After a few more turns the cart will stop. You will collect your tired limbs and climb down, one by one, like wooden dolls.
There will be a strong smell in the air: the stench of leaves rotting in the pool just in front of you. Beside the pool will stand the feeble remains of a large mansion, its roof caved in, walls falling apart, and windows broken – like the battlements of a fort, guarding against the phantom moonlight.
This is where you will spend the night.
First, you will find yourself a room, somewhat habitable. The cart-driver will fetch you from somewhere a broken lantern and a jug of water. It will seem to you ages since someone had walked into that room. Some futile efforts have been made to clean it up and the musty odour will reveal that this was a long time back. With the slightest movement, plaster will peel off and bits of rubble will fall on you from the roof and the walls, like angry oaths from a resident spirit. Bats and flying foxes will shrilly question your right to stay there for the night.
Of your friends, one is a sod and the other would have snored through a holocaust. Your bed will be hardly ready before one of them hits the sack and the other the bottle.
The night will wear on. The lantern glass will gather soot and the light will softly dim. The assault of mosquitoes will become unbearable. This is the blue-blooded anopheles, the aristocrat who carries malaria in his bite. But, by this time, both your companions will be in worlds of their own, far removed from yours.
It will be hot and oppressive. You will take a torch and try to escape to the terrace, to beat the heat. The danger of the staircase giving way will scare you at every step. But something will draw you on, irresistibly. You will keep on climbing till you arrive.
On reaching, you will find the terrace in ruins. Trees have taken firm root in every crevice, every nook. As if they were fifth columnists, making way for the inexorable advance of the forest.
And yet, in the wan moonlight, everything will look beautiful. It will seem that if you searched long enough, you would find that inner sanctum of this sleep-drenched palace where the captive princess has been asleep through countless centuries.
And even as you dream of such a princess, you will notice a faint light in one of the windows of the tumbledown house across the street. And, then, you will see a mysterious shadow walk up to the window. Whose silhouette is it? Why is she awake when everyone sleeps? It will baffle you: and even as you wonder about it, the light will slowly go out. Was it real? Or did you see a dream? From the abysmal dark of this world of sleep, a dream bubble surfaced for a while, floated silently in the world of the living, and then suddenly melted away.
You will walk down the staircase carefully and fall asleep beside your friends.
When you wake up some hours later, you will find morning already there, with the delightful chatter of birds.
You will remember what you had come here for. And very soon you will find yourself sitting on a broken, moss-covered step beside the pool. You will cast your line into the green waters and wait patiently.
The day will wear on. A kingfisher perched on the branch of a tree beside the pool will occasionally swoop down, in a flash of colour. A snake will emerge from some crack in the steps and slither slowly into the water. Two grasshoppers, their transparent wings fluttering in the sunlight, will keep trying to land on the float of your line. A dove will call out from the distance, its lazy notes will bring on a strange ennui, as your mind will wander far and wide.
The reverie will break with the sudden ripples on the water. Your float will gently rock. You will look up to find her pushing away the floating weeds and filling up a shining brass pitcher. Her eyes are curious; her movements unabashed and free. She will look straight at you and at your line. Then, she will pick up her pitcher and turn away.
You will not be able to guess her age. Calm and sorrowful, her face will tell you that she has already walked the pitiless road of life. But if you look at the thin, emaciated lines of her body, you will think that she had never grown out of her adolescence.
Even as she turns to go away, she will suddenly pause and ask you what you are waiting for. Pull hard, she will say. Her voice is so mellow and tender that it will not surprise you that she should have spoken to you, a complete stranger, with such familiarity. Only the suddenness of it will startle you and, by the time you pull the line, the bait would have gone.
You will look at her somewhat abashed. And she will then turn and go away with slow, unhurried steps. As she walks away, you will wonder if you saw the hint of a smile breaking through her sad, peaceful eyes.
