by Nag Mani
“Zeba!”
The ancient tree is silent and still, waiting, watching…
More shapes glide into the clearing. They seem delighted. Their whispering grows louder, more excited.
A child begins to cry in the foliage above. A woman tries to hush him. Bangles clink.
Someone giggles…
The ritual seems to have failed. The figure begins to sob. Its lips tremble as it again begs forgiveness. It knows there will be none. It is scared, terribly scared. Out of desperation, it utters the name of a god – and creates a stir among the shapes it is surrounded with, for such words are not spoken in the realm of the ancient tree.
Its teeth are clattering, its body shivering, when another thought appears – what if the price was still not high enough? It is broken now. It can no longer continue the ritual. This cannot be! It cannot think of another name.
An evil voice speaks inside its head. It had been there all along – another name – but it cannot say it out loud. It begins to cry. No. Not another name. Never.
Something is floating above its head. It looks up and cringes, shutting its eyes immediately – a hand is protruding from the branches above.
Something pulls at the blanket.
The candles blow out.
The jute bag is being dragged away from the clearing.
And that dead, headless goat, why is it moving? Why is it wriggling, its severed neck rising and falling? There is a faint bleating coming from behind the tree, from inside a deep cavity in the trunk in which lies the burnt head with gaping eye-sockets.
The hooded figure makes up its mind as a bony finger pokes its thigh. It plucks another rose and another thorn. It places a pinch of mud in between two petals. It rubs them on the heart. Yet another finger is pricked. Another drop of blood falls on the petals.
The dark shapes retreat into the night.
“Zoya,” cries the figure and throws the petals into the embers.
They shrink and shrivel and turn into ash…
…and the ancient tree begins to speak.
CHAPTER 2
THE MORNING OF
Blood!
Dry. Dark. Spewed out on the floor.
Aditi woke up with a killing headache. Flashes of a woman hovering above her. A knife. She held up her hands. A deep cut ran across her left wrist. It wasn’t bleeding. The blood had clotted into sickening streaks of red down to her elbow. But the pain was excruciating. She held her wrist tight and buried her face in the hard, straw-stuffed pillow. The incidents of the previous night were murky. She had sensed someone lurking by her door. Like always, humming a sad tune. Barely audible – so that she caught just parts of it. And like always, she had demanded, “Who’s there?”
Only this time, she was answered.
There were urgent knocks on the door.
“Memsahib, memsahib,” a young maid was stooping to catch her breath, “come, quick! See… You must see… what happened.” Then she noticed the wound on Aditi’s wrist. She gasped. Retreated. Her eyes widened and with a shriek, she ran away, shouting “Malkin…”
Aditi heard a faint wailing of women. Holding the walls for support, she limped along a dimly lit hallway into a long veranda. Two lanterns hung on mosaic pillars along the veranda. It was early morning. The sun may have risen, maybe not, for dark clouds hung gloomily in the sky. She stepped out into a crudely cemented courtyard with high walls on three sides and a wooden door in front. Beyond the wall, tall bamboos swayed in a light breeze. Two cows and a calf were lazily swishing their tails under a cowshed to her left. The morning seemed calm and cold, yet the clouds lurked silently overhead, promising a hell of a thunderstorm. She heard distant screams and urgent shouts.
She opened the doors. A mud path meandered through the thicket of bamboos. The land beyond was barren. Villagers were trickling in from various directions, all heading to the ruins of an ancient temple at a distance. A crowd was growing outside the gates and along the boundary wall. As Aditi staggered across the land, she saw a throng of women, the source of all the wailing and mourning, huddled next to what seemed to be a sacrificial platform. The maid was frantically talking to them. The women turned to look. Then, from the middle of the group rose a fat, elderly lady with greying hair. “You…” she shouted, running towards her, one hand lifting the hem of her sari. The sudden outburst of anger made Aditi retreat. The woman held Aditi’s wrist and observed the wound. She had been crying. Her hair dishevelled. Blood oozing from minor cuts on her wrists. Signs of bangles being broken.
