The Narrow Road to Palem

by Sharath Komarraju

  ‘It’s either the dog or you. You must be a witch.’

  ‘Such a charming man you are, Chander babu.’

  ‘The dog. That stupid dog. Keep him away from me. You hear?’

  ‘All right, all right.

  After they had gone around the path two more times, only to return to the tree, they buckled down in its shadow and drew nearer to the trunk, as if it would conceal them in its hollow. They just had to get through the night, somehow; because right at the crack of dawn the washermen would come with bundles of grimy clothes hoisted on their heads.

  Where are we?

  Such an easy question to answer, and yet tonight she could not find the words.

  The patch of clouds above the Western horizon broke up, just enough for a sliver of the gibbous moon to break through. The colour of Ellamma’s water changed, as though a thousand silverfish had just swum to the surface from deep below. Even Moti ran up to the lake’s edge and barked happily, his tail flapping at the ground.

  Chander sat on a rock, so that the dust wouldn’t ruin his kurta. He kept a wary eye on Moti still, but his gaze toward her had softened. Raji untied a piece of jaggery off her half-sari, broke it in two with her teeth, and gave Chander a piece.

  ‘We’re stuck here,’ she said. ‘No point worrying yourself sick over it.’

  Chander looked at her for a moment, then came over to sit by her side.

  * * *

  ‘People say you’re a womaniser,’ Raji said, looking at the lake. ‘Every city he goes to, says my father, he has a woman to sleep with.’

  ‘That is not true. Ever since I lost Annapurna, I’ve not known the touch of a woman.’

  ‘I am not a woman, though. Just a girl. Not yet seventeen.’

  ‘But you have the fullness of a woman in you, Raji. I saw you dance on the night of Navaratri, and I’ve not been able to sleep properly since.’

  Raji’s giggle rang into the night. ‘You know how to speak to a girl, Chander babu. But a marriage is not built on just words and dreams, is it?’

  ‘No,’ agreed Chander. ‘It is not.’

  ‘The village people will say that I have trapped you. Poor Chander fell to the charms of that girl Raji, they will say. If only you hadn’t been so wealthy, perhaps it would have been easier.’

  ‘If I had not been as wealthy as I am, Raji, would you even look at a man my age?’

  Raji turned to face him. The forehead was no longer covered in sweat. How many times had she not heard the words, he is old enough to be your father? True, it would be nice to have a smooth-muscled young man for a husband, but of what use is a man who could not feed his wife?

  It was a big tragedy of life in Palem that the strongest, handsomest, most rugged men were also the poorest.

  ‘You’re right,’ she said at last. ‘But women grow up quickly, don’t they, Chander babu? Before you know it, they will be looking at us and saying what a suitable couple we make.’

  Chander straightened up. ‘Does that mean you’re saying yes?’

  ‘Only if you will announce to the whole village that it is you who wanted me for a wife,’ said Raji. ‘And you should treat my parents with respect.’

  ‘Yes, yes. I accept!’

  ‘And if you wish to go and sleep with another woman, Chander babu, go and do so. Just don’t tell me, and don’t get it into your head that you want to marry her. I shall be your only wife.’

  ‘Yes, oh, Raji, why would I want to marry anyone else?’ Chander took both Raji’s hands in his and kissed them. ‘You have given me the world tonight, Raji. You have made me the happiest man in the world.’

  Raji pulled her hands away, coyly. ‘Remember, Chander babu, no touching until the wedding night.’

  He smiled too, and a fresh gust of wind blew from over the lake, making the thin hair on his scalp stand on end and dance.

  * * *

  Moti’s wail struck the grins off their faces.

  The dog crouched low to the ground by the edge of the lake, and howled pitifully at the silver ripples. The thump in Raji’s heart returned, and once more she saw herself running within dark lanes reeking of dead fish, trying, trying her best to get from the kitchen to the front room as her father’s calls rang in her ear.

  She clutched her chest. ‘Moti!’ she said. ‘Stop it!’

