I Am an Executioner

by Rajesh Parameswaran

  When first this girl had arrived in here, she dragged along the heavy chains. The guards on either side was lifting her up by the arms, and beneath the jute-cloth frock, her little feets was not even touching the ground. I myself looked to Warden with wonder. My eyes was asking: This is like a big and serious criminal? For the death row? But Warden never explained to me. He only slapped me the back of my cranium. “Look strong. Are you become a woman? A dog ate all your testicles? If you show fear, she will be walking on top of you.”

  So I had only to execution that simple girl some days hence, no questions could be asked. But did this lead me to conscience-pangs and depressions? Nothing could be further off from true. I reminded to myself: If the deathrow prison is a good place for me to work my days, then it must be a good place for little girls to stay, isn’t it so? Even when fate will happen shortly, life is the life, whether in prison cells or sunshiny hillsides, and I provide the good careful honest execution and it’s a good thing for all the concerned. I tell no lies, I am the good friend to them, and sometimes they are even thanking me.

  Not many people are capable of pursuing such unpleasant work day after day with alacrity. (I am reading now from my semiannual psychologic review paper issued by Ministry office.) Although his tone and manner are frequently disturbing, he does not demonstrate visible or dangerous indications of stress. How happy am I each time to read this: that some higher-ups had recognized that for me, executioner is a service and a calling, if not one of the higher of the callings, then certainly one of the humbler of the callings, but a calling all the same. On the top of which, it is the only calling for which I am qualified and also providing sufficient remunerations. It is in this way only, and with such attitudes, that I consider it and pursue it.

  So, as I pushed the mop besideways that girl’s cellroom, I showed the shiny smile with good alacrity, displaying nil and zero indications of alarming distressfulness. I rested the mop against the wall and put my hands on the cellroom bars.

  “Remind me of your name, little one?” I asked, smilingly. She looked up to me like I am a Frankenstein standing there, then crouched off away from me.

  “Don’t be scaredy. Is this your first time in our capital city? Did you come from some country place? What an excitement!”

  Still she sat all silencey. I wondered, what to tell? Should I mention of one special fact, which for some people it is upsetting (my wife) and for others they never believe it until they see it happening to them? I gave a try:

  “Little girl, you are wondering who am I? I am not only prison sweeper. I am going to execution you. But don’t worry your head: I am not a rough fellow. I treats my prisoners nicely, if only you could ask of them. Chummy was my last one before you. He was sad and weepy on the last days, but I sat inside there and held his hand like the papa. Sometimes Chummy could be a hard fellow with me, but on the last days he came so emotiony. I asked him, why you don’t allow me to call the priest and so on? Many prisoners find a comfortable thing in that. I asked him, is there anything I can do for you, any messages I can convey to friends and so on? I wanted only to care him. He said, only thing to do is, you don’t execute me. Even while he asked it he was clinging of my hand. Of course, you can look at it as, who else is he going to cling the hand of? I am the only fellow there. Anyway, I said, my good friend Chummy, I am asking you seriously, so don’t funny me. You know what he replied? He said, blast you, you goddamned bastard, go to hell, or something like that and so on. Can you imagine it? After all I have done him. But did he let go of my hand? No. I had to struggle to unsqueeze my hand from him.”

  I finished my talking and waited that girl to reply me something, but only quietness came from her face. So I continued my talking: “Don’t worry, lot of people behave unhappy first time they arrive in here, even the big-time criminals. New place always means difficulty. I myself remember when Papa was gone and Mummy was all by her scaredy and she took us to the new town; I went first time to the schoolhouse and how vomitty I felt when master he scolded me and no friends was there because nobody would friendly me. I played only with my brother-sister, I acted to them the care-for. Why it falls to me, to be the know-person, to be the care-for? So be it, I won’t complain. Anyhow, maybe you don’t understand English, you are the poor uneducated country girl. You need some time to accustomize. Sit there, relax yourself comfortable. Nobody will bother you very much.” Then I smiled her and waved her goodbye.

