The tale of Zaara

Jalandhar, India

Zaara’s home was a huge mansion. It was manned by two female servants and a gardener. They lived in the annex to the house, while she lived alone. Mrs. Zaara, as they learnt was a masterchef at Cardamom  at the Taj in Jalandhar. She was one of the most famous continental cooks in the country and authored many cookbooks. She was also famous for throwing up lavish parties at her home. She was a famous figure.

“You can stay with me.” She told Deborah and Thomas. “I have a guest suite. I’ll ask Vinni to prepare that for your stay. I don’t want questions from people, so I’ll be telling them that these are assistants whom I met at Hong Kong. I wanted them to be here to instruct me on modifications in cooking and taste.” She winked at them. “Make sure you reciprocate me.”

In the evening as they sat at the dining table for their dinner. Zaara Asked them, “so how did India treat you so far?”

Thomas sneaked a look at Deborah and answered, “Pretty bad! We got mugged and then cheated. Actually, madam, as an information – we are penniless at the moment.  Our  passports have been stolen and we are in an identity crises.”

“Oh my!” Zaara sighed. “ Didn’t you go to the British office?”

“That would take a lot of money.”Thomas replied.

“Perhaps, we don’t even want to go back.” Deborah replied rather hastily as Thomas ended his sentence. She wanted this interrogation to end.

“Oh, that’s another story entirely.” Zaara raised her eyebrows as she continued. “This country is full of illegals like you. They have learnt to put up with them. I don’t think you’ll have much of a problem here. The midland scum, you’d be.”

“You have offended me more than once Zaara. Whatever you have with Dawson’s is a personal matter, and moreover in my opinion John was a really respectable person.” Deborah protested.

“Respectable?” Zaara sounded furious now. “ If there was someone respectable in that family, that rascal of a man killed him?”

“Hah…your daughter?” Deborah answered sarcastically.

“William Dawson, if you know him. His elder brother.”

Deborah froze.

“If you have the mettle to listen then I’ll tell you all.” Zaara said.

“But how do I know whatever you are telling you is the truth?” Deborah asked, still unable together herself after what she had just heard.

“I’ll prove it to you.”

Zaara started.

“A pack of hyenas can sometimes prove too good for a solitary lion. William Dawson was that lion among the hyenas.  A gem of a man, he was a great friend of my husband’s. The tallest leader in the midlands –his popularity was growing in the conservative party day by day.An honest man, and an intelligent one on it –he stood taller than anyone in the conservatives and the labour alike. It seemed that he was destined to be the most popular leader in the United Kingdom in many years. He died suddenly in a car crash along with her wife. “

“I know how he died Zaara, everyone in the Britain knows it.”  Deborah remarked.

“So foolish of all of you to believe that. “  Zaara snapped with a sigh. “Do you know Carl Kingston and Tim Dickens?”

“Yes. The chancellor of the exchequer and the chief of Scotland yard.” Deborah replied.

“Good. What you don’t know is that John Dawson and both of them had been friends since they studied together at Wolvorhampton.”

“That’s good.” Deborah said.

“Yes, for them it was good, but not for others.” Zaara searched for Wolverhampton university ethnic sex videos.

There was a steamy sex video playing in front of them.

“Zaara! What on the earth..?” Thomas protested.

“The boy is a British and the girl is an ethnic Turk.” Zaara continued with her story. “Both were rich and had come to Wolverhampton for studies, but as the fate would have it, they fell in love with each other.” She stopped the video.

“The boy is my cousin. My aunt’s son. Palmer – the most illustrious among the university students. The hottest contender for the PhD in Political Science, something that John desired as well.  Now,he most cunningly came close to Palmer, so that he won his trust as a good friend. One day he invited Palmer and his girlfriend to his place for a party. He effectively drugged them and arranged them to be in a room for the night in that condition. The only thing he shouldn’t have done is videographing of this film that played in front of you. Worst still, this was fed in Palmer’s phone and distributed among friends. The video spread like wild fire. Palmer was accused  of defaming the girl. The relationship broke and the girl returned to Turkey, where it was discovered that she was pregnant. She was quietly nestled in Istanbul, where she gave birth to the child who was adopted by his uncle and aunt at a small Turkish village. As for Palmer, he was so hopelessly drawn into shame and infamy that he committed suicide. The  PhD went to John Dawson and he joined the conservatives directly after completion.”

