The Trickster

by Vinaya Bhagat

  ‘I wish these were not the circumstances under which we met. I always dreamed that one day, Manu would come with you. Every year I asked, his reply was the same.’

  Diya assumed that her father had refused to introduce his family to his father.

  ‘I lived in the hope that he would keep his promise.’

  She wondered if her father had promised to bring her along; was it an empty promise or did he intend to keep it someday?

  ‘Don’t take me wrong, I am delighted to meet you. But I wish for status quo. I wish that Manu had continued to visit me. But he is dead and I am still alive. Those who sin have to live longer so they can repent; tears do not absolve us of our crimes.’

  Baba’s voice choked and tears flowed down his cheeks. The grooves and crannies on his face that had deepened when he laughed now channelled his grief.

  Diya turned away, unable to look at the broken old man.

  ‘I am alive and they are dead. I should have been the one to rot in hell, and yet here I am, fit and healthy, nothing whatsoever wrong with me.’ Baba pounded his chest with a clenched fist. ‘I wish I were dead. I wish I had the chance to save Manu.’

  Tears ran down Diya’s face; her raw wounds reopened at the unexpected contact with her grandfather’s grief.

  ‘First Manu, and now, you are paying for my sins while I live with no end in sight. Maybe that is my punishment – to see your grief and live with the knowledge that I am responsible.’

  Sunny patted the old man’s back and murmured words of comfort. Under Sunny’s attention, Baba calmed down.

  ‘Will you come and meet me again?’ Baba asked.

  ‘I will come tomorrow,’ Diya promised.

  ‘Did you find out the truth?’ Ronnie asked when Diya climbed on the bike behind him.

  ‘The truth is always mundane.’

  Diya sighed and rested her head on Ronnie’s broad shoulder, struggling to cope with the first hint of unbearable sorrow hidden behind the mundane truth.

  Ronnie did not press her; instead, he held her hand close to his chest in silent support.

  THE REAL TRICKSTER

  T

  he next day, Diya returned to prison with Ronnie. It was clear that Baba had taken efforts to look presentable. His face was clean shaven; his mane of thick grey hair was neatly trimmed and held in place with generous application of hair oil. There was no sign of the grief she had left him with the previous day.

  ‘You must be Ronnie,’ Baba said.

  ‘How did you know?’ Ronnie asked.

  ‘Don’t tell me you have not looked in a mirror lately.’

  ‘Yeah, I know I am the spitting image of my father, just taller. I hope I age better though,’ Ronnie said.

  ‘You should be proud of your father. That man has a heart of gold. He is a kind, loyal and decent man. You should be proud of him!’

  Once again, Baba looked on the verge of tears.

  ‘I got some books for you.’ Diya changed the subject. She fished out two new paperbacks she had bought at Boston airport from her bag and handed them over to her grandfather.

  Baba peered at the titles, ruffled the pages, and smelled them. ‘I like the smell of new books.’ He gave her a gap-toothed smile.

  ‘I hope they let you keep the books,’ Diya said.

  ‘They are not bothered about books. I have a small collection in my cell. I can’t build a ladder out of them and run away, can I? Anyway, everyone knows I won’t run away. I am happy and safe here; outside I would be begging on streets or worse …’

  ‘I am glad. I’ll get more books the next time I come.’ Diya pretended not to have heard the second part about begging. She was vividly reminded of the old man who had begged for alms at the airport, the one who was so bent that his head almost touched his knees.

  ‘Manu always got books for me,’ Baba said. ‘That was his only concession. I know he never forgave me. How could he?’

  ‘Yesterday you told me that you were in jail for embezzling money.’

  ‘Sunny said that. He is a kind man.’

  ‘But that is not the truth,’ Diya said.

  ‘No, my crime is not that insignificant.’

  ‘I know about the blue bungalow,’ Diya said. Baba looked up at her in surprise.

  ‘Yes, the blue bungalow,’ he sighed. ‘How do you know about it?’

