The City of Good Death

by Priyanka Champaneri

  And then he rose with the jerky movements of one who is sure of his actions, only to find himself unbalanced, the world turning suddenly, and when Pramesh reached out with the instinct of a son, catching his father’s arm before he fell, the old man wrenched away, righted himself, and continued on his own through the hall and out the back door.

  What had he meant when he said the second time?

  His entire body was frozen, every muscle clenched. His hands ached from being squeezed into tight fists, palms branded with red half-moons from where his nails had bitten into the skin. The only thing stopping him from striking that man was his and Sagar’s childhood refrain. He wouldn’t be like his father, wouldn’t succumb to the instinct of violence. He would be himself, the person he’d discovered only recently during his months in Kashi.

  A hand touched his elbow, and he jumped. His aunt had come up behind him. Likely she’d heard every word from her usual spot in the kitchen. “Bua,” he said. When he knelt to touch her feet she caught him and wrapped him in her arms. Slowly, he relaxed, and a small sob escaped his throat. He bit back the rest, gritting his teeth.

  She released him, led him to the kitchen. “They had picked a bride for you,” she said softly. She handed him a cup of chai. “A girl from the next village. He wrote to tell you to come home for the wedding.”

  “When?”

  “Months ago. And with no reply from you, they assumed that was your answer. To deny them.”

  “I never received it.”

  Her eyes lingered on him for a moment, and then she set to peeling ginger and chopping it into tiny bits. When he finished his chai, she took the cup from him. “He was visiting someone. But he should return soon. He’ll come by the back way.”

  Sagar. Pramesh stood to leave, paused at the back door. “Who was the bride?” he asked.

  She kept her eyes on her work. “If you knew, and if the letter had come, would you have done something differently?” He understood. What could it matter who the bride was? He had a wife, and even if he’d received that letter, he would have defied its instructions outright. They both knew this. They both knew any business of his father’s, his uncle’s, that concerned him or Sagar was business bound to end badly.

  Out back, he was mercifully alone. He paced the yard, grew impatient, then decided to walk through the fields and toward the old prayer tree. He did not want to meet Sagar like this, blood frenzied. As he walked his anger quieted to a hum, faint but tolerable. The path was as familiar to him as his old home. As he approached the tree a cool breeze wafted his way, and he breathed in deeply. He could still pinpoint exactly which of the red strips of cloth and holy string had been tied by his mother’s hands, his aunt’s, his own—or so he liked to think. Looking at the tree, the only thing that matched his memory in size and appearance, he felt melancholy. The tree was holy, his mother had said, because it was the earthly body for a great holy man. How many hundreds of years had that soul been trapped, condemned to the near eternal life of a tree? How many more pieces of string and cloth would join the others, how many desperate pleas for some relief in this life on Earth would that being hear before finally being freed?

  “I knew it, Bhaiya. I knew that there was no other place you would be.”

  Sagar stood to one side, eyeing Pramesh and frowning, and then his frown broke into a wide smile, and he enveloped Pramesh in a hug that made the breath leave his body, slapping his back until he wheezed with laughter, his entire body humming with a welcome feeling: delight.

  “Bua said you were out back, wandering. Gone just a year; already managing a death hostel and married! So much for that education you were so desperate for, Bhaiya!” he laughed. “Where is my new sister? Where is your wife?”

  “Not managing, assisting, assisting,” Pramesh hastened to say.

  But Sagar was unstoppable. “Everyone is talking about it. Why didn’t you bring her straight here? And why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” He chattered on, and for a moment, Pramesh forgot about his father’s words. Shobha had wanted a blessing. She would get something better; she would get a meeting with the one who knew him better than anyone.

  “She is eager to know you,” Pramesh said, the words bubbling forth. “She’s brought something for you as well—a surprise; I heard her wake early to make it for you.”

  “You could have warned me, at least,” Sagar said, suddenly slapping Pramesh’s arm with a vigor that made his skin tingle. “How will it look, my new sister feeding me, and I have no present to give her in return? You aren’t making me look very good, Bhaiya. Tell me: what is she like?”

