I WANTED TO make sure that I got to the Sundrams early. Instead of bussing all the way as I usually do, I travelled overland from Changi to Eunos and there caught the MRT into town. It was near the rush hour but the train was empty. Most people were at this time travelling away from the city rather than into it and for most of the journey I had the compartment to myself. I was glad of this for I wished to be alone with my thoughts.

Vanita had not been in the office when I got back to it. This seemed only right for I expected her to be waiting for me at Cairnhill Circle.

I must have been foolish with hunger for I was becoming increasingly convinced that Kishore could actually summon Vanita’s ghost. What was more, I was certain that the presence he invoked would be capable not only of answering my questions, but of otherwise responding to me. It was difficult to believe, even in my present lightheaded state, that I would be able to see and touch her but I was sure that I would speak to her and, who knows, even get to smell her body. Anticipation made me dizzy. I was breathing heavily and was in a state of high sexual excitement. A middle-aged woman entered the compartment. I didn’t realise that my state was obvious to her till she looked over her shoulder when she left the train. She seemed relieved to see the doors close behind her.

I got off at Orchard. It had been sunny when I left Changi and I was surprised by the change in the weather. The sky was black and a premature dusk had fallen on the city. I could smell the lightning suspended in the clouds, taste the slight panic as people scurried about, clutching shopping bags or brief-cases, bumping into each other in their hurry to get home before the storm broke. I joined them and rushed along Orchard Road and got to Cairnhill Circle at five-thirty. It was dark. Night had fallen early to hide the entry of Vanita’s spirit into the world.

Kishore let me in. Behind him stood Leela. She glowered at his back but gave me a conspiratorial smile and followed this with a nod. As I followed Kishore in, she nodded again. I thought there was something she wished to say to me. She had been Vanita’s confidante. The warmth I felt for her was included in the longing I had for Vanita. I must, I told myself, find time to speak to the old lady alone after the seance.

“You, sir, have concurred with the constraints I prescribed as necessary for invocation of the girl’s spirit?”

“Of course, Mr Kishore. I have had only a glass of milk all day and as to the other thing…”

He smiled. “I understand. The object of your affections no longer has a material presence, so you have been forced to contain your desire till another vessel for your carnal effluences is found.”

I didn’t quite like the way he put it but nodded as he led me into the dining-room. This was in near darkness, lit only by an oil-lamp in the centre of the table. Things had been arranged so that Kishore sat at the head of the table with me on his right and father and son on his left.

“It is important that the person who last had physical contact with the girl sits, at all times, near my right hand, which is the hand I will use to try and grasp her spirit,” explained Kishore as we took our places. “The dead girl’s atman is even now in the process of uniting with the Divine All Presence. It is with reluctance that it returns, even temporarily, to this earthly plane. The jewel that flies towards the light has no desire to return to the corruption of the lotus. To draw it back requires the memory of its last carnal contact, so that the desire that remains from unburnt karma acts as a fleeting temptation for its return.”

All I knew about seances I had learnt from the movies and I asked, “Do we hold hands in a circle?”

“No,” Kishore said, with surprising vehemence. “Any bodily contact between us will act as an impediment to the atman emerging from the world of the spirit. Above all,” he looked steadily at Mohan, “there must be, more than any other thing, a craving, a desire for the girl’s spirit to be with us. Hostile influences will force it away.” He raised his hands and addressed us as a group. “Breathe in slowly and deeply. Fill your hearts with the air of goodness.” He paused while we did as instructed. “Now fold your hands over your chest and remember that, whatever happens, you must not speak to each other or make bodily contact.”

He lit several incense sticks. These he placed on the table beside him. Miraculously, they stayed upright. It took a good bit of peering to detect the little blobs of wax in which they were embedded. He held a piece of camphor to the flame of the lamp. The room was filled with acrid fumes. A brass decanter appeared in his hands from out of nowhere.

He stood up. “The man Menon, the dead girl’s lover, the man who last had carnal communion with her, must drink first.”

I remembered D’Cruz warning about food or drink being spiked and asked, “What’s in the decanter?”

Kishore looked at me contemptuously and said, “There is water from the well of the temple, so some part of a holy place is here with us, and this water from a sacred place has been perfumed with the essence of roses.”

I felt Vanita’s spirit hovering like the lightning outside the windows and would have drunk a mixture of hemlock and heroin to have her in the room with me. I leaned towards him and Kishore poured a small amount of fluid into my mouth. The strong smell of roses did not conceal the earthy taste of well-water.

