The Lilac House by Anita Nair

and even a corkscrew. Sexy lingerie, freshly washed hair and painted nails. As she sucked you on that hastily made bed, you wondered how long she had been thinking about this.
    And then, as you latched the windows shut and locked the door, she clung to you. ‘When? When can I see you again, darling?’
    And you felt that curl of postcoital content crumble. ‘Darling!’ You saw how her fingers wrapped themselves around your wrist and ash coated your tongue. Didn’t she know you were leaving?
     
    Images flickered in front of him on the TV screen. What had he gone and done? He could hear Nina say, ‘You never think. You never do. You just give in to that wild reckless impulse. Did you for one moment think of the others involved?’
    Then the phone rang, echoing through the apartment, its ring soft but persistent. Lisa, he thought. That too was the pattern. They always called after that first bout of dammed hunger was released. No woman would call a fuck just a fuck. It had to be tarted up and sanctified with words of love. He sighed and picked up the phone. ‘Jak here,’ he said.
    It was Kala Chithi. ‘Kitcha.’ Her voice was wary as it reached his ears. ‘I received a call from the police station in Minjikapuram.’
    And he felt the floor slide away.

VI
    E ach time he thinks he has found a sand bar to rest on, it slides away.
    The waves continue to slam into him. Jak fights the water, the heave and push necessitating every ounce of his strength. If he allows himself to slacken even a little bit, he will not be able to breathe. The water stings his eyes. His arms ache, his legs tire, but he cannot turn back. He needs to flee the guilt that haunts him. He was the one who created the magical land of Minjikapuram. In his telling of all that happened to him there, he planted a seed in Smriti’s head. He thinks of that first time now.
     
    She was seven. Leaning against him with a rag doll clutched in one hand and her thumb in her mouth.
    ‘There is a temple on a hill by the sea. But it is not like any other temple. This one has two deities. Minjikaiyan and Minjikammal. They were born when Shiva’s seed was split on that hill.’
    ‘What seed? Is Shiva a fruit?’
    Jak laughed. ‘No, silly. The lord Shiva with the third eye. If he opens it, you and I, Mama and baby Shruti, and your Melissa and Sita, Tinkerbell and Kokila,’ he gestured to the dolls she had brought into the living room, ‘will be barbecued meat.’
    ‘Oh, how do you know? Have you met him?’ Smriti asked, her eyes brimming with admiration for her Papa Jak.
    ‘I almost did. It is believed that if you swim in the sea by the temple at Minjikapuram and then climb the one thousand three hundred and thirty-three steps and make a wish, it will come true. So I leapt into the water. All I meant was to go for a little swim and make my wish. But the sea had other plans for me.’
    ‘And then, Papa?’ Smriti touched him on the shoulder.
    Jak looked at his daughter’s face and tried to laugh off the horror of the moment when he knew there was no escaping the current.

    Besides, how could he admit that he had been terrified? To confess to fear would make him and his reassurances suspect: You are a big girl now, you don’t need a night light. Papa is in the next room, what do you have to fear? It’s just a bad dream, baby. Too much pizza. No monster will get you. Papa is here.
     
    The waters off the coast were violent, the currents unpredictable and almost demonic in intent. ‘What are you playing at, you silly fool?’ the man had hurled at him as he pulled him onto his catamaran. ‘This is the ocean, not some stupid pond for you to paddle around in. You have to understand the ocean, read the skies before you venture in.’
    Fifteen-year-old Kitcha had lain with his head hanging over the side of the boat. His chest had hurt and he had felt the rasp of salt in his throat, the bloat of water in his belly. Dead. He could have been dead and his body would