  When I got to home that day, I was little nervous of my new wife, but Margaret already had unlocked the bedroom door. It lightened me big-time. I entered inside to wash up my face and change my clothing. Margaret satted herself quietly on one side of the bed, staring there as if something very interesting in the wall, preventing her gaze away from me her husband. In the mirror, I could not stop my eyes from adoring her rounded bottoms making the big double dimple in the mattress. I wanted only and immediately to take myself up with her, but I had learned from many years back in the first marriage that this is the bad approach when it comes to strategy.

  After first wife had left me, I tried to maintain practice by visiting to the friendly house. I liked that house because the girls there was friendly and never minded what was my profession. Even they asked it, still all they did was to friendly me, or flicker the eyelash and say ooh-wah-you-scare-me-you-big-strong-muscleboy, and if they cried or acted real-life scaredy or had bad tempers then Madam would punish them.

  But one time there had been a bad happening in the friendly house. Madam had a new lady, one short plumpy girl with whom I liked to do squinchy-squinchy. She had the big mouth, so Madam all the time was chiding her. “Large stupid fatso,” that girl called to me, making other tongue-droppings, finding herself very funny, even though she was the more fatter one than me. I took it in a stride, so long as she did friendly to me. But one time some new man came there, he didn’t like it none her nasty stupid name-calls, that reason alone he beated her up good. Afterward the man was sleeping, that bruised-up bleeding girl took Madam’s kitchen knife and stabbed him everywhere. Why she did like that? Why she didn’t leave that place or ask Madam, kindly tell this man don’t beat me? Any case, she stabbed him to the death, bloodied up whole of the room, the coppers they taked her away, time came to pass, judge and juried, she showed up in my death row! How happy I was to see a friendly person in the death row, who had been known to me in the good-times-gone-by. But it was not like that to be. In the death row, she was always sour of mood, her tongue was pouty, she would not friendly to me or look my face in the eye, or even call me as “fatso” or other funny wordnames. Her whole liveliness had gone her, making my feelings also to go down. By the time I hanged her, I felt even some relief. At the execution time, Madam and some friendly-house ladies visited the audience chambers, but they did not wave me hello. Could it be they didn’t recognize me none behind my execution mask? That was my first bad warning signal.

  Time came to pass, next time I went to the friendly house no one would friendly to me no more! They wouldn’t take my monies, Madam never smiled my face and instead told me to flee out of there before she asked her big bruisy to bruise me.

  “What I did, Madam?” I asked. “What you thought I was? Where you had imagined my monies were coming from? This is my good living, Madam. I can’t be executioner one day, then the dogcatcher some other day simply as it is your lady in the death row. There is only one of me. We are a small country, and no one else is capable of my duties but my own self.”

  Madam would not hear it none. “You get out of here, you terrible-and-so-on, never show your face to me again.” Even she kicked me in the leg her pointy shoe and spit me. She called for her big bruisy and I ran out of there, even leaving behind my good hat that time. Friendly house came to be a past memory.

  That is why I big-time wanted the wife. I thought that having the new wife will solve all that problems, but now I had it and no it didn’t. When my first wife disappeared me, I cried myself, even everyone always wondered what
happened to that wife, even her family people they blamed me and spit me.

  I wondered, this time is they going to blame me and spit me, although I am the different person now? Margaret was sitting there in the side of the bed, and even I felt like rushing her, I reminded to myself this was not no friendly-house lady. Better me to do things careful. Better me to wear my thinking cap and find the best way of hugging her. Answer was: I had to begin it slowly. I had to begin with talking.

  In the death row, talking comes so easy to my tongue—even fierce and terrible killers provide sympathetic ears. Captive audience is best audience, Warden always jokes me. But somehow standing before this new wife of mine, my tongue became like the tube sock. My stomach twisted knotty, as if only one or two pegs of Johnny Walker could soften it up. There she was, sitting in the bed, awaiting. I thought so hard, yet was unable to come up with a single item conversational. I concluded: Okay, I will ask her to converse me.