  ‘Father once told me a story about a supernatural creature, a monster called Chakwa, who lived in the blue bungalow at the end of the lane.’

  ‘Yes, the Chakwa, the master trickster.’

  ‘He also told me that he and Uncle Sunny were responsible for the Chakwa’s downfall.’

  The old man froze, as monstrous memories clouded his head.

  ‘He told me about the day the neighbourhood kids saw the Chakwa’s footsteps coming out of the blue bungalow. He said that he and Uncle Sunny went inside the house and found the body of Mrs Mishra who had disappeared a month ago.’

  Baba looked like he had seen a ghost.

  Diya felt mean for reminding the old man of his crimes, but she needed to know the truth. Then she could move on in life. ‘Mrs Mishra was your wife …’

  ‘Yes, her name was Nayantara Mishra,’ Baba admitted. ‘You have her eyes.’

  Against her wish, Diya felt a wave of pity for her grandfather.

  ‘Manu was right to feel that I tricked them. Nayan and I fell in love when we were in college. Her family was against the match so we eloped. I promised I would take care of her but I betrayed her and Manu. I don’t expect you to believe me, but I loved Nayan and Manu more than anything in the world.’

  Professor Mishra’s breath rattled as he gulped for air.

  ‘So the Chakwa my father told me about was you.’

  ‘Diya …’ Ronnie whispered. ‘I think you should stop now.’

  Diya shook her head; she had to know.

  ‘I was drinking a lot and we were having more fights. That night, when I came home, Nayan threatened to take Manu and leave me if I didn’t stop drinking. I was furious. I pushed her and she pushed me back. One thing led to another and before I knew it, my hands were around her throat.’

  Professor Mishra stared at his hands; decades had passed, but he could not believe what his hands had done. He had never told anyone the details, not even Sunny, but he felt the need to confess. Maybe if he confessed to Diya who bore a piece of Nayan’s soul, he could atone for his crimes and keep Diya safe.

  ‘I was just trying to scare her. I must have passed out because when I woke up, it was past midnight. Nayan was lying on the mat in the living room. She was still and …’

  Professor Mishra looked away unable to face the accusation in Diya’s beautiful luminous eyes, his Nayan’s eyes.

  ‘I panicked,’ he said, looking into Diya’s eyes, hoping Nayan would see his repentant face.

  ‘I rolled the mat around Nayan and carried her to the blue bungalow. I knew no one would think of looking for her there. The next day, I told everyone she had gone to visit her sick mother.’

  Was he making a mistake by burdening the poor child with his confession and the gory details of his crime? But he needed her forgiveness, and through her, that of Nayan’s.

  ‘I didn’t care what other people said. I was only worried that Manu would not believe me, but he did. I spent more time with him, showered him with gifts to compensate for my guilt. I believed we could go on like that, Manu and I, in our fragile bubble of manufactured joy.’

  Diya looked shocked, but there was still no judgment in those eyes and he felt compelled to go on.

  ‘One day, I went to check on Nayan and see if I could bury her; but her body was too far gone. I could not bring myself to touch her. I ran back home like a coward. The children found the footprints and as my luck would have it, Manu and Sunny were the ones who found her. Not only did I kill Nayan, but because of my cowardice, Manu was forced to see his mother like that. Now they are both gone and I am still alive, taking up space in this world, polluting it w
ith my sinful breaths.”

  ‘Every single day of my life, I wish I had not lost control. Sometimes I wonder what was worse for Manu, losing his mother or finding out that I had killed her.’

  ‘I think the betrayal was the worst,’ Diya said.

  She could understand why her father had used the metaphor of a childhood monster. The truth was too painful – his father had murdered his mother.

  ‘So you are the Chakwa.’ Diya felt sick that she was making her grandfather relive those memories, but she had no other choice.

  ‘Yes, and I have only myself to blame.’

  Professor Mishra put his head down on the rough wooden table and succumbed to his grief and guilt. The rickety wooden table creaked with the old man’s violent sobs.

  Like his father yesterday, Ronnie patted the old man’s back and spoke soft words of comfort.

