The Narrow Road to Palem

by Sharath Komarraju

  The milk is sour.

  The woman sitting in the kitchen behind them was a demon too. She had come disguised as Amma, but she had none of Amma’s beauty, her kindness, her love. Her breasts carried sour milk. Her omelettes were salty, had no butter in them. She did not tell him stories that Amma used to. She did not look at him in the eye. Every time he heard her step, it sent cold slivers of fear up his back.

  Not just for his safety. He was old enough to see through the demon’s ruse. But Swati – she was just a baby. Thrust a nipple into her mouth and she would suck it without asking whose it was. She would not know if the milk was poisoned.

  And Amma had to be saved too. Wherever she was, Sanjay would search for her. Perhaps the demon had imprisoned her in the barn. Suddenly it occurred to him that he could already be too late. Amma could be dead.

  The hand-fan slipped from his hand at the thought. His mouth went dry.

  If that were true, he would not spare this woman. He would tell everything to Nanna; he would understand. But before that, he had to somehow prevent her from giving Swati milk again this evening.

  Yes. Stop her.

  ‘Sanjay!’

  ‘Yes, Amma!’

  ‘Come, we will eat.’

  * * *

  They ate in silence for the most part. Radha noticed that Sanjay did not look up from his plate even once, not even when she told him that she had fried potatoes into golden-brown discs, just the way he liked them. She also made dal for him, cooked with spinach, tomatoes and cumin seeds.

  He was just five, but he sat with his left hand anchored on his thigh as he ate, just like his father. His tiny fingers struggled to collect all the rice grains on his plate to one side, but how well he tried!

  Radha felt like scooping him up and showering him with kisses.

  But those eyes stopped her.

  She served him a scoop of curd, and a spoonful of ground peanut powder. ‘Did you like the potatoes, Sanjay?’ she said. Her voice came out cold and formal, as though she was speaking to a guest who had come to her house for the first time.

  He nodded.

  ‘You’re going to have fun today with Nanna when he comes back, aren’t you? You have always wanted to milk Gowri.’

  Another nod. He had still not looked up.

  Radha felt her eyes brimming up. It could not go on like this, surely. She was going to talk to Gopalam tonight. Something had to be done about the boy, before things got out of hand.

  She did not ask herself what she meant by ‘out of hand’. She just had a vague feeling that she did not want to find out. This had to be nipped right here, right now. Gopalam would not listen, of course; he would say that it is normal. But Sanjay was normal with Gopalam. It was like he had this personal battle to fight against her.

  And Swati. No matter what happened, she could not let anything happen to her. Upender Rao said that it was all about sibling rivalry. What if, god forbid, Sanjay got so angry at Swati that he –

  Well. She couldn’t allow that.

  * * *

  The demon was washing the dishes. Everything about the food was wrong. The potato chips were too soggy. The dal did not have enough salt in it. The peanut powder had no spice. The curd left a sour aftertaste. He had gulped down three full glasses of water to get rid of it.

  No luck.

  Don’t worry, Swati, he thought, as the swishes of the hand-fan became more determined. I will save you with all my life. I will save Amma too. I will not let this demon poison our family. I will squeeze her breasts until she dies.

  Use the knife.

  Up went Swati’s arms as she clapped. Down came her feet against the top of the trunk. She gurgled and laughed, reached for the waving fan, even as Sanjay pulled it away from her. She had black eyes, unlike Sanjay’s, but he thought that they were deeper than his, and they carried secrets that she could not yet speak. He had seen himself in the mirror many times, but he had not seen the same knowing look in his eyes.

  She would grow up to be as beautiful as Amma, he thought.

  Yes, I will save you.

  He got up and tiptoed to the kitchen. The sound of running water in the backyard. The demon was still washing dishes. Sanjay looked up at the knives hanging off the nails on the wall opposite. There were six in all, with white blades and little holes drilled through the black handles so that they could be mounted. Amma had bought them at the village fair a few months back, and Nanna had chafed that evening at how much they cost.

