Walls of Silence

by Walls Of Silence Free(Lit)

  “I will show you how to do this properly.” Ketan tucked his hand under the bottom of the shirt and yanked it up my back and over my head in one movement. I screamed.

  He stood back. “My. Sunil will be pleased.”

  The shakes had gone; I knew I hadn’t shit myself and somehow the knowledge of that gave me a little strength. I took off my pants and socks.

  “Them too.” Ketan inserted his fingers into the top of my briefs and snapped the elastic viciously against my skin.

  I stripped completely. The man with the umbrella sniggered.

  Ketan circled me, running his fingers across my back. I looked straight ahead, clenching my jaw. I wouldn’t flinch, whatever he said, whatever he did.

  “These injuries will serve as a respectable start.” He pursed his lips. “We need only trouble you with a few more.”

  Ketan took the plastic bag from the driver and, after a quick rummage, removed what looked like a cheese-grater, flat-ended but well-ridged, for crude rather than delicate woodwork.

  He swiped the grater over my shoulder blade. The sharp corrugations ripped into me.

  I roared with the pain.

  He swung the grater over my thigh.

  I hadn’t known that pain could be so cumulative. Somehow, I’d always assumed that one pain would cancel another out.

  I sank to my knees again and realized that I was being flayed alive.

  After a couple more passes, I slumped onto the flagstone. The water, that had already seemed so dark, turned even darker as my blood began to flow.

  Ketan dipped the grater in a puddle of water, gave it a shake and handed it back to the other man. “You know,” he said, “you look just like your father.”

  I remembered the morgue, the purple ridges and rivulets that crisscrossed his body. Where had they come from? The morgue attendant said vultures. It wasn’t the vultures, it was their come-on, their heyguys-dinner’s-ready.

  I tried to regulate my breath, find the core of being alive, and focus on it. While I could focus, I could survive.

  Ketan took the plastic bag from his partner once more, in exchange for the gun. After another rummage he removed an airline amenity bag. He slid the zip open.

  Kneeling on the ground beside me, he held a syringe up close to my face. “Soon the pain will be gone, and you will be with your English god and there will be no more terror, no more Towers of Silence. But for now”—he swiveled the syringe in his hand—“we judge you. The vultures can digest your sins.”

  He took out a small bottle of cloudy liquid. He held the bottle upand shook it. “Does your English god send people back to earth after they die?” He removed the cap from the end of the syringe, and withdrew the plunger to its fullest extent. “Who knows, maybe you will return as someone or something else. A priest, or a dog.”

  The driver moved closer and stood with the gun aimed at my temple. He knew that if I were going to make a move, it would have to be in the next few seconds.

  Ketan stuck the needle into the rubber cap of the bottle and pressed the plunger down. He then withdrew it slowly. I was transfixed by the fluent passage of liquid from the bottle into the syringe.

  I tensed myself. I was going to try and drive myself upward and pitch Ketan over and, in the process, try to get him on top of me so that the first shot from the driver got him, not me. After that, the plan got fuzzy.

  From near the hut we heard a sound out of synch with the rain; wood cracking, something like that.

  Ketan turned toward the noise for an instant and, as he did so, I grabbed his wrist and began to turn his hand.

  He was strong and his other arm swung around and caught me in a tooth-rattling blow to the face. But I didn’t let go.

  There was another noise and the driver turned and ran into the pitch-darkness alongside the hut.

  I heard a shot.

  “You fucking dirty bastard,” Ketan yelled at me, his lips drawn back in a bestial snarl, the rain snaking in wild rivulets down his face.

  Ketan stuck his fist into my back. Against my bare flesh, his suit felt like armor.

  I pulled my head back and rammed it with every last ounce of my strength against the bridge of his nose. Blood spouted instantly all over my face. I turned with him as he tried to pull away and found myself crouched on top of him.

  The syringe was still in his hand. I twisted and pushed, and in the instant the needle was directed at him, I fell onto the plunger. Ketan groaned and I saw his eyes widen.

