by Kamala Nair
Everything was still and dark, except for Ashoka, which was lit up and inviting, oblivious to the horrors that lurked so near. Something warm and wet was trickling down my leg and pooling in my sandals. Stopping to catch my breath, I stuck my hand under my dress and saw that it was covered in blood.
“Amma! Amma!” I ran toward the front of the house.
Amma was standing by herself on the verandah, her features contorted in anger. “Oh my God, Rakhee—where have you been? I checked your room and you were gone. No one knew where you were. I was worried sick—”
“Amma, I’m dying, I’m dying!”
The anger melted from her face, and the last thing I remember before I fell into the darkness was Amma’s arms cradling me.
Chapter 7
Rain was falling and red shadows smoked across the face of the moon. Lying on Amma’s bed, I felt scrubbed and clean, dressed in an unfamiliar floral gown that covered my feet. Amma was sitting next to me, thumbing through a slim, tattered book—I looked at the title; it was called The Poems of Mirabai. I rubbed my eyes with my fists. Waves of memory ebbed in and out, blurred photographs at the edges of my mind.
Amma washing me as if I were a wounded cub. I heard her crying, “My baby, my baby.”
My body wrenched with nausea, and the sound of vomit splashing into a metal pan.
Sadhana Aunty spooning a bittersweet syrup down my throat.
The fever clinging to my skin.
The stone wall, birdsong, the enchanted garden, running faster than I had ever run before, my hand covered in blood.
The face. That awful face.
I shuddered. Amma put down her book and laid a cool hand across my forehead. You’re safe now. It was all a dream, I said to myself. Just a dream. I repeated it over and over again, and as my chest rose and fell, I willed myself to believe it.
When I could finally sit up in bed, Amma brought me a plate of warm brown rice swimming in watery yogurt, and we had a long talk. She asked me where I had run off to, and I lied, telling her I had gone to the market to buy chocolates and had lost my way. I pushed everything I had really seen and done into the back of my mind and tried to lock it away. She did not ask any questions. She trusted me.
Amma cleared her throat, grew misty-eyed, and told me in a proud voice that I was a woman now. I sobbed with shame and begged her not to tell anyone. How could this be happening to me? In the spring, the school nurse had come into our classroom to talk to the girls about menstruation. I had doodled in my notebook while she spoke, thinking that what she was saying could not possibly apply to me, not for a long time at least. I hadn’t even turned eleven yet. It was all so unfair. Amma tried to reassure me, but I felt miserable. On the outside I looked the same, but on the inside this secret thing bloomed, dirty and unwanted.
“Chee, she looks terrible, Chitra. So pale,” said Nalini Aunty the next morning, drawing each of my eyelids up, one by one, with her index finger, and clicking her tongue in disapproval.
I glanced at Amma, my stomach turning over. Did Nalini Aunty know? Had Amma told her? Did they all know?
“I am glad you are feeling better, Rakhee,” said Krishna, squeezing my hand, and giving me an understanding smile. The sweetness of Krishna’s smile relaxed me, and for a moment I wanted to take her aside and confess everything. I knew now it was not a dream, that the creature in the forest was all too real. I kept seeing its monstrous face in my mind. The harder I tried to forget it, the more it plagued me. What on earth was it and what was it doing in that garden? It couldn’t be human.
At first I had tried to convince myself it was just a gardener I had seen and the light had been playing tricks with my eyes, but deep down I knew this was not the case. If there was nothing wrong with the garden, if it was simply tended to by a regular human gardener, why would the door be locked, and why would Amma and Sadhana Aunty be hiding it? Perhaps the creature that haunted the garden was magical. I never would have believed it before, but in Malanad anything was possible. It was not like Plainfield, where life was dull but at least made sense. I wanted to unload this burden onto someone else, I wanted to get Krishna’s opinion, but if I told her, how would she react? She might think I was crazy and not want to be friends anymore. Or she might tell someone I had disobeyed the rules, and then I would be in huge trouble. How did I know that I could really trust Krishna? I couldn’t risk it. I had to keep my discovery to myself.
