The House that Spoke

by Zuni Chopra

  The moment it shut behind him, I threw back the lid of the globe and took in a great, shuddering gulp of abruptly cool air. My chest stung sharply, and I swallowed, wincing. I counted thrice to twenty, listening hard, before deeming it safe to move. As soon as I gave myself permission to rise, my muscles erupted in a fury, launching me out of the hollow sphere towards the doorway like tightly coiled springs bursting free at last.

  Mr Bhukhari was blinking rapidly in the glazed sunshine. I wished he would hurry up and leave. I was getting very cramped behind the front door, watching him from above one of the squeaky hinges. A new doorman, one I hadn’t seen before, was helping him on to the tonga. The horse, a brilliant brown specimen with a thick, black mane, was whinnying nervously and stamping its hooves on the rocky ground. Its rider didn’t really seem to care; he was far more occupied with keeping his squinted eyes on the leather pouch hooked to the politician’s belt.

  ‘But I tell you,’ Mr Bhukhari was saying, ‘I don’t have a niece.’

  From somewhere to my right, though I couldn’t see him at all, I heard the doorman I’d spoken to respond.

  ‘Arre, sahib! She was just here! I spoke to her! You . . . you must have some sort of relative like that, sahib.’ Mr Bhukhari had finally succeeded in seating his large rear on the scratchy seat.

  ‘I don’t even have siblings. Where will a niece come from, you idiot?’

  ‘But—’

  The doorman who’d just finished helping Mr Bhukhari turned abruptly around and gave the poor fool the most dreadful evil eye I’ve ever seen.

  ‘He said he didn’t, now stop bothering sahib!’

  There was silence from my right.

  The horse was given a sharp smack. It neighed indignantly, hoping for acknowledgement, and when it got none, trotted off. The moment its relentless clattering faded out of earshot, the debate burst out again.

  ‘Look here, my friend, I tell you I’m not mad.’

  ‘You’re entirely mad! Seeing girls where they don’t exist! Irritating sahib like that! He very nearly forgot to give me a tip because of you!’

  I tilted my head to see them both. He looked rather like a spoilt, chubby toddler sulking in the corner, but at least he didn’t offer a rebuttal. He just sat down on a cluster of rocks, looking thoroughly bewildered by the day’s events.

  ‘Now,’ continued his colleague in a calmer manner. ‘There was no one here and we’ve settled that. But since you’ve made some tea, hand it over.’

  The road had never felt this long. I turned around; gone were the spiny prickles of the bushes. And yet the hint of deep brown, of the sturdy, rough wood that had been shoved into place as a door, was nowhere to be seen. I suddenly wondered if this was endless; some sort of trap to keep me there till I grew old. It couldn’t be, I reassured myself; all things have some kind of an end. This had a beginning. It will have an end.

  Despite the reasoning suggested by my common sense, I tore down the path, lungs bursting. My heart pumped harder than ever in fear.

  Finally I skidded to a halt. After dusting myself off a bit (Tathi can be a stickler about looking decent), I moved to open the door. And froze.

  The handle was hanging off its hinge. The top window was completely cracked, hundreds of darkened splinters weaving through the glass, so that it looked ready to shatter with the first gust of wind.

  Something small and hard hit my shoulder and I gasped involuntarily. I peered down at it, rubbing the place it had struck, expecting it to be a pebble. But it was a deep brown, with pointed edges. Brick? I looked up. The roof seemed to have altered into a jumbled maze of materials. Leaks that I’d never known to exist had been plugged up with broken bricks, a bucket, and a comb with three snapped-off teeth. The entire roof seemed to be tilting over on its side, about to flop down on the ground. Each tile was quivering with the tension of holding everything together.

  I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember the secret knock. I rammed all of my small body against the door. It didn’t budge, staring coolly back at me. I began pounding away at the door with every limb I had.

  ‘Tathi! Tathi! Open the door right away! I need help! We all need help! Hurry!’

  The door was slowly pulled open, as though there was all the time in the world. Which really could not have been further from the truth.

