by Zuni Chopra
‘Excuse me,’ I piped up when I reached him, ‘but who lives here?’
‘It’s not a house. It’s an office,’ he responded distastefully. Horrid manners.
‘Whose office, please?’
‘It’s Mr Mustafa Bhukhari’s office.’
‘Oh! The politician?’ I gasped. He stared at me, his left eye squinted, seeming to think I didn’t warrant a reply.
‘I . . . um . . . I need to see him. I mean, meet with him. Is he in?’
‘Yeah, he’s in. But he said he’s not to be disturbed. My pay’s depending on that and I need it. So buzz off.’ Excitement shot up my spine, and my brain—tired and fed up until this moment—zipped about like a March hare to process this new information.
If I could just speak to Mr Bhukhari and convince him that he ought not to buy the house, request him even, maybe I could still salvage a solution from the day’s horrible turn of events. The very thought of appealing to his better nature was, I’ll admit, repulsive, but I was desperate. The only question then was whether this thickheaded walrus would let me in.
‘I’m sure he would make an exception for me,’ I put in, a simpering smile stretching across my face.
The doorman peered at my too-innocent look.
‘And who are you exactly?’
‘I’m . . . um . . .’
‘Identification?’
Uh-oh. Think quick, Zoon.
My fingers were on the brink of squirming, my voice had grown softer and my eyes were fighting the strong impulse to dart away from his suspicious gaze, desperate for an escape.
So you know what I did?
I drew myself up to my full height (even stood up on my toes to gain half an inch extra) and raised my eyebrows so they looked all sharp and pointed.
‘Don’t you know who I am?’
I had hardly ever attempted an angrez accent. Mine sounded rather affected. The doorman blinked at me, baffled.
‘Um . . . no?’
‘Well, I,’ I shrieked, my voice growing shriller with every syllable, ‘am Mr Bhukhari’s niece. And I say, it is rather unpleasant to be given this kind of a welcome home after three years of study in London.’
His flabby chin was shaking slightly as he attempted to form a coherent sentence.
‘I didn’t . . . he never . . . what niece?’
I rolled my eyes and put my hands squarely on my hips.
‘Does he have some other thousand nieces for you to confuse me with?’
‘No . . . I mean . . . not that I know of . . .’
‘Look here, my plane just came in and I’m exhausted. So while I go inside to meet my uncle, you may kindly make me a cup of tea. English breakfast, please. Not kehva.’
With his mouth hanging open, he then gathered himself up enough to manage a, ‘I . . . yes . . . of course, right away . . . please go right in . . .’
He shuffled around to the back of the building to get some tea ready, looking like he’d just survived a bomb blast. I nearly felt sorry for him.
Once his hulking frame had disappeared round the corner, I stepped inside the building. It was a maze of narrow passageways and low ceilings. For all its show, it was really quite small.
Chapter Eight
The door handle jerked and creaked as I turned it, so that I had to push hard. I entered the main office. It seemed frigid, though not in terms of temperature. Every surface was stiff and terrified, as though the slightest movement would give them away. Although indeed, I found myself shivering slightly; none of the gleaming heaters, stuffed unceremoniously into the walls at corners of the room, were on. The only source of natural light, of any light really, was a small window peering inquisitively at me from the upper-left corner of the room. It was as though the window had somehow needed to be fitted in despite no one really wanting it, so it had been crammed into where it would be least noticed.
I stared about in astonishment. A large, ornate desk was rooted in the centre of the room. I walked over to it. A few perfectly ruffled papers sat weary amidst glossy new pens, pencils, a bowl of vapid flowers and a table lamp. I touched the flowers with a tentativeness I’ve come to associate with testing the bathwater, expecting them to be made of plastic. But they felt real enough, if slightly dry and brittle. The surface of the desk was smooth to touch yet troubled beneath. Acting on pure impulse, I put my ear to the surface and heard what sounded like miners thundering away at the inside of the table, surrounded by heat and noise and flame.
