The Narrow Road to Palem (7 page)

No, she corrected herself, aware of it only as she was doing so, not for
what
, but for
whom
.

* * *

13 September, 1970

Dear Brother Abraham,

Thank you for your kind words. Whatever I feared for in my previous letter, I think, has come to pass, though I am still not sure if we were the victors or the vanquished.

It was exactly thirteen days after Lachi disappeared. She was just – gone. Without a trace left behind. Her son and daughter did not know where she had gone. Avadhani denied having anything to do with her. No one in the village remembered when they had seen her last.

That started it. Things started to disappear from the village: Komati Satyam’s langur, which he tied to the corner of his peanut field to scare monkeys away, was gone one night, taken with the rope that tethered him. Avadhani’s own Jersey cow also vanished, and later half its torso was found floating in the Godavari a few miles up north. A couple of stray dogs went missing; so did a pig and six of its piglets.

All this while, Lachi’s son and daughter were getting bigger and bigger, while Avadhani got thinner and thinner…

One evening I was sitting with Komati Satyam on his verandah and suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt that same feeling of ice down my back. Why it should have come at that time I do not know. Perhaps it is because at six o’clock every evening, Avadhani went to Ellamma cheruvu and washed his legs. It was a routine he did not miss in all these years, not even when he had that fracture in his arm when he fell off his father’s bicycle. But today, today, sir, he was nowhere to be seen. I knew almost immediately that something was wrong, and I told Satyam that we should go. He got up and picked up a spade, handing me one as we left. ‘You might need this,’ he said.

When we went to Avadhani’s house the first thing that struck us was the smell. For long periods now his house has been locked up with no outsider ever entering. When we approached the windows we saw that they were all papered up. There was a soft whirr of a machine coming from inside the house, with an occasional jarring rumble. We exchanged a glance, Satyam and I, and decided to barge through the front door. The wood was rather weak, and it was half-eaten by termites, so it gave in on our very first push.

The view inside – god, it still churns my stomach, sir – they were at least partly human, that much I can vouch for, with human legs, arms and faces. But their chests were tough and rubbery, of a dark green colour that one would see on toads. Lined on their waist on each side were three blinking sockets that I could discern were eyes of some fashion. Their backs were scaly, not unlike that of garden lizards, and little beady structures clicked and clucked under the skin. From what ought to be their stomach there slithered out a hose-like tube, and as we stood over them, brother and sister both had their hoses wrapped together, lying on their sides facing each other. Their eyes were dilated, and their paws – no, I cannot call them feet – clawed at the air.

Beside them sat a contraption made half of fleshy, biological material and half of hard metal. Jutting out of one corner of the machine were Avadhani’s legs and half of his torso. The upper part of his body was already embedded within the machine, and the rest was slowly getting sucked in with each whirr, as if into a mire.

I do not know how long we stood there looking at the scene, sir, but it was Satyam who sprang to life first. It must have been when the boy turned a lazy eye to look at us that Satyam realized it was time to strike. With a yelp he leapt at the sprawled bodies and hacked repeatedly at their tentacles, and a white pasty substance squeezed out onto the floor. I entered the fray then as well; I closed my eyes and stabbed like a madman, not knowing where and what I was hitting, but every now and then the point of my spade drove further down than other times, and made them squirm that little bit harder, so I know I’d hit a tender spot.

They put up no resistance to us, sir, though I would say we gave them no chance. After it was all done Satyam and I carried them over to Avadhani’s well and buried them there. We also pulled out Avadhani from the thing – his face was all bloodied, and he was dead of course – and laid him to rest. It was then that I looked around the room and found the sitar.

‘Let’s burn it,’ Satyam said. And I almost agreed to it too, but then I remembered what sweet notes it used to make under the girl’s hands, and I just could not bring myself to burn it. So I told Satyam that I would take it home, and here it is, right in front of me as I write this.

