Hangwoman

by K R Meera

  I didn’t reply.

  ‘The poor lad . . . if only he’d go soon, without pain.’

  My fingers froze.

  ‘As long as I am alive, I can bathe and feed him. After my time?’

  ‘I am still here, Ma.’ My voice broke.

  ‘You have a big future, Chetu. Don’t ruin it.’ She sat up and looked into my eyes. ‘For women like us, marriage is an escape route. It was, for me. A place to sleep . . . some food, at least once a day . . . ’ There were no tears in her eyes now. Her voice was calm. ‘That boy is good. You shouldn’t let him go now.’

  ‘He doesn’t love me, Ma.’

  ‘Is that why he bought you gold?’

  ‘It was because he could make money out of me.’

  ‘Listen to me, men are like gods. If they have no one to fall at their feet or beg or worship them three times a day, they are mere stones. So don’t let him go, hold on tight. You can escape only through him . . . ’

  ‘Where to?’ I asked, astonished.

  ‘There is a big world out there, Chetu, a very big world. A world where you can live as yourself. But to reach that place, you have to escape this broken little well. Just think of him as a ladder, nothing more.’

  I was afraid to look at her. This is not my mother, I felt. Ma lay down with her head in my lap again. I ran my fingers through her hair once more and looked at the pond in front of us. There was a rusty speedboat half sunk in the water. A waterhen perched on it dived straight into the water, swift as lightning, coming up somewhere else much later.

  ‘Ma, have you ever been in love?’

  She smiled gently. ‘Why? Why this doubt all of a sudden?’

  I kept silent. She too kept quiet for a while, and then began to speak, ‘Yes, I have. A boy in my village. When we crossed the border, they killed my ma . . . and his baba as well . . . ’

  My body grew chilled when I saw that the wounds inflicted on this country by Partition were to be found in my family as well.

  ‘And then?’ I asked, anxious to hear more.

  ‘It was a time of terrible want. My baba married again. We didn’t have food or a place to sleep. Your dadu came to see me when I’d turned thirteen. I thought then, it would be so wonderful to eat regularly at least once a day . . . ’ she said, voice faltering.

  ‘And what about him?’

  ‘I just killed him . . . in my mind.’

  My breath stopped. Her body was trembling, I thought.

  ‘Didn’t you love Baba, Ma?’ I asked again.

  ‘He’s not one person but many.’ Ma’s words were rock hard. ‘He knows that he doesn’t deserve me. Isn’t that why he goes to Sonagachi? Chetu, your father’s heart is like a coconut shell with a hole in it. However much you pour, it just runs out. Never will it fill. So even if he had the Ganga all to himself, it would be of no use.’

  ‘Does he know that you were once in love with someone else?’

  ‘I haven’t told him. But perhaps he knows. Maybe that’s why he’s run me down since the day he saw me. Your baba can’t swim. So he wants to drain the river dry. I have never managed to forget that man. Perhaps I could have if only your baba had permitted me to forget.’

  I felt a tremor in my very bones; I remembered Radharaman Mullick and Chinmayi Devi. Till now, in my mind, Father had been a zamindar, and Ma a soot-covered pot upon the hearth, full of boiling water. The waterhen perched again on the half-sunk boat and stretched out its wings to dry. This is not my mother lying in my lap, I thought again. I began to feel the exertion of running through those narrow lanes lined with shops hung with large-eyed, red-lipped Durgas, in a body like the one Ramu da had had in my dream: a body through which light could pass. ‘Elokeshi!’ I heard the cry again. Nabin Chandra was a fool. He shouldn’t have killed Elokeshi. She has refused to die after many centuries only because she had been killed.

  32

  Whenever I visit Nimtala Ghat, I feel that the moment when the clock of life begins to tick backwards is what we call death. After that moment, those who were flesh and blood turn into reflections in the mirror of life. If death is the moment in which we walk away from relationships, then each person dies several times in a single lifetime!

  I sat beside Ma, who was stretched out fast asleep on the little space we had managed to claim. I knew Sanjeev Kumar Mitra had begun to walk away from our relationship. In that sense, one of us was dying. As for Ramu da, who was hanging in the loops made by ventilator tubes, the clock of his life had begun to tick backwards quite sometime ago. The sky was ablaze as if it had totally forgotten the heavy showers that had fallen till yesterday.

