The Narrow Road to Palem

by Sharath Komarraju

  ‘Peddamma is not coming back. I told you that already.’

  Something snapped within Yenki. She had felt all day like someone had been winding her up, like a toy, and now they had let her go. She felt energy course through her arms. Her fingers twitched. She looked at her son, who was still saying something about Peddamma to her father, and she threw out a hand to grab him by the wrist and drag him into the kitchen.

  ‘Yenki!’ said Ranga, but before he could react, she had shut the door in his face.

  ‘You want your Peddamma?’ she said, and slapped Satish on his face hard enough to leave four red marks. He fell to the ground and hid his face in the crook of his elbow, but she picked him up against the wall and slapped him again, this time on the left cheek, with enough venom to draw blood from the corner of the boy’s mouth.

  ‘You want your Peddamma?’ she said. ‘Go on, cry for her. Let’s see if she comes.’ She turned him over and struck him on the back. ‘Go on, cry!’ She tore open his shirt so that she could beat him on the sides of the arms, on the back of his neck, on his sides. Everywhere she saw skin, she pounced.

  ‘Amma!’ Satish was saying. ‘No, Amma. I don’t want Peddamma. Just stop hitting me, Amma.’

  ‘No! You said my food was horrible, right? Now call out for her. Maybe she will come and cook some nice food for you.’ When her palms burned, she reached for a soup ladle and found the heaviest one. Pinning Satish down to the floor with one hand, she began to whack him, on his calves, buttocks, and lower back. Once or twice he turned just as the blow was about to land, and she caught him plush on the bone, making him wince in pain.

  And in her mind the same words kept hitting her. Come tomorrow. Come tomorrow. Come tomorrow.

  And her own voice: he’s my son. You cannot take him away from me.

  She thought that as she left red marks of blood and burning over his small body. She thought that amid his howls of pain and pleading. She thought that as the boy squirmed and begged for mercy. She thought that as she opened the door and flung the ladle with a cry of rage at the sewing machine.

  When she saw Ranga’s blank face, she said, ‘He’s my son.’

  * * *

  Malli laughed in her ears again that night.

  Ranga had locked himself up with Satish in the front room and had given her the middle room to sleep in. Her fingertips tingled, as though they had been immersed in boiling hot water. She ached to use the ladle some more, and make sure that the boy does not utter the word ‘peddamma’ one more time. Nothing was going to stop her from claiming her son as her own. Not some dead ghost, not some live man.

  ‘You’re not going to ask me why I’m laughing?’

  Yenki shook her head in the darkness. She did not look around for Malli. She knew she would find her somewhere, anywhere – in the armchair, by the sewing machine, by her side, with her fingers entwined in hers.

  Wet fingers. Fleshy, limp fingers.

  She pushed away the slithering hands of the dead woman, but her fists met only air.

  The sound of the foot pedal came to her ears, slow to begin with, but picking up pace with each second, like a speeding up train. The wheel whirred and buzzed, but she knew that if she were to turn her face to look, the machine would just be sitting there, dead and quiet. The tingling on her fingertips did not cease, and did not go away when she rubbed her hands to her sides.

  Something cold and slimy gripped her feet, between the toes. She kicked, but the fingers held on. They kept touching her.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ said Malli.

  ‘The ghost of the dead woman who took my son away from me.’

  ‘Am I really here? Or is your mind playing tricks on you, Yenki?’

  Yenki did not know. She had not asked herself that question, because the answer did not matter. She told the armchair that. Then she turned and repeated it to the sewing machine. The slime slid up her calves, fingered her inner thighs.

  ‘You shall not have my son,’ said Malli. ‘Yes, he is my son. And you shall not have my husband either, from now on. You did not think when you pushed me into the well that I shall return. But I have.’

  ‘I – I did not push you into the well.’

  Again that laugh, that loud, demonic laugh. ‘You cannot lie to the dead, Yenki.’

  Yenki closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. As the dead fingers ravished her body, she said out loud, just under her breath, ‘Come tomorrow, come tomorrow, come tomorrow...’ And her mind kept saying, ‘You cannot lie to the dead. You cannot lie to the dead.’