  Somewhere she had heard that dogs could see long dead spirits, and that their yowls and moans were their way of conversing with them. She wanted to ask Chander if that was true, but when she looked at him, his face appeared to be as lifeless as the yellow-white surface of the lake.

  In a whisper he said, ‘That horrible animal. I’m going to –’ He picked up a pebble in his right hand and hurled it at Moti. It hit him in the side, right on one of the pink scabs, with enough force to peel off a fresh layer of spotted skin and leave a trickle of blood dripping onto the earth.

  But Moti took no notice. He just howled and wept and mewled and licked the dust.

  Chander threw another stone at it. This one missed, and went into the lake with a quiet plop. ‘That miserable dog!’ he said, seething with a rage Raji did not understand. In her own body she felt spasms of fright. Every time a new breeze blew and sent her half-sari aflutter, deep within her arms and legs she felt twinges, and her fingers – without her knowledge – had balled up into fists.

  Raji, Raji, called her father from the front room.

  She wanted to get up and run, but she would just see babul bushes, and that lone bright star in a circular patch of sky overhead. And she would run as fast as her legs could carry her only to end up back here. So why bother?

  At this moment, Chander let out a cry and clapped his mouth shut with a trembling hand. His eyes opened wide. He pointed at the lake with a shaking finger.

  Something told Raji that she should not look. But she did.

  * * *

  The woman that came out of the lake was naked, except for a gold pendant that hung off her neck. Her wet black hair fell on her shoulders, arms and face. Her whole body carried the soaked look of a crab’s belly, and it did not seem to Raji that there was a live beating heart inside it. She appeared to be filled on the inside with soft, luminescent jelly, so that if one were to dig a knife into her flesh, it would give readily, but would not cause her pain.

  She walked without hurry, and at each step she took out of the water, as she revealed more and more of her, the louder Moti snarled and barked, and the louder Chander yelled. His eyes, shot with the panic of a hunted rabbit, bled tears. His hands clawed at the air in frantic movements, and though he tried to push himself onto his feet and flee, something kept him pinned to the ground.

  Raji herself found that she could not move or speak. Only watch.

  The woman stood three feet away from where they were sitting, her hair still covering her face. Raji could now see the figure on the pendant; it was the dancing form of Shiva. The breeze had now turned into a wind, and Ellamma cheruvu assumed the form of an ocean, her waves lashing at the bank and sending Moti yelping back toward the guava tree.

  Fallen leaves swirled in circles. The woman’s nipples glowed like white points of light.

  ‘How easily you give away your promises, Chander babu,’ said the woman, in a quiet, measured voice. ‘What will you do when you get bored of this girl? Will you break your promise, or will you keep it by having her killed too?’

  Chander said, ‘You – you! – you!’

  ‘You promised me the same things, didn’t you, Chander babu? Then your eyes fell on this little girl here, and you had to get rid of me. I told you that you could sleep with whoever you wish, but that was not enough for you, was it? You wanted to own her. Like you wanted to own me.’

  Chander gulped, and yelled the Hanuman Chalisa with his eyes shut, hands joined.

  ‘Enough,’ said the woman. Her toenails, Raji saw, were painted a bright black. ‘This is the last promise that you will ever make to a woman. Let me be the last woman to die because of you.’

  A
white hand rose in Raji’s direction, and her mind began to wander. She found herself running again, from kitchen to front room and front room to kitchen, but in the middle room where her mother sewed buttons on shirts, bushes had begun to grow out of the walls and chairs and cots. Moti whined again and again over the noise of crickets cleaning their wings, and when Raji looked up, she did not see the roof of her house or the ceiling fan, but a mass of dark, brooding clouds, a patch of black sky, and one white, twinkling star.

  The last thing she heard was her father calling out to her. Raji, Raji.

  * * *

  She woke up with a start. ‘Chander babu?’

  ‘Hmm,’ said her mother, not looking up from the shirt on her lap. ‘Go back to sleep.’

  ‘Where – where am I?’

  ‘The question is where were you. The washermen found you on the bank of the lake this morning. Why did you fall asleep there?’