  There, in the doorway, was Tathi, looking older than all of her worries had ever made her. Her hair had thinned considerably, her eyes and cheeks had hollowed, and she rested heavily on her walking stick, weight still pressing down on her bad knee. Her stubby fingers seemed red and sore and her bones screeched when she moved.

  Worst of all, she wasn’t smiling. That’s how you know when someone’s joy has been frayed by life’s grinding rituals. Their smile gets smaller and smaller until it becomes a sad, droopy little thing, only used at family gatherings and seldom even then.

  ‘Tathi?’ I began, unsure how to proceed.

  She stared at me for a long while. When she spoke, I could barely understand her.

  ‘Come in, Zoons. There’s something I must tell you. Something that perhaps you’ve already sensed, and is more a part of you than you could have ever known,’ she rasped huskily.

  The beanbag seemed more uncomfortable than usual. I leaned down to check for rips at the sides. ‘Zoon,’ came Tathi’s voice, and I looked up sharply. ‘What I’m about to tell you is not at all to be shared with your mother. Understand? That woman has seen enough suffering as it is.’

  I nodded vehemently.

  ‘I’m sure you’ve realized by now that there is something unusual about our house.’

  I nodded again, and for a little too long; it seemed to call for a more forceful response, but I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘There is magic within it, because long ago it was made magic by our oldest and wisest ancestor. It was made for a specific purpose. To battle something called . . .’

  I tuned out as she continued. People do have a tendency to rant when speaking of something they’re passionate about; it’s most irritating. In that moment, however, it was quite welcome. My eyes darted about, surveying all the damage. It was as though wild animals had attacked every square inch they could get at. All the cabinets were hanging crooked, most suspended by a single hinge. The whistling of the winter wind came clearly through the kitchen; one or two of the windows had surely been smashed through already. The stuffing was hanging out of the side of Tathi’s armchair. My foot crunched down on splintered glass, and I wondered where it had come from. One or two of the pieces were tinged with red; that explained Tathi’s fingers.

  Just when I thought she had finished, she began again.

  ‘And now, I’m sure you’d like to understand what happened to your father.’

  I opened my mouth to say no, that there was no need, I’d been told already. Then I saw that her eyes were glistening, threatening to spill salty rivers of grief. My heart gave a guilty twinge. There she was, pouring out the darkest parts of her damaged soul to me, and I wasn’t even paying attention.

  ‘Your great-grandfather was terminally ill. He was Guardian for twenty-six miserable years. The Guardian protects the heart of Kashmir; as he falls, so falls everything that a heart contains: love, unity, our culture, our hopes, our blessings . . . No one was safe. People tried to flee the riots and the chorus of showering bombs. But even when the dust settled, when Kashmir was ripped apart, when our people had been murdered and thrown out to the vultures, those that remained left to desolation and disease, no one could forget what had happened. It was in their eyes.’

  I had started when she began to speak, so suddenly was this information thrown upon my unsuspecting mind. ‘And is this . . .’ I began, hesitant to interrupt yet curious. ‘Is this your father’s fault?’

  She gave a tight smile. ‘If you were younger, I would have said yes. But you are old enough to know by now that it is never that simple.’

  I fell silent. Yes, I did know. There was always one fault that led
to another, always one blame to be fitted into another, so much so that all the mistakes I’d ever made could somehow be traced back to the greed of the demon king.

  It seemed that Tathi could not continue. Her worn face was buried in her hands, and the rest of her was not very far from being buried either. She fought, as she always has, to go on.

  ‘And then . . . once he passed away . . . your father stepped up . . . and said that he’d be a much stronger . . . better Guardian . . . determined to be what his grandfather hadn’t been . . . and that very thought consumed . . . him . . .’

  I couldn’t bear to hear her tell the story any more. Even if I hadn’t known all the rest already, I could see it gave her too much grief for me to remain silent.

  ‘Tathi, please. You don’t have to continue. I know this part of the story already.’

  She looked up, startled.

  ‘How? Surely your mother doesn’t know? If she does, I must speak to her at once. All these years, she never—’

  ‘No, no. She doesn’t. It was the armchair. He told me.’

