by Katy Gardner
I stared into her face. Of course I’d always known who I was really searching for, I realized as I gazed at the small, slightly pointed nose, the still stubborn chin, the devastatingly familiar gray eyes; that was what I’d been waiting for, the real reason I had come all this way.
“Gemma!” I shrieked, and then I was holding out my hands and crying and running across the grass to meet her.
31
Agun Mazir, 1989
She had always thought of herself as a coward: her grip on life too weak, her fear of failure overwhelming. But lately something had changed; she could feel an imperceptible shift within herself, a gradual edging toward the unexpected. As Esther slammed the door, clattering noisily down the wooden steps and out of her life, Gemma turned over and sat up. She had been feeling better all morning, but now the fever and pain had completely vanished, replaced by an unfamiliar exhilaration, every inch of her body shaking with suppressed triumph. For four long weeks she had been holding back, waiting and watching as Esther’s confidence was gradually replaced by invasive, needling doubt. She thought she was so in control: the one who knew it all, but she was so wrong that it made Gemma want to laugh out loud. She had always known about Esther and Steve, from that very first night in the pub. And now, after so many years of being ordered around, of being the friend to be pitied and taken in hand, the repository of so much useless and thoughtless advice she had finally had her say.
“Give thanks to Kali, the Destroyer! Give thanks to the Great One—the Day of Judgment comes!”
On the other side of the room Coral was pacing in a circle, her eyes down, her hands folded and pressed to her forehead like a Hindu bride. As she walked, her sari was unraveling from her thin body like silk from a bobbin.
“What are you doing?”
“Soon you will understand, sister. Soon they will carry me to my pyre!”
Gemma glanced at her with irritation. She had stopped pacing around now, and was standing in the middle of the room, her eyes fixed to the ceiling. It was hard to imagine that only a week ago she had been in awe of her. In Calcutta she had been so empathetic, so understanding of everything, her hints of a knowledge yet to be revealed irresistible. But ever since their visit to the shrine something else had taken over. She was losing control, her postures and costumes becoming increasingly fantastic, her thoughts all tangled up. Coral was sick, that was what Zak had whispered to her the night before. She suffered from delusions, got involved in mad, overelaborate schemes; he’d been trying to keep up with her ever since she had run off in Delhi and now she needed medicine and to be taken back to the hills.
Zak. The sound of his name was like a prayer. Gemma closed her eyes, allowing the joy to wash over her like a sweet cool breeze. He was her angel, with his calm blue eyes and hands that touched her like a blessing. That first evening in Bhubaneshwar she’d been so nervous that she had hardly been able to speak, but still, she had understood. She had sat down soundlessly at the table in the coffeehouse where he and Coral were waiting for her and he had reached out, right there in the jostling, noisy restaurant, and traced his finger down her cheek. And as he touched her she felt a volt of pure static pass through her, a shock so real that her heart flipped over.
That was when everything changed. She looked from Zak to Coral and then back again to Zak, and suddenly knew there would be no return. This was to be her new reality; these people—with their freedom from doubt, their liberation from all the fears which so oppressed her—her new family. Steve meant nothing now, the affair with Esther was an irrelevance. They were the past, her history, something to be overthrown.
“So where’s your mate?” Coral said.
“She’s sick,” Gemma had said with an easy smile. “She said I should come alone.”
It was only a week ago, but it seemed like much more. She lay back on her pillow, suddenly tired. The fever was starting to slowly spread over her again, a deep flush of heat which reached into her joints and blurred her thoughts. All she wanted was for Zak to return. Then he would take her and Coral back to the place he had described, where it was cool and quiet and she could spend all day watching the clouds pass across the skies and need never, ever think of home again.
