Amballore House (16 page)

They sent message to the vicar of the Church to come and join them in their fervent prayer to drive out the evil thing. Annamma joined Ann in her rosary recital. These were two women famous in the church as saints, and their prayers were believed to have results.

The number of spectators was increasing minute by minute, and they watched this melodramatic development with intense interest. They watched the thing growing taller and taller and witnessed this supernatural scene with rapt attention. The throng in the street swelled uncontrollably, so much so that they broke the gate and spilled into yard near where the supernatural encounter was taking place, with two simple women kneeling and praying desperately to the patron saint of the nearby church. The crowd looked like a swarm of bees and they occupied the main road leading to Saint Joseph’s Church. Traffic was redirected by police. The suspenseful melodrama transformed the simple house of Thoma to a shrine. People knelt in the yard and started praying. They wished the thing would go away, leaving the living alone. They prayed for a miracle.
However, no miracle took place. The situation became even more critical when the vicar of the church made his way through the crowd and joined the praying women. The spectators knew that the situation reached a critical point, serious enough to bring a priest to their midst. God’s man sprinkled holy water on the thing to drive it away. It did not work.

Annamma and her husband, Mathettan (who joined the two women during the commotion), promised that Thoma’s food and medicine would be allowed to continue uninterrupted, and on this solemn promise, they requested the Misery Man to reconsider his mission of abducting the couple. Their petition went unheeded. All the developments pointed towards the unavoidable conclusion which the assembled humanity feared—Thoma and Ann were going to be taken away from them.

Night was fast approaching. Twilight was still present. The gathered mass held candles and most of them were kneeling in the yard and the road. The well-wishers approached Ann and embraced her—the final embrace, since they were convinced that they were leaving. Ann started crying, since she knew what the embrace meant—it signaled the imminence of a supernatural event for her and Thoma.

Ann realized at the moment of the embrace that she would no more have to cook rice and wash dishes; she knew Thoma would not be hitting her anymore on the pretext of catching a fly; she knew she would miss her sentimental belongings in her dear kitchen where she spent most of her time; she knew her rosary would hang on the kitchen wall without ever being looked at; she knew the chickens and ducks in the yard would miss her forever; she knew that the trumpet flowers that greeted her every morning would have no one to greet after she was gone; she knew that the wood-fueled clay oven would no more get her soft blows; she knew the clothes left behind would never be washed to the perfection that she always gave to the task; she knew she would miss the protective presence of Subashini.

She knew everything. It was mostly with a sad heart that she would be saying her final good-bye to her home. Subashini was wailing,
because her life-long friends were leaving. Ann released her from the cage. The bird flew out of the cage, never to come back to Thoma’s home again. She flew up to the top of the palm tree and then disappeared from the scene.

Old Man Misery revealed his plan of taking the couple to their old Mannuthy home. “That is my parting present to you, my friends! You sure would want to visit your happy home” he howled to the couple sarcastically. They noticed that his voice was becoming hoarser as he kept on becoming taller.

“I did not abduct you two last time I met you in Mannuthy. Now is my chance. Get ready for your final trip, my friends,” he told them. He then produced two sacks from his pockets: One, a white sack from his right pocket and the other, a black sack from his left pocket. He picked up Ann with his gigantic arm and dropped her in the white sack. Then he picked up Thoma and dropped him in the black sack. He deposited the sacks in his pockets.

He became immensely tall. He became so tall that his body encompassed the solar system. None around Thoma’s home could see his face any more. He was still firmly grounded in the side yard by the side of palm tree. He wore a gigantic black robe that reached the invisible distance in the sky, and that robe housed Thoma and Ann in its two pockets.

The scary man then started moving. He walked with small steady steps to start off. Every step he took made a rumbling sound, because earth was shaking in step with his steps. He escorted the couple outside the house. The prayer from the crowd reached a crescendo, desperation coloring every chant in its tone and volume, raising hope that there would be a last-minute miracle, a last-minute change of heart reversing the decision of the Hunger Man. But this did not happen. The man with his face near the planet mercury took painstakingly small steps and walked slowly, steering himself through the weeping crowd, which parted like the Red Sea when Moses approached.