“Then the father of the dead girl must savour this mixture of earth and fragrances, then her brother.” He poured the water into the mouths of Sundram and Mohan. “Now we must all, with one heart, remember the girl. The bells that chimed in her voice, the flowers that floated in her breath. Remember, you who loved her, the sweetness of her presence and the beauty of her person.” He began chanting in a whisper, his voice undulating, notes high and low threaded together by the ghost of a melody.

The chanting numbed me. Carried me on a wave into the past, to the time when we first made love, to the time when I first set eyes on her.

When I first saw her, Vanita was sitting in a row of preset girls. I realised she was different, someone special to me. I wondered how I would tell her this. She looked at me each time I passed. Looked at me from under heavy lashes. It was curiosity, I told myself. What other reason could this long-haired beauty have for even glancing at one as unprepossessing as How Kum Menon. Yet, every time I passed, her eyes caught and held mine.

Then, one evening, I found her at the bus-stop. She had been late and missed the transport that Nats provided for preset girls. I smiled. I hoped that she saw it as more than a smile of recognition. She smiled back. Vanita is not one for coyness. Her smile was certainly more than an exchange between people who work in the same office.

Then she began speaking. I heard for the first time that voice with its mixed up highs and lows, its unpredictable tones: a voice like a boy’s at puberty. And when I heard it, I felt the movement of the tumbler even before the key was in the lock. A new world was opening for me.

So entranced was I by the voice that I didn’t get what she was asking. She repeated her question. “Are you married?” I shook my head. “Thank God,” she said.

“Why d’you say that?”

“I used to look at you and think ‘you should be mine’. Now I know ‘you will be mine’.”

For the next three evenings, we rode the bus into town. On the fourth, Vanita suggested we spend the night together.

She was at first surprised that I was a virgin, then happy. We were opposites, counterparts made to be one. I was unhappy about my inexperience but she said this was not something I should worry about. She had experience for two. She laughed and assured me that, though a virgin, I need not be afraid; that she would be gentle with me. I laughed too. Fascinated by the intricacies of her body, I forgot to be ashamed of the blandness of my own.

Now my thoughts made me breathe heavily. Under my folded arms I could feel the pounding of my heart. Kishore’s chanting had become louder. I didn’t know what he was saying but recognised aums and shantis. Several times, in a breathless aspirational voice, he mentioned yonis and lingams. How different were the Sanskrit words from the assertive, earthbound cunt and cock.

I warmed towards Kishore. The man was saying prayers which involved me and Vanita, and in them he had not failed to include a very important aspect of our relationship. I watched him sitting bolt upright, his chest heaving, his voice getting louder. I began rocking to the rhythm of the chant and my head swam a little with the fumes of incense and camphor. I listened carefully to what he was saying, hoping I would catch more words to which I could relate.

The change was gradual. I cannot say exactly when it occurred. Drops of sweat formed under my arms and trickled down, getting colder as they descended. Under the table my knees trembled. There was no question about the voice: high tones mixed with lows, unpredictable like a boy’s at puberty. Vanita’s spirit had entered Kishore’s body.

“I have been summoned here by powers I cannot resist. The movement of my atman has been impeded as it rises towards its ecstatic and inextricable union with the Spirit of the Universe. I must be told why my progress has been halted.”

Kishore mumbled for a bit then said, in his own voice, “We have asked your spirit to pause on its journey towards union because the man from whose body you sprung, the man whose blood you share, and the man who has lain in your body have requested it. Many questions are unanswered and they have need to speak to you but it is you who must say who you wish to commune with.”

“It is my lover I desire to commune with. He who taught my body the delights that only union with the Godhead can surpass.”

“Will you permit him to address you directly?”

“You hear my voice, How Kum. Talk to me.”

Vanita was in the room with me, sitting near my left hand. My mind went blank.

“Speak to her, Menon,” Kishore hissed. “I cannot be sure how long we can detain the spirit.”

I found my voice. “It is really you, isn’t it, Vanita?”

“You hear my voice. You should not have doubts.”

“Oh, my darling.”

Kishore mumbled something under his breath and Vanita began speaking again. “I will speak of things that only you know. I will tell you secrets shared only by you and me.” She stopped speaking for such a long time that I was in terror that she had gone away.

Then Kishore breathed in deeply and Vanita began speaking again.

“You gave my carnal presence great pleasure. So great are the memories of this pleasure that the wise man in your midst has used it to tempt me back to the earthly plane. The pleasure was greatest when I rode you and rushed to my destination of earthly ecstasy. You were my horse except that it was your spear that was embedded in my body.”

“Oh, Vanita!” My arms began to reach in the direction of the voice.

“Keep your hands folded,” Kishore snapped. “If you don’t, the spirit will immediately leave my body.”

I replaced my arms over my chest and the spirit began to speak again. “There are things that you must do. Things that must be done before my atman can find shanti, the eternal peace.”

