The Vetala

by Phillip Ernest

  Starving and parched, they went behind the counter of a general store (open and ready, like everything in the village), took dry snack foods and drinks, took fruits and vegetables from the vendors’ unattended carts and cloths laid on the ground beside the street, and walked out of the village eating, with the rest in their knapsacks.

  The food and drink gave Nada a new fund of energy for a few more hours as they walked through the evacuated countryside. But by the time the sun was over their heads, she was again heavy with exhaustion, and the shade of roadside trees beckoned irresistibly.

  “But we can’t both sleep at once,” said Zoran nervously. “We’ll take turns.”

  They turned off the road and lay down in the grass under a thick-trunked tree whose broad shade could be counted on to protect them from the sun for hours to come.

  “I’m not ready to sleep yet,” said Zoran, sitting up against the trunk.

  Nada lay down with her head in his lap, and looked up into his exhausted, hopeless face, ravaged within the cycle of a day by terror, jealousy, guilt, paranoia.

  Closing her eyes, she instantly drifted off, but resisted deep sleep, remained anchored to consciousness of the beautiful hot day, the breeze, the breathing foliage above them, Zoran’s hands stilly caressing her face, his own face looking defeated but infused with the deep unshakable love that knows that the final hours have come. Eventually she began to sink away, and then she began to feel a third presence, another awareness, invisible but close, like a threatening whisper mingled with the tree’s breath or deep within her own mind.

  She felt Zoran shaking her awake.

  “Nada, I’m sinking. Wake up. Watch me. I’m so sorry.”

  She sat up slowly, caressed his face—he had already nearly drifted off—took his place against the tree trunk as he laid his head in her lap. She looked towards the west, where the sun would touch the distant mountains within about two hours. She didn’t know how long she had slept, but she was sufficiently revived that she didn’t feel herself to be in danger of falling asleep again soon. She took occasional chugs from a bottle of cola to fortify her

  wakefulness.

  Nightfall held no special terror for her, since whatever was stalking them was evidently no more dangerous by night than by day. She felt that it would soon reveal itself again—as three men, as one, as someone or something else entirely—and that it would probably kill them this time, instantaneously and brutally, like it had killed the dog, the only example they had witnessed of what it was capable of—besides the disappearance of all living things.

  She was resigned to this end, mostly, and deeply worn out and defeated, but her slim belief in the possibility of escape was still stronger than despair, and this is what kept her going. They were young, they were in love, they had planned their life together until old age. Behind the weariness and defeat that almost made her want to stop and wait for their imminent death, there still burned a flame of blinding indignation at this stranger who had come out of nowhere and invaded their life, insinuated himself into the sacred space between them which was theirs alone, and into their very bodies, contaminating the purity of their intimacy and devotion. They would get away, and if this miracle were achieved, she would defy fate even further: she would hunt their tormentor down and kill him.

  She sat awake with these thoughts as she watched the sun sink, and just minutes before it touched the distant mountains (was there anything left alive in all that vast distance?), Zoran awoke.

  He turned onto his back so that he was looking up into Nada’s face, and she caressed his as she watched the sun sink into the earth. She now perceived that the road they had been walking led more or less towards the south.

  “The highway will be that way, towards the sunset,” she said. “Any road we find going that way, we have to take.”

  Zoran sat up, then they stood up and embraced,

  holding each other tight for a long time as the darkness thickened. And then they set off on the same southward-leading road through blackness punctuated by a few rare lights of houses near and far. The gibbous moon was already high, cold small and white, and the winter sky, almost untouched by earthly light, was infinitely deep with stars.

  They walked briskly, sometimes hand in hand, their breath clouding before their faces. After some hours, on the left-hand side of the road ahead of them a temple appeared, fully lit as if for a public ritual. As they neared it, they slowed, as if drawn by fascination, and approached the door, from which a slab of light fell across the road.

  As they stood and looked within, Nada saw an idol unlike any she had seen before in a temple’s place of honour, though she had seen others like it in peripheral positions—at doorways and on pillars and walls—in the precincts of other temples. It was a rakshasa, a demon, fanged and grinning, wide-eyed and sharp-eared, with radiating locks. It was crouched on its haunches, holding out its empty hands as if it were waiting to receive some gift. Its eyes were painted white, its mouth smeared with blood and globs of flesh. A heavy garland of roses hung around its neck, and rose petals were strewn about its feet. Small lit earthen lamps covered the floor around it. The walls were everywhere streaked with handprints of blood flecked with flesh, as if people had been locked in the temple’s tiny space and had gone mad trying to claw their way out.

  They were drawn towards the temple’s doorway. There was a noise from behind them, a voice.

  Nada turned. It was the friendly whimpering of a dog that was standing in the road staring at them, wagging its tail uncertainly. She took a step towards it, and almost swooned as it dawned on her that this was the bitch they had seen die in the village the night before. A surge of terror flooded her. She whirled round.

  Zoran was lying prostrate before the idol on the rose petal-sprinkled floor. Blood was gushing from his severed neck, flooding the floor, spraying the idol and the walls. His head rested in the rakshasa’s hands, facing away from her.

