upon is that a fire broke out in the flat. One version is that the husband set her and the child on fire, the other, and this is the husband’s version, which he told the police, was that the wife had set fire to herself and the child, when she saw the husband leave.”
The hotel owner stopped his story. He had tears in his eyes. In a choked voice he continued, “Saab it was horrible. There was no one close who could come and save them. By the time people and the Fire Brigade could reach the spot, a part of the flat had burnt down completely and collapsed.
“Oh my God! The husband? What happened to him?” I asked.
“He was arrested the very next morning. It was big news; in all the newspapers, even the TV channels ran special reports on it for days. What was the use with all the publicity? Two innocent lives were lost. They had to let the husband go, as there was no evidence to prove that he had set them on fire. The last I heard of him was that he had lost his mind and was in some lunatic asylum. It is a sad, sad story saab….”
“What the hell? I was not aware of all this. No one told me, neither the estate agent nor the people in the office or the night watchman,” I said.
“The place got a bad name after the incident. People avoided buying flats. Stories about the house started spreading. The builder had immediately cleaned up the flat and had it renovated, but they could not control the stories that floated around. Some said the ghost of the woman still haunts the building. Wait, what did you just say? What watchman? There is no watchman in the building.”
“There is a watchman now. His name is Puran.. Something like that..yes.. Puran Joshi,” I said.
“Oh my God!” the owner said and collapsed on a chair,” I forgot to tell you one detail in the story. There was a watchman in the building. He was from Nepal, a Joshi, I think. They hired him, when the couple had moved in. The night when the fire broke out, he was on duty right under the house. He was apparently sleeping at the time. There were extensive damages to the flat in the fire. A huge chunk of the windows broke and fell. It fell directly on the watchman who died on the spot.”
I was not sure what to make out of the story as I came out of the hotel. The owner pleaded with me not to go back. I thought it was nonsense. People made-up stories when they found something they could not explain logically. I called up Marvin. We went to a movie. I was not planning on going to the office that day and had all the time in the world to roam around the city. By the time, I returned, I had forgotten all about the story I had heard in the morning.
I glance at my watch. It was eleven in the night. As expected, none of the lamps in the complex was on. The light from the full moon led me up to the building. Puran, was there sitting motionless on his chair. I stood there for a few seconds and then decided to let him sleep. Again, the lift was not working, and I had to climb up the steps to reach my flat. As I turned the corner of the staircase at the eighth floor, I heard a sound. It was the sound of a woman singing. My knees started to shake. It may have been because of the eight floors I had just climbed, or it could have been due to fact that my heart was suddenly beating very fast, and I was finding it difficult to breathe. I reached the passage on the eighth floor. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could see that 802 was open wide. The moonlight was shining through the open windows of the flat. Silhouetted against the window was the shape of a woman. She was holding a baby to her chest and she was swaying gently back and forth, singing a lullaby.