In these seven days since we’ve killed – those things – all our bad omens have stopped, sir. The feeling on my back is no longer present, and everything seems to have settled down. But you can never tell with these things, can you? I would still like it if you came and gave Palem a thorough cleansing. Maybe you can take the sitar away with you to keep in a place where evil cannot reach.

Sincerely,

Subramanya Shastri

* * *

Lata opened the front door and looked up at the gibbous moon. The sound of the table thudded in her mind. These last two days the sounds had not gone away after she had stopped playing the sitar. Now they were ever-present, goading her on to the front door, then to the path leading up to the road, then along the road…

‘Lata?’

Sister Agnes
. Sister Agnes was going to have her neck slit, she knew. She had seen it in one of the images the tabla notes had sent her. Somewhere deep within her she felt sad; Sister Agnes had been good to her. She did not particularly want her to come to harm. She poked herself in her waist and felt hard calluses pushing back from under her skin. These had appeared on the first day and had grown in size each day. She did not question what they were or where they had come from. It was like she knew; more or less.

‘Yes, sister?’

‘Are you going somewhere, child?’

Lata turned back to face the older lady. She did not know the answer to the question, but the thudding of the tabla inside her head continued unabated. She knew it would stop only if she were to go to that well, where that ditch was dug, where both of them were buried…

‘You’ve told me about the tabla notes,’ Sister Agnes said. ‘Do you still hear them?’

Lata nodded.

Sister Agnes came close to her and placed an arm on Lata. In her mind Lata willed the nun to stay away, to keep her distance. When her hand touched her shoulder Lata could sense a momentary twitch on the fingers – at the rubbery, scaly feel. But they relaxed soon enough.

‘I can help you, child,’ said Sister Agnes in a murmur.

The tabla notes in Lata’s head grew louder. Her fists clenched, and her face contorted into a grimace. ‘There is only one thing that can help me,’ she said, baring her teeth.

Sister Agnes paled at the sight and took a step back, but held firm with her hand. ‘No, my dear, the only person that can help you right now is Christ; he is our saviour, our lord…’

‘Enough!’ Lata stooped low, looking up at the nun with her hair falling over her face. ‘Move away, woman. I am going.’

‘You will take lives.’

‘They killed us,’ said Lata, in a voice she barely recognized herself, ‘they killed us when we – when we were –’

‘Child.’ Sister Agnes reached into her blouse and brought out a cross, fumbling.

Lata waved her arms around to knock it out of her hands to send it sliding on the floor and under the desk. She turned to the door and opened it, but Sister Agnes was behind her, both hands on her waist, and this time she immediately recoiled.

‘Who – what are you?’

Lata turned around and grinned. ‘Yes,
what
am I? What am I, woman? I was a woman five days ago, until you gave me that sitar to play. Now what am I?’

‘Oh, Lord. Our father in heaven, hallowed be thy name –’

‘Oh, yes, very hallowed indeed. Where was the father when they killed us when we were – when we were in union? Where? Where!’ In blind fury Lata struck out with her right hand at the woman, and she saw Sister Agnes clutch at her neck in shock.

Lata held up her hands. They were the hands of a crone; the fingernails had grown long and sharp in the last few minutes. One of them – or all of them – had struck the old woman’s artery. She was whimpering now, and Lata found herself laughing with her head thrown back as the figure before her hunched, then collapsed on the floor with a groan.

Lata knelt down in front of the woman and closed her fingers around the neck and squeezed, making Sister Agnes give one final moan. The notes of the tabla in her head reached a crescendo when she heard the last breath of life leave the sister. Lata was just about to lift her hands up to her mouth when she heard a sound in the adjoining room. Lights had come on, and at least four people were approaching.