  “Later, later,” Pramesh said. “We have bigger plans to make. You haven’t got an excuse now—what about Jaya? You never wrote to me about her. Oh Bhaiya—too shy to put your heavenly love into words? You didn’t need to try hard; the lyrics from any film song would have done nicely,” he teased, sounding and feeling like his teenage self. But perhaps he was out of practice; Sagar turned to the well-worn path that would lead them back to the house.

  “Come,” he said. “Bua will be wondering where we are.”

  The walk was the same, the voice, the way he spoke. But something was different. Pramesh watched his cousin’s back as he led the way, glanced at him from the corner of his eye when he sped up to walk at his side. Always impetuous, always full of mischief—and then he saw it. A new seriousness fixing the shoulders, creasing the brow. He, too, had changed in that year apart.

  An unfamiliar silence inserted itself between them as they walked, until Sagar broke it. “How did you find the Elders?”

  His anger reasserted itself. “It isn’t worth repeating,” he said. Telling the story, he thought, would only solidify the memory and make it stronger, but something slipped out before he could help himself. “I am no one, apparently. They refused to meet her.” He blushed, unable to say Shobha’s name in front of Sagar.

  “I wish I’d known you were coming, Bhai. Although you walked into it, didn’t you, coming here knowing that they’d arranged another match—”

  “I didn’t know. Bua said they sent a letter—I never got it.”

  Sagar stopped and looked at Pramesh. “So you didn’t do it on purpose? To spite them?”

  “What?”

  “Get married, Bhai. Why else would it be so speedy, and no notice?”

  “Her father is ill,” Pramesh explained. “He caught a cold, it spread to his chest—he was afraid. He did not want to leave her unprotected.”

  “Gallant of you,” Sagar said with a small and strange laugh, his voice carrying a slight edge.

  Pramesh blinked. “She wasn’t forced into it, Bhai. I never thought she’d have me…. It was the shock of my life, when Dharam-ji told me she accepted.”

  “No, no, you are right, Bhaiya,” Sagar said, and the edge was gone, his face contrite. “I meant nothing by it. Truly.” A few paces later: “I thought it was intentional. Getting married, knowing they had picked someone else for you. A way to show them how little they mattered to you. Their games, their deals. I felt happy, thinking that.” He picked up a pebble, tossed it with one hand and caught it, flung it into a nearby ditch. “But it doesn’t matter how it happened. The point is you did the right thing—all of it. Leaving, making a new life, marrying as you wished.”

  Pramesh gripped his cousin’s shoulder. “I won’t bring her to this house, not after today. You will have to come with me to see her.” Sagar reached up, patted his hand.

  They walked the familiar soil, and Pramesh breathed in the scents of rain-washed mud, new green leaf, the sweetness of a distant flower. “Who was to be the bride?” he asked, more to fill the silence that once again filled the space between them.

  “A girl named Kamna.”

  Pramesh tilted his ear toward Sagar. “Well-known?”

  “In a way—not a good way, Bhaiya. They move frequently, this family, or so
everyone says. The stories only started a few months ago, when they moved one village over; everyone seems to know some version. Something about the girl. I never met any of them. I was traveling everywhere, talking to any farmer who would have me. I had no idea what the Elders were doing until Bapa came home one day and told Bua to begin to prepare.”

  “What do they say about the girl?” Pramesh asked, idly. His thoughts wandered to Shobha. The longer he tarried here, the longer she would sit waiting with people she did not know.

  “Depends on who you ask,” Sagar said. “Most of the stories say she is a runaway, has been since she was a child. Which is why her people are so keen to get her married. Another story says there was a man, someone she bewitched.” He snorted, looking over at Pramesh. “The fellow died, apparently. So that’s another mark against her. Unlucky; poor thing.”

  “Rama,” Pramesh murmured. And then he realized something. “A runaway,” he said. He stopped and pulled on Sagar’s elbow. “Don’t you see? I was a runaway to them.” A soft laugh of disbelief left his mouth.

  “Their idea of a perfect match,” Sagar said, grim. “Or whatever new bet they’d made. Who knows, Bhaiya? It’s sickness, what they have, in their minds. It’s not something worth trying to understand.”