Nothing will again disturb the loneliness of the afternoon. The kingfisher will fly away. The fish will ignore you. Only a strange feeling of unreality will remain. How could she have come to this strange land of sleep?
And then, after a long while, you will pack up – a little disappointed with yourself. When you return, you will find that the news of your fishing skills has preceded you. You will ignore the wisecracks of your friends and ask them how they knew you had fared so poorly.
Why, Jamini told us, the tippler will reply. She saw you there. Curious, you will ask him who Jamini is. You will learn that she is the same person you saw beside the pool, a distant relation of your friend. You will also learn that you are going over to her place for lunch.
You look at the ruins across the street – where you had watched last night’s silhouette framed by the broken window in the wan moonlightand you are surprised by its wretched condition. You had not imagined that the veil of night, now stripped rudely by the harsh daylight, could have hidden such an ugly nakedness. You are even more surprised to know that Jamini lives there.
It is a simple meal. Jamini serves it herself. Looking at her now, closely, you are struck by the tired sorrow writ on her face. It seems as if the mute agony of this forgotten and lonely place has cast its dark shadow across her visage. A sea of infinite tiredness swirls in her eyes. You know she will crumble slowly, very slowly, with the ruins around her.
You will notice there is something on her mind. You may even hear a faint voice calling from a room upstairs. And every now and then you will notice Jamini leaving the room. Each time she comes back, the shadows lengthen on her face and her eyes betray a strange anxiety.
After the meal is over, you will sit for a while. Jamini will first hesitate, and then call out in despair for the other side of the door: Manida, can you please come her once? Mani is your friend, the tippler. He will go to the door and you will hear his conversation with Jamini quite clearly, even though you have no intention to eavesdrop.
Mother is being difficult again, Jamini would say, in a troubled voice. Ever since she heard you were coming with your friends, she has become quite impossible to handle.
Mani would mutter irritably: I suppose it is because she imagines Niranjan is here.
Yes. She keeps saying, I know he is here. he hasn’t come up to see me only because he is embarrassed. Go, fetch him. Manida, I don’t know what to say. Ever since she went blind, she has become rather difficult. She won’t listen to anyone. She is always angry. I am sometimes scared she will collapse and die during one of her fits.
If only she had eyes, I could have proved to her that Niranjan is nowhere around: Mani would reply, somewhat annoyed.
A shrill, angry scream will come from upstairs, this time more clearly audible. Janimi will beseech him: Please come with me once, Manida. See if you can make her understand. All right, Mani will reply a bit roughly. You carry on; I’ll come.
Mani will mutter to himself: Why, for heaven’s sake, does this mad woman refuse to die? She can’t see; she can hardly use her limbs; and yet she is determined not to die.
You will ask him what the matter is. Mani will reply, annoyed: Matter? Nothing very much. Years ago, she had fixed Jamini’s marriage with Niranjan, a distant nephew of hers. The last time he was here was about four years ago. He told her then he would marry Jamini as soon as he returned from abroad. Ever since then, she h
as been waiting.
But hasn’t Niranjan returned? You will ask.
Of course not! How can he return when he never went at all? He was lying; otherwise, the old hag wouldn’t let him go. Why should he marry this rag-picker’s daughter? Yes, he is married all right and rearing a family. But who is to tell her all this? She won’t believe you; and if she did, she would die of shock immediately thereafter. Who’s going to take the risk?
Does Jamini know about Niranjan? You will ask.
Oh yes. But she can’t speak about it to her. Well, let me go and get it over. Mani will turn to go.
Almost unaware of it yourself, you will also get up then and say: Just a moment. I will come with you.
You? With me? Mani will be very surprised.
Yes. Do you mind?
No, of course not, Mani will reply, a trifle taken aback. And, then, he will lead the way.
After you have climbed the dark, crumbling staircase, you will enter a room that looks like an underground vault. There is only one window, tightly shut. At first, everything will look indistinct. And then, as your eyes get used to the dark, you will see a large, decrepit wooden cot. On it you will notice a shriveled-up woman, wrapped in torn rags, lying still. Jamini stands beside her, like a statue.
