Banquet on the Dead (13 page)

Hamid Pasha’s eyes darted quickly to Nagarajan, who wrote down the time with a little blue star next to it.

‘Or it could have been—er—her sister,’ Venkataramana said.

‘And after lunch you went to your room?’

‘Yes, straight after lunch. We have a little study adjoining our bedroom where I usually go when I need some quiet. People don’t usually disturb me there.’

Nagarajan wondered if anyone in the family ‘disturbed’ Venkataramana at any time, anywhere. He looked like a man who had been so thoroughly ignored all his life that he had long gotten used to it. He was the middle child, Nagarajan recalled. He was probably ignored by his mother too; did it ever make him resentful? Was there cold blood somewhere beneath the dithering exterior?

Out loud, he asked, ‘And you stayed in your room until—when?’

‘Until—er—the very end. Prameela was here in the evening—and she was calm as ever. Prameela never gets excited, you know—well, not when the situation merits excitement. She gets excited over the little things, though, when nobody around her is—you know, one of
those
women—but, er—you asked me how long I was in the room until—yes, must have been six or even later than six.’

‘You were in the room for close on five hours?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s an awfully long time to spend on your papers.’

Venkataramana smiled. ‘It was an awfully complex set of documents.’

‘Can anyone verify that you were indeed in your room the whole time?’

‘Of course,’ said Venkataramana immediately, and then paused. ‘I was going to say my wife, but you probably meant somebody other than my wife. Yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Gauri was here when I went into the room, so she should be able to verify that. However I do not know how long she was around. Maybe you can ask her.’

‘Anyone else?’

Venkataramana thought for a minute. ‘Lakshman was in the house. But I suppose his evidence won’t count either.’

Hamid Pasha said smoothly, ‘It is not that it will not count, miyan, but shall we say that we will take whatever he tells us about your whereabouts with a certain amount of salt?’

A strange sound came out of Venkataramana then; something like a scoff. ‘I doubt Lakshman would say anything to
protect
me, sir,’ he said. ‘So I might
insist
on you taking his words with salt.’

Nagarajan heard the pain in his voice now. So he had been a lonely child, probably a lonely teenager; a sensitive soul—men such as he were always sensitive—and most likely a doting but undemonstrative father. And such men always had wives who think they are useless and sons that pretended they did not exist. Even without meeting them, Nagarajan could guess what Kamala and Lakshman would be like. For a second or two, he found himself pitying Venkataramana.

Not too much pity, though, he thought, stopping himself. He knew that such sensitive, aching men were also unpredictable in thought and action. They had their own sense of justice, and their own way of imparting it upon others.

Hamid Pasha was asking the man, ‘Indeed? That is most interesting.’

‘Er—perhaps not, sir. Fathers and sons don’t get along very well these days.’

‘Ah, miyan, you are so right. You are so right.’

Nagarajan said, ‘What happened when your sister visited you in the evening, sir?’

‘I heard her voice downstairs and I came out of my room. Kamala sounded quite excited—I would not say griefstricken, but excited—and I caught some words— ’Mother’, ‘wet’, ‘Praveen’, ‘downstairs’—funny, I did not hear the word ‘dead’ but somehow I knew that Mother was. I called to Kamala, saying I would be right down, and I went back inside to dress—I—I did not know what I was doing. But I somehow thought I had to be well-dressed—I put on a fresh pair of pants and went downstairs.

‘They were all there; Prameela, Karuna, Kamala— Lakshman had come down before me, so he was standing there, hands folded. Praveen was by the body and he was weeping. Raja was crawling from his room towards the body yelling some abuses at Mother—he was yelling at her to give him some food or something—and Swami was there, standing and looking into the distance, as he does. I think all of us were affected in some way or the other. We were all in shock—except Prameela—maybe she was in a shock of her own. But she seemed perfectly normal; perfectly in control...’

He had left the words hanging, and Nagarajan expected more words to come tumbling out, but none did. The three of them stood in silence, and Nagarajan saw that the man’s face was quite serene though his speech reminded him of one of those keyed-up toy clowns.

Hamid Pasha asked him, very softly, ‘And what did you do then?’

‘I don’t remember, sir. I must have sat down and I must have wept. I don’t really remember. Maybe it is one of those things—the mind knows some things are best forgotten—maybe this is one of those things.’