It was Muthashi’s birthday, so we were all going to the temple for a pooja. At first Amma thought we should stay at home while the others went ahead. “Why don’t you rest today?” she said.
But I insisted that we go. My ordeal had left me flushed with an unusual energy, and I hated the thought of being left out because of my new womanly status. I was determined that nothing would change. I wouldn’t let it.
Muthashi paced around the front yard in a circle, a light wind agitating her sari and causing the delicate white fabric to tremble. She loved going to the temple.
We wound our way through the village—Amma and Sadhana Aunty on either side of Muthashi, holding on to her arms to keep her steady, with Nalini Aunty, Balu, and Gitanjali following closely behind. I ran up ahead with Krishna and Meenu. We had to cut through a paddy field, still soggy from the previous night’s rain, and I could feel my sandals sinking into the earth, and a muddy paste coating my toes. Frothy clouds of mosquitoes, drawn out by the wetness, swarmed around us, and Krishna, Meenu, and I waved our hands around to drive them away from our freshly shampooed hair. All around us, the quenched vegetation swelled and brightened with renewed vigor. A ruddy cow was grazing in the field, and it lifted its head to watch us pass, stone-faced. An old brown dog with a weathered muzzle strained against his rope and barked into the morning’s stillness. As we passed, he raised his lip to snarl, revealing sparsely toothed black gums.
A dirt road shaded by stiff trees led us to the wroughtiron temple gates. Sandals were heaped at the entrance. Everyone took off their shoes and tossed them onto the pile. I glanced at Amma and she nodded, so I slipped mine off as well, and stepped into the temple courtyard, feeling vulnerable. The stones beneath my feet were sharp and I cringed. No one else seemed to be bothered, so I put on a brave face and began to follow Krishna and Meenu in toward the altar, which housed the goddess’s shrine. Amma seized my hand and held me back.
“No, Rakhee, you can’t go inside. We are going to wait out here.”
“Why can’t I go in?”
Amma looked at me. “Because women with their periods are not allowed inside the temple. It’s considered unclean.”
I jerked away. My chest tightened, and I could feel my cheeks growing hot. Amma took my hand again, this time gently. Her eyes were sympathetic, as if we now shared some unpleasant bond.
“I’m sorry, molay, I know it seems unfair, but it’s the tradition and we must obey it, right? We’ll come back to the temple again soon, I promise. Come, let’s walk around the courtyard.” She guided me away. I wondered if my cousins would notice I was gone and figure out the reason. My face burned at the thought.
“This temple was built over four hundred years ago, by our ancestors—can you believe it?” Amma’s voice was bright.
“Really?” I was interested in spite of myself.
Amma told me about our ancestors—two young princesses from Rajasthan, a state in the north of India, who had fled their kingdom amid a brutal war and made a pilgrimage south, eventually settling in Malanad. “Our family has been around here for centuries,” she said.
“So, that makes us sort of princesses?”
“Yes,” said Amma, and we both giggled. “I suppose it does.”
We stepped around the particularly rough stones, and Amma pointed out a tree whose leafy, scarlet-tinged branches grew over the temple wall.
“Do you remember what this tree is called?”
“An Ashoka tree.”
“Yes, very good. It’s a special tree, Rakhee. It’s dedicated to Kama Deva, the God of Love
. Legend says that it has the power to grant wishes.”
As we moved closer to the tree, an exquisite scent enveloped us.
“I used to believe that as long as you could smell the fragrance of its flowers, you would forget all your sorrows.” Amma’s eyes shone, and I felt for a fleeting second that she was only standing there in body, but her spirit had galloped off.
Jealously, I pulled her back to me. “Is it a magic tree, then?”
Amma shivered. “In a sense. Remember when I read you the Ramayana, the story of Rama and Sita?”
I nodded.
