Crumbling Walls

Shernaz’s talks about hurt, pain and reconciliation of two sisters, Heather and Maya, through various twists and turns of fate and circumstances. A Special Feature exclusively for Different Truths.

What would she find here? Heather Mary Benin was all aflutter as she landed at the airport. It had been on her bucket list for more than two decades. Finally, she would set off on the last leg of her journey.

Someone waited to pick her up, holding a placard with her name. She waved out and was immediately escorted over to a waiting car, everything taken care of as she had been led to expect.

“Good day, Ma’am. Myself Sunder,” the caretaker of the company’s guesthouse, introduced himself in a strange accent. Mohan here will be your driver through your stay. Mr. Harrison wait for you at Sivan Estate. He say sorry he not coming to receive you.” 

Stinging Emotions

Heather barely heard him. Her heartbeat to a hesitant tune. Was it absurd coming all this way? Had her stinging emotions led her to this foolish trip? Should she turn back from here? It was a pilgrimage to a time zone she hadn’t exactly inhabited. She had struggled with melancholy for what never was; the craving for what could have been; lamented over not being someone else. Now, it seemed scarily ludicrous.

Mr. Harrison was quite an old gentleman who had continued to stay on in India as manager of the Hamilton Club after his retirement. It was serendipitous that she got in touch with him. He had come to this country as a very young assistant to work on the tea estate under her father Benin, when at four-year-old she was sent away to England for schooling. After a few initial letters her father had stopped writing. Didn’t his duty end in taking care of her material needs? She scoffed.

Harrison welcomed her warmly. “So happy to see you here my dear. Your father was a wonderful man to work under. I have lots of stories about him that you would love.”  She looked up to see twinkling eyes and a pleasant smile way above her shoulders. She felt comfortable with him.

“Thank you, Harrison. You know the purpose of my visit,” she replied agitatedly. “I already know a lot about my father from the letters you wrote. There was something you wanted to give me?”

“Now, now my dear Heather. You have just arrived. Settle down, acclimatise yourself and then we’ll try and resolve all your queries.”

Careening Thoughts

Heather put a brake on her madly careening thoughts and went demurely back to the car to go to the guest house. He got in after her, but they were silent for the twenty minutes of twists and turns it took to reach Eileen Bradshaw Bungalow. It had an astounding view and an amazing garden. But her mind was on a roller-coaster and didn’t register much of what she saw or heard. After they had some refreshing tea and hot scones, Harrison left satisfied with the arrangements. Heather went upstairs to the bedroom assigned to her, added some salts and a few drops of lavender oil to the bath readied for her and slid into the tub with a satisfied sigh.

Next morning, she woke up refreshed but apprehensive.  After breakfast she toured the bungalow. A huge living room, well furnished and decorated, was on the ground floor. It had wide bay windows that opened onto the lawn with flower beds on one side. Off the living room was a long bar and smoking room. It also doubled as a sunroom. There were hills all around; the high far-off ones were forested; those closer had tea bushes with pluckers jabbering away on one. The pantry and kitchen were at the back, as was a laundry room that opened on to a vegetable patch bordered by fruit trees. 

Her restlessness was palpable. Sunder suggested that she take a walk in the hills around the bungalow or read something, but Heather couldn’t put her mind to anything. Around 11 o’clock Harrison called up.

“I’ve arranged for the visitors to see you tomorrow morning. They will be here around this time. They will be staying for lunch, and I have instructed the cook accordingly.” “No, I cannot reschedule the visit nor put it off.”

Exploring the Forest

There was not much she could do so she decided to explore the surrounding forest that afternoon. Around 4 p.m. she wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, wore a pair of sturdy shoes and left on her own.  Sunder requested her to return before dark. “Amma, a leopard seen around the forest on a high hill. Please be careful and not go very far.” She smiled at his concern, nodded, and replied that she would be back in two hours.

Night creeps in early in these hill stations. It had begun to grow dark and by 6 p.m. one needed a torch in the thickly forested hills. Sunder’s mental alarm began to tick past seven o’clock when Heather did not return. He called up Anand, the estate manager, Mr. Harrison, and Mohan.  Anxiety, distress, and foreboding went to and fro across telephone lines and soon a search party was set up.  With mashals and chunky sticks the men dispersed along different paths in the forest but not too far from one another. Mr. Harrison and the estate manager Anand went off in a jeep on a motorable path, led by a loudly chugging tractor.

Around 10 p.m. despair began to set in as she could not be traced. Just then one of the men shouted, ‘Sar, here quick.”

Within minutes they were around the man. His face ashen in the glare of the flares, he kept pointing to the ground. There was a trail of blood with signs of something heavy having been dragged deeper and higher into the forest. There was stunned silence as the men looked at one another.  After a long moment, an evidently traumatised Mr. Harrison said hoarsely, “There’s little we can do now. Can you hear the faint growl? I can’t put everyone at risk, so we’ll continue our search tomorrow.”

A Nervous, Shattered Group

Daybreak saw a nervous, shattered group go off again into the forest to the point from where they had turned back. They listened for telltale sounds and soon picked a strange moan from some distance up the hill.  Forest guards had been called today. Two of them began a slow climb and soon stopped in their tracks. They had found a lady’s shoe and a shawl caught in the shrubbery. That being little to build on, they warily climbed a little higher and the moaning got a bit louder. They followed the darkened blood trail and came to an abrupt stop.

