Behind the Rain — whispers

An investigation by a reporter exposes the depths of sorrow and silence hiding behind an apparently blissful marriage.

Photo by Jorge Roman on Unsplash

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It rained softly in Kottappuram, the little town. Roads and lanes were wet. Tea stalls were bustling with activity. Buses were crawling on the narrow streets. When people talked about anything, it was about the death of Maya Menon under their umbrella.

Maya was discovered dead in her house three days before.

It was police-classified as a suicide.

Maya was the wife of renowned writer Dev Menon, so the story was published in newspapers throughout Kerala. Dev was well-loved by readers. He was emotional and intelligent, and his books were emotional, and many people thought that he lived a perfect life.

However, journalist Arun Thomas didn’t take the story at face value.

Arun was employed in a weekly magazine in Kochi. He had a reputation for challenging questions and never taking easy answers. On one day when his editor requested him to write an article on the death of Maya, Arun instantly agreed.

The editor told him, “Don’t make any unnecessary trouble.” “All they want is a sad human-interest story.”

But Arun only nodded his head, yet there was a feeling in his heart.

On another day, the next day, Arun went to Kottappuram.

This was an old yellow house roofed with red tiles on the last street of a very silent area. There was a police jeep in the garage, and there were neighbors standing a little away.

Dev Menon gave a warm welcome to Arun. White shirt and glasses in his face. He looked cool; however, he was tired. “I am extremely sorry about your loss,” commented Arun.

“Thank you,” Dev replied softly.

“Was there any note left from Maya?”

“No.”

“Was she depressed?”

After a brief hesitation, Dev replied.

“She was sensitive at times; people like that cry a lot.”

The reply was thoughtful, like it was prepared.

Arun’s gaze scanned the room. All the walls were filled with bookshelves. Literary prizes were in glass cabinets. There were old pictures of the family next to an old lamp.

Everything looked neat.

Too neat.

There was a framed photograph of Maya smiling with Dev during a book launch event on the table. There was a framed picture of Maya smiling with Dev at a book launch event. She appeared to be well and self-confident.

Not broken.

May I see her room?” Arun asked.

Dev pondered for a while before nodding.

It was extremely cold inside the room to stay comfortably in. The unfinished book lay on the bed. The sari was neatly kept in the cupboard. An open perfume bottle was found on the dressing table.

Arun slowly made his way around the room.

He noticed a torn piece of paper inside the dustbin.

He retrieved it carefully.

There were but a few words visible.

“Truth never dies…”

The rest of the document was torn.

And he returned it back to the safe shelf to make it safe from anything. And it was in the very same day that Maya (her friend’s name was Anjali, who works at the coffee shop near the bus stop) had told Arun Anjali is believed to be a bit of a careful person.

“Maya did not mention suicide,” said Anjali quite fast.

“Is Maya unfaithful to her husband?” Arun gently asked.

Anjali turned a blind eye to him.

“Any marriage has issues.

“That’s not a real answer.”

She sighed deeply.

“Dev loved control; Maya craved freedom.”

“Freedom from what?”

“From silence.”

Arun wrote all the words down.

Anjali repeated softly, “Maya once told me something strange. “Some people who die die emotionally before they die,” she said.

After the meeting, the sentence became a haunting presence in Arun’s mind.

The following day he went to the school where Maya had once been a music teacher.

Students found her to be kind and patient. One little girl even sobbed when she talked about her.

“She smiled all the time,” the child continued.

However, another teacher, Ravi, appeared uncomfortable during the conversation.

“Maya was not happy,” said Ravi in a quiet voice.

“How do you know?”

“Behind the smiling there is pain sometimes.”

“Were you a beloved man in her eyes?”

Ravi remained quiet for a couple seconds.

“She didn’t trust anyone really.”

As he was leaving, Arun asked him one last question.

“Do you think he did it because she took her life?”

Ravi didn’t hesitate to reply.

“No.”

Arun was sitting by himself that night in his hotel room, working over his notes.

Maya’s character was described in various ways by all.

Sensitive.

Lonely.

Quiet.

Kind.

Strong.

Nobody explained to her in detail what happened in her last days.

Then Arun recalled the ripped-up paper for the second time.

“Truth never dies…”

Perhaps it’s part of a bigger letter.

The following morning he went back to the Menon house.

This time Dev was getting cranky.

“You again?”

“Just a little more information, please.”

Arun saw an empty place on a bookshelf as he was speaking.

So was there something left behind?

Dev looked surprised.

The title of the book is “Maya’s diary; the police took it.”

Inspector Balachandran was angry with Arun’s questions at the police station.

He griped that journalists “never stop digging.

“Truth does really matter,” Arun answered.

The inspector chuckled to himself.

“In this town there’s a preference for comfortable lies.”

However, after some discussion, he did let Arun read some of Maya’s diary.

These pages made him very upset.

Maya had written about loneliness, fear, emotional distance, and losing herself in another person’s life.

One page read:

“At times I feel like I’m in another person’s success.”

Another said:

“When I am gone, people will take it upon themselves to believe whatever they’ve been told.”

Arun carefully shut the diary.

This was no ordinary sadness.

An old constable stood there and quietly blocked his way on leaving the station.

The constable whispered, “You should meet Joseph, master.”

“Who is he?”

A retired musician. “Maya would visit him regularly when he was still a musician.

Arun went to a village on the river that night.

Joseph’s master lived alone in a little house, which was filled with musical instruments and old tapes of cassettes.

