THE PUPPETEERS OF PALEM (5 page)

Chapter Seven

1984

T
he man stood, leaning back against the tree. It was not really a man. It was a shadow of a man, but not blurry and soft like shadows usually are. Sharp. Tack sharp. The second, smaller man lay against another tree, facing the first, knees propped up. His chest heaved and dropped. In the background, right between them, the Shivalayam stood bathed in white light.

The man raised his hand. He held something sharp in it. Was it a knife? No, not just any knife. A large butcher’s knife with a jagged edge.
Looked like Ibrahim Bhai’s knife.

They talked loudly and animatedly enough, but he couldn’t hear them. He tried to move closer but he couldn’t. No matter how much he walked toward them, the same distance remained. The temple in the background, though, grew bigger and bigger. Now the man’s head was silhouetted against the garish white walls.

He could feel himself getting worked up, but he didn’t know why. It was probably irritation at being left out of the conversation. Anger at not being able to draw any closer to these people. He didn’t know who they were. But he wanted to
look
at them.

The attacker mumbled a few words; the victim interrupted him. He was pleading with him, that much he could tell. But about what? The man shrunk back against the tree and held up the knife close to his face, staring at it. He was going to drop it.

Don’t drop it.

He didn’t know how he knew the man was going to drop it. Some things you just feel and don’t question, he realized. And you don’t think that it is right for the thing to happen and then you wish it did not happen. Oh yes, how you wish it did not happen. But the world was such; it did not care what you thought and what you wished for. Things happened anyway.

The man lowered his hand, pointed the knife down at the other and said something. Their voices came to him in a low-pitched assortment of grunts and moans. There was nothing intelligible about what they said. Or were they speaking some language he did not know? Who would speak anything but Telugu in Palem?

It
was
Palem. The Shivalayam in the background proved that.

Did the man just listen to his wish and not drop the knife?
Rub your forehead.

The man rubbed his forehead with the sleeve of his free hand. His clothes were in tatters. Torn flaps of cloth hung off his body.

This was a dream, he thought. That was the only explanation for everything—for the receding distance, for the clear shadows, for the unusually white temple walls, for everything around. But he had not had a dream like this before—everything looked so
real
. Even now, he could feel the dampness in the soil under his feet. And the smell of rotting lizards by the road, probably crushed by a passing ox-cart in the dark.

The smell of death, by the temple of the god of disease and destruction.

The man took a step, a tentative one, towards his victim. The other man shrank back against the tree and said something. The holder of the knife hesitated.

Don’t
.

He stayed in his position and shook, like a toy whose key had gotten stuck.

Kill.

He did not move.

Kill!

The man steadied his position. He said, ‘I have to kill you.’

‘No,’ the other fellow said. Their voices were still ape-like grunts, but he could make out the tenor of the words now.

‘Yes. I have to.’

‘But why?’

‘Because I already have.’ And he took a purposeful step in his direction.

The temple light grew more and more intense and blinded everything out. The entire scene—the shadows, the two men, the rotting lizards, the wet soil—dissolved in the growing ball of whiteness that slowly moved towards him. He backpedalled but covered no distance. He had once seen an old movie showing rats running on wheels. It was as if he was doing the same—in reverse. The ball steadily gained on him. It engulfed him and sucked him in. He opened his mouth, but no scream came out.

Sarayu is walking.

Where to? She does not know. She is wearing her blue-strapped, white Bata slippers. Her father bought them for her last month at the fair. She is walking through a dark passage, a mud wall on either side of her. Ahead in the distance, a flicker of light appears in a room, the door to which is half-open.

She can hear the voice of a man muttering inside.

Whose voice is it?

She quickens her pace. The stars look so bright. But the orange lamp in that room burns so much more brightly. She has to get there. Now!

She starts running. Her slippers make a sweaty, smacking sound against her feet. It is hard running in slippers. But that light—she has to get there. It grows larger and larger in her view. The muttering gets louder and more urgent. She is panting, but she is not tired. She is sweating, but she is full of energy. Her slippers are broken, but still stick to her feet.

She reaches the door and opens it. The first thing she sees is the hurricane lamp. Turned so low, the wick is barely visible. The flame is steady, but so small. The room is now darker and dimmer. Thick, blurry smudges of red cover it. In the window, she sees the silvery glow of the stars. Yes, the stars are so bright.

The man keeps muttering. He is sitting on a chair by a desk. A Reynolds 040 pen in his hand. White stem, blue cap. He is hunched over something. He is thin and his voice is more of a croak. The pen does not move. He is wearing a monkey cap. Father bought that at the fair too. For himself.

Nanna?

He does not turn. He does not know she is there. She does not go in and face him. She wants to, but she does not. She just stands there and watches. Father cannot write. He cannot read either. But she has been teaching him little things—the Telugu alphabet, to begin with. She has taught him to write ‘Mother’ in Telugu. She has told him that he should practice what she has taught him.

