What Maya Saw Read online

  WHAT MAYA SAW

  A Tale of Shadows, Secrets, Clues

  Shabnam Minwalla

  DEDICATION

  For St Xavier’s College ... the happiest corner in Mumbai

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  OTHER BOOKS BY SHABNAM MINWALLA

  COPYRIGHT

  CHAPTER 1

  Maya’s life turned topsy-turvy on the hottest day of the hottest April in 29 years.

  This was the fact that rose to the surface even years later, whenever she thought about how it began – amidst the angry glare and suffocating stillness of Mumbai in early summer.

  Up in the library of St Paul’s College, sunlight filtered through tall, stained-glass windows. Fans groaned, barely tickling the heavy air. Books with maroon and avocado spines slumbered in the sticky silence.

  An assistant librarian drowsed behind the tall, carved counter. But otherwise, Maya was alone in the enormous room – a solitary figure in too-blue jeans, a too-tight ponytail and a stiff t-shirt adorned with an unsuccessful pink bow.

  Maya didn’t mind.

  Much better to sit quietly with books in the library, than with the chattering hordes in the college canteen. Or so she told herself.

  In the canteen she would have to scramble for conversation and smile till her jaws ached. It was much easier to be alone with words and portraits of priests than to be alone in a crowd. Or so, once again, she told herself.

  Maya made her way to a long teakwood table, as close to a grumbling fan and as far from the headachy sunlight as possible. She rummaged in her bag for a ballpoint pen and crisp, yellow pad and plonked both down with irritable energy. The pen ricocheted off the wooden table, tumbled onto the floor and bounced into a cobwebby corner – dragging Maya’s mood along with it.

  ‘Oh great,’ Maya frowned.

  Kneeling down, she lunged for the pen, knocked her elbow against a chair and stifled a rude word. ‘Again,’ she thought, scowling at the yellow-and-black floor of the library. ‘Once again Super Achiever Maya sits around libraries and crawls under tables. While the rest of the world watches movies, eats pizzas and has mani-pedis. It’s just not bloody fair.’

  The yellow and black tiles, arranged in a complex pattern of interlocking stars, offered little by way of sympathy or advice. So Maya finally stood up, dusted her jeans and looked around the library.

  Glum though she was, Maya had to admit that this was one of the most uplifting rooms she had ever seen. The rows of teakwood tables, the portraits, the ornate plasterwork and the glowing, mullioned windows seemed a world away from the rest of practical, boxy Bombay.

  An old-fashioned clock hung above the library entrance – its motionless pendulum enhanced the time-stands-still atmosphere. Clearly, the blue plastic clock ticking away on the opposite wall was a brash imposter.

  Maya walked to the cupboard labelled ‘Summer School’. She opened the glass doors and the scent of wisdom drifted out, musty but comforting.

  After running her finger along the rows of books, she tugged out a dull red tome that appeared a teeny bit slimmer and newer than the others. ‘Ooh, lovely. Only 80 years old,’ she thought, succumbing to a fresh bout of sorry-for-herselfness. ‘Almost contemporary.’

  Maya lugged the book to the table and turned to Chapter One.

  A Brief History of Bombay by D. W. Allen was worthy, but eye-wateringly dull. Maya read the first page and made a few dutiful notes on her yellow pad. Then she turned to the second page and her pen slowed down. Irreverent thoughts invaded her head – most directed against the loquacious Mr Allen and his misleading use of the word ‘brief’.

  By the third page, Maya’s eyes had started to glaze. By the fifth page, she had given up on Allen, and was yawning and looking around the handsome library. Which was when she felt the first twinge of unease.

  The teeniest prick of fear.

  Unlike the rest of the radiant room, the deep end of the library was an untidy clutter of shelves, cupboards and dim recesses. A dumping ground for ancient encyclopedias, old magazines, college newsletters and cartons of long-donated books.

