The Case of the Missing Servant

Nine

Few men failed to notice the young peasant woman walking down Ramgarh Road three mornings after Puri left Jaipur. Her bright cotton sari might have been of the cheapest quality and tied jauntily in the style of a laborer, but it did justice to the firm, shapely body beneath. The demure manner in which she wore her dupatta over her head-the edge gripped between her teeth and one tantalizing, kohlrimmed eye staring out from her dark features-only added to her allure.

The more lecherous of the men she passed called out lustily.

"I will be the plow and you my field!" bawled a fat-gutted tonga-wallah from the front of his horse-drawn cart.

Farther on, two laborers painting white lines on the concrete divider in the middle of the road stopped their work to stare and make lewd sucking noises. "Come and be my saddle! You will find me a perfect fit!" cried one.

The Muslim cobbler who sat on the corner surrounded by heels and soles, gooey pots of gum and a collection of hammers and needles was more discreet. But he could not take his eyes off her ample bosom or the flash of alluring midriff beneath her blouse. Thoughts passed through his head that, as a married man blessed with three healthy sons, he knew he would have to ask Allah to forgive.

Despite her coy embarrassment, the young woman understood the licentious and perfidious nature of men only too well. She ignored their comments and stares, continuing along the uneven pavement with her small bag toward the entrance to Raj Kasliwal Bhavan. There, just beyond the gate, she spotted a mali crouched on the edge of one of the flower beds, a scythe lying idle by his side. His clothes were old and tatty and he went barefoot. But his pure white hair was a biblical affair. It began like the crest of a wave, sweeping back from his forehead and cascading down around his ears in a waterfall of licks and curls, before finally breaking into a wild, plunge pool of a beard.

The mali was staring into space with a dreamy, far-off expression, which at first the young woman assumed was a manifestation of old age. Drawing nearer and smelling distinctive sweet smoke trailing up from the hand-rolled cigarette, she realized that his placid state was self-induced.

"Namashkar, baba," she greeted him from a few feet away.

The old man stirred from his reverie and, as his drowsy eyes focused on the vision in front of him, his mouth broadened into a wide, contented grin.

"Ah, you have come, my child," he said, drawing his beard through one hand. "Good. I have been waiting."

"We know each other, baba?" asked the woman with a bemused frown, her voice deeper than her youthful looks suggested.

"No, but I have seen you in my dreams!"

"I'm sure you have!" she mocked.

"Why not come and sit with me?" he suggested.

"Baba! If I wanted a corpse I would go to the graveyard!"

Her pluckiness caused the mali to laugh. "Spend a little time with me, my child, and I will show you that I am no corpse!"

"I have no time, baba. I must find work. Is there any available here?"

He patted his thighs. "There is work for you here!"

"Enough, baba. I am no grave robber! I was told Memsahib is hiring."

"Memsahib is always hiring. She demands hard hours and pays little. No one stays for long."

"But you are here."

"Yes, I am content. I have a roof over my head and I can grow everything I need. What I don't smoke, I sell. But for you there is no charge. Make me feel young again and I will give you as much as you like for free."

"Later, baba!" she said impatiently. "I have mouths to feed."

"What kind of work can you do?" he asked, sounding doubtful.

"Baba! Are you the sahib of the house? Are you the one to ask the questions? I'll have you know that I can do many things. I can clean, do laundry and cook. I even know ironing."

The mali took another drag of his joint and gently exhaled, the smoke dribbling from his nose and trailing up his face.

"Yes, I can see that you have been many things," he said.

His words caused the woman to chuckle, but the true reason was lost on the mali.

"A lady in the market told me Memsahib is looking for a maidservant," she said.

"The last disappeared a few months ago."

"What happened to her?"

"She was murdered."

"How do you know?"

"I know."

"Who did it?"

"It could have been one of many men."

"She had lovers?"

The mali laughed again. "That one was known as the 'Little Pony,'" he continued. "There can't have been a man in Rajasthan who hadn't ridden her! I took my turn! So did the driver, the subzi-wallah, Sahib-"

"Sahib?" interrupted the woman with alarm.

