THE PUPPETEERS OF PALEM (12 page)

A cloak of silence descended on the room. Outside, the sun was beating down on an empty street.

‘So there are five of them out there now?’ Sarayu asked.

‘Yes, my girl. That is my guess. And because there are five of them, they are able to control more people than one of them could have.’

‘How are we going to find them?’ Chanti asked.

‘And how are we going to kill them?’ Sarayu asked.

‘It won’t be easy,’ said Avadhani. ‘I don’t even know if it is possible. You see, she has had a lot of time to plan this, to plot this. If she could control events in the future, she will first ensure her own survival. She would first protect herself and then venture out towards her other ambitions.’ He cast a wan look at Chotu. ‘And it looks like these children are stronger than their mother, because Chotu cannot feel them. Maybe we killed the mother before she matured; maybe she was just beginning to discover her powers. I think the children are much more powerful.’

Aravind closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. He wound his fingers around his arm-rests and spoke to no one in particular. ‘But this is all a guess. We don’t know if they’re actually in this village.’

‘Look at the evidence, my boy,’ Avadhani said. ‘And do you know the most chilling aspect of it all? I do not remember writing those letters to you.’

Aravind opened his eyes and lowered his head to level his gaze at Avadhani.

Avadhani grinned in reply. ‘Yes, I don’t remember writing to any of you. Remember Sarayu’s dream? She made an aged version of her father write something in a letter. She did not see who it was. She only assumed it was her father—maybe she was meant to assume that. Because otherwise, why would she will the man in her dream to write?’

Out came the can of gutkha again, the trembling hand popping some into his mouth.

‘Thatha…’

Avadhani dusted his hands and leaned back in his armchair, raising his hands over his head. ‘Yes, my girl,’ he said. ‘It was me you saw in your dream.’

‘But how… how could… so early?’

‘Yes, so early on, she knew that she would want you to come back to Palem. She is the one who invited you back here. Not I.’

‘But it’s impossible. Why would she want us to come back?’

Avadhani turned his head slowly to look at her. Smiling kindly at her, he said, ‘Ramana came back. What happened to Ramana?’

He turned back to his earlier position and stared at the ceiling. None of them said anything. Only the dry, restless breathing of the old man punctuated the quietness.

Finally, Aravind said, ‘I am going to pack my bags and leave.’

‘That is entirely up to you, my boy,’ said Avadhani, leaning to one side and scratching his belly. ‘But it will take us all to bring her down. Every pair of hands we can get, we must use.’

‘I think this is all an excuse for being lazy,’ Aravind said. ‘Yes, you heard me. All of you are lazy! Palem has always been full of lazy people who did not want to take responsibility. And such villages—well, they
deserve
to die.’

‘Aravind!’

‘Yes, you heard me,’ Aravind said. ‘Tell me, Sarayu. Do you seriously find all this believable? Do you think that seventeen years after we’ve killed her, she has now called us back so that she could take revenge on us?’

Sarayu said, ‘I don’t know, but the man in that dream—it was
my
dream, Aravind. I remember, it was
I
who made him write. And it was
she
who sent us the dream.’ She paused and said, ‘Facts are facts.’

‘Don’t underestimate the pull of revenge, my boy,’ Avadhani said. ‘If it is a life form, it will be capable of revenge. And now she probably thinks she is capable of exacting revenge on all five of you.’

‘If what you say is true, Thatha,’ said Aravind, ‘she
is
too powerful for us. She has already killed Ramana. It will only be a matter of time before she gets all of us.’ He looked pointedly at the old man. ‘So isn’t that all the more reason for us to leave right now and escape her?’

‘Frankly, my boy, I don’t think you will be able to.’

‘Huh?’

‘She has everything planned out. She has managed to bring you all here. Do you think you have a choice to just pack up and leave? Do you honestly think she will let you?’

Aravind laughed. ‘I’d like to see her try and stop me.’

