead, she patted her daughter to sleep, running her hands over Mamta, tentatively at first, as if afraid of a rebuff and then with relief, for her daughter let her smooth her hair away from her face, caress her shoulders. And outside, the rain dimmed and rose again, and Gauri’s head drooped on the pillow next to her daughter, feeling a relief, as the voices in the tv dwindled to a soft neighbourhood chatter, and the rainfall overhead took on a friendly tapping.

She was relieved she had seen this day through.

Tomorrow she would have to face Hasmukh Singh again. The vision of him falling flashed before her again, and she closed her eyes tight, wishing such images and thoughts away. She was tired, and even if she found the man obnoxious, it never helped to have bad thoughts about anyone. Tomorrow, she would just have to think up excuses again. Perhaps another text to Hasmukh Singh telling him her daughter was unwell. She said a prayer warding away evil; what kind of a mother was she that she wanted her daughter sick?

The resolution came to her almost as she fell asleep. She would call the madam up in Delhi and tell her she could no longer work for her father. She would never go again to that 12th floor apartment. But that momentary relief was swept away by another thought – one that came up straggling, behind every other thought. The big loan the madam had given her; somehow, she would have pay it off. For a day, she had succeeded in avoiding Hasmukh Singh and she would have to keep avoiding him, no matter the hard times she’d have to go through. She was now too frightened of the man.

Or perhaps it was better that she did not answer if the madam called. The phone would ring on and she wouldn’t answer. She would silence it, will it to stop ringing but the madam had always been the persistent type.

The cell phone rang, and her husband prodded her awake, nudging her shoulder. ‘Phone, answer it.’

It was the madam. Gauri recognised her breathless, high-pitched voice instantly.  ‘Daddy is not answering. I tried three hours ago, and he didn’t call me back.’ She stopped and then asked, ‘Do you know if he’s all right?’

Gauri rearranged her sari and looked for water for her mouth had gone suddenly dry, and only then did she ask, ‘Madam, how are you?’

‘Gauri,’ the madam sounded agitated. ‘I know it’s late. But Daddy is not answering. You were in his flat making dinner, right?’

‘No, no.’

‘What?’ that word burst out, staccato and intense.

‘No,’ Gauri replied as she thought wildly. Her eyes blinked, she saw the light had come on, and she was looking straight into her husband’s eyes as she replied. ‘He did not want dinner. So, I didn’t go. I didn’t go today at all.’

‘You didn’t go today at all?’ Madam’s voice had gone into a permanent surprise mode.

‘I didn’t go today at all. ’Gauri was trembling, she turned away from her husband’s puzzled gaze, saw her own ghostly self in the mirror. Earlier, she had lied to him about Hasmukh Singh being unwell that evening. He would now use that as a reason to doubt whatever she said next.  Mamta moaned and turned over. Gauri ran out, her daughter had school tomorrow and needed all her sleep. Outside it still rained. That slow, insistent rain, it made her feel she had seen the old man only just moments ago.

‘I didn’t go today, but I saw him.’

‘Saw him? But he’s not answering.’ Gauri stood there in the rain, the madam’s voice insistent against her ear. ‘You have the keys, Gauri. Can you check on him?’

She didn’t have reasons enough to refuse the madam. She would never be believed; she was poor and just looked so ordinary. Hasmukh Singh had retired as the finance director of a big company. He had travelled a lot. She was their maid, someone appointed by the madam to care for the apartment and cook for her father. She was beholden to all of them.

‘I will call back in ten minutes,’ she said, and then the madam had disconnected.

Gauri turned back indoors, counting her every step, looking up, even praying so it would rain harder. Hard enough that the streets would flood over like it had some ten years ago when she had to wade through chest high water to reach the station.

‘Where are you going?’ Her husband’s voice broke into her thoughts. He was sitting up, and the tv had come back on. He always needed its sound around him.

‘Hasmukh Sahib.’

