THE PUPPETEERS OF PALEM (22 page)

‘Yes! You feel the pain, do you? Do you not think she felt the pain when I slit her throat? You made me do it. How could you?’ He twisted the knife the other way. ‘Huh? How could you?’

Aravind yelled again and pushed him away with all his might. Chanti staggered, but pulled on the knife so that it disengaged from Aravind’s shoulder. Aravind pushed himself into a standing position and kicked Chanti so that he hit against a tree. He held his spade in both hands over his shoulder, to his right.

‘Chanti, listen to what I am saying,’ he said.

Snorting like a bull that had just seen red, Chanti shook his head, looking down at the bloody knife. His left hand was thrust out in Aravind’s direction, as though willing him to stop advancing at him.

‘Listen,’ Aravind said again. ‘Listen to what I am saying.’

Chanti shook his head again and waved his arm frantically. ‘Go away!’

‘I need you to listen, Chanti. I need you to look at me.’

Chanti’s breathing slowed a touch, and gradually, he looked up to face Aravind. When their eyes met, he had just enough time to see the swinging metal of Aravind’s spade come at him from the left and land plush on his cheek. He heard the beginning of a thud, which then got drowned out by a loud, siren-like sound coming from his throat.

‘I need you to listen, Chanti,’ Aravind said, bending down to pick up the knife that had dropped. ‘I need you to sit, and listen.’ He threw the spade away and held the knife in his right hand, pointing it at the other man. With his free hand, he plugged the hole in his left shoulder and grimaced. ‘Sit. And listen.’

Chanti nodded stupidly and fell to his buttocks, leaning back against the wall, legs stretched out.

‘Good, now think about it. We only have evidence for one of the killings—and that is yours. We
know
that you killed Sarayu.’

Chanti kept swabbing his cheek with his hand and staring at it, muttering something under his breath.

‘Chanti, are you listening?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, I killed Sarayu, but you made me.’ Swab, stare, mutter. ‘You made me, but I killed her. Yes.’

‘And for no other death do we have any explanation. Any one of us could have done it. All of us had the opportunity, and in this case, opportunity is all that matters. We don’t have to have motive, because if she makes us do it, there doesn’t have to be a reason for it.’

‘Yes. No motive.’

‘But you’re the only one who had motive for killing Sarayu. You killed her because of jealousy—because she wanted
me
and not you.’

He looked up at him curiously, like a monkey would look up at a ringmaster holding a whip. He covered his ear with one hand and tilted his head leftward at a grotesque angle. ‘Yes, she wanted you… I did so much for her—’

‘And it was you who spied on me and Seeta. It was you who told Sarayu about it. It was you, then, that made Sarayu go to Seeta’s house.’

Again the curious look on the face, a frightened blink of the eyes, a swab of the cheek and a stare at the palm, a shake of the head.

Aravind’s grip on the knife hardened, even as his balance wavered. He pushed harder down on the wound and shook his head forcefully. ‘You see, don’t you,’ he said, ‘you see that it was you who caused Seeta’s death.’

The night seemed to have cleared a little. The air had become lighter and crisper. The white dome of the Shivalayam glistened as if it had been freshly washed.

‘And the first day we came here, I saw you and Chotu talking by the field. What did you tell him, Chanti? Did you tell him—did you suggest it to him maybe—that it was me who killed Ramana? Was that why he attacked me at the well?’

Chotu shook his head and raised his finger, rotating it. ‘No, opposite. It was the opposite.’

‘Even if it
was
the
opposite,’ Aravind said, ‘I don’t think you did anything to stop him from thinking that way. Did you?’

‘No, of course not. I did not know. I do not know.’

‘You do not know what? That I did not kill Sarayu and Seeta?’

‘Yes… but you could have killed Seeta. And you
did
kill Chotu.’

‘I did
not
kill Chotu.’

Chanti leaned back against the tree and groaned into the air, pressing his hand to his ear. ‘It hurts. It hurts so much. It’s so loud.’

