THE PUPPETEERS OF PALEM Read online

  ‘Not with money.’

  ‘What… what do you mean, babu?’

  ‘You could…ask Lachi to come by my house for Shivaratri… you know, run a few errands around the house.’ And pathetically, he had added, ‘Just for the night.’

  Just for the night.

  She had not screamed, she had not scratched, she had not tensed for one moment. She had just stared back at him like a corpse would. And her eyes asked the same question again and again, in disbelief, ‘You too, Gopalam?’

  Outside, the pathetic drunkard drank and sang his troubles away, Avadhani’s soothing voice in his ear, ‘Gopalam will look after Lachi for tonight. You don’t worry about her. Drink. One more?’ And a packet of sarai would pop.

  Yes, pathetic, pathetic fool of a drunkard. He had repeated the words over and over in his mind with such force that they spilled over onto his lips, and he had said nothing more than that all night in response to her empty stares. ‘Pathetic, pathetic fool of a husband, you’ve got. An animal! A bastard! There! Out there, drinking, when I am here with you!’

  And her eyes would only say, ‘You too?’

  In that one night, he had struck off the memory of Prabhakarayya. By stamping on the person under him in the chain, he had become Prabhakarayya’s equal, which was why he was now feeling a strange sense of kinship with the man.

  Surekha had to go; what was left of her but an empty shell? He could see that she had known. She might not have known the details, but she must have got the gist. Surekha was good like that. So when he had suggested it was time, she had merely nodded. Her only question was what would happen to Chotu.

  ‘Mother will look after him,’ he had said, and she had nodded again.

  Poison for her—painless, swift. Drowning for him—excruciating, slow.

  A crow cawed once in the distance, as if giving the signal. He jumped.

  Chapter Twenty

  Diary of Sonali Rao

  March 10, 2002

  Dear Shilpi,

  How many days has it been since I last wrote to you? I am starting to lose track of time over here. My sleeping time has increased; I sleep for fourteen hours a day now. I go to bed at around nine and don’t wake up until at least mid-day. I close my eyes and open them the next instant, I feel, and yet, the clock tells me I have been knocked out for fourteen hours.

  My recollection of my dreams has improved. Lately, I’ve been dreaming of the sarai shop. I don’t see people there—merely shadows—but I hear their voices clearly. One of them is sober, so his voice is strong and steady, but the other one slurs a little.

  ‘She… she wants me to stop, Ayya.’

  ‘Stop what, Sanga?’ the steady one says.

  ‘This… this drinking… She says drinking will be the end of me, the end of us… We’re already in debt…’

  ‘Sanga.’ The voice is soft and soothing. I hear liquid being poured into a glass. ‘Women don’t drink because they don’t need to drink.’

  ‘Hmm…’

  ‘But we, men, we have troubles. We work hard. We need our refreshment.’

  ‘Hmm, yes Ayya, but she says…’

  ‘I will give you money, Sanga. I will give you money. Whenever you want it, you come to me. Don’t go to her.’

  I hear gulps. Gulp. Gulp. Gulp. When the slurry one speaks, his voice trembles even more than before. ‘Ye—yes, Ayya. I will tell her. I will tell her tonight.’

  ‘Yes, you go and tell her. If she doesn’t listen…’

  ‘I will make her listen. I will make her.’

  ‘Orey Sanga,’ the steady one calls out as the other shadow moves away. ‘Remember, she is your wife. Not the other way round.’

  Then the darkness dissolves, everything becomes bright and sunny and dry. I am floating on top of a well, facing a man standing at the end of a stump directly above the water. It is not a place I’ve been to in the village, but the well looks identical to the one behind our house. Yet, the terrain is not the same. There are no trees, there is no water in sight, in any direction. All I can see is the dried, crusted earth.

  The man looks up at me with a tired, vacant pair of eyes. I extend my arms in his direction and nod at him.

  He jumps. I watch him disappear into the water and reappear again. I see his thrashing arms and legs and frantic efforts to breathe. I stare at him until his body tires out and his eyes close. He slips under the surface, still and silent. But I keep staring until he floats, puffy and white and soaked.

  And then, Shilpi, you know what I do? I laugh. I laugh at him.

  I told Avva about it and she just smiled and sang a song. She has a nice singing voice, Avva. But she sings the same song again and again. It’s an old Telugu tune. It goes like this… Challani raja O Chandamama…

  Love,

  Sonali

  Chapter Twenty One

  2001

  ‘You will not leave me? You will take me with you?’

  They lay on the cot. Somewhere between their entwined bodies, their hands linked. The wick of the lamp was drawn half-way.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘As soon as we finish this.’

  ‘You know, I’ve thought of killing myself so many times. So many times.’

  He stroked her hair gently and looked at her.

  ‘Why did you leave me? Why didn’t you tell me before you left?’

  ‘I couldn’t.’

  ‘I don’t know what kept me alive all these years. I don’t know what made me think—no, not think—hope. It was just hope.’

  ‘We will leave tomorrow. Together. I promise.’

  ‘All of them—so many of them—came here after you left. Some of them paid. Most of them didn’t.’

  ‘Shh.’