  Her body, if such a sack of skin and bone could truly be called that any more, visibly relaxed. She twisted her fingers around her wrist, as though wondering about a missing bangle.

  ‘But,’ she whispered huskily, ‘he does not know all of it either.’

  I leaned forward, though I could hear her just fine. Grasping her calloused hands, I nodded at her gently to continue.

  ‘No one knows all of it,’ she went on, ‘except for me. And now you.’

  She took a shaky breath, and it sounded as though it had been fighting to pass through a sliver of a windpipe.

  ‘The house believes that his arrogance was his downfall. But Kruhen Chay did not just kill your father. I only wish it had been that peaceful. Zoon, Kruhen Chay does a great deal more than physical harm. He infests minds and hearts with grief, ensnares people’s thoughts and dreams until he drives them insane. And only then, once they have been torn apart from the inside out, does he murder them. In your father, Kruhen Chay sensed a bit of himself. He realized that this was a Guardian whom he could use rather than fight. And he wormed his way into your father’s mind, feasting on his belief that he could completely control the house’s power. Which I had warned him he could not.’

  Tathi began to deteriorate once more. It was like watching a music box spinning round and round and round, believing itself meaningful, beautiful, yet always ending up where it started again and never knowing what happened in between.

  ‘Did I not tell him enough? Did I not beg my son to stay away, just stay away, it was all too much for him to take . . . not so young . . .’

  She looked up at me, her eyes tinged a harsh, scraped red, with no tears to cool their grief. I nodded slowly.

  ‘You told him. You told him everything. You were not, and have never been, inadequate. Tathi, you must stop blaming yourself for his death.’

  ‘But I cannot find peace—all of these years, gone in second-guessing myself. I have prayed, I have hoped, I have laboured, and for what?’

  ‘Peace,’ I replied, ‘is not found. It is recognized.’

  She fell silent, slowly leaning back in her rickety chair.

  I badly wanted her to tell me more, yet I pressed myself to stay silent, to wait till she seemed ready.

  When she spoke again, her voice was steadier, and her rasp seemed to have worn away.

  ‘And so it went. Kruhen Chay infiltrated your father’s mind. And as Kruhen Chay gained in strength, your father became no longer an obstacle, but a doorway. And when he was murdered, their Guardian crushed, the house feared that their enemy had finally won.’

  ‘They believe it was a miracle that saved them, a burst of magic from the Guardian’s utter defeat,’ I put in, eager to show her that I understood, I knew, I was with her. ‘They say they’ve not had a Guardian since.’

  She smiled then, for the first time since I had seen her today. ‘It was no miracle. I suppose the armchair told you this; he tends to overdramatize things. No, it was me.’

  ‘You?’ I gasped. ‘What do you have to do with it?’ A laugh, a real laugh, came spiralling from her throat.

  ‘My dear Zuzu, have you forgotten that I too am from the Razdan bloodline? I was the one who was meant to take over after my father when he passed. But my son rose too soon, before me. And he barely lasted ten years . . . after which I, of course, took the reins.’

  I was trying to drink it all in. It seemed like a bitter medicine I had to swallow, but every time I tried I would retch.

  ‘So . . .’ I began, trying to untangle her words as they mashed themselves over each other in my brain, screaming and getting into fist fights.

  ‘You’ve been the Guardian ever since my dad passed. You’re the one who . . . kept all the bad stuff out . . . right?’

  She took her glasses off and cleaned them slowly and deliberately with the edge of her dupatta. It was the first time I’d ever seen her clean them. I watched her as she brushed away the layers of filth that had gathered over the years, until all that remained was a sturdy sheet of glass. She made sure that they had gripped firmly behind her ears before speaking again.

  ‘I couldn’t bear to live in the house any more. So I moved here. It is close, but far enough away that the ghosts can’t reach me. Or so I thought.’

  Two thoughts catapulting over each other in my brain collided and merged.

  ‘So that’s why you never come over!’ I whispered furiously. She gave me the tiniest of nods. Whom were we hiding this from, I wondered. The neighbours? The quiet evening? Ourselves?