Aravind took a step closer. ‘I did not kill Chotu.’

Chanti opened his eyes and eyed him fearfully. ‘Okay, you did not. I… I believe you.’

‘But you—you killed Seeta.’

Chanti nodded, his gaze darting to the knife. ‘Okay. Yes.’

‘And you killed Sarayu.’

‘Yes, yes.’

‘And you were going to kill me now—just now.’

Chanti tilted his head again and stared into the nothingness, blanking out in thought. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I was.’

‘We know you have caused—indirectly or directly—two of the four deaths that have occurred here. And you nearly caused the fifth too. Three out of five, Chanti, three out of five.’

‘Yes,’ Chanti said, with the same protracted stare. ‘Yes, you’re right.’

‘And you
could
have caused the remaining two. I am not saying you did, but you could have. You had the opportunity.’

Fear returned to Chanti’s eyes. ‘But… but I feel no different, Aravind. I… I am not a bad man.’

‘None of us is bad.’ Aravind’s tone became slightly hesitant.

‘Will you take me away from here, Aravind?’ Chanti asked. ‘It hurts so much. Oh god, my ear hurts so much.’ He stared at his palm and shook his head. Let’s go away from here, Aravind. You were right all along. We don’t have to do this.’

Aravind looked impassively at the fallen man. ‘Isn’t it a bit too late for that?’

‘No! It’s not!’ Then, in a lower voice, he said, ‘No, it’s not. Let’s get out of here. Palem can go to the dogs. Let’s go and save ourselves.’

‘Save ourselves?’ Aravind asked. ‘You want to save yourself after having killed three people?’

‘I… I don’t know, Aravind. Something came over me. Something very strange. It was as if it was a fire raging within. I wanted to slash her and slash her good, you know? Yes, slash that little neck and squeeze every drop of blood out of it—oh it hurts so much—take me away, please—’

‘I am going to kill you, Chanti.’

‘Huh?’ Chanti looked up, and his eyes expanded as Aravind’s arm rose and pointed the knife at him. ‘What?’

‘I am going to kill you.’

‘But—you can help me.’

Aravind looked away, and his grip faltered. ‘I am going to kill you. I know it.’

‘What?’

He straightened his posture and stood in front of his victim, one hand clutching his shoulder and the other holding the knife. ‘I have to kill you, Chanti.’

‘Have to?’

‘Yes.’

‘No, you don’t
have
to.’

‘I do.’

‘But… but why?’

‘Because I already have.’ He took a step, bent down, and drove the knife home.

Arvind sat down and looked up at the white dome. It was not as white or as bright as it had been in his dream, but it was the same. He had known it the moment they arrived there that evening to dig, when he had looked up and seen the white structure loom over them. He had known right then that only one of them would come out alive. He had not known, of course, which one of them would kill the other. It would have been ironic indeed if all those years ago, he had dreamed of his own death and had contributed to it. As it turned out, it was Chanti, and it was his own self that he had controlled via his dream.

He looked at the body. Chanti’s eyes were closed as if in a peaceful sleep. In a sense, Aravind envied him. How nice it must be to just let it all go and leave? He pushed the ball of cloth he had torn from the tip of his shirt deeper into his wound. He didn’t know how much of the blood that surrounded Chanti was his. How much had he bled? How long would he be able to survive? Was there anything left to survive for?

He was the last of them left standing. What did that mean? Did that mean that he was the tool that she had chosen? Or did he manage to outsmart her and kill all her minions? But there was still the whole village left to take care of. All this time and they had not yet unearthed
one
of the beings. Thatha
said there were five. How could he take on five of them and win?

The sixth dreamer
.

The phrase came to him out of nowhere. It had flashed similarly in his brain when he had left Chotu to get help. It had been pushed further back into the recesses of his mind, out of reach in the wake of all the other happenings since, but now, with everything so quiet, the thought came to him again. The whole village was sleeping—no, it was knocked out unconscious—so he would have time to think. Just think.