  “Listen here, dear Margaret,” I told. “Don’t you sit there sulking and skulking. I myself am in a drabbish mood. Talk your husband.”

  She remained muted, eye-facing to the wall. I began to feel little sadly for her, sitting so far from her native place with no familiars nearby. No wonder she is pouty. Again I gave a try. “What you did today, Margaret? Please tell.” Only then I seed it: the suitcase pulled up from beneath the belly of the bed, sitting out with some of the shiny women’s jutties piled up already inside of it like coconut shavings.

  “What is this?” I exclaimed.

  Margaret still provided silence.

  “You are leaving now already, is it?”

  She gave no reply, only staring away.

  “Where you going? Your mummy-daddy’s living very far from here. Will they be so happy to see you after only last week spending numerous thousand bank notes for a hotel wedding?”

  Continually she kept mum.

  “How you going to go home, Margaret? Who will pay for the boat ticket? I don’t have so much money.”

  Now I heard a funny noise, like water squeaking at high pressures from the insides of a cat. I worried for a moment—had she did something awful to Catty? Where was Catty? But then I realized that sounds was coming only from my wife, from Margaret.

  “Oh, there-there-there,” I told to her. “I meant nothing by it.”

  I went quickly to where Margaret was sitting in the bed and putted my hand on her shoulder. But she curled her shoulder in a big circle to disperse me. I offered to her the kerchief but she ignored. Then she closed all her eyes hard like squeezing a lemon and insufflated noisily the nose-jellies.

  She sat with her face crisscrossed with all the ribbons of sticky fluids, making only a little bit of whimpering. Finally, I coerced my mouth to start talking. And I talked to her of the only thing that was in my head: “Hey, Margaret, the new prisoner arrived in the death row. We comfortabled her so much as possible. Shortly she will be off. Young girl, very young little miss.”

  Had I been more thought-provoking, I might have been care-fuller than to tell my wife of my job, as it was only my job which had so much disturbed and upsetted her from the beginning. Now I stood up and tied a towel over my bottom part so I could change my pants and jutties. Even she was my wife now, I was little shy concerning Margaret.

  “She looks so soft and flimsy, Margaret. Almost like it was her first days in the village school.”

  Then I heard Margaret turn her body slight bit. Through the mirror’s inside, I seed she was staring me with some expressions in her face. Her big eyes was giving off a blinky shine, and the eye tears and nose ribbons was not flowing, but drying rather. Could it be my talking offered something to curious her? Her face gaved off a puffy glow, which very much appealed me. She was lost in her thought bubble; I could not wonder what it was she was thinking.

  Finally, she speaked. “Why is a little girl in the death row?”

  To my ears, Margaret’s voice was like a small box within pink wrapping papers.

  “Even I asked that question, Margaret!” I told to her as I squirmed off my thingies. “Warden shoved her such a rough way down. That Warden sometimes is so bad. So strange it all is, Margaret.” And then I was combing my hairs in the mirror.

  Wordlessness again came from Margaret. She shuffled her bottom once more. And seeing Margaret’s wall-facing body, her bottom making bed-crumples there, made me feeling even more, that I have a wife now and it is time to enjoy her. After some more time, she spoke me a very interested voice.

  “But what she did to end up in there?”

  This was a shocker to me: two questions from Margaret regarding my job! I wondered, why had she this interest? Was she only seeking to fire up her angry? Or was she really the friendly curious wife of me? I was too much confused and excited. I wanted to catch her into my hands and tell her all the stories, but I grew nervous.

  “What she did to end up in there,” I told to her, thinking myself carefully what to tell, “what she did to end up in there, Margaret, is she committed some crime.”

  “Don’t simply say she committed some crime, fellow. Tell: What crime has she committed?”

  Now I seed she was looking at me full interest. I splashed little bit of the after shaves against my cheeks to finish the grooming. I felt my leg start to give a tremble, so to calm myself, I satted in the bed near to Margaret.

  I observed that when I satted, she did not shift off away from me.

  “You want to know what she did, is it?”