  Pramesh felt the old closeness click back into place. It helped to think of the thing that had twisted the Elders as a sickness. A sickness was not inherent. It could not be passed down, not always. “I hope she finds peace,” he said as the house came into view. “She’s not the only one with a story on her name. Think about what they must say about us.”

  Sagar looked at him sharply, then relaxed. “You say my sister is with Champa-maasi now?” he asked, and Pramesh wagged his chin. “Of all the places to leave her, Bhai,” Sagar laughed loudly. “That Divya will talk her ear off. And tell every single story she remembers about you! The well—remember the well?”

  The smile on Pramesh’s face faltered. He suddenly felt tired. The journey, he thought. He’d been up since the early morning hours; hadn’t slept on the train. He rubbed his eyebrow. All he heard was his father’s voice, the poison words finding their way into his thoughts. You are no one. Did you think we’d welcome that thief’s daughter? The sight of the house growing closer made him nauseous. “Why don’t you come with me?” he burst out.

  Sagar turned to look at him. “I am, Bhaiya; I am—we’ll just fetch Bua and—”

  “No, I mean to Kashi. You said so earlier; you said it was good I left, made my own life. Why must you be the one to stay here?”

  “And do what? Work at the death hostel?” Sagar wrinkled his nose. “Bhaiya—”

  “How can you live with them like this? Alone? I left; you can as well. With Jaya—think of it; you can’t bring her here, to live with them. But if we were together in the same city, our wives as friends, and our children—”

  A noise, low wail, reached them. Sagar quickened his feet toward the house, Pramesh following. The wail turned into a keening moan. It sounded wrong, pain like he’d never heard before. They rounded the corner, and on the porch, Sagar’s father lay, weeping.

  Pramesh stopped short. He had never seen the man cry, had never imagined him capable of such a thing. The sound was that of a wounded animal. Sagar’s father lay on his side on the sagging rope bed, hands clasped to his chest, his open mouth reeking, several teeth missing. Sagar mounted the steps, unhurried, knelt at his father’s side, laid a hand on the man’s shoulder, and shook him gently. “Bapa, wake. Wake; you are dreaming.”

  And so he was. Eyes closed, wetness seeping out between the lids, sorrowful keening and spittle dripping out of his mouth, Sagar’s father shook on his bed, until the gentle pressure of his son’s hand woke him. He saw Pramesh first, watching him from the distance of the ground below the veranda. He whimpered, and then seeing Sagar, he clutched at him, grabbing his hand, his sleeve, pulling the man to him in a clumsy awkward embrace, still weeping the shaky sobs of a newborn who doesn’t know if it is dreaming or awake. Sagar held himself stiffly, eyes and mouth frozen in a neutral look, as if he were handling a bundle of sugar cane rather than a person. The man continued to hold him in his grip, moaning in half-formed sobs.

  Pramesh moved to the porch, not knowing what to. The man grew more agitated, and Sagar spoke over him. “Bhaiya—go. Go back to my sister, and tell her I will visit in the morning. I will bring Bua. I have to do the morning work first, but I will come.”

  “But—”

  “There’s no point in you waiting here. He could go on for another hour before it wears off and he remembers himself.” Sagar rose, disengaging his father’s arms and perching on the edge of the bed. His father continued to whimper. Sagar again laid his hand on the man’s shoulder, and when he looked at Pramesh, his eyes made plain that he had dealt with this before.

  Pramesh turned, heart torn between leaving Sagar on his own and leaving Shobha for longer than he already had. And then he thought of something. “Does my father do this as well?”

  “Not this,” Sagar said. He didn’t elaborate, but his tone made it plain that the vitriol that man had spewed earlier was not uncommon. “Don’t keep her waiting, Bhaiya.”

  Pramesh had been gone for a year. He’d left, he’d created a new life, had even embarked on starting a new family. Who did Sagar have to help him? How often did he cope with such outbursts? How could he stomach it, the quavering plea for affection from the same man who had once stood over both of them doing their endless squats while they clutched their earlobes, wrenching them up by the hair when their legs burned and wobbled with exhaustion, and then giving them both a final box on the ears when they stayed squatting, crying, unable to continue?