"You sound surprised?"

"I've heard it said he's a good man," she added quickly.

"People are not all that they seem. Whenever Memsahib was away, Sahib would knock on the Little Pony's door. He made a feast of her on many nights! You could hear them from miles away. But it wasn't the sahib who killed her."

"How do you know?"

"He was not here when she disappeared."

"Then who is the murderer, baba?"

The mali shrugged and drew the last from his joint, dropping the still-smoking end into the flower bed. The woman turned away from him and looked up at the house.

"Where should I ask for work?" she asked.

"At the back. Go to the kitchen door."

She started up the drive.

"Wait! You didn't tell me your name," called the mali, admiring the way her silver anklets jangled around her slim, brown ankles.

"Seema!" she shouted over her shoulder without stopping.

"I will be dreaming of you, Seema!"

"I'm sure you will, baba!"

Seema made her way up the sun-dappled driveway and along the right side of the whitewashed villa. A redbrick pathway led through flower beds planted with marigolds and verbena. Beyond, where the path led behind the house, finches gathered around a stale roti, chirping as if catching up on local news.

She reached the door of the kitchen and pulled out the letter of recommendation she had been carrying tucked into her waist. It was from a senior bureaucrat and his wife in Delhi, Mr. and Mrs. Kohli, and stated in English that Seema had worked for them for three years. They had found her "to be an employee of the highest reliability, honesty, loyalty and integrity, also." The letter bore Mrs. Kohli's phone number. Prospective employers were welcome to call her and ask for further details.

Seema's knock was answered by the cook's assistant, Kamat, who, judging by the wisp of hair on his upper lip, was not a day over fifteen. He was carrying a knife with which he'd been chopping ginger. Kamat in turn called the cook, Bablu, whose thick, wide nose flared when he frowned.

"Where are you from?" he asked, drying his hands on a cloth and eyeing her suspiciously.

Seema was careful to strike just the right tone when she answered-not too shy, but not overly confident either. She said, "Sir, my village is in Himachal."

Seema knew that everyone preferred servants from the hills; they were considered more reliable and trustworthy than those from the plains of the Hindi belt. Furthermore, hill people were not traditionally rag pickers, so they were allowed to handle food.

"What can you do?" asked Bablu.

Seema listed her skills and some of her work experience.

"Wait there," said the cook, snatching the letter out of her hand and shutting the door in her face.

Seema anticipated a long wait and it was nearly thirty minutes before the door opened again. This time it was Madam who appeared. Her hair was piled up on her head and covered in a thick, green mud; she was having it dyed with henna.

"You are married?" Mrs. Kasliwal asked Seema, looking her up and down.

"No, madam."

"Why not?"

"My father doesn't have the dowry."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-six."

Madam handed Seema's letter back to her.

"I made a call to Delhi," said Mrs. Kasliwal, without elaborating on her conversation with Mrs. Kohli. "I need one laundry-cum-cleaner maidservant. Can you start right away?"

Seema nodded.

"The pay is three hundred per month with meals. You must be live-in."

The amount was below the market rate, especially for a live-in position, which meant a seven-day week.

"Madam, that is low," stated Seema, eyeing the woman's diamond wedding ring and her matching earrings, which were worth several lakh rupees. "I want five hundred."

Mrs. Kasliwal tutted impatiently. "Three hundred is fair."

"Four hundred and fifty?"

"Three hundred and fifty. No advance."

Seema considered the offer for a moment and then, with a reluctant wobble of her head, assented.

"Very good," said Mrs. Kasliwal. "Sunday will be your day off and you can leave the house, but otherwise you must be here. I don't want any sneaking out, and no visitors. Is this understood?"

Seema nodded again.

"Bablu will give you your duties. Any stealing and I will not hesitate to call the police. If, in three days, I am not satisfied, then you must leave."

Mrs. Kasliwal led Seema into the kitchen, where she instructed Bablu to put her to work immediately.

