A senior man who was chatting up with the security guards at the building gate was the one to see him first.
Blinking against the growing darkness of the sunset, the man hollered, "Hey! What is that boy doing? Oh God, is he trying to jump out of his window?"
Suresh Oza, the retired banker, was a father of three sons, all of whom were settled outside the country. He had all the time in the world to talk about issues that did not matter to him. Gossiping about an alleged murder by that debauched single man living on the fourth floor of the E wing was the kind of thing that he and his group of retirees were happy to talk about. But the man trying to kill himself by suicide was a twist in the tale that was hard to take even for him.
"Do something, guard! Save the man!" Oza shouted.
The guard fumbled. "What can I do, sir?" Turning to Anay up in his window, the guard blew his whistle hard and waved his hands, "Sir, get down, sir. You will fall!"
"Idiot, that's precisely what he's trying to do," Oza screamed at the guard.
Another guard left his post and ran up to the building in a bid to reach the fourth floor as quickly as possible. More people gathered below. A group of boys in the park left their game of football and came to watch this more interesting show.
For Anay up there, everything was a blur. How long would they shout? How long would he hear them? In a few seconds, no noise would ever be able to reach him.
"You cannot do this, young man!" Oza shouted as if it was a rule he had laid down. "You cannot end it like this. Be a brave man and face the consequences."
Face the consequences?
"I have done nothing!" Anay shouted angrily, not sure who he was trying to convince.
Oza looked at the gathered crowd and shook his head helplessly. "The youth of today," he told the people loud enough for Anay to hear. "First they do such things and then they cannot face it even."
That was it! Anay shut his eyes and shut out all the noise. No one could reach him. He cut out those horrid visuals of the screaming guards and the old man and everyone else, and of the chalk outline that he was going to meet soon. Perched on the balcony ledge with his feet curled around it and his hands outstretched, he looked much like a diver ready to take the plunge.
People gasped. The shouting increased. There was banging on his door, trying to break it down. The watchman had evidently reached.
Anay shut his eyes and began to count in his mind...
"Five...four...three..."
He felt like a free bird. He saw the pain going away. He gathered his last ounce of courage...
"two...one..."
It was at that exact moment that something most incredible happened.
He felt a grip around his waist. It was as if someone had a tight hold of him at the waist. It was a firm grip, kind of a wrestler's hold. He could feel the musculature of the palms of the hands and, as he was hoisted in the air, he was aware that whoever it was that had grabbed him was blessed with a great deal of strength. Before he could open his eyes and see who the person was, he was pulled back into the balcony and dropped on the floor. Anay screamed in agony as his back crashed against the floor of his balcony. He hadn't just been dropped; it was as if he had been flung in anger. And as if that was not enough, the next moment, he experienced a strong gust of wind. It was so strong indeed that it swept him back into the house with great speed and that was where he crashed and landed—backed up against the wall of the house.
He understood nothing. For a moment he thought he had died and this was the bizarre part of his afterlife where he was seeing things that did not exist. But it was the pain on his head and his back that made him realize that he was not dead. Afterlife cannot be so painful.
And there was one more thing that punctuated the fact that he was not dead.
It was a shadow billowing over him now, the shadow that had snatched him away from his death. It looked ghastly but at the same time there was in it the sense of accomplishment of having saved his life. And then, even as he looked at that curling smoke-like apparition with its blazing blue eyes, he heard a single sentence spoken with the uttermost ominousness:
"You will die when I am done with you..."
Anay's bones chilled at that voice. There was such menace in it, such rancor! This thing, whatever it was, hated him to the guts. What was this thing, which had made his life miserable and death impossible? Why could it not show itself to him clearly? What infernal sorcery was this?
"Who are you?" he asked, convulsing with a mix of emotions. "Why are you after my life?"
Upon that, the entity made a noise and retreated back into the shadows.
Those words would not leave him though. He could not tell whose voice it was. It did not sound human. It was a ghastly bestial disembodied voice that left a ringing tone in his ears and made them pop. It made his eardrums run cold and he felt accursed just for having heard it. But his brain told him something else. It told him, in that wise sage-like manner that only a few of us can bear, that he had heard that voice before. He was not a stranger to it.
***
It was late evening when Anay stepped out of the building with two suitcases. It astounded him as to how few his belongings were. How easy it had been for him to pack everything he had in two travel bags and just walk away!
For one last time, he looked at Renee's outline on the ground. Up close, it was more harrowing. Leaving his bags, he walked up to the spot and stood in meditation and said a little prayer. Prayer. There hadn't been one on his lips since a long time. Perhaps it was time to reflect on that too and not take his blessings for granted.
Oza was still on the park bench, stretching his rheumatic legs. When he saw Anay, he rose with some effort and walked up to him.
"Leaving?" he said. "I hope Patel has your forwarding address. We don't want the police to pester us here."
Anay did not respond.