Avadhani smiled at the ceiling and his eyes grew dreamy. ‘She won’t just try, my boy. She
will
stop you.’

Chanti broke into the conversation. ‘But Thatha, if we cannot run away, what choice do we have? What chance do we have?’

‘We can fight, kids. We have
that
choice. There are five of us and only one of her. We can, we
might
,
still have enough in us to beat her.’

‘But how? Do you know where the children are in the village?’

A smile started playing on Avadhani’s lips. ‘Yes, my boy. I know where at least one of them is.’

Aravind stared at the old man. The rest of them traded glances.

‘Yes,’ Avadhani continued. ‘I know where they are. It is another trait of a life form, kids. Any life form on earth ought to be water-based. They need water to survive.’

‘How does that help?’

‘When they burrow underground, my boy, and they suck water out, what happens? The earth dries up, it cracks, it cannot support any crops.’ His head turned to the other side, facing the wall beyond which lay his parched field and his dried-up well.

‘They’re here?’ Chotu asked incredulously.

‘At least one of them is. Did you see how my field has become? No matter how much I water it, no matter how much I pump fertilizers into it, crops just do not grow. My well has dried up. It is almost as if,’ he snickered, ‘something was down there, sucking the ground dry.’

Chanti said, looking at the others, ‘We can go there today. We can go there now and dig it out. We can…’

‘We need to stick together, the five of us.’ Avadhani scratched his buttock and sighed happily. ‘Yes and we need to be strong. Ignore any voices in your head, because they’re probably coming from her or from one of her puppets.’

Sarayu asked Aravind, ‘Are you in or out?’

Aravind started to shake his head, then looked at the wall and paused in thought.

‘She will try to break you up, kids,’ Avadhani said. ‘She will probably try to get the weakest among you, and get him to work against the others. Maybe she has already got one of you.’ He paused. ‘Yes, maybe she already has.’

‘What do you mean, Thatha?’ Chotu asked.

‘Nothing, my boy. I am just thinking out aloud. You need to stick together as a group, but you also need to be wary of one another. You need to ignore all voices in your head that are not yours, but ignore your own voice at your peril. When you notice something about one of the others that rouses your suspicion, follow it through. You need to trust each other, and yet you need to distrust each other.’ He stopped and sneezed loudly, twice. Rubbing his nose and wiping his hands on his dhoti, he said, ‘Yes, you need to do both.’

‘Where else?’ Chotu asked.

‘Hmm?’

‘Where else can we find them?’

‘Ah, I think the school is a good candidate. Did you see how cracked the ground was? One of these days, that statue will just fall down.’

‘Where else?’

‘Maybe the Shivalayam.’

‘I was there at the Shivalayam yesterday. I did not feel anything.’

Avadhani said, ‘But, my boy, you have been here for the whole day. Do you feel anything over here?’

Chotu shook his head.

‘That’s what I am telling you. You’ve probably outgrown your little abilities. You’re out of practice. Maybe they’ve gotten stronger.’ Then Avadhani’s smile faded and as if struck by something, he asked, frowning, ‘You were at the Shivalayam yesterday?’

‘Yes,’ Chotu said.

‘In the afternoon?’

‘Yes.’

‘Hmm.’ Avadhani turned in his chair and looked back at the ceiling. ‘Hmmm.’

‘Where else?’

‘Mandiramma Banda seems likely to me,’ said Avadhani. ‘The old banyan is now down to its branches. It would not have happened if the ground had held its water.’

‘And the last place?’

Avadhani looked at Chotu and smiled. ‘I don’t know, boy. Maybe after we’ve got these four and crossed them out, we will find some clues to the fifth spot.’

‘Okay,’ Chotu said. ‘We will take them out. We killed her once. We will kill her again.’

‘Only this time,’ Avadhani said, popping some gutkha into his mouth, ‘make sure she doesn’t come back again.’

