Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 106422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 532(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 532(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
I frowned. No, that couldn’t be it. The family preferred cremation. I knew that because Diya and I had found it morbid that it was in the boilerplate wills we’d signed, each of us having to put down what we’d prefer when the time came.
“We don’t bury our dead,” Diya had said, her gaze pensive. “The idea of being buried underground in a small box…” She’d shuddered. “I’d far rather burn up and be done with it.”
The comment haunted me.
Jumping back into the car, I continued on.
Thirty minutes later, right when I thought I must’ve passed it already, I saw the top of a large house just emerging from the thick green foliage in which it nestled. I spotted banana palms, along with flowering vines and a tree with huge glossy green leaves, among many others.
The foliage was so dense that all I could see of the house was the tip of the roof even as I came closer and closer…and that was when I realized why the shop owner hadn’t told me to turn off at a certain point. Diya’s family home was right at the end of the road, only the ocean beyond it on the far side.
I felt cobblestones under me as I brought the vehicle to a stop in a front yard draped in the thick shadows of early evening, and when I stepped out, I saw that the grass had been kept under control.
By that caretaker? The cousin-brother something?
The two-story house, while free of the encroachment of what felt like a forest now that I stood inside it, was shuttered and silent and in urgent need of maintenance. Large flakes of paint had come off the frontage, while mold grew on the upper level.
The tropical environment might’ve done even more damage over the years if the building hadn’t been formed of concrete—I’d seen a couple of similar structures on my drive, houses far more stable than the dwellings of rickety wood and corrugated iron that dominated the rural landscape.
This was a rich person’s house.
The entire property was also a haven of cool, the tropical heat ameliorated by both the plantings and the breeze coming off what I knew to be a secluded beach behind the house. Not visible from ground level as with the Lake Tarawera property, but only a short walk through the foliage.
Despite its beauty, however, this place felt desolate, a ruin in the making.
“Hello!”
Heart kicking at the sudden interruption, I looked over to my right—to see a skinny Indo-Fijian man with hair so flawlessly deep brown that it had to be dyed, and a matching pencil mustache. He’d come from somewhere beyond the banana palms to the left and wore a short-sleeved tan shirt with what might’ve been Fijian tapa prints on it, jeans, and flip-flops.
His thinness accentuated his wrinkles, but he wasn’t that old. Forty-five maybe.
And unlike me, he seemed perfectly comfortable in jeans.
“Hi.” I held out my hand. “Are you Ravi? I think I met a relative of yours over at the store about two hours from here?”
“Oh yes, yes.” He pumped my hand. “I saw him at Kushma’s niece’s wedding just last weekend.”
I had no idea who Kushma was, but smiled politely. “I’m Tavish Advani,” I began, preparing to explain my link to Diya.
But the man’s face lit up, and, wrapping his free hand around our already clasped hands, he pumped even harder. “Namaskaram, Mr. Tavish! You are the businessman from America!” His speech was a seamless mix of Hindi and English that I had to focus to understand. “We heard Diya beta got engaged!” His face fell as fast, his hands breaking away. “Is she…”
So, the news of the fire and the deaths had reached this isolated place. “She’s in the hospital,” I said. “Shumi as well.”
He shook his head, eyes looking down. “So sad. The crime is terrible these days.”
I didn’t say anything to that. “I came to get something from here. I thought…for the funerals—an important piece of the family’s past.” I’d thought about what to say, decided to leave it open-ended because surely there had to be something.
He made the slightly nasal ha sound that meant yes. “I know the one you mean,” he added, linking my vague description to the specific. “Dr. Sarita never took it with her the times she visited. Leaving a part of herself to watch over baby Ani. But yes, you should take it for the funerals. It was her mother’s, you know.”
I couldn’t believe he’d just handed me such a brilliant opening. “I don’t know too much about Ani. She was a sister who died young?”
“Cousin-sister,” the caretaker explained, hyphenating cousin the same way the shopkeeper had done—the usage was one I’d heard before; it was cultural, cousins addressed the same way as siblings except when clarifying the relationship to others.