Beloved Strangers by Maria Chaudhuri Read Free Book Online Page A

weakness nevertheless – my mother went to Moinul, who was smoking on the steps, and sought his help. ‘Moinul, would you tell that boy not to stare at my house or send my daughter notes? Don’t be too rude to him, you understand? Just tell him to scoot from here – firmly but nicely,’ she asked.
    Moinul quietly finished his cigarette, taking time to snuff it beneath one, boot-clad foot, caked with mud. Then he sauntered out to the soccer field. From a distance, it seemed like a polite chat ensued between Moinul and the young chap. To our surprise, the fellow followed Moinul back to our house.
    ‘Auntie,’ Moinul addressed my mother, ‘I just wanted to know a little more about our friend here and thought it might be better to chat inside than in the middle of the street.’
    ‘Oh I see.’ Mother was looking uncomfortable. Naveen had disappeared.
    ‘Auntie, let me take him to my room to ask him a few questions. Don’t worry, it won’t take long.’
    ‘Moinul, wait. Why don’t we all talk here?’ my mother suggested.
    ‘Auntie, I told you I’d take care of this. It’ll just be a man-to-man chat. You relax,’ he smiled sweetly.
    Feeling increasingly puzzled, I went to look for Naveen and found her lying face down on her bed, her arms wound tightly around her pillow.
    The next thing we heard were loud, dull thuds as though heavy sacks of rice were being unloaded on a hard cement floor. We heard the beginnings of screams, hastily muffled. My mother, Amol, Naveen and I rushed to Moinul’s room but found the door locked. In between our frantic banging and screaming, we could hear a tedious thump thump thumping followed by the thwacking of Moinul’s big black boots. Occasionally, Moinul would cry, ‘I’ll kill you, sisterfucker. That’ll teach you to write love notes.’
    Moinul opened the door only when my mother threatened to call the police. He charged about the room, snorting like a bull. He was a hungry carnivore, interrupted just before the kill. Given the opportunity, he might have cut anyone’s throat right then.
    ‘Moinul,’ screeched Mother, ‘where is he? Where is the boy?’
    Before Moinul had a chance to answer, my mother pushed me back towards the door. I wasn’t allowed to see the gory scene inside Moinul’s room, and I couldn’t bring myself to ask Naveen if she had seen it either. I will never know who carried the limp and bleeding body out of the house, but I will always remember the thin, bright trail of blood left behind. I also recall a long, rasping sound, like someone trying hard to breathe through a crushed ribcage. As they carried him away, the rasping blended into the susurration of a quiet, breezy evening.
    Moinul left us the next day. He disappeared into the morning haze and we never saw him again. My father mumbled something about the inconvenience of putting up a houseguest for too long. But even after Moinul was gone, his venom remained with us for a long time. We stopped talking about the events of that dreadful afternoon but we could not forget about it. Every time our eyes fell on an empty spot in the vast soccer field, we deftly averted our gazes.
    While none of us felt singularly responsible for what had happened, what we did feel was a kind of collective shame – shame for witnessing a wrong, for not being able to prevent it, for trusting someone’s life with Moinul, for being human. In the wake of what we had experienced, we’d all been diminished in different ways, yet none of us dared to say it lest we broke the fragile peace that hung over our household. After that fateful day, if my mother caught Naveen or me leaning over the balustrade and staring down at the street, she’d pause for a second and then quietly turn around. Naveen seemed quieter too but in a hardened kind of way. The taut lines on her face were defence lines that no one dared to cross.
    I wasn’t really sure what I felt except a gnawing sense of discomfort that I couldn’t shake off.
    It