Page 65 of The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth

Chapter Fifty-Six

It really was quite hot, Veronica thought as she followed the directions on her phone.

Her back was sweating against her backpack, even though she’d taken almost everything out.

The trek led into a busy stretch of businesses, and all at once, she was in the middle of the city again, with a donkey pulling a wagon and a BMW with darkened windows driving by, and, not what she expected in this landscape.

A motorcycle whizzed by, startling her, and she stepped back and—

A hand came out of nowhere, grabbing her arm so hard that Veronica was knocked sideways. Before she could gain her footing, she was on the ground. Two people—three?—tore her backpack off her shoulders. Her elbow smashed into the ground, and she felt her blouse rip along the seam of the shoulder.

She fought to hold on to the bag. Someone shoved her, and she banged her head on the corner of a building.

She saw stars for a minute, and smelled something rank, not just trash, but rot and urine and some unidentifiable miasma she couldn’t identify.

She tried to hold on to the strap, but they flipped her over, yanked it off, and by the time she swung back to her rear end, they were gone, disappeared in the crowd.

Shaken, she felt wet on her face and wiped it off, finding it bloody, from her lip maybe. She didn’t dare lick it. Her hands were black from the grime on the street, and her stomach gave warning. A monkey skittered down a drainpipe to stare at her, his hand out.

Before she barfed, an old woman in a blue sari knelt beside her, offering a dry cloth. She mimed wiping her face.

“ Shukran , ” she whispered, and winced at the Arabic. She should have spoken in the Urdu she’d practiced, but couldn’t remember the difference in her distress.

But the woman just waited as Veronica wiped her mouth, her face, and it came away disgusting and bloody. Her hands shook. She didn’t know whether to offer the cloth back or just hold it.

The woman had red powder in the part of her hair and a bindi between her eyes.

Her hands were gnarled, her wrists lined with bangles.

She patted her chest and pointed to Veronica, who looked down to see that she’d lost a button in the fall and her bra was showing.

She pulled the edges together and buttoned the one above, and it held together.

The woman gave a little shake of her head, satisfied; then, before Veronica could get to her feet, she was gone.

She stood there a moment, trying to get her bearings.

People passed by; some gave her a curious look, but many did not.

Maybe they thought she was drunk. Or maybe they just couldn’t spare much energy for every person in distress they saw in a given day.

The monkey sat on a wall, staring at her with his strangely serious-looking face.

“You couldn’t have bitten their ears or something? ” she asked.

He only cocked his head.

The backpack hadn’t held a lot of value. A jacket, her fancy water bottle, some cash, and her driver’s license. The passport was back at the hotel. She wasn’t really hurt, just shaken. With a sigh, she reached into her back pocket for her phone.

And that, too, was gone.

She wanted to cry. She wanted to bury her face and howl in embarrassment and shame and fear.

How would she get home? She had some cash in her front pocket, maybe enough to get a taxi, but she realized she quite fiercely didn’t want to give up.

The monkey chattered, as if agreeing. She smoothed her hair and her blouse and looked around.

Where had she been going? Arabian Sea Books. It didn’t seem like it had been that far. Maybe from the bookstore, she could call Henry.

Except she didn’t know his number, did she? Or Mariah’s, or anyone else’s. Who memorized numbers? Standing in the shade, frozen, she tried to figure out how to proceed.

The faces of her children, doubting her ability to make the trip, rose in her imagination. She squared her shoulders and headed in the direction she’d been going. You always remembered more than you thought you did, as she’d always told her children. Trust your instincts.

So she bore left and walked a couple of blocks, but then walked back down, thinking she’d missed it. Heart beating threadily, as if waiting to fail, she looked around carefully. No bookstore that she could see.

A market stall stood on the corner, and a woman waved flies away from her produce. Veronica approached. “Do you speak English?”

The woman bobbled her head. No? Yes? Not an answer. She kept moving, trying two more stores without success. In a radio store, a man typed on a computer, and he did speak English. “Do you know where a bookshop is, called the Arabian Sea?” Veronica asked.

“Ah. Yes. People miss it because it is upstairs.” He took her to the doorway and pointed down the block a little. “The red door. It will take you there.” He eyed her kindly. “Would you like a bottle of water, madam?”

“I don’t have any money.”

