Valley of Death

by Vickram E Diwan

  “A pigeon closes his eyes and thinks that the cat will not see it,” Rudolf said poking fun of Abhay. “Don’t let your emotions get the better of your judgment or allow cowardice cripple you from action; take the blows of the world on your chin and still stand firmly on your foot, that’s the way of a victorious man,” Rudolf exhorted him. “The true measure of a man is that he dominates the situations and vanquishes all his enemies and not the other way round. How can you hope to survive and triumph over your troubles; when you are unable to accept even your partner’s unfaithfulness? Adultery is part and parcel of modern day life; as common as drinking or smoking. Do you think twice before changing your underwear or buying new clothes to discard the old and out of fashion stuff?’

  “Changing your life partner cannot be compared to buying new clothes, Rudolf. Human relationships and emotions aren’t expendable in such a casual manner, it maybefor some people, but for the rest of us, it’s still sacred and holy,” Abhay said in a matter of fact manner.

  “As I said once, you ought to have been born in middle ages; you are too old or ancient – mentally that is - for today’s modern society. Learn it from Payal, who is a fast mover and understands the trends of the modern world far better. To be frank with you, I don’t view your wife’s adultery as a crime or sin, but a natural process. I object and oppose only her criminal intentions of bumping you off,” Rudolf articulated.

  After emptying two glasses of scotch one after another that Rudolf had ordered for him, Abhay said in an intoxicated and mournful voice, “I accept that my wife is a promiscuous bitch; are you happy now?”

  “It gets better…I mean worse. You ran away from our last meeting and I never got a chance to tell you this. Also, I didn’t know how you would react, even if you would bother to listen to what I had to say then,” Rudolf said expressing his sympathetic gesture.

  “What are you talking about?” Abhay asked apprehensively.

  “Anshul is not your daughter! Her real father is the secret lover of Payal; and this girl child is not a result of your love, but the adultery of her mother,” declared Rudolf.

  The loud and ear-bursting music made Abhay feel dizzy; his head seemed to be spinning and he foolishly looked at a girl, whose face, arms, tummy and bareback were painted and were full of tattoo and who was dancing with frenzy around them and laughing madly, as Rudolf’s words echoed in his mind repeatedly. It was as if someone was pouring acid in his ears that were burning him to the very core of his soul.

  “I am sorry Abhay; perhaps I ought to have broken it more gently. It’s rare to find such good and emotional people these days pal; that woman simply didn’t deserve you. Your goodness makes it even more unbearable for me, to see you suffer at the hands of that cunning and calculating woman like this.”

  “I …I better be going,” said Abhay with a choked throat and tried to get up but Rudolf forced him to sit back.

  “And die at her hands?” Repeated Rudolf

  “What’s left to live for?” Abhay asked regretfully.

  “Don’t be so disheartened pal; you have everything to live for. You cannot let the adultery of that vicious woman destroy you; the world does not end with one Payal. You will find lots of young, beautiful and deserving women once you get over her,” suggested Rudolf.

  “I have got to go; there is nothing more than I want to hear,” Abhay said.

  “But you have to hear it Abhay, I would not let you go to your certain death like this.”

  “You have already told me everything and I have had enough for one day, thank you for your help,” Abhay said again trying to get up.

  Rudolf held his hand and made him sit back, “Look at me Abhay, I have known about the ghost who has been haunting you from the very first time it happened. Till now I had stopped myself from meddling in your life, but I cannot sit by as an idle spectator anymore. And think for yourself, how long can you possibly stay like this; the ghost would not hang around outside your door forever, the loud music, lights and ‘Gayatri Mantra’ simply cannot keep it away indefinitely.”

  “Then why hasn’tit killed me so far?” Abhay asked.

  “That is what precisely Payal, her lover, and that blind tantrik have been working on. Their first attempt was to kill you by high fever; they wanted to break your body by fever, and your mind by the scare of ghosts. The cumulative result of nervous tension, fear, and high fever would have been your death, which to the outside world would have appeared to have been brought by natural causes.”

  “Why didn’t they succeed then?”

  “Because you failed their attempt to unearthing the magical charm under your bed and throwing it away before it could activate fully and kill you. Don’t you get it Abhay, it was not me or some ghost that placed those bones and lemon tied in a red cloth under your bed; it was Payal, your wife who put it there. You foiled the attempt of the trio that time, but you will not be that lucky this time around. Did you think that the trio was going to give up after one single attempt? That blind tantrik and even that lover might have, but the cold-hearted adulteress who you have taken to be your wife, she has pushed them for this second and an utterly ruthless attempt; which has to succeed at all costs – as she had demanded of them.”

  “Are you trying to say that she…they are going to kill me this time around?” Abhay asked frightfully.

  “Yes and this time it will be either this way or that way; for Bharoo has invoked his most dangerous power to send it to your house baying for blood. My tantrik has informed me that ever since the first attempt failed, Bharoo, on the express orders of your wife had been working on that invocation. Now that he has obviously completed the invocation, you can consider yourself as good as a dead. I want you to be prepared for what is coming.”

  “You must be lying; my Payal can’t betray me,” Abhay said without any conviction in his voice.