“Well, Rama and Sita were bound together by a great love, and even though they had been banished to live as exiles in the forest, they were happy. But Ravana, the evil demon king, was envious of their love, so he plotted to kidnap Sita. He sent his henchman, Maricha, into the forest. Maricha transformed into a beautiful golden deer. When Sita saw the deer, she begged Rama to go after it and bring it back to her. Leaving her under the protection of his brother Lakshmana, Rama left to pursue the golden deer. After leading Rama deep into the forest, the deer, who was actually Maricha in disguise, began to cry out in a human voice so that Sita would hear and think her husband was in trouble. Sita pleaded with Lakshmana to go into the forest to save Rama. He agreed only under the condition that Sita stay inside a magical circle of protection he drew around her. As long as Sita stayed within this circle, nothing could touch her and she would be safe. As soon as Lakshmana was gone, though, Ravana, the demon king, approached Sita disguised as a thirsty beggar, and he asked her to serve him some water. She took pity on him and stepped out of the circle. Ravana turned back into his demon self and dragged her across the sea into Lanka. He kept her imprisoned inside a heavenly garden, guarded by Rakshasis, and she sat there under the Ashoka tree for months and months, dreaming about Rama, waiting for him to rescue her.”
“And did he?”
But Amma wasn’t paying attention to me anymore. She was staring at a plant rising out of a waist-high earthen pot with intricate pictures carved into the sides. The plant had fine, green leaves shaped like teardrops, branching out in several directions from a single central stalk.
“Amma, what is it?”
She drew in a long breath and said, “It is the tulasi plant, Rakhee. The most holy plant in Hinduism. It can heal both the body and the mind.”
We lingered in front of the tulasi plant. Birds sang pleasantly in the trees. I could hear a woman’s deep, discordant voice chanting and a bell ringing. The fog of incense curled out and tickled the tip of my nose.
“Rakhee, you know that man who you met the other day—Prem?” Amma said suddenly.
I kept my eyes glued to the plant and did not say anything.
“Well, I would really like it if you could be nice to him and get to know him. He’s a very good childhood friend, just like Veena Aunty back in Plainfield.”
Without warning, homesickness struck—a giant lump that rose at the back of my throat, making it hard to swallow. I wanted my dog, my house, my father. I wanted us to all be together again. I turned to the Ashoka tree and prayed to the red flowers that if they could make that one wish come true, I promised to be happy and not ever complain.
Putting on a play was Meenu’s idea. It seemed like a good plan at the time. We were bored and groggy, piled on top of the bed in front of the television, our stomachs full from Muthashi’s birthday dinner, watching some melodramatic Malayalam movie.
Even though the sun had set, the heat was unbearable, and we fought for the spot directly under the ceiling fan. I didn’t like the nights much, when mosquitoes infiltrated the house and moths singed themselves against the wincing blue tube lights.
“All we need is a story,” said Meenu, who had predictably won the struggle for best spot on the bed, and lay between me and Krishna, the wisps of hair that gathered around her forehead quivering in the wind like insect legs.
It seemed only natural to me that we should act out the story Amma had told me earlier that day. The scene had all the elements of a great play—love, fear, war, suspense. And I knew which part I wanted. Sita—beautiful, tragic Sita, with her flowing black hair, waiting under the Ashoka tree for her love.
“Well, I’ll be Rama, since I’m the biggest, strongest, and bravest,” said Meenu, immediately taking charge.
“Can I be Sita?” I heard myself say, unsure of from where I had drawn such courage.
“You can’t be Sita, Rakhee,” Meenu said bluntly.
“Why not?”
“Sita doesn’t wear glasses, and—besides, how can you be an Indian princess? You’re not even fully Indian. Can you imagine Sita with an American accent?” She let out a scornful laugh. Blood rushed to my face. For the first time it struck me that even to my cousins, whom I had grown to love, I would always be different. I would never be one of them. “It’s settled, then,” Meenu said. “Sita will be played by Krishna, and Rakhee, you will play Ravana, the evil demon king.”
Krishna glanced at me and shrugged.
Sadhana Aunty stuck her head in the doorway and ordered everyone to bed, the stern lines of her face warning us against any attempts at protesting.
“Rehearsals will start tomorrow,” said Meenu. “You are all dismissed.”