Lata moved into a crouch, and propelling herself with her forelimbs, lunged at the front door and closed it behind her. She sensed her stomach churning, her intestines transforming into tentacles, and one of them smoothening on the outside and forcing its way out through her belly-button, wrenching a groan from the depths of her throat. She staggered to her feet and tore her clothes apart, and just as she heard screams from within the house, the skin on her back gave way to sharp, triangular bumps that clicked and clicked and clicked…

She fell forward on her forelimbs again, craning her neck up at the moon and baring her teeth. The sound of the tabla still ringing in her ears, she galloped up the path and on to the main road to Palem. Her mind’s eye saw only one image now, frozen in time – that house and the field and the well and the ditch and the two of them buried in it – Well,
today
they would not stop her! Today they would not stop
them
. They had come so close forty years ago, but no matter, they had another chance now. Now she would go and awaken him.
Yes, my brother, my love, I am coming for you
. No one could now stop them becoming one with each other. No, not now.

Rama Shastri had just finished his evening prayer and sat down on the fibre mat in front of his plate when a knock appeared on the door.

Arundhati, his wife, looked up and said, ‘Who could it be?’

With a sigh, Rama Shastri got to his feet. He spread his shoulder cloth around himself and went to the door. Someone or the other always came to the temple in the evening in search of stray pieces of coconut the devotees left behind, but today, Rama Shastri had brought them all home because Arundhati had wanted to make pickle.

‘Must be a beggar,’ he said, ‘looking for a bite to eat.’

The man at the door was dressed in a tattered grey dhoti stained with mud. He was barefooted, and stood with a hunch. From experience Rama Shastri knew that all beggars at the temple assumed that position to garner sympathy from devotees. The light from inside fell on the man from the chest down, leaving his face in darkness.

‘Yes?’ said Rama Shastri.

‘Ayya,’ said the man, ‘I have not eaten anything the whole day, and they told me that you would not turn me out.’ He stepped into the light and crinkled his eyes at the sudden brightness. Rama Shastri had never seen him before. Was he even from Palem?

‘I come from Rayalapalli, ayya, further up along the river.’

Rama Shastri wondered who had sent him to his house. Once or twice in the past he had taken the temple beggars into his house, and he had eaten with them, but he had no intention of making it a habit. He also did not want to acquire such a reputation in the village. They might even have a word with the temple president and ask for a more ‘upright’ priest.

He had to keep his distance. And if he were to close the door in this stranger’s face now, no one would know or care.

‘I don’t eat much, ayya, and you don’t have to give me any curry. A bit of rice and a spoon of pickle will do.’ The man rubbed his stomach. He had a haggard beard and a dusty mop of hair on his head.

Rama Shastri looked across the temple grounds in the direction of the shivalayam. He murmured a prayer under his breath. The lord himself was a beggar, an untouchable. Would he not have taken this poor man in? Would he have decreed that one of his own men – another beggar – should starve on the steps of his temple?

Rama Shastri sighed. Arundhati would not like this. Neither would Bhoomi. But he had to obey the lord’s command.

‘We only have tamarind pickle, and we can only spare a fistful of rice. Will that do?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said the man. ‘Yes, yes.’

* * *

If she had felt any displeasure at the unexpected guest, Arundhati did not show it. She unrolled another mat in the corner, and because the tube light was not strong enough to reach that far, she lit a candle and placed it next to the empty plate. Then she brought a mug of water and asked the man to stand in the doorway and hold out his hands.

The night was a pleasant one, neither cold nor hot, neither humid nor dry. Arundhati had turned off the table fan to keep the candle burning, and it left a thin coat of sweat over Rama Shastri’s forehead, which he mopped with his shoulder cloth.

From inside the bedroom, Bhoomi came out wielding her phone, wearing one of those pajamas that she no doubt bought in the city. Throughout her childhood and adolescence, Rama Shastri had insisted that Bhoomi wore just half-saris. Now one year in the city, and in the name of higher education and modernity, she had begun to preen herself in all these tight clothes. She smiled at the phone, and as her fingers moved on the screen, Rama Shastri caught the glint of just-applied nail polish.

Where did this girl get the money to buy all of this, Rama Shastri wanted to know. And he would have asked Arundhati too, if the beggar had not been present.

‘Put the phone aside, Bhoomi,’ he said, sprinkling a circle of water around his plate.

‘Just a second,’ said Bhoomi to the phone.