  “Why would I lie to you? I am not your enemy, your own wife is. After the completion of his invocation, Bharoo must have handed a magical charm to your wife; much more evil and dangerous than the one you had unearthed. Her duty was to place it in the house; that would direct the evil power to your dwelling place, which she apparently has successfully done as is evident from what you have told me. A piece of red cloth must have been also left near you by your wife that would direct the evil power specifically to yourself. On the second night after the placing of the magical charm in your house, the power would come for blood; sometime between midnight and the first rays of dawn, and it would find its way to you, the person marked with a red cloth.”

  “And then nothing can save me?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “So what’s the point of this discussion; if my death is really so certain, then why waste both of our efforts in saving my life?”

  “It is not dead and done away with affair pal. Humans are unique because they can exercise control over their destinies; guide and even change it, in face of all the difficulties and obstacles lay in their path. All is not lost Abhay; there is one way by which you can save yourself, just one way, but it nevertheless is very much there.”

  “What?”

  It took more effort than Rudolf could manage to keep away the smile coming on his lips; the same smile which comes to a man who has the person opposite him precisely at the spot where he wants. With a perfectly straight face, Rudolf said, “You have to give the sacrifice of a person to the evil power. That alone can save you; the power once released, will not return to its cage, so to speak, without taking blood. It can either be yours or of someone else in your house; but one sacrifice, one life has to be dispensed with.”

  “Don’t you contradict yourself, if the evil power is supposed to come for me, then how can I or anyone else direct it towards some other person?” Asked Abhay.

  “You say that because you do not understand the working, the modus operandi of these kinds of occult powers. Consider this power as a blind bat with a very strong sense of identifying specific things. It does not recognize
faces, and its sense of identification is restricted to merely the magical charms.”

  “You lost me there,” Abhay said confused.

  “The best possible explanation would be that it could only sense and find the magical charm.”

  “That doesn’t change anything; the charm is already in my house, I cannot change that. You yourself rule out any chance of my escape then do you not?”

  “There is a catch here too,” Rudolf said smiling.

  “And what might that be?”

  “You forget the second charm, the magically-charged red cloth which has been placed near you, in your pillow’s cover as you have told me. I have discussed this very matter at length with my tantrik; he says that there is not much, which can be done about the magical charm, which would direct the evil power to your house. The power would find your house; there is no stopping it. It will not go back without taking one human life and that is beyond all argument.”

  “We come back to where we started.”

  “Not quite so; the second charm, the magically charged piece of red cloth is the key here. If you can place it on another person in the house, then the evil power would accept that, identify that person instead of as its victim, take the sacrifice and go away, and you would consequently escape unscathed,” Rudolf explained very cleverly and dramatically.

  “And how am I supposed to find a human to get sacrificed in place of myself? Call a beggar from the road to stay at my house for one night, or hire a servant to serve as a scapegoat?”

  “That would not work I am afraid; the evil power would take only the sacrifice of the person who ‘belongs’ to that house,” slowly Rudolf brought him to point, so convincingly that Abhay had no tinge of doubt.

  “Are you suggesting me that I should somehow play Payal’s trick on her own self? Dump that red cloth on her after she has cleverly placed it on me?”

  “That also would not work I’m afraid.”

  “And why not?” Abhay asked raising his eyebrows.

  “Because she is part of the invocation of the power; the power can thus easily mark her out as her master – so to speak and not her prey.”

  “What …what are you trying to say then?”

  “The same which you yourself have figured out, but are unable to say it.”

  “You are mad! Anshul is my daughter for god sake!”

  “No, she is not! It’s not the time to be swayed away by stupid emotions Abhay. She is not your daughter; she is the result of your wife’s adultery. She is an evil child that has to die. She has to die if you have to live; if you don’t sacrifice Anshul, then the evil black power would not return without taking away your life from you. It’s either you who will live or that evil child; you have got to kill her. YOU HAVE GOT TO KILL THAT EVIL CHILD!”

  By then Abhay had lost his grip on his mind and had risen from his chair with shaking legs. “Remember Abhay,” Rudolf kept speaking, “you have to offer Anshul as a sacrifice before midnight on the second day after the charm has been placed on you and in your house.” But Abhay had run off from there, dazed and half-falling; overcome by panic and fright.

  It was in the afternoon when Payal was busy making supper that Anshul woke up and started to cry; Payal took her out of the cradle and put her next to her bosom and patted her gently on the back. She moved around the room like that for a while and then after a slight hesitation walked into the bedroom at the end of the lobby. “Would you hold Anshul while I cook lunch?” She asked Abhay.

  “Yes,” he replied and took the little girl from the hands of his wife and put her carefully beside him on the bed.

  Payal came back with a few of Anshul’s toys and put them for her on the bed. “This will keep her busy,” she said and left the room.

  Abhay watched the little girl play with her toys cheerfully; she grinned at him once when she momentarily looked at his face. He slowly lifted her and placed her on his lap and kissed her on her cheek. She slipped out of Abhay’s lap and went after her toys, which lay on the bed. He sat on the bed with disbelief; he didn’t know when or how, but the face of Anshul had changed!

