Second Lives (7 page)

She suddenly took my hand and pulled me towards a door. To my horror, I saw the unmistakable shape of a woman’s face on it but before I could protest, we were inside. There was no one there. This time, I pulled her into a stall and closed the door behind me.

She put her arms around my neck and smiled. I gently pushed her away and turned her around. As she braced herself against the wall, I placed my hands on her bare hips and caressed the smooth skin. Her stomach was flat and taut, the kind you can only get from rigorous exercise. She moaned and began to grind herself against me. I reached down with one hand to feel her full but shapely behind.

She looked around at me and whispered urgently, ‘I want you right now…’

We coupled like animals in heat. She was moaning so loudly that I covered her mouth with my hand. She bit down hard on it, drawing blood. I knew that neither of us would last long, and increased the tempo of my rhythm. We screamed in unison when it was over. I was past caring if there was anyone listening outside.

She leaned against me and panted. ‘That was nice.’

I tried to catch my breath. ‘For me…too.’

We quickly adjusted our clothes and stepped out of the stall. There was an old lady standing there, a shocked expression on her face. I smiled at her and said, ‘Have a nice evening, ma’am.’ Then we bolted out into the corridor. The woman gave me a brief wave and walked away rapidly. I stood there for several moments, reflecting on what had just happened. It was probably the best sex I’d ever had in my life, but I didn’t even know her name.

My thoughts were interrupted by one of the hotel staff, a short girl in a beige uniform, who had walked up to me. ‘Sir, there’s a message for you.’

I opened the folded piece of paper. It said,
‘We need to talk. Walk down the lane outside the hotel and wait near the second turn.
’

I was surprised. No one except Neel and Sara knew I was at the Marriott that evening. Was I being followed? I wondered if the woman I just had sex with was connected to this in any way. Maybe it hadn’t been as casual a pickup as I had thought.

‘Who gave this to you?’

The girl turned towards the reception. ‘A gentleman came up to the front desk, handed me the note and pointed you out to me.’

‘What did he look like?’

She thought for a moment. ‘He was quite big, I noticed. I didn’t see his face clearly because he was wearing a hat. But he’s just walked out. Maybe you can still catch up with him.’

I dashed for the hotel entrance. A party of guests was getting off a luxury tour bus and sauntering into the hotel when I reached the porch. I pushed my way past them into the driveway, ignoring the exclamations and expletives. I sprinted towards the gate and into the dark, narrow lane outside.

I went past the few cars parked along the wall of the hotel property. Behind me, a pair of headlights pulled out of the gate. It was the tour bus returning. The bright beams lit up the entire length of the lane and I spotted a tall silhouette just before it disappeared around a corner fifty metres ahead.

I started running again. My chest was already heaving with the exertion, and I wished I hadn’t drunk so many beers. I put on a burst of speed and turned into the street he had gone into. It was dimly lit. I looked in all directions but there was no sign of him—it was as if he had vanished into thin air. Unaccountably, I felt a chill run down my spine.

I waited for a few more minutes. As my breathing returned to normal and the adrenaline stopped flowing, I thought about the man who had sent me the message and then not showed up. I began to feel pretty foolish. What had I been thinking? It was obviously a case of mistaken identity, ironically from both sides. I started to trudge back to the hotel.

It happened without warning.

There was a terrific blow on the back of my head, and I sank to my knees. Someone kicked me hard on the side, and I felt myself being thrown on the warm, rough asphalt. I covered my head with my hands as the beating began. There was no chance of fighting back. Through the mist of pain, I counted three pairs of feet in heavy shoes. As I wavered in and out of consciousness, I realised that I was being battered to death.

Suddenly they stopped. I heard an urgent voice and the sounds of a scuffle. There was a scream of pain from one of the men. Then a siren sounded in the distance and I sensed the approach of a vehicle. At that moment, I passed out for good.

My last thought was that the voice had sounded very familiar.

18

Sara

I was thinking that my phone couldn’t have rung at a worse time but when I heard what the caller had to say, all other thoughts vanished from my mind.

‘Is that…Miss Sara?’ The voice was hesitant.

