Book of Destruction

by P Sachidanandan

  I continued to nervously follow the newly born creatures, all the time with an eye on the coats and jackets possibly lurking nearby. Why was I doing this? Why didn’t I just give up this exercise, forget the thoughtless promise I had made to the mad tailor, and go back to my peaceful existence? I did not know. It was as if I too was caught in his web. But I was careful to keep a safe distance from them. I was scared of getting too close.

  The new creatures created by the tailor’s dresses marched on. They didn’t seem to be communicating with each other, at least not talking to each other. But consciously or unconsciously they seemed to be heading in the same direction. It became clearer when at a junction all of them, without exception, left the main road and turned into a side street. The fact that there were not many ‘regular’ people on that street increased my unease. It dawned on me that I had only seen the creatures’ backs till now. What did they look like after being hijacked by their new garb? Did they even have faces? What if they were hollow men like the famous Invisible Man? While curiosity drew me towards them, fear pulled me back and kept me at a distance. For a moment I feared that, unbeknown to me, a coat had fallen on my shoulders and I had already turned into one of them. I checked my clothes and was reassured that they were my own. Thank God I had not lost the ability to judge.

  Soon the flock—for that was how they began to appear to me—moved en masse into another side street, a quiet street lined by trees and slumbering houses. I realized that the flock had by now detached itself completely from the crowd; it was just they and I. If they had turned around and attacked me I would have had no means of escape. And yet I continued to follow them. Evening was setting in. Street lights were few and far between. Darkness descended from the trees and brought a chill with it.

  As I had suspected, they all had the same destination. I saw them disappear through a gate at the end of the street. I was alone in the street with only the darkness and the cold as companions. Something inside me urged me on, and with heavy steps I moved towards the gate.

  A board at the gate said: OUR PLACE. There were more words on the sign but they were in a script not known to me.

  There was nothing to indicate if this ‘our place’ was a club or a restaurant or a private house. Perhaps the place was owned by a group. That, however, did not automatically imply that others were barred. A private place could still give admittance to others, but not a place that was exclusive. There is a difference between privacy and exclusiveness. With which of these descriptions can we qualify the condition of a man inside a coat, a borrowed one, for that matter? Perhaps the two long lines below the words OUR PLACE held the key to all such questions. But it was in an unknown language. If the objective was to deny entry to those who did not belong, it was foolish to use a language known only to the insiders. Come to think of it, the practice is not that uncommon to exclusivenesses. To deny and to do so in a language known only to the ‘included’.

  In that moment, the tailor came to my mind with his language of metaphors. I realized that all along this journey my mind had been occupied with the dresses made by him and not his words, cryptic though they had been. To me, those dresses were no longer the beautiful objects I had admired earlier, but objects of fear. Thinking back on his words, they too appeared to have lost their poetry—they sounded merely ominous to me now. Those words and dresses had taken me to a place shrouded in darkness, silence and unknown languages. There was no way to relate the situation around me to art, a subject on which the man had had long discourses with me. The one concrete object before me at that moment was a gate and the tough question I faced was whether to enter or not. Perhaps it would be right to say that all kinds of philosophies, revelations, art and, who knows, literature too present such a gate before man at one time or another.

  The dilemma solved itself. A gatekeeper appeared from nowhere and bowed and made a welcoming gesture. I stepped in.

  The narrow pathway led me to a fairly large lawn where a number of people had gathered and seemed to be engaged in pleasant conversation. Some were seated around tables playing chess or cards. Some were getting drinks from the bar. Couples held each other intimately, occasionally indulging in long embraces and kisses. Several fires had been lit around the garden for the comfort of the guests. To my amazement, none among them wore the tailor’s clothes that I had been pursuing.

  Noticing me standing apart, someone approached and invited me for a game or a drink. I excused myself politely. I could not tell him what I was looking for. It was certainly not easy to explain my endeavour. Nor was I in a mood for conversation. I had only anxiety and confusion to share. I had not spoken to anyone since I had left the tailor’s shop. This ‘our place’, whoever it belonged to, was not mine.

  Providentially, a man appeared by my side who seemed to understand my predicament. ‘Come with me, I will take you where you want to go,’ he said cryptically. He led me to one side of the lawn and I followed him obediently, no longer questioning how he knew where I wanted to go. I found that there was yet another gate hidden behind the shrubs. The new gate too had a board: OUR OWN PLACE. As on the previous one, this too had a few lines underneath in what appeared to be the same unknown language.

  As we went through, it became clear that the man was right. The tailor’s flock was all there. And they were the only ones present. I was wary this time and did not go closer. I positioned myself close to the gate. From there I could finally see their faces. Contrary to my fears, they did have bodies and faces inside their clothes; individual faces, each different from the other. Nevertheless, I knew that they were different from all other people, those outside these gates, a knowledge perhaps only I had. I was not proud of that knowledge; it disturbed me.