  Father appeared with someone in hospital uniform. He was stuffing into the pouch at his waist the currency notes Father had given him. He greeted me with a grin that revealed his betel-stained teeth. ‘Ah, just like on TV, except for the tired face!’ He turned to Father with an even broader grin. ‘Dada, these notes you’ve given me will take care of everything. Have you forgotten how this hospital got this name? The Seth gifted some money to the hospital. Peanuts! But because of it, only because of it . . . ’

  Father sighed unexpectedly. ‘That is my only male child. I don’t say that you should heal him. But please don’t make him die many living deaths . . . ’

  ‘Don’t worry, Dada, I’ll take care of it. I’ll put in a special word for you with Doctor babu. This doctor doesn’t usually attend to anyone but Party people. I’ll convince him that you are much respected in the Party. And besides, you are Chetna Grddha Mullick’s father! How lucky you are, Dada . . . to be on TV and everything . . . ’

  I wiped off the sweat and just sat there looking utterly blank. Ma was sleeping with her mouth wide open like someone who had finally got a chance to sleep in her life. Her dirty, cracked feet stuck out pathetically below her frayed sari. Elokeshi, I thought. If Elokeshi had lived, if she’d had children and grandchildren, she too would have had to hang around hospital premises with feet dirtier than these, keeping a vigil for her son’s life. How saddening the thought was!

  When the sweeper left, Father turned to me. ‘Get ready soon, we have to go and see Sibdev babu. If he wishes to, he can help us get you a job.’

  ‘What job?’ Ma lumbered up. ‘Enough job seeking for her. Try to get that marriage back on track. Got that boy worked up for no reason! If you hadn’t done that, my daughter would have had a good future!’

  Father looked at Ma with dislike. ‘She’ll have the future she’s destined to have.’

  Ma scratched her head roughly. She untied her hair and tied it up again. ‘Oh indeed, she will, for sure, for sure!’

  ‘Well, how could that not be? She’s your daughter after all. Even after all these days, was she able to make him happy? No! But will he have any problem finding a woman? Of course not! To snare a man’s mind, you need more than a full body . . . ’

  ‘Oh yes, of course, you have met many with such abilities in Sonagachi for sure! Why don’t you go and live with one of them? I’ve no great wish to snare your mind. Really! What a priceless treasure it is for everyone to run after!’ Ma spat in sheer contempt.

  After a while she said, ‘But think of it, it wasn’t an alliance that suited our situation. Ramu didn’t like it at all . . . ’

  But Father said, quite sure of himself, ‘Situations need little time to change! Who was Rani Rashmani Debi? A starved wench from a godforsaken village! I’ve heard my thakuma talk about her. When she was brought to Kolkata at the age of thirteen, what a miserable sight she was. But then, didn’t she control all the zamindari after her husband’s death? Didn’t she stand up even against the British? I bow to her whenever I see Nimtala Ghat. That’s woman power, truly . . . ’

  Ma twisted her lips in contempt. They kept jabbering for some more time. In the end, I had to go again to Alipore with Father. On bus no. 228.

  ‘Death is at once a fully deter
mined and a completely random phenomenon,’ Father muttered as if to himself, sitting in the bus.

  The blazing sunlight blinded like white darkness. A certain numbness and melancholy, typical of bereavement, enveloped me.

  ‘Death is inevitable. But one can’t predict when it will happen. However, I can give you my word on one thing: If someone is meant to die by your hand, no one else can take him. And if he is not, then no matter how you try you can’t kill him. My baba used to say that.’

  Father sighed.

  Thakuma repeated Dadu’s words whenever she talked of Dinesh Chandra Gupta. It was July 1930, when it rained incessantly. Thakuma was pregnant then. The courtyard of the house, which was bigger then, had filled with rainwater. She had woken up early in the morning and was getting ready to light the hearth, when she slipped, fell into the water, and had a miscarriage. Sweeping up Thakuma who lay in a pool of blood, Dadu ran to fetch the vaidya. He got wet and that led to a fever which brought him down for a whole week. He had to inform the government that he couldn’t be present for the hanging of Dinesh Chandra Gupta which had been fixed for 7 July. Instead, Dadu’s older brother’s son, Shivottam Grddha Mullick, was sent. He collapsed on his way and died. In the end, Dadu had to go despite the fever. In the Canberra Times that week, the news of Dinesh Chandra Gupta’s death appeared in a small finger-length column along with news of the twister that devastated Sydney and of the sharp increase in the female population of Britain. Dadu always wept when he remembered that young man.

