by Kamala Nair
“What’s a yekshi?” I asked.
“A yekshi”—Meenu gave me a penetrating stare, and I could feel Krishna begin to tremble beside me—“is a ghost.”
“A ghost,” repeated Krishna with a shudder.
“Her name was Rohini and she lived two hundred years ago,” Meenu began. “There used to be two houses in this field. Rohini lived in one house and another family lived next door, on the other side of the Ashoka tree. They had a son who Rohini was madly in love with. The two families were very close, and soon Rohini and the boy were engaged to be married. But a few days before the wedding, the two fathers quarreled—nobody knows what it was about—and the boy’s father declared that no son of his would ever marry a daughter from his rival’s family, and the wedding was called off.
“Rohini was devastated, but what really broke her heart was that only one month later, the boy was engaged again. She watched him marry this other girl, then bring her home with him, and she had to see them together every day. Finally she couldn’t take it anymore, so one night she threw herself into the well. But that wasn’t the end of the story. She came back as a yekshi and began to haunt the married couple. Terrible things started to happen. The wife was never able to give birth to a live child. The boy’s father died suddenly of a heart attack. The boy got some disfiguring skin disease. Eventually the family left the village, and Rohini’s family was so ashamed that they destroyed both the houses. Only the tree and the old well survived the fire. Rohini’s ghost still guards the well to this day. Some say that if the well were destroyed, so too would be the yekshi, but nobody wants to risk her fury.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said.
“It is true. Every word,” Meenu pronounced. “In fact, they say Rohini was a distant relative of ours.”
This final revelation made Meenu’s story even worse.
“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” I said, but felt myself begin to shiver alongside Krishna. I wanted to be a nonbeliever, I did, but then why was I suddenly so afraid?
“If you really think that there is no ghost, Rakhee, then why don’t you go and see for yourself?” said Meenu.
“What do you mean?”
“If you don’t think there is a yekshi guarding the well, then there is nothing to be afraid of. Go and touch the well, hold your hand there for one minute, then come back and prove us all wrong.”
I took a step forward.
“No,” Krishna whimpered.
Meenu folded her arms across her chest and leaned against the wall.
I took another step and paused. There’s no such thing as ghosts, I reminded myself.
What would Aba think if he saw me, his own daughter, cowering like a baby, when all I had to do was walk across a field and touch some stupid well? I suddenly remembered that day at the beginning of the summer when Meenu and Krishna had told me that a demon woman, a Rakshasi, lived in the forest. They had been so wrong. And if I had listened to them, then I never would have met Tulasi, and she might have been stuck in the garden forever because I would not be there to rescue her.
Meenu and Krishna had been wrong. Or had they? Maybe Tulasi wasn’t a Rakshasi, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a demon living at Ashoka. A blackhearted demon that poisoned everything around it.
I felt myself falter, and as I was about to turn around to face Meenu’s mocking smile, Amma’s voice saved me.
“There you are. Come, girls, it is time to go home.”
The story of the yekshi was not the most chilling thing I heard that evening.
The first thing came after dinner. A celebratory feast had been laid out on the table when we returned to the house. But Dev was the only one who seemed in a celebratory mood, in spite of the fact that Gitanjali had gone straight to bed without even greeting him.
“No m-m-m-matter,” he said with a wave of his hand, when Sadhana Aunty told him he would not be seeing her that night. “All brides are b-b-b-b-bashful.”
We shoveled the food into our mouths in grim silence, punctuated every now and then by a comment from Dev about the wedding or his beautiful young bride.
Prem was there, too, much to Sadhana Aunty’s chagrin, and he kept shooting glowering looks in Dev’s direction. At one point I heard him say “You sick bastard” in a low voice, and Amma placed her hand on his arm and said, “Prem.” Later, as Prem prepared to leave, Amma walked him to the door and I went with her.
“Chitra, we have to act fast,” he said in an urgent, intimate tone, as if I were not standing right there between them.
“I know,” Amma said. “No more wavering, I promise. I’m ready.”
Prem paused, then a slow smile spread across his face. “Good.”
“What are you talking about?” I said loudly.