‘Yes, it is…’

‘I’m with the Panjim police, ma’am. Do you know someone called Omar? He’s been hurt…We found him lying unconscious on the road and have taken him to the Manipal hospital. It’s in Dona Paula.’

My heart skipped a beat.
‘Is he…?’

He interrupted. ‘He’s been assaulted but he’ll live. In fact, he should be coming round any time now. We found your number on his mobile phone and called you.’

‘I’ll be there as soon as possible.’

When we reached, Omar was sitting up on the bed, sporting a blood-soaked bandage on his head. He was in the Emergency ward, with only the duty nurse for company.

I went and held his hand. ‘What happened, Omar? Are you all right?’

He managed a weak grin. ‘Yeah…Just about.’

‘Who did this?’

Omar glanced at the nurse. ‘I don’t know but there were three of them. I must have blacked out while they were beating me up.’ He grimaced with pain. ‘The next thing I knew was waking up here.’

Neel asked, ‘Any broken bones?’

‘Thankfully, no. Lots of bruising, though. My right side feels like it’s on fire.’ He pointed to his temple. ‘And the doctor says I’ll have a bad headache for a few days.’

I remembered the officer who had called me. ‘Where are the police, Omar?’

‘When I regained consciousness, they asked me a few questions and left. I didn’t have much to tell them. They said they’d be back tomorrow.’

‘Where did this happen?’

‘Just outside the Marriott.’ Omar paused. ‘The police said my attackers saw their patrol jeep coming and fled. Otherwise, I might have been dead.’

Neel rubbed the sides of his forehead. ‘What the fuck is going on with us?’

The nurse came up and checked Omar’s blood pressure. She then gave him some tablets, presumably painkillers, and left the ward.

In soft tones, Omar told us everything that had happened.

I asked, ‘That’s really weird. Who could have sent you that message?’

‘Well, I had first thought it was some mistake but now it’s pretty clear that I was being set up for the ambush.’

I couldn’t control my tears. ‘Oh Omar, suppose you had been killed! First Rachel, now you…Which of us will be next?’

19

Neel

I still remember the day we first met Roy.

It was a November evening. The four of us were sitting on the lawn in front of the academic block. The winter chill had started to set in. We hadn’t taken off our blazers to make seats on the grass. As we did when it was warmer. Suddenly Sara nudged me and pointed. A tall, fair boy, about our age, was walking up the steps of the building foyer.

Omar shouted, ‘Hey, where do you think you’re going?’

The boy turned. Gave Omar a long, cool stare. He had striking light eyes. I couldn’t make out the colour in the approaching twilight. He looked like a foreigner.

He walked up to where we were sitting. I noticed that he had an extra finger on his right hand. An unusual deformity. ‘I’m new here. I was told to report to the Administration building.’

I said, ‘This is the teaching block. Admin is…’

Sara interrupted me. ‘…Closed right now. You should have come in earlier.’

That wasn’t true. I realised she was up to something.

‘I know. I got delayed. My uncle was supposed to have dropped me here but I had to finally come on my own.’

‘Are you joining the school?’

‘Yes. I’ve kept my trunk and bedding back near the gate.’

‘Then there’s only one thing to do. You must go to the bursar’s house. Only he can allow you to stay in the dorm tonight, and you can then do the registration in the morning.’

He brightened. ‘Thanks…Where’s that?’

Sara pointed towards the staff quarters at the other end of the premises. ‘It’s over there. Find the big house with the nameplate that says John Marshall. The doorbell doesn’t work so you need to bang hard on the door otherwise no one will come to open it.’

I heard Rachel suck in her breath audibly. No one said anything. The boy walked off.

The problem was that John Marshall was the principal of the school. Not the bursar. He was an irascible old bachelor. With an impressive collection of canes in his armoury. It was absolutely forbidden for a student to go to his house. For any reason whatsoever. And he hated being disturbed in the evenings because that’s when he usually rested.

The unsuspecting Roy faced the full wrath of our principal that day. He never forgave us for it.

But it had the effect of breaking the ice. Soon Roy began to hang out with us. Both the girls loved him. Even though he was initially pretty shy with them. Sara told me she found him really cute. Needless to say, that didn’t endear him to me.