  “Not that,” he whispered. I pressed myself hard against his body and felt him thrash. I reached up and grabbed his hair and startedpounding his head against the flagstone.Slam, slam, slam,time after time. Like he had swung the cheese-grater over me, a slam for each pendulum swing—plus interest.

  I felt his body go limp, but still I slammed. “Stop, stop.” I raised my head to locate the voice.

  It was me. I was telling myself to stop. The human in me was trying to bring the animal to heel.

  I lay there, my face pressed against Ketan’s chest. It didn’t rise and fall. I lifted myself onto all fours. His eyes were open, the whites of them vivid, the retinas staring upward toward the entrance of the Towers of Silence, his hair, glistening with rain and blood, pressed flat against his skull.

  I sat up some more and, without taking my eyes off his face, I ran my hand down his chest until I came to the syringe, stuck in to the hilt like a plastic Excalibur. I didn’t know where his heart was, but the needle had missed a rib and journeyed somewhere deeper.

  I moved myself slowly off Ketan’s corpse. With every ripple of every muscle, my burns burned, and the wounds from the grater seared my flesh.

  I couldn’t stand at first.

  I was gradually able to turn my face to the sky; there was no moon, just diamonds of water falling onto my face.

  I turned around. I could see a pair of legs protruding from the deep shadows next to the hut. No, there were more than two. I managed to stand up and staggered toward the hut.

  The driver was lying on top of another body. His head was turned in my direction, his eyes, like Ketan’s, staring into eternity. His skull was smashed, I could see pink sponge poking through a gap in the hair. I followed a thick trail of blood that coursed down the side of his head and along an arm that stuck out from under his body.

  The arm was sleeved. Most of the material was steeped in blood, but there was a small clear patch. A floral pattern. I followed the arm to the hand and saw a woman’s fingers, a gold band on the ring finger, a sapphire winking from an engagement ring nestling alongside.

  My mother had always said that when she died, the rings had to go with her into the next world.

  Then I howled.

  I pulled the driver’s body roughly off my mother and let it slump untidily next to her.

  I buried my head in Mum’s chest. “No, Jesus, no,” I sobbed. I felt the rain pound onto her and could see a bloody swirl below her breast.

  A single bullet was all it had taken.

  I held her close to me, an inverted Madonna and child, rocking her in my arms, stroking her thin silk hair, sad strands smooth with the rain, like she’d just emerged from the shower and would comb out the conditioner and turban her head in a white fluffy towel.

  Her eyes were shut, not like the others who had tried to keep their vision of this world. Mum had been ready for the next; prepared to take the journey. For me, her cub.

  And nearby, glistening in the rain was the brass elephant deity. My mother’s weapon. I’d been saved by someone else’s god. I held it in my hand, wiping away a gobbet of something from the end of its trunk.

  I went back to where Ketan lay and picked up my clothes. I tried not to look at him, but even in death, his piercing eyes drew my stare.

  I could hear flapping. In the dark, there were even darker shadows.

  The vultures.

  They weren’t having my mother, I vowed.

  I went to the car and opened the trunk and found my suitcase
and suit carrier under a dirty blanket. I got into the backseat and wiped myself down as best I could and eased on a set of fresh clothes. I checked through the sodden mush that had been my jacket. The ticket, money, and passport were still there, not in great shape, but retaining enough of their original essence to work for me.

  Then there were the bodies to attend to. I dragged the driver and Ketan around the back of the hut. They would be found the next day, most likely. But not until the vultures had feasted.

  The blanket was large enough to cover her small body. But she felt heavy as I struggled to the car. I could hardly breathe by the time I settled her along the backseat of the car. I’d thought about the trunk, but it would be so dark in there for her.

  The paisley bag. Suddenly it seemed important that she should have it on her last journey. She’d need it, in case of emergency.

  I wondered if her taxi might still be waiting. I thought of the walk down the path to the road. I knew I didn’t have the strength.

