by K R Meera
I sat in front of him, frozen.
‘My dear,’ he continued, ‘please go back, live happily and marry a good man who can take care of you very well. By the time you bear a couple of children, you will be cured of this ailment.’
‘My ailment isn’t likely to go away.’ I was adamant. ‘I have ulcers.’
‘I didn’t mean that,’ mash said, laughing again, ‘but the bug in your heart!’ He then stood up to leave as I looked on. ‘I am getting late. I have to attend a meeting at Kakkayam. Last rite of passage for the Emergency is being held there! Let’s not make folks grumpy just because I couldn’t be there.’
‘I too am coming,’ I announced, wiping my face and springing to my feet. ‘As long as you don’t tell me where Das is, I will follow you wherever you go.’
Mash guffawed. ‘Who said you couldn’t? Come right along, my friend!’
Mash joked quite a lot during the journey. It was a good ride to Kakkayam. As soon as we passed Atholi, the topography began to change around us and the bus hustled faster. Ullieri, Naduvannur, Perambra … Benumbed, I leaned on the rails of the window to take in the experience of travelling to a mysterious world that belonged to another time. Mountains, farmlands, solitary stores … I felt dizzy when the bus manoeuvred wide turns.
Mash left his seat in the rear to sit beside me. ‘Hey there, do you like the land?’ he asked with a chuckle.
‘Nice,’ I said.
‘Who says our cops don’t have an eye for art, my friend?’ he quipped. ‘There couldn’t have been a better location to kill off people, could there?’
That was true. The turns, twists, trees and flowers. Yudas began to hang rocks again on the tattered veins of my broken heart.
Mash took a deep breath before saying, ‘They arrested me at night. Right before they caught the captain. My mother’s condition was worsening by the hour. Someone in plain clothes visited us at night. He asked politely if I was at home. “There is a little problem, mash. Parameswaran Saar would like you to redress that.” I understood what he meant. I asked him if I could give a drop of water to my mother. There was holy water from Ganga at home. I gave her two spoons of water. I told her softly, “Amma, we may not see each other again,” as I planted a kiss on her forehead. I was sure of that. Was there any guarantee that I would be released ever? I prepared to go and sat in the vehicle. They took me to the office of the superintendent of police for interrogation. When it was dark outside, they covered my eyes and put me in a car. I do remember the twists, turns and potholes of these roads.’ He stretched back on the seat and exhaled. ‘To sit blindfolded in a vehicle is a terrible state to be in. You need to go through it to know it, my friend.’
I sat in silence. I could actually visualize that night. I was transported like a blind man accompanied by cops on either side. There was no mountain or valley, just the twists and turns. I was imagining the journey Yudas undertook. Lord! What must’ve gone through my precious Yudas’s delicate mind as he made the trip with his eyes taped at such a young age? The Beast’s story of twenty-four-hour interrogation flashed in my memory. It filled my heart with pride to know that Yudas had held out for as long as he possibly could. But he lost. Poor thing. Shouldn’t a fighter have the choice to lose? As the bus crossed a river whose water had a slimy green hue, I suddenly sat up straight. The river had unsettling currents. Mash remarked that the shutters of the dam must have been opened. I stared at the green water. The colour must be more intense at the gorge. Sunanda’s body could be recovered should someone dive into it. I remembered her face from the old black-andwhite passport-size photo: wide-eyed, with a swagger in her demeanour, as if she was ready to dare someone. If someone were to drop deeper in the gorge, they would see her lying in the depths that way—eyes wide open, lips puckered halfway through a sardonic smile. Oh Liberty!
We got down at Kakkayam. It was a nondescript intersection. Four shops, a store selling chicken, a few snack bars and vegetable vendors. There were four or five people milling about in front of martyr Rajan’s monument that was painted red. Someone was addressing the crowd with a microphone in his hand.
‘Let’s go, friend, time to listen to this fellow pissing through his mouth,’ mash commented.
The speaker’s topic was fascism.
‘This guy’s party is the biggest of all fascist outfits. Do they even care what they’re doing on the throne of power?’
I asked if we could pay a visit to the infamous prison camp of Kakkayam.