  It was in that dusty greyness that something shifted. Startled, Maya stared into the murk. She’d thought she was alone. But deep in the twilit corner was a crouching figure.

  Maya stumbled to her feet when—to her absolute relief and mortification—she saw that the figure was just a girl hunched over a bookshelf. An ordinary girl hunting for an ordinary book.

  Maya flushed. How shameful if she had hurtled out of the library, babbling about wild beasts. How totally uncool.

  Firmly, she turned back to her red book, yellow pad and blue ballpoint pen and willed her heart to behave itself. But it refused to obey. Instead, some instinct made her glance again at the silhouette.

  That’s when she saw them.

  For an uncomprehending moment, Maya just sat, horror jolting through her like an electric shock. ‘Not real,’ Maya gibbered to herself. ‘Imagining … a trick of light.’

  In that confused moment, the girl stood up and stepped into the light – and Maya gagged. The girl had horns on her head.

  Twisted, grey things that thrust out of purplish bumps on her forehead. Bony, hideous and real.

  Maya’s stomach lurched. She wanted to run, but was incapable of movement. She wanted to scream, but could barely whimper. So she remained marooned in the middle of that large room, pen poised over pad and heart banging furiously.

  The creature with the horns strode through the library. She didn’t pay Maya any attention. But as she hurried past with long, graceful steps, Maya’s pen slipped from numb fingers and clattered onto the floor. The girl glanced over her shoulder. For an endless moment, she stared at Maya with cold, empty eyes.

  Maya flinched.

  Then the girl raised her hand and rubbed her forehead.

  Slowly, very slowly, the horns blurred at the edges and melted into nothingness.

  The grotesque creature vanished – and in her place was a college student with glossy black curls and the slim body of a dancer. Somewhere in her terrified brain, Maya noticed that the girl was extraordinarily beautiful.

  The girl observed Maya as if she were examining a specimen under a microscope. Then, flashing a mocking smile, she loped out of the library.

  The temperature hovered around 41 degrees Celsius. But Maya felt chilled to the bone. ‘What am I doing
here?’ she whimpered as she shoved pads and pens into her bag with shaking hands. ‘I want to go home. Please, please, please. What am I doing here?’

  CHAPTER 2

  Just days ago, Maya had imagined a glorious, lazy summer.

  Nothing that involved dusty books and libraries. Certainly nothing that involved encounters with girls with horns on their heads and hate in their eyes.

  Her plans had revolved around Netflix and butterscotch brownies. Experiments with lipstick. Window-shopping at Zara and Forever 21. After all, she was almost 15 years old. And that’s what other almost-15-year-olds did.

  Maya wanted to be like the popular girls in her school. To be giggly and casually stylish. To spend hours on Colaba Causeway, rummaging through ankle-length jackets. To sing along with all the latest songs. To chat about Friends and X Factor. To be invited to sleepovers and makeovers. To roll her eyes and say, ‘OMG, that is soooo laaame.’

  She tried hard, of course, but she wasn’t entirely convincing.

  Somehow, Maya’s t-shirts were just a little too long, her hair a little too tidy and her smile a little too diffident. But what really made her different was the intelligence that crackled and sparked around her. She performed brilliantly in school, and was the first to be chosen for essay competitions and science Olympiads. But it was more than that. She was genuinely curious about the feeding habits of snails, the life of black holes, the world of Sherlock Holmes.

  It was the reason why certain people—usually jealous, stupid people—labelled Maya a geek.

  This shouldn’t have bothered Maya. But it did.

  It bothered her so much that she decided to do something about it. Instead of joining the creative writing workshop that her mother had lined up, Maya planned to use her summer to Become Like the Others.

  She would learn about eye shadow and pop songs and hanging out. She would go swimming and watch movies with friends who had given up on her. She would actually be available for sleepovers – if anyone bothered to invite her any more.

  ‘No more Maya the Misfit,’ she declared to her reflection. Her reflection looked dubious.