  The windows of the Mercedes were well tinted and, in this light, near enough opaque. No one would be able to see in, and I certainly wasn’t going to sit Mum upright and strap a seat belt around her and pretend that she was some elderly dowager on a midnight jaunt.

  I sat in the driver’s seat and checked the lights, the signals, the automatic gearshift. I didn’t want to be stopped because of some dumb-assed display behind a wheel.

  A pack of Marlboro and a gold lighter sat in a small tray in front of the radio and CD console. I didn’t smoke, but the thought that maybe it was time to start crossed my mind. No, Mum hated the smell of cigarettes.

  I eased the car down the track and edged out onto the road. About a hundred yards up the hill I could see the parking lights of a stationary car. I covered fifty yards and stopped the car and got out.

  It was a taxi, the driver reclined in his seat, snoring. I could see the paisley bag on the backseat.

  I tapped on the window. The driver jerked awake, rubbed his face, and then looked terrified.

  “I have no money,” he said.

  I waved both my hands to show there was nothing in them. “It’s okay,” I said. “You gave my mother a ride, I think. From the Taj.”

  He still looked doubtful. “Yes, sir.”

  “How much does she owe you? I will take her to the airport from here.” I took out my wallet and withdrew some soggy rupees.

  He seemed to relax. “She was a very nice lady, most polite, and inquired of my family and well-being.”

  I nodded, glad of the rain to shield my tears.

  “We were following your car,” he said. “When we stopped here she told me she would not be long. She seemed most anxious to see you.”

  “My mother decided she wanted to travel with me,” I said.

  The driver nodded. “It is important that a mother and son should spend time together. I tell this to my son. He does not talk to hismother enough. There are some matters which are for a father to discuss, but there are others that require the sensitivity of a woman, I think.”

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  The driver was staring at my midriff. I looked down and saw that a bloodstain the size of a fist had made its way from the injury on my hip onto the front of my shirt.

  “You are hurt, sir,” he said.

  “It’s nothing,” I said. “I had a fall.” I started counting money from the wad. “How much did you say my mother owed you?”

  “Ah, yes, sir. That is one thousand rupees.”

  I handed him two thousand. Forty bucks to me. A month’s wages to him. I pointed to the backseat. “Can I have my mother’s bag, please?”

  “Certainly.”

  “You have been very kind,” I said, “and my mother asked me to thank you, and extend her best wishes to your family.”

  The driver smiled and pocketed the money. “Thank you, sir, and likewise.”

  I walked back toward the Mercedes, each step tearing me apart.

  I heard the taxi’s engine start up, and looked behind me to see it perform a three-point turn and head back down the hill.

  THIRTY-NINE

  As I felt sand replace potholed blacktop beneath the wheels of the Mercedes, the rain started to ease. I turned the headlights to low beam and tried to detect movement in front of me. Between the huts, the boats, and the bombil frames, Versova oozed tranquillity. I’d driven beyond the main drag, where groups were still gathered, families eating and children playing football among the fish. I was now in a backwater of the backwater.

  I’d driven from a borough of madness to somewhere more benign, but as substantive distance accrued between me and the Towers of Silence I felt that I’d taken some of the madness with me. My head was a storm of crashing emotions and objectives. The pain of my grief had become synonymous with my burns and gashes. That helped. Creams and unguents could be applied; the pain could be tamed. Action on my part could tame it.

  I cut the engine and burrowed in the bulging paisley bag. On the top lay a mishmash of toiletries; then a skirt, a couple of tops, a hand towel, some underwear and a bra. They all found their way onto thepassenger seat. Underneath lay what I was looking for. Pills, creams, gauze, bottles, small scissors, tape, the photo of my father, the photo of me, beesting spray, water purifier tabs, a pack of jelly babies. And there was more, but I’d found enough to give myself some rudimentary first aid.

  I replaced her clothes, painfully removed my jacket, and then laid the last shirt and pants from my suit carrier across the passenger seat.

  I looked back to the bundle that was my mother. She was so small. How had someone so small carried me around for nine months?