‘We’re going to need permission for that,’ mash answered. ‘There is no camp any more. It is now a factory which belongs to a conglomerate.’
I really wanted to go. ‘Let’s go this one time, please?’
He agreed to my plea. We left the intersection to trek along the path towards the camp. We passed the crowd and speakers on our way uphill. I gasped for air as we climbed, overcome by fatigue. The road became steeper. To its right, wet clothes had been spread out to dry in the yards of a few houses. Red chillies too were laid out beside the clothes. Mash paused for a moment. ‘These houses were here even then,’ mash said. ‘There were people here too. Perhaps a generation older. They’d come here to work at the dam.’ A young woman who was watching over the chillies observed us with curiosity.
The path leading to the old camp was barricaded. Someone from the security post came out. ‘What do you want?’ he asked tersely. As soon as we told him that we were here to see the camp, he raged, ‘Do you have permission? If not, you can’t go.’
Mash smiled at me and exclaimed: ‘You heard that? We need permission to move about in our own land.’
‘This place belongs to the board, old man,’
‘And whom does the “board” belong to? People, right? Or is this your father’s property?’
‘Don’t get mad at me, old man. I will let you in if you have permission. If not, I can’t.’
I grabbed mash’s arm and said, ‘Let it go, mash. We won’t see it now. We can come back another day.’ My body began to shake a little. I began to feel the agony which Yudas and Sunanda had been subjected to—I saw the windowpanes of the prison camp blocked off by blackened sheets of paper! The roller that was brought out of P.J. Thomas’s household! The ceiling fans in the hallway that never stopped! In fear I watched the mountain ranges that’d echo if I’d screamed. I wanted to run away. I felt scared of the earth beneath my feet. The howling wind frightened me. The silence, the intense green foliage, the crepuscular sky and the numbing chill evoked a feeling of dread. I longed to meet Yudas.
My wheezing worsened as we descended. When we neared the house where the young woman was drying chillies, mash paused. ‘Hey, let’s stop here for a minute. I want to meet someone I know.’ He walked towards the yard. ‘Isn’t this Ittichan’s home? Is he around?’
The young woman stood up. ‘My father is in bed. He is very ill.’
We entered the house. An emaciated aged man was lying on a bed made of coir. He asked in a tired voice: ‘Who is it, girl?’
‘I used to be in this camp, Ittichan. Do you remember me?’ Sethu mash inquired.
‘Who is this? Rajan?’ he replied, shading his eyes with his hand. ‘Heck, no! It can’t be Rajan. Didn’t he die? Didn’t I go to court as a witness?’
My body shivered again. O Lord! I couldn’t bear this torture from a bygone time any more. I smelled blood. ‘Do you remember Das?’ I asked. ‘The one who tossed a girl’s body into the gorge from Konippara ridge?’
The old man stared at me. He said, ‘Not one, but two. A girl and a boy. I wasn’t there. But I heard about it.’
‘Why do you keep bringing up these things again and again, father?’ The young woman from the front yard came inside the house. ‘Didn’t all that happen a very long time ago? It’s all over! Could we just stop talking about it?’
‘Pha! Shut your mouth,’ the old man reproached the young woman angrily as he raised his head. ‘You have to keep talking about them or such times will come back. Remind oursel
ves, and everyone, to talk about them— all the time. What do you know? We were all afraid even to step out in our own yard. There were cops everywhere. You could hear screams all the time from the camp a kilometre away. And what kind? Holy Spirit! Could a human bear those sounds ever?’
‘Ittichan, you did carry me on your shoulders to the clinic,’ Sethu mash said. ‘Do you remember?’
‘Don’t I? Yes.’ The old man laughed, baring his white teeth in his dark face. ‘I do remember how you’d arrived. Like Gandhiji, helped on your way by cops on either side. One of them carried a cross of large bamboo poles on his shoulder. They brought you here on it, like Jesus Christ. Blood all over your body. All the youngsters who marched on their feet to the camp were brought back just like that— bloodied and tied to a pole. Do you know what they did to Rajan?’
‘I don’t want to hear it,’ I said, ‘I don’t have the strength for it.’