He had promised, and she believed him. He said he was going back to Delhi to do some business; that when it was finished he would fetch their things from the locker, then return. She had given him her key without telling Esther. Why should she? After all, Zak was her secret, and if Esther found out she would ruin it, just like she had with Steve. So she told Zak that Esther was a hedonist, unwilling to do little more than party, and did not want to come. They planned to leave that night. She would return Esther’s plane ticket and travelers checks to her wallet and then be gone. But now Esther had made her own mind up, slamming the door behind her, just like she always did, and Gemma need not tell anymore lies.
“Wake up, sister. The ceremonies are about to begin.”
Gemma opened her eyes, her head throbbing. Her forehead and cheeks were unnaturally hot again, her skin slimy with sweat. Hoisting herself up on her pillow she looked around the room in disappointment; she had been hoping that Zak would be here by now, but Coral was alone, sitting on the edge of her bed and peering anxiously into her face. She was still dressed in the sari, but had painted thick kohl lines around her eyes and splodged pink rouge on her cheeks. With her fake braid hanging lopsidedly from the back of her head and the plastic tiara perched on top she looked like a little girl playing at dressing up.
“What ceremonies?”
“For the wedding, of course.”
Leaning across the bed, Coral picked up Gemma’s floppy hand.
“But I need a ring?”
Gemma snorted, half in laughter, half in contempt.
“Well, you’re welcome to this piece of shit. I don’t need it.”
Twiddling at Steve’s ring, she pulled it off her finger. It really was a piece of crap, she thought as she glanced down at it: mass-produced plate silver which she had to use all of her cunning to get the pathetic sod to buy. He was a jerk, just like his darling Esther.
“There you are, you can wear this.”
“Jesus, Gem, that is like, so beautiful . . .”
Gazing down at the ring as if it was a twenty-four-carat diamond, Coral slipped it onto her finger. She was nuts, as screwy as a brothel, but Gemma didn’t care. Let her play out her fantasies, she thought. So long as Zak returned in time to rescue her.
“So,” she said, trying not to laugh. “Who’s the lucky guy?”
Coral exhaled and ecstatically flopped back on the bed, her eyes druggy with bliss.
“You mean you don’t know?”
“No, of course I don’t. Go on, surprise me.”
“Well, it’s Zak of course. I wasn’t going to tell you, but we, like, did it last night.”
Then, as if in a Victorian peepshow, she smirked coyly and pulled the sari away from her chest.
And there, right in front of Gemma’s eyes, were two purple love bites, one above her right breast, the other almost on top of her small brown nipple, an obscene warning, a portent of everything that Gemma dreaded. She stared at Coral’s tender, bruised skin in shock. How could this have happened? Every time they met it was her eyes that Zak gazed into, her hand that he squeezed. Yet last night he and Coral had woken her together and—she remembered now with a rush of sick realization—as they had stood by the side of her bed their hands were entwined.
She shuddered, and looked away, her hands rolled tight and hard under her sheet. She wanted to smash her fists into Coral’s chest, to pulverize her until she had reached her splintered, brittle bones. Her thoughts were fuzzing over, her vision misty red.
“He wants us to get married when we go back to Manali,” Coral was cooing. “He says I’m his lucky star.”
She was making it up, of course she was. Zak would never say something so trite. He was hers, her angel, her love alone. It was her he was sent to rescue, he had virtually
told her so, not stupid, loony Coral. She gripped at her covers then suddenly threw them violently aside. She was so fucking hot, that was the trouble, and now her head felt as if a clamp had been placed over her temples and was being squeezed tighter and tighter. Sliding off the bed she stumbled across the room. She suddenly, desperately needed to cool down.
“What’s the matter?” Coral was saying. “Are you sick again?”
“No.”
Opening the door she took a deep breath of the cool air. She would explode if she didn’t escape from Coral, her brain boil over into something she could not control. She flapped her hands in front of her face, her legs wobbling. From down the hill she could hear drums and the amplified sounds of prayer. It was the mela, just like Esther had said.
“So shall I do it, then?” Coral suddenly said.
“Do what?”
“Go to the flames? They’re preparing them now. That’s what all this is all about. For, like, the ultimate transformation?”