  Contrary to the theories of exclusiveness, entry to this second group appeared more relaxed than the first one. There was no doorman. It was strange, regulation becoming easier as the exclusiveness increased. But, somehow, the air of freedom and congeniality weighed heavily on me. As if this apparent casualness was a precursor to a greater danger. I unconsciously gripped the bars of the gate for comfort as I stood in my hidden niche.

  ‘Our own place’ was, as might be expected, a smaller place than ‘our place’. There was a high stone wall around it and a roof covered the whole area with the exception of a circle in the centre that was left uncovered.

  There were not many lamps in ‘our own place’. The main sources of light were the small bonfires scattered over the whole area. The shadows only added to the eeriness. The fires also did nothing to check the cold that seemed to be rising rapidly.

  Dispelling my initial assumptions, the people I had thought of as loners were talking to each other. They were shaking hands, smiling, embracing. These people who had had different homes, different pasts and histories not so long ago, seemed to have shaken off those lives at the command of a coat or a kurta to become entirely new beings. But upon closer observation, I found that their friendliness and familiarity were very superficial, mechanical. Their laughter rang hollow and insincere. Their compliments were ritualistic.

  There was ritualism in whatever they did. They filled their glasses but made no attempt to drink from them; instead, they moved to the fireplace only to pour the drink slowly into the fire like an offering. The fire at the open central area was bigger in size; I soon realized it was in fact a barbecue pit. There was an iron bar above the fire with hooks for hanging the meat. Hungry flames shot up intermittently from the fire only to retreat, finding no flesh to feed on.

  There were no waiters or servants here. Everyone helped themselves to the drinks. There was no evidence of any food.

  There was a sudden commotion, a flurry of movement and everyone gathered around the central fire. As the noise settled they all raised their right hand in the air and placed the left on the chest and uttered a kind of litany several times in unison. At the end of it one person came forward and addressed all the others. ‘It is now time to decide,’ he said, ‘who will host today’s par
ty. Those who wish to volunteer, please take off your clothes and step forward.’

  Instead of the one or two I expected, each and every one in the assembly began to remove their clothes in response. It seemed like yet another flock-behaviour, perhaps the only way they knew. They tore off their clothes as if no one wanted to be left behind in the race. In a matter of moments, everyone in the assembly was stark naked except the master of ceremonies. The tailor’s call had been to clothe the naked, but the master of ceremonies seemed intent on undoing his work. Unashamed, or perhaps unconscious of their nakedness, all of them stood, men and women.

  Having by now got used to surprises, I just stood there. My eyes inadvertently explored them as if to satisfy myself that their bodies, though created by the tailor’s clothes, were, in fact, human. Hands, legs, breasts, buttocks and genitals; thin, fat, dark, fair, brown … yes, they looked human. Yet I knew that they were not their original selves. It was perhaps too much to expect them to revert just because they had shed their garb. The present denudation, however, gave them an orphaned look as if they had no identity other than what the clothes had given them. In their hurry to take off the clothes, some had dropped their drinks, but they made no attempt to retrieve them now.

  The master of ceremonies did not seem very pleased with their behaviour. He moved through the flock, critically scrutinizing each person with an air of authority like a military officer inspecting a parade. He was the only one still fully dressed in the congregation and seemed to wield power. After walking through the throng a couple of times and inspecting the flock head to foot, he finally picked six persons, three men and three women, and asked them to fall out.

  As the rejected ones went back into their clothes in unquestioning deference to his decision, the selected ones celebrated. They embraced each other, kissed and danced. Soon, as if to further test the limits of my amazement, the six chosen naked bodies, with complete disregard to the large crowd surrounding them, clung to each other and plunged into the throes of a sexual orgy. That was the only time their actions appeared to be completely spontaneous, not programmed or orchestrated, and the rest of the crowd waited impatiently until they collapsed, exhausted and drained.

  The master of ceremonies once again took control and cast the dice for the six. He imperiously pointed to the one who was selected. The remaining five got up, dressed themselves and then hoisted the chosen one over their heads. The crowd cheered, and the chosen one waved to them like a champion in a rally. Imagine my surprise when I got a glimpse of his face; it was none other than the tailor himself!

  What a comeback! I was under the impression that I had been moving away from this man with every step since I left him at the doorway of his shop. Distancing myself from him and following his dresses. But he had been the one leading them—and, as it turned out, leading me too—to this bizarre drama. Now, among the whole assembly wearing his dresses, he alone stood naked. In the end the artist is exposed by his creations and the prophet is unclothed by his followers. My unease grew with every minute. A voice inside my head whispered that I hadn’t seen the end yet and the denouement of the drama was yet to take place.

  The five first-rounders were carrying him around on their shoulders and he continued to wave and cheer in response to the crowd, which seemed to be closing in on him. I grew apprehensive and unknowingly raised my hand and then immediately let it fall.

  Then everything happened very fast. As the formalities got over, some of the people cleared the table which had held the drinks, brought it closer to the fire and arranged it like an improvised altar. They brought a long iron grill and placed it on the table. Instantly the bearers lowered the tailor and placed him over the grill. Did he struggle? Did they apply force? I couldn’t say. The five people, two men and three women, appeared to hold his head, hands and legs down.