She reached for her small purse, next to the tv. She jingled it, checking for the keys to the apartment. She should have returned them that very morning. Then she could have let the madam know once and for all. ‘Madam needs me to check something.’

He grunted. He did not suggest that he come with her. Even he would not believe her. The money she made, sustained them. And there was the loan.

‘You cannot leave her,’ she said mechanically. He turned to their daughter, leaning across the thin divide between their beds to arrange the sheet carefully over Mamta. It was then Gauri slipped in something else, next to her blouse. Something cold and steely, the small kitchen knife. Old enough never to fail her. She placed it carefully, holding her breath, lifting her arms so carefully her bangles made no noise.

‘Go on then. Don’t linger.’

She took the umbrella, the rain fell around and over her, and drops splashed onto her sari, as she deliberately stepped in the puddles. Slap. Slap, splash. The silver drops rose and struck her. Everything appeared to be mocking her. The puddles turned orange, then grainy, flickered and flashed as they grew bigger or even shrunk. It seemed the day that had gone by had been wasted in every measure. Things she had set hopes on, had not worked out.  Like looking for another apartment to work in. Gauri had tried to find a new one, or else manipulate things in such a way that someone, another maid, was dismissed and she could take her place.

She walked around the high wall to get to the gates of the high-rise, looking up and then realising that her shack faced the building’s other end, and that even her imagination couldn’t conjure up Hasmukh Singh now, where she had seen him an hour or so ago. But she shook her head, alarmed at where her dark thoughts were taking her. Maybe he had stood at the window briefly, and the curtains had billowed out behind him, the way they often did when the wind was strong.

The metallic smell that wafted from the toothpaste factory every night was in the air. The stale mix of sea and salt came in, and then of drying fish. The keys shook in her purse again. She heard the slow drip of water, as it fell off the ledges, and then the low howling of a dog. It was the golden retriever on the 8th floor that everyone loved. A dog pampered and showered with attention always. She did agree with the truth that a dog’s life was often better.

Gauri could take the security guard up with her, but now she trusted no one in the closed elevator. She looked up fearfully. No one else would be up on any floor at this hour. Perhaps old Hasmukh Singh was, waiting for her. He was strong, and her knife wouldn’t help, especially if he took her by surprise.

She would have the knife out the moment the door opened. Maybe the call had just been a ruse. He knew his daughter would call to check on him and he hadn’t answered. Or maybe it was possible he had died in the middle of the night. She wondered if he had had a heart attack. He wouldn’t be able to reach the phone in time in time and dial anyone, not even her. He never received many calls, except the occasional one from his daughter. When he wasn’t following her around with his eyes, Gauri had seen him, staring with a stricken look at his phone.

He had looked up and caught her gaze. Now the thought of his voice close to her ear terrified her. The way he had come up to her only some days ago as she washed the dishes in the kitchen. She had left the door open in case the washer man came. Still Hasmukh Singh had crept up, his stale breath on her neck, the side of her cheek, and then his nasal voice reedy with insinuation. ‘Have you scrubbed it well? Yesterday there was a coriander leaf on the plate. And the glass smelled of egg.’

And just two days or so ago, she had been leaning over the bucket when she had felt his eyes on her. He was biding his time. She now always had the cell phone with her, set in quick dial mode to her husband’s number. There were times he didn’t answer but a ringing cell phone was a good dissuader.

The security guard at the gate looked surprised as she neared, and their eyes met across the iron grills. He opened a pane to let her in. ‘Gauri! Now?’

She did not miss the curiosity and the hint of suggestion in his voice. How this conversation went depended on her. She dully signed the register that regulated entry. ‘Yes, madam wants me to check.’

‘Are you sure?’ he giggled, hiccupped, and then stopped. There was something in his eyes. She saw the glass, next to the bottle, hidden away under his stool, and turned away.

