Chapter 11 — What Sana Heard Through the Floor

On the night of November 8th, the couple in 13/C — Vikram and Sana — heard something from the flat above.The flat above was 14/C. Tanvi's flat. Tanvi had not been in the flat for eleven days.What Sana heard, at two AM, she described in the account she gave to the building society secretary (who passed it to the welfare inquiry officer, who passed it to the file from which this reconstruction was drawn):Movement. Specific, purposeful movement, not the random sounds of an empty building settling. The movement of a person walking from one end of the flat to the other, repeatedly, as if covering the same ground again and again.And then — she was clear about this in the account, she said it three times to make sure it was recorded — a sound she had heard before. A low voice, alone, in a flat that should have been empty. Not speaking. Not talking to someone else. Practicing."It was saying words," she said in the account. "Common words. Ordinary words. 'Good morning.' 'How are you.' 'Nice to meet you.' Over and over. Getting them right. Like it was rehearsing. Like it was getting ready to go somewhere and needed the words to be correct before it did."Vikram called Babulal that night. He told him the flat was making sounds.Babulal did not answer.Vikram called the building society secretary.The building society secretary called Mrs. Rane.Mrs. Rane, at two fifteen AM, sat at her kitchen table across from Tanvi and Poorvi, who had been sleeping on her sofa, and told them what Vikram had reported.They sat around the kitchen table at two fifteen AM and the puja lamp burned and from 14/C, through the wall, there was no sound.But they all understood that the absence of sound was not the absence of something.It was the something, having heard that it had been heard, going still.Waiting."It's running out of what it had," Mrs. Rane said quietly. "Reena is gone. You've been away. The last twelve days it's had nothing to — work with. No one to look at it. No reflection to occupy." She looked at the wall. "It's getting hungry. And a hungry thing practices. Gets ready.""Ready for what?" Poorvi said."To go looking," Mrs. Rane said. "The way Kavita said."They looked at each other."What do we do?" Tanvi said."I've been thinking about this," Mrs. Rane said, "for forty years." She looked at her hands. "I think there's one thing. I've never been sure. But I think there's one thing."She told them.Poorvi said: "That sounds insane.""Yes," Mrs. Rane said. "It does.""Will it work?" Tanvi said."I believe it will," Mrs. Rane said. "I cannot be certain. But I believe it.""And if it doesn't?" Poorvi said.Mrs. Rane looked at her steadily."Then we are in a great deal of trouble," she said. "But we are already in a great deal of trouble. This is the choice between two kinds of trouble, and this kind is better."Tanvi looked at Poorvi.Poorvi looked at Tanvi."What do we need?" Tanvi said.