  We waited at the prison gate for a while. When we were finally summoned, Father pulled out a comb and ran it through his hair enthusiastically.

  ‘Sibdev babu will definitely help us. He is a good man.’

  He was optimistic. I, worn out by now, tagged behind him, struggling to keep up. I was stinking, having sat up in the hospital yard for hours, unwashed and with no sleep. When the prisoners who were cleaning the yard saw us, they stopped their work to look. We could hear whistles and humming.

  ‘Hey Dada, leave her here. We’ll look after her.’

  ‘Ooh . . . ’ someone said, ‘that’s Grddha Mullick. Go easy with your teasing . . . ’

  ‘Move quickly,’ Father hurried me.

  The gun-toting policeman in the corridor took us in. Cell no. 3 was on the left after the left turn past the next gate, I remembered. I was curious to know what Jatindranath Banerjee was doing that very moment in that cell where the electric bulb burned day and night.

  ‘So, Grddha da, a slip between the cup and the lip, right?’ Seeing us, Sibdev babu set aside the papers he had been writing on and gave us a broad smile.

  ‘Bad luck, Babu. And now my son is in the hospital too.’

  ‘Didn’t I see it on TV? To know what is happening in your family, all one needs to do is check the TV.’ He looked at me, smiling. ‘I’ve watched you speak on TV. Till which class did you study?’

  ‘Plus Two.’

  ‘Oh, I really thought you’d studied much higher!’

  ‘She was very bright as a student, Babu. But what to do? Shouldn’t I have some money if I want to send her to college?’ Father interjected, holding out a piece of paper to Sibdev babu. ‘Please help her get a job somehow, Babu! Otherwise we will all have to commit suicide together.’

  ‘As you said, terrible bad luck . . . if not, that hanging would have happened. She would have become a star! Why don’t you perform a puja? Tie a piece of blessed string . . . ’

  ‘All that’s useless, Babu. Tell us which temple to make the offering to, Babu . . .’

  Father bent his back again and scratched it. Sibdev babu thought about it.

  ‘Go and meet the DS. You may have to pay something, perhaps.’ He leaned back in his chair, smiling. ‘DS means district secretary. If the Party decides, she will definitely get a job.’

  Father was about to say something when a policeman came in.

  ‘Babu, the jeep and the staff are ready. It’s time to take Jatin to the hospital.’

  Sibdev babu got up, put his cap on, and went out. We followed him into the veranda. I saw a prisoner walk up between two policemen, his arms thrown around their shoulders for support. A thin man, he walked with a bit of a stoop. Father looked jolted. I did too when I recognized him. It was the person I was to have killed. His skin was terribly pale from having stayed indoors for so long. A thin, shrivelled body. The veins in his neck bulged a bit against his skin. I could clearly see the marks that the strands of the rope smoothened with banana flesh and soap would make on the white skin.

  ‘Take care. The doctor’s been informed, hasn’t he?’ I heard Sibdev babu say when I caught up.

  ‘Yes, Babu.’

  Jatindranath had a warm smile on his face when he turned to Sibdev babu.

  ‘What happened, Jatin? Happy that your tummy got upset?’

  ‘I was up early and shaved as usual. I had a nice bath and was humming a couple of tunes too! And then I became unwell . . . oh, isn’t this the hangman, Grddha Mullick?’

  His eyes opened wide. Father looked at him with a cast-iron expression on his face.

  ‘Yes, and this is his daughter, Chetna Grddha Mullick. She was to have hanged you. You bugger, you have a very long life!’

  ‘Yes, Babu, I do. No one can kill me!’ He laughed merrily. ‘Dada, don’t you remember me? Didn’t you come to meet me like this in 1994? Hey, don’t ready the noose for me yet, all right? I am not going to go too soon! Sister, that was for you too!’ He winked at me.