Arundhati took a vessel of rice over to the corner and served the guest first. Though he had said he did not want curry or ghee, he did not say no when Arundhati offered them to him. As soon as his plate was full, he grinned with his dirty teeth and began to eat.

After the vessels returned, Rama Shastri served himself some rice and a spoonful of ghee. He joined his hands at the food. From the corner of his eye he saw that Arundhati was mixing rice grains with brinjal curry for their daughter.

He had to talk to Arundhati about this. They were spoiling her enough already.

‘Mmm,’ said the beggar. ‘This is heavenly food, ammagaaru. The lord will bless your kind hands.’

* * *

Later, as Bhoomi was picking up fallen morsels of food from the ground, Rama Shastri walked the beggar to the front door. ‘I hope you had better food than you normally do, my man,’ he said.

‘Yes, ayya, so much better. The priest in Rayalapalli doesn’t even look at us in the eye. He says that our sight maligns the very air in the temple.’

Rama Shastri nodded. He had a lot to say about such practices, but he kept quiet. He did not want this man to take the opportunity to knock on his door every night. The lord knew that he could not feed four mouths every day. He walked a couple of steps into the night with the man.

‘I shall be going now, ayya,’ he said.

‘Yes. You can sleep on the temple steps if it is too dark to find your way to Rayalapalli.’

‘No, no, sir. It’s all right. After that sumptuous meal, a long walk will do me good.’ He began to walk away, but hesitated.

‘Yes?’

‘I feel like I should give you something, ayya. As a way of saying thank you.’

What could this beggar have to give him? Rama Shastri smiled in the darkness. ‘Do not worry, my man. I did what any servant of the lord would do.’

‘You’re a kind man,’ said the beggar. ‘A kind, kind man. Please let me give you something – a little something that has come my way just this morning.’

In spite of himself, Rama Shastri listened, his curiosity piqued.

‘Happy are the mad,’ said the beggar, ‘and peaceful are the dead.’

‘What?’

The man’s grubby hands took his, and dropped into his palm a thread tied to something heavy and cold, something the size of a key. Feeling it, Rama Shastri could make out the shape of the shivalingam. He closed his eyes and murmured a prayer. When someone gave you a lingam, you did not say no.

‘I got this from a wandering black magician who comes to Rayalapalli,’ said the beggar. ‘He said that it gives the owner’s family three wishes that will come true. Only catch is that you cannot take back a wish that you’ve already made.’

‘Is that so?’ said Rama Shastri. ‘Then you must have wished for something.’

The beggar laughed nervously. ‘I – I do not think it works, ayya. These people tell all kinds of stories to sell you things.’

‘How much did you pay for it?’

‘Have you not heard, sir?’ said the lout. ‘You should never ask the price of God’s idols.’

Shadows darkened the white light of the house. Rama Shastri looked back at Arundhati and Bhoomi crowding the doorway. ‘What are you doing out there, Nanna, all alone?’ asked Bhoomi, her phone’s torch pointed at him.

‘Why, I was –’ And Rama Shastri pointed toward the beggar, to realize he was gone. All he could see was the black silhouette of the temple set against the purple night sky. The shivalingam weighed down on his palm.

He retraced his steps toward the house, making a mental note to himself to get some lights installed in the temple courtyard.

* * *

‘Three wishes?’ said Bhoomi, wide-eyed, looking at the tiny lingam sitting between the three of them. ‘Any three wishes you want?’

Rama Shastri noticed that his daughter had kept her phone away for the last five minutes, throughout the time he had narrated the story of the beggar. Anything that kept her away from her phone was a good thing.

‘It’s an old wives’ tale,’ said Arundhati from inside the kitchen. ‘These beggars are always so full of them.’

Bhoomi piped up. ‘But – but – there is no harm in trying, is there?’

‘Did you not hear your mother?’ Rama Shastri’s voice carried an angry edge. ‘Wishes are for people who are not happy with their lives. Besides, it is all just a story. Just lies.’

