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Read part 19 -here
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‘When did you lose it and how did you find it?’
Meina blinked at Khar’s odd questions and thought he was probably trying to humour her, but the man with massive shoulders didn’t budge from his serious stance and she forced herself to think.
‘A few weeks ago, I think.’ she chewed on her lip thoughtfully. ‘or maybe it must have been longer than that’ Meina exhaled. ‘I mean I couldn’t say. I didn’t know much of what went around me, didn’t even realize its loss until the beginning of this month when I saw my garden withering, and I couldn’t bear the thought of loss anymore..That’s when..uh, I realized I’d misplaced the pruning saw.’
‘But then you found it?’ Khar asked.
‘I didn’t for a while and I had to buy another one’ she said pointing at the saw in Khar’s hand, but then last week or was it before that?’ she mumbled to herself ‘I’m sorry I can’t keep track of time anymore. Each day is almost a replica of one gone by, one yet to come.’
‘Where did you find it?’
Meina tried understanding the urgency in Khar’s tone, but she’d let her mind momentarily pause to think of her son. It’d been over two months; look how time was flying, stopping not a moment to let her reminisce about the past when she had a family, but then she never had any desire to keep up with time, and there was a man standing in front of her. One who was supposed to be looking for.. No, she didn’t have the energy now to rethink every day and mentally loathe the inefficient police force who couldn’t come up with suspects or clues or a reason even.
Whom all would she start hating? If there’s a way to rewind time and go back to that moment where she’d never married Jumaid, none of this would have happened.
Life would have been different, living in a different city perhaps, doing something else. Would she have a garden there?
Meina stood rooted, looking dazed, her mouth slightly open and Khar waited for her to reply. Her emotions were steadily pulverized following her son’s death and now with an upcoming divorce, but the farther she kept herself from the toxicity of these decaying emotions that held no companionship nor love the better.
‘Mrs Wasim’ Khar finally spoke.
‘yes?’ Meina smiled.
‘You were telling me where you found the saw.’
‘yes, I keep forgetting and misplacing things all the time. Why just some time ago when I met you I thought my clothes had disappeared but they were in the laundry.’ There was no humour in her laughter.
‘I found it here’ she pointed at her flower bed. ‘In fact here, in the corner. Under my almost dying hydrangeas.’
‘It was buried?’ Khar inquired.
‘Not buried. Just covered with dirt. I must have left it there or maybe it fell. I don’t remember. I keep forgetting things, but they eventually turn up in places.’
‘did you tell Mr Wasim about its loss?’
Meina pursed her lips at that. ‘You know, he laughed and almost choked on his food when I asked him if he’d seen it.’ anger flashed in her eyes. ‘he thought I’d mislaid it, like everything else, but then he was right.’ she sighed with resignation.
‘But you don’t remember when you’d mislaid it?’
‘I don’t, I just remember not finding it when I looked for it, but then one day a some days ago I cleared out weeds and dead flowers and found it. To think it was lying here all the time.’ Meina shrugged.
‘Can I see it?’
‘The old pruning saw?’ Meina raised her eyebrows puzzled. ‘Yes, it’s in the toolbox behind the garage.’
Khar followed her and she stared at the contents of the open toolbox. ‘Oh god, it’s disappeared again.’ she exclaimed.
Khar would have looked as bewildered as her if he hadn’t been smiling.
‘Mrs Wasim did you use that pruning saw again after finding it?’
‘No. It was dirty and looked rusted. I just threw it here since I’d bought a new one.’ Her face didn’t hide her distress ‘I think I might be going mad after all.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it.’ Khar’s voice had lost its steely edge. He sounded almost friendly. ‘Do you have any relatives or friends around here?’
‘Yes..Yes, in fact, I’m going to spend the afternoon at my sister’s.’ Meina was carefully digging inside the toolbox. ‘I..I just don’t understand. It’s lost again.’ Her voice was worried.
She looked questioningly at Khar who was on the phone. ‘Am I insane?’ her voice quivered. ‘You think there’s something wrong with my head?’
‘Our minds have a tendency to often manoeuvre our beliefs. Sometimes conning us like tricksters.’ Khar said understandingly. ‘Is Mr Wasim at home?’ he asked.
A nod from Meina and she got back to rummaging in the toolbox, giving up a few minutes later. ‘You’re right. Maybe I threw it in the trash.’ She consoled herself with this thought and left after showing Khar inside.
Khar’s last visit to Wasim house was imprinted in his mind as that torrential dark void fittingly fastened with gloom, following their son’s death and now as he stood inside absorbing the interiors he realized the last memory was a near chicanery because of what he saw now in the brightness of golden lamps and red lights.
The interiors were opulently done in a haphazard contouring of unharmonious colours and loud tapestry. A stark contrast to the tastefully done decor at Sinhals’.
He knocked at the door that was painted in a cacophony of gold and blue and wondered at the rambunctious tastes that would drive a man to such tumultuous colour definitions.
Jumaid Wasim opened the door looking irritated, and his features immediately drooped to a worried frown on seeing Khar standing in front. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked without masking his consternation.
His face was a study in fleeting emotions which he displayed with an admirable openness. ‘Did Meina let you in?’ he asked looking around the house. ‘What do you want?’ He asked Khar who looked amused at Jumaid’s confusion.
‘I’d like you to accompany me to the station’ He said plainly.
‘What station? You mean police station? why?’ Jumaid asked anxiously, darting his head around the house looking for Meina.
‘Mrs Wasim has left’ Khar explained. ‘Gone to meet her sister. She let me in.’
‘That idiot woman’ Jumaid spoke into himself. ‘Why do I have to come to the station? Another of your routine questionings?’
Khar smiled. ‘Yes. I’d need you there for a short while. A few hours at most.’
‘A few hours? Why? Are you arresting me?’ Jumaid shrieked. He was terror-stricken. ‘You cannot do this.’
‘I’m not arresting you.’ Khar said plainly. ‘More like custody. I need you to accompany me to the station for some time. No arrests at all.’ he said taking a step back.
Jumaid’s face relaxed. ‘Alright. Let me dress real quick.’
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