Vanished (6 page)

Pavi's point was valid. Neela didn't know the connection either.

She debated. There was still one other thing she hadn't yet told her friend about. But she knew Pavi would say she had lost her mind. A mysterious curse? A veena disappearing because of a spooky past? And if Hal or Mary or Lynne were involved, it seemed impossible they could have anything to do with Lalitha Patti's secret story all the way back in India. Neela decided to keep quiet. Meanwhile, she needed to talk to Lalitha Patti again.

From downstairs, Pavi's parents called for her and Bharat to get ready to go home.

Pavi jumped up. “See you at Sudha Auntie's.” She and Neela got to see each other every week at their veena lesson.

“Aren't you going on Sunday?” Neela asked. Her family was going to a veena concert that afternoon near Harvard.

“Oh, yeah, right. See you there.”

Downstairs, Pavi said to Neela's parents, “So, back to the student veena?”

Neela gave Pavi a
Don't
look. She didn't want to bring up the subject again so soon.

“Well, yes, but we came up with another idea, too,” Mr. Krishnan said.

Neela sighed. “Oh?”

“We decided to go to India in December instead of June,” Mrs. Krishnan said.

“That's when we're going,” Pavi said excitedly. “We can get our tickets together.”

Mrs. Krishnan nodded. “We can travel at the same time. In fact, Neela's cousin is getting married around then, too. Maybe we can make it to the wedding.”

“What does all of this have to do with the student veena?” Neela asked.

“We haven't decided for sure, but maybe while we're in India, we can think about buying you a veena.”

Neela stared at her parents. “But what about Lalitha Patti's veena?”

“We're not happy about it being lost,” her mother said. “But we'll claim the lost veena with our insurance and use the money to buy another one. That's the best we can do.”

“But…but we can't give up looking for the other veena.” Neela tried to keep the despair out of her voice, conscious of Pavi's parents watching. “What if we looked just a little more? Like putting an ad in the paper and—”

“We could do all of that,” Neela's mother said, “but the point is, that veena is gone. And we have to face the fact that we won't get it back.”

Neela stared at her mother's face, which had that I've-made-up-my-mind look on it. She remembered her words from the other night, how it was better if they didn't find the veena. All because of a curse. A curse no one would tell Neela about.

“Think,” Neela's father said. “A new veena.” He forced a smile, as if trying to convince her what a great idea it was, but Neela could hear the sadness in his voice, too.

A year ago, Neela would have been ecstatic at the prospect of getting a veena of her own. But that was then. And now…

Pavi, who didn't notice the change in Neela's expression, was hopping around with excitement. “Neela, hey, what about the trip? We'll have so much fun!”

Behind her, Sree and Bharat were cheering, and even the adults had to smile. Neela tried to show the same excitement as everyone, but inside, she felt a wave of despair. Was she the only one dismayed by this latest development? Because a new veena did mean she could graduate from Sudha Auntie's student veena. But it also meant her grandmother's veena was gone…for good.

Sunday afternoon
, Sree's wailing could be heard all over the house and even in the driveway, where Neela was looking for a lost headband in the backseat of the minivan. She didn't find it, but she did find an unopened bag of potato chips that had fallen down in the back. She leaned against the side of the car, eating them.

Her mom's voice came through a half-open window. “Sree, I'll be gentle.”

“You'll cut my brain.”

“I won't. Here, have a lollipop.”

“I don't want a lollipop,” he cried.

“Take it,” Mrs. Krishnan said angrily.

Neela sighed. Aside from the fact that it was embarrassing to hear her family yelling through the window, she didn't get why her mom didn't take Sree's butt to the barber and have him yell and scream there instead.

She ate the last of the crumbs off her fingers, thinking about the afternoon concert. Alfred Tannenbaum, an American, was performing on the veena. Sudha Auntie was friends with him, and she had mentioned he was a professor at Tufts. When Neela asked if he taught veena, Sudha Auntie answered in her usual snide tone:
Well, he doesn't teach yodeling!
Neela's parents, whose friends had raved to them about Tannenbaum's live performances, had been looking forward to the concert all week. For once, her dad took the time to match his socks, and her mother wore a fancy sari, as she did when they went to the temple.

It always surprised Neela that the two of them cared so much about music, when neither of them could carry a tune. “Why didn't you ever learn the veena?” she asked her dad once. “I mean, Lalitha Patti is so good, why didn't she teach you?”

