The City of Good Death

by Priyanka Champaneri

  Bhut took a step forward.

  “Found—I found them,” Raman at last said, and when it was clear that still the circle officer did not believe him, Raman became breathless in his haste to push out the truth. “Now! This very morning, only some minutes ago, I swear it, ji! They did not appear to be his—anyway, I did not think he would miss them. How could he have a use for them?”

  Bhut spoke softly. “Who?”

  “The man.”

  “What man?”

  “The dead man. The dead man on the ghat.”

  ***

  With the ample patience of a flower unfurling its first petal, the sun began to rise, illuminating two men walking together in the first light of morning. When early risers noticed the district circle officer together with the boatman in whose vessel a dead man had been found only some months before, wives sent menfolk as emissaries to find out what was going on. Soon Bhut acquired a trail of citizens who bickered and chatted and called after him with all the conviction that men without their morning chai could muster.

  “Officer-sahib! Just one minute; some seconds to talk?”

  “Someone give that Raman a handkerchief, nah? Crying so many tears that his eyes will swell shut.”

  Bhut was aware only of the path before him and the weeping boatman behind him, his ears wincing at the soft chimes whispering from the chains wrapped around his fist. The pair of delicate silver anklets felt as weighty as a small mountain. He marched on, his eyes fixed on a single point, his features stiff and unmoving.

  “That Bhut,” a man whispered to his neighbor. “Arrey, look at his face. He must have the cramping stoppage issues, nah? My missus gave me this remedy: three dried plums.…”

  ***

  One man observed the crowd, Bhut pulling Raman along by the elbow, men tittering over the silver anklets the circle officer did not bother to hide. He watched and waited until all had passed through his lane. Then he called for his wife, who draped his woolen shawl over his shoulders and placed his walking stick in his hand. He headed out the door and down the street in a direction opposite the ghats and the crowd. He’d been thinking about his destination since the black hours of the morning when an urgent knock on his door had wakened his household. Thakorlal had stood waiting, shivering with nerves and anticipation, and before he could be denied admission, an astounding story had emerged from that metal-man’s lips, a story of a well-known hostel assistant, a ghost, and a lie fabricated to cover a death that was actually life. “From Maharaj,” Thakorlal had gasped, “a sober Maharaj—I know the difference, after so many years. And I also know if he is telling a falsehood.”

  “And?”

  “He was not.”

  The gates were still closed by the time he reached Shankarbhavan. He peered through the bars: no movement within, and the only sound was of those chanted mantras so familiar to him that he barely registered the pious drone. He laid a hand on the gate and snatched it back as if he had been burnt. The metal was chilled. But he would not be so easily deterred, not after the story he’d heard. He rubbed his fingers and wrapped his palm with the end of his shawl. He grasped the iron bars again and gave them a quick shake. Closed gate or no, they would not be able to avoid him. Kishore would speak to Pramesh.

  ***

  They arrived at the ghat, a small gathering squeezing through a narrow alleyway that opened up to the stairs, the crowd like water eking out drop by drop from a narrow crack in a bowl. They jostled from behind, pushing the men before them who in turn pushed those in front of them, the slow ripple reaching Bhut and sending a sharp elbow into his back. He turned and glared at the crowd.

  “Bhut!” someone called out.

  “Where?” the circle officer said, swiveling around, forgetting for a moment that he was the ghost in question. The men surged forward, each eager to lay his claim on the circle officer’s attention. Bhut ignored them, heeding only Raman who pulled on his sleeve. “Where did you see this man?” Bhut asked. He shaded his eyes against the sun and squinted.

  “Down there,” Raman sniffled.

  The river sparkled with the sun’s radiance, and Bhut’s gaze was briefly caught like a bee hooked mid-air by a particularly fragrant blossom. But then a wet and heavy clap sounded and Raman gasped. Bhut turned. A large sail of green fabric billowed, and he blinked.

  He was no longer the circle officer. No longer surrounded by a simpleton busybody mob.

  He was transformed back into his twelve-year-old self. A boy surrounded by inept adults, a boy who dreamed for months afterward of what he had seen only in his imagination.

