NEW DELHI, INDIA
By three a.m. the bungalow was finally completely quiet. Only an hour earlier, Veena had heard the flat- screen TV in the living room, suggesting that someone couldn’t sleep. But whoever it had been had turned it off and had disappeared back to their room.
Avoiding turning on a light, Veena felt for the pillowcase full of clothes she’d put on her night table when she’d turned her lights off at midnight. When her hand touched it, she picked it up, then moved to her bedroom door. Luckily, Samira was spending the night with Durell. Samira had been one of her worries, and for the three hours Veena had lain awake in bed, every time she’d heard a noise she’d worried that it was Samira returning to spend the rest of the night in her own bed, across from Veena’s.
Another worry was the key. If it wasn’t where she hoped it was, all bets would be off.
Veena cracked her door. The house was silent and remarkably well illuminated from the nearly full fall moon. Moving silently, carrying her shoes in one hand and the pillowcase in the other, Veena moved from the guest wing, where the nurses’ bedrooms were, into the main part of the house. She tried to stay in the shadows. When she neared the living room, she slowed and glanced in warily. She knew all too well that when you’re living with sixteen people and five servants, you can run into someone in the public spaces at any given time, day or night.
The living room was empty. Encouraged, Veena silently raced down the carpeted hall to the library. Like the living room, the library was dark and empty. Without wasting a moment, Veena dashed to the fireplace. Putting down the pillowcase and her shoes, she took down the Indian-craft papier-mache box. Since the top fit so snugly, it took a few minutes of effort to get it open enough for her to get her fingernails in the crack. When it did open, it made a popping sound loud enough to cause Veena to freeze. For several minutes she listened to the pulse of the house. It stayed normal.
Lifting the lid and placing it on the mantel, Veena held her breath while slipping her hand into the box. To her relief, her fingers immediately hit up against the oversized key, inspiring her to say a little prayer to Vishnu. Slipping the key into her front pocket, Veena took the time to replace the box’s lid and return the box to its exact location.
With her shoes and pillowcase back in her grasp, Veena moved out of the library and darted back down the hall, heading now for the conservatory. It was then that she heard the thunk of the refrigerator door closing. Reflexively, she ducked into the hallway’s shadows and froze. And it was a good thing she had. A moment later, Cal emerged into the hall with a fresh Kingfisher beer. He walked past Veena and headed toward the guest wing.
With such a close call, Veena panicked. Although she’d tried to act as normal as she could all evening, she’d known Cal had been suspicious and had even asked her if she were alright on more than one occasion. Later, after she’d excused herself and said she was going to bed, he’d even come to her bedroom with a flimsy excuse. And with him heading in that direction now, she had to assume he was bent on checking her yet again.
As soon as he had disappeared from view, Veena was off again. Now she was up against a time constraint. In the conservatory, she quietly let herself out into the garden, where she put on her shoes, then sprinted across the lawn. She met the driveway just before it entered the trees, and once in the trees, she had to slow to a walk in the darkness. A few minutes later, she reached the garage.
She unlocked the upper door and left it open to take advantage of the flashes of moonlight that filtered down through the trees as the night breezes rustled their leaves. At the base of the stairs it was nearly total darkness, with only a bit of moonlight visible when Veena looked back up to the open door.
She used the key to rap on the door. “Miss Hernandez,” she called out. “It is Nurse Chandra.” Only then did she struggle to open it. The door swung in to utter blackness. “Miss Hernandez,” Veena called again. “I’ve come to get you out of here. This is no trick, but we must hurry. I have clothes and shoes for you.”
Veena felt a hand touch her chest. “Where are the shoes?” Jennifer asked. She was leery, even though Veena said there was no trick.
“I have the shoes and the clothes in a pillowcase. Let’s go upstairs and at least take advantage of the moonlight.”
“Okay,” Jennifer said.
Veena turned and mounted the stairs, moving toward the faint, flickering silver-gray light. She could barely hear Jennifer coming behind with her bare feet. As Veena emerged into the cool night, she glanced back at the house. “Oh, no!” she voiced. Through the trees she could see there were now lights on. A second later, she heard something that made her blood run cold. She heard Cal’s voice yell her name out into the night.
Jennifer loomed out of the stairway, peeling off the bathrobe in anticipation of putting on the clothes that Veena had brought.
“There’s no time for the shirt and pants,” Veena blurted. “But you must have something on your feet.” She struggled to get the tennis shoes out of the pillowcase and handed them to Jennifer. Jennifer pulled the bathrobe back on and snatched the shoes from Veena.
“Why the rush?” Jennifer hastily questioned.
“Cal Morgan, the head man, has somehow realized I’m gone. If he hasn’t already, he’ll soon figure out that I meant all along to come out here and free you.”
Jennifer pulled on the tennis shoes. “Where should we go?”
“Back through the trees away from the house. There’s a fence, but it’s fallen down someplace. We have to find it, and we have to put some distance between us and this bungalow or we’re both going to end up back in that basement.”
“Let’s go,” Jennifer said, cinching the bathrobe’s belt.
The two women started through the trees. The denser the canopy, the more difficult the going. For about fifty feet, they moved purely by feel, keeping their hands in front of their faces. The main problem was the noise. They sounded like a couple of elephants moving through the brush.
“Veena, come back! We need to talk,” wafted over the humid night air. Flashlight beams danced in the darkness, crossing the lawn from the bungalow.
With renewed urgency the women pressed on, eventually colliding with an all-too-robust chain-link fence topped with rusty barbed wire.
“Which way?” Jennifer demanded in a breathless whisper.
“No idea,” Veena answered. The flashlight beams were now penetrating the woods.
Making a sudden decision, Jennifer moved to her right, letting her hand trail along the fence. She could hear Veena following her, both women making more noise than they would have preferred. The fence continued on as hale as ever. Just when Jennifer was lamenting that the damaged section of fence must have been in the opposite direction, her hand contact disappeared. Bending down, she could feel that the fence was suddenly horizontal, having fallen outward.
“Here it is,” Jennifer whispered forcibly. She stepped on it and it settled more. Advancing timidly, she came to the barbed wire. Although she couldn’t see, she took a chance and jumped. Luckily, she cleared it, and she told Veena so. A moment later Veena was next to her, and they pushed on. A few minutes later they broke out of the trees onto one of the wide but deserted avenues in Chanakyapuri.
“We can’t stay here,” Veena said urgently. “They’ll be here any minute in one of the cars. They have four cars.”
Just as Veena spoke, a car came around the bend. The women pressed back into the bushes and flattened themselves on the ground. The car slowed, passing at walking speed. The women waited until it had rounded the next corner and disappeared from sight. At that instant they were up and running in the direction from which the car had come. At the next block they crossed the broad avenue and took a smaller street heading away from the bungalow.
“That was one of their vehicles,” Veena said between breaths. “They are out cruising for us.”
A moment later headlights appeared behind them, forcing them to duck behind a wall at the base of a driveway. Again, they flattened themselves against the ground. It was the same car, moving at the same speed.
The cat-and-mouse game continued until Jennifer and Veena came across an extensive squatter settlement along a relatively busy road. It was constructed of cardboard, scraps of corrugated metal, tarps, and bolts of fabric. Between the makeshift homes, the earth was beaten bare. It was apparent the commune had been in existence for some time.
