He had no idea who she was. For almost a month he had been seeing her; sometimes catching just a glimpse out of his second floor window as she walked along the shaded street in front. On a couple of occasions they had crossed paths as she was leaving the garbage shed a few blocks away when he went to dump the black polythylene bin bag into the dumpster. Once, they were in the same aisle at the community store, shopping for groceries. But most often, almost four times a week, he would spy her from his office room in the large apartment he had rented as she walked past in that stately gait of hers. Sometimes, when he was lucky, he would spot her twice in the day; the first time would be around 8:00 in the morning when he started work at his desk, and then again in the late evening if he was still at work.
She was about 5'6" in her shoes, an attractive height on an Indian woman, and very well proportioned; her complexion was a light caramel coffee mix. She was always dressed in the traditional Indian saree, varying her pastel colours almost every day. Her hair was obviously long but she wore it in a large bun of ringlets at the back of her ahead, occasionally adorned with a string of flowers that seemed interwoven with the strands. He often fantasised about her, felt a stirring in his groin every time he spied her, and experienced a phallic erection that was always extremely hard when he pictured her naked. His nocturnal emissions, even at the age of 35, were often triggered by dreams of the woman doing incredible things to his naked body in various positions and different locations.
His name was Hugo Herve. He was a journalist working for Agence France-Presse, having begun his career as a young reporter in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the time of their parliamentary elections, and arrests of various war criminals. He had now spent the last twelve years in Asia, initially reporting from Hong Kong during the protests, and then later on the alleged ethnic cleansing happening in Myanmar. A lot of that had been clandestine work, often dangerous and extremely hazardous. Now, what he wanted was to be a writer of both fiction and non-fiction books; that was his dream but he hadn't been able to let go the adrenaline charge of a frontline press corps member. His mentor and boss, Jean-Luc, at AFP headquarters in Paris had recently sounded him out about spending some time in Afghanistan if he felt up to it and although Hugo was excited with the idea, his dream of starting a new life as a writer was holding him back.
This evening, two days after the first downpour of the year's rainy monsoon season, he was alone at home on a Saturday. It had been drizzling all afternoon but at about 7:30 pm he heard the sounds of rumbling thunder and the occasional distant crack of lightening as the wind picked up and whistled through the thick foliage of large trees that lined the street in front of his apartment. Although warm and muggy outside, his rooms were all air-conditioned and he kept the temperature at a steady 23 degrees celsius whenever he was in. Hugo put some smooth jazz on his old Nakamichi stereo system, poured himself a large Scotch whisky over some cubes of ice, and sat in one of his comfortable recliners. He fired up his MacBook and began working on the story he planned to file tomorrow morning.
He worked straight for an about an hour when he decided that there were blanks in his report that he needed to fill. That would, unfortunately, have to wait till mid-morning on Monday when he would get in touch with his contact at the government's external affairs ministry for the necessary information. For now, he folded his Macintosh laptop and headed to the bar for a refill. Just as he was reaching for the 17 year old Ardmore bottle on the counter, the electricity went off in his entire apartment.
"Merde!", Hugo cursed lightly as he remembered the landlord telling him that morning that the electrical generator of the house would be serviced on Saturday and would not be functional till late at night. Power outages were not uncommon during the summer, especially during the stormy monsoon season, so he just said a silent prayer and hoped it would be a short one this evening. In the quiet of his apartment, he realised that the rain had picked up in intensity and the sound of thunder was a lot louder that an hour ago. His housemaid had bought some candles and matches a few days ago, warning him to be prepared for exactly such an eventuality.
Not possessing any candle stands, he had stuck a long white candle into the mouth of a bottle and left it in the cabinet under the sink. Walking towards that corner of his kitchen, he hit his knee against a side table and cursed loudly as he stumbled forward. A sudden flash of brilliant lightening lit the room for a fraction of a second, followed by a loud sonorous roll of thunder. He opened the cabinet and felt around for the bottle, wrapping his fingers around the neck as he stood up and placed it on the counter top. Completely blind in the dark, he began opening drawers in the kitchen hoping to find the matchboxes that he knew were in one of them.
In the midst of this mayhem, he suddenly heard a faint knock on the door to his flat while he was still fumbling around for the box of matches. "Just a minute," he said as he located the strikes and lit the candle which was inserted into a now empty bottle of Old Monk rum. The electricity had gone off about ten minutes earlier, either intentionally turned off on account of the storm or one of the incessant breakdowns that seemed to occur in this part of town.
