Redemption

By Dr. Gayathri Sampath

The mob stumbled to a halt, panting and sweating under the evening sun. Some collapsed on the sidewalk, gasping for air, while others chugged water. The leader, a muscular man with slicked-back hair and a permanent scowl, glanced nervously at the darkening sky. They had been pursuing their target for hours across the business district and needed to catch her before darkness fell.

Nina crouched behind a streetlight, her body trembling with pain and exhaustion. She watched the mob warily, wincing with each ragged breath. She cursed her luck as she looked around in frustration. The business district had changed beyond recognition in the past two years. The illegal garbage dump, she remembered, was now a barren parking lot with no place to hide; waves of undulating smooth grey concrete, pockmarked by small orbs of light from the streetlights, mocking her foolishness in coming to this spot.  

Nina knew she had made a grave mistake returning to this place. The past two years had been a blur of shame and blame. It had left her penniless and disgraced. But Nina was a survivor, clawing out of the rubble of her shattered life. She donned a new skin and joined a group of street artists, dancing for money. It was nothing compared to what she earned in her heydays, but it put food on the table and kept her alive. Nina was trying hard to build a new life until the builder offered her an assignment in the business district, a place filled with bittersweet memories.  

It seemed easy enough: scare an old man into giving up his property worth millions to the builder. The old Nina, an elite killer, would have scoffed at such a menial job, but the new Nina, still grieving over the death of her former self, had grabbed the job without hesitation. The lure of quick money and a chance to revisit her childhood home was too strong to resist. Little did she know what awaited her. 

The frail old man had suffered a heart attack at the sight of her lounging on his veranda. Nina rushed to help, but it was too late. She froze at the sight of his lifeless body, buried memories of her mercenary past flooding her consciousness. Faces of her victims flashed by in slow motion, their desperate pleas for mercy, the agonised screams of pain, the heartrending wails of their families - it all played on repeat in her head. Lost in a maelstrom of guilt and grief, Nina didn’t notice the gathering crowd until a sharp stone struck her head. Another followed soon - a timely reminder that the world would always see her as a predator, a merciless killer beyond redemption. 

Nina’s throat burned with unshed tears. Luck was her greatest enemy–taunting her with moments of hope, of salvation before cruelly snatching it away. This was the second time her attempts to do the right thing had backfired. The first had ruined her, and this one would kill her if she was lucky or put her behind bars if she was unlucky. 

A feral snarl twisted Nina’s lips as she surveyed the scene before her. The mob carried guns, sticks, nets, and stones. Nina could see the bloodlust gleaming in their eyes. They wanted to capture her alive, but she would die rather than live as their captive. This would be a fight to the death. 

She spat on the ground and bared her teeth. Fighting the pain coursing through her body, Nina willed the death glare back into her eyes and inched forward. Come and get me, she hissed. The mob hesitated when they saw her weaving towards them. A couple of them dropped their weapons and fled in fear. But the others continued unfazed, armed with nets, guns, sticks, and stones. She gathered every ounce of strength left in her body and prepared to charge. But stopped abruptly… mid-lunge. 

A tsunami of tiny green and brown bodies surged towards her in a cacophony of grunts and croaks. They swarmed over the parking lot, pushing Nina into a corner and building an impenetrable living wall around her. She could hear the frustrated shouts of the mob as they tried to reach her. Then, to her horror, the wall started moving, with her stuck in the middle. Panic-stricken, she spun in all directions, pushing at the bodies surrounding her, trying to find a way out, but they were so tightly packed that even the roar of the mob tuned down to a distant hum. Their expressionless, bulging eyes gazed at her stoically as they moved and forced her to keep pace. Claustrophobia was making her chest constrict and blurring her vision. Nina resumed her feeble attempts to find a weakness in the unyielding wall.

Dizzy, Nina sank to the floor when the wall dissolved as abruptly as it had formed. Hundreds of bodies coalesced into a stream of green sludge and vanished into the dark soundlessly. Heart racing, Nina stood under the harsh light of the streetlamp, quivering with fear and fatigue. There was no fight left in her anymore. She just hoped her death would be quick. 

“Nagina Nagarwalla! We meet again,” said an amused voice from the darkness. There was a tinge of the familiar in the voice.

“Who are you?” Nina asked suspiciously. 

A slim figure emerged from the darkness and squatted in front of her. Nina staggered up and spat his name. “Trevor! I should have known! Are you planning to kill me?”. She had vowed to kill him if she ever saw him again, but now her arsenal was empty- no strength, no weapons, no poison. She was at his mercy.  