“What makes you think she didn't try?” he asked. “We had so many lessons, and most of the time she screamed at me, until she finally gave up. Because I'd rather play outside with my friends. I guess all the music genes in our family skipped me. So I had to settle for these denim ones instead,” he said, pointing down at his pants. He made jokes, but Neela knew that when he thought no one was listening, he sang to himself.

Mr. Krishnan poked his head out of a living room window. “What are you doing?”

Neela crumpled the bag of potato chips in her hand. “Getting ready,” she said.

He stared at her for a moment. “I see. You're getting ready for a concert by standing in the driveway next to the minivan.”

“Fine,” she said. She came back in, stuffing the empty chip bag into her pocket.

Inside, Sree was lying on the floor of the bathroom, tears streaked across his face, unopened lollipops strewn everywhere. Mrs. Krishnan stood over him, shimmering in a Mysore silk sari bordered by gold thread, with a pair of scissors in her hand. She looked at Mr. Krishnan and Neela. “I'm getting nowhere. His hair looks like an overgrown forest.”

Next to her feet, Sree continued to whimper.

“You're cutting his hair,” Mr. Krishnan asked, “in your sari?” He looked at her as if she were insane.

“I wasn't planning to. Then I saw his hair, and I couldn't stand it anymore.”

Mr. Krishnan sighed. “Why didn't you do it yesterday?”

“Saturday,” she said.

Neela rolled her eyes. It was her mother's belief, from the time she was a child, that it was bad luck to cut hair on a Saturday. Sometimes Neela wondered how anyone got anything done with her mother around.

Mrs. Krishnan looked at her watch. “I guess we should get going. I don't suppose we'll be on time.”

Mr. Krishnan said, “Are you kidding?”

Miraculously, Neela's family pulled into the last parking spot on Amherst Street. The miracle continued as a delay in setting up the sound equipment gave them time to find seats inside. Neela sat down next to her dad and surveyed the audience. She spotted Pavi and her family, sitting near the front. They were always early, well-dressed, and groomed. Neela pushed back her flyaway hair and brushed away a few potato chip crumbs that were still on her shirt. At least no one could see what she looked like in the dark.

When the musicians came onto the stage, their instruments were already there waiting for them, so they just had to tune. Professor Tannenbaum wore an orange-colored kurta and khaki pants, and had a wave of gray hair poofing out around his face. Neela thought he looked exactly like an owl. An old, poofy-haired owl.

The concert began. Professor Tannenbaum started with an invocation. Neela knew what it was because her parents had explained it to her before. It was how all South Indian concerts started, with a musical prayer to the Lord Ganesha, the remover of obstacles. For good luck, her mother had explained. Neela knew all about luck in performances, though she personally never seemed to have any.

“When is it over?” Sree whined. “I'm bored.”

“Sshh,” their mother said. “It just started.”

Sree squirmed in his seat. “Next time you can cut my brain out,” he said.

“Dork,” Neela said.

Following the invocation, Professor Tannenbaum started with the first song from the Pancha Ratnas or “Five Gems,” as they were known. Lalitha Patti played it during every visit, and hearing it now made Neela's stomach knot up, remembering all over again how she had lost her grandmother's veena. To make herself feel better, she tried to picture herself all grown up and on the stage, playing the song instead, with accompanists and an audience and flowers in her hair, wearing a gold-colored sari or a flowing kurta shirt or whatever musicians would be wearing by the time she was grown up. And, of course, without being terrified to death. The image of her in the future helped, but only partly, because when she closed her eyes, she still saw herself playing on her grandmother's old veena.

During the break, Sudha Auntie materialized out of nowhere. For someone well over seventy, Neela's teacher moved with an uncanny quietness and speed. Neela first heard her voice, then felt a claw hand on her shoulder, and when Neela turned around, her teacher was standing before her. How did she do that? It was almost creepy.

Before Neela could say anything, Sudha Auntie said to Mr. and Mrs. Krishnan, “You don't mind, but I'm borrowing Neela for a moment.” Then, with surprising deftness, Sudha Auntie extracted Neela from her seat and brought her down the aisle. She had Pavi already in tow on the other side of her. “Girls, you must meet him,” Sudha Auntie declared.

Neela and Pavi exchanged looks. “Alfred, Alfred!” their teacher called to the man onstage. Professor Tannenbaum was already swarmed by a bunch of people from the audience, but this didn't seem to stop Sudha Auntie. “Some students I want you to meet.” And with that, she thrust Neela and Pavi right into the middle of the swarm. Everyone stared stonily at the two girls for cutting the line. Neela inwardly cursed her teacher.

“Talk,” Sudha Auntie prodded. “Tell him you're veena students.”

