“About,” he began, fingering the trigger inside his pocket slowly. “About, well, the picture...”
STORY
Based on true events
“About,” he began, fingering the trigger inside his pocket slowly. “About, well, the picture...”
“You came to talk about the picture at 11 in the night?” Sethi scowled. “We can talk in the morning.”
“No, no, Sir,” Ghazni shook his head, his eyes on the window. “It’s imperative that we talk right now.”
“Young man, you can come back in the morning. Now get out.” Sethi stood up, clearly annoyed, slipped his feet into the bedroom slippers and started for the door.
“Sethi Sahib, I wouldn’t open that door if I were you.”
Sethi turned around to find his young artist pointing a pistol at him. He froze.
“What are you doing?”
Ghazni raised an eyebrow, glancing first at the weapon, then at the man before him.
“You’re shooting me.” Sethi said quietly.
“No. I’m pointing a gun at you. There’s a difference.” Ghazni said, and he remembered the hair falling into Razia’s eyes. She had seen him leaving. She would know who had killed him when the news of Sethi’s murder would reach her tomorrow.
“From where I stand, there isn’t much of a difference.”
“There is.” Ghazni said, standing up, not taking the gun off of him. His brain was whirring. “Tell me something, Sethi Sahib, how many seats are there in your Chevrolet?”
********
A loud shot rang through the neighbourhood, accompanied with a smash. From the broken frame of the study window, a hand holding a handkerchief slid out. The wind blew against the small kerchief for a second and then the hand disappeared.
Chattha slid down from the tree and walked up to the gate, some twenty armed men converging behind him.
“Ghazni Sahib, the gate.” He called and his voice rang through the neighbourhood. Someone locked their front door with a loud thud in the neighbouring houses. No other door opened. No one stepped out to check on the Sethis. Eyes were conveniently closed, ears muffled. For most Muslims, Islam was very flexible this August in Baha’uddin.
Ghazni walked down the path, his pistol in hand. “It’s open.” He called.
The gate creaked as Chattha stepped in. Ghazni wiped his red hands onto his shirt. “I checked for a pulse. He’s dead.”
“Good.” Chattha stopped before him, looming menacingly above him. “The girl?”
“In her bedroom. Near the attic. There’s usually the butler around, so take a few men with you,” he advised, slipping the pistol into his pocket, hoping Chattha wouldn’t ask for it back. “I haven’t seen him. He might be with the girl, and they might be armed.”
“She’s a rabbit.” Chattha chuckled. “She won’t be armed.”
Ghazni shrugged. “I’ve decided what I want.”
“What do you want?”
“The Chevrolet.”
Chattha raised an eyebrow. “Selling it?”
“Of course.” Ghazni puckered his eyebrows. “I wouldn’t drive it and starve, would I?”
Chattha laughed. “That’s all you want?”
Ghazni nodded. “I’m taking it right now. I don’t want to come back here again.”
As he turned to walk towards the garage, Chattha grabbed his arm. “You’ve been brave today, Ghazni.”
Ghazni pulled himself loose, pursing his lips. You know nothing yet, Chattha.
Opening the garage door, he groped his way to the Chevrolet, hands shaking.
What he’d done and what he was doing would be the end of his life - in Baha’uddin. Demons would be chasing him for a long time because of today.
Licking his lips, he finally located the car door and opening it, got inside.
“The keys.” Sethi slid something cold into his hand. He was sitting, huddled, on the passenger seat.
“Get out before that thug smells the tomato paste.” Sita whispered with a small giggle from the back.
“You packed the cash?”
“Yes,” Sethi’s eyes glinted in the dark. “The rest of the house is irrelevant, to be honest.”
You can afford to say that. “Your papers?”
“Yes. Can we leave?” Sita said impatiently. She was treating the night like an unusually good film.
“All right,” Ghazni started the motor car. “Get down, then.”
The three passengers, the butler (the only servant who stayed inside the house at night and thus, could not be left behind), Sethi and Sita bent down, doubling onto themselves. Their silhouettes would be invisible in the night, hopefully.
He eased the car out onto the driveway, his heart thudding in his chest. Somebody was saying something loudly in the entrance hall, the front door stood wide open. Most probably, he had seconds to make his getaway before they started shooting at the car.
A loud shot reverberated through the house. Or not. Ghazni thought.
Pressing down onto the accelerator, he drove through the half-closed gate, the shock of impact sending an electrifying jolt through his body.
“Ghazni!” Chattha’s shout echoed around the lawn and the butler let out a loud whimper. “Come back, now, you devious dog!”