“Don’t worry about it, molay,” Amma replied, but she did not look at me. She was looking into Prem’s eyes, and they were both smiling.
“Amma, when does Aba get here? Soon, right?”
Neither of them responded.
“Chitra.” Sadhana Aunty’s voice came from the dining room. “What is taking you so long? Please come back in here.”
I heard the second thing in the middle of the night. For what seemed like hours, I lay awake, tossing and turning. The ceiling fan had stopped spinning, and the air was stale and hot. I kicked off the sheet that covered me and lay on top of the mattress, with one arm dangling off the edge and the other arm pressed against my sweating forehead. The white balloon dress was hanging over a chair in the corner of the room, and through my blurred vision it looked like a ghost. I thought about Rohini. The night swirled with familiar sounds—cicadas singing, frogs croaking, owls hooting. I sat up and looked outside, wondering if I could see a light from Tulasi’s cottage glimmering through the trees, but there was only darkness.
She must hate me for not going back. If I had known how impossible it would be to get back to the garden, then I would not have run out like that, without a word of explanation. I put on my glasses, climbed out of bed, and went over to my suitcase, which was leaning against the wall near the door. Bending down, I flipped it open, reached in, and pulled out the portrait of Tulasi. Holding my pocket flashlight over the drawing, I scrutinized the face staring up at me, tracing each line and curve with my finger, as if I were a girl lost in the forest and this was my map. Just looking at the picture filled me with a sense of warmth. The face seemed to say “You are not alone. We are in this together.”
As I crouched in front of my suitcase, I heard a sound that made me freeze. Someone was crying. But the dry, crackling sobs were unfamiliar, and somehow even more horrible and piteous than Amma’s tears. Tucking away Tulasi’s portrait, I opened the door and stood in the hall. It must be Gitanjali, I thought. I walked toward her bedroom; the crying grew louder.
It surprised me that Gitanjali should cry like that, a guttural cry that sounded as if it came from a very old, broken woman. But who else could it be? I kept walking toward the sound, and only when I passed Gitanjali’s door did I realize it was not Gitanjali but Sadhana Aunty who was crying, as if her heart were breaking behind that closed door.
Chapter 21
I searched for traces of grief on Sadhana Aunty’s face in the morning and saw nothing but a cold mask. She had gone back to being the impassive Sadhana Aunty I had met on the verandah when I first arrived at Ashoka.
As I came into the dining room for breakfast, she was in the process of sorting through a heap of gold jewelry spread out across the table.
Nalini Aunty sucked in her breath as she lifted a heavy necklace encrusted with green and pink stones.
“I had no idea we owned all of this,” she said, more to herself than anyone else. “Think what we could sell it for. See how heavy it is? It will drown the poor girl if she wears it.”
“It belonged to our mother,” Sadhana Aunty said without looking up. “It was a wedding gift from our father. All of this is hers—I would never sell it. Neither Chitra nor I had a chance to wear any
of it. It is only right that it should go to her eldest granddaughter on the occasion of her marriage.”
Nalini Aunty sighed and laid the necklace back down on the table.
Watching my aunts fingering the gold and setting aside pieces for Gitanjali, while Amma and Veena Aunty sat on the other end of the table talking softly but not objecting, drove a spike through my insides. This wedding was going to happen. They were really going to force Gitanjali to marry Dev.
I had to get away from that room. I pushed back my chair so that it scraped against the floor and ran out, no longer harboring any delusions that anyone would follow me. I sat on the verandah swing and pumped my legs hard so that it wobbled on its chain. I knew I was pushing it higher than it should have gone, but the breeze on my face created by the vigorous motion soothed me, and the pulsing heat that had rushed to my cheeks began to subside.
My legs grew tired and I stopped pumping. The swing slowed to a sway. I lay down with my knees up in the air and let myself be rocked back and forth like a baby.
My legs, two brown twigs, were covered in a network of angry mosquito bites. I hadn’t even noticed them until now. I pulled my skirt down over my knees and began to hum, willing myself to fall asleep. If I could sleep, then I could escape, at least for a little while.
