Anjali Joseph - The Living

This is the Voice of Heaven, and you’re listening to …

In the eighties Chinese transistor radios appeared everywhere. A few years later, the television. At first they were rented for special occasions, then people started having them at home. Deepak offered to get us one, but I didn’t want it. Later, when they got a new one they gave us the old one. She likes to watch in the evening. But when I’m alone I turn to the radio. That voice has always been with me, promising a message that will change everything, make me understand.

Why are you sitting in the dark?

She switched on the light as she said it, put something down, went to the kitchen. I used my fists to push myself up and followed. She was reheating a bhaji, the rice, the daal. Were you hungry? she said. You could have eaten.

Where did you go?

I went to see Prakash.

Oh. I moved some things on the counter, hung up the pakad at which she turned and said, I need that. Pass me the fodni spoon.

I reached for it and my back twinged. Aah.

She took the spoon from me and poured in the oil. I watched the flame lick the sides of the spoon, the oil begin to smoke.

You haven’t asked how he is, she said.

What?

Hiss! The jeera flew into the oil and began to smoke.

Your son, you haven’t asked how he is.

I stared at her. She seems smaller. She’s still slender, but the skin around her arms has slackened. Now, her air of energy has a wintery quality.

Do you happen to have any idea what he was up to? I asked. I put the jeera back where it belongs.

The garlic went into the oil. It began to crackle and fry.

Too hot, I said.

She ignored me.

The oil, I said. Perhaps she was tired. I certainly was. Well, I said, how is he?

His face is very swollen, she said sadly. Near the eye. And his mouth.

What was he thinking? I said. He’s so hot-headed. All of this came about simply because of drinking.

What would you know? she said. I could tell from her voice that she was infuriated. It’s rare that she engages with a feeling instead of stepping around it.

It’s obvious, I said. It’s motivated by thuggishness. You don’t know about men. There are different ways of going about things. Look at Deepak. He would never do something like this.

With a hiss the fodni went into the daal.

We ate in silence. I wasn’t feeling good, and I went straight to bed. She watched television for a while, I think, not long. The next time I woke the room was dark. I was thirsty and weary, and there was a dull ache in the pit of my stomach, or lower. For a moment I felt warm, and the old terror returned, the fear of having soaked the bed. My brother jumping up, kicking me, muttering something. My mother complaining. It happened only a few times, but it became part of my reputation. At your age, said my mother, as though I’d decided to indulge in an unsavoury habit. It was discussed in front of people: Arun still wets the bed. I’d stare at my feet. Once, I remember, it was my father who woke when I stumbled up. Here, he said calmly. Give me the sheet. You two go to the tap. He was soon behind us, rinsing out the sheet and the thin mat on which we slept. A short while later we were asleep again.

When I woke, late, the dull pain was still there. I missed my father, and my mother. I wanted to go home, to a home I wasn’t sure had ever existed.

I lay still for a few minutes, feeling heavy, as though after a blow.

Then I got up, everything creaking, and went out. I was desperate, but only a brief, burning trickle emerged. I began to go back inside, then once again was sure I hadn’t finished, so returned to the outhouse and leaked a few hot drops.

I don’t feel well, I told her as I came in.

I’ll heat your tea.

I don’t feel well, I said. I went to lie down.

*

In the time that followed nothing had edges. Feelings massed: the pain in my lower back, tiredness, thirst, the need to urinate, the fear of that burning.

I heard her ask if she should call someone. Who would she call?

I thought of my father. In dreams he was always walking somewhere, restless. In the last few dreams he had been carrying a single chappal. The dead are not at rest or is it we who –

The smell of parijatak. There is a bush in the garden. Sometimes my mother wears a flower in her hair. The scent is so sweet and sad, my favourite of the puja flowers.

In the morning she likes to go to the field temple. It’s a familiar walk, only half an hour. It’s the walk I like, though the place is pleasant too, the little shrine and the three enigmatic black stones, Narsoba and his wives. I forget the story but they must have been found nearby. Cucumber vines in the field we walk through to reach the temple, their tangle and ripeness, and the green smell. In the monsoon a woman is leaning over a tank and washing them before they are taken to market. We smile at her; she smiles back.

I don’t feel well. I don’t feel well. My back aches. And an image of the compounder’s shop where my father would go if we were sick, to get medicine. Its counter was lit against the evening. Feeling ill and waiting for him to return, tense with the cost of the medicine, which my mother would point out as I stood, shaky, clutching his hand.

Some distance after the temple, but in the same area, there is an abandoned well. My friend Suresh and I find it. The well is deep, with steps inside, and the water is far below, dank. One summer we go there every afternoon.

Eh re, look at this, Suresh says. What is it? Is it a pit?

I think it’s a well.

But it’s so quiet and dark. He is leaning over the edge.

It smells bad, I say.

Let’s explore it –

In the middle of this I saw my wife, a silent, severe figure sitting next to me. No, that’s not right. Not severe. Just waiting for me to be better.

It won’t happen, I told her.

What won’t?

She sat there and I missed my mother. I wished my wife would hold my hand.

I’ll never be the person you want me to be, I said.

Don’t think of me, she said. Think of your son.

I waved my hand. He –

You should think of him, he needs you.

He’s a grown man, I tried to say.

Should we go to the doctor?

No. There’s something I have to tell you, I said.

What?

Wait. I pushed myself up and wobbled out to the latrine. Everything was too bright. I saw the neighbour’s son, playing with an old bicycle wheel and a stick. He stared at me. His grandfather, a decrepit white-haired man who sits on a disused handcart, reading the newspaper, perhaps feeling that it is his private place, even the old man lifted his head and stared.

Yes, I thought, take a good look. Finally something is happening.

I was back in bed. She was nearby. Shall I call someone, she said.

Who would you call? I said. Everyone relevant is dead. Soon I’ll be dead too. Listen, there are some things I have to say. That whole business with Ratna, you didn’t know about it, but I don’t want you to misunderstand. Things happen. There’s your real life, and then there are other things — like being delayed on a journey or something. They don’t count. I mean –

The well is by a ruined house through the middle of which grows a peepal tree. The house used to belong to an Englishman in olden times. Now the walls are broken, and before it there are open fields. Behind, the jungle has started coming back.

Suresh says, The well probably has diseases. Ghosts.

Jump in and find out, I say.

You jump in.

Maybe there’s a snake at the bottom, I say, a huge snake.

A python?

A water python.

Throw this in.

A stick flies through the air. A long time later, a faraway sound.

I’m going to climb in, I say. Immediately I regret it. I turn, because it’s important to show no fear, climb the lip, and begin to descend the dark steps.