‘I thought you said you want to avoid the place?’ Vic asks, his tone laced with amusement as he steps out and gives the house a penetrating look. I follow him, pondering my answer.
‘I’ve said many other things too; we all tend to rearrange our statements with time.’
He stops in the shadow of the roof and throws a grin at me.
‘Perfect,’ he say laughing at the logic as I turned the key and pushed open the door. It cracked, with a sound fitting to a haunted mansion and revealed the dusty living area of the house.  ‘Uh ah,’ he says, his hands on his hips. ‘This will be a work of a day!’
I give him a look.
‘That’s what maids are for,’ I say casually pulling the luggage inside and giving the place a fleeting look. ‘You have other duties on your schedule.’
‘Which are?’
I think for a moment marking my priorities before I state them.
‘I need to see her, before anything else.’ I tell him then.
It is the first step of comprehending someone. I am sure Mr. Singh had left out nothing in his description, he is a man of many eyes, practically a ten eyed octopus as Vic called him, still what he said had been the facts he was presented with, not the first hand truth. I have to see for myself what I have to defend before I plan how I am going to do it.
‘Right,’ claps Vic. ‘Approval of access it is then,’ he says turning to leave. ‘Ah, SK,’ he stops at the threshold. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to meet them?’
‘You know how homesick I am Vic,’ I say sarcastically, frowning slightly at his need to pick out this annoying topic of all. ‘I’m sick of them.’
‘Well yeah,’ he looks sheepish. ‘I thought this was one of the statements you rearranged,’ he grins at me.
‘I came for a case Vic, not to reconcile with my family…if I can call them that.’
‘So I take it, you’re going to dust off this place while I’m gone?’
‘Nah,’ I say, walking out, following his trail. ‘I’m going to dig.’
‘Gold?’
I raise my eyebrows. ‘I’ll tell you in the evening, when I pull them up. By the time, make sure you have that approval granted.’
*
Sometimes, silence is far more powerful than questions and interrogations in extracting the truth. You do not simply walk in to a battle, with a rusty sword waving. First you need to gather your men, plan your strategy, know your enemy and then…attack. I am still finding my men and knowing my enemy…the battle still has a long way to go.
In front of me is a noisy market place, multicolored crowd of moving people frame my view. I do not pay any attention to them. It was too early still; the heat of the day has not reached the merchants here. I drive slowly past the vegetable stalls, my eyes picking up the faces in the crowd. It is an interesting way to spend your time, watching the people around you go on with their lives, the little stories on the background, and the little conversations in the humming and then I notice her; the woman I was hoping to meet.
I park in the sidelines and wait for her to pass by, knowing exactly where I would find her. Better than many I knew in my circles, I could read someone’s silence. For Shermishta Gadodia, I have applied the same theory. She was the first pawn I needed to move.
She takes her sweet time choosing the vegetables and chatting with a passing by woman. Watching her from this angle, one can hardly guess she has a daughter in prison, awaiting her trial. The woman is putting up a great act of normalcy and high spirits, considering the situation at her home, this does not surprise me. I watch her for another moment. She is certainly a beauty for her age, pleasant features and kind expression, hardly anything that matched the rough tone I received from her family in the morning.
‘Mrs. Gadodia,’ I call after her, as she finally decides to walk home. She waits for me to step out of the car, with a very placid expression. Her eyes take in my features recognizing me; I almost fear an oncoming rebuke similar to her husband’s.
‘It’s you,’ she says after a moment.
‘Yes, your daughter’s attorney.’ I say, covering the distance to where she stood with a few long strides.
‘You’re not letting it go are you?’ She sounds annoyed. ‘Even after everything my husband said?’
I shrug before remembering it might be inappropriate to do so.
‘Your husband doesn’t pay me,’ I point out then, in a polite yet careless tone. ‘He doesn’t get to decide what I keep and what I let go.’
Mrs. Gadodia watches me with a strange expression for a moment.
‘Why are you doing this?’ She asks me her eye brows rise a little.
‘It is a favor for a colleague of mine; I must say you have a good friend there.’
‘I did not ask anyone to help me,’ she informs me in turn surprising me slightly. So who exactly put Mr. Singh in to it? I push the thought to the back of my head, in hopes of dwelling on it later and smile at her.