I wanted to be sure that I would have further contact with my love and asked, “Will you come back again, my darling?”

“I will strive to return but only if you see that what I ask for is done.”

“What is it you want us to do, my darling?”

“You must advise father, How Kum. You must tell him that a person close to him, one of his own blood, is filled with false ideas. You must make him understand that his kin will only deceive him. You must tell him that the guru he follows knows the true path and will lead him to the light. This is so especially in matters of money where ties of faith are more important than ties of blood. Father trusts you and you must make sure that he does as you bid him.”

“Your father is here, my darling. Speak to him and tell him what you want him to do.”

“Father has come to trust you, How Kum. You must see that he does as I ask.”

“I will, Vanita. I will, my darling. But I have questions of my own that I must ask.”

“I am slipping away, How Kum. The ecstasy of spiritual union with the Godhead draws me away from this earthly plane. You can ask me one question then I must depart. Depart never to return unless my wishes are obeyed in all respects.”

All the questions I had planned to ask, questions that I had so neatly arranged, got out of line and swirled about my head. I shook it violently and one question rose to the surface.

“I must know who killed you, my darling.”

There was a long silence then Kishore began chanting again.

“Who killed you, Vanita? You must tell me.”

“Those things are not of importance to me any more, How Kum.”

“But they are to me, Vanita.”

The silence was so long that, once again, I thought the spirit had departed. I was beginning to shift about in my seat when she spoke again, her voice fading even as she did. “You ask who murdered me and I must say that I can’t tell you because I don’t know myself. Such things no longer concern me.” The end of the sentence was barely audible.

I could have kicked myself. How could Vanita have known who had killed her. She was asleep and lying face down on me when she was stabbed.

The volume of Kishore’s chanting increased. He thumped his chest, gasping as he did. “Depart, depart,” he shouted. “We will trouble you no longer now.”

His voice became softer and he began to sing in a high plaintive voice. The words of the Sanskrit hymn touched my face and trickled down it like teardrops. I felt Vanita’s spirit leave even as I became aware of Leela entering the room.

“Shall I put on the lights, master?” she asked Sundram.

Kishore was bathed in sweat and the electric lights gave the gleam in his eyes an increased intensity. “We have all seen what we have seen with our own eyes, heard what we have heard with our own ears.” He looked directly into my eyes, held my gaze the way a hypnotist would. “You especially, Menon, can tell us whether the spirit spoke the truth.”

I looked down partly from embarrassment and partly to avoid the effect his eyes were having on me. “She spoke the truth,” I muttered.

“And she spoke of things that only she could know.”

I nodded.

He said, “Then it is your sacred duty to see that what the girl wishes comes to pass.”

I looked up at Sundram. His face was streaked with tears. I was not the only one moved by Vanita’s voice. “I will do as my daughter wishes,” he said.

Mohan, his voice hoarse with suspicion, turned to me. “What she said about…riding you is correct?” I nodded and he continued. “It is all difficult to explain. But,” he looked at his father, “I don’t think we should rush into any kind of action till…”

“Till what?” asked Kishore, doing nothing to hide his triumph.

“Till we…” he stopped to think. “Till we hear from the spirit again and have asked it more questions.”

I hated Mohan then. Hated his doubts and quibbles. His need to doubt. “You heard your sister, Mohan. She made it quite clear that she will not make further contact till her wishes have been carried out.” I turned to Sundram. “I think your daughter means you to use your money for religious purposes, sir.”

“It would have been her money, anyway. I broke with tradition and left everything to her. I have not made much of a secret of my intentions.”

The look on Mohan’s face was terrible. He couldn’t stop his mouth from working and his eyes rolled about. “There is so much that can be done, father. We should spend our money on education, to free our religion from superstition, not increase the rubbish that already befuddles it. You, above all people, have the means to do so much to make Hinduism what it should be. You, father, more than everyone else…” He choked in his indignation.

Leela left the room and returned with a glass of water. Mohan took a sip of this. It calmed him and he said, “I don’t know how he did it, father, but it was a trick of some sort.” He turned to me. “You must realise that it was some kind of trick.”

I turned away and Leela caught my eye. “Shall I let Mister Menon out, Master?” she asked.

“Yes, Leela. Do that.”

The maid took my hand and led me out of the room. I was surprised but not displeased by the familiarity.

She looked over her shoulder when we reached the front door and said, “You were good to Vani. Very good to her.” She reached into the folds of her sari and produced something in a brown envelope. “You keep this.”

I felt the package before slipping it into my pocket. It was a tape cassette. I had no doubt that it contained recordings of the bajans Vanita used to sing. I would listen to them later. Much later. Right now the echoes of her voice were so strong in my head that they drowned everything else.