It was a long, hard day. First Seema helped out in the kitchen chopping onions, kneading roti dough, picking out the grit from the moong daal and boiling milk to make paneer. Then she had to mop the hardwood floors in the corridors and the dining room. She was allowed thirty minutes for lunch, some subzi, which she ate on her own, crouched outside the kitchen. Afterward, she was sent to a nearby market to pick up three heavy bags of pulses, as well as a packet of cornflakes for Sahib's breakfast. The rest of the early afternoon was spent doing laundry.

As she worked, Seema was left with little opportunity to interact with her co-workers, let alone get to know them. Bablu said little and when he did speak, it was to curse. Mostly this was on account of Kamat, who was clumsy and forgetful and overcooked the chawal and poured fat down the drain. The driver, Sidhu, who had been working in the house for only a month, spent the morning in the driveway chatting on his mobile phone while wiping, waxing and polishing Mrs. Kasliwal's red Tata Indica, which he treated as if it was the Koh-i-Noor. Sahib's driver, Arjun, who had been hired to replace Munnalal, appeared at around twelve o'clock and, although there was no missing his reaction to the sight of Seema, he barely had enough time to eat his khana before returning to the office with his master's tiffin.

Seema found little opportunity to speak with any of the casual staff, either. The dishwasher girl who came for an hour to scrub all the pots and pans before continuing on to a number of other neighboring households was evidently intimidated by Bablu and kept her head down at the sink. The beautician who came to give Madam threading and maalish had airs and didn't deign to say so much as a please or thank-you for a cup of tea. And as for the dalit toilet cleaner, who came from a rag pickers' colony on the edge of Jaipur, she was a mute.

The only person Seema managed to talk to properly was Jaya, the other young maidservant, who had been working in the house since early August.

In the late afternoon, when Madam went out visiting friends, the two of them worked together sweeping and mopping the veranda. Given that Jaya was intensely shy and evidently unhappy, Seema broke the ice by telling her about some of her adventures. She talked about her days with a travelling theater troupe in Assam; the year she spent working as an ayah to a couple of Delhi socialites' children; and her experiences as a Mumbai bar girl and how a crorepati businessman had fallen in love with her and proposed.

These stories were all true, even though many of the mitigating circumstances surrounding them were adapted for the audience.

Jaya liked listening to them and quickly took to her new friend. On a couple of occasions, she even had cause to smile.

That evening, when all the day's chores were done, Jaya led Seema to the servant quarters at the back of the compound.

There were five rooms in all. The mali occupied the first (starting from the left); the next belonged to Kamat; the third was empty; the fourth, which had posters of the Virgin Mary and Hrithik Roshan on the wall, was vacant as well; and the last room belonged to Jaya.

Jaya warned against staying in the fourth room because the door was warped and did not close properly. But Seema said she liked the idea of the two of them being neighbors. Besides, the door could be fixed.

Together they cleaned the room, taking down the posters. And afterward, Seema took her idols from her bag. Having arranged them on the narrow windowsill of the front window, she lit an incense stick and said a prayer.

The two maidservants spent the rest of the evening chatting some more and sharing a few dates. Seema related more stories about her adventurous past and, now and again, asked Jaya about the other servants.

Soon, she had learned that the mali was stoned all the time and always passed out in the evening. Bablu was gay, but pretended to be straight even though there wasn't a Salman Khan movie he hadn't seen. Kamat often drank and turned extremely aggressive and there was a rumor going around that he had raped a girl working in another house.

At ten o'clock the two decided to turn in and Seema went back to her room.

She heard Jaya close her door and turn the key in the lock and it was with some effort that she managed to do the same.

An hour later, Seema was woken by the sound of a whistle. And then someone tried opening her door.

She called out, "Who's there?" But there was no reply and she heard footsteps running away.

Cautiously, Seema got out of bed, went to the door, opened it and looked outside. It was pitch dark and there was no one in sight.

In her right hand, she held the four-inch Nepali Khukuri knife that she always kept under her pillow at night.