  “Tell!”

  Being close to Margaret made my armpits to give water. Even I had just splashed the after shaves, I could smell my own flesh odors rising up. I knew that I could not hold on very much time longer, and so I took a bold move: I put my hand on gentle Margaret’s thigh. I found it big and firm and dolphin-shapely. I steeled myself for some shove-off from Margaret, but what a wonder to me: She did not push away my hand. I said to her: “Dear Margaret, human being’s heart has capable of great and terrible passions. Who can explanate? It’s my lot in life, to witness it in a daily basis. In the end, what differences to me? I do my job-duty only. What did she do, didn’t she do, young, old, guilty, innocency is not my issue. Duty is there for doing, simple as that, not everyone can do it save for me. If I have any special talent in it, modestly I accept it.”

  I observed that what I was saying had some effects in her. Jealous Catty jumped into the bed behind us, but only we ignored. I moved my face very close to Margaret’s face. Her breath smelled to me of warmed potatoes, and I detected a jiggle-tremble in her lips. My eyes went downtown to see what’s inside her blouses.

  “But what did she do?” she asked.

  “In just plain facts, Margaret, such informations oftentimes they don’t tell to me.”

  “Hunh!” Margaret said. She pushed off my hand and moved to the farthest Antarctica corner of the bed.

  • • •

  Some people always assume that because of natures and necessities of my job, my heart must be hard and jagged and full of holes, like old and tored-up city roads. Nothing could be further off from true. When I was a schoolboy once in days of yore, I read a poem, the gists of which I still remember. I used to be very moved by poetry, those days. It is true! My papa always yelled me for having too many girlish eye tears. (My papa was tall and liked to speak of too many things, so that the government taked him away and never returned him. This was in the olden regime, before the liberation of our good and famous country. My papa’s hero name is the only reason I received my appointed job, Warden always he jokes me.) Anyhow, I liked one poem. Near the lonely path, one grass leaf is dying. That is, the poem I am remembering. Leaf is thirsty for water that leaf is dying. One dewdrop feels sadly for that leaf. Dewdrop rolls down and feeds itself to that leaf. Dewdrop did such a good deed. But on the time sun raises next day, grass leaf is any case dead, also Mr. Dewdrop has sunk away into forever. Nobody will ever hear of him: So brief is the life, so brief.

  I observed that, even Margaret was re
jecting me, I had to go on my job. It was my patriot’s duty. Every day I saw that little girl, I watched her and cared her. I asked to her, “Would you like the refreshing water?” I asked to her, “Why you didn’t eat your food that was brought for you? Was it too cold for your tongue?” I told her of the things what was happening in our country on the TV newses what she was not allowed to watch. One time I brought a candy that I had and kept for her. She ate it! I liked to see her face then. Even she didn’t show the emotionals, I knew she was finding it sweet.

  But never having had someone so strangely young and solitudey, showing neither sad nor happy indications, I asked myself: Maybe would she like something different? What is it to be a little girl sitting in a strange place, nothing to do? Maybe she would like some amusements?

  I liked that idea. “Hey, can I give to you some book, magazine?” I asked to the girl. “Can I give to you some amusements?”

  That girl gave no answer. Still I went on. I remembered that my last prisoner Chummy left behind several magazines after his hanging. There was something interesting in them, so I had not thrown them off, but secured them in my own locker for the safekeeping. I went and retrieved them to give to the girl.

  Chummy and me was such good friends. He was a dirty fellow with regards to several missing females, so it was said in the TV newses, but to me, he could be the soft character—although sometimes he was tongue-bitey, before the final days came and he started to become regretful. Sometimes together we worked the newspaper crosswords of the daily papers—Chummy knew so many words than me. One time, we even played the words game of “Hangman.” Another time, I mused to Chummy, “It will be very quiet after death, don’t you think so?” (Chummy had complained of my talking-talking.) “No, it won’t be quiet,” Chummy told. “Because your jabbering will stay in my head eternally.” (He knowed of such fine words: eternally.)