"Good that you are moving," the old man continued. "At least you are showing some responsibility towards the building. Young man, you are my youngest son's age. Mend your ways. All this philandering feels good for a while but, trust me, it can ruin your life. But why am I telling you this? You are already experiencing it."
Anay wished there were a way to shut the old man up.
"And what was that foolishness you were doing up there? Trying to jump out of the window. Do you think it would have earned you any sympathy? You'd just have become another stain on the ground. And think of your parents, wherever they are. But why would you think? Your generation is a useless selfish generation. It is good that your friend pulled you back into the house in the nick of time, or—"
Now Anay paid attention. "My friend? Did you see who pulled me back into the house?"
Oza eyed him as if he were a specimen from outer space. "Have you gone completely mad? Of course, I saw him..."
Anay, forgetting who he was talking to, shook the man by his shoulders in excitement. "Uncle, please tell me who he was. Are you sure he was a man? How did he look? Tell me. Tell me, please."
"What nonsense is this!" Oza screamed. "Take your hands off me, young man."
Anay backed off. "I'm sorry. But I want to know who it was."
"Are you out of your mind? He was in your house and you don't know who he was?"
"Was it a he?"
Oza reflected. "I'm almost sure. But no, I don't know. Your generation dresses up so confusingly; it's hard to tell. Are you playing some funny game—"
"Young or old?"
"Young. Definitely young."
"Could you see him? I mean, his features?"
"Thin guy. Not taller than you. He had thick glasses on his eyes, that much is for sure. He crept up from behind you and grabbed you when you were in that crazy chicken posture on the ledge. That's all I saw."
Anay shook. There was someone. This was the strongest validation of it he had had. Not only had a crowd of people seen him but he had felt his grip too. It appeared to others in the form of a man but to him in the form of a horrific spirit. Which was his true form, then? He looked up at that house and shuddered. He prayed hard that that thing stayed in that damned house and did not follow him, whatever it was.
***
Kautuk came running downstairs when Anay entered his compound in a cab. He got into the cab and said, "I spoke to someone. He's a friend, a man named Pradhan. He owns a motel near the highway, and you can stay there for a few days. There will be traffic noise. But it's off-season and he will ask you no questions."
"Thanks, man!" Anay said. "Does he know about my situation?"
"He knows you have been kicked out of your apartment."
"And the other thing? About... about the police?"
"Don't worry. He owes me. Guys and middle-aged businessmen take girls there over the weekends for a quick screw. He deals in shady stuff all the time. I have sent a lot of guests to his motel. Friends from my college and their girlfriends. All kinds of things go on there. All kinds of people come there. But you stay put in your room and you'll be fine. I hope you have your identification with you."
Anay checked his back pocket and nodded.
"Meanwhile, my uncle will handle everything about the, you know, police thing. It will tide over soon, buddy."
Anay's eyes began to overflow with tears, a sensation that he had rarely experienced in his life. It is true, perhaps, that even when everything is going wrong, there is that one something, that one flickering flame, that keeps things going. For him, it was this guy, Kautuk. The guy who he had always dismissed as a kind of clown was the one who was coming to his aid now.
"I will forever be indebted to you, Kautuk," he said, and proceeded to hug him.
Kautuk, somewhat surprised, received the hug. Then he withdrew almost immediately. "It's okay. What are friends for?" he asked.
Anay had no words. For several minutes, they were in silence. Then Anay thought of something, made a resolve, and said, "Kautuk bro, something weird happened in the house just before I was leaving it."
"What?"
Anay launched into a full-fledged description of the episode that had unfolded. He kept some details to himself, such as his attempt to end his life. Keeping a careful eye on the driver, he filtered out some of the ghostly details too, so that the cabdriver did not think of him as a madman.
Kautuk heard it all in silence. Anay ended his narration with the description Oza had given him. Kautuk raised his brows. "The old man really saw someone?"
"That's what everyone has been telling me, bro. And today..." Anay lowered his voice. "...I actually felt him grab me and heard his voice. See, right here." He lifted his shirt to show his midriff. "I can still feel his cold grip."
"This is very strange," Kautuk said, feeling the faint black marks on Anay's waist with the tips of his fingers. "I have heard of houses being haunted, but this is the first time I am actually seeing someone go through it. Well, isn't it nice that you are out of that house?"
"Kautuk, I am sure this is the same thing that pushed Renee off the building. I now know he has a strong physical hold. This is not a simple ghost or apparition."
Kautuk opened his mouth to say something and then clammed up. He said instead, "Then you are fucked."
"What? Why?"
"Well, even my genius uncle wouldn't be able to prove in court that a ghost committed the murder."
There were no more words spoken in the car. As Anay sat as if in shock, Kautuk squeezed his thigh in reassurance. "Hang in there, buddy. Everything will be all right," he said.
***
So it looks like Anay is off to a new start. Hopefully, the misery of his life will end.
Will it?
Read on to know...