The ditch was deep enough, it would have revealed at least the tentacles if she had been there. All they had been able to retrieve was loose, dry mud mixed with some evening dew. Nothing of the sticky, gooey fluid that oozed out when you cut one of those things. It was not here then, maybe somewhere in the vicinity, though. How did one check? He had to go and take Thatha’s
help again. He had to enlist the help of someone young and able-bodied… Maybe someone from the city…

The sixth dreamer.

But there was no sixth dream. There had only been five—one for each of them. After that, Thatha
made everyone swear that they would not control any more of their dreams. And they had kept that promise. He knew
he
had. It was pure fright more than any scruples about a promise that had made him stop. And they had not stayed in Palem for long after the incident. They had moved away, for different reasons.

So what did the sixth dreamer mean when there was no sixth dream?

His father had banged his head into Mandiramma Banda until his head broke. Sarayu’s father hanged himself. Sundarayya, Ramana’s brother, got picked by Thatha’s
langur. And Chotu’s father jumped into a well. Four deaths that had happened in the space of two days—yes, two days after
that
day. Just like the five deaths that happened over the last two days here.

But what was
that
day?

That
was the day when they had burnt her. No, first, they had burnt Sarama and then they had burnt her. They had dug her out of the ditch under the old lingam and burnt her. Just the five of them—like Thatha
had told them to.

The sixth dreamer
.

They had all been in a trance that night, it had all felt so surreal. There were screams of delight as the dog yowled and thrashed and sprinted. They had surrounded her and drenched her with more oil, more kerosene—until she stopped moving and collapsed. But they had not stopped. They had stood in a circle around the burning heap of flesh and doused it with more oil. They had smelled the burning flesh and cackled in glee.

There had been
something
about it. Yes, there had been voices in their heads, telling them what to do. So was it possible that they were puppets in someone else’s dream that night? But whose? Only the five of them had come in contact with the being, and only the five of them had the capacity to dream.

Sleepwalker.

Once again, the words jumped at him from nowhere. Chotu had been a sleepwalker as a child. In fact, that night when they were at the Shivalayam, that very night when they had
awakened
this beast, hadn’t Chotu walked home in his sleep? They had not found him when they woke up.

I walked to Thatha’s
house in my sleep.

Aravind stiffened. Chotu had walked to Thatha’s
house in his sleep that night. His breathing became irregular and he blinked rapidly, turning his head and looking around him, like a cornered cat. And suddenly he heard Chotu’s words in his brain—
I cannot feel anything
.

Chotu had not been able to feel any of the beings, even though logic suggested that if the beings were bigger and stronger, Chotu should have been able to feel them more easily. They had thought that Chotu had lost the ability, but he had not; he had been able to feel all of
them
quite well. The possibility that the being had learnt to camouflage its presence had been suggested—yes… by whom?

By Thatha.

What if Chotu had been right?

Aravind pushed himself to his feet and forced his mind to stop spinning. He picked up the knife and started walking briskly along the path he had taken back. The fog had returned and he could see no further than a couple of metres in front of him. But this was Palem. He knew where to go. And his feet knew how to take him there. All he had to do now was stop thinking until he got to his destination. Yes, his very life depended on his ability to keep his mind vacant.

Yes. Just stop thinking.

Chapter Thirty

2001

A
vadhani emptied the red bowl of buttermilk into the steel glass, picked it up and twirled it around in his hands. The lantern was turned down to its lowest point. His shadow loomed tall and thin on the wall opposite, by which the stove stood. He felt the cold, smooth surface of the glass in his fingertips, but when he looked inside the glass, all he saw was black. Only the tiniest of glints shone off the rim of the glass and caught his eye. But like a blind spot, it disappeared whenever he focused on it.

The night outside was clear and quiet. Summer was round the corner, so that was to be expected, but it was a bit
too
clear, a bit
too
quiet. He stared at his shadow and lifted the glass to his lips.

Footsteps. Haggard, frightened, wavering
—but determined footsteps.

The door behind him opened and closed. Avadhani turned and leaned back closer to the stove.