I could not sleep. I kept thinking about everything that was happening, feeling more alone than I ever had before. I was afraid, with only a thin sheet and a stretch of trees separating me from the thing in the forest. Those eyes and that face kept blazing across the backs of my eyelids every time I tried to close them. I wanted to ask Amma about it, to confess my fears, but she seemed very far away from me, altered somehow, as if this place had possessed her and left behind only a pearly husk.
Amma knew about the creature in the forest. Amma had visited the creature in the forest, but she was not doing anything about it. And she wanted me to ignore it.
I lay on my back, listening to a June bug clicking its wings on the sill. Moonlight streamed in through the window bars. On the ceiling directly above my head, a lizard spread its fat green thumbs across the crumbling plaster.
Something wasn’t right. I began to wonder, deliriously, if whatever I had seen really was a Rakshasi, and the Rakshasi was guarding an imprisoned princess, like Sita.
My mind raced back to that moment, the moment when I had screamed and fled from the garden door. I had been so preoccupied with my own fear, I had not even considered what I heard coming from the other side of the door—screams, just like mine. Not evil, but scared. Someone on the other side of the door had been just as frightened as me.
My throat was parched as sandpaper. Water, I needed water.
I climbed out of bed, put on my glasses, and, gripping my flashlight, tiptoed out of the room and down the hall. Light was coming from under the sitting room door, and I heard voices on the other side. As I got closer, I saw that the door was ajar, so I turned off my flashlight and flattened myself against the wall to listen.
“There is simply no more money,” Vijay Uncle was saying. “We have no choice but to sell.”
“Never,” said Sadhana Aunty. “The hospital will never be in anybody’s name but ours.”
“Well, what do you suggest we do, then?” Vijay Uncle sounded frustrated. “Tell everyone the truth?”
“Vijay, don’t talk like that, don’t be ridiculous. If our father could only hear you now. Think of what he sacrificed for the sake of that hospital, to fulfill his duty to his people, to this village. We made a promise to him, and we can’t let him down. Nothing is more important than honoring his wishes and upholding the Varma name. Nothing. Long after we are all dead and gone, people will still revere and respect our name. I’ll die before I see it dirtied.”
“Time is running out—Dev is breathing down my neck,” said Vijay Uncle.
“We’ll have to figure something out,” Sadhana Aunty said. “We need just a little more time to think.”
“This is all my fault.” Amma’s voice was shaky.
&nbs
p; Sadhana Aunty sighed, either with sympathy or impatience, I couldn’t tell. “Don’t cry now, Chitra. Tears will not help the situation. Let me get you some water.”
I sprinted back down the hall and leaped into bed before anyone saw me. I lay on my side, panting for air, marveling at my luck at not having been caught.
I had become alarmingly good at secrecy.
Chapter 8
Meenu spent the next morning writing out a script for our play in a battered old composition book. After lunch she assembled Krishna and me, both stuck indoors by the steady afternoon downpour, on the verandah to rehearse. We were like puppets, flimsy and bendable to her will, woodenly reading out our lines and moving wherever she pointed her finger.
Amma had one of her headaches and was resting in her bedroom. I desperately hoped that the separation from Aba was taking its toll, and that soon she would forget this Prem person and realize this had all been a big mistake.
“What’s the matter with you, Rakhee? Pay attention!” said Meenu.
As the rehearsal wore on, my ability to concentrate waned. I had trouble focusing on anything but the conversation I had overheard the night before. I had spent all night awake, thinking. What had Amma done to cause the family the trouble it was in? And where did Dev fit into all of this? Perhaps it had something to do with whatever Amma was hiding from Aba.
“Rakhee, this is the part where you show up as the thirsty beggar,” Meenu said. “If you are not going to be serious about this play, then perhaps we should find another Ravana.” She placed her hands on her hips and fixed me with a petulant stare.
A volt of irritation shot through me. “Fine, then, maybe you should!” I stormed off to my room, sat on my bed, and folded my arms across my chest. An ugly black crow was perched on the windowsill, his feathers slick as an oil puddle. We glared at each other for a moment before he cawed and took off into the rain, beating his wings and disappearing into the forest.