  And the wheel of the sewing machine kept turning.

  * * *

  She woke up to bright sunshine. The first thing she saw was the gleam of the knife in Ranga’s hand. And she sat bolt upright.

  Ranga was sitting in the armchair, facing her, leaning forward. He looked at the knife as he spoke. His face, like it had been the night before, carried no expression. His eyes were kind. ‘I sent Satish to school.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You pushed her into the well, didn’t you?’

  Those slithery fingers, dripping with pus, slid down her back. Her lips parted. Her tongue went dry.

  ‘I heard you this morning,’ he said. ‘You were speaking in your sleep.’

  Malli’s words came back to her. Am I really here, or is your mind playing tricks on you?

  ‘She looked after you like a sister. She cared for you. You never loved our son, but she did. And when he loved her in return, you burned, didn’t you? You burned like a match, even though you had me.’

  ‘He’s my son.’

  ‘I was such a fool. Such a fool.’

  Yenki saw his grip on the handle of the knife tighten, and she moved back on the mat by instinct.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I will not kill you. You’re the mother of my son. And I will not tell the police either, because I have no evidence except the look in your eyes right now, and I know that it will change by the time they come asking questions.’

  Yenki said, ‘Ranga, you don’t understand. There is a ghost in this house –’

  ‘Not a ghost, Yenki. A demon. A demon we brought home. A demon that has destroyed everything in our lives.’

  ‘I will not leave my son here at the mercy of this ghost –’

  ‘Your son?’ Ranga pointed the knife at her. ‘He is not your son. He never was your son. I saw yesterday how you beat him. No mother can beat her son like that.’

  ‘But you don’t understand, he had to be taught a lesson –’

  ‘Enough. Just stop talking.’

  For a few minutes, neither of them spoke. Yenki sat cross-legged on the mat, watching the knife. Ranga gazed at the sewing machine. Sanga and Lachi laughed out on the street, on their way to the lake.

  ‘I have called for the cart,’ said Ranga at last. ‘It will take you to your mother’s house. Just never return to this village again.’

  Yenki bent her head. From the corner of her vision she saw that the knife in Ranga’s hand went limp. At that moment, she leaped at her husband and closed her fingers around his throat, just under the adam’s apple.

  His eyes became hard as black marbles. A muffled moan escaped his mouth as he struggled to draw breath, and Yenki wrestled him to the ground and mounted his chest so that she could pin his neck down against the mud floor.

  ‘He’s my son.’ Her eyes bored into his. ‘Do you understand? My son!’

  Ranga’s grip on the knife loosed. Colour left his face. His eyes bulged, and his breathing became a hoarse sound. His tongue came out and flapped against his lips like a dying fish. His fingers dug into the earth. ‘Yes, my son. Nobody takes my son away from me.’

  It was then that she looked, because she felt a warm touch on her forehead. A gust of wind blew in from the open window. Dust flew into her eyes, but she kept her hands fastened on Ranga’s throat. The sewing machine swayed to the breeze like it was made of cardboard, and it fell on Yenki. She freed her hands to protect herself from the falling weight,
and in that one moment, Ranga pushed her off him and scrambled to the side. When he got to his knees, he had the knife in his hands.

  Yenki pushed the machine away and turned to her husband. ‘No,’ she said.

  But Ranga walked up to her, clutched her hair, pulled her head back to expose the neck, and in one swipe, sent her rolling to the ground.

  As she fell, she suddenly knew what it was like to be short of breath. Her hand went up to him, and she clawed the air, but he just stood there and watched her die. His eyes – his eyes still seemed gentle, as though somewhere deep within them, he loved her still.

  Yenki felt the darkness arise, from deep within her, and as the pain eased and her eyelids grew heavy, she turned to look at the armchair one last time.

  Seated on it, in a red sari with her legs crossed, was Malli.

  Tomorrow has come, thought Yenki, before she fell asleep.