  His sister’s body, Mini’s body, swathed in parrot green silk, limbs twisted in the fabric, slim feet with naked skin shining where silver anklets usually rested. Blood streaming in the part of her hair where the red sindoor mark of a married woman should have been. Black, kohl-rimmed eyes forever shut. Mouth parted for words never again spoken.

  Bhut squeezed his eyes shut. He did not want to see. The anklets coiled around his hand wept in response.

  “Well, there is nothing,” a voice behind said.

  The fabric snapped with a withering crack and Bhut remembered himself. On the lowest step of the ghat, where the stone met the water, a small girl crouched. She squeezed the fabric that seconds ago had been spread out to the wind for her inspection. An arc of droplets flew upward as she rubbed and beat at the length of bright green cloth.

  “All this way, for what?” someone tsked.

  “A good lesson: follow Raman and you follow a fool.” There was more yawning than murmuring amidst the small gathering, more impatience than curiosity at whatever Bhut’s errand had been.

  Bhut focused his fury upon the man who had brought him this far. “So?” he said, each word bitten off with disgust, “This? This is the spot?”

  “He was here, he was,” Raman gasped. “Where would a dead man go? Where would a dead man want to go?”

  Bhut’s anger emanated from him like an aura: hot, fevered, irrepressible. Hushed at the whiff of violence in the air, like the mynahs that go mute when a tiger passes in their midst, the crowd of remaining men leaned in.

  A crack sounded, skin on skin, Bhut’s hardened palm hitting Raman’s soft dampened face. Red bloomed from the boatman’s nose. As if they, too, had been struck, the crowd surged back but pulled forward again, intoxicated by curiosity.

  The paternal feelings Bhut had held for this boatman—who cupped his bloodied face in his hands—had vanished. Bhut stared at the air above that crowd of men and chose his words with care. “You were not old enough to have been there when it happened,” he began, and the men surrounding him leaned in to better decipher his words. “But you took them,” and here he raised his hand, unleashing a melancholy jingle. Raman stared as Bhut turned and faced him. “You took them from someone who was there,” he said in a hiss audible to everyone. “Who?” Raman swallowed a sob. He opened his mouth. Bhut leaned forward, and he felt the other men in the crowd do the same.

  “Ji,” was all the boatman said, sobs choking his throat. “Ji.”

  33

  Pramesh had been unable to sleep. His eyes fluttered open at the slightest creak of the shutters; the bed groaning as Shobha turned jolted him awake. Each sound made him wonder if he was mistaken, if the peace he’d felt earlier was false. But nothing happened; the washroom stayed silent. In the still-dark morning, the first of the birds began to chirp softly, and only then did his eyes droop. Yet it was enough to refresh him, to send a new energy pulsing through his limbs. The ghost had exited; he wondered if death would come back to the bhavan just as suddenly.

  He was organizing papers in his office when the front gate rattled; probably some child making mischief on his way to an errand. Mohan would see who it was. On his way out of his office he heard the rattle again. Mohan’s door was open a crack; perhaps he was in the washroom. He went to check the bhavan
entrance.

  “Pramesh-ji. Does the bhavan no longer open itself to sons of the city?” Kishore stood outside the bhavan, walking stick in hand.

  “Of course, ji,” Pramesh pushed open the gate and beckoned the man in. “I am sorry; I suppose Mohan is not up yet.”

  “No matter, Manager-ji, although I wonder sometimes if your bhavan is more welcoming to strangers than to locals,” Kishore said.

  The ghaatiyaa was visibly irritated. “How could that be, Kishore-ji? You are always welcome. Will you stay for chai? Come into the office.”

  “Not today, though I am sorry for it,” Kishore said. “I still have my daughter-in-law’s chai in my belly, Manager-ji.”

  “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “We have known each other many years now, nah?” Kishore eased himself into the chair opposite Pramesh’s desk and settled his walking stick in front of him, his hands resting on the ornate wooden handle. “Manager-ji, tell me: have I ever offended you?”