  ‘I just want to chill,’ she announced to her mother. Her mother looked disappointed.

  Maya went to Model Girls’ School, one of the toughest schools in the city. Std. 8 had been a blistering year, packed with tests, homework and unforgiving teachers. Std. 9 had begun on an even more frenetic note. So even Maya’s mother—whose motto was ‘climb every mountain, join every class’—had to relent. ‘Maybe you need a break,’ she admitted grudgingly.

  On the first day of the summer holidays, Maya trotted down to the shops near Colaba Bus Station and bought a stack of magazines that tackled all the vital questions: What’s your cool quotient? What works with your skin tone? How to make your body language speak for you? How do you know when you’ve met your soulmate?

  As she was out and about anyway, she also bought a kiwi-based cleansing lotion, a pale pink nail polish, a jumbo jar of Cheeslings and wasabi peanuts.

  On the way back, she stopped to cuddle Mr Pinkwhistle, the gentle mongrel who lived in the Pine View compound. Maya had named him years ago after her favourite Enid Blyton character, and the name had stuck.

  Or sort of stuck.

  Maya called him Mister Pinkwhistle. The other residents of Pine View called him Mister or That Stray Dog (uttered in disapproving tones). The chowkidar called him Mishter Doggie.

  ‘There’ll be lots of Cheeslings this summer,’ Maya promised Mr Pinkwhistle, as she opened the bottle and fed him a couple of biscuits. ‘It’s going to be the most restful, junkful holiday we’ve had in years.’

  The invitation from St Paul’s College arrived the very next day.

  Maya was dismayed.

  Her mother was triumphant.

  ‘Excellent,’ Mrs Anand exclaimed, waving the letter about. ‘Maya, this is wonderful. Thank God you didn’t join any classes. The Summer School at St Paul’s College is famous. Most students have to apply and write essays and give tests. But you’ve been invited. That too when you’re still in school! What an honour. It will really look good when you’re applying to American universities. Excellent for your resume.’

  ‘But …’ Maya tried to interrupt.

  ‘But nothing,’ Mrs Anand crowed. ‘Last year Veena Saraiya’s son applied but didn’t get in. Wait till Veena hears. She’ll be green with envy.’

  ‘But …’ Maya tried again.

  Mrs Anand didn’t deign to reply. She swept off to call Maya’s father with a smug look on her face. ‘Guess what your daughter managed to do this time,’ she crowed over the phone. ‘It’s quite amazing.’

  Slumped on her bed, Maya glowered at the letter that had scuttled her blissful plans. It was printed on thick, cream paper and was written by somebody with the imposing name of Professor Emeritus Rustam Kekobad.

  Professor Emeritus Rustam Kekobad explained that St Paul’s College conducted a Summer School every year. This year, the school would examine the history of Mumbai between 1850 and 1950. Although the Summer School was for college students, a few exceptional school students were also allowed to join.

  ‘Even so, under normal circumstances you would be considered too young,’ Professor Kekobad had written. ‘However, I was a judge for the essay competition conducted by the Bombay Local History Society. Your prize-winning essay on the Bombay Dock Explosion of 1944 was extraordinarily researched and written. We are hoping that you will be able to participate in the Summer School, because we feel both you and the college will benefit from the association.’

  Mrs Anand bustled into the small room with its narrow bed and stuffed bookshelves. She tutted when she saw the mess on Maya’s desk and started rearranging the dinosaur pencil holder, the red box of tissues and silver MacBook Pro.

  ‘I called St Paul’s,’ she said, stacking books into a perfect pile. ‘The Summer School starts on Wednesday. You need to carry a pen and a pad. You can take your laptop if you like. I’ll pack chicken sandwiches for lunch and drive you there.’

  Maya could have protested, but why bother? Her mother was as stubborn as a toothache – and sometimes even more painful.