The four of them did not say anything in response. They stared at the wall facing the field. The sounds of the old man’s chewing, his hoarse, uneven breathing and the constant squeaking of his armchair filled the room. The street was still dead, even with the sun now high up in the sky. There was no life in sight. Not a soul out yet. No crows or bees. No dogs or monkeys. Nothing. Nothing but the dust and the sun and the breeze.

‘There are some spades in the attic,’ Avadhani said. ‘Let’s do some work before the village wakes up.’

With a mixture of eagerness and reluctance, the four of them walked out of the room and in the direction of the attic.

Chapter Sixteen

1984

P
alem and Ellamma Cheruvu had always enjoyed a love-hate relationship. During the day, the spacious, dusty bank and the shade offered by the two mango trees that stood on it made it a popular playground for children. Whether to skip stones off the water in the mornings, to laze around after lunch, or to meet for a quick round of hop-scotch after school, it made for a perfect setting. Moreover, a mango for an empty stomach or a drink of cool water for a parched throat was never far away.

It was after nightfall that Ellamma Cheruvu changed appearance. The green foliage of the trees (people called them Ram-Lakhan trees) turned inky black, and on moonless nights, the lake itself resembled a giant bowl of blue-black poison. It was said that there had once been a third tree on the bank (Sita). Apparently, a woodcutter, having cut down Sita by the light of the full moon one night, sat down for a break and had a drink of water from the lake. And the next day, he was found right there on the bank, his body blue, his bloodshot eyes staring at the sky.

That day onwards, the Ram-Lakhan trees were believed to change from life-giving trees to life-sucking serpents when the sky turned black. Ellamma Cheruvu—the same lake that children drank from during the day—transformed into a basin of venom. No one who went there by night would be spared. Ram and Lakhan, it was said, were still seeking vengeance for Sita being taken away.

There was another story that insisted on being the ‘true’ one. It was the story of a young woman who seduced the men of the village on the bank of the lake, under the mango trees. Every night, she would make her way to the lake and wait for her paramour—each night a different man—and she would guide him through a world of pleasure. She made every man in the village lust for her, and every woman in the village—especially the married ones—lust for her death. Sooner or later, they all cursed her—the home-wrecker would meet her comeuppance. She would bear the consequences of her nightly sins all at once, they said.

True to their word, one morning, she was found half-naked by the lake, lying on her back with her arms stretched out on either side of her. Her eyes were closed and she appeared to be at absolute peace. It was as though she were sleeping, except for the big blot of blood on her chest.

Men grieved, but their women rejoiced. This was what would happen, they said, to people without morals. It never did come out who killed her—everyone presumed it was either the man she met or a jealous wife who could take it no longer—but people instinctively started keeping away from the lake at nights. They forbade their kids from going in that direction after sundown.

Someone would walk by the lake in the evening and hear the sounds of a woman’s laughter. Another would smell flowers and hear the tinkle of anklets. Another would see a female figure in a spotless white sari walk by the bank. And they would all go back and tell the others that Ellamma was not dead. She still visited the lake by night, dressed in all her finery, waiting for a man so that she could guide him, like in the old days, through a world of pleasure.

And the lake had come to be known as Ellamma Cheruvu.

When Sudeshnamma’s husband died in the river, some old women in the crowd had whispered that Ellamma had taken him. Some of the old men—who had been kids when Ellamma died—had looked upon the dead figure of Janardhan Reddy with a certain amount of wistfulness, and maybe even a tiny bit of envy.

Like any spot known to be isolated at night, it became a meeting point for lovers. Occasionally, from a distance, some of these young women would be seen decked up in their saris, the smell of the flowers that adorned their hair would reach a passer-by, the sound of their laughter would be heard, and fresh stories would be set float, of Ellamma prowling about for a new paramour.

Sundarayya walked through the chilli field with his head down, facing the ground. He carried no light (he had not expected the card game to last that long), but the moon lit up his path nicely enough. He marched quickly along a rough diagonal, rubbing his nose at the spicy odour that filled the air. Chilli might be profitable, he mused, but
he
would never be persuaded to put something as strong as this
into
his
field.

