Vanished (25 page)

“Beautiful,” Lalitha Patti said.

Neela agreed. The veena wasn't as ornate as the old one. There was no ivory inlay in the pegs or along the sides. But it had been stained in two tones, the top a lighter honey, and the back and bottom, a darker, richer shade. It reminded her unexpectedly of butter melting in a pan. Without thinking, she plucked the strings. They had not been tuned, and vibrated off-key, but the tone was warm and gentle. She continued to pluck the strings, listening to the notes fill the small room. It had a bigger sound than she expected. She noticed that the frets were closer together and that the whole veena seemed smaller than her original one. When she spanned the width of two frets with her fingers, she saw that they fit her hand perfectly.

Just then Govindar returned. She pulled her hand back, embarrassed.

He smiled. “Go on. That veena is new.”

“It's beautiful,” she said. “Really big sound.”

“You think so?” he asked. He glanced at Lalitha Patti.

Neela shrugged. “I'm no expert. It just felt like it was…filling up the room.”

“Well…it's yours,” Govindar said.

Neela gave a start and checked his face, then her grandmother's, to see if they were joking. Lalitha Patti beamed. “I told you Govindar had something for you.”

“Yeah, but a veena?” Neela said in surprise.

“Govindar threw in a huge discount, but the veena is from me, and—”

Govindar waved his hand. “No discount.”

Lalitha Patti stopped. “Govindar, I thought we had a deal,” she said, her voice rising.

“No discount,” he said, “because the veena is free. Courtesy of Chennai Music Palace. And Mohan.”

“Mohan?” Neela repeated.

“Believe it or not, he wanted you to have a veena. He was very angry that you found a way to separate him from the veena of his dreams. But you made an impression on him, too. Using money from his own bank account, he had this veena bequeathed to you. He said it wasn't every day he met a girl in America that wanted to play the veena. So there you go. Your own veena. Not a Guru original, but would you believe it, a veena made by a fellow named T.G. Mukund, also known as Guru's grandson. Yes, grandson! And it's his first one. So you have an original, after all!”

Neela was speechless. Mohan, the person who stole the
maya veena
, who locked her in the store and tried to push her off a train, was now giving her…another veena? Had she understood correctly? Or had the world started spinning in the opposite direction?

“Here,” Govindar said, reaching into his pocket. “He asked me to give this to you. I have not read it. I guess he wanted to explain for himself.”

Neela took the letter from him and began reading it.

Dear Neela,

I heard what you did, giving up the maya veena, and I must comment on how silly and foolish you were. When you are grown up, you will look back at the day with regret.

Still, something about your gesture moved me. Not to tears…but to caution. Remember what I told you in Boston? How the veena is a dying art? Never has this been more true. All of us, friends and enemies alike, must join forces to see that this beautiful music tradition remains with us. I accept the torch and pass it on to you. This veena, which I ask you in turn to accept, is a measure of my desire to see you continue playing.

Best of luck, though I must say with all sincerity that I hope to never run into you again.

–R.K. Mohan

Neela stared at the letter when she was done. What did it all mean? Was Mohan a decent person after all?

“What does it say?” Lalitha Patti wanted to know.

“He wants me to keep playing,” she said, still surprised. She turned to Govindar. “What happened to Mohan? Is he here? Or in…” She didn't know how else to say it. “Is he in jail?”

“Dear God, no,” Govindar said. “We went home immediately after we went to the station. The police aren't interested in such things, just a big fat bribe. It's funny, but it took this whole experience to make me realize how unhappy Mohan had been. The two of us had a long chat. He said he was sorry, and I was sorry, too. And now he is in Thanjavur. I sent him. He is taking care of his uncle, who hurt his back, and he is learning the veena with one of the master teachers there.”

“Wow,” Neela said.

“I miss him,” Govindar said. “But it was the right thing to do.”

“Yes,” Neela said. She knew all about doing the right thing.

On the ride home, Neela brought up something that had been on her mind ever since the day at the train station. “You knew Hal was Veronica's father all along, didn't you?” she asked.

A look of guilt came over Lalitha Patti. “I was wondering if you would ever ask me that. The truth is, I didn't. That is, I didn't believe him when he called me. After the newspaper article ran, I got so many phone calls, so many weird people approaching me with all kinds of phony claims. How was I to know he was telling the truth?”

“Would it have mattered?” Neela asked. “Would you have given him the veena?”

