Almost Murder

ALMOST MURDER

He had almost done it. He had come this close, the distance between forefinger and thumb. The resentment had built up over the years, reaching a point where he couldn’t take any more. Resentment and jealousy. The green-eyed monster, peeping constantly over his shoulder.

It wasn’t his fault, really; more his parents’ doing. It was they who had fawned and fussed over Nandini, ever since she’d been born five years before. A whiny, sniveling baby, come to disrupt the peace and blissfulness of his life that cold, wet August morning. He remembered the rain coming down in torrents that day, blanketing the earth and sky, falling in thick, grey sheets as though it would never stop. And it hadn’t – not for the next seven days. The wettest week Goa had had in the last fifty years, the weather report said. He what been six years old then.

He’d hated Nandini almost from the beginning. After all, he’d gone from being the ‘star of the show’ to performing the role of a guest artiste in a jiffy. Stupid, whiny, sniveling child. And sickly in the bargain. That’s why mum had to spend so much time in the hospital with her. It was almost as though he’d ceased to exist that day – and from that day onwards.

The shock was like a sudden, hard slap on the face; the effects, painful and lasting. And she didn’t make it any easier for him, oh no! ‘Poor Anuj,’ she’d taunt, ‘Nobody loves him!’ Over and over and over again, almost from the time she could talk. And she was right. Nobody did. At least, not Mama and Dada. ‘We always wanted a baby girl,’ they would tell anyone who would listen. ‘And now, finally, we got one!’

Yes, they’d got one. And from that time onwards, it was, ‘Anuj, hurry up! You’ll have to get ready by yourself, Mama’s busy with Baby.’ Or ‘Anuj, leave that last piece for Baby. She’s small, you know.’ Or ‘Anuj, don’t hit your sister. So what if she scratched you? She’s only a little thing.’ And so on and so forth. Until he almost burst with rage and resentment.

He remembered the turquoise dress she’d worn on her fourth birthday. A frilly, blue-green, gossamer-like, almost translucent piece of fabric, swirling around her in the breeze, making her look rather like a fairy. The whiny, sniveling child had grown into a pretty, sweet-faced little thing, fair and wide-eyed and innocent-looking, who pinched Anuj hard when no one was looking, and kicked his ankle under the table. Who always took the last piece of chocolate, or slice of chocolate cake, or gulab jamun, or jilebi. And the one before that. Who grabbed whatever toy or gift he was given, and broke it in no time at all. And then whispered in synthetic, wide-eyed remorse – ‘It was an accident, Mama. Sooooo clumsy of me. S-o-rr-y, Anuj.’

So he’d waited. Biding his time. And finally, on her fifth birthday, he saw his chance.

He waited till the party was over, and the guests had gone home. Dusk had fallen. His mum was in the kitchen, helping Sunita, the maid, to stock the remaining goodies in the fridge. Dad had gone upstairs to change. And Nandini was dancing on the porch of their smart little cottage, her frilly, blue-green party dress swirling around her, looking for all the world like one of Enid Blyton’s fairies come to life.

‘Pssst! Hey, Nandini, come here! I want to show you something,’ he whispered, and beckoned to her urgently.

Her curiosity piqued, she bounced down the steps.

‘What is it, Anuj?’ she asked eagerly. He put his finger to his lips. ‘Follow me.’

No one was looking. His dad’s bedroom was upstairs, on the other side of the house. As was the kitchen on the ground floor.

They made their way stealthily to the pond, fifty metres from the house, now swollen with the rains.

‘I saw something in the water,’ he whispered, ‘It looked like a mermaid’.

‘Really?’ she squealed excitedly (She was always a sucker for mermaids). ‘Where? Where?’

‘Right there!’ He pointed to the deepest part of the pond, and when she bent down to look, shoved her in.

She was a tough little cookie, all right. She came up three times, and each time he put his hand on her head and pushed her back in.

And then, something happened that almost made his heart jump into his mouth: as he looked up, his hand pressed firmly on Nandini’s head, He thought he saw, in the strange half-light of the evening, a disembodied blob – a face? – looking out of a window straight in his direction.

Hai Bhagwan! ‘Did anyone else see that?’ he thought, breaking out in a cold sweat.

He pulled Nandini out of the water and onto the bank. Thought back to the day when he had returned from a trip to the washroom in school and had seen Mr. Rajesh, the scoutmaster, teaching CPR to the scouts under his command. The scoutmaster had a life-size plastic doll lying on the floor on which he was demonstrating the technique. He had watched, fascinated, knowing he would receive a scolding from his class teacher for being late, but not caring.

Alerted by the grins of the bigger boys, the scout master had looked over his shoulder and seen him; had beckoned him, saying, ‘You, boy, what’s your name? You want to try doing this?’

And he had. And the scoutmaster had turned to the group of X Std students surrounding him and said, ‘You see that? He’s better than all of you.’

Anuj had returned to his classroom beaming from ear to ear, hardly hearing his class teacher’s words of admonishment for being tardy.

He set to work now, placing his hand under her chin and pushing it upwards to clear her airway. Then, right palm intertwined over left palm on her chest over where her heart would be, pressing gently but firmly: 1-2-3-4-5. Then blowing into her mouth. Repeat actions - just as he had seen Mr Rajesh do the fortnight before. Ignoring the tendency to panic, he worked steadily and methodically, and was rewarded with a faint sigh and splutter. Turning her over, he held her head while he coughed and retched, emptying the water from her lungs.

So engrossed was he in attempting to revive her, that he barely registered the shouts and running feet, and the people surrounding them: his parents, Sunita the maid, and three or four neighbours from the house next door.

Their father carried Nandini back to the house, while the others crowded around Anuj, patting him on the back, hugging him and telling him repeatedly what a hero he was for saving his little sister’s life.

‘I saw him!’ the next-door neighbour, a lady known for her long, inquisitive nose, exclaimed, ‘Did anyone else see that? At first I thought he was trying to push her in, but then I saw he was actually pulling her out. What a brave little boy! And so resourceful! He should get the President’s medal for this!’

‘She fell in,’ Anuj tried to explain. And back in the house, Nandini, who had recovered completely, held out her arms and hugged him tightly.

‘Anuj saved me,’ she said over and over again. She could not remember anything else, except that he had saved her.

Everything changed completely after that, of course. Nandini would not leave his side for a moment and would follow him around like a devoted puppy whenever he was home. His parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles… even the neighbours… looked at him with new eyes after the incident. He was a hero, both in school and at home.

But lying awake at night, Anuj now stares into the darkness, and into the darkness beyond the darkness, the darkness of his own soul, wondering in a surge of terror: ‘Who am I, really? Who am I?’

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