Bethel's Villa

“Are we there yet?, Tia complains.

Ansh, her husband, holds out four fingers, “I counted. That’s the fourth time you are asking that! Four. Stop being such a whiny wh-”, he laughs as Tia lightly slaps him, aborting his limerick. The Verna speeds along the winding tree lined roads towards Bethel’s Villa. They have been looking at houses for a month now, trying to find a perfect home away from the city. She peeks out of the window but then crinkles her nose. There is something dead in the ditches by the side of the road.

“No one would even hear you scream here.”, she says.

“Why, what would we be doing that would make you scream huh?”, he asks with a sly grin. “Besides, the agent told me this Mr. Lalka was selling cheap. I thought you wanted seclusion, thought you said you didn’t want to meet people for a while.” Tia puts her hand over his on the gearshift. She bites back the resentment she feels at Ansh for bringing up this topic again, and instead, she gives him a smile and he pretends to understand. “Don’t worry honey, that was six months ago, and I completed the treatment right.”, she says.

“Still, the doctor said it can relapse anytime.”, he shoots off his usual reply. With a sigh, she removes her hand from his and looks out of the window. The sun blinks every once a while through gaps in the looming foliage. They ride on in silence punctuated by shrill cries that ring through the forest just like fire alarms. They slow down in front of a concrete placard which is so dilapidated that it barely announces Bethel Villa. “Here we are.”, he declares. In front of them lies a high gate, rusty now from lack of maintenance. “What is that?”, she points at an iron plate with a crudely painted beetle on it, nailed to one of the gate columns.

Ansh shrugs and pushes open the gate. It budges a little with a theatrical creak. “Cheapest doorbell ever!”, he grins. They walk up the gravel avenue darkened on both sides by upright false ashokas. The pebbles exhaust onto an expanse of lawn. On one end of it, there is a small greenhouse, and on the other stands the single story cottage. Tia’s mood lifts the moment she sees the strawberry topping red of the roof over the cake white of the house.  It is a grand old thing with a chimney peeking out, straight out of colonial times. There is a large verandah in front of the house, roofed by a trellis of morning glory. “Well well quite a little hovel, huh!”, mutters Ansh to her, excited. A short man with a neat grey goatee hurries towards them, his neck long white hair fluttering. “Welcome, hope you had no trouble finding the place.” He speaks in a hurry, as if afraid he will forget what he has to say before he can say it. His eyes are on Tia, appreciating her meticulously epilated legs.

Ansh, oblivious, shakes hands and introduces her. “Mr. Lalka, you really have a good thing going here!”, he gushes.

“Shhh, honey, we don’t want him to know we like it so much now!’, she mock-whispers, completing their usual ice breaking routine.

“You are too kind, too kind”, says Mr Lalka, rubbing his hands and ushering them towards the table spread on the verandah. She notices how long his fingernails are. The hair, the nails, the rubbing of hands. In her head, she names him Saruman.

“Just wait a while while I get Supriya.”, Mr Lalka scuttles off. As soon as he is out of sight, she turns to Ansh, her eyes shining with excitement. “Can you imagine the lazy breakfasts lying on that lawn there. People would just die of jealousy!”

“The agent was telling me Lalka Jr. lives in Canada, and that it is getting too tough for Lalka Snr. manage his wife here in the wilderness. He wants to quickly sell and move, so he will be selling cheap!”, whispers Ansh.

Mr. Lalka leads his wife into the room. She is taller than him, with grey black hair cut in an expensive bob. Dressed in a cream skirt and a pearl necklace, she looks just like an elegant extra out of a Victorian movie. The woman sits down opposite Tia with a look that is vacant and faraway.

“You must forgive poor Supriya. It’s been almost six months like this now. She can hear us fine though!”, he adds cheerily. His enthusiasm is that of a late night infomercial host.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to her?”, she asks, looking at the mute woman who gives no indication that she can indeed hear them.