He is still muttering something under his breath. Not many in Palem know how to read and write, but it has always mattered to Father, somehow. That was why he always insisted on sending her to Thatha’s
house.
Listening to stories will make you want to read
, he told her.
And once you learn, you will teach me
.

She doesn’t know where they are. She cannot recognize anything in the room. All she can see is the hurricane lamp. There is a black stain on it. Is it rust or is it soot? She must clean it. No one ever will if she doesn’t.

His hand shivers. He places the tip of the pen on the paper and hesitates.

Don’t.

The pen moves. The red blurriness in the room lifts, little by little. Starlight streams in through the window. The hurricane lamp grows brighter. The light burns through the stain and dissolves it.

Write!

The pen moves faster. The room grows brighter.

She wants to run to her father and hug him. She wants to see his handiwork. She takes a step towards him. But she finds herself outside the door. Her slippers start smacking again against her feet. She starts to pant once more. The door is open. She can see her father writing. She wants to call out to him. But she can’t because she is tired. Her legs are aching. Her body is fatigued with all the running. But she is running back through the passage. The mud walls are rushing forward on either side of her. The room is spiralling away. The orange light behind her is growing smaller and smaller. Oh, the stars are so bright.

Chanti was hungry, and so was the boy. He lay on his back with his feet and hands in the air, waving. Every time the rattle made a sound, he gurgled in delight. A few feet away from him, snacks were being fried in oil on a kerosene stove. The smell of rice flour mixed with spices, salt and powdered chilli
filled the room. Chanti’s stomach groaned.

He heard voices in the other room. It was a dry, hot afternoon. From the colour of the ground outside and the parched fields that lay behind the house, Chanti guessed it was summer. A gust of arid wind was blowing across the land. The coconut trees that stood in a row along the edge of the field swayed in unison.

He saw some coconuts piled in the corner. Suddenly he felt thirsty too. How heavenly it would be to feel coconut water slide down his throat just about now? He went over to the corner and tried to pick one up.

Where were his hands?

He held up his hand. All he saw was air.

He looked down at his feet. All he saw was the crusted mud floor.

He looked at the baby. The baby looked back at him; no,
through
him.

The thirst and the hunger intensified. Now that he knew he could not quench either of them, he could not think of anything else. The snacks in the oil were just turning a pale yellow. They had to turn a particular shade of brown before they could be taken out.

He heard more voices outside—excited voices, a woman and a man. Then he heard the creaking of a cot. Cots tended to creak during nights, Chanti knew from experience. The cot in their house creaked too, almost every night.
His
never did, of course, but the ones in the other room, where his parents slept—Chanti didn’t know why it happened, but it did—and by the evidence of what was happening now, cots creaked in the afternoon too. They creaked irregularly at first, then settled into a rhythm, something you could tap your feet to.

The voices became more and more hurried. The woman was louder than the man. They did not speak in words anymore, just moans and grunts.

Meanwhile, the snacks continued to cook, ever so slowly. Tiny spots of brown were starting to appear around some of them. The coconuts sat there, delicious as ever.

His stomach rumbled again. The boy was hungry too. He was now chewing on his rattle. He was probably thirsty as well. How could anyone
not
be on an afternoon like this?

The cloth under his frantically kicking legs appeared to be wet. Was it sweat or urine? He could not lift the boy up and see for himself. If only he could somehow get him to turn over on his back…

Turn over
.

‘Ga,’ the boy said and turned over.

No, it was not sweat.

He heard the nawar
being stretched in the other room. The voices grew hurried and stayed in step with the sounds made by the cot. It was as if the couple were speaking in the tune set up by the cot.

Chanti looked at the stove once again.
Low
. Maybe if he could get that to
medium
, the snacks would cook a little faster. But how?

The boy raised his buttocks into the air and propped himself up on his elbows and knees. ‘Ga?’

Go
.

He pattered over to the stove.

Change.

He held the knob of the stove between his fingers and twisted it in one motion all the way to
high
.

No!

‘Ga?’

Chanti didn’t have time to reply to his question. Sparks had started to fly from the stove in all directions. One such spark fell on the pile of firewood that sat on the side, and at the same time, a gust of wind blew through the window.

The cot continued to creak in the other room. The voices kept at it. Faster and faster.

Stop it!

‘Ga?’

I said stop it!

The boy rolled over and gurgled.

The cot creaked.
Creak, creak, creak.
The voices moaned.
Mmm. Mmm. Mmmm.
Were they laughing at him?

He should go to the other room. He should find the mother. He should get someone to stop this. The pile of firewood was now fully ablaze. The fire was making its way back to the kerosene container now. The boy chewed on his rattle.

He turned and started towards the door. But the door moved away. He lunged at it, but he seemed to have moved backwards instead. Because the door had gone farther away from him. He still heard the creaks and the voices, but they were now distant. He turned around to look at the boy. He
was farther away too.