  Pramesh focused his eyes on the man sitting across from him. “Kishore-ji—such a respected man as yourself—how could you have offended me? Ji, we have barely even seen each other since.…”

  “Since the day of the weaver.” The ghaatiyaa gripped his walking stick and leaned forward. “Understand me, Manager-ji. I would never have believed you capable of giving offense. You, the man I led to the bhavan! Do you remember that day ten years ago when you stumbled upon my ghat? Do you remember how I calmed you, how I guided you through this city like a most honored guest?”

  “I will always remember. I was a stranger, and yet you treated me with such patience,” Pramesh replied simply, truthfully. There was an odd sheen in the ghaatiyaa’s eyes.

  “Yes. And I have never regretted it, Manager-ji. Even when you avoided me for all these years—you cannot deny that you did. And when such stories started to come my way—stories about that dead man, your cousin. A bad death, they said. And then the bottle they found with him … a shameful thing, to have something like that in the family. But even when they were all talking of it, I told them to separate that judgement from you. A different man, an honest man, I told them. That is what I believed. And yet, one hears other stories, Pramesh.”

  “Stories?”

  “Oh yes. This man says something, that man says something. Different tales coming from all directions. That Govind—an exorcist, once, he was here, at your bhavan. Then weeks later, you and your priests and wife on the ghat. Many people saw you. Doing tripindi shraddha, they said. One becomes confused, hearing so many stories, and doesn’t know what to think. One decides to go to the source and ask the man himself, because is there any other way to ascertain the truth in this world?”

  “No, ji,” the manager said, carefully. “There is no other way.”

  “Yes,” Kishore shook his head in agreement. “That is what I thought as well. But a curious thing happened, Manager-ji. I went to the man to ask him the truth, and instead, he told me a falsehood.” Pramesh thought he heard Narinder’s familiar step outside the door. He glanced out to the courtyard and saw the head priest’s straight-backed form. Kishore cleared his throat and spoke louder. “Many wanted the job at death hostel, yet here you are sitting in that chair. I simply had to say one word, and you got the thing so many others wanted.”

  Pramesh folded his hands upon the desk and leaned forward. “Much of my life in this city is because of you, Kishore-ji. I have never said otherwise.”

  “There is only one way for me to believe you,” Kishore said with quiet authority. “You had a chance before and did not take it. Do not lose your chance now, not when it is your final opportunity.”

  “I’m not sure I understand what you are asking of me.” Pramesh sat up straighter, and his eyes never left Kishore’s face.

  “You must tell me what I already know, what I had to hear from someone else, someone far beneath you. Tell me that you lied. Tell me that you made a fool of me. Tell me that the weaver was dead.”

  Pramesh kept his gaze steady on the ghaatiyaa. Kishore waited. Pramesh’s face betrayed no fear, his gaze did not flicker, and his hands remained folded on the desk. “I believe you are mistaken,” the manager said. “The weaver was never dead, Kishore-ji. You were there when we had this discussion. You were not the only man in that circle. Shall I fetch Narinder-ji, to verify what I have said?”

  Kishore tapped his walking stick against the concrete floor. “What is the point to these games, Pramesh-ji? Your head priest wasn’t there in the room, I remember this. No, only two of you saw what really happened. You and that assistant of yours. The truth could only come from one of you, and I have received it from that other man’s mouth. I should have listened more closely to him the first time. I trusted your word over his. An error I won’t make again.”

  The manager’s heart skipped, but his face was as resolute as stone. “You are mistaken,” he said again.

  “I do not think so. I do not think your Mohan was mistaken either.” Kishore stared at him intently. “Wasn’t that bad of you, Manager-ji?” Kishore continued. “To blame that poor man when he was right all along? To do such a thing! What kind of a man tarnishes another’s reputation just to uphold a lie?”

  Still Pramesh said nothing, but his heart beat with a sole truth—Kishore was right. He could not assign any blame to Mohan. Mohan was many things, but he was loyal above all. He would not have wantonly revealed the bhavan’s doings unless something had pushed him to do so, and Pramesh had. He’d crossed a boundary. You cannot even tell a dead man from a live one. He cringed at his words, spit out in the lane with no forethought, no control over his emotions.

