Cairo Page 2
said. “Why do you ask?”
“I’ve got a niece there,” the woman said. “She’s lost her cat. I don’t want to offend you…because you are a detective specializing in humans….”
“Madam, is the cat important to your niece?”
“She loves it like a child.”
“Then it is important to find her cat.”
“So you will go to Delhi?”
He said that he would.
The case would take him outside of Lucknow, where every street, every restaurant and every garden breathed a possibility involving his wife. A change in environment would be welcome. And besides, things had been slow lately. His secretary had been with the business for as long as he had. She would manage.
“I’ll make your travel and stay arrangements,” the surgeon’s wife said. “First class all the way. Because of you, I can now afford it.”
She handed Kabir a passport size photograph of a girl with curly hair, a round face and thick glasses.
“This is my niece,” she said. “She will pick you up at the airport.”
He caught the Kingfisher Airlines flight the next day. The flight was delayed by an hour. Due to air traffic at New Delhi, the airplane had to circle the airport for thirty minutes. The roads. The rivers. And now the skies. Was there a single place in India that wasn’t congested? As he looked out of the window, Kabir wondered which one of those buildings waxing and waning out of view was now a home to his wife.
The television monitors in the airport terminal showed scenes of the fighting in Cairo. The Egyptians had asked for a democracy. They had received it. And yet, they were not satisfied. They would never be satisfied. Kabir wondered if the people of Cairo had somehow influenced his wife to walk out of their marriage.
The baggage claim area was crowded. A teenage girl struggled to lift a heavy suitcase from a carousel. A middle aged man pushed his way past her. He collided against an old lady and walked on without apologizing. Kabir had arrived in the land of boorish men. He was now in Delhi.
“Are you Kabir?”
She had long hair that fell along the sides of her oval face. She wore silver earrings. They sparkled in the sunlight. Her eyes were frank and friendly. She had a mole over her lip.
“I am,” he said. He wondered how the woman in front had recognized him. Maybe she would also know his client’s niece. He showed her the photograph.
“Would you happen to know this woman? Her name’s Uma.”
“That’s me,” she said. “From ten years ago. I can’t believe Aunty still has that photograph.”
“You’ve changed,” Kabir said.
“Thank God,” she said. She laughed.
They exited the terminal and walked towards the parking lot.
“I heard you got married recently,” she said.
“Four days ago.”
“Didn’t your wife want to join you?”
“She left me yesterday,” Kabir said.
“Left you? As in left you for good?’
“It certainly seems that way.”
“My God,” Uma said. “What did you do to her?”
She was clearly surprised. She came to a halt in the middle of the street. An Ambassador car braked to a halt. The driver rolled down the window. He shouted out an expletive.
“New Delhi,” Uma said. “It’s full of rude people. And speaking of rude, please forgive me. I had no right to go on about your wife.”
He asked her not to worry about it. The sunshine played with the canopy of a banyan tree. It lit up a cluster of dark green leaves. Kabir thought of something.
“How did you recognize me?”
“Aunty told me to look out for a handsome man.”
“There are other men here.’
“But you’re the only one who looks kind enough to actually care about finding a cat.”
She threw her purse down on the car seat. She tucked her hair behind her ear. She smiled at Kabir and merged into the heavy traffic calmly without a honk.
“When was the last time you were in Delhi?”
“I came here as a child. But I don’t remember much. So it’s like a new city for me.”
A car in the adjoining lane slowed down. The window rolled down. A man blew her a kiss.
She placed a cigarette in her lips.
“I’m not going to react. There’s no point. You know, I’ve decided to save up my energy for shouting when I’m actually getting raped.”
It was a disgusting thought.
“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” Kabir said.
She slowed down as the light turned as red as the tip of her cigarette.
“I wouldn’t be surprised. This is Delhi. But let’s not talk about it.”
She fiddled with the knob on her radio. But she didn’t turn it on.
“Can I ask you one last question about your wife?”
