8

I started the following day with a message to Shivani.

What do you think you caused? I received a link to a news story about Bardhaman district. It seemed unlikely you were referring to this.

Yes, I am still that woman, and ‘only’ thirty-three, but see, I am here! I stand converted a believer in your tremendous powers! I would love to meet again; how does next weekend sound? I have one condition — that you respect my secret just as I now respect yours. I should say — that we respect each other’s truth!

And another thing — please don’t blame yourself for happenings that might have nothing to do with you, whatever it was you originally intended to send me. At least share your burden with me first.

Hoping to meet over the weekend. How would Saturday afternoon suit? Same Barista, different coffees? Couldn’t help noticing neither of us even finished half our drinks last time round

Have a great week,

Jaya (that’s my real name ).

I was about to procrastinate on preparing unit-test question papers for three different classes by making a virtuous trip to the gym when Arati called to stun me with the news that she was ready to go to the police. I was so elated I made no mention of Manasa, lest it be mistaken for gloating. Instead we agreed to meet at three outside the main entrance to Dakshinapan, which was only a short walk from Lake Police Station. The original case had been registered there; at the time, Arati, Ramesh and Tuntuni had lived in a single room between the lakes and the railway tracks, not far from Dhakuria Bridge.

‘Ramesh’ was picked up that very evening. We were told after it happened (Arati was staying the night with me) that he had left the sweet shop by the time a team from the nearby Amherst Street Police Station arrived there on a request from their Lake Thana colleagues, but that his co-workers knew where he lived, and the police found him at home. I also learnt, and felt I had to share this with Arati, that Ramesh had a second wife and ten-year-old twin girls.

Arati broke down upon hearing that. ‘He hasn’t disappeared with them. Then why with my Tuntuni?’

I sat beside her, holding a glass of water and spouting useless words. ‘The law will make him pay for that. And we wouldn’t want him to do it ever again to another mother or to any child. I will stay in touch with Inspector Bhadra every single day,’ I added. ‘The son of a bitch will not get away a second time.’

It turned out to be a reassurance I should not have offered.

Apparently it had taken some, but not a great deal — Inspector Bhadra of Lake Police Station informed me on the phone at eleven the following morning — of ‘third-degree’ for this sweet vendor called Swapan to confess he had once been a bus driver named Ramesh. That had been the easy part. But then Ramesh had played a card we hadn’t been expecting. Inspector Bhadra said — and I sat down heavily on a lab stool as he continued (I had fled up to the chemistry lab from the staff room for some privacy as soon as his number flashed up; luckily it was morning recess) — that Ramesh had flipped the blame for Tuntuni’s disappearance back on to Arati, or at least was trying to implicate her to an equal degree. Bhadra explained this was why he had decided to call me first rather than Arati: I’d seemed like a close friend who could more gently break this development to her. Telling her over the phone or summoning her to the station seemed excessively harsh.

Ramesh was insisting that back in ’01, a taxi-driver friend of his had made an offer of a large sum on behalf of ‘a foreign couple’ who’d wanted to buy and raise a little girl because they were childless, and that he had shared this information with Arati, and they had reached a decision together! They had both felt — and Inspector Bhadra said quite matter-of-factly that Ramesh had obstinately clung to this part of the story through many slaps and blows and an entire night bound to a chair with two lights shining on his face and no toilet rights — that Tuntuni would have a better life in some rich country than a bus driver and a seamstress-cum-cook-and-housemaid in Calcutta could ever give her, and then apparently Arati had gone a step further! The original offer relayed by Ramesh’s friend had been for three hundred thousand, and Arati had asked for four, to be split equally between her and Ramesh.

At this point in his lying, inspired as though by the devil himself, or else simply by the heady feeling of surrendering (once more!) to boundless evil, Ramesh had added another twist to embellish his own position. He had been in favour of both of them quitting Calcutta forever to avoid the endless awkward questions from family and neighbours, not to mention the possible police interest that would follow the sudden disappearance of Tuntuni. But it had been Arati who’d wanted to have that cake as well, along with her share of the money (she didn’t want to lose her established sewing clients, Ramesh had said, nor the homes she worked in), and so it was her plan that Ramesh should disappear and drive a bus somewhere else, and she would raise a hue and cry that he had vanished with Tuntuni. Ramesh had reluctantly agreed to this — the selfless one, always putting Tuntuni’s and Arati’s wellbeing before his own — and had in fact left Calcutta for the next five years, living in Bhubaneswar, where he’d met his present wife, who apparently believed he had lost Arati and a little girl named Tuntuni in a terrible road accident. And now here Arati was, depriving him of his home and family for a second time.