  ‘May you not go too soon, son. May God bless you.’ Father rose to the occasion, raised his hands and blessed him. I just watched. The prisoner’s thick, small palms, ordinary looking legs and slightly snub nose reminded me of Sanjeev Kumar Mitra. But, in truth, there was no resemblance at all between the tall, well-formed, handsome Sanjeev Kumar and the thin, pale Jatindranath.

  ‘What did you gobble up in the morning for your stomach to rebel?’ Sibdev babu asked.

  ‘Ate up all that they gave me. I got back my life today, didn’t I?’

  ‘Uh-hm! If you’d been good, you might have been at home eating your wife’s cooking.’

  At that he looked at Sibdev babu and me and beamed. That smile reminded me of soiled currency notes. After he left, Sibdev babu sighed. ‘Will anyone who sees him smile believe that he cruelly murdered a young girl? I was in my fifth year of service when it happened. Poor thing! She was a good girl. She was still holding her mother’s medicine tight as she lay dead.’

  She was her parents’ younger daughter. Her death drove her mother mad. Her father took refuge in drink and drugs. They went away from Kolkata.

  ‘These kind of people have the best time these days. Look at him. Does he show the slightest hint of repentance?’ Father was enraged. ‘He will live here for another twenty years like this. He’ll gobble food with the money that taxpayers pay. The government will take him to the hospital in a vehicle if he has an upset stomach. When I see this, I wonder, why not finish off a couple of people. I could spend the rest of my life in comfort inside the prison!’

  Sibdev babu laughed loudly. ‘Don’t worry, Grddha da. The decision in the Writers’ Buildings is that this chap should be finished off. It’s possible that things will still work out the way you want them to.’

  Father looked at him, puzzled.

  ‘Today, just after the news of your son, the chief minister made a statement. The government’s view is that cruel murderers indeed deserve the death penalty. That’s the Party’s stand too.’

  ‘But what to say, Babu, shouldn’t the President think so too?’

  ‘Who’s going to lose anything because one more chap lives, Grddha da? That’s my position. Anyway, you can go now. We’ll do all that we can.’

  When we bid him goodbye and stepped out, Father laughed heartily. ‘My mind says he won’t escape!’

  I looked at Fat
her, bewildered.

  ‘The signs of death are all on his face. Just a month more, not beyond.No, no!’

  I said nothing. Sitting in the bus I felt distanced from the world and life. I saw Jatindranath Banerjee’s form everywhere. The hollow cheeks on his freshly shaven face, the close-cropped hair, the sunken eyes, the prominent ear lobes—I saw them all clearly. There was a mismatch between his look and his laugh. The dregs of the memory of having grievously wounded a little girl, not yet thirteen, who was running to get her mother some medicine, lay in his eyes. The day grew hotter. My head ached. My ears itched terribly. I remembered Thakuma saying that this meant one would receive news of death. Someone who looked like Ramu da stood on the roadside. Ramu da was struggling to get away from the ventilator’s nooses. I had barely stepped into the hospital when I heard Ma’s loud wail. I got past the queue in front of the emergency outpatient ward, almost tripping over a man sitting there with both legs bandaged, biting into a guava leisurely, and ran up the steps. Ma lay on the third-floor veranda, rolling her head and wailing. Inside, Ramu da was in the last throes of his final struggle. It was the first time I saw someone die. It was like seeing a football match in slow motion on TV. His torso twisted and turned. His body heaved up and down. His eyeballs darted all around the room. Darkness rushed into my eyes; I grasped the iron cot tightly. Ma Kali, Bhagawan, Father was shouting. Seeing us there, people gathered around. And Father, seeing them, became energized. ‘Goodbye, my son! Do not be afraid!’ he said, kissing Ramu da’s forehead.

  I looked around. Will he now say, ‘One thumping line, right?’ I wondered. Suddenly, Ramu da gasped three times. His eyeballs rolled upwards. His body became motionless. The doctor came in and checked his pulse. He then removed the oxygen mask and the tubes, and left without a word. Ramu da’s eyes made me feel afraid. My right hand extended involuntarily. My palm felt his eyelashes; they were so soft even then. His eyelids were like flower petals. Death crawled inside my palm. His eyelids closed like flower petals falling. Liberated from the ventilator, Ramu da lay, eyes shut, an innocent smile on his face. Ma ran in and threw herself on his body, weeping.