  “You will come?” Pramesh said, still unwilling to tear himself away.

  Sagar waved his hand at Pramesh, bidding him to go, eyes on his father. Pramesh turned for the farmer’s home, the path before him familiar and yet strange, like the house he was leaving behind.

  As eager as he was to see Shobha, he could not outpace the sun, and by the time he entered the house the family was busy with preparations for the evening meal. He saw a glimpse of his wife, mixing something in a bowl amid the gaggle of women preparing the meal, but someone handed him a glass of water and he was pushed to the back yard to talk to the men.

  Hardev, his sons, and sons-in-law were all gathered in a circle beneath a tree, seated on low rope beds. None asked where Sagar was, nor did they question whether Pramesh and his wife would spend the night in their house.

  “I had to leave him suddenly, but he said he would bring Bua in the morning,” he explained, unprompted.

  “Splendid—you’ll have the whole day together,” Hardev said, as if it were totally normal for Pramesh and his new bride to stay at a neighbor’s house while his ancestral home was nearby.

  As Pramesh partook in the conversation, fixing a false smile on his lips, he marveled at his incredible foolishness. To be so blind to this thing that everyone else knew. The Prasad family, the talk of the village all those years ago, and still so now. And he had stumbled right into their pity. Worse, he had brought Shobha along, to share in the humiliation of his family. He thought of the other girl, the wedding his father had been so intent upon. Should he tell his wife? Or leave it among the rest of his family stories he never shared?

  The question was answered for him: there was no opportunity to speak with her in the midst of a large family like this one, women all clustered at one end and men at another. When the meal was served, he got his first full sight of Shobha since he’d left her, her delicate wrists jangling with her new bridal bangles as she dipped a ladle into the dish she carried and served the men one after another. The other women followed behind with roti, water, other dishes, and Pramesh followed her with his eyes as she came closer. And then she filled his plate and moved on to the next man, with not even a quick look in his direction.

  Str
etched out that night alongside the other men, the house filled with the sounds of sleep from within and singing insects from outside, Pramesh tried to sleep. He had wanted so badly to talk to his wife, to explain that Sagar would come in the morning, bringing their aunt. Shobha would finally get to meet him, and he and Bua would be enough family to make up for the lack of the others. They would have to be. Thinking this, he fell asleep.

  In the morning, he saw his chance.

  “Come into the fields, have a look, nah?” Hardev said when it was still dark, as he prepared to follow his sons out on their morning rounds.

  “Sagar will be coming, and I want to be here when he arrives,” Pramesh declined.

  “Ah, perhaps I should wait for him myself—I should have realized I was talking to the wrong Prasad when I mentioned the fields,” Hardev said, laughing. He clapped Pramesh on the back and left after finishing his chai. Pramesh walked to the front of the house, eyes on the road, looking for that familiar form and gait. It was early, the sun just barely cresting the horizon, but one never knew with Sagar. More likely he would be late. After a time he gave up and walked to the back, and there, like a miracle, was Shobha, hunched in the yard and washing the dishes from that morning.

  He suddenly felt shy, seeing her on her own, as if he were spying a glimpse of the bhavan manager’s daughter delivering something to her father. He stepped as close to her as he dared and squatted down, worrying the grass with his fingers. She was the one to break the silence.

  “You shouldn’t be here—it won’t look right.”

  He glanced at the open back door, but they were safe; no one was looking for them yet. Her voice was not welcoming. He made a joke about never being able to be alone with her, but it fell flat. Everything about this trip had been a horrible mistake. He could feel her looking at him, and her voice was softer, gentler, this time. “A year, at least, before a married couple can be trusted to be alone together without folk talking. Depending on the place.”

  “We are lost, then,” he said, and this time he mustered a real smile. What could he tell her? How could he explain that his childhood home held a pair of men he’d no sooner want his wife to meet than a rabid dog? That the blessing she wanted was an impossibility? He dusted his hands and worried at his eyebrow, almost wishing for a headache so he’d have the excuse of lying down, shutting himself away from this place he’d grown up in.