“No charge.”

“Yes,” she said, “very much.”

He fetched her a small bottle from a cooler near his feet. She thanked him in English, then asked, “What is thank you in your language?”

“ Shukria , ” he said, and made a gesture of prayer hands.

Veronica returned it. “ Shukria . ” So close to the Arabic. When she had time, she would look up where the languages coalesced.

Buoyed by his kindness, she crossed the street, hoping she didn’t look too disheveled.

On the door was a sign in Hindi she assumed must be for the shop.

She opened it to find a dark, narrow set of stairs.

A little intimidating, but she made her way to the top.

The stairs opened into a light-drenched room filled with books.

Music played from somewhere, and a handful of customers were browsing.

No one looked up as she crossed to the main counter, where a young woman with long, glistening hair cross-referenced two charts.

She caught sight of Veronica, and she looked concerned for a moment, then covered her lapse with a poised expression.

“Hello,” she said. “May I be of assistance?”

Veronica touched her mouth, tasted the blood still welling slightly. “Sorry, I had a little fall. I’m looking for Zoish Irani. Is she here?”

The young woman measured her for a long moment. “Who may I say is here?”

“My name is Veronica Barrington,” she said. “But she won’t know me. I’m here about Café Guli in Mumbai.”

One exquisite brow arched. “I will speak to her. Wait here.”

Veronica turned to take in the room. Shelves of golden wood held books both used and new, from what she could see, and in several scripts. The room smelled of scholarship and possibility.

“Good afternoon,” said a voice behind her.

Veronica turned to find a woman in her fifties with enormous dark eyes and a deep bust. Her hair was swept into a chignon. She very much resembled her niece in Paris. “Hello,” Veronica said. “I would offer my hand, but I had a fall, and they are not very clean.”

“I see. Come with me.”

Veronica followed her into a small hallway, and she showed her a lavatory. “I’ll be waiting in the back, over there,” she said.

In the mirror, Veronica saw that she wasn’t particularly fit for a conversation.

Blood had smeared along her cheek, and she had a fat lip and a bump on her forehead.

Using water from the tap and her hands, she rinsed her face off and patted it dry, then finger combed her hair into place.

For a moment, she was struck with how different she looked from the Veronica she’d left behind.

She had little makeup on, but it was fine to see her face just as her face.

It maybe made her eyes bluer. Her hair, freed of being straightened every day, waved and curled randomly, and her bangs were far too long, swept to the side.

She looked like her mother.

She also looked like herself.

“Hello,” she said. “Nice to see you.”

Then she headed out into the other room to see if she could finally get the story of Rachel.

Zoish sat at a round wooden table in a small area next to a counter with a hot plate. “Would you care for chai?” she asked.

“How kind,” she said. “But you might want to wait. I’ve come to talk to you about someone you might not want to talk about.”

“Oh?”

“I’m traveling with a young woman who is tracing her mother’s steps in India, Mumbai, really. She knew you.”

Zoish sighed. “The only American woman I’ve known well is Rachel Ellsworth.”

Nervously, Veronica nodded. “Yes.”

“And her daughter is also ... American? Not a child she brought home with her?”

Was that hope in her eyes? “No. Mariah was born a few years later.”

“I see.” She shrugged. “What do you want?”

Veronica folded her hands. “Rachel was a food writer. She was killed in a mass shooting about a year ago, a shooting in which her daughter was also badly injured. She left behind notes for a new book, rooted in Parsi cafés, largely because she loved the one your family ran.”

Zoish looked away, blinking. “I’m sorry to hear she met such a brutal death.” After a moment she added, “I quite loved her, you know. We met first, long before she and Darshan.”

“I have read some of her letters. She loved you, too.”

“Not enough,” she said. “I warned her, but she wouldn’t listen to me, and I knew my brother would—”

Veronica held up a hand. “I don’t really know the story. She never told anyone. I only know that she met you and loved Café Guli, and that something terrible happened to your family that caused you to scatter.”

A tsk. Zoish looked at her hands, pressed together.

Her nails were bright red, freshly manicured.

“My brother fell in love with her, so madly, madly in love.” She shook her head.

“She loved him, too, but it wasn’t the same.

She didn’t realize that he’d have to give up everything if they married, that she would be all he had.