by K R Meera
He was here last Sunday. He gave me five hundred rupees. I asked him about you. But he walked away saying nothing, didn’t even touch the black tea …
My tears fell on the shapely letters on her postcard. Malampuzha. I chanted the word in my dreams and in my waking hours. Perhaps he is able to find many dead bodies there. I envied the dead bodies. I felt vengeful towards Yudas again. With a melting heart I explored opportunities to go to Malampuzha. I traded blood in a clinic across the lake to meet travel expenses. There wasn’t much blood in my body; I squeezed out whatever I had. That night I boarded a Palakkad-bound train, having lied about my need to visit the college in Kozhikode to receive a certificate.
At dawn I was sitting in a bus, leather bag in hand, feeling the moist air rushing through the window, and anxiously wondering how I was going to find Yudas. I got down near the Malampuzha dam and strolled along the road aimlessly. I walked past the ropeway and a coffee shop behind a cotton tree in full bloom to reach a little bridge leading to the guest house. Under the bridge was the lake and on its brink stood three policemen while a few other bystanders huddled under a tall coral tree. I hoped someone had died by drowning for it meant Yudas would certainly be there. I really wanted someone to die. I carefully manoeuvred my way around the rocky ledges to get near the shore. It was a homicide brought on by gangster violence. The corpse had been thrown into the dam. Regrettably, by the time I arrived the body had already been recovered. I glanced despairingly at the dead body, covered haphazardly with a white sheet which was sodden. The pebbles under it were drenched too. The corpse’s face was partially turned towards the side as though it had begun to look around for someone. Perhaps he was stabbed in the back by a close friend—a backstabber! We all might take a last look at a traitor in exactly the same way. I stood there, watching the cadaver’s hair flutter in the breeze.
A boat rattled towards the ferry. After all the tourists disembarked, the dead body was transferred on to the boat. Following the jostling crowd, I was the last passenger to step in. I chatted up the policeman who sat on the steps at the entrance of the boat. I introduced myself and mentioned my father’s name during the conversation. He told me Yudas’s whereabouts.
This time Yudas had built himself a leafy shack that almost touched the water if you stretched your legs far enough. He had a lit beedi between his lips while frying a fish impaled on a rod. I stood outside glumly, unable to enter the shack since the state of my health wouldn’t let me bend. He saw my feet from inside. The beedi slipped out of his mouth and lay fuming on the plain dirt as he got up with a start, crawled out through the tiny door and stared at me. He had trouble getting his breath back. Sighing slowly as though he’d resigned to the fact that he had been found, he called me in. I didn’t look at him, nor did I move an inch. The waves from the departed boat beat against the rock that rose in the middle of the reservoir, its concentric rings exposed by the ebbing water. A large eagle sat listlessly atop a golden shower tree in the middle of the islet. The waves caressed my feet.
‘I’ve been expecting you here, Prema.’
He sounded cold. Again he invited me inside. I broke into tears. That wasn’t the welcome I’d anticipated. A cruel lover. I looked at him reproachfully. He smiled like an imbecile. In the end I gave up. With great effort, I bent and entered through the door. Inside, underneath the roof of coconut leaves which had been thatched together and was held aloft by the mesh of bamboo props that served as walls, there was hardly enough space for the two of us to lie down on our backs. I felt like I was lying on top of a thin layer of dirt below which the lake billowed—the water was that close to me; the floor was muddy and moist.
‘I have been expecting you,’ he repeated. The fish being cooked in the sputtering oil turned a golden brown. I glared at him now.
‘I knew you would come,’ he said. ‘You would come. You’d keep looking for me everywhere. And you would remind me of bygone stuff. I knew that,’ he said coldly. I felt a mad rush inside me but when I looked at him, the flow of rage slowed all of a sudden and I became tender again. I quietly watched the fish. He too was quiet. He got up when the evening darkened.
‘Where are you going? ‘I inquired resentfully.
He laughed like a fool. ‘You will find me no matter where I go. Won’t you?’ he said it again as though he had reconciled to the prospect of my scouting for him.
‘I will!’ I said mock-threateningly.