  The biggest one. Yes. A big knife for a big demon.

  Sanjay dragged a stool from the corner of the room and set it against the wall. He climbed on it, and without making a sound, slid the knife out, away from the nail. It was heavier than he’d thought it would be, and he needed to use both hands to hold it steadily. He tested the smoothness of the blade with his thumb, and then the sharpness too. A faint smell of onion clung to the knife, perhaps from this morning’s cooking.

  The water stopped running outside.

  Sanjay jumped off the stool, stumbled onto the floor, but picked himself up and ran back into Swati’s room. There he sat by the trunk, waiting for the demon to arrive.

  * * *

  The first thing Radha noticed on stepping into the kitchen, her garment and hands dripping with water, was the stool set against the wall. Then she looked up and saw that the biggest knife, the cleaver, was missing.

  Oh, no, she thought.

  She ran to the door and brushed the curtain aside. What she saw in the room chilled her.

  Sanjay sat next to the trunk, facing her. In both his hands he held the cleaver, the blade hanging over Swati’s stomach, pointing towards Radha. His eyes were trained on her, and burned with the same white hatred that she had seen before.

  ‘Sanjay?’ she said. Her voice came out garbled, like that of a child.

  ‘You will not feed her,’ he said.

  Radha took a step closer to them. She was still too far away to lunge at her son and wrench the knife out of his hands. Keep him talking, she thought. Upender Rao had said that envy was the biggest symptom of sibling rivalry. Sanjay must have seen her feeding Swati, and he must have felt jealous that she no longer fed him the same way.

  ‘I will feed you too,’ she said. ‘I will give you both the same amount of milk.’

  ‘Do you not understand? You will not feed her. I will not let you.’

  His face went through a series of expressions; first a grimace, then a malicious smile, then back to cold stone. Radha took another step toward the trunk. ‘Sanjay, she is your sister. You have to take care of her.’

  ‘I am taking care of her.’ Did she see a flash of confusion in his eyes? ‘I am not going to let you get your hands on her.’

  Radha was now four feet away from them. Swati, oblivious to it all, was sucking on her thumbs and pointing at the knife blade. ‘Okay,’ said Radha, ‘I will not touch her. Just take your knife and step away from her. Just a little bit, you see, so that you don’t hurt her?’

  Sanjay took a moment to look at Swati, and then he stepped back.

  At that moment, Radha pounced on Sanjay and sent him crashing back against the wall.

  * * *

  I am sorry, Swati. I could not save you from the demon. Oh, no, what will happen now?

  When he woke up, Sanjay found himself tied to the very stool that he had used that afternoon to get at the knife. Night had fallen. Out in Swati’s room he heard his father’s voice.

  ‘Nanna!’ he called. ‘Nanna!’

  There was silence for a moment. Then his father appeared at the door and switched on the light. ‘Yes, Sanjay?’

  ‘Nanna, I have to tell you something.’

  Nanna closed the door and came to sit next to him. He ruffled his hair and said, ‘Yes, boy, what is it?’

  ‘That demon is giving Swati poisoned milk!’ said Sanjay.

  ‘The demon? You mean Amma?’

  ‘That’s not Amma! It’s a demon, which has captured Amma and taken her pla
ce. She is giving Swati poisoned milk. Please stop her, Nanna. Please don’t let her kill Swati. And then she will kill me too, and you!’

  Nanna looked at him for a second. Then he said, ‘Okay.’

  ‘You won’t let her kill us all, will you? You will search for Amma as well, won’t you? She may be in the barn. Please search for her, and bring her back. And kill this demon with that big knife.’

  ‘I will.’ Nanna gathered Sanjay into a hug. ‘Leave it to me. You don’t think about it now, okay?’

  Sanjay broke into tears. He clawed at his father’s sides, buried his face in his chest. ‘I don’t want to lose you, Nanna. I don’t want to lose Amma and Swati to this demon. Please. Please. Please.’

  ‘Shh. Leave it to me.’