The old man was a warm man and said, “Maya was like a daughter to me.”

“Did she talk to her about her troubles?”

Joseph nodded slowly.

She used to be fond of music, then stopped it when she got married. “Why?”

“Dev hated to let the limelight shine on anyone else.”

The old man put an old tape in a cassette. It was Maya’s voice inside the room.

It was beautiful.

Alive.

Full of emotion.

Arun shut his eyes as he heard.

This voice did not seem like that of a woman preparing to die.

“She came here weeping three weeks before she died, saying that she had made a terrifying discovery regarding someone very close to her.”

“Did she tell you what she found out?”

“No, but she seemed terrified.”

Back in the city, Arun started looking into Dev Menon’s history.

Dev was a well-known figure, well thought of by everyone outside the house.

There were many tales about him in private.

He was manipulative according to one ex-publisher.

Insecure according to an old college buddy.

Another author believed he despised being criticized and liked to control his friends.

None of this could point towards murder, however.

On one dark night, Arun went to visit the hospital where Maya’s body was examined.

It was a young doctor who told him something significant.

“She had bruises on her wrists.”

“Bruises?”

“Yes. Maybe signs of a struggle?”

“Why then was it labeled as suicide?”

“There wasn’t enough evidence to label it as murder.”

Now Arun’s suspicions grew even more.

Thankamma was the name of an old widow who resided in the Menon household.

Everyone usually did not pay her much attention as she gossiped about everyone in the town constantly.

However, Arun felt that gossipers always knew the best things.

He met her with tea and snacks.

In just minutes, she started spilling secrets.

“That house was never at peace,” she told him.

“Could you have heard them argue?”

“I did one night before the death of Maya. I heard shouts.”

“What were they arguing about?”

“All I could make out was Maya screaming. ‘You have destroyed everything.’”

“What about Dev?”

“He shouted too. But all of a sudden, it went silent.”

“Did you inform the cops?”

“Yes. They simply told me couples argue all the time.”

Arun then laid out all his notes on his hotel bed that night.

The diary. The bruises. The fights. The fear. The torn paper. Then it hit him. The torn paper may have been from a letter hidden away. The next day, with the police’s permission, he went through Maya’s things again. In an old book of music, he came across an envelope. He opened it, his hands shaking. It was a letter that wasn’t quite finished. “I’ve remained silent for years, because love was all about sacrifice. But now I realize fear is not love. And silence will eventually kill me…” The rest was torn out. Finally, Arun had enough guts to confront Dev about it. “Your wife was terrified of you.” Dev glared at him. “You shouldn’t rush to judge.” “But the bruising on her arm?” “We argued that night, and I made sure she didn’t go anywhere.” “Why?” Slowly removing his glasses, Dev replied, “She wanted to come clean on me.” “Come clean about what?” “I cheated on her years ago by stealing my ideas from another writer. She found out.” And then they locked eyes.

“She threatened to tell everyone about everything that happened,” Dev went on. “There would go my reputation.”

“Did you do her in?”

Dev seemed drained.

“No.”

“Then what took place?”

“A fight. I left home to cool off, and when I came back… She was dead.”

This was the first time Arun had seen real fear in Dev’s eyes.

Was it guilt or sorrow?

It was impossible for him to tell yet.

The next day, Inspector Balachandran got hold of Arun.

“We found the missing pages of Maya’s letter.”

Arun hurried to the police station without delay.

These pages were located in Maya’s old bag.

He read them carefully.

“I don’t even know anymore whether I am angry at Dev or at myself. I helped create a fake identity. Each day the silence was heavier and heavier.

Should something happen to me one day, everyone will look for villains. But sometimes pain itself turns out to be the villain.

All I wish is someone knew me before it was too late.”

Arun placed the pages down slowly.

Silence and heaviness in the room were present. “Maybe she has killed herself then,” the inspector softly spoke.

Arun nodded slowly.

Yes.

But it wasn’t just suicide.

Maya didn’t die in one night.

She had been slowly dying for years through emotional loneliness and oppression.

One week later Arun went back to Kochi and submitted his article to his editor.

The title was as follows:

“The Silence Surrounding Maya Menon.”

There were no names mentioned anywhere in the article; only topics like emotional loneliness, hidden dominance within relationships, and silent pain that goes unnoticed.

He wrote that “sometimes society acknowledges death but not the pain leading up to it.”

It generated a lot of discussion among the people of Kerala.

Many liked the article.

Many disagreed with the content.

Dev Menon refused to show up at any literary functions.

Everyone wondered about his role in the slow death of his wife.

Months later Arun paid a visit to Joseph’s master.

He was sitting by the river, listening to recordings of Maya.

“Everyone has forgotten about her,” he sighed.

Arun shook his head.

“She wanted her voice heard. Now they will hear her.”

The setting sun gently cast its reflection on the river as Maya sang on the tape machine.

Her voice was full of sadness and also of grace and hope.

In that momentary vision, she was there again somewhere.

At the end, Arun came up to a very important conclusion.

Many a death remains an enigma not because there is no evidence, but because the heart is complex.

Love is often mistaken for an obsession.

Success can mask fear.

Silence can kill a person gradually.

And sometimes, it is too late for the truth to emerge.

[embed]Rajesh Poovathum Kadavil - Medium Read writing from Rajesh Poovathum Kadavil on Medium. Rajesh Poovathumkadavil is an Indian-born content writer with a…medium.com