He’d lost again. My breasts ached as though their nipples were ripped out. I felt weak every time I looked at his face. He was my Naxalite. He carried the burden of human sins to redeem this world.
‘I am ill, Das,’ I whispered through tears.
‘Yu-Das,’ he corrected.
After a pause, he asked, ‘Why did you go looking for Sunanda’s sister?’
I didn’t respond.
‘You are nothing like Sunanda!’ Yudas blew up suddenly. ‘I can never forget her, Prema. I close my eyes and I see the gorge. I see her body sinking into the water. You haven’t seen that river, have you? The water has a slimy green tinge. Its current is like an immensely wild force of nature. You cannot swim in there. Throw a stone and the current will bounce it around until it begs to drown. But you should’ve seen how Sunanda sank into it. I am haunted by that vision all the time. A quick fall. She went right through.
‘I was at the far end of a rocky ledge, overlooking the gorge. They asked me to toss her out. I’d become too weak from puking blood. Blood is man’s modesty, Prema. When he is made to throw it up, he falls apart. I bent as far as I could when I flung her away. I wanted to go along with her. But they had tied a rope around my waist and secured the other end to a tree. I must be the world’s most despicable lover. Man becomes a beast the moment he has chains around his waist or feet. What man needs is freedom. Not only to run or walk, but to think, dream and die too. The waves couldn’t conquer her. Instead she conquered the waves. Oh! What strength she possessed. It isn’t the might of the body, but the power of the mind. I have never seen a woman like that. She never lost to either water or blood. She just never did.’
Tears brimmed my eyes. My heart writhed and scalded as if it had fallen into boiling oil in a frying pan. I wished to burn away completely.
‘Sunanda is dead.’ I reminded him sadistically. ‘Who’s to gain if you keep talking about her? She, who is long dead? Or you, who are still alive? What about me? What about the world?’
Yudas lost steam instantly.
‘Prema, don’t. Let’s talk something else.’
I got angrier.
‘No! Let’s talk more about Sunanda. Who was Sunanda? A girl. She joined the group by accident. She was nothing like me. Granted. I was born in a feudal home and grew up there. Yet I believed in you and your ideology. Finding you was never a question of choice. I waited for you alone. I wanted only you. My love should mean more to you than Sunanda’s.’
I was shaking with anger and grief.
‘Sunanda never loved you at all. I will tell you whom she loved. Rajan! That is the reason she ended her life right next to him in the gorge.’
‘Stop!’
Yudas lunged at my throat. As he tightened his hands around my neck, my eyes bulged and tongue protruded from my mouth. My mouth and nose began to bleed immediately. He let go of me.
‘What happened now?’ I asked, struggling to breathe. ‘Kill me if you dare. And then throw me in the ravine.’
Yudas retreated. He sat quietly like a convict for a while, as if he had been drained of all his energy. I rubbed my neck gently to regain my voice. My eyes were wet. My voice cracked as I spoke without a hint of ire.
‘On the third day you will have to dive in and pull me out of the water. That will be my greatest wish come true.’
My love for him cut through my garbled voice. He must have recognized it, for he too was looking more than exhausted. It’s not just blood that is private to a man; love is another secret he wouldn’t want to part with. He’d be weary of throwing
up that too. Yudas lay on his back on the mud floor. Tiny specks of dirt got stuck on his body in random places. I didn’t move an inch from where I’d been sitting. But I extended my arm to gently caress his silky hair. The fish was completely fried in the boiling oil by now. I turned off the stove. Darkness enveloped the shack. I continued to caress his hair.
After a long time, when my fingers began to tire, he spoke again.
‘It doesn’t matter who wins or loses, Prema. It is more important to make sense and resist. We were weak. We fantasized about becoming a band of potent force, a bunch of young things, who had no clue what life really was! We were passionate, honest and pure at heart. That’s all we were. We took up arms. Our goal was to rid this world of injustice. We longed for a fertile earth, clean air and pure water. It was a difficult period. The lure of wealth and a life of luxury had begun to entice people. Charmed by the colour of money, the representatives of people, who had grown up in poverty themselves, forgot everything. They wrote off our land to money launderers and black marketeers. Someone had to challenge them, but in reality there was nobody. Everyone was afraid of the machinery of the state. If only we’d won then.’
