House of Snow

by Sir Ranulph Fiennes Ed Douglas

  Startled from his thoughts, Bam Bahadur asked, “Hunh? What did you say?”

  “Won’t your nephew stay here a few days more?”

  “If all of you are going with him, he’ll have to stay longer.”

  When Bam Bahadur and Bhagate reached Bam Bahadur’s house, dusk had fallen. As soon as he saw his father, Bam Bahadur’s seven-year-old son cried gleefully, “Ba’s come! Ba’s come, and he’s brought a goat!”

  Bam Bahadur’s younger daughter rushed to him. Eyeing the goat greedily, she said, “Ba, I’ll eat a lot of seared meat tomorrow – all right, Ba?”

  Bam Bahadur turned to Bhagate and aid, “Take this goat and lock it up in the shed.” Then, spreading a straw mat on the front porch, he told his daughter, “Go and ask for three small jugs from your mother. Ask her, too, if there are any relishes.” Bam Bahadur sat down and took four bottles of liquor from his bag. When Bhagate returned from locking up the goat, Bam Bahadur invited him to sit down, too.

  Him Maya brought a plate covered with turnip relish and placed it in front of her husband. Bam Bahadur said to her, “Well, now, what’s my nephew doing? Send him out here.”

  “But they left this morning, after their meal,” Him Maya said.

  At first Bam Bahadur looked confused. “What’s this you’re babbling about?”

  Him Maya continued, “He took Kamali with him, saying that you and he had talked it over. He said he’d bring our daughter back in ten to fifteen days, when he returns with his wife –”

  She had barely finished speaking when Bam Bahadur jumped to his feet and began kicking her. “Eh, whore!” he bellowed. “What reason did you have to send my daughter with that stranger?!”

  Hurt and confused, Him Maya said, “What do you mean by ‘stranger’? He’s your own nephew. Why vent such anger on me?”

  “That’s not my nephew! That’s a cheat who lives off selling girls! Oh, God! He’s taking my daughter to sell her right now! Bring me my knife! I’ll go after him and slit his throat!”

  Bam Bahadur ran to his bed, pulled his khukuri knife from its sheath, and dashed into the darkness, brandishing the naked blade.

  *

  It’s been about seven years since Bam Bahadur went insane. These days he mostly sits, staring straight ahead. Sometimes when a stranger enters the village, he rushes over and grabs the person by the collar, shouting, “Do you have a goat, a nice fat goat?! I’ve got to set a trap!”

  THE SCREAM

  Dhruba Sapkota

  Dhruba Sapkota is a Nepali author based in Kathmandu. Recipient of the Udanyananda prize, he has published four collections of short stories and a novel entitled Broken into Pieces.

  They’re seated around the fire pit – from the grandmother badeni down to the granddaughter badeni – three generations of flowers threaded onto one necklace. Flowers for the picking, for the plucking. To be slung around anyone’s neck. The grandmother flower was plucked ages ago, and today the granddaughter will be plucked. It’s natural. A flower is a flower. But the grandmother no longer has any fragrance; old flowers wither away. Someone plucks the new ones. Before they have a chance to come into full bloom, someone is in a hurry to pluck them, to twist them from the vine. Such a hurry, such a hurry!

  The women live with the waiting and the hardships. In one day there may be as many as twenty hardships. No one can say for sure. And as for the wait! They have been waiting for generations. Their lives are spent waiting.

  There is a fire in the fire pit. The wet wood is hissing and steaming. Tears are streaming from their eyes. The fourteen-year-old granddaughter says, “Grandmother, my eyes are stinging. I’m going to bed.”

  She cannot leave the fire pit without her grandmother’s permission. She knows her grandmother controls the household. The old woman is sixty years old. The girl’s mother and aunts do what her grandmother says, so how can she not?

  The old badeni understands her granddaughter’s problem. She had been that age, too. She would like to give her permission to go to bed, but all at once she changes her mind and says, “Go ahead, if you want to die of hunger tomorrow.”