There was a recurrence of silence at that, and Nagarajan saw that Hamid Pasha was giving Venkataramana a little time to ruminate upon his thoughts. Presently he asked, ‘You do not think it is possible that your mother was killed, miyan?’

Again that scoff-like sound came from Venkataramana. ‘Do I not think it is possible? I
know
for sure that she has been killed, man! The woman hated the water!’

‘And who do you think would want to kill her like that?’

Venkataramana broke into a laugh, which started soundlessly, just as a shaking of his shoulders, but then developed into a series of guttural sounds that varied from snorts and sighs to grunts and coughs. In the midst of it he removed his glasses with great difficulty and dried his eyes of tears. Whether they were induced by his laughter or not, Nagarajan could not guess.

At length, the attack subsided, little by little, and Venkataramana returned to his over-serious, hesitant self. ‘It is funny you should ask that,’ he said, ‘because it is only after you have asked me that question did I realise I asked myself the same question many times over the last few days.’

‘And do you know the answer?’

‘Oh yes,’ he said simply. ‘My wife.’ He looked from one to the other, as if expecting a response, and when he got none, he shrugged. ‘Why hide something that the whole town knows? If you don’t hear it from me you will hear it from someone else.’

Nagarajan was about to say that they
had
heard it from someone else, but something in Hamid Pasha’s forbidding glance stopped him. He kept silent.

Venkataramana went on. ‘It is the sort of resentment that builds over time, sir. Kamala has lived her whole married life in the expectation of money to come from Mother. Mother was already quite frail when we got married, you see. There was no reason to imagine she would live as long as she did—and some would say Kamala only married me because of my mother’s wealth. I daresay she had dreams of being a queen; and she sowed those dreams in Lakshman too...’ His voice trailed off, and he slipped into a reverie.

‘He—he never studied—why would he, with his mother dreaming her dreams out loud, declaring that we were all just about to get wealthy beyond measure? Thank God, Praveen did not turn out that way—he—er—he had always looked up to Kotesh, and Kotesh is the most educated in the family—he is the pride of our family, in fact—er—he is someone who is carrying on the legacy of Dasaratha Rama Rao.’

‘You were telling us about your wife, miyan?’

‘Yes, well, if you ask me who the person is who most wanted my mother dead, I will have to say my wife. I remember the day Prameela came up to tell us; I could see the muscles of her face straining, sir. She wanted to cry out and weep out of relief. There was absolutely no sign of grief on her face—after all that my mother had done for her—’

‘Did your wife look after her well, the old lady?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Venkataramana, nodding forcefully. ‘She is the only daughter-in-law of the family, after all. Swami and Raja—er—did not get married. Kamala got all the attention, and good attention too. Maybe I should have done something about that—maybe I should have stopped it in some way—be a little authoritative—maybe she got the feeling in those early days of marriage that things were going to be quite easy for her.’

Nagarajan heard the note of defeat in the man’s voice, and thought it typical. Venkataramana was not the kind of man to stamp his authority on anything or anybody. He was the kind of man that got stamped upon—no,
allowed
himself to get stamped upon—and then later looked back and wondered whether he had been too lenient. This was a house ruled by women, he thought suddenly, thinking of Kauveramma, Prameela, Karuna, Durga, and now hearing of Kamala; and contrasting that with the weak, ineffectual lives of the men—Swami, Raja, Venkataramana—and yes, even Koteshwar Rao to an extent. It was the way of the house, the way of the family, to let women rule, and if anyone was going to change that, it was definitely
not
going to be Venkataramana, however much he wished he could.

‘God knows how many temples she has visited in the last thirty years, sir,’ Venkataraman said, smiling. ‘She tells me she is praying for me and for the boys, but I know what else she has been praying for.’ His mouth twitched, and the lines of his jaw hardened. ‘Her prayers have now been answered.’ And just as suddenly his voice mellowed, and he looked up at them with a beseeching glance. ‘Tell me, sir: is there anything more wretched than rejoicing at another person’s death?’

Hamid Pasha protruded his lips and scratched his beard. He appeared to be deep in thought, and gave no indication of having heard the man’s question. Nagarajan said hurriedly, ‘Do you have anything in the way of evidence to suggest that it was your wife that killed her?’