There was a silence. Zaara resumed.

“As if this wasn’t enough, John didn’t stop there. The next roadblock to his political aspirations was no one other than his own brother – WILLIAM DAWSON. With him in the scene, John stood nowhere even on his own home turf. He cracked a conspiracy with the help of his old university friends and other foes of William – killing him in the accident. He became the innocent younger brother and scion of the dynasty now – the rightful heir to his brother’s throne and glory.”

“How do you know this?” Deborah spoke in a voice that seemed lost somewhere in her mind.

“My daughter, Sarah was married to John. A proud wife, she entered his home-office one day to hear as he spoke of the conspiracy. She was immediately confined and scared into submission when she protested that this was wrong. All her communications were stopped immediately. John reported that she was severely ill. She was given tranquilizers and sedatives in heavy doses in the meanwhile. Her trauma continued. She was brainwashed and deprived of love. Only in the little Deborah – William’s daughter could she find love. They got exceedingly close.”

Deborah realized that the lady actually knew the truth. Something that no one else knew. 

“John knew this relationship between the two. Now he played a third game to tame the girl. The bastard even had an eye on the ancestral property and money. He wanted all of it by himself.  He caught Deborah and Sarah red handed having sex one day, and then played the victim. In this process however, he threw Deborah away effectively  to Portugal. By this time Sarah had become useless for him. He conspired to get her killed as well,  however, on much insitance from me , she told me the whole story.”

“Oh god! He killed her as well!” Deborah spoke in disgust.

“No, he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t kill two people – Sarah Dawson and Annie Dawson.” Zaara Disclosed.

Deborah was shocked. Her mother was still alive.

“ Who was buried for Annie then?” Deborah asked.

That’s where all the new dimensions get added, dear.” Zaara disclosed.  “Everythng about Annie’s death was an illusion. She had lately come in contact with an Indian magician – a metaphysisist as he called himself. His name was Gorakshak – the protector of the cows. He had been in London lecturing about Metaphysics and the dimensions of the soul – something in which Annie was interested as well. This man could read faces, and into the future. He controlled the dark realms of the soul –he claimed. He could somehow guess what’s going to happen that fateful night. He rescued Annie that night and got her to me. That night, I was there alone with him and with an unconscious Annie. I couldn’t escape his intense eyes, and even though I was forty four that time I felt like a twenty year old girl. He felt like an angel in the bed. I begot him a daughter; he named her Trishna – illusion. So far as the funeral ceremony I concerned – it was all an illusion – casted by Gorakshak.”

“As for Annie, he took her to India, and soon Sarah and me as well. Sarah didn’t die. She disappeared. She is in this country now – a metaphysisist. Her name was changed by Gorakshak to Tara.”

Deborah listened in awe. “Where is Annie?”

“Not far from here. She bore a son to Gorakshak as well. They named him Vikas.” Zaara answered.

“At the end, we had our revenge after all. “ Zaara  continued. “ John had a weakness for having a prostitute each night. That’s where Tara and Trishna stuck him. They sucked his very life out of him and threw his soul into the depths of hell, where he now burns.”

“Do you know that the poor Deborah burns in that case now? She is the accused in the case for John’s death?” Deborah was raged.

“It is because John was about to get what he did with others anyways. His friends in the government and the Scotland Yard were behind his life. He was proving a threat equal to his elder brother. Lately they arranged Jessica Simpson – the pop artist to date him. She was to drug him that night anyways and poison him. Thereafter they would arrange her flight to the island of Madagascer for her to live a luxurious life without her name. We killed Jessica Simpson. The government and yard thought that they had done their work well, till they found proof of two females there and found Jessica dead at her apartment. They thought that there was someone who knew the secret. In order to cover themselves, they dragged Deborah into the case with a false evidence of presence of her body fluids. We asked Gorakshak to intervene and help the girl, but he denied saying that god had a different plan for Deborah and he would help her. That it seemed was certainly right, till we got the news that her flight crashed here in India –not far from this place.”

There were tears in Zaara’s eyes.  No one was speaking anything now. There was perfect silence.