But sleep would not come. I spent an hour lying with the solid wood of the swing agitating the wings of my shoulder blades, thinking and thinking, my frustration rising with every passing minute. Amma said she had a plan, but she didn’t seem to be in any hurry to put this supposed plan into action. And even Veena Aunty, the one grown-up I had always been able to depend on, was not doing anything. The wedding date was barreling toward Gitanjali like a bullet. Two days, to be exact. I thought of her kohl-dyed tears the previous night, and how they had stained her cheeks the color of night.
The sound of shuffling footsteps disrupted my vision and I sat up. Veena Aunty was hurrying down the verandah steps and across the lawn. I leaped up and followed her, my palms aflame.
“Veena Aunty!”
“Oh, Rakhee, I thought you were asleep. I didn’t want to wake you,” she said, turning around.
“Where are you going?”
Veena Aunty was looking at me with a funny expression on her face. She took a step forward.
“Rakhee, are you okay? Your face is all flushed. You don’t have a fever, do you?” She came closer and pressed a hand across my forehead. I batted it away like a petulant cat.
“I’m fine.”
“Maybe you should go back inside and lie down for a while.”
“I don’t need to lie down. I need you to tell me what the hell is going on!” I added in the word hell for extra emphasis, and it worked, because her mouth fell open.
“Rakhee! Since when have you used language like that?”
“Please, Veena Aunty, stay for a minute. Explain to me why all this happening. I’m sick of it. I deserve to know the truth.”
Veena Aunty’s eyes darted from side to side before they settled upon mine, and their soft brown irises seemed to darken.
“What do you mean by ‘all this’?”
“The wedding, the secrets—everything! Everyone keeps saying I’m too young to understand, but why can’t they just try? I’m not blind.”
Veena Aunty sighed. “I know this is hard on you, Rakhee. I wish there was something I could do or say. But it’s all so complicated. It’s just such a horrible mess.”
“There is something you can do. Try to explain it to me. Maybe I can help.”
“Oh, darling.” Veena Aunty reached out and took my hand, her eyes pools of sadness. “Your mother never should have brought you here. I knew it was a bad idea. I should have insisted. And I’ve been so preoccupied since I’ve been here, I didn’t even stop to think about how confused and scared you must be.”
Veena Aunty glanced around once more before guiding me through the front gate and down the stairs. We sat down together on the bottom step, facing each other with our backs against the stone railing and our knees touching.
“You’re right. You do deserve an explanation. It’s just that I don’t even know where to begin.”
“From the beginning.”
“Let me think.” Wrinkles pleated the space between her brows. “Do you remember that summer when your mother… went away for a while, and I came and stayed with you?”
I nodded.
“So you know that she is, well, troubled. After that… episode, we had things under control. The doctors gave her medicine that helped. But she has stopped taking her medicine recently. I know that you’ve noticed some changes in her. I’ve taken the liberty of telling your father because she wouldn’t do it herself. Hopefully when he gets here he will be able to reason with her. There’s only so much that I can do.”
“But what does this have to do with Dev and Gitanjali?” I asked.
Veena Aunty looked up, as if she were hoping she would find the answers written across the sun-streaked sky.
“I just don’t understand,” I continued, and then I remembered a conversation I had had with Dev, the night he had shook me by the shoulders and called Amma a whore. “Dev said he used to be engaged to Amma. Is that true?”
Veena Aunty’s lips parted and closed again. She was silent for a while before she finally said, “Yes, it’s true. Dev was in love with your mother for a long time. It was sick and selfish, but it was the only way he knew how to love. And I can’t say that I fully blame him. He had it rough as a child.”
I narrowed my eyes. Was Veena Aunty actually defending Dev? “What do you mean?”
“Well, he lived alone with his old widowed mother in a run-down little place a few miles from here, and they were dirt-poor. His mother had him later in life, and her health was not so good—she could never get any work, and his father had left nothing when he died. He had no siblings, no cousins. It wasn’t easy.”
Veena Aunty’s body alternately tensed up and relaxed as she spoke, as if telling this tale was both painful and comforting.