He reached the far end of the field and looked up to see Ellamma Cheruvu. For all its horror stories, he thought, it did look beautiful in the moonlight. The water still had a bluish-black tinge to it, and the trees still shrouded the bank, making it look like an opening to a dark cave, but there was a light shimmer on the surface, and an occasional breeze sent the water out in ripples. It was not nearly as bad is it looked when there was no moon in the sky.

His thoughts turned to Kamla. She would be waiting for him anxiously. It always amused him how wives worried over their husbands in a village such as Palem. Everyone here knew everyone else. The village was like one big house. Nothing bad ever happened here. Kamla knew it, and so did the rest of the wives and mothers. But women
needed
something to worry about. He had told her he’d be back for dinner, and now it was—he looked up at the moon to estimate the time—nearing ten o’clock. Yes, she would definitely be worried.

Which was why he was taking the short cut across the fields. He sneezed, the tingling scent of the chilli not leaving him. His eyes started to water. Was it worth it, going through this, to avoid one angry night with Kamla, he wondered. His steps quickened, then staggered as he caught his throat and coughed.

He heard scampering steps to his right, by the row of neem trees that set Avadhani’s field apart from Komati Satyam’s. A small, shadowy figure, no larger than an overgrown puppy, moved around in the moonlight, now coming into his view, now ducking back into the shadows. Sundarayya’s pace quickened, but his throat refused to let up. He stopped, hips on hand, breathing hoarsely, one eye on the neem trees.

The figure came out and made its way along the wall. Sundarayya could barely see it in the shadow, but he felt it was watching him. It was about fifty metres away from him, but he saw the creature’s tail wave over its head like an antenna of an insect, as though it was sizing him up, feeling for him.

For some reason, Sundarayya pictured a group of hunters on top of a mountain, seated around a fire, over which roasted a stiff, half-eaten figure with a tail very similar to this creature’s. That was what happened to langurs, he had heard. The men who leased them out to farmers during the harvest season to scare off monkeys took them up to the mountains after the work was done, roasted them on the fire and ate them. He had often cringed at the thought. Though he ate chicken and lamb with gusto, eating a member of the monkey family seemed to him a little too close to cannibalism for comfort.

What is a langur doing on a chilli field? Monkeys don’t eat chillies.

The creature had left the shadow of the wall now and was striding towards him, his tail weaving patterns in the air above his head. He cast no shadow on the ground. It seemed like he was himself a moving shadow. The ground around him was awash in a serene, silvery glow, but he, walking with such poise and purpose, was all black. Sundarayya remembered Avadhani mention a langur called Kalia. Was this Kalia?

He took one step back, then another, and then yet another, until he was matching each forward movement of Kalia with a step back of his own. Komati Satyam’s compound wall, and the village, receded with each step. At first, Kalia did not seem to be in any hurry. He was more intent, it seemed, on the precision of his tail movements.

Then suddenly, he broke into a sprint. Straight in Sundarayya’s direction.

Sundarayya turned and faced an expanse of nothing but open fields for as far as he could see. Out in the distance, slightly to the left, Ellamma Cheruvu shimmered and glowered. He started running too, kicking off his slippers and keeping to the path that led to the lake. Why was he going to the lake? He didn’t know. What was he going to do once he got there? He didn’t know. Not yet.

He heard Kalia chitter and growl behind him; the thud of his steps were much more rhythmic than Sundarayya’s. Kalia was an animal born to chase down monkeys and break their necks. Sundarayya had last run when he was in school, and that too because someone had told him Lachi was watching.

As he ran, he bent down now and then, to pick up sticks and stones to hurl back at the dashing figure behind him. He would bend down, pick something up (anything that his hands touched!), turn back and throw it at Kalia. He did not check to see if any of his missiles found their mark, but from the increasing frequency of grunts and from the apparently decreasing distance between them, not many did.