“You… daayan!” she screamed at Aditi. “You… you…” and as everyone watched, she slapped her!
“What?” Aditi protested as she stumbled backward and fell to the ground. She was used to being slapped and kicked. But out in the open, in front of everyone! “What have I done?”
“What have you done?” the woman screamed. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” She grabbed Aditi’s hair and with a brutal tug, pulled her up to her feet. “What have you done? You summoned the Devi! Your husband came begging to us! Oh! Curse our stars that we helped you! I should have known better. Rumours don’t start on their own.”
Aditi held her hair, afraid her scalp might tear off. She cried with pain, tears rolling down her cheeks. The woman was surprisingly strong for her age. Aditi’s aanchal had slipped off, revealing her blouse. The men watched. So did the women. But she was past protecting her dignity.
“Let my son come home. I’ll have you raped! Have everyone watch…”
Then Aditi saw it. First the blood. Dark red, spread out on the grass. She tried to turn away, but the woman held her face and made her watch. Up the sacrificial platform. Chunks of flesh. Splinters of bone. A severed neck, stuck between an old iron rod and the hollow of a wooden plank. Pipe like something sticking out. Then a body. Fat and plump. Protruding belly. Hairy legs. The lungi undone.
Then the temple. The haunted temple. And in that small dingy shrine, was that a…
Her knees buckled and she collapsed. The woman marched in front of her and drove a leg right into her chest. “Burn her!” she screamed at the spectators. “Cut her into pieces and feed her to the dogs!”
Women were first to attack. Their assaults were not physical, largely. They slapped and kicked initially, but their strength began to wean. So, they tore off her sari. They spat on her face and abused and pulled her hair. She was in her blouse and petticoat when men arrived. Now she knew what pain felt like. The first kick in her stomach and she knew she would die. She couldn’t cry. She couldn’t plead. Someone lifted her and as if a toy, threw her around. Then her face was smeared with the blood on the grass. Hands began to grope her – pressing her breasts, slapping her, touching her thighs, punching her, pinching her breasts…
She did not have the physical strength to resist. Soon, her will to defend herself weakened as well. She lay on the ground, instincts telling her to cover her head, but no one seemed interested there. She wrapped her arms around her breasts, then her stomach, then her thighs, back to her breasts. Someone’s knee slammed into her head. Everything seemed to pause for a moment. The world darkened; tiny lights criss-crossed in front of her eyes. Silence. Then slowly, the pain began to reappear. So did the mob. It took her a moment to realise where she was. Her hands were limp by her side. There was this rancid smell… of sweat and blood and suffocation…
And amidst the chaos and war cries, she heard a deafening blast. A gun shot. A young man marched through the gates, a double-barrel in his hands. His face seemed blurred. But she recognised him. Manish Singh. A younger woman followed him, looking down, not daring to meet anyone’s eyes. Aditi knew her too. Gauri.
Aditi closed her eyes. This time she managed to cry. She somehow missed her mother. She didn’t know why… out of all the few people she cherished, it was the image of her mother that first formed before her. Small face. Pointed nose. High cheeks. A mole under the right eye. And lots of wrinkles. She wanted to see her father… wanted desperately. But his face never surfa
ced. All she saw was turbulent waters. Angry river. Fierce clouds…
Another gun shot. She flinched. A distant echo followed. Then silence. She opened her eyes and saw Gauri approach her. She now realised that her blouse was all torn. Gauri covered her body with a dupatta. Manish was quarrelling with the elderly woman. He was slapped, then pushed. Finally, the woman sat on the ground and started beating her chest. Manish came running towards Aditi, the gun now slung across his back.
Aditi was lifted. One of her eyes had swollen. She tasted blood. The men watched silently, eyes flaring anger, as Manish carried her back – across the temple campus, through the barren field, under the shadows of the bamboos, into the courtyard and laid her down on a bed in a dark room. Gauri came in behind him and together with another woman, cleaned and covered her wounds. They brought in a new sari and left. Then the door was shut.