He called up through the intercom, following the usual protocol of letting residents know about a visitor. Gauri was already walking away, when she heard his voice behind her. ‘He’s not answering.’

‘That’s what the madam said.’

She would take the stairs, walk all the way up to the 12th floor. It would give her more time. The door leading to the staircase was at the very end. The two garbage bins smelled, she saw a cat bounding out from one, and through the white paned skylight, she saw the rain, leaving tear stains on the glass.

She had taken the stairs once before, the time the electricity had failed. It had left her panting and breathless. The lady she then worked for, who lived by herself on the 9th floor and was now dead, had been upset. She had been crying, for it meant Gauri had to rush through her chores. They always had a last long conversation over tea – a routine the lady insisted on, before Gauri left for work in other apartments.

There were two flights of stairs for every floor. Ten steps and then another ten before she reached another floor. She turned the flashlight on in her cell phone. It cast a thin pencil light, enhancing the darkness around.

She would take the steps slowly. Inside the old dank stairwell, the connectivity was poor. The madam would find it hard reach her, and by the time Gauri reached the apartment, there was every chance that Hasmukh Singh had given up waiting for her and fallen asleep.

In the darkness, her thoughts were clearer, her memory worked better. It was just a day ago, in the afternoon, soon after she had placed the food on the table, that she had felt his dry, scaly hands on her wrist, and then on her breast, and his old, decaying breath on her face. It had made her gag. Now she stopped, barely five steps done, feeling the need to throw up again.

That was yesterday. That was why that morning, only some hours ago, she had refused to go to work in that apartment, for fear of having to look at him, of feeling his presence close. Her heart closed at the thought.

She had looked, immediately, for a job with the madam on the 10th floor, though she knew Lakshmi worked for her already. Lakshmi, who had two daughters in school, and a husband who worked in the Gulf. And this madam and her husband on the 10th floor had only that one daughter who was away in hostel and so there were just the two of them. That meant light work. But the madam was known to be finicky. She fussed over everything and was suspicious too. She followed the maids, from room to room as they did their work, pretending to speak on her cell phone while she watched them. And she had rules for everything. The water for mopping the floors had to be changed twice. She even sniffed the utensils, bringing them close to her face. She checked for her bindi on every stainless-steel plate just to assure herself they had been scrubbed thoroughly. She screamed if the lights were left onto for too long, or if the detergent got over too quickly.

Even the knowledge that Gauri had gone to meet the 10th floor madam would put Lakshmi off. Still, Gauri had gone to the madam and made her case. Her daughter needed to study, Gauri begged, and so she needed more work than before.

But all the madam had said was that she had to speak to Hasmukh Singh’s daughter in Delhi first.  ‘We are old friends. I cannot spoil my relations by taking her maid away.’

Gauri had made her excuses and left. Now with her knife she scraped the wall next to her, she had just made it to the 2nd floor.  She wrote the numbers 12 and crossed them out.

There were all the other buildings around this one. New ones that had come up in recent years, all on old textile mill land. There was Flamingo’s Nest, 20 stories high, built right over an old cemetery. It had been on tv recently especially after a young girl had drowned in the swimming pool.

She made a cross on the 3rd floor. There was the equally posh Glen Eagle. The rumours were that only the super-rich lived there. They were so wealthy that service agencies did their housekeeping and they had trained nannies for their children.

No, she made two lines in the form of a cross again, this time on the 4th floor, dragging the knife on the wall from a point somewhere near her shoulder so it made a line diagonally crossing her torso to end at her waist.

If she ran out of options, she would return to the 14th floor, where the young film director lived. No maid had ever lasted there. And none of the maids she knew worked for him. She had been working for him two years ago. She thought it would be easy and it was. He was unmarried then, and still was, though she too had heard of the girlfriend. A Singaporean tv star who visited often during the weekends. But not having a woman in the house was a good thing. Sometimes a woman got too fussy. Men weren’t and especially not this director who had been absent-minded but there was his shaggy mop of hair and that mischievous glint in his eyes.