The old man sighed. ‘You folks don’t have the strength to hear it? What about us? What about those who had to be there?’
Sethu mash smiled scornfully. ‘What about us who had to suffer it? Let’s go now, my friend,’ he said, rising and turning towards me. Then he asked the old man, ‘Haven’t you been visited by print and television reporters to prey on old memories?’
‘They have,’ the old man grinned, ‘but nobody is allowed here. I am not going to peddle my memories around, mash. I’ve got nothing left in this old age.’
Sethu mash pulled out a few rupee notes from his pocket to slip into the old man’s hand. ‘Take this, dear Ittichan. Get yourself some tobacco leaves.’
‘Thunder in the spring!’ Sethu mash was laughing hard as we left. ‘The flowering trees in the spring of youth. How many of them did they lay to waste?’
I followed mash like a puppet.
‘Where else do you want to go now?’ he asked. ‘Konippara ridge?’
I looked into mash’s face. ‘I need to see that gorge, mash, where Das tossed the bodies of Sunanda and her friend.’
Mash stopped walking. He stood motionless for a while. He wanted to say something, but the word seemed stuck in his throat. At last he lifted his left arm to my shoulder. Leaning on my shoulder, he walked with me a little farther.
‘Das is in Chalakudy. Near a school by the river. You could go and meet him.’
We didn’t talk any more. I boarded an early morning train to Chalakudy the next day. I asked around for a Yudas who recovered dead bodies from the river. An autorickshaw driver took me to him.
Yudas lived in a shanty near the riverbank. I found him some distance away, under a tree whose creepers had fallen into the running water. He was idly watching the currents. When he saw me walking down the bend, he tilted his face slightly. Yudas looked very different. The shirt he had on was tattered here and there. The hair was cropped off his face and head. His bristly face betrayed no emotions.
‘I am back,’ I announced provocatively.
He continued to hunch over, staring at his own hands. I sat beside him and rested my head on his shoulder. The green river flowed before us. The waves were fragile. A pebble would sink as soon as it was thrown into the diaphanous waters. I remembered the river in Kakkayam. The memory of its dense green waters and wild roars kept coming to me again and again.
‘And you thought I would never find you again, Das?’ I asked ruefully.
‘Yu-Das,’ he corrected.
His voice was cracked. I stretched my arms to caress his forehead, cheeks and neck. He’d be the only man for me to caress. But he remained motionless like a rock.
‘What are you thinking about, Das?’ I asked. ‘How to give me the slip again?’
He tilted his face to look at me. ‘I am not feeling well.’
‘Don’t you dive to recover bodies any more?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you still lecture the boys from the shore on the art of love-making?’
His face turned crimson. I laughed hard.
‘You are a coward.’ I laughed again.
Das sat back as if he’d lost the argument. I told him that I’d been to Kakkayam, that I’d seen the river and the ridge of Konippara, and that I had goose pimples while walking on the same ground he trod on. Das looked at me, his head still tilted.
‘Why do you keep walking on my trail again and again?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I think of you when I get frightened.’
‘Why do you get frightened, Prema?’
My voice got stuck in my throat. The breathlessness in this love had strangled my heart. I stood up helplessly.
‘Come, let’s go home,’ he said. As soon as we got home, he lay down on the floor, on his back. ‘I am not well, Prema,’ he muttered. ‘I have not been feeling well at all. I’ll die soon. I am not going to be around when you come looking for me next time.’
My body convulsed, my blood surged. ‘So?’ I asked, seething with anger. ‘So what?’
‘I don’t want you to come looking for me again.’
I peered at him for a while. ‘I have no one else to go looking for.’
‘I’m messed up. A good-for-nothing.’
‘But I have always revered you.’
‘I’ve betrayed a movement … couldn’t do justice to the trust a lady had in me.’
‘Didn’t the Beast—Officer Parameswaran— torture you for twenty-four hours? Yet you didn’t utter a word. And if you did, it wasn’t really your fault. You didn’t betray anyone.’
‘I did end up giving them her name.’
‘Her name was on your lips out of love.’
‘But that is how they got her.’