  Round and Round

  Ellamma cheruvu bore the look of a vast basin of black ink. It became that way every day after sundown, until the moon came out to coat it in a silvery shimmer. Raji sat on the dusty bank with her legs stretched out, and ran her fingers over Moti’s sparse fur, behind the ear. The dog had his chin and one paw resting on her thigh. His body was punctuated with marks, some dry, others fresh and pink. Whenever Raji accidentally brushed a wound, he flinched.

  ‘I told you not to bring him,’ said Chander, standing a few feet away from them, by the guava tree. Raji looked over her shoulder. All she could see in the shadows was the lit tip of Chander’s cigarette. He had his cigarettes brought in bright yellow cartons from the city. Not for him the beedis that Sivayya rolled in his paan shop by the big gutter.

  ‘The dog is nothing but trouble,’ he said. ‘There’s a reason why they don’t allow him anywhere near the temple.’

  Moti looked up at Chander, just with the eyes.

  ‘You can come closer,’ said Raji. ‘If you’re nice to me, he will be nice to you.’

  Chander stepped out of the shadow, took a deep puff, and let a ring of smoke float up into the evening air. Raji caught the strong whiff of jasmine on his milky white kurta and pajama. That and the smell of cigarette ash. A gold chain around the neck. Each finger sporting a ring fashioned out of a different stone.

  He will fulfil all your wishes, her mother had said.

  ‘Do I have to ask for his permission to touch you as well?’

  ‘Well, Chander babu,’ said Raji, ‘I am not one of those city girls you’re used to. In Palem, a woman lets a man touch her only on the night of their wedding.’

  ‘In Palem, a woman does not come alone to Ellamma cheruvu to meet a man if she does not intend to marry him.’

  Raji laughed, and held her hair down against the breeze that came running over the paddy fields that lay beyond the lake. ‘I did not come alone, Chander babu. I came with Moti. And I think you’re right. We must get back now. My mother says that men’s wiles become stronger as the night wears on.’

  ‘Oh, does she now?’

  Raji pushed Moti onto his feet and got up. Dusting her hands, she said, ‘I have been warned of you. Father says that one cannot trust people with money. You have a lot of money, don’t you, Chander babu?’

  They began to walk away from the lake, Chander keeping at least a meter between him and Raji at all times. He walked with his hands clasped behind his back, the lighted cigarette wedged between the fingers. He had wrinkled hands. Brown, flat fingernails. His skin was the colour of dusty bronze.

  ‘Come, Moti. What’s the matter?’

  Moti had begun to chase his own tail, his tongue hanging out, panting.

  ‘I have enough money to look after you like a queen,’ said Chander.

  ‘But is there a king who is happy with one queen, Chander babu?’

  ‘You will be the only queen of my castle. Whatever you want – saris, jewels, even a car – it will be yours.’

  Raji looked around her. They had taken the path leading from the lake to the village, and yet they had not come upon Ibrahim Bhai’s house, no more than a two-minute walk from the guava tree. Instead, they were walking among babul bushes and chirring crickets.

  She looked up for the moon to re-orient herself, but all she saw were deep, dark clouds. Only a tiny circular patch of purple sky was open, straight overhead, and a lone white star glittered at its centre.

  ‘Where have we come?’ she said, as the bushes became denser and closed in on them.

  ‘Just as you said,’ said Chander, his leather sandals crackling on the parched earth. ‘We’re going home.’

  ‘But we’re not going home.’ Every few steps, Moti was stopping and chasing his tail. ‘We’re back at the lake.’

  They reached the end of the path. When they stepped out of the thicket, the smell of wet paddy fields hit Raji full in the face again. In front of them, now with its branches set against a jet black sky, stood the guava tree that they had just left, and beyond it, the poison-black water of Ellamma cheruvu rippled in the breeze.

  * * *

  Raji thought of all those nights she had woken up with sweaty hands, after dreaming of getting lost in her own house. There were three rooms laid out end to end; one in the front where her father entertained guests and ironed clothes, one behind it, where her mother sewed matching buttons onto shirts of schoolboys, and the last one, which had the kerosene stove and the dining table. In her dream Raji would find herself in the kitchen, and her father would call to her from the front room, and she would start running. But she would run and run and run, through dark alleys and wet caves and muddy wells, only to end up back in the kitchen, by the stove.

