EPISODE 26
Then I shocked him.
"I was running away from someone who was hired to end my life."
He stared at me in disbelief, his eyes wide with confusion.
"Why would anyone be hired to harm a common housemaid?" he asked slowly.
I took a deep breath before answering him.
"Because I am not just a beggar or a common maid," I said quietly. "I was married before… and in fact, I am still married."
"What!"
The shock on his face was clear. He leaned back in his chair and looked at me as if he was trying to understand whether I was serious or not.
Seeing his confusion, I knew there was no turning back now. I had to tell him everything.
So I began to recount my story.
"I was once married," I said slowly. "My husband was a cab driver. Life was simple then. We lived in a house that belonged to me, a house I inherited from my late father. I also owned a small supermarket that was doing well. It was not a big business, but it provided enough for us to live comfortably."
I paused for a moment before continuing.
"My parents were already gone, and the only close family member I had left was my uncle. He loved me like his own daughter. When he passed away, I had to travel to the village to attend his burial. Because he meant so much to me, I stayed there longer than expected to help with the funeral arrangements and to pay my last respects."
"But when I returned to the city," I continued softly, "my life had already changed."
He listened quietly as I spoke.
"When I reached home after the funeral, I discovered that my husband had sold our house… the same house my father left for me. He had also sold my supermarket and disappeared with everything."
Bongajum's face tightened with anger.
"I could not believe it," I continued. "In just a short time, I lost everything. My home was gone. My shop was gone. The man I trusted had vanished. I had nowhere to go and no money left."
"That was how my life slowly pushed me into begging on the streets."
I looked down as I spoke those words.
"But one day something unexpected happened. While I was sitting by the roadside, a man stopped and spoke to me. He told me about a house where they needed a maid. He even gave me the address."
"So I went there."
"When I arrived, I met a proud and strict woman who questioned me carefully. As I stood inside the house, something on the wall caught my attention."
"What was it?" Bongajum asked quietly.
"A picture," I replied.
"A picture of my runaway husband."
For a moment the room was silent.
"The photograph was hanging on the wall, looking down at me as if he was the one staring directly into my face. That was when I realized something terrible."
"After months of suffering, I had unknowingly accepted work in the house owned by the same man who had taken everything from me."
Bongajum leaned forward slowly.
"And who was this man?" he asked.
I looked straight at him.
"Who else do you think he is?"
"Who?"
"Your friend… Tara."
"What? Tara!" he exclaimed in disbelief.
He stood up immediately, pacing around the room.
"Are you serious?" he asked. "Are you still his wife, or did you divorce him?"
"I am still his wife," I replied. "The bandage cast that once covered my face after my accident, the suffering I went through, and my fractured jaw changed my appearance. My voice also sounded different. That was why he never recognized me."
He remained silent for a moment, clearly shocked.
Inside my heart I was afraid he might walk away from me at that very moment.
But instead, he slowly nodded.
"If what you are saying is true," he said firmly, "then Tara should be answering serious questions by now."
"I know," I replied quietly. "But right now I am helpless. What I need first is someone to stand with me."
He looked at me seriously.
"Do you still have anything that proves you are still married to him?"
"Yes," I said.
I brought out our marriage certificate and handed it to him.
He examined it carefully, then looked back at me.
"I believe you," he said.
Then he began explaining what we needed to do.
"We cannot rush this," he told me. "We must gather proof that he sold your property and ran away with it."
He explained that we needed to surprise Tara with solid evidence before confronting him.
The first step, he said, was to hire a lawyer who would prepare the legal groundwork for the case.
"If you appear suddenly before him," Bongajum warned, "he might run away again. And if he leaves the country, it will be very difficult to bring him back."
So he contacted a lawyer who agreed to help us.
Then Bongajum gave me a plan.
"I want you to go back to your former house and your supermarket," he said. "Go there calmly and claim what belongs to you, but do not create a scene."
"The goal is simple," he continued. "When the people now occupying the property begin to show their documents to prove they bought it, our lawyer will quietly collect that evidence."
"All those documents will lead back to Tara."
So according to the plan, I had to return.
I had to go back and claim the house.
And also claim my shop.
EPISODE 27
So Mr. Bongajum followed me to my former residence. The journey there made my heart beat faster because every step reminded me of the life I once lived before everything was taken from me.
When we arrived, the house looked almost the same as I remembered it. The compound was quiet, and the old mango tree near the gate was still standing strong. For a moment, memories flooded my mind.
One surprising thing was that one of my old tenants was still living there. The moment he saw me, he looked closely at my face as if trying to remember something. After a few seconds, recognition flashed in his eyes.
He knew I was the former landlady.
That alone gave me courage.
I walked to the door and knocked, not like a stranger, but like someone who truly belonged there.
When the new landlord stepped outside, I looked at him calmly and said, "I am sorry, sir, but this is my house, and I have come to take it back."
He looked at me as if I had lost my mind.
"Are you in your right senses?" he asked angrily. "How can you claim a house I bought with my own hard-earned money?"
Before I could speak again, the lawyer who came with us stepped forward.
"What proves that you are the rightful owner?" the lawyer asked firmly.
The man quickly replied, "I have the original documents."
"Can we see them?" the lawyer requested.
The man went inside and returned with a file containing several documents. When the lawyer opened them, my heart began to pound loudly.
There it was.
My name appeared clearly as the original owner of the house.
The new landlord explained that the man who sold the property to him had told him he had bought it from me legally. But when the lawyer examined the papers carefully, something important became obvious.
The signature on the sale document belonged to Tara.
My runaway husband.
But my own signature was nowhere to be seen.
That was the mistake he made.
The lawyer calmly informed the man that he had one week either to vacate the house or to bring the person who sold it to him. He also explained that the transaction papers only carried Tara's signature and not mine, which meant the real owner had never approved the sale.
The lawyer was quietly preparing the ground for the case.
After that, we left the house and went straight to my supermarket.
Seeing the shop again almost made tears fall from my eyes. It was the place I had built with so much effort.
The new shop owner first reacted with anger when I claimed it belonged to me. But when the lawyer carefully explained that I had never sold the shop and that all legal ownership documents carried my name, the woman slowly became quiet.
She finally agreed to cooperate.
We asked both the house occupant and the shop owner not to inform the man who sold the properties to them. If they wanted any chance of recovering the money they paid, they had to stay quiet and follow the lawyer's instructions.
If Tara ran away again, they would lose everything.
After photocopying all the important documents as evidence, it was time for the next part of the plan.
I had to return to my former husband's house.
But this time, I would return as the same maid they once knew.
I would wear the mask again and pretend that my face was still recovering, just like before. Bongajum would accompany me and act as the man who brought me back to work.
My mission was simple but dangerous.
I had to gain access to the bank records and find proof of the transaction he made when he emptied my account.
Only after getting that evidence would I reveal my true identity.
The lawyer told me I had just one week inside that house to find the documents. If I succeeded, the truth would be revealed on the very day the police would come to question him.
Until then, he was not supposed to suspect anything.
The only problem now was whether the madam of the house would accept me again as a maid. She might have already hired someone else. I knew I had to pretend my face still had issues and that was why it was bandaged again.
But I knew one thing clearly.
If I wanted to recover everything I had lost, I had to try my best.