Outside the house, the road was brimming with people and inaccessible to traffic. The crowd had grown all the way to the
graveyard of the church located half a mile away. People came from all over to witness the supernatural encounter. The Old Man Misery now took larger strides, stepping over the assembled crowd, and moved forward. Some of them were trapped under his footsteps and died instantly. He snorted. It sounded like a thousand beasts roaring at the same time.

The massive ocean of citizens gathered waved to Thoma and Ann, though they were invisible, being trapped inside the sack; some followed the black spirit-like thing; some wept. As the trio reached the church, Old Man Misery lingered over the cemetery for few moments.

Ann looked down from Hunger Man’s right pocket that was way up in the sky. She saw an ocean of lit candlesticks held by Amballoreans, like a humongous assembly of glow worms. The scene resembled light assembly of Diwali festival called festival of lights. She bid farewell to Amballore. She wished she could talk to Thoma at that time. But she could not, since he was miles away from her, even though he was in the other pocket of the same gown where Ann was housed. Old Man Misery had grown not only in height, but also in front-back and lateral dimensions, placing his pockets far apart.

Old Man Misery lifted his arm and grabbed the sun from the evening sky and took it down to earth. Suddenly there was a bright day in the late evening, as if it was noon. The assembled crowd could not stand the scorching heat and many of them died instantaneously. Some of them became blind seeing sun at close distance. He then swung his gigantic arm and threw sun upwards, sending it to where Pluto orbited. The town froze in the instant winter that ensued.

He then suddenly took off. His strides became miles wide, in step with his monumental height. His robe looked like a black veil that paraded the earth like a sprawling broom, sweeping it while he walked. Within few minutes, he reached Mannuthy and stopped in the street across from Thoma’s old rental home.

***

Old Man Misery dished out the white sack from his right pocket and deposited it in the street. She got out. She was excited to see her old home. The house represented the most miserable years of her life. She walked toward the home, tears running down her cheeks, overcome by emotions at seeing her past. The house was standing there as if it was expecting her. The yard and the surroundings were in the same shape and form as when she left in 1975, thirteen years ago. She was greeted by Bhavani, her good neighbor, who was still living there. The two women embraced each other.

Ann entered her old home, now empty. Inside the home there was an overpowering silence.

Here was a home whose walls could write a long, sad novel about her and her family, and yet it was standing there silently. Here was a home whose interior echoed with loud laughter, soft weeping, quarrels, and shouting once upon a time, but now it stood still.

She entered the kitchen, walking though the porch and bedroom, and saw it was whitewashed, ready to rent. Once upon a time, its walls were anything but white, blackened with soot. The smoke from the clay oven had painted the room black. She bent down and looked at the oven for old time’s sake. Tears stirred in her eyes. She sent a soft blow to the unresponsive oven.

She used to spend untold hours there, dark smoke hovering around her, until her incessant blows would suddenly light up the firewood that she collected from the nearby rubber estate along with her children. She looked at the kitchen door that once used to host a sizeable hole that let in a stray dog that ate their dinner occasionally, leaving them all hungry. Now the door was repaired, and the hole was gone.

She stepped onto the porch after walking through bedroom. There was a new flower-print curtain hanging. Once upon a time it did not have a fabric curtain. It only had a palm-leaf curtain at night, and it came down in the morning. Her sons and husband used to sleep there on the bare floor with no pillows, some of them doing their homework in the streetlamp whose faint light trickled down onto
the porch. Thoma’s nonstop cough used to wake up the sleeping boys.

She walked out through the front porch and turned left to look at the well that once upon a time had provided water for her kanji. She and her daughters had used a bucket to bail out water from the well. The bucket had been tied down with a rope and hung over a pulley that looked rusted now. The well looked the same, except its brick walls had graffiti imprinted by a wandering artist. For old time’s sake, she dropped the bucket and bailed out water from the well and drank few drops, simultaneously drinking in memories that overwhelmed her.