  This explains a lot. We can guess the meaning of this. To fight hunger, they need rice, vegetables, salt, and oil. But it’s not enough just to fill their stomachs; they can’t walk around naked. They need saris. They need blouses and flashy jewelry to wear. Red lipstick is essential; otherwise, how will people recognize them? They need wood for the fire pit. At night mere embraces are not sufficient. They need quilts as well.

  The granddaughter says nothing. She takes out a leaf-rolled cigarette, lights it in the fire, and takes a long pull on it. She looks at her grandmother’s wrinkled cheeks. She certainly has not told her to stay without a reason. Someone must be coming. Someone will come. Her hairs stand on end just imagining it. She takes a strong pull on the cigarette. It glows brightly.

  “Let her go if she wants to. We’re here; after all,” suggests the girl’s mother. She cannot give orders to her own mother. Not her mother, who brought her up, taught her how to behave, and in whose footsteps she is following. But she loves her daughter no less than her mother. This is the age for her daughter to eat treats and play, not be played with. And if she were to talk the language of the city bazaars, she would say that at this age her daughter ought to be learning, clutching books under her arm on the way to school. It isn’t the age to be clutching a man in her arms. She has learned of the great gulf between books and men.

  “I wouldn’t bother you if I could still work – let alone your daughter.” It is impossible to disagree with the old woman. She is one hundred percent right. A sixty-year-old badeni, she has a nagging cough. It’s been many years since she wore nice clothes, and more since she slept in a comfortable bed. This is our old badeni. She believes in her work. She has accepted the body as a means of making a living. She is a strict follower of tradition. She believes in the divine, our old badeni.

  One day a young man appeared; they were sitting around the fire pit just as they are now. He asked her, “How many men have you had in your life, Mother? Could you say?”

  At such a question, the rest of them burst out laughing. They hadn’t had the courage to ask the old woman themselves. A shameless question like that should be asked in private. But the young man had never imagined that badenis might have their own private moments. It had never occurred to him that they might have their joys and sorrows. The old badeni said, “I’ll burn you with a brand, bastard!”

  That was a stab at their laughter and a sharp blow to the youth. They hadn’t expected such a bold answer from the old woman. Her reply energized the women. The oldest daughter said, “If you want to talk dirty, you can go away and stay away.”

  It was the youth’s turn to be surprised. The women didn’t want to name their profession. To name it was to call it “dirty.” The women know that their work is dirty work. But tradition lies so comfortably at their feet. It pushes them into this mudhole. They even try to make it more convenient. Their house is right by the side of the road. Very few passersby will look openly at it. They glance furtively this way and that. If no one is about, they slip inside – from the village’s high-caste brahmin sons down to whomever the women can get, even the sons of the low-caste shudras. What do they care; anybody can come in. Sometimes the women make alluring gestures. It amuses them to make lewd gestures at boys just coming into their youth.

  The old badeni’s wealth consists of the four of them. She is a glimpse into their future. The old woman has prepared them to drink all the bitter poisons she herself has had to drink.

  Her life has been spent within the limits of this house and yard for many, many years now. The days when she danced and sang in the big cities for money are just a memory. Now, whatever has to be done, these daughters and this granddaughter are the ones who will do it. The old woman’s hopes rest with them. She is nothing but their guardian. She wishes them well. It was in their best interests that she didn’t send her granddaughter to bed a moment
ago. Suddenly, the old badeni is seized by a coughing fit; she coughs until she is faint. Finally, she stops. She is panting. She says quietly, “It’s gotten quite late, hasn’t it?”

  Although she is old, her ears are sharper now than ever. She can hear very soft noises. She can even hear the mice. Now she hears a footfall near the house. She hears the murmur of voices in the dark.

  “I didn’t tell you to wait for nothing!” She gets excited. She thinks of hot rice. She smacks her lips and thinks of the tomato chutney they will eat. She imagines the family happily eating and talking together. She strokes her granddaughter’s head and says, “If they don’t choose you, you can go straight to bed. My sweet girl. My obedient little girl – just like a little bird.”