  ‘I went – never mind, did the washermen find Chander babu as well?’

  Her father walked into the room, retying his dhoti, sucking on a neem twig. ‘They found him all right, this morning on the temple steps. He was sitting with that dog of yours, and laughing his head off about something.’

  ‘Laughing?’

  ‘Yes.’ The twig moved in his mouth as he talked. ‘Torn clothes. Dishevelled hair. Eating dog food that has been thrown in the gutter. Looks like something has driven Chander out of his mind.’

  Raji thought of the glowing naked lady of Ellamma cheruvu.

  ‘Even in craziness the man is a greedy pig,’ her father was saying. ‘He was apparently hugging a gold pendant. Kissing it. Crooning songs to it...’

  The Milk Is Sour

  There is something wrong with Amma.

  With one hand, Sanjay waved a green plastic hand-fan over Swati. With the other, he tried to smooth the cotton sheets on which she lay. Amma had placed her on top of the old asbestos trunk, so that the ceiling fan’s air would reach her more easily.

  But it was now past seven in the morning. The fan had already stopped moving. It would not move till it was dark again.

  Swati was hungry. Sanjay could see it in the frantic way in which her little puffed arms reached for his fan at the beginning of each swish. The anklets that Amma had tied to her legs jingled with every kick. Drops of sweat started on her forehead and dripped down to the corners of her eyes, in spite of his waving. The black spot in the middle of her forehead, so crisp and sharp the night before, now had become smudged.

  The milk is sour.

  Voices in the kitchen, over the crackle of burning coal. Sanjay wiped Swati’s brow with his dirty fingers, stained her forehead a bit more, and listened. He smelled omelettes in the air. But no butter. Amma never made omelettes without butter.

  ‘Has the girl’s body cooled down?’ their father was asking. ‘Or shall I take her to Upender Rao tonight?’

  ‘She became better during the night,’ said Amma. ‘I put a piece of garlic under her armpit. That seemed to have helped.’

  ‘Is the boy up?’

  ‘Yes. He is watching her.’

  The stained white cloth that covered the doorway parted a little. Sanjay looked up at his father, and they smiled at each other. The smell of frying eggs became stronger.

  ‘What are you doing, Sanjay?’ asked Nanna. ‘Are you making sure your little sister gets enough air?’

  ‘Yes, Nanna.’

  ‘Good boy. I will get you a packet of Gems on my way back, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘And then we can milk Gowri together.’

  ‘Can we, Nanna? Tonight?’

  ‘Yes, tonight, after I get back home. You will be a good boy until then, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Nanna!’

  ‘Help Amma out with whatever she needs.’

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  ‘And take care of Swati. It gets hot in the afternoons.’

  ‘Yes, Nanna.’

  The curtain closed. Sanjay heard his father’s steps recede towards the front of the house. The clank of the bicycle’s stand as it dismounted. The tring-tring of the bell as he rode away to the post office.

  Now Sanjay realized he was hungry too. A rumble began in his stomach. He rubbed it with his free hand, smearing his shirt with Swati’s kohl. Amma would scold him for that.

  Swati chortled and pointed at the rattle, on a stool in the corner. Sanjay felt like getting it for her, but he knew that she would chew on it, and then Amma would scold him for that too. So he said, ‘Wait for a few minutes. Amma will come and feed you.’

  The crackling of the coal stopped. Sanjay heard the sound of pans and pots. Amma was putting the omelettes onto a plate. But they did not have butter. They did not make his mouth water. Amma used to seat him on her lap and tell him stories while feeding him. Every now and then she would run her finger on a spot of mango pickle and apply it to his tongue, laughing when he shut his eyes and shuddered at the sour taste.

  But this Amma was different. This one forgot to put butter on omelettes. This one no longer fed him, no longer played with him.

  He looked at Swati, and Swati gazed back, wide-eyed.

  The milk is sour. As sour as the mango pickle.