“Sure,” he said. He was glad for any change in the topic of conversation. The very thought of rape was offensive to his sensibilities. Through the poems of his ancestors, he had learned that the act of love could never be forced. It was something that would slip away from those who tried to grasp it, a flame that would burn on more brightly the more one tried to douse it.
“Where did she go after she left you?”
“To New Delhi.”
“Is that why you are here?”
“I am here to find your cat,” he said.
But he wasn’t entirely sure.
She pulled the car into the courtyard of a two floor bungalow.
“I rent the top floor,” she said. “The bungalow belongs to a retired colonel. He lives with his family on the ground floor.”
“Do they know I am visiting?”
“Of course not,” she said. “That would only give the colonel’s wife an opportunity to make inappropriate remarks about my character. And as for her son, there’s no telling how he could interpret my having another man in my room. He already has a remarkably low regard for women. It’s a miracle he’s not in jail.”
She rested her hands on the steering wheel. She looked vacantly at the dashboard. She appeared tired.
“My lease is nearly over. I was all ready to move out this week. However, I extended my stay by a month.”
“For the cat.”
“I am hopeful that she will come back. You know what they say about cats.”
“What?” said Kabir.
“They say that cats don’t belong to people. They belong to places.”
Uma opened the door to the bungalow. She placed her index finger over her lip. The hallway was dark. The carpet was musty. A lone bulb shone from the ceiling.
Uma’s room was functional. There was a twin size bed and an office table. Kabir sat on an old wooden chair in a dimly lit corner.
“I never felt at home here,” she said. “So I never took the effort to do up the room. You know, add personal touches.”
She opened a drawer and pulled out a photo album. There was a picture of a black cat on the cover. It had gray eyes that shone with an unnatural brightness.
“Radioactive eyes,” Kabir said.
“Her name’s Luna,” she said. “It means the moon in Spanish.”
“That’s a unique name,” Kabir said. “
“Cats need a name that’s particular,” she said. “A name that's peculiar, and more dignified, else how can he hold his tail perpendicular, or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?”
“T.S. Elliot,” Kabir said.
He had read the book as a child. It had made a deep impression on him. It was why he felt confident that he could solve this case. He didn’t know a lot about cats. But he had read Elliot’s book. He felt as though he understood their essence.
“How long have you had Luna?” he asked.
“I found her last year. It was right after one of those Hallmark holidays we’ve begun to celebrate in India.”
“Mother’s day?”
“No.”
“Father’s Day?”
“That’s not it either.”
She looked out of the window as though the answer were floating in the sky.
“Halloween?”
“That’s the one. It seems to be a happy enough festival. Chocolates and rasgullas. The landlady’s son decided to celebrate it. You’ve heard of the tale of the frog and the scorpion.”
“I have,” Kabir said.
“Well, then true to his nature, his mind gravitated right to the most disturbing aspect of the festival.”
“What could be disturbing about Halloween?”
“Every year in America, over twenty black cats are sacrificed during Halloween. People who kill the cats claim they are being faithful to a thousand year old belief. Apparently, at the time, the church considered black cats to be evil spirits that had taken on physical forms.”
“Don’t tell me the landlord’s son wanted to sacrifice the cat?”
“I found him on the terrace with one of his friends. They were wearing masks. And he had a knife.”
“And?’
“I screamed. I threatened to call the police.”
“And?”
“He called me a few names. This and that. But I continued yelling. They left the terrace. I adopted the cat. I called her Luna.”
“I’m surprised you continued to live here.”
“Oh, believe me, I would have left. But I had put down a two month security deposit. I couldn’t afford to lose so much money. I changed the locks on the room secretly. And I kept Luna locked in at all times.”
“And now she’s gone.”
“She’s gone” she said. “A part of me is scared that he has harmed Luna.”
“We’ll find out,” Kabir said.
He posted Luna’s photos on Facebook and Craigslist. He composed a 140 character tweet. He hoped that the important announcement of her disappearance wouldn’t be swallowed up in the vortex of self-involved babble.
They decided to go for a walk. For the fresh air.