“The doctors keep changing their diagnosis, sometimes it is severe depression, to sometime late blooming autism. I have stopped keeping track really, as long as she is here with me, that’s what is important.”, he presses her hand in his. “What I wonder is how sudden it was. Normally she would get up earlier than me, go gambol in the woods and be back by seven. That morning, when I wake up, she complains to me that she isn’t feeling too well, that she needs to sleep. Anyway, I think it is just a normal headache, and tell her to lay down. When I come back with her breakfast, I find her on the floor, writhing and babbling about cats.”, he closes his eyes, trembling.

“It’s alright sir”, Ansh places a hand over Mr. Lalka’s.

He smiles and tries to lighten the mood, “Never mind this old man. Now, let me give you a tour of the house.”

There are two bedrooms, cool because of the high ceilings and thick colonial masonry. There is a huge four poster bed. The smell in the room remindS Tia of her own grandmother. She stares at the sturdy cross beams that support the roof, imagining painting them psychedelic. They walk the hall and kitchen, Ansh visualising where he would set up his Wii. Tia has a tough time deciding if they should use granite or marble for the kitchen countertop. Throughout the tour, Mr. Lalka keeps up an excited chatter detailing trivia. Over the fireplace mantle is a portrait of a Caucasian man in hunting breeches. Mr Lalka points at the painting and explainins, “Dr. George Bethel, the builder of this house.”

Tia points at a badly painted red beetle at a corner, clearly done later. There was a patch of red on its back the shape of spades. “Why the beetle?”, she asks, remembering the ad hoc heraldry from the main gate.

“The doctor used to study them, and other insects.”, Mr Lalka answers. His words sound carefully measured. He motions towards the study, as if in a hurry to change the topic.  

“There are a few books by him here, in case you are interested. The acreage behind this property, it was once part of the villa. The doctor used to go for long walks insect hunting in that forest .”, Their tour is interrupted by an eerie moaning coming from the verandah.

Supriya Lalka is shaking so violently that the pearls on her neck rattle. Her mouth is clenched  in a skeletal grimace, exposing her teeth. She froths at the corners of her mouth. With her finger, she stabs the air , wanting to convey something of great urgency. Tia follows her finger. The woman is pointing at the greenhouse. “What is she trying to say?”, she asks, scared by how rabid the old woman looks.

Mr. Lalka has her arms around his wife, trying to calm her. “She gets these fits sometimes, it subsides in a few minutes. If you will excuse us now. Mr. Sen, maybe you can have the broker contact me with your intention.”, he leads his wife back inside, softly telling her to take deep breathes.

Ansh and Tia lead themselves out, walking back to the car in silence. Once in the car, she blurts, “I don’t know Ansh, I loved the place, but that was creepy.”

“What are you talking about, are you saying we pass on this just because some old cow had a fit. A property like this would easily be at least 20% higher anywhere else.”

She looks outside, unsure how to reply. All she has is a vague clutching in her stomach, while he is armed with reasons and figures.

“She was pointing at the greenhouse, I wonder why?”

Ansh gets irritated, “So what are you trying to say. Look, you saw how the poor bird was, you can’t take her seriously. You have got to stop overthinking honey, you remember what the doctor said right.”

There! He has fired his ultimate salvo. Tia has nothing to say now. It always comes down to that breakdown six months ago. With a sigh, she says, “Fine, I guess you have a point. She just looked so … I still have goosebumps.”

“Aww honey, did she scare you?”, he looks at her with a grin, his free hand caressing her earlobe. Tia hopes that the nameless dread in her stomach will go away soon.

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The next month passes in a flurry of activity, with the two busy with all that goes into making a house a home.  They rarely get the light switches wrong anymore, and Ansh can walk without his glasses at night till the fridge without stumbling. Tia barely remember Mrs. Lalka’s fit anymore. Husband and wife have fallen into a comfortable routine, basking in the rare luxury of not even knowing when the weekend came up.

It is early morning. The lawn hosts a flock of koels making an easy breakfast of the worms who have come up to sun themselves. Ansh sits in the veranda, head buried in his Mac, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.

“Did you know the doctor spend his last days in the Ranchi sanatorium?”, he asks his wife, who was tying her shoes, ready for her daily hike.

“Who?”