“I—I don't know. But what I do feel bad about is…” Lalitha Patti swallowed. “I knew I had Veronica's veena, from the time I bought the instrument. I remember her performing on it at the concert before her crash. The instrument was so unusual, so striking, and when it comes to veenas, I have a photographic memory. I remember everything, every little detail about anything that strikes my fancy. So when I saw it a year or so later in a tiny store about forty minutes from here, I was baffled—how could her veena survive the crash? Yet, evidently, it had. The salesman had no clue about what he had. He didn't even know what a Guru original was. But I did. I bought the veena cheap and took it home. It became my secret. I told no one, not even my husband.”

“So when I lost the instrument and I told you about Hal…” Neela started.

Lalitha Patti shook her head. “It was too late by then. Honestly, I didn't put the two things together. I never realized that your Hal was the same man who phoned me.” She looked down at her hands. “But I did know about Veronica, and I didn't tell you. Maybe if I had,
you
would have connected the dots sooner.”

“But what was so wrong with having Veronica's veena, anyway? Why
didn't
you tell me or Thatha?”

Lalitha Patti let out a sigh. “I can't explain it, but I was ashamed to buy a veena that belonged to someone who had died in a horrible crash. It seemed like bad luck.”

“You could have performed an aarti.”

“No aarti can remove that kind of thing.”

The car turned onto their street as Ravi expertly navigated around a large pothole in the middle that had accumulated rainwater from the past week.

As they drove the last few blocks, Neela thought of Mohan in Thanjavur, doing what he wanted at last. It was odd, but she found herself glad, imagining him taking lessons and becoming a musician. In the past two months, so many people had done terrible things, they had been entirely untrustworthy, and yet they had redeemed themselves in one way or another. And though she wasn't sure why, it felt as if a great crisis had been averted.

“I asked you before, I'll ask you again,” Lalitha Patti said. “Do you regret giving away the veena?”

Neela shook her head. “That veena was cursed, after all,” she said softly. “Not because it vanished—maybe it never did. It was because everyone wanted it so badly. For different reasons, but the wanting was the same. That
wanting
was the curse.”

They pulled into the driveway.

“What about you?” Neela asked. “Do you miss the veena?”

It was Lalitha Patti's turn to shake her head. “No, I have everything I need already.”

From the time
Neela got back to Arlington, two things changed almost at once. The first was that Neela and Matt started walking home together from school most days, stopping at Winthrop to talk for a few minutes before going their separate ways. When Matt found out what had happened in India, he was impressed. “I told you the credit card trick would work,” he said. “Or, that is, the baseball card trick.”

The other change was that Neela and Lynne became friends. At first, Lynne kept her distance. Then gradually they began talking at their lockers, in the lunch line, and in class. One day Lynne said, “I thought you'd be cool. That's why I tried not to talk to you.”

“What?” Neela burst out laughing. “That sounds like an insult.”

Lynne flushed. “Well, my grandfather was bugging me to befriend you. But then he did that awful thing, so there was no chance of being friends with you afterward.”

Neela pulled at a loose thread on her shirt. “So did you ever find out what the veena is worth? Are you now insanely rich?” She couldn't help echoing her grandmother's words.

Lynne pushed her frizzy hair back. “It's funny you ask. While we were in India, Grandpa and I went to an appraiser. Just for insurance purposes,” she added quickly. “Not that we would ever sell the veena, because, um, that would be wrong.”

Neela nodded, waiting to hear the dollar figure. How much did a rare veena cost anyway?

“So the appraiser did a basic examination and said the veena was very old. But to do a complete examination he would have to get the varnish chemically tested, and a bunch of other things that are hugely expensive, which he couldn't do, so he'd have to send it to some place in Mumbai. He said the value of the veena also depended on a ruby that was once embedded in the face of the dragon.”

“A ruby?” Neela repeated.

“You can't tell by looking, but with his tools, he detected some residue of the stone. He was familiar with the story of Parvati, and he said rumor had it that the ruby was a gift from the King of Mysore. If that's true, the stone itself would be a priceless gem today.”

“Was it one of her wedding jewels?” Neela wondered, remembering Mohan's book.

“Maybe. But we don't have the ruby, and we don't know what happened to it. So Grandpa and I decided not to get the instrument appraised anymore. We weren't planning to sell the veena, and without the ruby, the original isn't fully the original anyway.”

A missing ruby
.

Neela stopped. “Mohan,” she said out loud.

Lynne didn't understand. “What do you mean?”

“Mohan's ruby ring.”

Lynne drew in her breath. “You don't think he had it all the time? And
knew
?”

There was a silence as both girls digested this possibility.

“If he has the ruby,” Lynne said slowly, “he might come after the veena. He's stolen it before. He could do it again. Maybe the curse
is
true and the veena will disappear again.”

Neela wondered the same things herself. But then she saw Lynne's face. “Don't worry,” she said. “Mohan wanted to play the veena, and he's doing that. And he's in Thanjavur, the best place in the world for him to be. He wouldn't jeopardize all of that.”