  The granddaughter wriggles happily under her grandmother’s affectionate touch. The touch of the old woman’s hand has love in it. Many hands have caressed her head and body, but she has felt love only from her grandmother’s hands. The hands of others are not like hands at all, but rather like pincers. She knows the old woman’s hands won’t twist her, pin her down. They have no element of that in them. She wishes that her grandmother’s hands would caress her forever, that she would always be showered with affection.

  “Mother! Can we warm ourselves by the fire here?” call two youths from the doorway.

  “Of course, of course. Come inside.” A space is made for them inside the circle. The youths have come to be threaded onto the necklace.

  They look at the thirty-year-old daughter. They look at the twenty-five-year-old daughter. They look at the twenty-six-year-old daughter. They look at the fourteen-year-old granddaughter. At last they look at the old woman who runs this trade in human beings.

  “Old mother! Are all these your descendants? Are they keeping up the family tradition?”

  “Yes, Babu! They honor family tradition.”

  Now the women start a competition, looking at the youths. Whenever a youth glances at one of them, the woman smiles. But none of them can guess whom the youths will prefer. The fourteen-year-old granddaughter has other thoughts, though. She is hoping they will not choose her and that she can go to bed.

  “Give me a cigarette,” says the boldest badeni, making the first move.

  A youth gives her a cigarette. A Surya cigarette, an expensive one. As he gives her the cigarette, the other three women hold out their hands. They know that at this moment they can get whatever they ask for. Later no one will care. After handing out cigarettes to the four of them, the youth lights one himself. Having gotten her cigarette, the boldest badeni says, “What a cruel man. Won’t you leave one for our mother, who’s lying down?”

  “I see Mother’s descendants are all very well spoken.” Now the youth is starting to flatter them. He’d found them cheap when they asked for the cigarettes.

  “Yes, Babu, they are good.” The old woman is quite accustomed to hearing such talk. She tries to say as little as possible. She hopes they will talk little, finish their business, and go.

  “And where are their fathers?” asks the youth, seeing no men in the house at such an hour of the night.

  “They’ve gone drinking in the village,” the old woman answers curtly.

  “All of them went drinking?” asks the youth, acting surprised. “We would’ve liked to drink, too,” he suggests.

  “It’s late, Babu; otherwise we could get some,” the old woman says, trying to avoid a problem.

  At last the youth stares at the fourteen-year-old granddaughter. The one who, at her age, should be playing and going to school. She is sitting by the fire pit, smoking a cigarette. She wears red lipstick, as if she were trying to force her way into maturity.

  The youth pinches her cheek – in front of everyone. In front of her mother and grandmother. The youth pinches her tender cheek so hard with his strong hand that he leaves a red mark on her face. The granddaughter doesn’t enjoy this. It hurts. She pushes his hand away and expresses her pain in words. “Don’t you have any shame? Doing whatever you please in front of my mother!”

  Now the old badeni is certain that the youth will choose the girl. She cannot watch this happening in front of her own eyes and remain still like a corpse! She covers her face with her stained and ragged shawl and says to herself, If only they will get it over with and leave the money.

  It is dark outside. All that can be heard are dogs barking and laughter in a house nearby. People are eating and working there. She has seen drivers pull up there even in the middle of the day. She has to sleep by the fire pit, where she has slept for many years, so she is forced to listen no matter how long the youths sit in vulgar talk with her daughters and granddaughter. She has one alternative: she can pretend to be asleep and cover her face.

  The youth puts a hand on the granddaughter’s shoulder. “How long have you been working?” he asks.

  The granddaughter throws back his question, mocking him. “How long have you been working?”

  Seeing the situation, the daughter reacts. “If you’re going to stay, do it quickly. It’s getting late. Go to the room upstairs.”

  His eyes roam the room, looking for the stairs. He doesn’t see any and asks, “How do you go up?”