What was happening? Aditi broke into tears, this time not because of the physical pain, but the agony that was suffocating her from within. She needed to contact her husband, call him here and get out of this damned village. She would go back to Purnia, go back home and the first thing she would do was file an FIR against these wild animals. Then came another wave of realisation that shook the very roots of her existence. That after everything, she was still so dependent on her husband. That she wouldn’t have been even touched had he been with her. That he was solely responsible for her dignity, her pride, her respect, even if he did not care. She shut her eyes and counted her breaths. No. She couldn’t calm down. That fucking temple! So much blood. More blood than she had ever seen in her lifetime. The severed body, lumped against the wooden post. The head, staring at her from the darkness of the shrine instead of an idol, its hair soaked in blood, eyes still wide in terror, a portion of the tongue hanging out.
Something was terribly wrong in this village. She had to get going. Ignoring the pain and the shame, she latched the door and changed into the new sari. She needed to get away. But how? The only way out was through the flooded river. Who would take her across? There had always been those signs, from the day she set her foot in here. She should have run away right then. But she ignored them. She was helpless now. And tears began to flow again.
She was in a dark world, suffocating. Panicked. Frightened. She might have dozed off, for she didn’t hear the men coming. The sudden shouts startled her. “Open the door, you slut!” Then a blow and the door bulged inwards. She retreated into a corner, hunched, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees, trembling, as if she were dying of cold.
“Open you bitch!” The voice was hoarse. Demeaning. Another blow and the door gave way. A tall, bulky man stepped into the room. Short, curly hair pulled back. Thick beard. Big eyes. He grabbed her hair and pulled her to her feet. Tilting her face upwards, he spat, “I did not believe it the first time they told me about you. I paid for my ignorance. My father let you stay here. And look what you did to him! You are going to pay, bitch! I am going to make you pay!” Then he lifted her over his shoulder. She kicked and she screamed, and the men became wilder. They slapped her thighs and pulled her hair. Amid loud hooting and choruses of insults, she was brought out into an open field through the main gates of the building. She was flung down on the grass, fell hard on her back and knocked her head. Her lights went out. A deep ringing, with a backdrop of deafening silence.
When she regained consciousness, she saw the bulky man standing over her, one foot on her breasts, shoving her this way and that. She tried to push him away, but he was too heavy. Men gathered with a variety of cutting instruments and watched. Women hid in the many shadowy windows of the building and watched. He pulled her up and drove his knee into her stomach. She screamed, but no sound came out. She gasped for air, but nothing came in. He grabbed her neck and forced her around for everyone to see. “You see,” he whispered into her ears, “it won’t be over soon. They are all waiting for their turn. And when they are done, I will have my dogs ride you.” Her hair was grabbed. She was pulled to a ragged piece of bedding in the shade of a tree. Her sari pulled at. Her blouse ripped off her shoulder. The crowd inched closer. Aditi could take it no more. She was exhausted, physically, mentally and emotionally. She could have cried for help, begged if that was what it took – knelt down and begged for forgiveness, mercy… but no one would come forward for her. So, when he took off his shirt and plunged his knee into her stomach again, she let herself fall. Blackness began to surround her. Frightening thoughts passed in a fuzzy.
Blackness was a relief. Terror awaited when the blackness would lift.
Someone was saying something. Then silence. Then too many sounds. Then a voice, “There! There!” Light began to seep in. She saw uniformed men. People were being driven away. A big rowdy crowd had gathered around someone, pushing, scuffling. Aditi suddenly realised she was thirsty. “Water,” she whispered to the air, and her throat went drier. A drop of blood ran into her eye. Her vision became hazy… reddish… She closed her eyes. She tried to think of something good, anything good that had happened in her life. But again, she saw dark waters, threatening her with their ferocity. She felt she was in mortal danger, if not from the men ready to pounce on her, then from the black waters in her imagination.