  Raji! Her father would scream.

  Yes, Nanna, coming, Nanna.

  But she would never find the way.

  Her heart began to quicken, just enough for her to feel it thump within her chest. She licked her lips, and from the salt she tasted on her upper lip she knew she was sweating. Rubbing her palms together made a slurping noise, as if they had been bathed in oil.

  ‘Is this your doing?’ she asked Chander. ‘You distracted me with all your words, and now you brought me back to the lake.’

  Chander reached into the pocket of his kurta and brought out a small black torch. Raji heard it click once or twice, but no light came. ‘Crap,’ he said. ‘I checked the batteries just this morning.’

  Moti came strutting by from behind them, and emitted a questioning grunt at the sight of the lake.

  ‘It must be this damned dog,’ said Chander. ‘Why did you have to bring him along? Do you think if I wanted to do something to you, this dog is going to stop me?’

  ‘His name is Moti.’

  ‘Keep him away from me.’ Chander stepped out into the clearing and made his way to the tree. Raji followed him. As they approached, she saw the still burning stub of cigarette that Chander had cast away a few minutes back. Everything looked the same. Polayya’s fenced groundnut fields to the far north-west. Avadhanayya’s row of palm trees swaying as one to the wind. The rustle of the guava leaves. The dust that stuck to the tip of her toes in spite of her plastic slippers. Lizards scurrying underneath pebbles. Crickets calling.

  They stared at the lake for a while, as though assuring themselves.

  Then Chander said, ‘Let’s go.’

  * * *

  This time they took the other route that went to the Shivalayam. They would cut across the main road, wave at Narender Reddy – who would be sitting behind the desk of his candy and cool drink store, reading the newspaper – and make their way past Sivayya’s paan shop. It was the longer way, Raji knew, but she did not care. Neither did Chander, from the shot look on his face.

  They walked. The bushes converged. The crickets fell silent. Moti began to mewl weakly, in the manner of a fever-ridden child. The circular patch of clear sky remained over their heads. The lone star would guide them home, thought Raji.

  But her breath refused to slow down.

  ‘Shut up that dog,’ said Chander. ‘Why
is he crying like that?’

  ‘He is just afraid. He will be fine once we get to the main road.’

  Chander pulled out his torch. Click went the switch. No light. Their eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and yet they could see only in faint shapes and smudges. Raji remembered that just a few months back, Chander’s first wife had been found in bushes just like these, with her head beaten in, a gold pendant around her neck. They had said that she had gone for a walk by the lake, and robbers had killed her for her jewels and thrown her to the crows.

  Somebody had asked why the robbers had left the pendant behind. Everyone pretended to have not heard him.

  All the jewels you can have. Wasn’t that what he had said?

  They turned a bend in the path, and Raji once again recognized the bushes. They stepped out into the same clearing they had left moments ago. There was Ellamma cheruvu, serene and quiet. Whenever the breeze came and tickled her, she gurgled in response.

  They went to the tree, the three of them, this time Moti leading the way. Chander’s cigarette still burned red in the grass. Raji wanted to run to it, hold it up to her nose, and inhale its ashen warmth. Let the soot enter her and fill up her lungs. Then perhaps she could touch the burning tip to her chest, to loosen the grip of the chilly black fingers that had wrapped around her heart.

  Chander looked at her. He licked his lips. In the light of the star she saw his wide forehead glisten with drops of sweat. ‘Where are we?’ he said.

  * * *

  Where are we?

  Raji could answer that quite easily to her own mind. They were on the bank of Ellamma cheruvu. The same lake where the people of Palem immerse their Ganesh idols every year. The same lake in which she had learned to swim, without telling her parents. The same lake by which young men and women of Palem meet, under the moon, to profess love for one another. The same lake.

  And yet it was not. Just like the house in her dream – one in which she got lost on her way from the kitchen to the front room – was not her house. It was some other thing pretending to be her house. That thing had holes and dark rooms to entrap her, just like this thing pretending to be Ellamma cheruvu had bushes and crickets, and clouds and a silver star.