  ‘Do you think you can forgive me?’ Professor Mishra asked. ‘If not completely, at least enough not to break all ties with me? Visit me, dear child, as long as you are here, and when you come back.’

  He looked at Diya, unsure of his granddaughter’s reaction. The girl had not spoken much, and in the flow of grief, he had not noticed it. Had he made a mistake by unburdening himself and heaping more grief on an already mourning child?

  But she surprised him.

  ‘Yes, I promise I will visit,’ Diya said.

  ‘How long are you planning to stay in India?’ he asked. ‘As you know, you can visit only two days a week, and we have so many things to talk about.’ He tried to smile.

  ‘I am not in any hurry to go back,’ she said. ‘I still have to find my mother’s family.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about them?’ he asked.

  ‘No, my mother told me that her family died in an accident when she was away at college. Grandma Elizabeth thinks her family may have broken ties with her because she married Father.’

  The old man nodded. ‘Yes, that might be true; no one would approve of their daughter marrying a murderer’s son.’

  ‘So you think that they may be alive?’

  ‘That is a possibility, yes. I am sorry I don’t know anything about them. I am sure your mother had a reason for not wanting you to meet her family.’

  ‘But …’ Diya protested.

  The old man put his hand up. ‘Hear me out, Diya,’ he said. ‘Now that you have met me, against your father’s wishes, don’t you think it is wiser to let the past remain in the shroud of ignorance? Aren’t you revolted that your grandfather is a killer? Wouldn’t you have been happier if this part of your family history had remained a mystery?’

  ‘No, I do not regret meeting you. I think truth is always liberating. Why hide from it and pretend things were different? It’s better to deal with the truth, however mundane and painful, than live in ignorant fear,’ Diya said.

  ‘There is that, there is that,’ the old man nodded. ‘In that case, Diya, I promise I will do my best to find out about your mother’s family.’

  Baba tucked Meera’s photograph and the packet of chewing gum Ronnie gave him under his tunic.

  ‘Just to confirm, the supernatural creature called Chakwa does not exist? It was something Uncle Manu made up?’ Ronnie asked.

  ‘The Chakwa is an old mountain myth born from man’s primal fear of the unknown. These foggy mountains are excellent breeding grounds for such superstitions. I told Manu that the Chakwa lived in the blue bungalow to keep him out of the derelict old house. It’s only a myth used to warn children against the dangers of lonely places and strangers,’ Baba said.

  Grief settled on Diya’s heart like a heavy boulder, threatening to once again drag her into the dark depths of depression.

  Ronnie held her hand and she clung to him – her ray of hope.

  ANTS ON MY ARMS

  T

  he ants came again that night. Shrouded in the fog of slumber, he did not become aware of them until they had climbed up his arms. He had been dreaming of ice cream – strawberry, Manu’s favourite.

  On Manu’s tenth birthday, Nayan had bought him ice cream. When he came back, Nayan and Manu were sitting on the front steps, licking the fast-melting mounds.

  As always, Manu ran to him and leaped into his arms, sticky hands and all.

  He had wiped the stains from his hands with a corner of Nayan’s sari.

  ‘I will get you a new one,’ he had promised.

  She had laughed and wiped his cheeks, sticky with Manu’s ice cream kisses.

  Despite wiping his hands with her sari, they must have remained sticky. He wondered if the remains of the ice cream on his hands attracted the ants.

  But he knew that was not the truth, the ants always wanted blood.

  His.

  From his arms, the ants crawled over his body until he was smothered under the ravenous moving blanket. He woke up only when they had gnawed him open with their razor-sharp jaws.

  After decades of practice, most of his nights were free of ants. When they did manage to invade, he was able to shake them off before they crawled up his arms.

  On those nights, sleep evaded him.

  Whenever he had tried to count numbers to help him sleep, they had turned into big black ants, jaws agape, marching towards him.

  Once he had read in a book that claimed ants were only harmless pests. There were other, far more dangerous, animals in the world that could kill you with a mere bite or sting.