‘Das,’ I called him impatiently. ‘I have been looking for you for the last five years. I have finally found you again. You will run away again, leaving me behind. I know. But please say something different this time! Anything! I’m tired of listening to you go on about Sunanda every time. Say something about me. Are those who were betrayed and thrown into a ravine the only people in this world? What about the rest of us who are tormented by the memory of it all?’
Agitated, I sat by Yudas’s feet. After a little while he turned around to lay his head in my lap and stretched out again. That made me quiver. I wanted to cry. I ran my fingers through his hair. He looked at me.
‘You are a beautiful woman, Prema,’ he said. ‘I’ve come to know about it only today!’
I felt like I needed to cry and laugh at the same time. ‘If you’d really loved me, I would’ve become more beautiful.’ I swallowed my pain.
He said, ‘There is no value for beauty. The only thing that matters is strength. The strength to resist. One shouldn’t bend, break or give up.’ He stroked my cheeks and asked if he could go to sleep. Then he slept with his head on my lap. We stayed together like that for a long time. I dozed off after a while. When he moved, I hugged him tight and asked where he was going.
‘I’ll be back after a bath,’ he said bashfully.
He pulled off his linens from the clothes line, put them in a bucket and left. I came out of the hut and watched as he walked towards the river. From where I stood, I saw him at a distance in the river. Dusk was settling. I couldn’t understand why he had to go that far into the water. He was across the river now. Then it dawned on me. He had fooled me again. The river became desultory before the shore became empty. He had vanished into thin air. I stood in the abandoned hut, not knowing what to do. I waited there without sleeping a wink until daybreak. In the morning before I left the place, I opened the bag to pull out Sunanda’s diary. I yanked the letter my father wrote to ‘Beast’ Parameswaran Sir.
My Lord and the Highest Honourable Parameswaran Sir
My Lord! I crumpled the letter and threw it into the river. I am committed to Yudas. The water would have to bring him back to me. I would allow only Yudas to make me his own.
EIGHT
It’s not just the betrayer; his lover too is doomed to lose sleep.
I slept very little. I was in the hospital f
or many days. I thought about Yudas only when the red bitterness of blood oozed in my mouth. Blood found its way to my eyes as well. I kept searching for him wherever there was news of a death by drowning. I wrote sometimes to Sunanda’s home to find out Yudas’s whereabouts. I never got reliable information. However, when I read in one of the postcards that Yudas had visited Sangeeta, Sunanda’s niece, my heart soared. But it sank again as soon as I read the rest of the letter.
He asked Sangeeta about you. You should meet Sangeeta when you have time. She is carrying a child now. People have called a strike opposing a brick kiln factory in her neighbourhood. She seems to have gone in the ways of her aunt. When you get a chance, Prema, please meet with her and advise her to be cautious. I lost the only sister I had. And now, if I were to lose the only daughter I have, how would I survive?
Disconcerted, I stared at the letter for a while. I felt fatigued and recharged at the same time. Revolutions do not cease. Little people persist with their might wherever they are.
Since I couldn’t sleep in my hostel room, I pushed the window open to watch the night from my bed. I decided to meet Sangeeta as soon as I could. Yudas must be in the area. Each day my life was spiralling out of control, rotting like a piece of uneaten food. Sometimes it sank like a log in the rapids before it bobbed up again. Only my love for him burned like an undying ember in the hearth. My youth was evaporating like a can of water beaten down by the sun. My face lost its vigour and vitality and my skin lost its sheen and became shrivelled.
I’d been working as a clerk for an association of women in Kottayam. I’d got the job with the help of an old classmate’s mother. It had been many years since I met Yudas.
Sangeeta’s house was only a little far from the town of Thrissur. It rained a lot the day I arrived at her house. The region had country roads beneath a canopy of trees with dense green foliage and dark trunks. I felt a lightness walking alone on the road. I wished Yudas had been with me. If only we could walk under the rain without the weight of past! We could have chatted about the trees or flowers along the way; or laughed watching children zip past us on bicycles with umbrellas in the pouring rain! I craved for a hearty joke and a laugh. Our generation had lost the ability to look into each other’s eyes to laugh and love. My father’s generation had taken away even the gift of a guileless smile.