eFiction India eFiction India Vol.02 Issue.09 | Page 38

37

STORIES

***
As she mopped the floor, Rati’s ears played
its second duties. “We will get the money,
sweetheart. Don’t worry, no, Uma will
never know,” she could hear Sujay whispering over the phone. As she tried harder
to listen to what he said, his voice faded
away with the distance.
She drifted away as his footsteps seemed
to approach the door. Then there was a
slam. Rati hung her head down with her
hands arduously wiping the floor, but her
ears were doing more than what they were
expected to do. There was a sudden grunt
of Sujay’s car starting and then the sound of
it speeding away; and that signalled to her
it was time to rush into his room.
Her hands raced at the speed of her agitated heart as she looked through the items
of the cupboard. There, wrapped in a cloth
was the knife that the whole of the department had been probably searching for – the
clean, shiny blade that might have found its
way through Dinesh’s kidneys.
The next few minutes sped so fast into the
future that Rati was in the station before the
officers, handing them over the crucial piece
of evidence she had found, safe in a plastic
zip lock bag. “We will definitely find out
if this is the knife used on Dinesh. Thank
you, madam,” the inspector reassured her.
***
“Mrs. Uma, you are under arrest; we found
your fingerprints on the knife you used to
murder Dinesh,” said the inspector as the
remaining Kumar stood bewildered, as still
as stone. “We have your arrest warrant,
and you are accused of the cold-blooded
murder of your brother.” Uma shook her
head in denial. Her face had the ghastliness of a vampire and her hands trembled.
Rati looked at Uma in disbelief. The very
sight of Uma made her speak. “No, officer, I
found the knife in Sujay’s…” she was interrupted by the officer, who continued to talk
to Uma though she was at a loss for words.
The handcuffs took their place and Uma
walked miserably with no tears in her eyes
towards the gate. Rati followed them till
eFiction India | June 2014

the door but as the chronology played
back in her head, she stopped and turned
back. Her eyes saw something she couldn’t
fathom. Sujay stood there with an asymmetrical smile on his face; he then took a
deep breath and walked inside with ease.
***
Hours became days and days became weeks.
The warmth of Keshav’s arms wiped out the
pain of the arrow-like words Uma had shot
at her when Keshav was in jail, yet something lingered in Rati’s mind. The menace
had been lurking through her head right
from the time Uma had been handcuffed.
Her instinct told her that the real killer was
out there somewhere. When she closed
her eyes, she could see Sujay’s face and
his expressions when Uma was arrested. A
sphinx-like smile had taken the place of the
void that Uma had left behind. Sujay would
leave the house in the morning, come back
in the afternoon for lunch, have his power
nap and then wake up and watch television. He frequently made phone calls to
a mysterious person and chuckled as he
spoke over the phone. He seemed to be in
seventh heaven.
Rati often observed him carefully as she
cleaned Uma’s closet. “Poor lady,” she said
to herself. “She definitely was framed,” as
she gorged on a few of Uma’s favourite chocolates. Sujay chuckled and giggled over the
phone. A jolt ran down Rati’s spine as she
heard the chortles growing louder. She grit
her teeth and clawed into the soft cushion
of Uma’s that lay in the cupboard. As the
cotton from it started to ooze out, the
sound of laugher and the canoodling over
the phone grew deeper, a bottle of perfume
flew through the air, crashed the wall and
reached its final destination as pieces.
For the first time in the past month Sujay’s
vacuous expression had bid adieu to his
countenance. His hands trembled, and the
phone he clutched was on the ground. Rati’s
red eyes met his; his face lost its colour. He
raised his eyebrows and frowned when he
saw Rati’s face contorting.
“You jerk, you framed your wife. You killed
Dinesh for money and hid the money in my
house to make my husband the scapegoat.

All you want is money,” she screamed,
pointing at him.
Her shrill voice seemed to have distracted
Keshav, whose feet rushed him inside from
the backyard, as if they were set on fire.
“Rati, stop! We have been working for this
family for the last twenty years,” he said,
pulling her away. “You stay out of this,
Keshav,” retorted Rati with eyes that grew
redder by the minute. A tirade of abuse
followed.
Within seconds Keshav found himself on
the ground and Rati was clutching onto
Sujay’s lapels. “I have nothing to do with
Dinesh’s death, and I knew that Uma killed
him. I burnt the clothes that had blood on
them and tried to destroy the evidence.
Who are you to say anything,” Sujay went
on murmuring things that neither Keshav
nor Rati could hear, in a low trembling
voice.
The next thing that Keshav saw was Rati
on the ground. Her hair had spilled out
from the bun it was in and she was motionless. The delirious storm had given way to
calm. Both the men knelt down on either
side of her dilapidated self, trying to renew
the spark of life that had burnt out in her.
***
“Her blood reports suggest that she was on
a dose of methamphetamines and psilocybin,” the doctor told Keshav. “Do you know
how long she has been on drugs?”
“No, she could have never been on drugs.
We are not that type... hmm…kind of
people. We are lowbrow people living from
hand to mouth. We cannot even afford such
things,” stuttered Keshav as a streak of fear
unfolded in his eyes.
“Well, that is the reason for her behaviour. The drugs made her extrapolate the
feelings she had in her mind. People take
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