I pulled away, shifting one of the shiny grey pens slightly, and turned my glazed gaze to the bookshelves. Every book was black, perfectly bound and sealed shut, as though none had ever been opened. In seamless gold lettering they proclaimed the year they’d recorded, all arranged in chronological order.
As I moved closer to read what it was they documented, my eyes caught a sudden glint towards the back of the office. It was gone almost as quickly as it had come; I moved closer, my curiosity piqued, yet on guard.
A globe, seemingly attempting to be as large as what it represented, came slowly into view. It lay in the shrunken ray of light emerging from the dilapidated window. Splotches of a deep forest green displayed land, and shifting waves of clear turquoise, speckled with the occasional shipwreck or sea serpent, the oceans. The dust coating its dented surface could not yet hide its lost splendour; beneath the grime, it had once gleamed. Black, lacy letters sprawled across the map proclaimed the names of various countries. My eye caught on to a small copper latch in the Central Pacific. It must’ve been this that had shimmered through the bookshelves and demanded my attention. I traced the sunken grooves within it, and all at once, the globe popped open like a bottle cork, displacing the layers of filth upon it.
Holding its top half above me, I looked inside. Its interior was pearly white, like a chicken’s egg, and completely hollow. Wondering whether I might find a hidden passage to an alternate universe in which my house was mine, my life was simple and the quill could sustain a normal conversation for more than a second or two, I leaned further in.
The handle of the door shuddered loudly. The door swung widely, forcefully open.
Startled by the sudden noise, I threw myself inside the globe. It nearly closed above me; I had prised my fingers into the gap just in time, and they smarted terribly as the top half of the globe closed on and collided with them. I squeezed my eyes shut in pain and annoyance. Why had I done that? All I had needed was to meet Mr Bhukhari, and there he was! But now I’d spoilt my chances by being stupidly impulsive! I was sure he hadn’t seen me, and I couldn’t just come leaping out from inside his globe demanding an audience; he’d probably have me thrown out! And then that poor doorman wouldn’t get his pay.
I stayed where I was, grumbling inwardly and staring out through the gaps between my fingers. He marched in with the air of an army general surveying his troops, and I raised my eyebrows at his loud footsteps and marching gait. How self-important could one man get? Just then, my nostrils contracted at a potently repulsive smell, emanating from Mr Bhukhari. It was as though a decaying corpse had slipped its way inside of him and left its lingering stench upon his body. Disgusted, I grimaced at the odour, holding my free hand above my mouth to keep myself from coughing, wondering where on earth it could be coming from. He wore a box-shaped black cap, which seemed to me to be welded from the darkest metal, for it never once changed its sturdy shape. It matched the colour of his beady eyes perfectly. They shot back and forth, as though ensuring that no speck of dust had been swept away in his absence. He then placed his hat on his impeccable desk, revealing his sudden shock of white hair. I shook my head. It couldn’t be natural; it didn’t look anything like Tathi’s hair. But why anyone would colour their hair to make themselves look older was a mystery to me. His pale translucent skin was blackened at the edges, beneath his nails and flesh, as though he was rotting from the inside out.
He strode over to the door and it slipped meekly shut. I caught a quick glimpse of his face, and was surprised t
o find it a storm of emotions. Everything about him seemed tense and jittery. When he locked it, I began to feel uneasy. I didn’t want to be encroaching upon something private; perhaps he was going to sit and cry about something. That’s what I did whenever I felt like throwing a tantrum. I’d bawl in my room for a few minutes, during which Ma would be sensible enough to leave me well alone. After that I’d be quite all right again. Anyway, it’s highly embarrassing to watch any stranger cry. What would a politician cry about, I wondered. An election lost? A policy not pushed through? A big loss in funds, or something of the sort?
I allowed it to puzzle me for a moment. Then I realized he was not crying. On the contrary, he had seated himself at his desk in a most businesslike fashion, as though waiting for someone. He tapped his fingers together, straightened a pen that had been out of place, put on the table lamp, squinted, put it off again, started, and then stared down at the pen he’d put back in place. I forgot about keeping my nose pinched shut against the smell. My heart drummed like a tribal beat and I twisted my fingers sharply together while muttering furiously, ‘Please . . . please don’t notice . . . uh-oh . . . don’t notice . . .’
