Betrayals And Paybacks Page 2

  “Hello….may I speak to Tarun, please?” There was a short pause and then, “May I know who this is?”

  “I’m Vedant…..” he began impatiently.

  “Oh you are his brother!” the voice cut in, breathlessly, “I’m sorry…” There was a long pause and then, “We were going to call you….hmmm…about your brother…I think your brother may be in some sort of trouble. You see, he hasn’t come home since the last four days and we were getting worried.”

  Stunned, Vedant stared at the phone. This wasn’t happening! This was a nightmare! He was going to wake up! Wake up!

  “Four days ago, he left the house to check up on some problem in the village and never returned,” the voice continued.

  “What?! Why wasn’t I informed?” he knew he was shouting but he was past caring now. His best friend was dead and his brother had disappeared and he hadn’t been around when they had needed him. “And who the hell are you?...”

  Perhaps he would have continued ranting, but the voice on the other end said timidly, “I’m your brother’s wife and I… I… didn’t know how to contact you.”

  “Brother’s wife? Tarun’s wife?” he stared at the receiver, now sure he was having a nightmare.

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  Chapter 2

  Misha Varma tossed around in her bed. The house was so quiet she could hear the rustling of the leaves in the light breeze outside. Hell, she could hear her own heartbeat. She wished she could sleep. Just slip into oblivion. This heartache was unbearable now. Nothing she did helped. In the days after, her brother, Jay’s, death people had flooded her house, each trying to console her in their own way. But she had been numb with shock. She had been aware of the murmuring voices and their sympathetic tone, but she couldn’t take in a word they were saying. She had been unable to reconcile herself to the fact that Jay was gone. Suicide?! There was no reason for him to commit suicide; she had wanted to scream at them all. But they all believed that was what had happened.

  Even Raunak Goud and Raunak would know. He was the local police station in-charge and her fiancé. He was the one that was investigating Jay’s death and Raunak wouldn’t lie to her. It was because of Raunak and his mother that she kept going, living each day, pretending like it was going to be okay. But when she was alone it would all come rushing back and nothing would seem right.

  First her mother and then her father had died. She couldn’t even remember her mother. Just vague memories of her; cuddling or kissing her to comfort her. She did not remember her mother’s death. With her father it had been different. She had been about twenty, when he had passed away. Jay and she had been shattered when he was suddenly gone, but they had each other. Jay had been her pillar of strength, comforting her, taking up the responsibilities at the farm and the house. Even as children, he had been more than her older brother. He had been her best friend, her mother, her father, everything she had ever needed. They had been close. Now six years later, he was gone too, leaving her alone.

  She remembered how happy he had been when she came home this time around. She had just taken up a job offer in a big firm in Bangalore. He had begged her to come, before she took up that assignment. She recalled how when the train was pulling up at the station; he had run alongside it and hopped onto it. Rushing towards her, he had swung her up in his arms, turning her around as if she was still ten. But perhaps for him, she had always been his kid sister. How proud he had been of her success, showing her off to anyone who cared to listen.

  A week later, when she had accepted Raunak’s proposal for marriage, he had been a little hesitant. He had wanted her to wait and tried to convince her that she was settling for less. She guessed he was waiting for Vedant to come home. But as far as she was concerned that chapter of her life was over. She was done waiting for him. Eight years ago, he had walked away from them, taking with him her naïve dreams, without so much as a goodbye. She was now almost twenty six and old enough to exchange those romantic dreams for reality. She had moved on.

  Raunak had been in touch with her for the past four years. He had been in the city undergoing training at the academy and they met often. Initially, it had been just two friends catching up with each other in a new city, but gradually she felt drawn by his gentle nature. He could make her laugh and she could tell him all her worries and troubles. He was the pillar she could lean on. He was always there, no matter what she needed him for and when he finally popped the question she had said yes, without any hesitation.

  She convinced Jay that she loved Raunak and accepted him as her future husband. Finally, he had bent to her wishes and had gone ahead and thrown her a very lavish engagement party. He had been happy for her.

  She felt the hot tears running down her cheeks and buried her face into her pillow, trying to muffle the sobs. In the silence of the room, even her muted sobs sounded loud to her ears. She clutched her pillow desperately. She felt so alone, so lost.

  As the surge of desperation ebbed, she went over the events of the past few days, for the hundredth time. What had she not seen? Jay had been happy enough. Everything had appeared normal. He had been a little preoccupied sometimes and she had seen him sneaking away at night, once or twice. But she had given very little thought to it. It had been kind of normal. When he had been younger, he would take off with Vedant late into the night. ‘Boys Night’ they would call it, effectively keeping her out and it usually involved some wild partying. Maybe he had finally found someone else to hang out with, she had thought.

  That was, until one day she had chanced upon him in the woods near their house. She had been surprised to see him crawl out of the small opening of the cave. It was the opening of the secret passage, leading to the Heritage Palace Hotel. Hiding behind a tree, she had observed him cover the opening with some thorny bushes. When she had confronted him later, he had brushed aside her concerns. The passage should be preserved, he said. It was part of the heritage, wasn’t it? And you never know when somebody might need to use it again, he had smiled at her.