There lay an injured, pathetic leopard. There were no further signs of Heather. Mysterious!  The forest guards made arrangements to take away the wounded leopard for treatment and the rest of them continued searching.

After an hour or more, further to the west at a lower point they chanced upon a ghost-like figure cowering, seated on a grave. Dishevelled, aghast, blank-eyed there was Heather, her shoulders shaking.  Harrison heaved a sigh, leapt towards her, put his jacket around her and led her gently to his jeep.

Back at the guesthouse everyone was curious about the weirdness of the whole incident, but it seemed too early to make her live through her trauma.  Harrison ordered a tot of warm whisky for her. After a stress releasing bath, he sent her to bed.

A Disquiet

Around 10.30, she woke up and her grogginess was replaced by the disquiet of the past days when she remembered that the visitors would be here soon. Even before they met, she felt resentful towards Maya, but she composed herself and went downstairs. A full audience awaited her. Anand inquired after her and asked if she was ready to recount last night’s happenings.

It was already dark when Heather realised she had gone too far into the forest and must retrace her steps. But she was lost. As she floundered around trees a pair of malevolent yellow eyes followed her stealthily. They impaled her to a tree. Terrified to think or even breathe, no scream escaped her dry mouth. Quicker than a blink, a sinister shadow swooped on her, and she was off the ground. At the same instant she heard a blood curdling scream, unsure if it had escaped her throat.

She felt herself being whisked away and out of sheer terror, she lost consciousness. When a gentle whiff of air revived her there was a most caring pair of eyes peering at her. She saw the crow’s feet around them and grey hair crowning a deeply lined gentle face. A smile parted bow shaped lips and she heard a far-off whisper, “You’ll be safe here. Forgive me if you can” and Heather passed out once more as this apparition faded from sight. When she came to this time, she was alone and out of her wits.

As she was recounting this a car crunched up the driveway. Harrison asked the others to leave as he went to the door to receive the guests. He pointed to a girl younger than Heather introducing her, “This is Maya. Maya, Heather.”

Heather Blanched

Heather blanched. All present, thought she would faint again but wide-eyed she murmured, “How can it be? She is a younger, spitting image of the woman who said she saved me last night.” An audible gasp went around the room. Once again Harrison came to her rescue. He made her sit down and said with a slight tremor in his voice, “My dear that must have been your Mother. She has been dead these many years but never was there a day when she didn’t remember you and long to see you.” Heather found this incomprehensible.

Maya made a move towards her saying “Oh dear sis, I…”

Heather hissed vehemently “Don’t you dare ‘sis’ me, I have no family except Sr. Fonseca, and she too has left me. I hate you, every one of you.” 

“After abandoning me all these decades she rises from her grave to save me. And wants my forgiveness!” hooted Heather. Refusing any explanations, she stomped upstairs. She couldn’t bear to be in the same room as Maya. The others thought it best to leave her alone till she could wrap her head around all this chaos.

A Slim Envelope

An hour later, Heather stood up and went to the window. Eyes swollen red; she didn’t want to go downstairs. She refused food and drink. She fumed and fretted for very long. Then her eyes fell on a slim envelope Harrison had given her yesterday. She opened it and removed the yellowed sheet inked in neat, cursive handwriting. 

My Darling Heather,

When you read this, I won’t be alive. I am not even sure you will get it.

I didn’t want you to be taken from me and sent off to England, but you are fair, blond, and blue-eyed. Your father thought that you were better suited for England. All my pleadings and tears were in vain. I wasn’t even his lawful wife you see! Just a poor, native woman he took fancy to and made a mother twice over.

He died when you were just six and Maya two. It was only with the kind generosity of Mr. Harrison (he was like a brother to me when my own deserted me) and the nuns that I could make two ends meet. I did so want to bring you back but was again overruled… I have loved you, prayed for you and wept for you every single day but no one allowed me to even correspond with you. I will die remorseful, my desire to hold you but one more time in my arms and seek your pardon, unfulfilled.

My child I have loved you and Maya equally and can only pray that someday you two will find each other and unite in your love for me.

Do understand my powerlessness to be the mother I wanted to be to you.

Through this letter I send you all the hugs and kisses we both were denied.

Your ill-fated Mother.

Her Gloom

Once again Heather wasn’t conscious of the day slipping into darkness as she sat with her gloom. Only when Sunder came to draw the curtains and ask if she would come down to supper, did she come back to the present. A light meal and prayers alleviated her mood a bit.

Hovering in thought partway between the past and present, she couldn’t help but wonder at the interplay of beauty and hostility, terror, and compassion she had witnessed in the past two days. They somehow cushioned the oppressive turmoil of life. Her mother’s deceptively simple letter had unfolded the scroll of the past; she was reluctant to let Maya open. The unlit hollow of her deeply engraved convictions and attitude began to glow with a new realisation. The fog of the bruised, painful landscape of her subconscious began to lift with the dawn of reality. Peeling off the costume of imagined injustice and cruelty her mind was attired in, she dared to nurse a dream that would have appeared totally ridiculous before this epiphany.

Heather was finally ready to draw a new chart of her emotions, taking within its peripheries those whom she had unfailingly kept out. She no longer needed to cope alone with the horrifying enormity of all she had lost and longed for.

She ordered a beautiful wreath and asked Mohan to drive her to the site of her mother’s grave. She wasn’t yet prepared to forgive her father.

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