The lease family, in all likelihood, was not aware of the elite neighbourhoods of London.
Not so among Communist Indians with aspirations, they probably got their intelligence support from privileged areas of London.
But places like Belgravia or Chelsea or Kensington, these were merely names to Antara. Neither had she travelled abroad and come across such places nor did those names ever come up at home.
Antara's childhood encyclopedia, however, had a photo of Peter Pan's statue, probably at the Kew Gardens in London. Fascinated by the photo, Antara had borrowed an abridged copy of JM Barrie's 'Peter Pan' from her school library.
(JM Barrie's elder brother David had died in an ice-skating accident just before his fourteenth birthday, sometime in 1867. The reference had come up during the recent plane crash on the Potomac River in Washington DC, in January 2025, which killed a contingent of young figure-skaters.)
Antara used to read aloud from the 'Peter Pan' she had brought from the school to her parents. No one had a choice if Antara wanted to read out something, it was the only time she could prevail at home over the others. As it turned out, Antara's parents loved the story of Peter Pan, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up.
However, till recently, Antara didn't have a good idea of what they thought of Captain Hook, the archenemy of Peter Pan.
ii. It would seem that the US Navy ought to have been the archenemy of Antara's parents, given the landmass around Cape Cod was shaped like a 'hook', the site close to many shipwrecks and disappearances including USS Thresher. 'Hook' had become interesting in a different way in early 1988, when Antara and her sibling had been afflicted with an outbreak of chicken pox.
The moment the two sisters were unwell, Anjali had sent the domestic maid on leave, out of courtesy. "It was a contagious disease, why should she catch it from our girls?"
However, in a sudden change of tone, Ajit suddenly withdrew from the household. He didn't ask after Antara or her sibling, their fever was furious, it didn't subside for almost ten days, their skin covered in rashes and boils.
Ajit would come back from work in the evening, glance at the two sick girls, not even enter their room or ask how they were doing, no longer use the clothes rack or the almirah/cupboard but chose a 'hook' in another room to hang his clothes.
Anjali raged and ranted at his behaviour, called him names, an ingrate, but Ajit remained indifferent. "I've seen such things before," he'd sometimes say, in a callous tone.
Physicians had to visit at home, Antara and her sister were too unwell to go to a clinic. The rest of the time, Anjali cooked and cleaned by herself, swept and mopped the house. By the time she was done, it would be around 5 pm, when she sat down to lunch by herself. "I'd remember these days, these lunches," she'd say out loud.
iii. Till date, Antara hadn't managed to figure out what Ajit feared in the US Navy, was it the Gates' family's influence or was it the Today Group. But in the late 1980s, one could identify them, call them out, stay apart from their Captain Hook assertions. From the mid-1990s, such things were no longer possible, because the survival capacities of the legit lease had been drastically curtailed.
Ajit lived another 15 years after 1995, he couldn't rectify what had been done from within the US Navy, which meant Antara's experience would take a terrifying turn, which Ajit's never did.
Antara had never made any mistakes, she was not responsible for this situation.
June 6, 2025.
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