  Nada walked slowly forward, tears streaming down her face, which registered no fear, no shock, only love robbed of all hope. She approached the idol, crouched in the still flowing blood, gently took the head in her hands, slowly lifted its tremendous weight from the demon’s claws. She began to turn it towards her. Even before its living red eye met hers, even before she saw its slightly smiling mouth and lupine fangs, she knew it was not Zoran. It was the man in front of the temple. And he was Avinash.

  Nada stood up, and the head thudded to the concrete floor. She began to scream, scream with every shuddering breath. She ran, blindly, stumbling, her arms flailing, ran and ran with no sense of direction or time, until there were sounds and lights somewhere, and solid pavement under her feet, the roar of engines, the howling of braking tires, the piercing melody of a truck’s horn, the great blinding multicoloured wall of a truck suddenly in front of her, the voices of men shouting and speaking in Kannada as she lay on her back on the road, screaming and screaming.

  5

  A Face from the Past

  The last trace of daylight was fading as Nada walked down Usha Road towards Yadnya. After the Institute had closed at five-thirty, she and Shyamala had sat talking on a bench outside the library until seven, and had then come to Usha Road and eaten at Sahadev, one of Nada’s favourite restaurants. Shyamala had then gone back to her scooter at the Institute, and Nada had begun to walk the short remaining distance to Yadnya. She had just reached the house’s low stone wall when she heard a voice from behind her.

  “Professor Marjanovic?”

  She turned, and felt a bolt of ice go through her as she saw Avinash standing before her on the footpath, but immediately doubted her judgement: this man looked physically exactly like Avinash, but everything else—his clothes, his aura, the look in his eyes—was different.

  He was dressed in the attire of the traditional Karnataka Brahmin, with sacred thread, loincloth, and head shaved except for a long topknot, and wore on hi
s left ring finger a simple silver ring. And the hate and mockery, the seething menace that radiated from Avinash, were not here; instead, this man’s face registered mildness and reserve, and at the moment, hesitancy.

  He did not move towards her, evidently aware of the process going on in her mind. After a pause, he continued: “I am Amruteshvar. Amruteshvar Chandrashekhar. In a sense, we already know each other.

  imām amṛtajijñāsāṃ krtavān amṛteśvaraḥ

  rakṣaṇāya ca lokasya vetālaśamanāya ca

  Nada almost reeled when she heard him speak this verse from the first chapter of the Amrutajijnasa in which the book’s author identifies himself: “Amruteshvara wrote this Amrutajijnasa to protect the world and lay the vetala to rest.”

  She was stunned, but also began to feel reassured: she was almost certain that Avinash would not even have been able to utter the words of Amruteshvar, whose very name meant “master of the undead.” Indeed, one of the strange things about Avinash’s performance at the conference in Zagreb was that he had never once quoted the words, or even the name, of the text with which he seemed somehow to be so intimately familiar, despite presumably never having even seen it himself.

  Nada approached him. By now she felt no need to put challenge in her voice: she didn’t know how this could be Amruteshvar, but she was satisfied that, somehow, it was. Wasn’t everything surrounding this book impossible anyway?

  “I’m sure you must know that Dr. Kshirasagar has died, more than a week ago,” she said. “You must also know that he and I were friends for many years. But he certainly never mentioned that he had met you... and... how would that have been possible, anyway? How is this possible?” she asked, now standing directly in front of him, amazed, studying this face that was indeed that of her ancient foe in every way except for the character that invested it.

  The absolute difference of this man’s aura allowed her to realize, for the first time, the beauty of this face, the depth of humanity that its lineaments were capable of communicating. And there was some kind of relief in this, as if she were grateful for the permission to find something positive, something good, in this image that had pursued her day and night for half a lifetime.

  “Yes, I knew Dr. Kshirasagar—better than he realized, better than he knew me. He never really met me, though we met again and again. Professor Marjanovic—Nada?—I’m just going to have to ask you to trust me. I’m Avinash Chandrashekhar’s brother, but I am his enemy—or more precisely, I am the enemy of what he has become. I have other very strange things to tell you—but after all they’re no stranger than anything in the Amrutajijnasa, or in your own history with that book. You have personally experienced many of the impossible things it describes; now you only have to accept that all of those things are true.”

  His voice was exactly like Avinash’s, with the same difference that distinguished his face from that of his twin: it sounded good, not evil; it was kind, open, unasserting, not hostile, guarded, mocking.

  “May I come inside?” he said. “We’re going to begin to attract attention here.”

  Nada hesitated. “I trust you,” she said; “I’m already putting things together. But ... you know Kamala, of course, Dr. Kshirasagar’s wife. She’ll be terrified if she sees you. I wouldn’t be surprised if she died on the spot of a heart attack.”

  “I understand,” said Amruteshvar. “I’ll take care of that. But we’re going to have to go in sooner or later, and I’m going to need to keep coming back. You need my help—with the book, with everything. Tell her you’ve met an old acquaintance of Dr. Kshirasagar, a friend.”

  Nada thought, then nodded.

  “Come, then,” she said, turning and walking towards the gap in the wall.