My foot skidded against the curved surface of the sphere, and it swivelled slightly in its golden holder.
He looked around. His eyes fixed on the globe. He made to rise—
And there came a voice, a terrible, rusting voice, a voice that sounded like claws against cracking glass, the scream of a helpless mother as her child succumbed to the fever, the scrape of a blade against metal, the strangled cry of a fallen soldier, abandoned in the blood-soaked, dark, muddy battlefield.
I am ready.
Mr Bhukhari stumbled back into his chair, his lips pressed together, as though uttering a silent prayer. He sat so still that I wondered if he had been paralysed as I was. My head whipped around, searching for demons concealed in the wood, lungs yanking in great gulps of air, so frightened that I did not care if he heard me. A sudden, raw impulse begged me to call out to him to run, before sprinting out of the door myself. But I was behind that massive desk, with half the earth on top of me, and there was no way to leave fast enough to escape.
He tilted his head very slightly to the left, and it was then that I noticed a scramble of black veins, like worms, underneath his skin. They writhed and hissed, threatening to break through his pale, thin flesh. His breathing was coming in deep, loud bursts, his neck lolling uselessly—as though it had broken—his eyes fighting to stay open. Watching him, I almost closed my own. What was wrong with him? Why didn’t he run?
I felt a sharp, nauseating pull in my abdomen and tried to look away. But I was frozen, unable to even blink as something sickeningly, horrifically lifeless, rotting and foul began to seep out of his ear and trickle on to the floor. The fetor of decay became thick and stale in the air . . . the lingering stench of an abandoned graveyard. It moved like a slug, sticking and sliming against all that touched it, sliding down the side of his lavish chair. All at once, the hot, stuffy air of the room became unbearable.
My heavily beating heart nearly tore itself out of my chest, then stopped entirely with a sudden jerk as the creature—no, the monstrosity . . . no, the devil itself—began to speak again, in a sinister, steady voice that seemed to come from nowhere in particular and yet everywhere at once. The gush of thick, black sludge slunk about the desk.
I have . . . begun to strengthen. You have done well.
Mr Bhukhari let out a ragged breath, and when he spoke, it seemed to cost him great effort. ‘I have done . . . exactly as you asked. But I . . . I have requests too. And I want to make sure that you will see to it that . . . that they are fulfilled.’
Have I not completed these petty conditions of yours? You wanted power. You wanted influence. I have given you both already.
‘No!’ gasped Mr Bhukhari. Something in his pitiless black eyes hardened and blocked out any light. Was it determination? I shuddered. ‘You haven’t! You promised me that you would make me something akin to a god! That I would be the one to give my home what it has always deserved!’
His eyes shone with the heat of sickness.
‘Its independence.’
His breaths came in gasps and gulps; the idea alone had left him breathless.
‘You said everyone across India would know my name, that army troops would follow my every move! You vowed to change my irrelevance, the irrelevance of this land I’m forced to bind myself to, to break us off from that parasitic country we are forced to call home, to stop our degradation. You said my military would—’
Be quiet. Do you think I have forgotten? Enough.
Mr Bhukhari cringed as though he’d been slapped; yet the creature hadn’t even raised its voice.
‘I . . . I’m not your slave . . . I can speak . . .’ He trailed off. The silence hung heavy in the air, pressing down upon me, crushing any hint of noise.
Yes.
It sounded amused.
I will explain once again. In choosing your body to inhabit, in binding myself to your pathetic mortal form, in using you as a concentration of myself, I’ve given you a greater power than you, a human, could ever hope to have.
My power.
‘You haven’t as much power as you say you have!’ Mr Bhukhari lashed out. ‘If you did, you’d never have needed to ask for my help in the first place, would you?’
A hiss, terrible, loathsome, sending petrifying fear across the room like a gas, pierced the walls before dripping slowly to the floor.