  It said the box jellyfish was the most lethal creature known to mankind. If you were unfortunate enough to be bitten by one, by the time you realized you had been stung, millions of its tiny harpoons would have deposited their venomous cargo in your body. In the few minutes before you succumbed to the poison, it would drive you mad with excruciating pain.

  He had thrown away the book in disgust, disappointed that the words and photographs evoked no fear in him while even the thought of a small black ant paralyzed him with dread.

  Events of that night were still fuzzy in his mind. He remembered coming home early that day.

  Usually after the lecture was over, his students flocked around him, hanging on to his every word as he explained the finer points of Shakespeare’s sonnets, or debated the moral dilemmas at the heart of R.K. Narayan’s The Guide.

  But that day, he had escaped as soon as the lecture ended. He could not face his student’s adulation; despite which he had been denied a promotion. This had happened four years in a row and he had grown despondent. He was afraid he would always be the outsider upstart bypassed for promotion, only to be given his dues after he was sufficiently humiliated.

  Nayan had guessed the reason for his frustration. She had cooked his favourite dishes and kept Manu out of his way, but he had still lashed out at them in frustration.

  After dinner, when Manu was asleep and Nayan was in the kitchen, he had escaped to the blue bungalow where he hid his liquor cache.

  He remembered sitting on the dusty stairs with a bottle in hand, but he did not remember when or how he went back home.

  The next thing he remembered was Nayan telling him that she could no longer live with him. That for Manu’s sake she had decided to leave him and go back to her parents.

  All the frustrations that had been building up within him came to a boil. He could live with the world conspiring against him and denying him his due, but Nayan’s threat to leave him and take Manu away from him was the ultimate betrayal.

  He tried to reason with her — at least he thought he did — but maybe that was just a convenient memory.

  In desperation, he threatened her, hoping she would be scared, but she did not back down.

  He remembered the feel of Nayan’s soft throat, the same warm throat he had kissed in passion, but he did not remember squeezing it.

  He must have passed out because when he woke up, Nayan was lying on the rug. He was terrified that his son would see his mother’s body, so he rolled the rug around Nayan and carried her to the blue bungalow. He had deposited her body there and hurri
ed home before it dawned and the neighbourhood busybodies woke up.

  When Manu asked about his mother, he lied that she had left the previous night to take care of her sick mother.

  ‘Why didn’t she take me?’ Manu was puzzled.

  ‘You have exams, she told me to remind you to study.’

  He was surprised that Manu believed his flimsy lie.

  He showered Manu with love and attention and always kept an upbeat atmosphere in the house. He tried his best to make up for Nayan’s absence.

  Unless Manu asked, he refrained from mentioning Nayan, though there was not a moment when he did not think of her.

  As his panic subsided, another fear gripped him.

  What if Nayan was not dead, but only unconscious? She might be lying helplessly in that dirty old house, in need of medical attention.

  He had tried to return to the blue bungalow twice, but someone was always about and he was forced to turn back. When he finally went, Nayan was beyond help.

  He could never shake off the doubt that Nayan was alive when he had abandoned her in that horrible house to a fate worse than death: To be devoured alive by the ants.

  He had destroyed the only two people he loved and both of them had died painful deaths while he was comfortably alive.

  Sometimes he willed himself to imagine that he was lying on the floor with ants clinging to his flesh until he too was reduced to a pile of bones, but he could not even bear imaginary pain. Despite his desire for atonement, he was nothing but a coward.

  His son had paid for his sins with life.

  Karma!

  Maybe if he had killed himself, Manu would still be alive.

  Professor Mishra sat up. He knew sleep was out of the question. Usually he tried not to think of the past, but since meeting Diya, he was unable to stop thinking of his beloved Nayan.

  At first, he and Nayan were giddy with happiness, but soon the weight of responsibilities and frustrations smothered him; in desperation he turned to alcohol. He believed it was a way to de-stress. He always thought he was in control of his drinking, that he was not an addict.