At the sound of your footsteps, the bag of bones will slowly move. Niranjan? My child! You are back at last! You have come back to your poor wreck of an aunt! You know, I have been waiting, keeping death at bay, knowing that you will be here someday. You won’t slip away again like last time?
Mani will be about to say something but you will interrupt him by blurting out: No, I promise you I won’t.
You will not look up but you will feel the stunned silence in the room. You could not have looked up even if you wanted to, for your eyes are riveted to the sockets of her old, unseeing eyes. Two tongues of dark will emerge from the empty sockets and lick every inch of your body. To feel, to know. You will feel those moments falling like dew into the vast seas of time.
You will hear the old woman saying. My son, I knew you would come. That is why I am still in this house of the dead, counting the days. The sheer effort to speak will leave her panting. You will look up at Jamini. You will feel that somewhere behind the mask of her face, something was slowly melting away, and it will not be long before the foundation of a vow – a vow made up of endless despair, a vow taken against life and fate – will slowly give away.
She will speak again: I am sure Jamini will make you happy, my son. There is none like her, even though I, her mother, should say so. I am old and broken down, and often out of my senses. I try her beyond endurance. But does she ever protest? Not once. This graveyard of a place, where you will not find a man even if you search ten houses, is like me, more dead than alive. And yet, Jamini survives, and manages everything.
Even though you may want to, you will dare not lift your eyes should someone discover the tears that have welled there. The old woman will whisper: Promise me you will marry Jamini. If I do not have your promise, I will know no peace even in death.
Your voice will be heavy. You will softly mumble: I will not fail you. I promise.
And soon it will be late afternoon. The bullock cart will appear once again to take you back. One by one, the three of you will get inside. As you are about to leave, Jamini will look at you with those sorrowful eyes of hers and softly remark: You are forgetting your tackle.
You will smile and reply: Let it be. I missed the fish this time – but they won’t escape next time.
Jamini will not turn her eyes away. Her tired face will softly light up with a smile, tender and grateful. Like the white clouds of autumn, it will drift across your heart and fill you with a strange and beautiful warmth, an unexplained happiness.
The cart will amble on its way. You will not feel cramped this time; nor will the monotonous creak of the wheels bother you. Your friends will discuss how a hundred years ago, the scourge of malaria, like a relentless flood, carried off Telenapota and left it here, in this forgotten no-man’s land, just beside the frontier of the world of the living. You will not be listening; your mind will be drifting elsewhere. You will only listen to your own heartbeats echoing the words: I will come back, I will come back.
Even after you get back home to the city, with its hectic pace and harsh lights, the memory of Telenapota will shine bright in your mind like a star that is distant and yet very close. A few days will pass with petty problems, the usual traumas of the commonplace. And even if a slight mist begins to form in your mind, you will not be aware of it. Then, just as you have crossed the fences, prepared to go back to Telenapota, you will suddenly feel the shivering touch of the oncoming fever.
Soon the terrible headache and the temperatures will be on you and you will lie down under a lot of blankets, trying unsuccessfully to ward off the fever or at least come to terms with it. The thermometer will register 105 degrees Fahrenheit and the last thing you hear before passing out will be the doctor’s verdict. Malaria.
It will be many days before you are able to walk out of the house and bask in the sun, weak and exhausted by the long fever. Meanwhile, unknown to yourself, you mind will have undergone many changes, the inevitable transformations. Telenapota will become a vague, indistinct dream, like the memory of a star that has fallen. Was there ever such a place? You will not be sure. The face that was tired and serene. The eyes that were lost and lonely, hiding an unknown sorrow. Were they real? Or were they, like the shadows of Telenapota’s ruins, just another part of a phantom dream?
Telenapota, discovered for one brief moment, will be lost again in the timeless dark of the night.