The way he had engaged her that first time still made her laugh. ‘All right, so you’re here for dusting mopping? Only that?’ He was scratching his hair, and then he had blinked, trying to get her into focus. That made her giggle. Before she had sobered up, he had shrugged, ‘Yes, start then.’

Most of the time he had not been there. Or, she would find him asleep on his couch, next to his open laptop, headphones strapped to his ears. He was nice in a way and had saved a stray dog once. The guards fed the mongrel regularly till his own car had run over the animal.

But there had been that afternoon he had alarmed Gauri. He had stumbled out of the bedroom and smiled deliriously on seeing her. She had held the mop in front of her, and he had stretched out an arm. It held a bottle of oil and he wanted a massage. ‘I don’t do that, sahib,’ she had blurted.

‘Why not?’ he had said but he made no advance.

‘No,’ she had repeated.

‘Come on, just because it’s not in your list of duties.’ He had winced then, lifting a hand to his shoulder. ‘I have this pain.’

‘Sahib, you should just rest. And I need to go.’

She had rushed out and never returned, not even to collect the wages he still owed her.

Director. She wrote the letters out carefully. She knew how it was spelled for she had read it on his name plate. She wrote out every letter clearly, in capitals and this time didn’t cross it out.

She remembered the loan she still owed the madam. Rs. 25,000. Just for her daughter to apply to the coaching classes that apparently guaranteed admission to an engineering college. She would need a bigger sum if Mamta indeed secured admission into a good college, even a private one. Gauri had already pawned her jewellery.

Maybe she could return to her village. Ask for her share in the family land. But there was no point thinking over that. She had never gone back. Ever since that marriage no one had approved of. She had wanted to marry the boy from Bombay. He had a good job those days. Till the mills closed, the city changed, even its name was altered by a political party that promised to bring much change but hadn’t otherwise done much good to anyone.

She had once waited for her husband every time he went to the shakha, the local headquarters of the party, but he came back always empty-handed and reeking of drink. At least for the sake of their daughter, he had given that up. Though he still believed that what he did was more important than any regular job. He was a member of the party. He disrupted rallies, he broke into pubs, he had once blackened a newspaperman’s face, and then he had even barged into a theatre, forcibly interrupting proceedings after a Muslim actor had dared play Draupadi.

But he could, she thought now, get a decent job as a delivery boy, even a courier.

Or a driver. Maybe she could enrol him in a driving school. She passed the 6th and 7th floors, her feet now hurting, the knife seemed heavy, and her left hand felt warm from holding onto her cell phone. She put the phone down on the step ahead, stretched and looked out. A bit of the city stretched out and beyond the scaffolding of another new high-rise, she saw the black murky carpet of the sea.

She could try other jobs that paid more. A beautician’s, or even a factory worker. There were jobs she knew in the factories two hours away. She would take the train just after her daughter left for school; the 7.15 one.

She lifted her tired hand and made another notch. 7, the time she would have to leave for the station in the morning. She’d take the train to Borivali where she would work for the towel company. It was all done by machines but the girls who worked stuck the labels in and sorted them out for quality. Sometimes they were even allowed to take away the towels with faults in them. Soft, fluffy and thick, just like hotel towels.

Gauri felt sleepy and tired. There were only four floors left, and she heard the silence around her. The madam had not called. She leaned against the wall and then found herself sliding gently so her bottom found the floor, and her head came gently against the wall. She would just rest here for a bit, gather her breath back.

Gauri awoke a long time later. She heard a woman’s voice first, and then other voices. She also made out the hollow thumping of steps.

She jerked upright, now fully awake. The sun came in from the skylight, warm on her face. She saw she was on the 10th floor, the letters were bold on the door, now slightly ajar, that led onto the landing , and she heard the voices drifting over.