Someone approached her. “Get up!” commanded a hoarse voice of a man. She didn’t move. Someone else held her arms and tried to lift her. When he couldn’t, he pressed his knees into her back and held her so that she was in a seated position. She felt excruciating pain in her ribs, but the man behind wouldn’t let her lie down. Someone cleared his throat in front of her.
“What is your name?”
She didn’t reply.
“Your name, woman?”
“Sir asks something. Answer!” said the man from behind and pressed his knee harder into her ribs.
She managed to open her eyes. A police officer stood in front of her, a notebook in his hands. He was her age, in his late twenties.
“Name, woman! Speak up!”
“Aditi!” Manish Singh appeared beside the officer. “Aditi Prasad.”
“Husband’s name?” The officer asked in a monotonous tone.
“Manoj Prasad. I told you. He is the bank manager.”
The officer looked up from his notebook, genuinely interested. He eyed her up and down. Manish Singh immediately knelt beside her and covered her shoulders and bosom. “Get her some water,” he shouted at someone.
“Where are you from?” The officer was no longer writing. He too knelt down beside her.
“They came here from Purnia, what, two months…”
“I mean your hometown?”
Aditi knew where her hometown was. But somehow, she couldn’t recall the name. She thought about it. Glimpses of a market. A railway crossing. The massive buildings of a women’s college. A lone rose plant on a raised ground somewhere along the banks of the Ganga…
“Bhagalpur?” asked the inspector.
Yes, that was it! She nodded. The knees behind her withdrew. Darkness began to swallow her again.
“And your father’s name?” came a voice from somewhere.
She was lost. It was peaceful in here. She could die. She wanted to die…
“Shri Shyamlal Prasad? He worked in Dr Saha’s clinic?” asked the voice.
The name brought her back to her senses. She stared at the inspector. How did he know who she was? He came closer. “Aditi! For heaven’s sake, it’s you!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here? What have you done? All this…”
She had fainted by then.
*
Aditi woke up in Laila’s house. She recognised it the moment she opened her eyes. Small room. Square bed with a mosquito net hanging from one of the four poles. Clothes hung on shagging ropes running across the room. More clothes in the big iron box. It was her eldest daughter’s room. Zeenat.
Laila rushed into the room, probably to get something, but stopped dead when she saw her awake. And the look she gave… it was clear Aditi shouldn’t be there. Laila stormed out and
shouted something. Moments later, the police officer entered the room. “How are you feeling now?” he asked.
And the incidents of the morning flashed before her eyes. She looked down her molested body. Bruises, finger marks, cuts. And now that she did not have to care for her life, her self-respect overtook her earlier instinct of survival
“I am Neeraj Mishra,” he added on seeing her blank expression. “I hope you remember me...”
Of course she did. He was the one who, long ago, had given her a letter written by someone else. They had met only once. Memories flashed before her. A sliver of happiness wriggled out from the deepest recess of her memory. It shone for a moment, filling her heart with emotions, before the recent events clouded over every happy memory she might have had. “I want to file an F.I.R.”
A commotion erupted in one of the many rooms of the house. Laila was screaming, her voice hoarse and loud. A man was trying to interrupt. His voice was feeble. It lacked authority. Laila dominated.
“About that…” Inspector Mishra seemed taken back for a moment, clearly not expecting such a formal, straight-to-the-point conversation. “I was wondering what are you doing alone in this village? Where is your husband?”
“He has gone to the zonal office in Purnia. Some urgent meeting.”
“Why didn’t he take you along?”
“I was sick. The river is flooding. It was risky enough for him to cross it. On top of that, Araria is all but submerged under water…”
“What were you doing in his house, this Om Prakash Singh?”
“He offered to let me stay while my husband was away.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean why? I was not well. My husband couldn’t leave me alone.”
“I heard you cut your wrist?” he asked, glancing at the bandage around her wrist, stained with red and yellow.
“Yes…” she replied uncertainly.
“Accident? Or…”
She heard the voice whisper to her again. The voice that spoke to her for the first time the previous night. She shuddered. “Yes. I was unpacking. There was a knife in between my clothes. Accidents happen.”