“Innovative.” Ghazni noted under his breath.
“Have you ever driven before?” Sita asked loudly as the car skidded out of the wreckage of the gate onto the street.
“In college, a lot, but not for the past two years,” he answered over the loud throb of the engine. “You’re lucky Chattha doesn’t have a car.”
As they turned the street, they last they saw was Chattha’s men running towards them, shooting at intervals.
********
Over the crackling of the radio, it was Bala who heard the deep thrum of the Chevrolet passing by first.
“That’s a sheverlett ji!”
“What?” Razia, who sat in a corner near the stove, reading, looked up. “A Chevrolet? Sethi Sahib has the only Chevrolet in Baha’uddin.”
Bala nodded, rubbing his chin through his beard. “Where could he be going this pehr, ji? I hope everything is well.”
“Allah reham kare...” Maa Ji mumbled from her chair. “Too many thefts these days.”
“Bss Hindu ko insan nahi samajhte, bibi ji.” Bala shook his head. “Makhlooq tou saari Allah ki hai, hisaab wahi lega ab.”
Razia stood up, something discomforting fluttering in her chest. Quietly, she picked up her book and walked off to Ghazni’s studio. She turned on the light and stepped inside.
On his coffee table, laid out for anyone to see, was a map of the Sethi manor.
Her worst fears confirmed, she walked to it slowly, sitting down to look at it.
“He won’t murder Sethi.” She said out loud, more to soothe herself than anything else. She knew Ghazni well. He wasn’t a murderer, just a really good schemer.
Carefully, she looked over the roughly drawn map. He had marked a room in the house, the front door, the gate and the attic of the manor in green - the location of the garage was encircled with a thick red pen.
She closed her eyes for a moment, willing her thudding heart to still. He isn’t murdering Sethi. She told herself again.
Was he stealing the Chevrolet, then? But if he had stolen it, why didn’t he come to the house? Stolen Hindu possessions were trophies these days, even in peaceful old Baha’uddin.
If he didn’t come to the house with the Chevrolet, it meant he had somebody in it who couldn’t hide in the Haveli.
Chattha’s deal, Ghazni’s rendezvous tonight and the garage marked in red, it all pointed towards one, very obvious conclusion.
She stood up slowly, an inexplicable panic seizing her heart. We need to leave right now. She thought as she strode out of the studio, closing the door silently behind her.
********
Ghazni stopped the car at the small bungalow in the outskirts of Mandi Baha’uddin and the butler got out at once to open the door for Sita. Stepping outside, Ghazni took out the suitcase from the back which was filled to the brim with the all the cash in the Sethi household.
“Yours,” he held it out to Sethi, who took it silently. “You will be fine here?” the bungalow looked abandoned.
“We will stay for a day, perhaps, or two, before my brother sends someone to get us. No one knows about this bungalow. Chattha can’t find us here.” The man’s voice was oddly quiet.
Nodding, Ghazni turned back to the car to take out the second bag. “I’ll use this Chevrolet to get to Lahore and then send it on to you. Write back if you don’t receive it, all right?”
Sethi gave a clipped nod, opened his mouth to say something, then closed it tightly and walked off towards the house, his butler taking the bag from him. Ghazni followed with the canvas bag that contained the three Hindus’ documents.
********
One hand tightly holding her college bag filled with her books and two of Ghazni’s most expensive painting kits, Razia held Maa Ji’s arm with the other, walking as fast as she could down the road. Bala carried the little suitcase with Ghazni’s money in it and Maa Ji’s jewelry. The rest they had left behind at the haveli.
Radha was jogging ahead, her shimmering black sari too obvious in the night.
“How much farther?” Maa Ji asked.
“Not very much farther.” She panted. “I want you to wait at the road he’s sure to pass on his way back into the city. We can’t have him driving Sethi’s Chevrolet down Baha’uddin. Chattha is probably already at the haveli, Sethi’s neighbour said he set out for it as soon as they had finished searching for his daughter in the manor.”
“The entire mohalla knows what he’s done.” Razia shook her head in disapproval, but there was a smattering of pride in her words. “He couldn’t have been more conspicuous.”
“There was no way to be inconspicuous. He had a margin of mere minutes before Chattha figured out what he’d done.” Radha said, turning to throw a wry smile Razia’s way. “You’ve gotten yourself a very sweet pitcher of water, Razzu; see that you wash your hands well in it.”
In the pale moonlight, Razia’s blush wasn’t very inconspicuous either.
To be continued ...