Soft
F. Paul Wilson
F. Paul Wilson (1946–) is a popular American writer of science fiction and horror. In 1981, his epic horror novel The Keep became an international bestseller. In the 1990s, he wrote science fiction and medical thrillers. With Matthew J. Costello, Wilson created and scripted FTL Newsfeed, which ran daily on the Sci-Fi Channel from 1992–1996. Among Wilson’s best-known characters is the anti-hero Repairman Jack, an urban mercenary introduced in the 1984 bestseller, The Tomb. H. P. Lovecraft is a major influence on Wilson, who was introduced to his work by Donald Wollheim, both of whom are also included in this volume. ‘Soft’ (1984) has a surreal and disturbing quality typical of Wilson’s stories from this period.
I was lying on the floor watching TV and exercising what was left of my legs when the newscaster’s jaw collapsed. He was right in the middle of the usual plea for anybody who thought they were immune to come to Rockefeller Center when – pflumpf! – the bottom of his face went soft.
I burst out laughing.
‘Daddy!’ Judy said, shooting me a razor-blade look from her wheelchair.
I shut up.
She was right. Nothing funny about a man’s tongue wiggling around in the air snakelike while his lower jaw flopped down in front of his throat like a sack of Jell-O and his bottom teeth jutted at the screen crowns-on, rippling like a line of buoys on a bay. A year ago I would have gagged. But I’ve changed in ways other than physical since this mess began, and couldn’t help feeling good about one of those pretty-boy newsreaders going soft right in front of the camera. I almost wished I had a bigger screen so I could watch twenty-one color inches of the scene. He was barely visible on our five-inch black-and-white.
The room filled with white noise as the screen went blank. Someone must have taken a look at what was going out on the airwaves and pulled the plug. Not that many people were watching anyway.
I flipped the set off to save the batteries. Batteries were as good as gold now. Better than gold. Who wanted gold nowadays?
I looked over at Judy and she was crying softly. Tears slid down her cheeks.
‘Hey, hon–’
‘I can’t help it, Daddy. I’m so scared!’
‘Don’t be, Jude. Don’t worry. Everything will work out, you’ll see. We’ve got this thing licked, you and me.’
‘How ca
n you be so sure?’
‘Because it hasn’t progressed in weeks! It’s over for us – we’ve got immunity.’
She glanced down at her legs, then quickly away. ‘It’s already too late for me.’
I reached over and patted my dancer on the hand. ‘Never too late for you, shweetheart,’ I said in my best Bogart. That got a tiny smile out of her.
We sat there in the silence, each thinking our own thoughts. The newsreader had said the cause of the softness had been discovered: A virus, a freak mutation that disrupted the calcium matrix of bones.
Yeah. Sure. That’s what they said last year when the first cases cropped up in Boston. A virus. But they never isolated the virus, and the softness spread all over the world. So they began searching for ‘a subtle and elusive environmental toxin.’ They never pinned that one down either.
Now we were back to a virus again. Who cared? It didn’t matter. Judy and I had beat it. Whether we had formed the right antibodies or the right antitoxin was just a stupid academic question. The process had been arrested in us. Sure, it had done some damage, but it wasn’t doing any more, and that was the important thing. We’d never be the same, but we were going to live!
‘But that man,’ Judy said, nodding toward the TV. ‘He said they were looking for people in whom the disease had started and then stopped. That’s us, Dad. They said they need to examine people like us so they can find out how to fight it, maybe develop a serum against it. We should–’
‘Judy-Judy-Judy!’ I said in Cary Grantese to hide my annoyance. How many times did I have to go over this? ‘We’ve been through all this before. I told you: It’s too late for them. Too late for everybody but us immunes.’
I didn’t want to discuss it – Judy didn’t understand about those kinds of people, how you can’t deal with them.
‘I want you to take me down there,’ she said in the tone she used when she wanted to be stubborn. ‘If you don’t want to help, okay. But I do.’
The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories Page 133