“We’re the same age, Dev and me, and I still remember him as a sickly little thing. Mind you, his stutter was even worse back then. The village kids used to tease him like anything. I wish I could exclude myself from that group, but I’m ashamed to say I did it, too. Me, Vijay, Prem—even Sadhana. Dev used to follow us around everywhere we went in spite of the teasing, hoping one day we might include him. God, I even remember a time when we drove him away from one of our games by throwing stones at him. Only your mother was kind—to his face, at least. Behind his back, she was just as cruel as the rest of us, maybe even more so. She followed him after the stone incident and apologized for our behavior. She comforted him because even though she looked down on him, she still wanted his adoration. Then she came back to our group and laughed at how he had run away like a dog with his tail between his legs. But Dev adored her. She was incredibly beautiful even back then as a child. And Chitra, she liked the attention. Even though we never let him join in our games or adventures, we always knew he was there, watching us, watching her.”
Veena Aunty stopped talking and regarded me uncertainly, as if she realized she had gotten carried away with her story. I urged her on.
“But why would Muthashan have agreed to let Dev marry Amma?”
“I got married and moved to America when I was twenty. Your mother was fifteen at the time, so I wasn’t actually here when—” Veena Aunty paused and I could tell that she was struggling to find the right words. “Let’s just say something… happened. Dev saw something he shouldn’t have seen, and he used that information to his advantage.”
“What do you mean? What did he want? What did he see?”
Veena Aunty ignored my questions. “Dev’s mother had passed on by then, and he had nothing. He confronted Muthashan. He promised not to reveal to anyone what he had seen, but he wanted two things in return—to inherit the hospital and to marry your mother. Your grandfather was an incredibly proud man. He wanted Dev to keep
the secret, so he agreed under the condition that after Dev, the hospital would always remain in the Varma name and that it would never leave the family.”
So Amma’s father had betrayed her to protect some secret? Thinking back to what Vijay Uncle had told me, about Charles Holloway and all that my grandfather had been forced to give up for the sake of his family, the strength of his pride and desire to protect the hospital made some sense. But what could Dev have seen that would be so bad he would sacrifice his own daughter? I felt as if the wind had been knocked out of me, but I needed to know more. “Is that why Amma left?”
“Yes. She was so distraught when she found out about what her father had agreed upon that she ran away. Muthashi helped her escape—made the travel arrangements with me, gave her the money—even though she knew that her husband would be furious and that he might never forgive her. I didn’t know the circumstances until Chitra arrived on my doorstep in Plainfield.”
“But what were the circumstances?”
Veena Aunty continued speaking, as if she hadn’t heard me. “Your mother stayed with us for a few years. Eventually we introduced her to your father. On the outside, they seemed like an unlikely pair. He was older and so accomplished, and she was just this simple village girl. But they were both lonely and… running from painful memories. They stumbled upon each other at the right time. Your father knew that Chitra couldn’t stay with us indefinitely without a green card, so he married her. He would have married her anyway. He loves her, he really does. And she loves him, too. Unlike Muthashan, your father encouraged her to use her brain, to take classes, to read. And Chitra was so caring in the beginning, until she got sick. I still remember how happy they were.” Veena Aunty smiled. I liked hearing about Aba and Amma being happy and in love, but at the same time, it pained me.
“What happened when Muthashan found out that Amma had run off? Why didn’t he come after her?”
She cleared her throat with an air of finality. “He never did find out. The night before your mother left, he had a stroke. He was in a coma for two weeks and then he died. Dev was enraged when he found out that Chitra had broken the deal, and I think that is when he truly changed. As a child, he could be sweet, I remember, but this experience hardened him. So he moved on from bribing your grandfather to bribing Sadhana. He threatened her and he has been blackmailing this family ever since. Bleeding them dry. He may not appear so, but he is a wealthy man now, and the Varmas, who were once the richest family in the area, are practically destitute. That is why he wields so much power over this family, and that is why they agreed to this wedding. Sadhana made the same deal with him that her father once made regarding Chitra. There is no money left, and if they marry Gitanjali off to him, then they think this will all finally end.”