She came back and stepped into the bedroom from the porch. This was where she and her girls used to sleep on mats, all huddled together. The room functioned as a common prayer room. The hole in the ceiling was still there, the one Thoma once drilled to annex the upstairs.

Memories started gushing in. This was the room where she used to wake up in the middle of the night to pray, pouring her heart and soul to God, imploring him to set her and her family free from their misery. This was the room where the family met to read letters from her daughter Kareena from Rajasthan. This was the room where the family sought asylum from the monsoon rain that leaked into the porch and kitchen. She sat on the floor to recapture the feeling, to absorb the sadness unleashed by the memories.

She stood up and faced the wall where a rosary had hung once upon a time. She prayed silently to the walls.

She stepped out through the kitchen into the backyard. The mango tree was still there, stirring in the breeze, a silent witness to her miserable days. A few unripe mangoes were hanging from its branches. A mother hen was tending to her little chicks, feeding them worms that she collected. A few ducks walked by quacking, forming a line as if they were in a backyard parade. None of them recognized Ann. Once upon a time, she used to feed them leftovers of rice and curry.

She got back to the house, entered the porch again, and stared at the
spot where Josh, her second son, had stood just before he took off for Canada in 1975. He would never come back to that house again. Instead, he would go to the house that he bought for the family in Amballore. The family owed their lives to him. She knew that; she remembered that; she could never forget that.

She stepped into the footsteps he made in 1975, now gone and forgotten. She wept.

It was a cruel irony of fate that two of Josh’s younger siblings would scheme against him to trap him and steal his property in spite of the generosity he showered on them. Ann and her husband did not know of the proverbial backstab, because it happened well after they said their good-bye to this world. Ann probably anticipated the ingratitude, since she knew in her guts what stuff her children were made of, being their mother and the wife of their father. She probably foresaw the treachery, which was why she shed tears while standing in Josh’s footsteps.

Bhavani stepped onto the empty porch and hugged Ann to console her. The good neighbor wiped Ann’s tears.

Ann stepped out to the front yard, turned around, took a last look at the house, and said a silent prayer and a final good-bye. Memories of this home would stay with her even after she died and her body disintegrated in the grave.

***

Ann crossed the street. The Old man Misery lifted her up and deposited her in his white sack. He then made sure that Thoma was still in the black sack in the left pocket.

“I have two deliveries to do tonight,” he told as if to none in particular.

“Ann, I will first deliver you to heaven,” he told Ann.

“Thoma, my friend, I will keep you with me to the last moment. My second delivery tonight will be you to hell whose fire will keep you warm,” He delivered the words to Thoma without mercy.

He then walked away from Mannuthy. The earth rumbled. The
thunder roared and the lightning flashed.

He then laughed loudly and devilishly.

.

9
A GARLAND OF SUNSETS

The year 1996 marked an important year for Kareena. She was couple of years away from retirement.

A traveling gypsy came to her home in Rajasthan and predicted that she would be going on a long trip in a few years. Kareena was not surprised, since she was already planning on retirement by going back to Kerala and settling down there. But then, the gypsy had more to tell about the future trip. “It will be anything unlike you have ever taken, ma’am,” the octogenarian gypsy wearing a pink sari and leaning on a walking stick told Kareena. Her curiosity was aroused. She included a trip to Europe in her retirement years within realms of possibility. She asked gypsy to elaborate.

The lady spat out tobacco she was chewing and said, “You will be travelling in a chariot. You will be facing west. You are blinded by the setting sun shining right in your face. You look different from now, with blond hair and with a sad face.” Kareena knew that the aging gypsy was showing signs of senility. There was no way she would ever travel in a chariot, unless she was living in the times of Mahabarata war and accompanying Lord Krishna in his chariot. She thought the gypsy was probably talking in parables, referring to air travel as a chariot ride. But then she could not come to terms with how she could have gotten blond hair. “Traveling to west” could be referring to her possible trip to Europe.