I bit my cheek so hard I tasted blood.
You dare . . . hmm . . . as it is I have felt you fight my control. No more. If I ask you to take action, you will trust that I have reason. My intelligence and prowess are far greater than yours, that you need not doubt, and I will not have you interfering.
And when it spoke again, I could sense a hint of carefully controlled anger in its repulsive voice.
You will bring me what I asked for, human. Or you will face the consequences. I take it we are not far from acquiring it?
‘N-no,’ he squeaked, frightened at last. ‘I’ve . . . the deal has been signed . . .’
And I will give you what you ask for in return. My rise will be great and terrible. You need have no doubts about that.
‘Doubts about what?’ asked the politician quietly.
If grief is capable of joy, if death is capable of life, if sin is capable of repentance, then I suppose what I heard next could be called laughter.
So already you grow tired of our game? Only at our second meeting? Despite the fact that you have even denied me access to your mind?
‘I’m not growing tired of anything. I just want my fair share.’
The sinewy shape at Mr Bhukhari’s feet rose then, and like a thousand rotting fingers, it twisted upwards, wrapping the wood, pulling against the flowers. It engulfed them with the quiet hiss of smoke. Almost liquid, it sank to the floor like oil. As it came away from the flowers, it turned a shade darker with a sudden ripple, a snakeskin discarded and remade. And the flowers were then black, putrid and utterly dead. I finally found the impulse to squeeze my eyes shut. Still I could hear the dull crack of fallen petals. Still I could smell the repulsive scent of decay lingering upon my sweaty skin.
You see?
The voice was sickeningly triumphant. Mr Bhukhari said nothing.
Not yet, but soon . . . very soon . . . I will be powerful enough . . . my reign has not ended . . . it never had. Already with the help of your body I have grown. Already I’ve been chipping away into the heart of this merry, magical place . . .
It spat the last few words, so that its voice became a snarl.
I can almost . . . almost sense it in here . . . beneath this vile building’s thick soapy scent . . .
Mr Bhukhari cleared his throat. I wondered how he dared to breathe.
See it as an act of kindness, will you not? Helping a poor, forgotten creature, a revenant, become a ruler once again. Is it not so very generous of you to aid in
my rebirth?
‘I don’t want to be kind to you!’ Mr Bhukhari burst out. He spoke the next words roughly, as though they had been forcibly wrenched through the walls of his heart, yet he spoke so quietly that I dared to hope the creature hadn’t heard him. ‘Kind people die alone.’
It gave a raspy cackle of appreciation.
That is why I chose you, of course. I see . . . how to put it . . . potential in you.
The sharp, clipped ring of the telephone shattered the stunned spell. My eyes were wrenched open painfully.
Mr Bhukhari snatched at it wildly, so that for a moment I was almost sure he was going to knock it off the table.
The shape rose then, a blackness so complete and endless that the dingy window found itself extinguished, eclipsed. Without a hint of warning, it slammed sideways into Mr Bhukhari’s fragile skull, through his rotting ear.
Mr Bhukhari’s bellow masked my sharp cry as the darkness, an insidious poison, entered him once again. He just sat at his desk, his teeth gritted and his fists clenched as his veins seemed to twist and wriggle beneath his skin. His hair flashed a brighter, more artificial shock of white. I fought the gasp threatening to escape from deep within my lungs and felt my skin grow colder at the creature’s disappearance.
Then, shaking, he raised the telephone to his ear.
‘Hello? Yes. Well. No. Yes. Fine. Now. Got it.’
He slammed the phone down, as though he could not have endured another syllable.
I watched him helplessly, feeling the most savage of sharp tears sting my eyes. It was just as the armchair had said . . . bitterness and blanketing rage . . . fuelled by humiliation and death. And yet his wish was the wish of many; often it was my own. I wanted so much to pat him heartily on the back, open all the doors and windows, and promise him that there was light at the end of this tunnel, that it hadn’t caved in.
But I couldn’t.
Twitching, grim, his feet planted firmly on the ground, he rose, moving slowly and cautiously towards the door.