Free The Accidental Apprentice by Vikas Swarup Page B

everything else happening in slow motion through a veil of tears. Papa kicking open Alka’s door, gasping and writhing like a man on fire. Mother climbing up onto the bed and holding Alka’s limp body to take the strain off the piece of cloth she was hanging from. Neha fetching a knife with which we cut her down.
    We are not afraid, we are not afraid,
    We are not afraid today;
    Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
    We are not afraid today.
    It was too late. Life had already ebbed away from my beautiful sister. We laid her on the bed and untied the yellow headscarf from her neck. I had never seen it before. Her face was pale in repose. Her bare feet were tinged bluish purple, due to all the blood pooling there – a coloration known as postmortem staining or hypostasis. Another thoroughly useless piece of information I had picked up for my general-knowledge bank. In her right hand, she clutched a piece of paper. I gently pried it from her cold fingers. Written in her charming, childlike scrawl was the inscription, ‘Love never dies. It just acquires a new form.’ I recalled it as the tagline of a Hindi film we had seen recently on TV, a modern-day tragedy. Then there was a final line: ‘I forgive you all.’
    I cradled my dead sister in my arms, shoulders hunched, as I succumbed to the cruel reality that our paths would never cross again on earth. Her heart was almost too big for this world. In life, she had touched us all with her radiant presence, her kindness and her grace. And even in death she had chosen to forgive us. As Sister Agnes used to remind us about Jesus, Alka had redeemed us through her blood. We never fully understood her, and now she was gone for ever, making us feel so small.
    The truth shall make us free, the truth shall make us free,
    The truth shall make us free someday;
    Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
    The truth shall make us free someday.
    The police came, and an ambulance, which took away Alka’s body. Neighbours gathered and spoke in sombre tones about the inevitability of fate. The headmaster also arrived, having cut short his Republic Day speech. He seemed more concerned at the disruption in the day’s programme than at our loss. Mother and Neha took no note of him. They were busy wailing. I did not cry. I just sat there like an immobile rock, my face frozen in a twisted rictus of absolute shock mixed with overwhelming pain. The final image of my dead sister seared into my memory for ever.
    We shall live in peace, we shall live in peace,
    We shall live in peace someday;
    Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
    We shall live in peace someday.
    There was no peace. There was only guilt in the stunned aftermath of the tragedy. First came the nightmares, when I’d wake up in the middle of the night covered in sweat and gasping for breath. Then came the panic attacks, caused by the festering wounds of memory. Reality became a psychedelic film, full of jittering cuts and freeze-frames of Alka’s dead body swinging in the breeze. Matters reached such a point that I couldn’t look at a ceiling fan without suffering a gag reflex. The sight of any piece of yellow cloth gave Ma anxiety attacks.
    Alka’s ghost stalked us every hour of every day. House Number 17 was drenched in her smell, filled with her presence. Every little thing in her room reminded us of her. Every old photograph prompted a new bout of self-flagellation. Eventually we couldn’t take it any longer. Since history could not be altered, we decided to change geography.
    It was Neha who suggested the move. ‘Let’s go someplace far away from Nainital. I’ll die if we stay here.’ Papa accepted the suggestion almost with relief. The taint of scandal that he had always been so careful to avoid had spread far beyond the campus, tarnishing his career and eroding his self-esteem. Even he longed to be free of the daily humiliation he faced in the censorious stares of his fellow