Very slowly, Gemma turned around. Coral was standing naked in the middle of the room, her sari a pool of silk at her feet. She was looking at Gemma expectantly, her confused, innocent face empty of malice, a little girl waiting for a treat. She was beautiful, Gemma realized as she stared at her, with her long willowy body, her tiny stomach and perfect, bitten breasts. So, her eyes were crazy, her face smeared with mud and her hair clumped and thick with grease under the wig, but in her madness she was radiant, her face dancing with hope.
And she was still Gemma, the plain, dumpy one, who the boys never chose. All her life she had been taught that to love was to lose and all her life she had watched other women win. She stood by the door and stared at Coral and she thought of Steve and Esther, of all the discos and parties she left alone, all the patronizing lies she had been told. Even her brother had not cared enough to stay; even her father had gone off with someone else. And she was expected to accept this shit, to take it like a trooper, to smile and say it didn’t matter, to still want to be friends. She stared and she stared until she could no longer see and everything that had ever happened rose up inside her in a bloodied, murderous rage and she heard herself whisper: “Yes, Coral, I think you should.”
There was a long pause as if it was not what Coral was expecting. She seemed to be thinking hard.
“You mean, he’d like, love me more?”
“Of course he would,” Gemma heard herself say evenly. “It’s the ultimate sacrifice.”
It was almost like a joke, the stupid make-believe games she used to play with Esther. How could anyone take that sati stuff seriously? It was all in Coral’s head, her foolish, fucked-up fantasy of India. As she said it she sniggered, but Coral did not get it. Instead, she spun round, her eyes gleaming.
“Well, I’ve like, got everything prepared.”
She gestured to the table. Gemma had not noticed it before, but now she saw a large brown bottle sitting among the fags and water bottles and orange peel. It was petrol, she realized with a thrill, and next to it were two large candles and a box of matches. Turning with a laugh to gather her bounty in her arms, Coral tripped across the room.
The old Gemma would have stopped her there and then. She would have told Coral to calm down, taken the petrol and candles and matches from her hands, tried to talk her back to sense. Perhaps deep down a part of her might have wanted Coral to carry on, but she would have been too scared of the repercussions, too apprehensive of what lay ahead.
But the old Gemma was gone. In her place, the woman she had become took a step back from the doorway and smirked at Coral as she walked through it.
“Good luck,” she whispered.
But Coral didn’t seem to hear, for by now she had jumped down the steps and was running down the hill.
Grabbing at the window ledge to steady herself, Gemma stared at Coral’s disappearing back. For a moment her vision blurred with nausea but then suddenly it cleared and even though she was burning with fever she had never felt so lucid. It was not a joke, of course it wasn’t, but still, she was not going to stop what was about to happen. Why should she stand back while others took what she wanted? Lunging for the door she threw it open and ran down the steps.
32
To her surprise it had been raining, and now puddles lay across the path, the steam lifting like breath from the branches of the trees. The air smelled dank and heavy: of warm, damp earth and rotting flowers; mosquitoes were droning in her ears. As she ran Gemma was blasted by the heat; the sweat dripping down her face and back and thighs so that the baggy trousers she was wearing stuck to her skin in damp patches and got caught up around her legs. Somewhere, not far ahead of her, was Coral.
She came to the road, pushing her way past the few pilgrims that milled around, and headed for the track which led to Pir Nirulla’s tomb. Everything kept slipping in and out of focus, her surroundings fading and then sharpening as she splashed down the muddy path. Her heart was pounding furiously.
When she reached the first bend, she stared down the track, the sound of drumming thundering in her ears. From where she was standing she could see the crowd, pressing tighter and closer as it neared the shrine. And there, right at the back, where a crowd of men were standing back to watch the spectacle, Coral was dancing, waving the now burning candles high above her head.
