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)
Taking that as an invitation, I walked up to take the other chair on the porch. The view from that vantage point was of the gravel road and what looked like farm fields beyond it. I couldn’t tell the crops from this distance but could see what looked like a tractor working the land on the fallow far edge.
“Beans,” Kamal said after walking out with a single glass of what looked like cold lemonade and putting it into my hand.
He was still smoking his cigarette, the scent of nicotine drifting my way on the warm but not unbearable morning air.
I thought of Susanne, of how she’d taken such pleasure in what would end up being her final cigarette, drawing in long drags and making smoke rings with her mouth as she exhaled. Where Jocelyn had smoked with an addict’s passion, Susanne had managed to avoid that pitfall, had only smoked around me maybe five times overall.
Each cigarette had been a slow display of pleasure.
That night, she’d been wearing the glittering red cocktail dress she’d chosen for our date to a bar as sophisticated as she was, her lipstick perfect and not a strand out of place in the elegant twist in which she’d put her hair.
I had loved her so much. Enough to kill her.
Nothing else could’ve made me do what I’d done. Only love of the kind that was a vine around the heart that couldn’t be removed. Susanne had been inside me. Where Diya now lived.
“Thanks.” I took a sip of the drink in an effort to push away the memory of what I’d done, sighed at the tart sweetness. “Tastes fresh.”
“She uses those. Good girl. Knows how to make it right.” He pointed at a tree on the other side of the porch, heavy with tiny yellow citrus fruits. “So, why’re you here? Shouldn’t you be with Diya and Shumi?”
The fact that he’d added Shumi’s name to the list told me that he was well up on the news.
I gave him the same excuse I’d given Ravi, but he didn’t buy it. “You could’ve done that later. I don’t know how the police in New Zealand do things, but I know they’ll be looking at the forensic evidence—and that includes any remains. No funerals anytime soon.”
“No.” I drank a little more. “The thing is, Diya said something about Ani when I found her after the fire. I didn’t know if it was important and there was no one there who’d tell me—Shumi’s parents said they didn’t know anything, and her brother didn’t have much information.”
Kamal snorted. “Those two. Of course they know. But Ajay wasn’t even two when it happened.” He tapped the ash from his cigarette into a dented metal ashtray on the little table between us. “It’s old history. Nothing to do with now.”
“It was on Diya’s mind after she was hurt,” I insisted. “And, honestly, she’s not doing well. She’s still in the ICU. If there’s something she needs me to do so she’ll be at peace, I want to.” It was a stab in the dark, the latter, but I’d spotted the yellow string tied around his wrist, caught the scent of incense coming off him—Kamal was religious, and for the scent of incense to be strong enough to cut through the acrid puff of nicotine, he had to have prayed that morning.
It would matter to him that Diya not pass on in distress.
Another puff before he crushed out the butt in the ashtray. “They were just children. No point in making anything of it.”
My heart thundered, and though I wanted to push, I stayed silent, both of us watching the tractor.
“My son, Yash,” Kamal said at last. “I wanted him to become a police officer like me, but this is what he wants to do. Stupid. How’s he going to emigrate overseas driving a tractor and growing beans and whatnot?” A shrug. “His wife works in a bank, so maybe she’ll talk sense into him.”
Leaning back in his chair, he began to rock again. “They were playing outside, Bobby and Shumi and Diya and Ani. Nobody much watching over them—we didn’t, not back then. They knew not to go into the water alone, and usually just climbed trees or ran through the fields trying to find gooseberries.”
The images were the stuff of hazy, happy childhood memories, but Kamal’s face was grim.
“No Ajay,” the older man added. “He was a little too young, but even if he hadn’t been, that mother of his wouldn’t have allowed it. She had all the control, with her husband off in Suva for work most of the year. I always said he’d grow up weak with a mother like that—woman had him tied to her apron strings from the day he was born.” A glance at me, a silent question.