Aravind had a gash on his shoulder and a butcher’s knife in his right hand. He walked to the chair and sat down, leaning forward, his elbows resting on his thighs, holding the knife in both hands, watching the floor. A drop of blood trickled along the length of the blade and teetered at the edge for a second before dripping onto the floor with a soft plop.

‘I killed him,’ said Aravind. ‘I killed Chanti.’

‘Just like we planned, my boy.’

Aravind nodded. ‘Yes, just like we planned.’

Avadhani lifted the glass to his mouth and looked into the lamp, his stick-like fingers wrapped around the glass tightly. ‘It should have been obvious right from the start. The kind of boy Chanti was—’

‘Yes. The kind of boy he was…’ Aravind smiled at the floor and shook his head. His fingers closed around the handle of the knife in a firm grip and trembled with the pressure. ‘But I don’t think he is the one, Thatha.’

A pause. Then Avadhani said, ‘If it wasn’t him, then it must be you, my boy. There is no one left.’

‘Yes.’

‘Ramana, Chanti, Chotu, Seeta—all of them dead.’

‘Yes.’

Avadhani swallowed the last bit of his buttermilk and cleared his throat. ‘Did you kill them?’

‘Chanti killed Sarayu. You know that.’

‘The others, boy. The others.’

‘I… I don’t know.’

The window was open. The curtains, dirty and smelly, were pulled to one side. But there was no breeze. There was no sound. Too still. Too quiet. Another drop of blood—black in the dim, orange light—plopped to the floor.

‘If it’s not him,’ Avadhani said in a low croak, ‘if it’s not him…’

‘Yes.’

‘And you… in a strange way, it would be fitting that it was you, wouldn’t it? You were the oldest of them all. She would have chosen you. And the symptoms you’ve shown—forgetting things, seeing people…’

Aravind nodded and stared.

‘I wouldn’t ask this of anyone else but you, Aravind. I don’t think anyone but you would understand.’

Aravind smiled gently at the floor, at the drops of blood.

‘But you understand, don’t you? You understand what is to be done?’

Aravind ran a fingertip along the blade of the knife, nodding in thought. He flipped the knife over, holding it so that the edge faced him. He held the handle in both hands, and they started to tremble.

Avadhani whispered, ‘It is for the best, my boy. Palem will thank you. The whole world will thank you.’

Aravind looked up and frowned at the old man. ‘Thatha, you didn’t ask me.’

‘Ask you what?’

‘You didn’t ask me why I thought Chanti wasn’t the one.’

Avadhani smiled. ‘Does it matter?’

Aravind’s grip on the knife loosened, and the edge moved further away from his chest. His breathing, slow and peaceful until then, now grew heavy. ‘Maybe it doesn’t.’

‘It doesn’t.’

‘Or… maybe it does.’

‘You’re speaking gibberish again, boy.’

‘Am I? Oh, maybe I am. I don’t know.’

‘Yes, you are,’ Avadhani said slowly. He took a step towards Aravind and held out his hand. ‘Give me that knife.’

‘Stop! Don’t move!’

Avadhani shrank back against the stove.

‘Chotu asked me before he died. He asked me about the sixth dream.’

‘What sixth dream?’

‘The dream where all of us burn Sarama.’

‘My boy…’ Avadhani said. ‘Are you out of your mind? That was not a dream. It really happened. All of you
did
burn Sarama.’

‘I know,’ said Aravind. ‘But we—all of us, not just me—heard voices in our heads at the time. Chotu is the only one who saw that something was wrong. He and I were the only ones to realize that we were in someone else’s dream.

‘But we’d all promised that we would not control any of the dreams we have. Yes, Thatha, we had. We decided that the day after we had them. So one of us had broken the promise—the question was which one?’

Avadhani asked, ‘Did you find out?’

Aravind shook his head. ‘No. All of us denied dreaming it, and all of us promised once again that we would not control any of our dreams.’

‘Obviously one of you was lying.’

