11

More composed under the spell of Tarun’s question than I had managed to be thus far, I told him about Shivani’s other email, the Hindu–Muslim violence in the village she seemed to be blaming herself for. I then mentioned the reason I had asked about Pari, the help’s daughter: what if Shivani had been compelled to do that horrific thing to her but pulled back from the brink?

By way of apology for any earlier hurt I might have caused, I said to Tarun that Shivani must have trusted him a great deal to share what she was going through. But, despite considering the option, I chose not to disclose my own experiences of the past twelve hours. Nor did I mention Arati by name, although I did refer to another person I knew who had recently discovered special powers.

‘So far, Mr Tarun, and I’ll keep looking, no one seems to be sharing such experiences online. But when this other person came to me not just with the story of her gift but also of how it had been suspended unless she agreed to pay an appalling price, I was reminded of Shivani’s email, which had hitherto seemed to me to be an error.’

‘And who is this person?’

‘I’m sorry. They wouldn’t want me to say, but rest assured, it is an adult.’

‘Shivani was never away from Calcutta, to the best of my knowledge.’

‘Mr Tarun, I absolutely believe that. Perhaps she convinced herself she could have saved those people in the village if she had intervened. It could be that the task then given to Shivani was to do with Pari, your maid’s daughter, but when Shivani wasn’t able to bring herself to harm her, her magic ability was taken away. And tragically, she decided to test this out …’

I stopped, because I once again sounded horrific (although I realised that in a matter as painful as this there is very little that can be said before trespassing into the unspeakable and the horrific). But I also stopped because I saw this picture in Tarun’s mind: Shivani leaping from a balcony, and Tarun watching as if he had been standing right behind her.

I saw this picture before I noticed the tears fill up his eyes.

Neither of us spoke for a while. Tarun closed his eyes and let his tears flow. He didn’t once wipe them away.

I found myself recalling the only other time I’d seen him in person. It had been at a book festival event on the front steps of Victoria Memorial, at which he had read from his tribute to his late wife. When he finished, a long applause had followed, during which Tarun had briefly shut his wet eyes. Just like now.

‘Mr Tarun, I’m so sorry for causing such pain. I’ll go now, but this was my only reason for being here, perhaps with the mistaken idea that Shivani’s parents should know that what was happening to her was most likely not in her mind, and that she had probably been confronted with a terrible choice which, I feel certain, she resisted with great ethics and courage. This is all I wanted to convey — my belief that what Shivani experienced was real, and that she faced it extremely bravely.’

Tarun was looking at me now, although he was still on the balcony with Shivani. I understood another tragic truth about this family — that he completely saw her as a daughter, but Shivani had been unable to accept a new father. It was Tarun’s fate to be haunted anew by a second person he couldn’t save. It had been Shivani’s fate, in her grief for her father, to feel distant and alone when she would have most needed her family.

‘Mr Tarun, do you think it might help if someone in your position brought this phenomenon to light on TV, or else went public in some other way? Because there might be more young people alone with their secrets, or whatever they’re being asked to do, and it might need just one person …’

Why can’t you be that person, Jaya, to meet this need you so correctly diagnose? Just because you would like to be left alone to enjoy your gift in peace?

That wasn’t Tarun. He didn’t reply. That was just me.

When Tarun opened his eyes, I once again faced the depth of his sorrow, and knew I had to leave. If I stayed any longer, I would end up revealing much more to him than I had come prepared to share.

Because the truth was, for years I hadn’t wanted someone as much as I wanted Ravi Tarun. I’d wanted him from even before he walked in, from the years of reading his words. And today’s meeting had only confirmed every earlier impression.

I ran past him to the front door. No one attempted to stop me, although the housemaid Jharna did startle me by stepping out from a nearby doorway just as I approached, as though she’d been aware exactly when I would decide to leave.

She shut the door behind me, but when I looked around, I wasn’t in the fifth-floor hallway I was expecting.