The city was so dark, seething with sinister activity; it would have confounded an ordinary woman. But not her; within seven months of her arrival into the city, she had established a facility for lions to breed. Radha had eyes so dark that one could vanish into depths of abyss staring into her; she was a woman of outlandish hobbies. The hedgerows had vanished, spring time had never returned since the morning she blew the cover and announced to the world of her surreptitious experiments. But that drew the cover over the city, and it was never the same again.
Covering the lion’s mane with her headdress, she broke into lollop around the place. She loved her pets, she moaned in pleasure as they groaned; ensconced firmly up on the back of her favourite male lion babbaq, she surveyed her surroundings. There was no light anymore, the sun had disappeared overhead, and they all blamed it on her. But she beamed with surprise at any allegations. Bemoaned owners of the castle, for having letting her in, hanged themselves to the ceiling. She wouldn’t even bury them, and the dead rotted with bats scurrying around. It was symbolic. Where there once was a chandelier, now there were bats around the corpses. She was dark; she brought dark into the city.
She sent a communication to her men. Six of them arrived under the guise of policemen; one of them was her lover. Tall, fair and handsome, no one would believe that he was dark underneath. “My inamorata” lovingly and longingly, he called her. With her arms snuggled into his leather jacket’s pockets, she sniffed his chest. He puffed his cigar valiantly and noticed the bats sucking blood off the corpses. That night they made love, her shrieks filled the air around the den so thick and misty that the men getting sloshed had to recede into the den. One of them, a man in white pyjamas was frisked by babbaq with his wide nostrils blowing out air that burnt the poor man’s eyebrows.
Next morning, five men from the den were woken up by the sound of Radha screaming at the top of her voice. When the men went inside, they saw her throwing cement bricks at his lover. And they understood. He had slept with many women, and she had found out. At a time like this, nobody cares to answer the door, but someone was banging heavily, authoritatively. The cops, real ones had besieged them; there was no way to escape but to slip into the den.
Inside the den, Radha crouched in the corner invited babbaq’s attention. He pawed at her inquiringly. Outside, the cops were breaking into the castle. But they were safe here. Her lover with no words of exchange approached her. Seated beside her, he rubbed his fingers through her hair and she wept. Confused babbaq sat himself down beside them both.
The cops find hidden behind a curtain inside the bedroom, a maze of silver thongs. The officer in charge, sliding the garments on the hanger to a side, slipped into the man sized cupboard. The other end was a brick wall, he tapped with his clenched fist against the pink wall. Hollow wall gave way to the escape route that the lover and his inamorata had chosen.
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