‘Oh, if it is not Kamala, who would it be?’ Venkataramana asked. ‘None of us would do it—she was our mother. And I doubt anyone from the next generation would do it—what do they stand to gain from her death?’

‘But you said yourself that Lakshman—’

‘Oh yes, it could definitely have been Lakshman, but even if it is Lakshman who did it, it would have been Kamala—er—pulling the strings, you know.’

‘So you have no
evidence
, then.’

Venkataramana thought for a moment and then said, ‘No evidence in this case, no.’

Hamid Pasha asked suddenly, ‘What do you mean by that, miyan? If you do not have evidence in this case, you have evidence of previous cases?’

Sighing deeply, Venkataramana said, ‘There have been—er—incidents—in the past, sir.’

‘Poisoning, by any chance?’

‘Yes, and with Kotesh looking after Mother—it is a bit hard to deceive a doctor with poison, you know.’

‘Ah, I understand that. Yes, I understand that,’ Hamid Pasha said. ‘But how did the doctor know who it was that poisoned the food?’

‘There were always traces, sir. Kamala is not a very smart woman. She is—simple, shall we say. One time the poison appeared in a dish she made for Mother when Mother was sick. Another time it appeared in a drink when there was no one around but Kamala and Mother. And it was the same poison as the first time.’

Hamid Pasha nodded slowly, murmuring something under his breath. Nagarajan asked Venkataramana, ‘What was the poison, sir, if you don’t mind me asking?’

‘Arsenic, Kotesh said.’

‘Interesting, is it not, miyan?’ said Hamid Pasha, looking in Nagarajan’s direction. ‘I think our conversation with Kamala mem is going to be very interesting.’

Venkataramana said, ‘She must have finished her kitchen work by now. She will be in a very chatty mood— a good time to talk.’

‘We will, miyan.’

‘I suppose you will not want me around while you talk to her.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It is time for my walk, anyway.’

Hamid Pasha bowed to the man. ‘Thank you, miyan. You have been most helpful to us.’

With a smile and a quick adjustment of the glasses, Venkataramana turned, opened the door and led them back out into the hall. He then pointed them in the direction of the kitchen and the dining table that sat adjoining it, the arrangement very similar to what they had seen in Koteshwar Rao’s house. ‘Please. I will take your leave now,’ he said, and walked away to the front door.

When they had covered half the distance to the dining table, Hamid Pasha leaned toward Nagarajan and said, ‘A little too eager, was he not, miyan, to tell on his wife and son?’

Just as Nagarajan opened his mouth to reply, a lady came out of the kitchen, and Hamid Pasha advanced towards her, bowing in his elaborate fashion.

11

I
NSPECTOR
N
AGARAJAN’S
first impression of Kamala was that she was a tall, hefty woman, but on moving closer to her he saw that she only came up to Hamid bhai’s shoulders, and Hamid bhai was a good half-foot shorter than he was. That put her somewhere around the five-foot mark, about as tall as Karuna and Prameela were. But whereas the other two were frail and thin-boned, Kamala sported wide shoulders and sturdy bones. Watching her, he thought, one got the impression she meant business.

She looked slightly taken aback at the appearance of Hamid Pasha fussing over her, but she managed to show him to a chair and joined her hands in greeting when she saw Nagarajan. Nagarajan returned the gesture.

‘Please sit down,’ she said.

Her voice bore a roughness that no doubt gave people the feeling that she was dominating them even when she meant no such thing. One of Nagarajan’s grandmothers had been like that. Why, even now, though the lady present had probably nothing but welcome in her heart, Nagarajan heard a chilly tone of animosity ripple underneath her voice. Whether it was really there or not Nagarajan could not decide.

She started the proceedings, as she was probably used to doing. ‘I saw you speaking to my husband earlier,’ she said. ‘He thinks I did it, doesn’t he?’

‘Oh, memsaab.’ Hamid Pasha jerked forward, and quickly turned to Nagarajan and back to Kamala. ‘No, of course not.’

‘You don’t have to lie to me, sir. There have been enough lies in this family already.’ The lines of her face were harsh, and as she said those words, they deepened. She looked away past the open window. Her hands were placed on the table before them: nice hands, Nagarajan noticed, but lined and wrinkled with age. The tip of her left forefinger twitched every second or two.