In the course of my teaching and column-writing careers, I had come across some truly awful family stories and therefore regarded myself as pretty fucking-far-from-faint-hearted, but even the experienced agony-absorber within me was left astounded by this latest evidence of Ramesh’s absolute villainy: that he was as instinctively unprincipled now in implicating Arati as he had been when selling his own baby. I actually felt dizzy as the import of the inspector’s story started to register, and even thought to myself, Manasa, what have you gone and landed Arati into? You came out of a pond to pitch her into this??

‘Madam, Mrs Bhandari must come and give a statement. I’m sorry, but there’s no other option. Meanwhile, we will reopen the original case file, as well as begin hunting for this taxi-driver friend, and I’m going to put in a request at the Regional Passport Office to find out if any application was made during the years 2001 and ’02 for an infant with Tuntuni’s name. Ramesh says he has no idea which country the supposed foreign couple were from, although apparently he was shown a photograph of two white people; he insists it was part of the deal that they would interact solely through his friend. But if there was ever a passport issued for Tuntuni, I will go as far as I can in requesting various airlines to look up their records, although that line of inquiry might not yield much. But we could find out whether that passport was ever renewed, or if at some later stage the child gave up her Indian citizenship, or indeed who made the original application on Tuntuni’s behalf …’

‘But you’re just believing him,’ were the only, terrifically weak words I could manage.

‘No, Madam, we’re not. Believe me, our job is to recognise liars. I’m sure this scoundrel was never expecting to be caught and his first priority is to save as much of his own skin as he can. That is why I’m contacting Mrs Bhandari through you, rather than making her feel we believe she sold her daughter. Clearly my predecessor didn’t think so sixteen years ago, which is why she was never arrested. But we are compelled to investigate everything this fellow has claimed. We have to look for this cab driver, this passport and this foreign journey in case any part of the story is true. And we need to hear Mrs Bhandari’s account, even though I realise it will be very painful.’

The inspector was kind, despite what he was telling me, and took more time out of his day to calm me by using other arguments. ‘Madam, you surely understand, the crime is very old. And it’s from before the time of everyone owning a cell phone, as well as CCTV. This fellow insists he didn’t have a mobile in 2001. We’ll check that out as well, as much as we can. But trust me when I say that we’ll scour every record that does exist — passport application, bank details, travel records, passport renewal or citizenship change, any NGO that might have acted illegally as a go-between for foreign adopters. And only when we have thoroughly discredited his story can I begin to legitimately break this bastard. You explain it to Mrs Bhandari in the simplest terms. In fact you can come to the station with her. We need her statement to help us prove that he is lying.’

‘You can look into her bank account history as well, to see if anyone deposited two hundred thousand or any large sum,’ I found myself whispering.

‘Well, most people would be smart enough not to do that, but don’t worry. As I said, I’m not calling to tell you that I believe Swapan — I mean Ramesh. In any case, irrespective of anything he’s cooked up, we would have needed Mrs Bhandari’s updated statement. At this point, we have absolutely no reason to suspect her. You please tell her this is thoroughly routine.

‘For us, unfortunately, such lies are also routine,’ the compassionate inspector added.

Two days later, this was the state of affairs. I had taken Arati in to give her statement at Lake Thana, and thankfully at no time did she have to encounter Ramesh, who was presumably still in the lock-up.

She had stayed overnight at mine once more. My lawyer-friend Bhaswati had spent Monday evening talking her through her statement, but I was afraid to let Arati out of my sight because I wasn’t sure she would be able to return the following morning to face her task. I had consulted Bhaswati, and on her advice had told Arati about each of Ramesh’s charges. Bhaswati had argued this was what Inspector Bhadra wanted. He was expecting her to come prepared. Bhaswati did a further, very valuable thing. She took much of the sting out of Ramesh’s appalling allegations by presenting them to Arati as mere desperate delaying and distracting tactics which she as a lawyer, and the police themselves, were utterly familiar with, and for which zero evidence would emerge.

Arati listened to all of Bhaswati’s useful advice with admirable calm, although I could tell she wasn’t always fully attentive. After Bhaswati left, I offered her a choice between tea and white wine; both of us picked the latter.

‘Arati, dreadful as this moment is, you have to remind yourself of two things: that we have confirmation Ramesh didn’t physically harm Tuntuni, but also, we’re dealing with a man who sold his nine-month-old child. There is nothing too low for him to say. To the rest of us the only thing Ramesh’s lies establish is that he remains exactly as immoral and without shame as he was sixteen years ago. You know, it might be better and safer for his other daughters to have such a father locked away in prison.’

‘And the one who led me to him will give me the strength to fight all his evil.’

I again expressed my agreement, although Bhaswati and I had earlier spent a portion of the evening coaching Arati to change precisely (and nothing but) that part of her story. There should be no mention at the police station of any visions of Manasa or the wishes she had granted. Would Manasa-Ma really want her powers, or favours, to become an open secret? No, instead Arati had intended to buy some specially embroidered dress borders from College Street Market, and was walking along Vivekananda Road when she caught sight of Ramesh at his sweet shop. It was pure chance, which of course was also what I, and Bhaswati, quietly believed.

