এক
Leela hopscotches in the triangular patch of sun. “Rays grow demons,” Didi reprimands,
“bide in the shade, child.” Leela scowls. Inside the kitchen is dark and cold. Leela sits crosslegged. The flagstone floor stings.
“Rani’s always in sun. Hasn’t turned demon.”
Rani chuckles. “O? Pundit, na?” Spreads wet linen across the balustrade.
“If you were demon you’d gobble us already.”
“Tsk. Happens, I wait for you to fatten,” Rani retorts.
“Enough nonsense. Child eat,” Didi chides. Leela glares at the stew. Mashes the
congealing gourds.
“I was wed to a demon once,” great-aunt Meera hisses. The clock pauses. The rafters bate
their breath. Leela watches the swaddled form. A shadow among the shadows. Counts quietly: ek
elephant, tho elephant, thegn elephant, char…Meera returns to chewing paan. The clock resumes
ticking. The rafters groan to mask the silence. Rani begins humming a film melody. Leela sighs.
Another unspooled tale. If Meera weren’t so sinister Leela would demand the rest.
Didi’s patience has ended. “Hurry up, finish child!”
দুই
Prayer hunched behind Leela, Rani untangles curls. “Did Meera-ji really marry a
monster?” Leela asks.
Rani loves gossip. “Much worse: Satan possessed!”
Leela’s eyes widen. “What was done?”
Rani repositions for comfort. “What wasn’t? Bewitched poor Meera. Tore apart the
sisters. Almost ruined family.”
Leela wonders how to pump for more details. Rani yanks strands between gnarled
fingers. “Oof,” Leela rebukes, “must you hurt me always?”
“Tsk. Beauty: pain. Else you become an ogre like me: ugly, alone, stuck here world
without end.”
“Don’t you like taking care of us?”
“What else? But, eta karma not yours.”
“What’s meant for me?”
“You?” Rani smooths Leela’s palm. Traces the overlapping meshed contours with a
stubby index tip. “Many many choices: repeat bad past, repeat good past, repeat unknown past,
walk new path.”
Leela giggles, folds the tickled palm. “How will I choose?”
“With care,” Rani advises.
িতন
Each night Leela climbs the drowned house. Each night searches the labyrinth of
abandoned quarters for Didi and Rani. Each night tentacled kelp foresting the courtyard morph
into great-aunts’ bodies. Each night the shriveled aunts pursue their great-niece, ravenous. Each
night Leela screams but no sound broadcasts. Each night presses its flesh into the cavity that
once was Leela. Each night blooms into an ordinary day.
চার
Wailing wakens Leela. Is it an owl outside the window? A ghost escaped from the
nightmare? Padded footsteps tattoo past. Leela recognizes the swish of Rani’s sari. Murmurs in
the distance. Hinges creak as Leela spies the landing. Rustlings on the forbidden third floor.
Wailing clarifies, sonorous, forlorn.
“Ey, if serpent lady spots you: chk,” Rani warns, slicing thumb across throat, “be off!”
Leela follows Rani, “Who’s crying? Why?”
“Your great-aunt Sima.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“Same-same. Being haunted.”
“Why? By who?”
Rani’s head bobbles. “Who else? Chota may. If ma refuses to quash longing, what can
child do but reappear?” Leela gulps. “Fear not,” Rani assures, “ghost only visits Sima-ji.”
“Is missing someone bad for us?”
“Too much wishing for dead to bear,” Rani replies, “they can’t move on.” Leela’s
diaphragm squeezes in anguish.
পাঁচ
When great-aunt Patna catches pneumonia, grandmother tasks Leela to convoy lentil
soup. “Why me? Patna didi scares me.” Leela pleads.
“Rubbish,” Didi admonishes. “You live in this house, time to shoulder responsibilities.”
“Not fair,” Leela grumbles to Rani, “why do we have to obey Didi?”
“Who provides, commands,” Rani philosophizes.
The room smells of camphor and wet rag. Great-aunt Patna’s prune face peeps from
under the coverlet. Wrinkled talons clutch the sheets.
“Kone?”
Leela panics. Language fails. Words stick in throat, foreign objects. “Didi soup,” Leela
croaks.
“Oh…Kamala’r may?” Patna wriggles into a taller posture. “Ay, ay,” Patna mumbles,
gesturing closer. Like a baby bird, Patna’s mouth gapes, waiting to be fed.
Leela grimaces. Awkwardly spoons liquid, most of which dribbles down great-aunt’s
chin. Patna utters little sounds of guttural pleasure.
“Atcha, atcha, bash,” Patna declares, gripping Leela’s wrist like a vise. Gimlet eyes
probe. Fearful, Leela slinks off the bed. Patna cackles. “Harsh la key ma. Saab soma chute chi lo.
Ek din achoo door chute lo, cay oh coup jay par lo na.” Leela gasps. Somehow the garbled
speech makes sense, “just like your ma: ever running. One day ran off so far no one could find.”
From downstairs Didi’s voice floats up. Leela hurtles out, straight into Rani. Soup
splatters everywhere. “Oof! What happened? Were you frightened?”
Ashamed to admit, Leela scoffs, “you’re frightened!” Dashes away.
ছয়
“Did Ma skip to America because of Didi?”
Iron hovers over fabric. Rani ogles Leela. “Who says?” Leela fidgets. “Hmph. Going to
believe Patna-ji’s stories?”
“Why did mummy leave then?”
Neck scrunched against right ear, Rani mutters, “This house not proper for all.”
A single beam accentuates suspended dust motes. Leela watches them frolic. “Maybe it
didn’t feel home here?”
Rani snorts. “Home is house of mother father.”
Leela frowns. “Your ma and baba not here. Is this home for you?”
“I have no other.”
সাত
Didi herself carries Patna’s food. Rani turns suspicious of Leela. “Endless digging,
digging. Dead is dead. Past past. Why this obsession? You want more spirits amok? Stop
plaguing granny.” Leela had never heard Rani scolding Didi: “Didn’t I warn you? Child’s
inherited crone blood. Soon, we’ll awash in spooks. Why not expel from this cursed house?”
Didi stands firm. “We’re family. This is where child belongs.” But, Didi doesn’t act
family. Never brushes Leela’s hair. Never narrates stories or laughs at jokes. Always calls Leela
“child,” like table, chair, carpet.
“Perhaps I’ll run away too,” Leela schemes. “Like Ma. Then they’ll understand.” What to
bring on the journey? Leela wraps jaggery confections, betel, puffed rice in one of Didi’s castoff
shawls. Waits for Rani to unlatch the front door for the early morning cross breeze. Slips out to
the quiet alley. Turns right five times, turns left five times. Arrives at an oblong tower. Mounts its
spiral staircase to look out the turret window. Beyond is a sky lit with absence, a view shrouded
in uncertainty. Fear thickens Leela’s bones. Oh, to be in the safety of Didi’s criticisms, the solace
of Rani’s harsh hands! The spire bell rings five times.
আট
Heat so corpulent it vapors up in waves, shimmering the quadrangle into a lake. Leela
returns to an empty house, hungry and hollow. There is no food in the kitchen. Plastic smothers
table, chair, carpet. Just like in the dream, Leela seeks Didi and Rani through confusion of
rooms. There is no Didi, no Rani. There is no Meera-ji staring at the clock. The clock is silent.
There is no clock. The dust doesn’t dance. There is no Sima-ji crying. There is no Patna-ji
roosting on the bed. There is no body. Even the ghosts have fled.
Outside Leela’s window clouds herd, wraiths awaiting freedom.
❦