‘But you do need help right?’
She still watches me with that unreadable expression of hers.
‘I can’t help you,’ she adds in a tight tone.
‘Very well,’ I say lightly. ‘I’m sure your husband might be pleased since he seems to have decided your daughter deserves capital punishment even before the judge, but tell me one thing Mrs. Gadodia, can you live with her memories?’
She blinked at me as I waited with my impassive expression in place. Mothers are the softest of hearts; you just have to knock them once to break their walls off. Slowly as I watched, her eyes filled with tears.
‘She wouldn’t like me to talk to you.’
“She” I take it is the girl who from everything I have found out about her, seems to belong to a unique species.
‘She’s a dimwit then,’ I say, with a slight smirk. Mrs. Gadodia seems to be beyond the realms of humor at the moment.
‘Can you save her?’ For the first time her tone is no longer empty, there is a hope, lighting her words, not much but in a slighter tint. This I take as a good sign.
‘I will do my best,’ I assure her urging her to place her trust on me.
‘What do you want to know?’
I exhale deeply. It was nearing noon and the sun practically burned both of us. It had taken a lot more time than I had previously estimated.
‘Let’s talk, about her.’
*
‘Good night to you, good night to me
Now close your eyes and go to sleep
Good night, sleep tight, sweet dreams tonight
Good night I love you….’
Her soft supple voice still echoes in my head whenever I close my eyes.  Ma, she was one of the most melodious voices I have ever known and that was one of her favorite songs for lulling me in to sleep. They say memories of childhood starts slipping from your mind after a certain point of life, but some memories, with their impact deeper than the others leave a mark upon your conscious as well as your character. For me, she was that mark, the everlasting stroke of fate upon my character and I was one of the only few alive to remember that vibrant avatar of hers.
It is one of the reasons for my partiality to the noisy cities. The silence and isolation makes my mind wander back in to an unattainable past, crowds and noise are my salvation. But the recent tasks at hand compelled me to forsake that sanctuary of the bustling city of Mumbai and return to my old home town; Kolkata. Even here, I would have found crowds and distractions in the main part of the city, but that is a portion of land I am banished from and I do not wish to stumble upon old skeletons unless it is time to walk in to the battle ground.
Still with my eyes closed to the darkness and ears pressed to the silence around me I can see and feel Ma. The most beautiful woman I have ever seen, the most dazzling of smiles, the shimmer of her eyes and the warmth of her embrace marks the only few appealing memories of my childhood. My phone is ringing shrilly, breaking that happy bubble of innocent childhood memory. Wincing slightly at the light of the florescent lamp in my study to which I opened my eyes, I glance at the screen. Vic’s name flashes there. No one else would have such an irregular timing, I sigh as I answer the call.
‘Yep,’ I say, leaning against my seat and arching my neck in to a further comfortable position.
‘Settled alright?’ He asks, in the background I can hear the rush of wind. He is driving.
‘Where are you off to?’
‘I got approval of access,’ he says shortly and I spring to my feet immediately.
‘Why did you waste three minutes with small talk?’ I snap at him as I grab my car keys and the jacket. ‘Where have you reached now?’
‘I’m coming to take you, wait for me,’ he says almost chuckling at my urgency.
‘No,' I say shortly shutting the office door without a backward glance. ‘We’ll meet there, I’m coming now.’
Inwardly I know Vic’s concern for my travelling comes from the same grounds where my fears of running in to ‘old skeletons’ are based on. He is a joyous fellow who absolutely hates useless ruffles; it is a folly of fate that he landed up as my partner who in his own terms is a magnet of universal disputes. I leave the front door unlocked, as no one still knows I’m back; there is a less chance of someone breaking in here tonight when they had not been here for five years.
Outside the cold air greets me, the slight twilight still lingers in the west edge of the sky and the early stars are peering through the layers of murky gray clouds. The road is comparatively deserted, with an occasional car or two and a very annoying truck until I pull in to the bustling traffic.
Terrific, I think as I punch the steering wheel. There goes two more hours of my life, wasted on an unmoving traffic while Vic might get the chance to visit the girl. I wanted to be there, right now, I wanted to meet her, before anyone else would. Taking a breath and cursing myself, I messaged Vic. ‘Wait for me.’
*
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Love ya,
Sakura