Gauri looked down at her phone. Then she saw the missed calls – at least four of them, one from the madam and then calls from her husband. She went very still, feeling her legs begin to tremble. Over her head, through the skylight, she heard slaps, sounds of skin hitting skin, someone snarling about someone drinking and then a quavering reply. It was the security guard.

‘No, no one came in. I do not know. I do not drink much, sahib.’

‘Be sure. Did anyone come? Come on.’

‘No no, sir. I did see Gauri.’

‘And did you see her leave?’

The reply came a long time later, in a voice more shaken than before. ‘Yes, yes.’

There was another slap. ‘We will ask her. Now go, wash your face.’

‘I am serious about my job, sir.’

The guard was weeping now. She felt sorry. He once lived with his mother and two brothers. But the brothers had moved out to other cities, and there he was alone with his mother. For some time, he had gone to his brother’s house in Pune. He had even shown Gauri the photos from his time there. But his sister-in-law had not liked him, and he had come back to this job. Gauri also knew the director passed on his unfinished liquor bottles to him. He could not drink at home and so he had done it in his quiet duty hours.

‘Where is this Gauri?’

‘She must be at work somewhere,’ said another voice. ‘We must check the register.’

Gauri felt a new panic and rose hurriedly. Then holding onto the banisters, raced down, one floor after another. Through a window, when she stopped once, she saw the police jeeps, and the crowds milling everywhere. She hoped her daughter had gone to school. And then, only a floor later, through another window, she saw her husband in the crowd. He had a frown on his face, his brow was all scrunched up. He looked anxious. She stood watching him, unable to move. She had never seen him worry so much for her. She wanted to stay in this moment for ever.

He was frowning, staring and in that moment, Gauri knew he was looking right at her. He moved to raise his hand, but Gauri ducked out of sight. She ran down but knew she couldn’t run up to him.  She ducked low as she passed another window, another floor.

She recognised her own knife markings erratic on the walls. She stopped, hoping to erase them. But one of her bangles broke and the shards fell around her. She did not stop to pick them up. She ran back again, all the way back to the 10th floor but no higher. Panting now. Afraid to sit down, but when she did, she found she could not get up.

Perhaps it was better to rest again for a bit. She heard the stairwell fill with the sound of her breathing. Loud, panting, and broken up. It was like her heart would burst. She felt the pain everywhere, in her heart, her knees, her breath came heavy through her lips and there was the dampness on her back.

Moments later, when her breathing had stilled, she heard another voice, coming from a different direction. It was the director and he was coming up the stairs. She knew she should get up and hide but she couldn’t. For his words came slowly toward her, as he took a step at a time, talking to someone on his cell phone. And she understood him, with all his swear words, and the nasal twang in his voice. ‘They have blocked the elevator, the idiots. I have to take the darned stairs. Good heavens, the man committed suicide in the night. It’s a straightforward case. But the police will drag it out.’

If she leaned over the banister, Gauri knew she could see him. She sat down again, her head against the wall and longing to fall asleep all over again. Just some floors below she knew her husband waited. Perhaps he would get his party men to come to her rescue.

‘I have an idea,’ the director was saying. He had stopped somewhere and then seconds later, she heard the smoke drift up from his cigarette. It was against the building laws to smoke but the director wasn’t bothered about such things.

‘That scene at the end, where the two brothers fight over the will?  I have an idea now, where the sister throws the father’s will out of the window. I just saw it happen. There was that breeze, and the paper, the suicide note the man had written … yes, the dead man. Don’t interrupt, yaar. Yes, it floated out, drifting and dancing in the wind. It made for quite a picture.  Oh, yes, they did retrieve the note.’

He said after a pause. ‘Yes, it was good the rain had stopped.’

Yes, she realised looking through the window. It had stopped raining. She would go home and hang the washing out again. The sun was gentle on her head, and she felt a relief. Yes, the rain had stopped. Thank heaven for that.