Outside, the rain was crashing down now, large drops smashing against the broad leaves of deciduous trees in a constant staccato that surrounded the deep rumble of rolling thunder. Every so often, streaks of lightening lit up the dark streets and houses in blue-white strobe like flashes. When Anjali had got off the bus to walk back home, she realised too late that her umbrella was still lying on the seat that she had occupied on her way back from church. The downpour hadn't been quite as bad as it was now but she had waited at the covered bus-stop, hoping that the clouds would pass. But during the monsoon season, that was a futile hope. Instead, the rain seemed to increase, and she noticed that the water on the streets was beginning to pool along the sides.
She decided it was probably better to start walking home, knowing she would be completely drenched in seconds. She held her faux leather handbag on top of her head and set out at a steady trot towards home. Five minutes later, she had entered her gated colony and snuck through the metal turnstile on the side of the road; none of the security guards were visible and she thought they had probably taken shelter in their hut. She still had another five minutes to go so she continued to scurry along the paved footpath towards Monsieur Marcel's house.
Anjali worked for Peter Marcel, the First Counsellor and Head of the Press & Communications Section at the French Embassy. Although a graduate in Psychology from one of the city's premier colleges, she worked like an au pair with the French family. She hoped Monsieur Marcel and Madame Julie were not unduly worried even though she had told them that morning that she was going to be with friends all day and in church till late evening. Unfortunately, the battery on her cell phone had died a couple of hours earlier and she wasn't carrying her charger; another stupid mistake, she thought.
She kept up a steady fast pace walk, her shoes wet and uncomfortable, her completely sodden saree and petticoat clinging to her legs and adding to the discomfort. Although she was shielded now by the overhead canopy of the tree-lined street, large drops of water still dripped off the leaves and continued to drench her hair and clothes. She was very conscious of her dress clinging to her body, revealing the swell of her breasts and the curves of her body. When another flash of lightening ripped through the sky, she heard an overly loud crack and suddenly found herself in complete darkness. All the streetlights turned off, as did most of the lights in the windows of all the surrounding houses. Thunder rolled across the heavens, the sound rumbling from east to west in a steady reverberating growl.
She was unable to see much of the road ahead in the near darkness when the headlights of a car turning in behind her lit up the street. Instinctively, she stepped to the side of the pathway and hid herself behind a large tree, waiting for the car to pass. She could hear the drone of a heavy engine approaching but it seemed to have slowed down to a gentle cruise. Holding her breath, she felt her heart thump against her chest as she stood unmoving in the dark shadows as the headlights slowly approached. Had the driver spotted her, she wondered, in the brief second that she was caught in the beams of the headlamps?
Anjali was scared; more than she had ever been before. The car was now barely five yards away from the tree she was hiding behind, water dripping from the overhead leaves on to her head and streaming down her face. Tears of fear and desperation mingled with the flow as she clutched the folds of her saree below the waistline, pulling upwards instinctively so the hem wouldn't graze the footpath. She began to shiver, partly because of the cold wetness on her skin and partially because of the terror overtaking her. The vehicle was now directly in front and she inched to the right as it continued its slow traverse, keeping the tree between her and the heavy SUV rolling past.
As it moved along the street, she took delicate steps around the tree to conceal herself from the inhabitants of the vehicle till it rolled past. Her body was pressed hard against the rough bark of the solid wood as her breasts squeezed against the old tree. Peering from around the thick evergreen, she now saw the red tail-lights reaching the T-junction at the end and turning to the left. But the vehicle didn't completely disappear; instead she saw the car move backwards and knew immediately that the driver was planning to come back into the street she was on. On impulse, she quickly crossed the road and pushed open the large wrought iron gate of the house in front and shoved it back shut from the inside. As a student of psychology, had she thought about it, she would have known that she was acting on a fight-or-flight acute stress response.
But obviously she didn't stop to think. Instead she pushed through another inner gate, thanking her stars that the house did not have any security guards stationed at the entrance like so many of the villas and mansions in this area. Anjali knew that Monsieur Hugo, she didn't know his surname, lived up on the second floor of this building and she quickly found the emergency stairs leading both to the basement as well as the top floors. She heard the sound of an electric generator start up somewhere, or was it the SUV that had turned around and come back in search of her? Was she being unnecessarily paranoid, she wondered briefly but didn't stop her ascent up the steps.