“George Bethel. I googled him. So that’s why Lalka was being so shifty that day. He was scared we would use that to further reduce the price! It says the dude discovered over 2000 species of insects. He lived in the asylum for the last five years of his life. Could you imagine that, dying there all alone…  this other site though, purely to be taken with salt though, tells that it was the postman who discovered the doctor. They found him sitting on the roof, shouting in a strange tongue, flinging tile pieces. Imagine that, right this roof.”, he points a finger upwards.

“Well, too bad they hadn’t discovered Alzolam back then.”, she deadpans. He gets the hint that he should shut up. Atleast he doesn’t tell her to stop being so sensitive. She picks up her satchel and sets out for the woods behind their home.

Unlike her daily stroll,  today she strides with a purpose for the giant banyan she had come by yesterday. She had noticed the small pond just beyond it, but before she could take pictures, clouds had gathered, forcing her to retreat. Secretly, she had named it Tiansh, but had decided it was too cheesy to tell her husband. Today, the water is perfectly still. She wonders how deep the water is. She picked up a large boulder and hurls it in.  The stone sinks with a guttural belch. The pond is deeper than it looks. The moment the noise dies, she regrets her hasty action. A vague unease creeps over her, a guilt for having desecrated something ancient. She tiptoes along the bank of the pond, her feet squelching in the mud of the pond tide her stone had created. She turns back, discarding the idea of a picnic at this place. Somehow, it is a little too quiet here. Just as she is passing the banyan, she sees something red balloon and vanish from the corner of her left eye. She turns and peers through the rasta braids of the banyan. In the darkness of a bamboo grove, there is some sort of rapid blooming. Its like a great many feathery fans opening and closing. She counts six of the things, each about the size of a tennis ball at its largest. She creeps  until she is next to the grove. In the shade, it is cool. From this close, she can see that they are beetles of some sort, repeating their dance of opening and closing their outer shell, exposing the red lining underneath. When the beetles are at their smallest, the red on their backs look just like spades. They made a gentle whoosh as they open and close in unison. She takes out her camera. As she bends forward for a better shot, the water bottle falls out of her unzipped bag. It falls to the ground with a mute thud, but that is enough to shatter the moment. The air rings with a high pitched whine, like very loud fire alarms. Trinnniinnniin! Startled by the noise, Tia falls backwards as the beetles buzz out. There is an intense smell of burnt matchsticks in the air. She stumbles up and hurries back towards the cottage, her ears still ringing. About halfway there, she realises that something is wrong. She feels as if she could run to the city if she wanted to. Her muscles burn with energy. A crazy laughter takes hold of her brain. Suddenly the noise of her footsteps and the twit of the birds and the snap of the twigs are all audible to her with excruciating clarity.  She feels as if the sun has been dimmed. She stumbles to the ground, the red roof of the house visible. “Ansh!”, Tia cries out. She can barely hear her own voice above the shrieks inside her head. The forest seems to be looming in, closing in on her. She stands up somehow, and limps towards the verandah, calling for Ansh. The verandah door swings open and she stopps dead in her tracks. She lest out a startled cry as she sees a cat in Ansh’s familiar t-shirt walk out. It has red glowing eyes and its tail is made of thick black smoke. She whimpers as she sees it coming towards her. She tries to run but slips on the lawn. The cat-man comes towards her, baring sharp teeth while she lays helpless. It is close now, she could see the whiskers almost touching the shirt collar. The cat kneels beside her, looking at her with concern. Its tail peers past its shoulder. Ansh is calling her name from far away, and then, all is darkness.

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She wakes up, her head nestled in the familiar snug hollow of her own pillow. From the sunshine filtering in through the curtain, she can tell it is mid day. She tries to sit up but the effort makes her groan. Her head is still swimming in the pool of sedatives the doctor has pumped in. Trying to turn on the bedside lamp, she  stumbles and the ashtray shatters. Its noise echoes like a rifle’s report through the still house. Hurried footsteps thud on the staircase landing, and a moment later, Ansh’s spectacled face peers in through the door.

“What happened?”, she mumbles, her throat was parched.

“You were out since yesterday afternoon. You wouldn’t open your eyes, just kept thrashing about. Dr. Joshi had to sedate you, he insists you join rehab this time.”, he says with a sigh.