Pavi mumbled something of this sort to the professor.

Neela hated it when a grown-up told her what to say. She mumbled hello and was about to turn around, when Professor Tannenbaum said, “I remember you!”

Neela stopped. “You do?” She had never seen Professor Tannenbaum before.

His face broke into a delighted smile. “You're the girl whose string snapped at the temple last summer.”

The swarm stopped to look at Neela more closely. Yes, their faces seemed to say, this was the very same girl. Some of them even smiled.

Neela felt her face go hot. Would she never be able to forget about that stupid string? “Lucky me,” she muttered, and stepped back. Like a curtain, the crowd closed back around Professor Tannenbaum, surrounding him again.

Sudha Auntie came bounding after her, with her superhuman agility. “Hey,” she demanded.
“What was that?”

Neela kept walking. “He remembered my string snapping.”

“But he still remembered you,” she said. “It was a compliment.”

Neela didn't say anything. It hadn't sounded like a compliment to her.

Sudha Auntie waited a moment, then said, “All right, suit yourself.” She turned back in the direction of the stage. She probably had more important things to talk about with the professor, such as her star student, Pavi.

Neela stepped out into the lobby. It was quiet and cool out there—a good place to hide herself away from everyone. If only she could hide herself away from her mistakes—but they seemed to follow her everywhere. It didn't help that the most embarrassing one had been witnessed by Professor Tannenbaum, and that he had mentioned it in front of all those people, who seemingly had all been to the same dreadful performance. If there was a contest for bad weeks, this one would get the grand prize.

Neela felt inside her pocket and found the crumpled-up bag of potato chips. But they were gone, and there was nothing else to eat. As she went to toss the empty bag in a nearby trash can, she accidentally bumped into an Indian man who was also throwing something away.

“Sorry,” she said automatically.

“Sorry,” he said, too, stepping back. He was neatly dressed with a trimmed haircut and starched collar. “You are fast, I did not see you.” He had an accent like her grandparents, and now that she had a better look, she saw he was young. He might be the same age as her cousin, Arun, who had just finished college in India and was getting married. Neela also noticed the flash of a ruby-and-gold ring on the young man's finger where the light hit it. She had never seen anyone his age wear jewelry like that before.

“You too,” Neela said, without thinking. Then she stopped. Why did she say that? It didn't even make any sense.

“You are enjoying the concert?” he asked. “Or getting bored?”

“No, I wasn't bored,” Neela said. “I play the veena, too.”

“Really?”

Neela nodded, feeling suddenly important, when only a minute ago she had wanted to put a brown paper bag over her head.

“Good. Very good. Because, like it or not,” the guy went on, “the veena is dying.”

“What?” Neela hadn't expected this.

“Dying away. Not many people are playing it anymore.”

“But that's not true,” she said. “I know so many. Professor Tannenbaum, my teacher, my friend, and…”

The guy smiled. “Trust me, veenas are hard to sell nowadays. The magic is all gone. Even if the veena has the loveliest, sweetest sound of all Indian music.”

Then, before she could respond, he walked away. Who was he? She watched him sift through the crowd and back through the doors of the auditorium. He was slender, with long thin legs, and he walked comfortably through the lobby, as if he had been to the recital hall before. And yet his accent was so strong, he had to be from India, not here. She wondered again who he was. He didn't act anything like her cousin Arun.

Curious, she followed him back in. The lights were blinking, which meant the concert was about to start again. Inside, she spotted him at the front, talking to Professor Tannenbaum. Standing a few feet away was a woman dressed in black, with straw-colored hair cut to her chin. She was photographing them with a huge camera, the kind where the lens stuck out and looked complicated and professional. Neela wondered if she was from the newspaper.

Neela crept closer to the young man with the ruby ring so she could hear what he was saying to Professor Tannenbaum. She stood behind a few people so she didn't look too obvious.

“It is not a problem,” he said, flashing the same delicate smile Neela had seen a few minutes ago. “Some sealant will do the trick.”

Tannenbaum said, “I knew I could count on you. But the crack is fairly large.” He directed the young man to his veena to show a long crack that ran along the length of the bottom. “I don't know how it happened. I don't remember banging it against anything.”

The young man looked carefully at the instrument. “This isn't that kind of crack. It was caused by heat. Maybe a hot summer followed by a rainy fall?”

“Why, yes,” Tannenbaum said thoughtfully. “That must have been it.”

The young man gave Tannenbaum a business card. “This number will work until the end of the week. Call me. I can have it fixed for you.”