  Amruteshvar followed. Nada took a key from her pocket, then turned to him and said, “Let me go in first and let her know you’re with me.”

  She unlocked the door and went in, while he sat on the edge of the concrete barrier surrounding the ancient ashoka tree in the front yard.

  Passing through the front porch and the second door, Nada entered the hall, where she found Kamala lying on her pallet in the darkness. She sat up when she heard Nada come in, and Nada went over and sat on the edge of the pallet.

  “Maushi,” she said in Marathi, the language in which she always talked with her, using the respectful but affectionate title—“auntie”—with which one normally

  addresses an older woman. “I’ve met someone who can give me important help with finishing Dr. Kshirasagar’s work. He was an old acquaintance of the doctor, and he’s our friend. His name is Amruteshshvar. He’s waiting outside. May he come in?”

  Kamala hesitated, perhaps struck by the name, so long familiar to her from the discussions in this house. Then she nodded and said, “Yes, bring him in.”

  Nada went back out into the front yard, and was about to speak to Amruteshvar when she stopped.

  As he turned his face to her, she saw that it had changed: he still looked essentially like Avinash, but now more like a fraternal than an identical twin.

  Kamarupi, she thought, changing form at will.

  He rose and came inside with her.

  When they came into the hall, Amruteshvar joined his hands in namaskar to Kamala, and said in perfect Marathi, “Mrs. Kshirasagar, I met your husband many times over the years. I knew him—better than he knew me—and I know the Amrutajijnasa very well. I know Nada too, though we have only now met in person for the first time. I’ve come to help her finish Dr. Kshirasagar’s work—now more than ever, it’s important to finish this work. So I hope you won’t mind having me in your house. I will not need to live here, but I will need to work here with Nada and Shyamala.”

  Kamala was looking at him intently, trying to remember, perhaps, where she might have seen this face before, as Nada suspected.

  “Of course you can be here,” she replied at last. “Any friend of my husband is forever welcome in his house.” She rose and said, “Would you like tea and something to eat?”

  “No thank you,” he replied, “I’d rather get right to work—and since the manuscript and Dr. Kshirasagar’s commentary still haven’t been brought back here from the Institute, tonight that work will consist of talking about work.”

  Not in the least bit surprised that Amruteshvar knew everything, Nada said: “Shyamala and I were going to bring the manuscript straight here in a rickshaw tomorrow. I didn’t want to be walking the streets with it. Now that you’re here we can do it even more safely. For now, let’s go to the study upstairs—I’m sure you already know the way.”

  She turned to Kamala. “Are you all right down here on your own, Maushi? Obviously you can join us if you want—like in the old days.” Kamala smiled sadly and shook her head, and Nada turned and opened the door to the stairs.

  The study and Nada’s bedroom were the only rooms on the small house’s second floor. The study’s south and west sides had large windows which looked out onto the small yard with its two large trees, an ashoka and a mango tree. Under the larger of the two windows stood a small pallet like the one Kamala slept on in the living room downstairs. The other two walls were covered by bookshelves, and the floor space on that side was dominated by a large wooden desk, on which there stood a short row of books and a table lamp.

  Nada turned the heavy wooden chair that stood at the desk, and gestured to Amruteshvar to sit down on its twin a few feet away.

  “Have you ever actually been in here before,” she asked in English when they were both seated, “or do you know the place in some other way?”

  “I have been here several times,” Amruteshvar answered, “but not in the form in which you see me now. Dr. Kshirasagar never saw me like this, though this—or rather, the way I appeared to you before I entered the house—is my true form. He met various experts in vetalashastra over the years, here at the Institute and elsewhere. I was those experts. It was
at my suggestion that Dr. Kashyap of Mysore gave Kshirasagar the Amrutajijnasa. I have had an intense interest in this book for a very long time. No one knows this book better than I do, because I wrote it; but there are still a few... problems with the text that I actually can’t resolve myself, for which I need the help of others.”

  Nada appeared calm as she heard all this. She was burning with excitement, but it was the excitement of hearing confirmed what she had been blindly guessing at for years. And even though it was all being revealed in such an unreal way, and with so many details that she could never have imagined, the gratification and relief that came from finally knowing far outweighed any dread that she might have felt at learning that such terrible things were, after all, true.

  “Well, having you here will certainly make our work a lot quicker,” she said. “For example, since you wrote it, you can immediately clear up what has always been the text’s big mystery for us: what are the missing words of this verse’s third quarter?

  na śastreṇa na śāstreṇa nihantuṃ śakyate ’mṛtaḥ

  And this isn’t just a textual problem, of course: once we know this, we know how to kill the vetala—or is it give him peace rather than kill? You tell me.”

  “I can help with a lot of things,” Amruteshvar replied, “but there are a few things that I can’t tell you, things that won’t be valid or efficacious unless you find them out for yourself. And this is one of them. And of course that’s why the text is mutilated at this point and only at this point: the efficacy of the whole Amrutajijnasa rests on these eight syllables. Without them, it’s just a lot of interesting information; with them, it’s an instrument of liberation for both the vetala and his victims.”

  “Can you at least tell me how the text was mutilated, and who did it?” asked Nada.