had been examined – by Veer. He had scarcely stopped for a minute’s rest, he was like a man possessed. He had ransacked the whole house, and then left in his jeep without explaining anything to anyone.
“How long was he here?” I asked her, startled. Did he come to my cottage? I wanted to ask her. Did he not try to find me? Did he ask Ama about me? How could he have left without a word to me? I did not dare ask her the questions I really wanted answers to.
“He came two days after the cremation, looking like something blown here by the wind. He didn’t want to know anything about how his uncle had passed away or who had done the cremation or any of that. He kept asking: has anyone been in this house? Has anyone been looking for anything? I told him you had been there, settling Diwan Sahib’s room, but for no more than half a day.”
“And then?”
“I told him you were down here. I said I had called many times, but you had not come out, so we were worried. But he? He has no time or ears for anything that is not about himself.
“Don’t look like that,” Ama said after a minute. “You are blinded, you can’t see. There he is, swearing love and care for his uncle, but who looked after the old man through his illnesses? Was he here? Oh no, he only turns up when it is all finished, to see what he can get. All these months, he kept leaving cigarettes all over the house, and getting Diwan Sa’ab drunk. Didn’t you notice how his health collapsed after his nephew came into his life again?”
“What do you mean? Have you gone off your head? Do you know what you’re saying?” I stood up in one violent movement, had to hold on to the chair to steady my spinning head.
Ama had hinted at her suspicions before, but they had been barbed suggestions. Now, with Diwan Sahib dead and Veer having come and gone without even seeing me, she spoke her mind and her words had the unmistakable colouring of the hostility she had long felt towards Veer. Himmat Singh never failed to relay to Ama anything of interest that he overheard in the Light House so she had known for years that Veer wanted her evicted. I wondered what else she knew. I lowered myself carefully into my chair again, still feeling wobbly.
“Look at you,” Ama said. “That’s what happens when you don’t eat for days. And I haven’t gone off my head, my head’s very clear. Who kept the old man supplied with so many bottles? Who bought all those packets of cigarettes that he found wherever his eyes fell? I had told you then, and I will tell you now, this apple of Diwan Sa’ab’s eye came back here only to send him to his death. There are many ways to finish people off, you know.”
She heard cowbells close by and hurried away to the edge of the hill to yell at Puran. “Arre O Puran, can’t you see Ratna is eating Sahu-ji’s beans? Donkey, good-for-nothing, fool! Lost in his own world and the cattle wander anywhere they please.” She was tender-faced as she sat down again. “Everyone says Puran’s a madman and he’s a crazy fool, there’s no doubt about that. See how he’s crooning over that pet owl these days. It’s like the sun rises when that owl opens its eyes at night. But if I had to trust my life to anyone it would be Puran, not that Veer Singh, who cares only for himself. Your teeth will break on a big black pebble when you eat that bowl of dal, take my word for it. I notice everything, nothing escapes me.”
She gave me a significant look and repeated, “I notice everything, make no mistake. People may not pay attention to what an old woman thinks. People who are educated and think they know it all.”
* * *
That night I again had the nightmare that had visited me from time to time, each time subtly altered.
This time I was speaking to someone whose breath I could hear only inches from my ears: wheeze and gurgle, wheeze and gurgle. It was a man – who could not hear me. I could not see his face for the hood of his anorak, but I knew who it was.