‘And remember, with the police on our side, which I know they are just from Inspector Bhadra phoning me, we have our best chance of your second wish from Manasa coming true. They got Ramesh to confess what he did with Tuntuni; now they’ll find her. They are the vehicle Manasa has chosen. You simply tell the exact truth from sixteen years ago and hold up your courage, because everyone in this matter believes you.’

‘What Manasa wants isn’t always immediately clear,’ Arati said, almost to herself.

‘Why are you saying that? Has anything else happened?’

‘I think she is fighting her own battle, and the one she is fighting keeps changing shape. Sometimes it’s impossible to be sure who is present before your eyes.’

‘Arati, speak clearly. Did you have another dream — I mean to say, did Manasa visit you again?’

Arati looked directly at me and spoke as if a brief trance had broken. ‘If Manasa-Ma had visited again, we wouldn’t be on this path.’

As I said before, everything about our trip to the police station the following afternoon went as we’d hoped, until the very end. Shortly after Arati had completed her (remarkably composed) statement to a woman constable, Inspector Bhadra came out of his office to thank her, and to inform us that our constant underlying apprehension that we would glimpse Ramesh at some point during our visit had been entirely unnecessary. Apparently he had been granted bail, and had been able to call someone who could post it, the previous evening itself.

Even greater than my amazement that a man who’d confessed to selling his own nine-month-old child could be eligible for bail was that of learning how quickly the money had been arranged. ‘Isn’t this money your first lead, Inspector?’ I argued, tightly holding Arati’s hand. ‘Its very existence? Or else the well-endowed forces who would swoop in like this out of such concern for a mere sweet-shop employee? Doesn’t something smell not especially sweet to you?’

Of course it does, he conceded.

‘And do you think it is safe to allow a now-confessed daughter-trafficker to be close to two other children?’

Inspector Bhadra said it would be very difficult for Ramesh to talk to anyone or go somewhere without their knowing; of this we could rest assured. ‘In fact, we want him to make those mistakes, so that we find out who he contacts, and why they’re backing him so loyally.’

I pointed out that the inspector had similarly reassured me just two days ago, and had then sent off this scum with a handshake and a finger-wag the following evening. As I led Arati away, I turned around to ask Bhadra if he had once considered the other person who had been immediately endangered by this inexplicable-on-somany-counts decision.

‘You realise he could come after Arati right away to intimidate her into withdrawing her case? Or he could go further than intimidate.’

We didn’t wait to hear the inspector’s reply, likely as it was to have been suffused with more gentlemanly reassurance (after all, his very surname meant ‘polite’ in Bengali).

As soon as we were in the car, I began to reassure Arati that we’d call Bhaswati right away to ask about our options.

‘I told you nothing can move forward without Manasa’s wish,’ she said. ‘I hope you believe me now, after we’ve tried your way.’

‘It’s not my way, Arati, it’s the only way. It’s the way Manasa wanted you to take. That’s the reason she led you straight to Ramesh.’

‘Again you’re getting things wrong. I asked for him as my first wish. That was my biggest mistake.’

‘No, Arati, it was a logical step to take. Apprehending Ramesh would go a long way towards …’

‘And now Manasa will only take me to Tuntuni when I’ve paid her price.’

Arati didn’t stay the night despite my repeated asking. She didn’t tell me either what she’d meant by Manasa’s ‘price’. I put it down to the continuing pain and shock from Ramesh’s lies, and certainly the fact that he was out again so soon. If only she had come across Tuntuni working in a shop, I foolishly thought. Yes, Jaya, and she would have recognised immediately the daughter she last saw as a nine-month-old!

Manasa or no Manasa, the path to Tuntuni couldn’t begin anywhere else. And Ramesh (a.k.a. Swapan) could not be negotiated without reckoning with his depravity. I acknowledged to myself what an abstract quantity this had been for me all these years, despite having heard so much about the tragedy. And this evil, this reflexive capacity to harm, had always remained within him just beneath the surface, ready to spring at the first opportunity, even through the years of being an innocuous sweet vendor and a second-time householder and father.

I had showered and was scrolling through the news alerts on my phone half an hour later when the words ‘fifth-floor flat’, ‘Ballygunge’ and ‘teenage girl’ stopped my breathing.

That was all the detail for now. Of course I thought the obvious — that Shivani, in another mad bid to ‘test her powers’, had again managed to hypnotise her maid’s daughter into jumping from the balcony.

Shivani whom I’d met just days ago and failed to connect with despite my best efforts, except perhaps to cement her conviction that grown-ups couldn’t be trusted.

Meanwhile, the urgency of protecting this other young girl as well hadn’t even occurred to me.