“You think so?” Lynne asked anxiously.

Neela wasn't sure about anything when it came to Mohan, but she nodded anyway.

Lynne breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Neela. I feel better.”

And that was when Neela decided to put Mohan and the ruby ring out of her mind for good. After all, her life had gotten so much better since the veena mystery was solved. She had a new veena, she was playing better, and she had two new friends in her life. And even if she didn't see Pavi at their lessons, she saw her on the weekends and whenever their moms got together during the week. Besides, the problem of losing her carpool partner was soon solved.

One evening after dinner, while Sudha Auntie was over, the doorbell rang.

“More visitors—what, my company alone isn't good enough?” Sudha Auntie joked.

Mrs. Krishnan was equally surprised. “Who could it be?” she wondered. When she and Neela answered the door, they found Lynne and her grandfather on the steps.

“Hi,” Lynne said. “Can we come in?”

“Sure,” Neela said, shivering from the cold air outside the front door.

“My grandfather wanted us to come,” Lynne started when they were inside.

“Okay,” Mrs. Krishnan said politely. Since the day at the train station, Neela's mother had made up her mind not to hate them. But she hadn't made up her mind to like them just yet, either.

Hal glanced around the room, then turned to Neela. “I came because I never thanked you properly, Neela. Here I am, once a minister, and my good senses had left me. All I can say is that I'm sorry and hope you can forgive me.”

“You don't have to apologize again,” Neela said.

Hal shook his head. “No, you ought to know. I told you how much Veronica meant to me. But I didn't tell you how much what you did meant to me, too. It's changed our lives. Lynne and me, we're finally talking these days like we didn't before. I'm starting to understand her pain, her difficulty with living around an old-timer like me. In fact, we're finally joining the twenty-first century and getting a computer.” He gave Lynne a playful pat on her back.

Lynne looked embarrassed by her grandfather. “The good news is that I'm going to learn the veena,” she said to Neela. “We wondered if you have a teacher to recommend.”

Neela and her mother looked at Sudha Auntie.

“Actually, we know someone with an opening, don't we?” Mrs. Krishnan asked. “What a lucky coincidence.”

“If you believe in coincidences,” Sudha Auntie said.

Mrs. Krishnan smiled at Neela. “I believe in luck.”

Sudha Auntie took a card from her handbag and held it out to Hal. “Please call me and we'll make the proper arrangements for Lynne's veena instruction.”

“Wonderful, thank you. We'll definitely be in touch.” He took the card. “Sorry to intrude on you all like this. You've been a good sport, Neela.” He turned as if to go, then stopped. “But since we're here, would you mind playing us something?”

“Grandpa!” Lynne said.

“It's just that neither of us know anything about playing the veena.” Hal turned to Neela. “No pressure here. You can say no, if you want.”

Neela wondered what to do. What if she messed up? What if she forgot some notes? If she made a mistake, her mom would know right away. Not to mention Sudha Auntie, who would probably point out to everyone exactly what Neela was doing wrong.

But before Neela could say anything, Sudha Auntie spoke. “That's an
excellent
suggestion,” she said. “You'll also get to hear what my most promising pupil sounds like.”

Neela was agog.
Promising?
Had Sudha Auntie actually said something nice about her for a change? Behind her teacher, Mrs. Krishnan was smiling and shrugging as if to say, Yes, it's been known to happen.

“Let me get my veena,” Neela said.

It took a few minutes to tune. The sound of the strings being adjusted filled the room, and carried all the way upstairs, where Sree had nearly fallen asleep. But when he and Mr. Krishnan heard it, they crept down to listen. On the couch, the others waited patiently as the tuning continued, up and down, until all the strings were correct.

Neela cleared her throat. “I'm going to play a
keerthana
. Do you know what that is?”

Lynne and Hal shook their heads.

“A keerthana is a kind of song,” Sudha Auntie explained. “After you learn your scales and elementary songs, you start to learn keerthanas. This is the first one I'm teaching Neela.”

With that, Neela began. The new veena had taken time to get used to, but she soon found it a far more powerful instrument than her grandmother's. Her hands shook slightly, then steadied as she played on, taking advantage of the sound. The keerthana she was learning was filled with long, lilting melodic lines, each of them like a small mountain to climb until she reached the summit, breathless and ready for the next valley to cross. She was conscious of Sree and her father on the stairs, and her mother, Sudha Auntie, Lynne, and Hal, sitting around her. But this time the few mistakes she made didn't faze her, and she even stopped counting them. Her notes grew bolder as her keerthana sailed in the air and washed over everyone in the room, the honey-toned instrument rocking slightly while Neela played.