  * * *

  Radha held the plate of omelettes in one hand, the glass of milk in another, and stopped outside the door. Her toes curled inward and dug into the earth. Last night’s rain had made the morning sultry, but even she knew that it was not the heat that was causing her armpits to sweat. Her throat had gone dry. It now began to itch near the base; a deep itch that she knew could not scratch.

  This was ridiculous, she thought, steeling herself. Why should I be scared of him?

  And yet, she could tell that Sanjay had changed. Rama Shastri had consoled her at the Shivalayam, and said that boys weaned themselves off their mothers at around the age of five and became closer to their fathers. Upender Rao had said that his brooding and anger – was it anger? – was understandable because it had only been a few months since the arrival of a new sibling.

  ‘He will adjust,’ he had said. ‘Just make sure you don’t treat him any differently.’

  Radha had tried. But Swati needed care too. She woke up in the middle of the night. She had to be fed.

  The boy had been a dear with caring for his sister, and it was impossible to tell from the way he smoothed her hair that he carried resentment towards her. In fact, he did not resent Swati at all. All his anger seemed to be directed towards her, his mother.

  That was just what Radha saw but did not admit to anyone. Not to Upender Rao. Not to Avadhanayya. Not to Gopalam. Once or twice, on returning from the kitchen after feeding Swati, she had chanced to look at Sanjay’s eyes, and they would be burning with hate. Earlier, before Swati came, he would pester her for a story every night, and before she would narrate but two sentences he would fall asleep, clutching her thumb in his hand. Now, he slept to the other side of Gopalam.

  She sighed and closed her eyes.

  All the women at the temple would laugh if they could see her now. Even that crazy girl Mallamma had managed to raise two children with no trouble at all. And here was Radha, dreading going into the same room as her son and to look him in the eye. What made it harder was that he neither had Gopalam’s eyes nor hers. They were a light shade of grey, with black irises, like a cat’s.

  Radha had never been fond of cats. Now she had begun to fear them as well.

  She parted the curtain and went in. Sanjay did not look back over his shoulder. He sat by the trunk, leaning in so close to Swati’s face that for a moment, Radha wondered whether the boy had been kissing her. He kept the hand-fan waving. Swati said ‘Ga! Ga!’ and kicked the air twice, sending tinkles into the air.

  Radha walked around to the other side of the trunk and sat down. She had to make an effort to look into Sanjay’s eyes. ‘Omelette,’ she said.

  ‘Does it have butter on it?’

  ‘No. Doctor Uncle said you should not have butter. Remember?�
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  He did not say anything. Just gave her that look again, and dragged the plate closer to himself. Tore off a piece and put it in his mouth. As he chewed, he stared at the stool, at Swati’s rattle.

  ‘Swati must be hungry,’ said Radha.

  ‘Yes, she is.’

  ‘I’m going to take her to the other room, okay?’

  He did not answer, did not look at her. He just tore off another piece of the omelette, folded it with both hands, and placed it into his mouth.

  Radha stood up and left the room as quietly as she could. She wished that Gopalam hadn’t gone to work that day.

  * * *

  This is not our Amma.

  Sanjay listened to the oil bubbling on the coal stove in the kitchen. Swati lay on the trunk on her back, with her legs up in the air. Her eyelids were beginning to droop. She clasped her hands together near her chest, and just as her thumbs slid up toward her mouth, Sanjay pulled them away.

  She protested, but just for a moment. His hand began to ache from all the waving, and he was covered in a layer of sweat. He had taken a cold water bath right after Amma took Swati away for feeding in the morning, and he had felt clean and fresh after that, but in no more than ten minutes he had found himself drenched again.

  Now he tried to make each wave of the fan wide enough for both of them. He tried to forget the twinge in his wrist by remembering a story.

  A story Amma used to tell him.

  A story of a demon that came to a village disguised as a mother, gave poisoned milk to all the little children, and killed them. When she tried to suckle Lord Krishna, he squeezed her nipples so hard that she writhed in pain and died.

  Sanjay wondered if the children had known something had been wrong when they tasted the milk. Did they feel, in their own small, undeveloped minds, that the milk tasted different that day? Or did they die in peace, with their hungers sated, in their sleep?