He was out of breath.
‘All state machines have the same face, Das,’ I whispered. ‘Power will corrupt you too.’
‘If we’d won, I wouldn’t have lost Sunanda,’ he whimpered.
I was mad at him again.
‘You are insane. You know nothing about this world or life. A fool, that’s who you are. I who’ve loved you must be a bigger fool!’
I tried to get up but then settled down again.
He peered at me for a while. Then he got up and walked out, towards the reservoir. Through a tiny crack in the hut I could see moonlight fall across the sky. Beneath the glint, he swam soundlessly. When he came back, he brought a bucketful of water for me. ‘I will fix a cover for you behind the hut. Please wash yourself,’ he said.
His words warmed my body. He does remember that I do have a body to wash. I regretted that it had been weakened by disease and destitution. It craved for him. When I returned to the hut, wrapped in the scent of Lifebuoy soap, he served me rice on a couple of dry teak leaves. The fried fish was placed on top of the rice.
‘I don’t want the fish,’ I said.
‘Huh?’
‘I don’t want it,’ I repeated.
Fish reminded me of dead bodies. There are dead people at the bottom of every waterbody. If you venture deep into the water, towards the bottom, you will find fish slithering out of every corpse. He fed me balls of plain rice which he rolled in his hands. I ate hungrily. Tears streamed down as I chewed. His silhouette in the darkened hut resembled a hermit. He got rid of the leaves outside, washed his hands and came back in, pulling down a leaf door behind him. He spread a mat on the floor. When I stood there incomprehensibly, he approached me and held my shoulder to lead me to the mat. Moonlight beamed brighter in the sky. I hoped he would accept me as a woman tonight. I wanted to push the leaf door open and lie on his chest while I marvelled at the moon. I leant on his chest. He kept caressing my shoulders and hair. His fingers had become soft having been in the water for ages. By the time he moved his fingers across my head, I was sleepy.
‘Where are you going to run away next?’ I fought sleep as I inquired. My voice was damp with love and grief.
‘Das, do you love me?’
Yudas didn’t respond. Instead he continued stroking the strands of my hair. I yearned to hear him say that he loved me. He didn’t. I despaired that he would never say those words. I hugged him tightly. His body warmed up in my embrace. The brimming reservoir outside muffled its sobs. I closed my eyes slowly. These fingers belong to a revolutionary, I thought proudly. They were caressing me to sleep. I felt the waves sway under the mat. I was slumbering in his lap atop a carpet of water. I was living a dream. I slept deep that night.
I woke up in the morning to find that there was no one around. What remained were my little leather bag, the soiled cloth I had shed yesterday, me and my virginity. Meanwhile, he, his reddish-dirt-stained clothes, kerosene stove and vessels were gone. Even the mat on which I had slept had vanished into thin air. I sat in shock like a poor little girl who’d slept in a magician’s mansion. The palace had turned into a thorny jungle. He had duped me again; thrown me alive into a gorge.
How long would I have to wait till I met him again? Where could I look? And yet he would fool me again. I would allow only him to fool me.
SIX
My Lord and the Highest Honourable Parameswaran Sir,
This letter is written by Vasudevan who was fortunate enough to be in the service at Kakkayam camp under your benevolence. I trust that you remember my voluntary retirement from the service. I am respectfully writing this letter to you with liberty and in fond memory of being the benef iciary of your kind affection while I was in the service. After retirement my life has fallen into hard times. Ill health has laid me down. My financial situation is miserable. The carrier of this letter is my daughter. She is getting on in age. It is my wish that she find a husband from the service. Would there be someone in your memory or circle kind enough to marry the daughter of a poor policeman? Save for this run-down Naalukettu, I have no other means or gold to offer. I conclude this letter with the belief and expectation that you will understand the plight of an old colleague and do what can be done.
May you be showered with good health and long life!
Humbly and in obedience,
Vasudevan
I reread the letter my father handed to me. Suddenly, I wanted to throw up blood. Parameswaran was the notorious supervising police officer who was nicknamed ‘Beast’. When I had agreed to meet my father’s superior officer, I had never imagined this was the purpose of the visit.