“Repaying a debt,” Trevor replied, looking her in the eye. 

“There’s a concealed tunnel at the base of this lamp. It exits on the highway on the other side of the business district. There’s a safe place there for you to stay while you heal,” he said. 

Suspicion warred with relief in Nina’s eyes as she recalled her last encounter with Trevor. “Why are you helping me? I…,” she trailed off. 

“You listened…bought me time. I don’t know if you have seen the news, but… our revolution was successful.”

“Follow me”, he said before leading her to the mouth of the well-hidden tunnel. Nina realised she had no choice but to listen to him if she wanted to live and limped into the tunnel.

Trevor said, “Nagina…wait.”

“Nina”, she retorted.

He hesitated before continuing, a slight tremble in his voice. “Nagina…Nina, I know you suffered for letting me live. But I promise your sacrifice was not in vain. We have created a new world from the ruins of the old. And it was you who made it possible. Don’t forget that. I will come and get you after you recover. There’s a special place for you here, Nina, and I want you to see it. Now go.” Trevor snapped an exposed wire, plunging them into darkness. 

Faint sounds from above percolated the underground passage intermittently but faded as she made her way through the quiet darkness of the muddy path. The tension gradually melted away from her body, and she allowed herself the luxury of thinking about the past. A faint smile played on her face as she recalled that fateful encounter two years ago when she had first met Trevor.

Two years ago

It was a scorching April morning in the hottest summer of the century when Nagina Nagarwalla, a world-famous assassin, had reached the city’s business district on an assignment. The location was an unexpected bonus, along with the hefty fees she received for the job. The city’s swanky business district was her childhood home and a place she knew well. Or so she had thought! 

Nagina had looked forward to a nostalgic visit to her old neighbourhood, her first hunting ground, only to find it gone without a trace! A fifty-storey apartment block stood in place of the humble shanties of her childhood. The entire district had changed in the ten years since she had left. There was no trace of the many parks, playgrounds, and squat housing colonies of blue-collar workers that had dotted the area when she was growing up. Towering steel, concrete, and glass monoliths dominated the landscape. Everything was artificial–the trees, the grass, the birds, the flowers–and unnaturally perfect. A fleeting sense of loss coursed through Nagina when she saw the change, but she immediately dismissed it as sentimental nonsense unbecoming of a ruthless killer. Focus on the target, not the location, she reminded herself. 

It was a political assassination this time, a change from the business people she was used to killing. Her client, a politically connected builder, had agreed to her fees without negotiating. “Just get rid of him fast,” he had said before adding, “Do the job right and receive a sizeable bonus, but make a mistake… and you will never work as an assassin again”. The menace in his voice sent a shiver down Nagina’s back. But she shrugged. She had never missed and did not plan to start now.   

Her target, Trevor, had organised a rally near the moss-covered polluted pond at a disputed corner of the business district. She remembered strolling by the pond’s banks when it was a freshwater tank teeming with fish and fragrant water lilies. In summer, children played and swam in the pond. Now, the pond was an oversized gutter, stinking and filled with rancid garbage and sewage water. 

She arrived before the rally began and found a comfortable position in the crook of a decaying tree’s boughs. The air in the packed venue was electric with hope. Trevor arrived on time, clad in his customary uniform of a green robe with a brown hood. The venue erupted with thunderous clapping and loud cheering when he walked to the stage. Her sources warned her that his rallies continued for at least a few hours. She nibbled on a snack, a gift from her informer, and settled in to wait. 

To her surprise, Trevor’s speech was not about the future. He did not implore people to elect him or make lofty promises. He spoke about pain, about a bloody history buried underneath the rubble of construction debris. Tears rolled down his face unchecked as he talked about the persecution they had faced, the loved ones massacred in the name of progress, the suffering from chronic sickness because of pollution and the agony of those displaced and living as refugees in distant lands longing for their homes. His voice quivered when he spoke about the despair at what they lost - homes, memories, family, dignity, and identity. 

Long-buried memories came crashing to the fore. She thought about the brothers crushed under a bull-dozer, a cousin captured and sold to an overseas buyer, her mother who had never returned from a trip to the market to buy food, a friendly neighbour run over by a garbage truck, the estranged father and sister who claimed she was dead to them after her first job–killing a neighbourhood storekeeper for his shop (a builder wanted to erect a mall) and food (she had raided his store after killing him). Nagina had left after the last bitter fight with the remaining family members, realising they would never understand. Over the years, she had shed many versions of herself, following the diktats of time and place, blending with the shadows to become who she was today–famous and feared. There was no time for regrets or reminiscing. Nagina swatted a stray tear threatening to roll out of her eye and pretended it was a raindrop. She never cried. 