  So when Wednesday morning arrived, Maya, her pen, her yellow pad, her chicken sandwiches and her resentment were duly deposited at the wrought-iron gate of St Paul’s College. The silver Honda drove away and Maya stood on the pavement, gazing up at the vast stone building shrouded by ample banyan trees and skinny palms.

  She’d driven past the college often enough, but for the first time, she sensed its gloomy grandeur.

  Taking a deep breath, Maya walked down the curved driveway to a large porch. A chatty watchman instructed her to write her name in a green register. ‘Lecture Room 113,’ he said. ‘Bahut eajhy. Left, phir right, phir ekdum straaaaiiiighhht. And up stairjh.’

  Maya stepped through an enormous door into a cheerless corridor. The left took her into a dungeon-like room with one table, one chair and three shuttered, arched windows. The right took her into a narrow, dark passage. And the straaaiiiiighhhht led her to a sun-splashed arcade. On one side of the arcade were empty classrooms and silent laboratories. On the other side was an elegant quadrangle formed by four substantial buildings.

  St Paul’s was much bigger and quieter than Maya had imagined. The building wore a deserted, summer-holiday air. A couple of cleaners scrubbed windows, three boys bounced basketballs and a brisk woman clop-clopped into a room marked ‘Economics Department’.

  The names of the professors were written on the door and Maya noticed that one of them was called Hermione Salazar. For a startled moment, she wondered if she had strayed into Hogwarts. ‘Maybe it’ll be fun,’ she thought in an unbidden moment of buoyancy. ‘Maybe it’ll be an adventure, after all.’

  Feeling a teeny bit better, Maya walked past twisty staircases and the thump, thump, thump of the basketball. Perhaps she would make friends. Perhaps it would all work out. But her optimism drained away as she stood outside the heavy, w
ooden door leading into Lecture Room 113.

  Maya was afraid of moths and ghost stories. She squealed when she saw rats or heard sudden sounds. But what terrified her most was walking into a room full of strangers. So it took enormous determination to push open the door of Lecture Room 113 and step into the noise and chatter.

  The classroom was air-conditioned and flooded with light from generous windows. It had the longest blackboard that Maya had ever seen. The chairs and tables were made of heavy wood and scuffed by decades of use. Everywhere were candy-coloured flip-flops, swirling skirts and junk jewellery. A skinny girl, sitting cross-legged on a desk, was talking in a Donald Duck voice. Some boys hooted loudly. A group of girls dressed in trackpants and Converse hi-tops, shrieked with exaggerated laughter.

  Nobody looked up when Maya tiptoed into the room and slunk towards a corner table.

  Seconds later, the door opened again. This time though, a current of excitement zipped through the room and everyone swivelled to stare at the newcomer.

  ‘Owais, you made it,’ the Donald Duck imitator squealed.

  ‘You’re all wet,’ another girl cooed from across the room. She had very pink lips and pouted at Owais, pointing to an empty seat with a dotted purple fingernail. ‘I’ve saved a place for you.’

  The tall, tanned boy ignored the fawning welcome. He sauntered to a desk at the back of the room and flung himself down. ‘Overslept,’ he muttered in a deep voice tinged with an unidentifiable accent. ‘Didn’t even bring paper or a pen.’

  Immediately, four girls rushed to him with pens and paper, almost tripping to get there first. ‘Just like iron filings to a magnet,’ Maya giggled to herself, recalling the physics experiment they’d conducted in school just a couple of weeks ago.

  Clearly damp, tousled hair, chiselled features and golden skin were as irresistible as magnets.

  Owais thanked the girls with lazy amusement. Then he stretched his long legs, shut his eyes and lolled on his chair. He had an exotic air about him – the smooth assurance of a Middle-Eastern playboy.

  Across the room, a clutch of girls poked each other and sniggered. ‘Look men, Crystal. Look who’s here,’ one announced in a breathy whisper. ‘God’s just given you your birthday present in advance.’