  ‘Don’t leave me, Nanna. Don’t ever leave me alone with her.’

  ‘I won’t. Now go to sleep.’

  * * *

  Upender Rao was a large man with a black spot the size of a coin on his left cheek. He saw Gopalam emerge from the kitchen with a pale face, and said, ‘What is it, Gopalam? How is the kid?’

  Radha pursed her lips. Clear tears swirled in her eyes.

  Gopalam sat down and told them what Sanjay had said. For a long time, none of them spoke.

  Then Upender Rao said, ‘I think it is best if the boy is sent away to the city for a while.’ He looked at Gopalam. ‘You have your younger brother there, don’t you?’

  Gopalam ran his fingers through his hair.

  ‘Send him there. Not forever,’ he said, turning to Radha. ‘For a year or two. Until he is older. Until Swati is older. He will grow out of this fantasy.’

  ‘He will, won’t he?’ asked Radha.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Upender Rao. ‘He loves his sister intensely, and but he is also intensely jealous of her. So he has created this story in his mind that will allow him to starve his sister of milk while believing that he is protecting her.’

  On the trunk, Swati stared at the running ceiling fan and clapped her hands in delight.

  * * *

  Later, when Radha and Gopalam went out to see off Upender Rao, Swati turned her head to look at the stool, and the rattle on top of it. Her fingers closed into fists. Her toes curled and uncurled. A pink shade appeared on the cheekbones, and though the fan was on full speed, sweat began to accumulate on her upper lip. Her fingertips became white and bloodless. The tendons in her neck tightened, and she clenched her gums together. The muscles in her face twitched.

  Her lazy wide eyes, though, stayed fixed on the stool.

  Then the rattle slowly rolled to the edge, and fell.

  The Narrow Road to Palem

  ‘You said no phones, Vikas.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know. I am just seeing if mom called.’

  He returned his phone to his jacket pocket and held out his hand to Ritu. Her fingers felt cold and soaked as they clasped around his palm. Just like the mud underneath their feet. Funny, he thought. There had been no rain during the night or in the morning. Early May was not the season for rains.

  ‘Some water?’ he asked, but Ritu shook her head. Vikas pulled out the half-empty water bottle from the netted side pocket of his backpack and took a thoughtful sip. The straight stretch of road ended a few meters ahead, and bent away to the right from in front of a marble quarry. Trees stood like pillars on either side of them, and if they had to look up at the grey sky, they had to do so from between green leaves and dark branches.

  ‘Do you remember when it rained this morning?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ said Ritu. ‘Maybe it rained just here?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  They walked a little distance, hand in hand, and arrived at a break in the road, where a muddy path branched away into what looked like a village. The road stood on higher ground, and standing at the edge, Vikas saw that a peaceful white layer of mist had settled like a carpet over the thatched huts. No sound came from within, though; not of bleating calves, of fighting schoolchildren, of bicycle-riding milkmen. It seemed the village was asleep.

  He turned his left wrist and took a look at his Rolex. Eight A.M. His grandmother had told him that a village always woke up at 4:30.

  ‘I guess the rooster is sleeping in,’ said Ritu. Vikas chuckled and nodded. In her touch Vikas could feel some distance, some lingering hesitation. She did not hold his hand with a firm grip like she normally did; today her fingers stayed limp, weak. With her free hand she twirled the ends of her hair.

  She was still thinking of last night. Unnecessary things had been said. The ‘hate’ word had made an occasional appearance. So had phrases like ‘I am not sure if this is going to work’ (from him) and ‘How can you say something like that’ (from her). They had been sitting on the opposite sides of a table at a dhaba. Their voices had risen without their knowledge, and when they saw that they were attracting stares and sniggers, they had picked up their bags and left.

  This morning, though, things seemed to have calmed down, somewhat. They had always been that way. Their fights were loud and venomous, and they tended to happen at nights. Their marriage counsellor had advised them never to go to bed with an unresolved issue, but after trying their best for a while, he and Ritu had had to accept that they were not the ‘let’s go to bed happy’ kind of couple that Dr Mehta wanted them to be; they were more the ‘let’s wake up happy’ kind of couple.