I’d found work as a teacher in a computer institute that had opened recently in the village. I disliked teaching. But a salary of a thousand rupees was too good to pass up. It did help to buy medicines for my father, aunt and myself. The odour of the medicines lingered in the central courtyard of our feudal house. The pillars that supported the house and the courtyard of our crumbling grand old home had wilted. The little vanity mirror I used sometime in my teenage years on an eroded iron bar had become blanched. I rarely used the mirror now. Every time I looked into it I saw Balu’s face peeking from behind. He was growing a moustache when he died. Its growth halted midway and was distinctly visible on Balu’s face in the mirror.
I was travelling out of the village after a long time. There was no news about Yudas any more. Postcards from Sunanda’s sister had also tapered off. I had agreed to carry the letter only because I wanted to use this opportunity to visit her. I hated the ‘Beast’ from my gut. He was responsible for making Yudas spit blood. The only redeeming thing about him was that when there were inquiries on the many deaths in police custody, he took complete blame and punishment for the dead victims of iron-rod-roll-up tortures under his watch, and shielded the subordinates who’d worked for him.
It was an old-fashioned two-storey building. The house appeared lifeless, having not been painted for ages. I shuddered to think that I was about to meet the man who had once run the biggest killing machine in the history of this land. The door was ajar. I pressed the bell, and a quivering voice answered, asking me to come in. I kept the leather bag on the porch, tugged at the end of my sari and walked towards the entrance. The house’s interior was dimly lit. The Beast was reading the Bhagavadgita, sitting on a doormat on the floor. When he asked who it was one more time, I stepped inside.
I said, ‘I am Prema, daughter of Vasudevan, a police constable from the old time.’
He seemed to recall the name from his memory. He got up. I looked at the old man in front of me inquisitively. There was no indication of beastliness on his face. A lonely man in his old age who appeared to have nobody to rub balm on his aching back or serve him a glass of water should he get thirsty. His face was pale, having been indoors for a long time. Greyed stu
bble had replaced the handlebar moustache. The only thing that indicated this old man used to be a cop was his probing stare as he looked at me closely with aged pupils from beneath white eyebrows.
‘I don’t see old colleagues. I am not in touch with any of them. What brings you here?’
The Beast spoke in a gentle voice that made one believe that he never had to yell at anything. I remembered compassionately my father’s hyperbole describing how the Beast’s bellowing during the torture sessions had caused tremors in Konippaara hill, bringing rocks tumbling to its base. No towering mountain of authority had survived for my father to perch himself upon. There were no more rocks fragile enough to fall off even if someone roared his lungs out.
‘If you need me to do something, it’s not going to happen,’ he warned. ‘I am not capable of being useful for anything now. Vasudevan should be able to figure that much by himself.’
‘I haven’t come out of any particular need,’ I replied quickly. ‘My father has the greatest respect for you. He is worried because he hasn’t heard from you in a long time. I’d come to this place for another purpose and I thought my visit would give him some comfort.’
The Beast’s face lit up a bit. He expressed his happiness at being visited after a long time by someone who was not a reporter or a news features writer from the press. He went back inside and returned with a cup of coffee. The Beast was all alone in the house. In the visitor’s room there was a garlanded picture of an elderly lady who appeared to be his wife. It was a black-and-white picture similar to my mother’s. There were other photos below it.
‘She was my wife,’ the Beast said. ‘Passed away … in an accident,’ he added wiping his tears as he gazed at the framed photo.
‘Children?’
The Beast’s eyes welled up again.
‘All gone … Enough said!’
I was curious to find out how they had all gone. How does time’s state machinery administer justice to beasts? I blew on the hot coffee to cool it before taking a sip as I looked up on the photos. One of them was a full-figured portrait of an extravagantly bejewelled woman who resembled the Beast. He informed me that she was murdered. ‘Her marriage was a mistake. The boy was mentally ill. I lost my senses when I was told about his family, privileges, position and career. It was a huge mistake. He put her in a suitcase after cutting her into …’ The Beast couldn’t finish his sentence.