‘So if it’s all just a story,’ said Bhoomi, looking at the lingam, ‘then what is the harm in trying? If it is real, we will have our wishes come true, and if it is not, we will not have lost anything. Right?’ When Rama Shastri did not respond, she looked at Arundhati, who had come to stand at the kitchen door, her hand on hip. ‘Right?’

The night was absolutely still. Looking out of the window at the temple grounds, Rama Shastri felt as though he were gazing at a painting. Not one leaf of the Peepal tree moved. No rustle of the leaves. No howl of the wind. Just the hum of the rotating table fan. And the rising smoke from the extinguished candle that Arundhati had lit for their guest.

The lingam
was the colour of gold, with a red vermillion mark in the centre. The thread was a composite of black and red, knotted together.

‘I wonder if there are any magic words,’ Bhoomi said, picking it up and placing it on her palm. ‘Like
abracadabra
or something?’

‘No.’ Rama Shastri exchanged a glance with Arundhati. ‘Just keep it away, Bhoomi.’ He found himself wishing that he had sent the beggar on his way without inviting him in, or at least that he had given the pendant back. But who in his right mind would refuse an idol of the lord himself?

‘Oh, lighten up, Nanna
,
’ said Bhoomi. ‘I will not wish for anything big. And as you said, it is all a story anyway.’

Rama Shastri thought to himself, why not? This was the first time Bhoomi was talking to him directly in the last two days, since she had come home from college. Perhaps this was the lord’s way of bringing them closer. Perhaps he was saying that they should bond over this silly game. What harm could come from it, anyway?

Bhoomi sat bolt upright. She held the lingam
in both her hands and bowed to it. Then she said, ‘I wish that he would notice me – just one time!’

* * *

Rama Shastri could not sleep. The weather had become wilder as midnight approached. The moon had come out. The breeze had picked up. Once or twice he craned his neck and looked through the window at the temple. It stood like a jagged black rock roughened by the waves of a silver sea. People had told him to get it painted a white colour, but he had said that granite grey suited the lord. Now he was not so sure.

He turned around on his mat and said, ‘Oye, are you awake?’

‘Hmm.’

‘What did Bhoomi’s wish mean? Who is that ‘he’ she spoke about?’

‘Oh, some boy in her college,’ said Arundhati. ‘She likes him, but they have not yet spoken to each other.’

‘Some boy! Is that why these people go to colleges these days? Whatever happened to studying?’

‘Shh. She is a good student. She got 90 per cent in all her subjects.’

‘Still. Always with that phone, thinking about boys at her age.’

Arundhati laughed softly. ‘Swami,’ she said, ‘I was younger than her when you married me.’

‘That – those times were different.’

‘Correct. These times are different too.’

‘You don’t understand.’

‘Maybe I don’t. But I am feeling sleepy.’

‘But Arundhati, what if –’

‘If you want to worry, worry on your own. Let me sleep.’

* * *

Two days after the night on which the beggar visited Rama Shastri’s house, Bhoomi went back to college. Rama Shastri talked to the temple president and got a series of four twenty-watt energy saver bulbs installed in the temple courtyard, and got permission to keep them on through the night. A month later, at the onset of monsoon, he proposed that black was not a great colour for a temple, even if it belonged to Lord Shiva. He got an approval to get it painted a milky shade of white.

The rains that year were light but persistent, and did not stop until late August.

About the time when Rama Shastri had convinced himself that it had stopped raining for the year, so that he could begin preparations for the painting, Bhoomi came home for her semester break.

* * *

On his way home from the temple, Rama Shastri went to the backyard to wash his legs and to hang out his shoulder cloth to dry. He heard voices from inside the house, and he smiled, because he could tell that Bhoomi had come back, but as he stopped and listened, he realized that she was sobbing.

Without explanation or reason, anger welled up inside him. He thought of the phone, of that foolish wish that she had made, of how Arundhati had supported her daughter as if it were the most natural thing in the world, of how Bhoomi had been thinking of everything but her studies.