  And this morning, both of them had woken up happy. Even though the ashes from last night’s fire remained.

  ‘We don’t have to if you’re not ready for it, Ritu,’ he said.

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘But you have to remember neither of us is getting any younger.’

  A twitch of the fingers. ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Do you want to take a walk in the village? It seems like a peaceful little thing.’

  Ritu smiled, just with the lips. ‘Sure.’

  As they got off the road and descended to the mouth of the path leading in, they found an old man sitting cross-legged on the ground to the side. He had a white cotton sheet laid out in front of him, and on it were arranged an assortment of mirrors. Brown, pink, yellow, white – he had them all.

  Ritu’s steps fell that way, and though Vikas felt like protesting, he didn’t. One had to tread carefully on cold mornings such as these. What harm would looking at a few mirrors do, anyway? It wasn’t like they were pressed for time. They were on a vacation.

  So he allowed himself to be led to where the man sat, wrapped to the neck in a black blanket. He held a stick with his left hand, and when he looked up at them, Vikas saw that his right pupil was long dead, white as ice.

  ‘Come, sir, come, madam,’ he said. ‘Mirrors of all kinds. Small and big, clear and coloured. Look at yourself and fall in love. My mirrors will last you all your life, madam. You never have to clean them, and they will never break.’

  * * *

  I hate the way you bring up past issues in every fight.

  Ritu crouched in front of the mirrors and picked up the one with a pink handle. She did not want to look at her reflection yet, because she was certain that her eyes would be stained with all the crying. Vikas did not notice it, or at least he pretended not to. Every morning after a fight, he would act as if everything was all right, as if they just had to crack a joke in order to move on.

  They came with alarming regularity these days, both the fights and the jokes. After that first year, everything she did seemed to get on his nerves, and though she didn’t admit it often to herself, much of what he did got on hers too.

  I hate how you make it all about yourself.

  Vikas never said ‘I hate you’, but he used the word a lot. And he had a way of making a low, guttural sound when he said it, too, just so that she would feel every inch of the ugly intensity he wished to convey. His favourite lines were that Ritu should realize that the world did not revolve around her. They had responsibilities. To their parents, to their friends, to society.

  ‘Madam?’

  She replaced the pink mirr
or and reached for the more ornate yellow one.

  ‘Ah, yes, this one has more design,’ the man was saying. ‘It is more fancy, yes?’

  ‘What is this place called?’ Vikas asked. Ritu stared at the mirror, holding it away from her, as though it was a leech. Ever since she had lost Nimmi, looking into mirrors had become an ordeal. When she had to, she felt as if she was being dragged to the edge of a precipice with her hands tied.

  What? You gave a name to a four-month-old foetus?

  ‘Yes, sir. Rudrakshapalem is the name. The local people call it Palem.’

  This vacation had been recommended to them by Dr Mehta, and they were meant to not talk about Nimmi at all. That had been one of the conditions they had agreed on, and yet they had spoken of nothing else. Granted, she had been the first to break down when she saw baby pink woollen sweaters at the Nepali store on their first night. But since then, she had done all she could do push thoughts of Nimmi away and to enjoy the trip, but Vikas seemed intent to draw out a ‘yes’ from her at all costs.

  It would start with an innocuous conversation about the weather, or about honeycombs, or about cars, but before either of them knew it, they would be discussing – no, they never discussed, they argued, violently – about babies. He would nod at everything she would say, he would reassure her that he loved her, and then he would tell her why a miscarriage was ‘no big deal’ and how they had to ‘put the past behind them’ in order to ‘move forward as a team’.

  Vikas had just become a project manager at work. It showed in his speech, at least when he was not angry.

  I hate being the only one caring about this marriage.

  Ritu set the yellow mirror to the side, and picked up a black one. It had the picture of a spider on its back, hanging down by a single white thread.

  ‘Why is it so quiet here?’ Vikas asked.