  That passage had been their secret doorway into the Heritage as children. No one else had known about it, except for Vedant, Jay and herself. They would use it to slip in and out of the Hotel as they pleased. It had been their secret. And now, seeing him use it had jarred those memories making her lose her temper. She knew he was hoping that Vedant would just pop back some day and she had been furious. They had a huge argument over it. Though, now that she thought about it, it hadn’t been so much of an argument as much as she telling him off for being a sentimental fool.

  But that was it. Nothing was jarringly abnormal. No matter how many times she went over the events of the past few days, she still couldn’t find the reason for him to have taken such a drastic step. Even under the most trying circumstances, he had always been cheerful and faced any situation head on. He never backed down. And he was the most alive person she knew.

  But then again, she had been away for the last six years and what did she know about his life here? There had been some changes this time around. For example, he had been spending a lot of time at the Hotel, with Tarun. In the initial years after Vedant left, Jay had stopped going there altogether. She had sensed a strain in his relationship with Tarun. Though Tarun was perfectly cordial to them whenever they met, Jay used to avoid him. But lately it had looked like he had patched up with Tarun. He would spend hours, helping Tarun at the hotel. Even though it wasn’t the tourist season yet, it was still overflowing with guests, he told her. Sometimes he came home very late in the night and at other times, not at all.

  That was why it hadn’t been all that odd when he hadn’t come home that night. She had assumed that he was still at the hotel. It was only the next day when Raunak called her to the hospital and she had seen his body that she had known. She chewed her lower lip, trying to stop herself from remembering how he had looked in death. She did not want to remember him like that. She wanted to remember the happy, throbbing with life, Jay, who once told her, that people who took the
ir own life probably spent eons flitting between life and death and suffering all the pain they were supposed to face, again and again.

  Also there were other glaring discrepancies. The wall of the Hotel’s terrace was thick and high and would have been very difficult to scale. So why had he chosen to jump from the top of the hotel? He could have just jumped into the river if he had wanted to end his life. When she had expressed her doubts to Raunak, he had assured her, he would look at the case from every angle before he closed it. She trusted him. Also everyone believed that Jay had committed suicide.

  Sometimes, like now, when she was alone she would believe it herself. True, he always appeared happy to her but then that had been Jay. He would have done anything to keep her happy. She sighed. And there was no reason for anybody to lie, was there? Raunak had even shown her the post mortem report. Maybe Mrs Goud was right. Maybe she was in denial. It could just be that she did not want to believe, that her brother, who never backed down from facing a challenge, could take his own life. Besides he did not have any enemies. Not here, in Tamara. People had loved him. He never hurt a soul in his life.

  She turned on her back and stared up at the ceiling, desperate now for sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come. Maybe she should take those damn sleeping pills the local doctor had prescribed her. At least, she could then slip into a dreamless darkness, where for a few hours she would be free of all these doubts and pain. She pushed back the thin sheet covering her and stood up and then immediately sat right back as a bout of dizziness overtook her. She hadn’t been eating well either and the lack of sleep and food, was finally catching up with her.

  Damn you, Jay! Why did you do this to me? Why? We had promised to be there for each other. How could you have just left?

  She pulled her knees tight against her chest hugging it, curling into herself, sobbing her heart out; now uncaring that she was crying so loudly. She sat there for quite some time rocking herself to and fro. No! She told herself, sternly, she was not going to go on like this. She had to pull herself together and live her life. Just because Jay was a coward, she wouldn’t be one too. She could do it. She would live even if it killed her.

  Determinedly, she stood right back up, this time more slowly and waited a few minutes for the dizziness to pass and then made her way downstairs. The old wooden stairs creaked beneath her bare feet, though in the silence, it was as loud as a scream. Her feet touched the cold of the living room floor and suddenly she did not want to go through with it. She almost turned around and went back to the warmth of her bed. She could feel the rise of nauseous bile in her throat at the thought of food. But she stopped herself. If she had to start living again, she had to start now. Forcing herself to cross the living room and into the kitchen, she stopped in front of the refrigerator. Suppressing the increasing nausea, she forced herself to open it and look inside. The house was in total darkness and the sudden light from the refrigerator blinded her and she blinked, trying to focus.

  It was well stocked with cooked food; courtesy of her future mother-in-law, Mrs Goud. For the past few days she had religiously turned up at her doorstep with food and Misha hadn’t had the heart to refuse her. She would take it, thank her and after promising to eat it, dump it into the fridge as soon as she left.

  Now, she looked around for something that she could just swallow. She kept opening container after container, until she found one having some rice pulao. Perfect. She shut the refrigerator door with a vengeance and walked to the table, putting it down with a loud clatter. She deliberately pulled the chair and sat down before digging into the pulao with her fingers and started to swallow it without really tasting it. It was painful, as if her throat had closed up and after a few mouthfuls she gave up, pushing the container away. The food, she had swallowed, pushed its way back up her throat and she ran towards the kitchen sink.