However, it was difficult not to like Roy. There was something about him. He was serious yet funny. Quiet but warm. Studious and sporty in equal measure. Joining a new school mid-session isn’t easy. But he quickly came to be highly regarded both by students and teachers.

Even the principal would nod and give Roy a half-smile whenever they passed each other. It was a display of great affection by his standards. He generally just glared at students. Their first meeting was obviously a thing of the past.

Roy had laughed as heartily as the rest of us while describing Johnny Boy’s face after being roused from his siesta by the loud knocking. And how he had turned purple with rage when Roy asked innocently if he could find him a place to spend the night. We roared with delight at the thought of the old man assuming that he was being asked by a student for permission to stay in his house.

It was obvious that Roy had never had any real friends before. He told us about his broken family. The beatings by his stepmother. When his grandmother died soon after, something had switched off inside him. It was almost as if he had been waiting for that moment to finally renounce all familial ties and memories. The festering wound in his heart had stopped bleeding at last. Leaving behind a permanent and angry scar.

We all felt sympathetic towards Roy. Even though he didn’t really want our sympathy. I recognised that some cold, dark currents ran deep within him. Which he generally kept well hidden away.

Meanwhile, Sara developed an intense crush on Roy.

It became a fixation with her. And preyed on her mind all the time. She confided only in me. I had to listen bitterly as she went on and on about him.

Sara had always been popular with the boys. She rarely had difficulty in hooking up with anyone she took a fancy to. It was different with Roy. She did not want to reveal her feelings to him. Or make any overt advance for fear of being rejected. Though she never told me so, I suspected that she had somehow tested the waters already. And learnt that Roy did not feel the same way about her.

Roy was a strange one. Sara was by no means the only girl in school infatuated with him. Yet he showed no interest in any of them. Here I was, starving for female attention. Ready to jump any girl who beckoned. Except that none did. And there was Roy. Pushing away all the girls who fell over themselves in vying for his attention. It was frustrating. And I never tired of telling him so.

He would only laugh. ‘Neel, I don’t understand why you say no girl ever likes you. You’re a little weird but there’s no other problem, right? I’m sure there must be someone out there whom you could go out with.’

I would retort, ‘Screw you, Roy. Forget me, what about you? Word on campus is that since you don’t seem to like any of the girls, Biswas is getting very interested in you.’ Mr Biswas was our effeminate Physics teacher. He was very touchy-feely with the boys.

Rachel would keep telling Roy to be more like Omar. And Omar to be more like Roy. It was a good point. Omar was a menace to female innocence across four academic batches. In stark contrast to Roy’s indifference to the opposite sex.

Roy would protest, ‘Why the hell don’t you guys leave me alone? I can manage very well without a girlfriend, thank you very much!’ Omar would then make an obscene gesture behind his back. Much to our amusement.

But Roy did eventually find a girl to go around with. And all the trouble began soon after that.

20

Omar

I was discharged from the hospital in the morning, and it was an immense relief to get out of that awful Emergency ward.

The pain wasn’t too bad after all the painkillers but I hadn’t slept a wink. During the night, an accident victim had been brought in, screaming. His right leg was cut off at the knee and the severed limb was next to him on the stretcher, sticking out of a dirty plastic bag. The doctor on duty and the nurses attended to him while a microsurgery specialist was being traced but he had apparently lost too much blood and died right there next to me.

Neel had come to pick me up and we drove back to the villa in silence. Sara greeted me with a big hug and said brightly, ‘Welcome home, wounded warrior!’ I went straight to my room and fell asleep almost immediately.

That evening, I got a call from
them
.

It was not pleasant. I was informed that the final deadline had been advanced, and instead of a month, I now had only a week left. My protests went unheeded. The call ended with a graphic threat of one of my body parts being removed non-surgically and placed inside another, if I didn’t comply. I knew they meant every word.

Fact is, I’m over my head in debt.

It all started with this fantastic idea I had for an Internet venture. Unfortunately, the banks and venture capitalists didn’t share my view—the pompous suits told me that the dotcom era was over. My business plan was too risky, and I had no relevant experience to execute it. The financial projections had too many assumptions and dependencies.