  “I would not want to know such a man.” Kishore rose. “It happens rarely, but it happens, Pramesh-ji. I misjudged you. I thought you were honest, pious. I thought it was a good thing, to give you—a nobody, remember that—to give you a chance that so many others wanted. But how can anyone trust a stranger, not even born in the city? Your bones aren’t clean; neither are your family’s. One a liar. The other a drunk.” He planted his walking stick into the ground and levered himself out of his chair. “And I would not want the pilgrims coming to this city, coming with their dead, staying in the house of such a man. Although it seems you may soon have the opposite problem, Pramesh-ji.”

  Pramesh had heard enough. “Kishore-ji,” he said with as much calm as he could muster as the blood pounded in his ears. “I think you have said what you needed to.” He pressed his palms together and tilted his head. “No matter what you think of me, the bhavan is my jurisdiction. The mission of this place is my duty, and I must now get on with it.” He stood. A low murmur, heretofore unnoticed, wafted into the room. The sound rose outside the bhavan.

  The ghaatiyaa turned slightly. A slow smile caught one corner of his mouth as the murmur became louder, a thick buzzing. Kishore leaned close to the manager and spoke in a loud hiss. “Shall I tell them? Shall I tell them that you had a dead man come to life?”

  Now Pramesh recognized the sound. It was like the din in the bazaar, but condensed, and it was coming closer, getting louder. “You have it wrong, Kishore-ji. That is not what happened.” And then the wave of sound, which had slowly been churning toward the bhavan, crashed against the gates. The priests gathered in the courtyard turned and stared.

  The ghaatiyaa walked past Pramesh, through the office door, and into the courtyard. He looked out the gates, stopped and smiled. “You say I have it wrong, Manager-ji. Perhaps. But you’ve already seen that what matters most is the story that people hear. And these people,” he gestured to the gates, which now shook and rattled with the mad energy of idle hands, “seem eager to know the story from you.”

  Pramesh walked forward, oblivious to the priests behind him. Even Shobha had come out, her sari end draped over her head, Rani clutching at her skirts. “Who is there?” she asked.

  In the lane, with the closed gates b
arring their way into the bhavan, stood a crowd composed of every strata of Kashi’s menfolk. Some were still in their bathing dhotis, the soaked cloth dripping into the dirt lane. There were young boys who shoved their way to the front and pushed their faces into the space between the gate bars. Youths passed early morning beedis back and forth. Men with white hair tucked into lumpy caps peered from behind thick-lensed glasses. Others waited with irritated expressions, hands supporting chins, eyes glancing between the sun and the manager and back at the sun again as if Pramesh was at fault for the passing time. A young mendicant thumbed his prayer beads and held up his begging gourd with a hopeful look. A boatman stood at the front, his face streaming tears. Beside him was Bhut, arms crossed, grim and furious.

  “Won’t you tell them?” Kishore asked. “Won’t you give them the story you refuse to give to me?” He bowed, a hint of a smile playing on his face. “Excuse me, Manager-ji. My grandson is waiting. I promised him a game before I left, and I keep my promises. I leave you to them.”

  The ghaatiyaa yanked open the gates and blended into the crowd, pushing into Bhut as he passed. The circle officer ignored him and stared through the bhavan gates at Pramesh.

  “You! You are alive!” he exclaimed.

  Shobha breathed out the great God’s name in horror. Pramesh was struck dumb, but then he managed to stutter, “Well, why wouldn’t I be?”

  “He—” Bhut gestured at the boatman in disgust, “said you had died.”

  “Not that one, not him!” came Raman’s desperate whisper.

  “What other one is there?” a voice called from the back of the crowd as laughter rippled amongst the men.

  “Yes,” Bhut said as he focused his gaze on the hostel manager. “Who else could he mean?”

  Pramesh’s eyes opened wide. “Where is Mohan?”

  34

  All he saw was blood: pooled in a dark stain on the steps, flaking from his hair and into his eyes, splotches on his pants. There was so much blood that Mohan wondered if he’d fallen under a ghost’s curse; perhaps he’d been turned into metal overnight, and the brown bits that freckled his skin were spots of rust, corrosion from the river lapping his body in the hours after he ended up on these stone steps.