“No it wasn’t something I made up Ansh. In the forest, I saw something, a type of beetle I think. It’s the one that is painted on the gate. With the red spade on its back. I startled them before I could take a photo. I wonder if that is why…”, she is talking to herself.

Ansh protests, “You are at it again Tia, all these obsessive connections and explanations. Why don’t you just admit that you had another breakdown, then we can … ”

“Just stop paraphrasing Joshi’s brochures alright, I read them too. You are making it difficult for me to even say what I feel, all the time the constant reminders, just stop that! I know what I saw, come with me to the forest, now, maybe where I found them is where they nest.”, Tia realises she is going down the slippery slope of insanely wanting to prove one’s sanity.

“Are you saying you saw things because of some insects?”, he asks, incredulous.

“When they flew away, the air smelt just like burnt matchsticks. It must be some neurotoxin. Don’t you get it, that’s what drove Dr Bethel mad, that’s what had gotten Lalka’s wife.It’s not safe here, you know, they could come to the house anytime.”

“You are doing your paranoid thing again, Tia! Nothing is going to fly in from the forest and attack you.” he tries to assure her, but all Tia hears is condescension.

“Let’s not talk anymore, come down and have some food first.”, he says, effectively killing the argument.

After lunch, she curls up on a divan in the verandah with a book, her head still heavy. Across the lawn, she can hear the hammer or the electric drill now and then as Ansh repairs the greenhouse shutters. Trinnniinnniin! She sits bolt upright at the familiar fire alarm sound. It comes from the direction of the greenhouse. Ansh is in there! She remembers the greenhouse, all the heap of broken flowerpots below the benches, all the cool dark places.

“Oh no!”, she whimpers and runs towards the greenhouse. “Cover your nose, don’t breathe!”, she shouts. She still can’t see him. Her nose crinkles. There it is, the pleasant pungent burnt smell. She stops breathing and takes a few steps back. She can see her husband now. He is holding on to the greenhouse door for support. She can tell from the way he is reeling that he has inhaled a full load. “Tia!”, he calls out.

“Thank god!”, she heaves a sigh of relief. Maybe he didn’t breath in, she hopes.

“Did you see the beetles, did you smell anything?”, she shouts. He is only a few steps away now.

Her question answers itself as his expression changes into a snarl. He charges at her with a yawp. The savage look in his eyes are beyond reason. She runs, wishing she had her hiking shoes instead of the flimsy Pikachu slippers.

She vaults the wooden fence and keeps running. Any minute now, cars pass by this road all the time, she thinks. Ansh charges after her, baring his teeth. Tia knows how his muscles would be burning with energy. He is getting nearer. She tries to run, but slipps on some wet leaves and falls face first. Before she can get up, Ansh is over her. “Aagh!” he screams as her elbow catchest him under the jaw. He grabs at her ankle, tripping her again.

A Bolero comes from the opposite direction. The driver slows down, confused by what he sees. A woman is on the ground, and a madman in pajamas is pinning her down.

“You sonofabitch, you picked the wrong day.”, the driver mutters to himself. His right hand tightens around the grip of the Heckler and Koch under his jacket. He had got the pistol ever since those dogs had waylaid his wife on this very road and raped her. None of those animals had thought about giving her a chance.

He gets out of his car and points the gun at Ansh, “Get off the woman, pig! I am going to shoot you dead otherwise!” Ansh is deaf to the warnings. Tia is pinned under him, her elbows covering her face against his blows. She is too dazed to shout to the man to stop. The man with the gun sees that Ansh is reaching  for a boulder. He presses the trigger. The gunshot shatters the silence of the woods. The air  gets thick with the startled calls of a thousand birds. Ansh falls over Tia, clutching his throat where the bullet had gone through. He gasps for air, but his lungs are drowning in his own blood. After a few desperate wheezes, he falls silent. The driver stands frozen, the gun still held in front of him. Tia pushes off Ansh’s deadweight and sits up, her thin tshirt warm with her husband’s blood. There is too much adrenaline to make her cry, that would come later. Somewhere in the forest, a strange ringing sound, like fire alarms go off. The birds cry as if they have gone mad.