  To the accompaniment of the rhythmic clapping of the flock, or perhaps I should say mob, the master of ceremonies appeared with a long knife and slashed it through the neck of the tailor. The body went into violent convulsions, but the helpers held it tight and massaged it from feet upward, as if to squeeze all the blood from the body while the others swiftly held a vessel like the Holy Grail underneath the neck to collect every last drop.

  The tailor’s body became still, so did the skilful fingers that had cut and stitched plain cloth and shaped it into dresses that no longer appeared beautiful to me. The flock, which had been created by his dresses, lifted the body of their father-artist along with the grill to hang it from the hooks of the barbecue. The blazing flames instantly leapt up and began licking at it.

  The bowl with the blood remained on the altar, and the whole assembly lined up before it to dip their spoons in it, partaking in a form of sacrament. They all joined in a prayer: ‘Bread is he to us, wine is he to us. Sacrifices are great. The greatest of all sacrifices is the holy sacrifice.’

  The atmosphere gradually relaxed. The assembly scattered and several filled their glasses with regular drinks, as I now thought of it, once again served from the table. This time they drank it casually without pouring it into the fire. There was little noise and talking till the master of ceremonies cleared his throat and again addressed the gathering. He announced the date for the next party and named the person who would act as the next master of ceremonies. The assembly greeted it with subdued applause. It appeared they had returned to their automaton selves. He then invited the members to the barbecue. Picking up plates, knives and forks they lined up for dinner.

  I stood looking at that silent society gathering around the body of the tailor and cutting chunks of cooked flesh from it. I wouldn’t say I was stunned because to me it now seemed the natural conclusion of the chain of events I had been following. I had been travelling from character to character, story to story, experience to experience, and the area that could be marked as unbelievable was shrinking more and more in my mind. The scene before me was becoming quieter and no one in the gathering was speaking. There were just the clinks and clatter of knives and forks to be heard. Devoid of emotions and humour, closing the doors of communication, a society was restricting itself to the simple act of eating and that too mechanically. When the fat from the body would melt and fall on the burning wood, the fire would splutter and flames would shoot up and the diners would step back. When the flames would subside, they would close in once again.

  I told myself that I must go now. There was nothing more for me here. I did not belong, my clothes were different and the night had advanced considerably. I turned towards the gate.

  It was then that my eyes fell on a book neatly and ceremoniously placed on a table near the gate, like a visitors’ book. It was none other than the one I had seen in the tailor’s shop: The Book of Cutting and Tailoring. There were coat-hooks on the wall behind the table and the tailor’s coat, which may now serve as a holy shroud, was hanging from one of them.

  A hand touched my left shoulder and I jerked around. The master of ceremonies stood before me, the man whom I had seen sinking his knife into the tailor’s neck. We stood face-to-face. I grew pale as his teeth bared in a broad smile.

  ‘Do not be afraid,’ he said, shifting his hand from my left shoulder to the right, as I turned towards him. ‘The rule is that exiting from here requires permission. But since you are a visitor it need not worry you.’

  His words did not reassure me. His hand was still on my shoulder and its weight pressed down so that my right shoulder dipped lower than the left.

  He withdrew it seeing that I was uncomfortable, and summoned another broad smile. My shoulder was still lopsided and he noticed that too. In a poetical tone—reminding me of the tailor—he continued, ‘Our society is certainly a small one, but it is not esoteric. We have our beliefs and discipline, but we do not hide them. No one stopped you at the gates, as you may have noticed. When the declarations of conflicts and wars and calls for sacrifice resound from every rooftop, where is the place for secrecy? Everything becomes open. Everything should be open.
“Our own places” will expand into “our places” and thereafter to all places. The daylight of openness will bring everything out of the darkness. Nothing will remain hidden from man. All the doors will be opened and all mankind will be brought under one roof … This garden welcomes all, and it is spring.’

  That declaration about daylight only increased the feeling of heaviness within me. Unable to even lift my drooping shoulder, I stood frozen. I, however, managed to squeeze out two words: ‘The tailor.’ I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say, but that was all that I could bring out.

  ‘There are tailors and tailors,’ he retorted in a stony voice, the smile vanishing from his face. He too, like the tailor, assumed the voice of a prophet. ‘Some measure the bodies of clients and make coats for them,’ he continued. ‘They are just workers of the trade, who are not able to see beyond the bodies. Others see the souls of people. They break the bodies of the clients and design new ones to suit the souls, and make dresses for them. They are the artists, the creators of society. Strange is this world of clothes, as strange as the world itself.’

  I listened in awe at how easily he shifted from the theories of sacrifice and conflict to the ideology of creation. I could not bear these exercises any more. I lifted my sagging shoulder and gathered courage to frame a full sentence. ‘You killed him,’ I said.

  ‘Sacrifice is not killing, it is worship,’ came his swift reply. ‘There are only devotees in this temple, no killers. Some devotees offer sacrifices during their worship. Some go beyond and offer themselves as a sacrifice. But the sacrifice of all sacrifices is the sacrifice of the God.’