  In another minute she had vomited out whatever she had swallowed and then spent the next few seconds retching, till she could feel the bitterness of the bile in her mouth. Exhausted, she straightened up and leaned against the wall for support with her eyes closed, waiting for her stomach to settle back again. Reaching over, she plucked a glass from the rack and started to fill it up, absently looking out the window. This window overlooked the backyard and she could barely see the dark outline of the barn. She stared at it without really seeing it, until a flicker of light caught her eye. Someone was moving around the barn, silently and they were using a dim flashlight so as not to draw attention to themselves. She gasped and dropped the glass filled with water. It fell onto the stone floor, smashing to bits and the noise was so loud, she was sure the whole village heard it.

  The flashlight went off and the barn was dark again. Her heart thudding furiously against her chest, Misha ran towards the barn, flicking on the lights in the yard as she went. But whoever it was had disappeared. The noise of the breaking glass had probably frightened them away. She let herself into the barn, switching on the lights here as well. She had never thought of locking it. In this village, it had never been necessary. Throwing a quick glance around, she found it empty. It had been a cattle-shed during the days of her father, but Jay had converted it into some sort of a storeroom. His books and other useful tools that he used around the farm and the house were stacked against the walls. In one corner, stood his old jeep, a dusty cover thrown carelessly over it. Nothing looked out of place as far as she could tell.

  She stepped back into the house and bolted the door. Who had it been and what were they searching for in the barn, in the dead of the night? Did she really see someone or was it a figment of her imagination, brought on by the stress of the past few days?

  Maybe things would be clearer in the morning. She could talk to Raunak when he came to see her. Since the death of her brother, Raunak had made it a point to drop in on her every morning, before he went to the police station and on his way back in the evenings. By midmorning, his mother would drop by and stay with her for some time, helping her with the household chores and then there was always a steady stream of visitors from the village, who came to see how she was coping. Though, sometimes she wished they would leave her alone, at other times, she was grateful for the company. She felt drained, physically and mentally. It was all getting too much to comprehend and bear. Maybe she was past caring. Whatever the reason, as of now she would just take that pill and go to bed.

  Keeping the backyard light switched on, she went back to the kitchen found the pill and swallowed it with a glass of water. Then making her way back to her bedroom, flopped down on the bed and was fast asleep, before she knew it.

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  Chapter 3

  The loud and insistent knocking woke her. Groggily, Misha sat up in bed, trying to figure out the noise. The effect of the sleeping pill hadn’t worn off and she could feel the room spinning. She closed her eyes tight and then opened them again. The knocking on the front door was getting more and more insistent. It took her sometime to balance herself upright and by then, she was sure whoever was banging on her front door would break it down.

  “Hu…uh,” she groaned loudly, as she walked unsteadily to the window of her bedroom and looked down. From here, she could see her front porch and she found Raunak standing there gazing up, a worried frown on his face.

  “I will be right down,” she called to him and her words slurred a bit. She first walked to the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. That woke her up. Then made her way down as quickly as she could, trying to smooth the old t-shirt down. She curled her long hair into a bun, taking deep breaths as she walked to clear her head. When she opened the door, Raunak stared at her, his expression, an odd mixture of worry and relief.

  He was tall, about six feet two, with dark black hair cropped short and equally dark piercing eyes. His smooth clean shaven face had sharp features and the olive skin made him very attractive. Most of the girls Misha knew in the village swooned over him and thought she was lucky that he had chosen her. The khaki uniform only added to that att
raction. Since the last few days, she found herself thinking she was truly blessed to have him in her life.

  She could see the tight lines on his face, as she stepped aside to let him in. It looked like he too hadn’t been sleeping well.

  “I am sorry. Did I wake you? I got really worried when you did not open the door.” His voice was deep with emotion. She put her arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest. He immediately responded by holding her in a warm hug, gently rubbing her back. She let herself relax against him taking in the citrusy smell of his after shave.

  “I took that damn pill the doctor prescribed and fell asleep. I guess I would still be asleep, if you hadn’t threatened to break down the door,” She murmured into his chest.

  He stroked her hair and she could feel him kiss the top of her head, as he said softly, “Sorry, it is just that I… was… worried when I did not see you at…at the door as usual,” he was trying to sound casual. “But I am glad you got some sleep, though.” he added quickly.

  In that moment, Misha knew that she truly loved him. If it hadn’t been for him, she would never have survived Jay’s death. She reached up and kissed his cheek and untangling herself from his arms, smoothed the worried frown. “Don’t worry. I won’t give up like him,” she said, a little defiantly. She could feel the sting of tears at the back of her eyes. It was still painful to talk about Jay, but she remembered her resolve last night and she was going to stick to it.

  Unwilling to let him see her tears, she turned around and walked into the kitchen and he followed her.

  “Misha…I …” he said hesitantly, as if he did not want to alarm her. “You shouldn’t be staying here, by yourself.”

  “Why? What’s to be afraid of? Who would want to harm me?” she gave a short laugh.