  ‘I pushed myself, because I wanted to do whatever I could to help my son in death.’ Her voice grew louder. ‘Protect his family. And I tried, Zoon. I wanted to keep you both safe and happy and blessedly ignorant. I have not spoken with the house in years, but from what you have told me, I believe we both had the same goal. We never wanted to see you crumple beneath the burden we have all faced before you. We never wanted you to be forced to become our Guardian.’

  Finally, a hidden teardrop slid down her withered cheeks. Perhaps it was her last. The culmination of fifteen years of grief: a single tear.

  ‘But now,’ she went on as her voice threatened to crack under the strain, ‘now I fear I can stop it no longer.’

  My stomach plunged to the ground, and I felt hollow and nauseated all at once. At that moment, it seemed that my appetite would never return.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you’ll be fifteen tomorrow, Zoon. And fifteen is the coming-of-age for any Guardian. I can’t hold on to the power any more. The magic is flowing to you, despite my best efforts. I have felt myself grow weaker; I dreaded what it meant.’

  ‘And Kruhen Chay has grown stronger.’ My tongue twisted around itself in fright at the name, so that I fought to continue speaking. ‘I know. I’ve felt it.’

  Tathi nodded sagely. ‘Of course you have. As have I. The weaker the Guardian, the stronger the enemy. And I’m afraid I haven’t been up to scratch lately, Zuzu.’

  ‘No, but there’s another reas—’ I cut off abruptly, my train of thought having been stopped in its tracks by reason.

  I had gone there to tell Tathi what I had seen. I had gone there to shift some of my burden on to her. Indeed, all I ever did when presented with a burden was find someone to pass it on to. The armchair, the fireplace, my mother . . . but then, Tathi had ended up relieving her burden on me. I saw how much she had needed that. I was not going to be the one to burden her again. I would not be able to live with myself if I did. I took a deep, calming breath. It did little to calm me.

  ‘So I have to stop Kruhen Chay by becoming the Guardian?’ She nodded, eyes wide and glazed over, hands contorted in her lap.

  ‘On your fifteenth birthday, the energy must flow to you. Or the house will indeed be destroyed, Zoon, and the magic of Kashmir—or whatever is left—will be snuffed out forever.’

  ‘We can’t let that happen,’ I replied. ‘We
can’t let the darkness win.’

  I found a very interesting pebble in the dirt on the way home. It was slim and slender, shaped so smoothly that I marvelled at nature’s craft. It gleamed black from amongst the others, unafraid to jut out or be stepped upon, bold and velvet, like the night. Indeed, I had been on the verge of picking it up. But it was only when I knelt closer to it that I realized it was far too metallic to be a pebble. And it was only when I scooped it up, turning it over in my filthy fingers, that I realized it had never been a pebble at all, but a bullet shell.

  A vicious fury seethed inside my stomach and, suddenly, I despised everything about that little object in my palm. I could never have said why this frustration hit me so profoundly at that precise second. I pulled my arm so far back that I felt my muscles tremble with the strain, and launched that silly black blob of rusting copper into the air. It had barely left the caress of my fingertips when I was blasted into the air just behind it.

  I hit the ground with a sudden jolt of pain, which then dulled, spread out and sank deep into my aching limbs. I felt the bullet press into my cheek, cool and merciless. Along my spine, I felt the light touch of burning hail. I looked over my shoulder and saw flames, like a distant sun, searing against my home. Amidst the roars, the bangs, the crackling of feet against the road, I strained to hear the beating of my own heart.

  Mothers fled, knowing full well that there was nowhere to go, their children sobbing about lost siblings and oozing red wounds and dinner.

  Men cried words of warning, of help, of chaos, of anger. A thick black demon was unfurling itself against the melting carmine sky, flame pouring from its gaping maw. The onlookers made to drag their families from the blaze. Their yells echoed against brick so that the cries of the dying mingled in the air with the cries of the living, till neither was even vaguely different any more. Chunks of gravel and metal the size of my palm were smouldering down from the skies. Blackness began to drift lazily across the land and people choked, vomiting from the thick, dark gas. My eyes darted spastically, fighting to find a familiar face, a boy’s rumpled deep brown hair and a thin, bone white cap.