  He never got tired of taunting his wife that their daughter resembled her father. And now he felt that he was looking at a completely unknown face, which lay incorporated in the face of Anshul. It was the face of someone else, not his; no, that was not his face, he thought to himself. Was Rudolf then right after all! He also sensed how different was the odour coming out of the body of that baby when he had held her close a moment ago. How different her skin had felt when he had kissed her; the feeling of strangeness if not utter repulsiveness had been unmistakable. Was she really his daughter? He suddenly remembered the strange Bengali man he had seen outside Payal’s hospital room, immediately following the birth of Anshul; and with whom her face bore a striking resemblance. Was he Payal’s secret lover and had fathered her child?

  When Payal came back with the tray of lunch, she found Abhay looking at Anshul with the same eyes of suspicion with which she had earlier caught him looking at her. “What happened?” she asked.

  “What?” Abhay said startled, “nothing; nothing happened.”

  “Why were you then looking at Anshul like that?” She asked in a complaining voice.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Never mind; here is your lunch,” Payal said putting down the tray and picking up her daughter from the bed.

  Abhay was yet again confused as to who was lying – Rudolf or Payal? Was he going to die on that night? Had that mysterious Bengali man planned his murder with Payal? And could he bring himself to sacrifice their daughter Anshul, to save himself? The torrent of thoughts in his mind was intolerable and made him pace to and fro in the balcony. The tension and indecision had made him spent the entire night awake and still, he was unable to settle the matter.

  The inner conflict was tearing apart his psyche as the clock ticked; the accumulated tension of the previous week was reaching its peak. He felt that he had no one to talk or seek counsel from; he couldn’t confide in his friend Naresh, because he feared that the latter would immediately alert Payal of his motives. Nor could he go to the Police, which would surely label him insane. Who in their right mind would believe a fantastic story of black-magic, a plot against his life and the need to sacrifice his own child? And he could ill-afford to have his enemies alerted; lest they create impediments in his path.

  He spent the entire afternoon locked in his room, unable to reconcile himself to any course of action. His state of heightened tension killed his appetite and the lunch Payal had left remained untouched. He felt feverish and his head wobbled; like a sick man on his death-bed, he began to see shadows of the servants of Yama – the God of death. His feared that they had come to drag him away to the valley of death; his entire being protested – he didn’t want to die, not in the prime of his youth, before he had lived life to the fullest and fulfilled all his desires. On the verge of madness and with his body running a fever, he fell asleep albeit jerkily.

  When he woke up after a nightmare; it was already evening. The fleeting rays of the sun were barely reflected in his semi-darkened room; he lay on his bed with a heart beating fast after the scary dream that he had experienced. He felt his body burning with fever and feeling nausea he went to the attached bathroom and vomited everything that he had eaten in the morning in the wash basin. He stood there for a while and then vomited again, this time blood came out of his mouth! The end was near – there was no longer any uncertainty about it, he thought as he looked at his pale face in the mirror and his legs shook with fright. Demoralized and petrified with looming death over the horizon, he went back to the room and sat on his bed, after gargling and washing his face.

  After a while he got up and walked to the bookshelf next to the left wall of the room, thinking that since he was nearing his end, he might as well finish up the last fifty pages of the novel of his favourite writer. He may never get another chance to finish that interesting story and besides, reading the novel
of his favourite writer was the best way he could think of, before meeting his end.

  He stood motionless in front of the bookshelf after he had taken out that novel. He foolishly kept looking at the empty space created in the bookshelf because of his taking out of the book, which he now held in his hand. He put his hand inside and removing the sticky adhesive tape inside, took out the thing held by it. He removed the transparent tape and threw it on the floor and in his hand now laid the lucky charm, the Japanese coin he had been desperately searching for!

  He felt a tremendous rush of excitement passing through his body; he could hardly contain himself. A smile of purest joy danced on his lips as he looked at the coin, which was once again with him, promising to bring with it all its life-saving lucky charms; he tossed it in the air and cleanly caught it in his right hand. Suddenly the room seemed to be lit brilliantly by the tube light; a new hope glimmered before his eyes. All was not lost; he still might have a fighting chance, only one chance, but a chance nevertheless. He may go down, but he sure is damned if he went down without fighting. Rudolf’s words came back to him – ‘Humans are unique because they can exercise control over their destinies, guide and even change it; in face of all the difficulties and obstacles lay in their path.’

  All the confusion and indecision of the previous night and that entire day was gone and the dye was cast. In one moment of inspiration and hope, he had decided to commit the ultimate sin! And what was equally shocking was that having made the decision he felt the absence of any guilt what so ever. A revolutionary change had come in his perspective; the seeds of suspicion that had been cunningly sowed in his mind had come to bear its evil-fruit. From Abhay’s viewpoint, however, the arguments were flawless – for making that decision. Why should he sacrifice his life for an adulterous woman and her illegitimate child? His wife’s bad habits and shortcomings were exaggerated in his mind, as he sought to convince him that he would be better off without her and her out of wedlock child. So strange is human nature that Abhay began to plot the way he would spend his life without Payal and Anshul.