It was too late for Gemma to intervene, of course it was. And after all, it was what she wanted. She leaned forward, straining to see what was happening. Coral was directly beneath her now, her naked hips gyrating lewdly, her eyes closed, and her mouth hanging open as if in a trance. She had shaved off her pubes, Gemma noticed with surprise, and now looked like an oddly distorted child, a small girl who has got involved in the wrong game. As she danced her breasts jigged up and down, her writhing body twisting like a serpent. Then suddenly there was a movement from a group of men standing to one side, and Gemma saw what must have been a stone hurling through the air. The missile hit Coral squarely on the forehead. She staggered backward, her face covered with red, then dropped from Gemma’s view.
The procession carried on: those in the front unaware of the small commotion at the back, the men at the back pressing onward, their anger at defilement by the Western woman’s appearance overtaken by their desire to reach the tomb. Somewhere in the trees, Coral must be lying wounded.
Gemma took a deep breath. It had just been a joke, what she’d said, but Coral had misunderstood it, so now she should go to help her. Was that not what Zak would have wanted? But still she did not move. How dare Coral fuck him, she was thinking. How dare she mess everything up?
And then just when she was least expecting it, it happened. On the empty path beneath her, Coral suddenly burst from the trees. For a moment she stood facing the shrine, her shoulders heaving, the blood that poured from her face splattering the ground. She seemed to be fiddling with something in her hands. Then there was a terrible flash and whoosh as if lightning had struck, and Gemma saw brilliant flames reach up in an arc, then settle back into the shape of Coral’s body, which shuddered, as if momentarily surprised.
She didn’t want to look anymore, but she was transfixed, staring down the hill as the figure staggered around for a while, the fire leaping boldly from its limbs. She could hear the fizz and crackle of the flames, smell the roasting flesh. Even if she had wanted to help, she kept telling herself, it was too late. Then suddenly the figure crumpled, dropping down on the ground, so that she was completely out of sight.
She almost fell herself then. It was what she had wanted, but not what she’d expected, not the reality of it, not that sighing, screaming hiss of fire, not the sizz of cooking fat. She could have, should have, stopped her, but then she had seen the flash, felt the warmth of the flames from the track, and now she was crying out loud and running down the path to where Coral’s body lay. When she reached the place where she had seen Coral dancing she stopped, looking around in alarm. The path was empty: the only sign of the fire a fine layer of ash already settled on the stone
s. Coral must have tumbled into the bushes. Glancing around she noticed a blackened area of undergrowth to one side of the path, the smoke still rising. Leaping past it, she bashed her way into the trees.
It only took a few minutes to find what was left of Coral. Her corpse was slumped against the buttress roots of a tree as if she had just sat down for a rest, her skin so charred it seemed barely human. Her scalp was coming away, Gemma noticed with disgust, the face which stared sightlessly up melted into a melange of misplaced features: the brow of a nose, a skeleton’s jaw, even Aussie teeth, grinning at the trees. The smell was overwhelming: pig on a spit, the meat she never touched. For a moment she almost retched, her throat constricting, her chest heaving, but she fought it back. She was dripping with sweat now, the fever consuming her with heat.
Bending over, she pulled at Coral’s body. No one need ever know, she was thinking; why should they? They were in the jungle, where bodies decomposed within hours, where everything that was dead was eaten up by the ravenous, unstoppable living. Yet however hard she tugged, the corpse was too heavy to move. She would have to bury it instead. Her fingers scrabbling frenziedly at the leafy ground, she began to cover it with vegetation: her breath coming in short, exhausted gasps. She was almost too weak to carry on now, her back racked with pain, her hands shaking with the delirium which was closing down on her like a fire curtain.
When she’d finished, she stood up, her legs swaying treacherously. She had to make it back to the path, otherwise she would be lost. She took a few more steps, then her vision blurred and, her legs folding beneath her, she fell to the ground.
When she next opened her eyes the odor of burning had dispersed and her angel was there. She saw his face, felt his hand against her cheek, tried to sit up.
“What’s happened to you?” he was saying. “Where in heaven is Coral?”