Aravind nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes. Chotu asked me again before he died—who dreamt that sixth dream?’

‘I don’t see what that has got to do with anything.’

‘Oh, but Thatha, it has got to do with
everything
. And today, after I killed Chanti and when I was wiping the blood off on my shirt, something struck me—something about that morning.’

A shadow came over Avadhani’s features.

Aravind looked into the older man’s eyes. ‘That morning, when we woke up at the Shivalayam, Chotu wasn’t there. He had sleepwalked into the village during the night. I thought he went straight home, but apparently not. He came to you, didn’t he? He came to your house.’

‘Give me the knife, boy.’

‘Don’t move!’ Aravind said. ‘Don’t move, Thatha, I swear to god.’ His breathing got heavier. ‘He came to you. He must have passed it on to you—he must have passed some of that jelly on to you. We still had it on our hands in the morning. He must have had it in the middle of the night.’

‘You’re a crazy fool, boy. A crazy fool!’

‘I am crazy, yes. Trust me, I
am
crazy, but I am no fool, Thatha. But what if he did pass the jelly on to you, Thatha
?
What if the sixth dream was dreamt not by one of us but by you?’

‘By me?’ Avadhani smiled.

‘Shut up! I am talking. I want to do the talking. Shut up!’ Aravind pointed the knife at Avadhani and pushed him back against the stove. ‘I remember… it was you who suggested that this
being
was giving us all these dreams, that there was no telling how dangerous it would be if we let it go, that we have to kill it, that we have to
burn
it. Yes, it was you, wasn’t it?

‘And Sarama wouldn’t let us dig up the lingam and we had to kill her too—and who suggested that to us? It was you!’

‘Aravind,’ said Avadhani, his voice quivering a little bit. ‘You saw the thing. You saw it breathe. You saw it burn. You saw it pop and burst when it died.’

‘Yes, I am not saying that the being never existed. But I am saying you… you, Thatha, you are one of us. There are not five of us, there are
six
of us.’

Avadhani smiled. ‘Oh, come now. You’re going to say I am the being’s minion? I who went to such lengths to kill her in the first place? Listen to yourself, Aravind. You’ve been saying that about everyone since you came here. Don’t you remember? First it was Chotu, then it was Chanti, then Sarayu, and now me?’ His voice softened a touch. ‘My boy, your mind is deranged.
You
are deranged. Stop for a while and think.’ Then he said, ‘Give me the knife.’

Aravind held up his hand, gesturing to the other man to stop moving forward. He spoke slowly, as though he was rehearsing a tough line from a play. ‘I am not saying you are the being’s minion, Thatha.’

Avadhani breathed out and said cautiously, ‘What
are
you saying, then?’

‘I am saying there is no being at all.’

Avadhani sniggered, then chuckled, then threw his head back and laughed. The loose flaps of skin on his neck shook as he laughed.

‘I am saying we killed the being that day—that night we burned Sarama and then that… that thing. We killed her that night.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘Oh, yes! After that, it is all you.
You
are the being now.
You
are the puppeteer. The whole village… all the villagers are your puppets.’

‘Yes, and with the whole village under my control, I have lost to you, is that it?’

‘You
underestimated
me. I thought of all this when I was sitting there, next to Chanti’s body. But it was only a flash. I forced myself not to think of it. In fact, I forced myself to think that it is
I
who ought to die next. Until I came in here and until I turned the knife on myself, that is what I forced myself to think and believe. There was no way you could see this coming, and therefore there was no way you could make a dream out of it and send it to one of your puppets out there.’ He waved his arm in the direction of the window. ‘It’s too late now, isn’t it?’ he said, and smiled.

‘It makes sense now,’ he continued, ‘every single part of it. You wrote to us, asking us to come back because
she
had come back. You gave us the story of the parched land, the dust, the control that this
being
had on the people of Palem. You wanted us because we’re the only ones that know about your powers, Thatha, and we’re the only ones that
remember
the dreams you send us.’

Avadhani pursed his lips and frowned.