  The granddaughter takes an oil lamp in her hand. There is a hole in the mud wall. She goes through it. He is right behind her. He supports himself with his hands to get through. The room is tiny. Leading up are stairs made from a notched log. The steps are very narrow. He holds on with his hands to climb up. Upstairs is a larger room. She puts the lamp on the windowsill and stands in an attitude of surrender. She waits to see how the game will begin.

  He sits down on the clean mattress. He feels very comfortable here. There is no smoke, no old woman nagging. Here he is free to say or do anything.

  “You’re so big and tall.” The granddaughter starts the game with words.

  He stretches out his huge body and replies, “What sort of girl are you, to start this work at your age? Isn’t there any other kind of work to do?”

  “How could any work be more important than this? It is traditional for us to do this work.”

  Downstairs, his friend at the fire pit awaits his turn. He just waits. To pass the time, he forces himself to joke with them.

  “Which one of you will go with me?” He gives them a choice.

  The daughter thinks that if the first youth had asked this, her own daughter would already be in bed, dreaming sweet dreams. Now she is seized with worry over the state in which her daughter will return. The old badeni is snoring.

  All they have to call their own is this two-story house. After a few minutes, the room upstairs begins to tremble and pieces of dirt from the ceiling begin to fall where they are sitting. They all feel very strange, but no one expresses it. The daughter’s face goes white. A moment later, they hear a scream. A human scream. A scream full of pain. The scream descends to the place where they are sitting. It doesn’t stay long. It exits the house. It scatters into the sky, where it turns into thunder and lightning. It’s moving back and forth, looking for a place to strike. It resounds throughout the landscape and strikes the most important building. The villagers say, “There was thunder and lightning like this once before, many years ago. A man was making young children plow in the place of bullocks. That day both children died.” Since then, the tale has been repeated around the village: this is what the height of inhumanity is like. But no one knows whether this story is true or made up.

  The old woman wakes up in fear. The scream has pierced her ear like a needle. She jumps up and cries, “Has the bastard killed my dear granddaughter or what?!” The other women have seldom seen the old woman cry. Today they see it. The old woman is agitated and shouts, “Why don’t you go and see?! Has the bastard killed her or what?!”

  *

  The lightning had burned the most important building down. All that the helpless villagers could see were flames from the fire. The old woman’s eyes were wet. Slowly, that wetness spread to the eyes of the others.

&n
bsp; CHHINAR

  Sanat Regmi

  Sanat Regmi is a Nepali author and editor. He has published six short story collections and is the recipient of the prestigious Mainali Katha Puraskar award.

  On the plains of our Tarai, in virtually every village settlement exist one or two women of loose morals. Although treated in a civil way in public, these women are scorned behind their backs. The men in the villages refer to them as bhauji, or sister-in-law. But when a woman like this is called bhauji even by very young boys and old people, she is then referred to as a jagat bhauji, or sister-in-law of the world. In her absence, she is usually referred to as a chhinar – a whore.

  In our village there was a jagat bhauji named Sabitari. Around thirty or thirty-two years old, she wore a shameless smile on her face, a red tika on her fair forehead, and sindur in her hair. On her body she wore a dhoti with a tight shirt; around her neck a copper amulet; and on her wrists bangles. Dressed this way, she roamed the village and helped people with various jobs. Someone was getting married or giving birth to a baby, Sabitari was present; someone needed help planting rice, Sabitari went to the fields; someone was ill, Sabitari became a nurse. If no one needed anything special, Sabitari wandered around the village and helped the women with their small, daily chores.

  While Sabitari’s conduct was good in many regard, she had one very bad behavior: she flirted and joked in a vulgar way with the menfolk of the village, even though she was married. That’s why the villagers called her a chhinar. It was said that she had illicit relations not only with the older men, but also with boys who had just reached puberty.

  Whenever Sabitari bhauji entered our home, my mother kept a cautious eye on me. If she tried to flirt with me, my mother said, “Look, Sabitari, you can hustle the whole world, but don’t touch my son.”

  “Auntie, you’re scared for no reason,” Sabitari bhauji would say, laughing lewdly. “This son of yours is of no use to me. I need a man’s man, not a shy boy like him.”