Trevor went on, shaking his fist and thundering against the wheels of power and greed that crushed any voice of dissent without mercy. He shared his dream of peaceful coexistence, harmony, and mutual respect. We will fight for justice and reclaim what was ours, he promised. She could almost see the future he was talking about, and it looked like heaven. The crowd was spellbound, caught up in his vision…like her! 

Trevor walked through the crowd, shaking hands and posing for pictures. The crowd thronged around him, pressing money and gifts into his hands. She slid down the tree and tracked his progress. There was a blind spot between the rally venue and his home, perfect for the attack. Nagina hastened to the place and hid behind a rock, waiting for Trevor. 

Luckily, he was alone. Nagina leapt out of the shadows, ready to strike. But Trevor did not react. There was no yell, no attempt to defend or attack. He just stood there with tired eyes almost popping out of his face, shoulders dropping weariness and looked at her. She hesitated. Then hissed a warning and moved closer.  

“I know who you are and who has sent you,” he said, locking eyes with her. “I am not afraid to die, but think about what happens after I die. Your masters have ensured that very few of us are fit to fight. They will continue to hunt us until there is no one left. It happened to your kind first, and now it’s happening to the rest. What have we done to deserve these atrocities? This place belongs to us as much as it belongs to them! Why should they usurp and uproot when we can all live peacefully?” 

The intensity of his gaze forced her to lower hers. Shame, an unknown feeling, was bubbling in a part of her soul she thought was long dead. 

He closed his eyes and said. “Kill me if you don’t believe what I am saying is right”. Nagina drew out the poison, her weapon of choice, and advanced towards Trevor. She could feel his uneven breath on her face, the fevered bobbing of his throat. 

Guilt, another unknown emotion, assailed her. She thought of the bitter words her sister had hailed at her for killing her lover, a rebel. Nagina raised her head to deliver the killing strike when she heard herself asking, in the hitherto unused voice of her conscience, “Do you believe you can do what you promised in the speech?”

Trevor looked at her with a messianic glint. “Yes”. His voice, loaded with conviction, made her lower her weapon and retreat. The two of them stayed like that, adversaries once but now exploring a tenuous peace. She sought assurances; he offered commitments. She threatened, and he retaliated with promises. She raged, he charmed. The see-saw of their discussion ended when Nagina said, “Stop! Do what you have to do. I will not come in your way again.”

Confusion, hope, a dawning respect. Trevor’s eyes reflected a multitude of emotions. “Thanks, I think,” he said. “But what about you? Will you be okay?”

“Of course, I will be fine! I am Nagina Nagarwalla, the best assassin in Asia. Don’t worry about me; worry about yourself. Remember what I said about me watching you closely? The day you become like any other politician will be your last. Now go before I change my mind,” Nagina had replied, puffing out her chest, back upright. 

“You won’t regret this,” he croaked, emotion choking his throat before hopping into the darkness. 

Nagina sheathed her fangs, lowered her hood and rested her head on the rock. She had just kissed her career goodbye! 

The builder kept his promise of making her pay. Nagina, the killer for hire, became Nina, the impoverished street dancer. She lost her fortune and regained her family. But sometimes, when she saw her empty fangs drained of venom, she regretted listening to Trevor.  

Present day

The old rabbit hole Trevor had directed her to was the perfect place to hide. There was enough food and water for at least a week and a small box with essential medicines. Nina found a photo album next to the medicine box. Curious, she flicked it open, sinking into the soft, moist soil with relief. 

Nina would have smiled if snakes knew how to smile. The album was a vivid and meticulous story of the transformation of the business district. Trevor and his people had waged a relentless battle and reclaimed their rights. Once a symbol of destruction, the business district now housed two large biodiversity parks. The dying pond, the site of the rally, was restored to its original glory. She saw a distant cousin advertising the inauguration of a snake park. The flowers were back, and so were the butterflies and the bees. Trevor had kept his word and more!

A solitary tear rolled down Nina’s face as she saw the last photo of the album. It was a photo of a statue and a snake hole next to it. The snake hole with her name carved on it made her tear up, but the statue made her want to laugh. The statue was of her and Trevor–a snake and a frog - holding a flame aloft. Maybe Trevor was right. She had helped bring about change; perhaps that was her redemption. 

By Dr. Gayathri Sampath