Cyrus Mistry - Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer

Already I feel like a pack animal. I am twenty-six years old and strong as an ox, but the work’s definitely telling on me, on each of us. . No, I don’t mean the physical strain — that can be rough, no doubt — so much as the contempt and abuse we receive for doing a job no one else will touch.

Can’t deny I always knew it would be rough. It’s more than most people can stomach, many had warned me: let alone you , the coddled son of a priest. But in those first years, Seppy was at my side. Nothing, not the direst predictions of ruin and misery could have kept us apart. People said it was disastrous for first cousins to wed, that our children would be cretins! But we never felt we had a choice, you see. And never once in those seven years did I ever feel let down, or regret my decision. Nor did she, for that matter. Every evening, returning home from work, the happiness that gleamed in her eyes salved my every ache and bruise, healed the smarting of swallowed insults. In our mealy, narrow cot at night, her love refreshed and rejuvenated my body. And all that alarmist talk came to nought; our child was born perfectly normal.

But now, Seppy’s no longer with me. . And even in dreams I don’t see her so often. Dull nausea swelled and passed as it did every morning when I woke to the certain knowledge of being alone. My heart ached with longing for the woman who had taught me how to love; but I was running late. . I threw a crumpled muslin gown over my night clothes, slipped into my white cloth bootees and cloth cap, both essential accessories of my uniform, and knotted the strings on my face mask. I paused for only an instant to gaze at my three-year-old curled up in a corner of her mattress. Unmoved by Buchia’s ruckus, she was still engrossed in a deep sleep. A fierce surge of tenderness shuddered through my body, and I swore on Seppy’s sweet forehead to protect her, always.

‘Come son, your tea’s getting cold. .’

Temoorus’s living quarters abutted my own, separated by no more than half a wall of exposed brick and flaking plaster, and a thatched veranda. He would have heard Buchia’s screaming, and got a cup of tea ready for me. Not so much from the kindness of his heart, I should say, as to hasten me off to work so he can have my little one all to himself when she wakes. It annoys me how possessive he grows, day by day.

Crossing the threshold that divides our homes, I came face to face with Temoo: seated, as always, in his square, rattan chair, in the same pair of striped pajamas I’d seen him wearing for weeks now; the same translucent vest with the ripped sleeve that revealed his dark, hairy body: a thin, vulpine man of scruffy habits, made ridiculous by age, and an incongruous tumescence at his abdomen. Since Seppy’s death, we’ve been thrown together a lot — I depend on him much more now, I do — but try never to forget I shouldn’t trust him an inch. Yet nearly every day of the week, for several long hours, I am compelled to leave in his custody the most precious portion of my being: my baby, Farida. Simply, I have no option.

A large mug of tea stood on the small teapoy beside him, covered with an upturned saucer.

‘Behnchoad Buchia woke me from such a deep sleep,’ said Temoorus. ‘Bullying and yelling his head off first thing in the morning! What that bastard needs. .no, I won’t say it. .’

‘What. .?’

‘Don’t like to start my morning with swear words, but really, a bamboo up his arse. All the bloody way. .’

‘I’ll drink to that,’ I said, swallowing a generous swig of lukewarm tea. ‘Six corpses, yesterday! No joke, Temoo, lugging them in from all over town. And on top of it, the joker claims we came back sozzled.’

‘Fucking slob doesn’t know his arsehole from his gob. Stinks up the place with his farts and his taunts. What that man needs is a good hiding, but who’ll give it to him, I ask you? He’s our warden. .our boss. Who’s going to question the boss?’

‘Not to fret, my boys!’ said a voice over our heads. ‘Just leave it to the One-Above. .’

We looked up and saw Burjor, leaning over his balcony. But he wasn’t speaking of himself.

‘Time will come for that man, too, when he will choke on his wickedness — mark my word, boys — bleed remorse.’

Once a bodybuilder, this fair-skinned and still handsome corpse bearer had suddenly lost an alarming amount of weight in recent months, and much of his proud swagger. Though he grew feebler by the day, and his clothes had started to hang loosely on him, he remained rather self-conscious of his looks — the prominent, clean-shaven rock jaw, the thickset, well-trimmed moustache, green eyes — what’s more, Burjor never once complained about life’s unfairness. He remained confident of the infallible perfection of the divine master plan. He now declared, in the dramatic and slightly pompous fashion he’s given to:

‘One-Above watches everything, mind you. That maaderchoad’s days are numbered.’

Was I imagining it, I wondered, or had a furtive edge of bitterness crept into Bujji’s voice of late?

‘Oi, Bujji!’ yelled Temoo hoarsely, ‘don’t wreck your morning bad-mouthing excrement.’

‘Well, someone has to flush a turd into its pit and bury it. Too much stink. .too many flies. . Am I right or am I wrong? Tell me?’ chuckled Bujji. ‘If I had any strength left in my body, I’d do it myself.’

Like Bujji, everyone at the Towers had some reason to hate the man we were talking about. His real name was Nusli Kavarana, but his treatment of us menials was so sadistic that he was universally known as Buchia, or the ‘Corker’. He was some sort of labour contractor, directly in charge of hiring and firing us corpse carriers as well as all the maintenance staff on the estate; but very thick with Coyaji, the Punchayet’s secretary for gardens. God knows what sort of deal those two had struck up, but somehow, Buchia had become an inviolable fixture in the Towers’ establishment.

‘Now today, God knows what sort of day it’ll be,’ I said, resuming my conversation with Temoo. ‘Do you? I mean, have you heard anything at all? Bloody hell, so many Parsi corpses in one day is just not natural.’

‘Papers say certain districts have seen an outbreak of gastro: Parel, Dockyard, Khetwadi. .but these things have happened before. Shouldn’t last more than a few days.’

‘Gastro?’

‘That’s only the official euphemism, boys: more likely cholera,’ interjected Burjor from above; then, with apocalyptic finality, he turned to go in, saying, ‘But no one, mind you, knows just how bad. .and it could last longer than just a few days. .mind you.’

‘So much fanfare about that bloody hearse they bought— insertion in Jam-e-Jamshed and all — gone phut already?’ I asked Temoo.

‘At the garage being repaired, son,’ he replied. ‘Engine trouble, claims Buchia, but my point is, whether it’s cholera, or gastro, or whatever, they’d better hire more khandhias. You guys should refuse to work like this. Sixteen hours, eighteen hours. .! And especially, you, a nussesalar! In my time, no hearse, no nothing. But we never saw more than two, at most three corpses in a day. Oh yes, there was another time, much worse than this, even earlier. .in my father’s day. .’

It had always been a hereditary profession. Generations of inbreeding within families belonging to the small sub-caste of corpse bearers — together with a self-imposed and socially enforced isolation — had rendered them freakish, awkward and genetically unsound. How completely sad and despairing then, that corpse bearers continue to squirm and thrash about while trying to find ways to escape its inherited tyranny. My own case was completely unusual, of course: people were usually shocked and disbelieving when they learned that I voluntarily chose to marry a khandhia’s daughter, opting for a life at the Towers of Silence.