Curse of the Unknown

                                                Episode 4

Next day I found myself standing right in front of Ms Asmi Mathur’s house holding a bouquet of white lilies in my hands. I was very sure that she was the same woman who had saved me a day before on that ominous night. I knocked on her door twice but no reply came from inside. She must be having difficulty in walking, I thought. I knocked on the door once again and this time there was a reply, “Wait there. I am coming.” By the time she reached the door I kept myself busy looking around, thinking that how difficult it could be for her to live at such a place, a place so nonchalant with very few houses in the neighborhood.

“Yes?”

The door was open. She was standing there, dressed immaculately in a tank white kurta and skin tight slacks. But to my surprise there wasn’t any kind of plaster or bandage over her left leg which had got injured that night.

“Hello, who are you? Hey, wait a sec…”

She narrowed her eyes and scanned me from her head to toe. “Hello, Ms Mathur.”, said I, in a rather stilted way.

“Okay, I…I remember now who you are. But…”

“You must be wondering how I got to know about your place.”

I paused for a few seconds to observe her reaction. She was confused, no doubt, but at the same time she was petrified as she slowly cringed behind the door, probably thinking of me as a stalker. I thought it was enough of playing games with her. “Well..”, said I, “I had been to your office yesterday. They told me that you won’t be coming to the office for few days and I…

“…..thought that come here and meet me in person or to be more precise find an opportunity to be alone with me, right.”, said she sardonically, cutting short my words.

“No!”, I cried, albeit I knew that she would be thinking like this, “No lady, you are getting me wrong.” This was followed by a few minutes of silence after which I continued, “I have come here to show you the manuscript of my book Ms Mathur. That’s the reason I am in Pune.”

She narrowed her eyes and examined me once again from head to toe. The sardonic look of her eyes was gone within the minute she realized who I was. “Mr. Bhardwaj?”, she said, looking visibly embarrassed. “Yes, Ms. Mathur.”, said I, borrowing her sardonic overtone, “ I am Gautam Bhardwaj from Delhi, author of ‘The Mystery Woman’. I think I have an appointment with you today, if you have been informed about that.”

“I am terribly sorry Mr. Bhardwaj.”, she said while opening the door, “Please come inside.”

I followed her into the living room. The furniture was mostly made up of wood and seemed very antique from its design. A thin layer of dust had formed over the bookshelf, something which again seemed quite strange to me as she, being from the literary arena, must have been book frenzy. I picked up a book from the shelf as she went to the kitchen to prepare tea. There were a lot of classics in the lot, such as Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Shakespeare’s Othello and Romeo and Juliet, Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibilities and many more. But something was strange here too. Most of these books were old editions. Othello was the oldest among the lot with a 1924 edition.

“These are my grandfather’s.”, she said as she came into the living room, holding a tea tray in her hands, “ he himself was an editor at mint.” “That sounds great.” , I said as I took the cup of tea from her hands. Silence prevailed over the next five minutes as we busied ourselves with the tea. I was the one to break the silence, “So how’s your leg?”

“What has happened to my leg?”

“I think you had injured your leg that night.”

“Oh that! That’s nothing. I have survived worse. It was just a scar by the way.”

We finished our tea and then discussed about the layout of my novel. I don’t remember how the time got lapsed and when we got up it was almost five in the evening. “Where are you staying?” she asked. “At the Grand Shivaji Hotel.” I replied. “How will you go there now?”

“Of course by bus. The bus driver’s strike is over, isn’t it?”

“No… I mean that the bus arrives at around 4:30 at Pagdandi Marg stop. And it’s almost over five now.”

“Thank you, Ms. Mathur. I’ll manage.”

“It’s your choice then.” after a pause she said, “I need not tell you what lies there, in the forest, do I.”

She was giving me a valid reason to avoid that path. But there wasn’t any option other than this for me. I dare not ask her for a night stays either because more and so I was still a stranger to her “I should go now, Ms. Mathur” I said. “Okay then. And it’s your wish altogether and one more thing” she said smilingly “don’t call me Ms. Mathur again. It seems that I am a hundred years older than you.” I chuckled “what should I call you then?”

“I think Asmi would be fine.”

We both laughed. It was the first time I had saw her expressing any emotion, and that too of joy. While her almond shaped eyes danced in ecstasy, my eyes stationed over her face, arousing a feeling I had never felt before. But her laughter soon effaced into a wry smile. Her brows got tensed and she turned away her face from me, probably trying to hide the reason which had cut short her laughter. I was about to ask her why she got upset when suddenly I felt a tinge on my neck. I slapped on my neck and found a dragonfly clung to my hand. A dragonfly doesn’t usually bite, but its sting was somehow more painful than that of a bee. I brushed aside my pain and asked her, “Are you alright?” Suddenly a noise came from the house as if someone has fallen off from a height. We both rushed inside the house. She led me to a room, second in the kitchen- living room gallery. There I saw an old man, pale like a corpse, lying flat on the floor with a dozen of dragonflies clung to his neck.

To be continued…..