‘Yes,’ Aravind said, nodding. ‘I know. Nobody in the village remembers any of these dreams—these visions of the future that you send them—and none of them realize that they’re changing the future just by sleeping. They don’t remember, you see. They don’t know why after a night of sound sleep, they wake up tired. But we—the five of us—
remember
. You knew that. And it wouldn’t do for you. Sooner or later, you knew we’d come and stop you. So you called us. Tell me, Thatha, does it really feel
that
good to control people’s dreams? Their futures? Is it worth killing the kids who grew up listening to your stories?’

Avadhani scratched his scalp and muttered, ‘You don’t understand.’

‘I understand all of it, Thatha. You’re the one who first raised suspicion against me in Chotu’s heart by asking me where I was when Ramana was killed. And you raised my suspicion against him by suggesting that we had nothing but Chotu’s word that he was at the Shivalayam. You’re the one who sent us on the expedition together. And finally, you’re the one who told me today how Chanti is to be killed. You knew, didn’t you, that we’d end up killing one another?’

Avadhani said, ‘You don’t understand.’

‘What don’t I understand, Thatha? Huh? I don’t understand how you played with us? I don’t understand how you made us hound and kill each other? I’ve seen it with my own two eyes now, Thatha. I’ve seen all your manipulation, your shenanigans,
everything
. And now you’re going to deny it?’

‘If you accuse me of being so powerful, Aravind, doesn’t it strike you as odd that I should play this elaborate game with you all? That I should not kill you right away?’

‘You underestimated us. You played with us like a cat plays with a mouse. But this mouse has a knife, Thatha. A sharp butcher’s knife. And it is going to use it.’

‘There is someone else, my boy,’ Avadhani said.

‘Shut up.’

‘There is someone else who is more powerful than I am, and she is in
your
head.’

Aravind sneered. ‘So that’s your logic? Because I’ve outwitted you, you think I had to have someone on my side?’

Avadhani’s teeth showed in a half-grimace. ‘I am telling you, there is. Give me the knife. Let’s defeat her together.’

Aravind frowned. For a moment, neither man moved or spoke. Each looked at the other, trying to guess the other’s thoughts. Aravind’s hand, which held the knife, dropped a little and his gaze wavered.

‘Yes, my boy,’ Avadhani said. ‘Give me the knife. All is not lost yet. We can still get her.’

‘Move back,’ said Aravind, shaking the knife at Avadhani. ‘Move back, you old man!’

‘Okay. Okay. I am not making any movements. You don’t make any, either. Just think. If I called you here to kill you, why wouldn’t I do it straight away?’

‘You… you killed Ramana straight away.’

Avadhani paused. ‘Okay, say I did. Why did I stop there? Why did I not kill you all just like I killed Ramana?’

Aravind’s hand dropped further. ‘Stay back,’ he cried. ‘Stay back… you… you did not kill us all because you wanted to see us kill one another. That would make everything seem like an accident or the work of a psycho-killer. You would not be blamed. Yes, you would not be blamed.’

‘But why would I be blamed anyway? Am I being blamed for Ramana’s death? If I had killed all of you like I killed Ramana—whom I did not kill—then all of your deaths would have seemed like accidents, and none of them would attach themselves to me.’

Aravind panted. ‘Stay back.’

‘I am not moving at all, my boy.’

‘It gave you a perverse sense of pleasure—yes, you’re a sadist—to see us kill each other. You played a game with us, Thatha
.
’ His hand rose resentfully and shook the knife at its target. ‘You played a game, and your game is up.’

‘Again,’ said Avadhani calmly. ‘Why would I want to kill you? If I really am what you accuse me of being, then you would be nothing more than a trifling inconvenience to me. I could brush you away as I would a mosquito.’ He paused. ‘Unless, it is
you
who is the killer, and it is you who wants me done away with.’ His voice softened. ‘Is it not so, my boy?’

‘No!’ Aravind cried. Then, in a lower, more hesitant voice, ‘No…’