  I got out of the car. Wet warm air shot through with the smell of fish. Still cloudy, no moon, no stars. I looked out to sea. A few bobbing lights.

  I scanned the dark beach. I was a good distance from the main encampment to my right, but there was a single hut not far to my left. No light came from its window, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t occupied.

  The prow of a small boat poked out from the far side of the hut.

  I crept over and knelt below the lone window of the hut before raising myself very gently until my eyes reached the dirty glass. I strained my eyes and could see nothing, no embers of a fire, no night lamp, no flicker of TV. I held my breath and listened. Nothing.

  Around the other side of the hut, I sized up the little boat. I gripped the prow with my left hand and it moved easily on the sand. Not noiselessly, but quietly enough.

  Turning it around, I pulled the boat away from the hut and toward the shore. Now I felt camouflaged by the sound of breaking waves; not big rollers, but the last puny vestiges of a storm already exhausted out at sea.

  We’d had a boat on most vacations. Nothing fancy, a small dinghy usually; Dad the skipper, Mum at the stern with her hand trailing in the water. Content. She said that when she was cruising in a little jolly boat with Dad in control, she was never happier.

  I left the boat a few feet from the water and went back to the hut, where I started to root around in the junk lying beside it. Nets, floats, old pots, twine, kindling wood. And what I was looking for, a small metal cannister. I lifted it gently and sniffed. Kerosene.

  I went back to the car and opened the rear door and pulled my mother’s body from the backseat.

  I took as deep a breath as my scrapes would allow. Two trips, I reckoned.

  I let my mother gently down onto the sand, went back to the car and repacked the paisley bag, leaving out only the first aid stuff and my bathroom kit. I then took the bag out of the car along with the cigarette lighter from the tray.

  I headed back to the hut to pick up the metal can and kindling before lugging everything down to the boat.

  Then it was back to the car. Everything was in place. I picked my mother up again, feeling my back, hand, and hip explode in pain.

  I started walking toward the waves.

  I laid her in the little boat. A snug fit, made for her.

 
And yet, what was I doing? Gesture, ritual. Something to sanctify my mother’s life. No. Not just her life. Life itself. Life: that spark in the eternal dark.

  I looked down on her. She was still in the blanket. It didn’t seem right. She needed to be free; perhaps she’d want to trail her hand in the water.

  I peeled away the blanket from the top of her, stuffing the coarse material down each side of her body, a cushion against the boat’s timbers.

  Oh, Jesus, her face looked so sad, so uncertain, as if she still didn’t know whether I was alive, whether her intervention had saved me.

  “You did save me,” I whispered. “Look: a bit worn, but alive.”

  I kissed her on the lips. Somehow I expected her expression to change, but of course it didn’t. Death doesn’t work like that.

  I placed the paisley bag by her feet, gently lifted her arms and folded them across her chest. I wanted to cover the bullet’s entry wound. Everything had to be just so. I spread the kindling along her sides, wedged them into the blanket material, and opened the metal cannister.

  I hesitated. Would this be what she wanted? I looked up into the dark sky. Still no moon, no stars. And out to sea: bobbing lights. The stars had landed. Raj had said they didn’t fish at night, so it had to be stars.

  I poured the kerosene over the kindling, over the blanket material. Shaking the can, I knew there was plenty more. I hesitated again before pouring the rest of the pungent purple liquid over Mum’s body. I was careful not to get any on her face.

  Then, with the lighter clenched between my teeth, I stood behind the boat and started to push it into the water. The waves wanted to push it back to shore, but I was ready for them. The warm water washed over me, the salt drilling in to me, working its way into the burns and gashes. I wanted to run from it screaming, but clenched my teeth on the lighter instead.

  Push, push, push, until the water broke over my shoulders. Then, holding the boat with one hand, I took the lighter with the other.

  I should have rehearsed it. The mechanism was unfamiliar to me. A steel bar across the top of the little gold cartridge. A lever? I pushed it one way, then the other. Then tried to lift it up; it wouldn’t budge. A wave narrowly missed breaking over my hand and drowning the lighter.