He realized it was slowing
him
down more than Kalia. Ahead of him, Ellamma Cheruvu grew in size, and the opening to the cave between Ram and Lakhan became bigger and bigger. If I get there, he thought… and he caught himself.
I must get there
, he said to himself.

He would find something there. A concrete stone, perhaps, that he could use to defend himself. Dried, fallen mangoes that he could hurl at his attacker. Kids played Ramayan and Mahabharat games here, he knew. There could be something akin to swords or spears fashioned from mango branches. Or he could throw himself into Ellamma Cheruvu and swim to the middle of the lake. Did langurs know how to swim?

But I must get there
.

His pace was slowing. His heart thumped in his chest. His eyes struggled to see. The ground in front of him swam under the white light. In the distance, Ellamma Cheruvu and Ram-Lakhan stood, unnerved and unmoving.

Kalia had caught up with him. He felt the brute’s breath on his feet. His claws scratched his ankles. Sundarayya whimpered and kicked frantically, but the grunting and the scratching became more frequent.

Sundarayya stopped and turned, panting, not taking his eyes off Kalia. The animal stopped too, three feet in front of him, tail swaying like a hungry cat’s. Sundarayya looked down at his own feet. They were bleeding. His heart was ready to jump out of his body. He leaned forward, hands on knees, and closed his eyes for a second to gather himself.

He heard two precise steps, one in his left ear, one in his right, and by the time he opened his eyes, the langur was on top of him and his teeth were buried in his neck. With a savage shake of the head, he ripped out a chunk of flesh and bounded out of Sundarayya’s waving arms.

He felt the deep gash in his neck. He looked at the lake. He looked at the village. They were both far away. Should he run or should he fight?

He did neither. He opened his lungs and shouted. His voice pierced the air. ‘Help!’ But the next moment, everything was still. The only movement came from Kalia, who was hurriedly chewing the last bit of his flesh. Sundarayya raised his head and shouted again, this time dragging it out for longer. ‘Heeeeeeeelp!’ Again the night fell back into silence. Ram-Lakhan swayed in the breeze.

No, this cannot be happening. Langurs don’t eat humans
.

Kalia leaped at him again and wrapped himself around his thigh. Sundarayya tried to wrap his fingers around the animal’s head and squeeze it, but the langur bit into the web of flesh between his thumb and forefinger and pulled out another bloody piece. His claws dug into Sundarayya’s thigh at the same time.

And just like that, he was out of reach again, two feet away, sitting on his tail and munching on his spoils.

Sundarayya looked down to see that there was a dark pool gathering around him. He was fast losing blood. He tried to cover his right hand with his left and clamped down hard on his neck with both hands. He felt fluid trickling down his right trouser leg, where the animal had scratched him.

He stood, panting, looking morosely in the direction of the village. Not one light had come out. Not a single thing moved.

He turned and tried to run towards the lake, but he could only limp. There was no sound behind him. He limped on for a few minutes and hope started to build again. Maybe Kalia’s hunger had been satiated and he would leave him alone.

Five or six thuds sounded behind him, and a chunk of flesh ripped out of his left hip. The wrench made him turn and collapse on the ground, his arms waving wildly in the hope that they would hit the langur. They didn’t.

This one was a big chunk, and as he continued to bleed, his eyes started to flutter. He could only see a blurred image of the langur in front of him, clawing into the flesh and digging his teeth into it. Little by little, he finished it, and as soon as he had licked the last of his fingers, he looked up at Sundarayya.

Sundarayya blinked.

Kalia walked to him now. No need to leap at you, he seemed to say. No need to hunt you down anymore. He gripped Sundarayya’s leg in both hands and felt along its length. The hands stopped at the calf muscle. With a final chitter of what Sundarayya’s garbled mind interpreted as delight, Kalia twisted the leg, sank his teeth into the muscle, and after a few false tries, teased it out.

Sundarayya’s eyes closed. The last thing he heard was the faint murmur of Ellamma Cheruvu behind him.