  ‘I would have died. I wanted to. Every single day since you left, I wanted to. Twice, I almost did.’

  ‘Shh, I am telling you—I won’t leave you again. We will leave tomorrow.’

  ‘This is what you said last time, no, Aravind? I remember the day you left. You promised to come back.’

  ‘And I did.’

  ‘Yes… yes, you did…’

  For a time, their deep, languid breaths were the only sounds in the room. Daybreak was an hour away. The sky was turning the first shade of grey.

  ‘Why don’t we leave today, Aravind? Why don’t we leave now?’

  He paused. ‘We need to figure out a few things that are happening here.’

  ‘You mean… about who killed Ramana?’

  ‘Yes, and about the village itself.’

  ‘Oh. Okay. But will it be done by tomorrow?’

  ‘It will. Even if it doesn’t, we will go.’

  ‘You promise?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know, Aravind, I am so happy now. I have waited so long for you to come back. Somehow, deep in my mind, I knew you would come back. Someday.’

  ‘Shh. Go to sleep.’

  She nuzzled her head against his chest. ‘I am so happy now. I don’t need anything else in the world.’

  ‘Shh.’

  ‘You… you will not leave me again over here?’

  ‘No,’ he said sternly. ‘I came here for you. I will take you.’

  ‘I don’t know what will happen to me if you—’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘I am so happy you’re back… so happy… take me away… please take me away…’

  He reached under the cot and brought out a snail-shell with a peacock feather mounted on top. He gave it to her.

  ‘Take me away… please don’t leave me here again…’ She took the shell from his hand and smiled at it. Her voice faded away in a murmur.

  In the dim light of the lantern, he saw two yellow lizards on the wall, limbs and tails entwined.

  ‘What are they doing?’ he asked, lifting their linked hands and pointing.

  She giggled. ‘Oh, Aravind.’

  He did not smile. He wrenched his head away and stared at the greying sky instead.

  When Chanti opened the door and s
tepped in, he saw the candle burning and both cane chairs occupied.

  ‘Did you go for a walk?’ Chotu asked.

  ‘And where is Aravind?’ Sarayu said.

  Chanti closed the door behind him, left his slippers near the door and sat on the floor by the wall. ‘I saw Aravind leave the house in the middle of the night and followed him.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘He says they are going to leave tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ Chotu said. ‘He thinks we are going to be done with this by tomorrow?’

  ‘He said he will leave tomorrow no matter what.’

  ‘Hmm, that’s interesting.’ He looked at Sarayu. ‘Do you know why he is in such a hurry to leave?’

  Sarayu asked Chanti, ‘Who’s they?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘You said you heard Aravind say ‘they’ are going to leave tomorrow. Who’s they?’

  ‘Oh, he was with Seeta.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ Sarayu asked.

  Chanti nodded. ‘He said he was going to take her back. They… they sounded like they’ve had some history back when we used to live here.’

  Chotu asked again, ‘But why is he in such a hurry to leave?’

  ‘He doesn’t care about the village. He told us that already.’

  ‘Or is he afraid of something? Has he done something that he knows will be found out if he stays back here?’

  ‘Stop beating around the bush, Chotu,’ Sarayu snapped. ‘If you want to say something, say it clearly so people can understand.’

  ‘I am saying,’ Chotu explained, ‘that he lied about going to the Shivalayam yesterday afternoon. I know he was not there because I was there.’

  ‘Indeed?’ she said, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘Yes,’ he said testily. ‘You don’t have to be sarcastic about it.’

  ‘And did anyone see you there? Do we have anything but your word for it?’

  ‘I… what are you trying to say?’

  ‘Well, he says he was at the Shivalayam and not at the school. You’re saying you were at the Shivalayam and not at the school. Neither of you have witnesses. So what makes your version correct?’

  ‘Are you saying I killed Ramana?’

  ‘I am not saying anything, you idiot,’ Sarayu said. ‘But the way I see it, it is possible that you were at the school and he was at the Shivalayam. Since both of you have no witnesses, his version is as close to the truth as yours.’ Then she looked at Chanti and asked, ‘Don’t you agree, Chanti?’

  ‘Hmm? Yes. I hadn’t thought of that.’

  ‘In that case,’ Chotu said to Sarayu, his voice rising a little, ‘you are not off the hook either.’

  ‘Me? I was the first to arrive, you oaf.’

  ‘You were the first among the four of us. But none of us actually know when Ramana arrived. If he came by the first bus, then you would have arrived after him. You could easily have been at the school at the same time Ramana was.’

  Sarayu pursed and twisted her lips. ‘You’re right. I could have been.’ She then smiled crookedly at Chanti. ‘So could you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes. You arrived at Thatha’s place after I did. What could have stopped you from going to the school, finishing Ramana off and then coming here?’

  ‘But… but I came by the afternoon bus. Would Ramana have been standing there at the school all morning?’

  ‘We don’t know, do we? For all of the morning and all of the afternoon, the village was absolutely dead. There was no one about. So it is conceivable that you had the opportunity to kill him, too.’

  ‘But why would I kill Ramana?’

  Sarayu sat back and folded her hands. ‘Why would I kill Ramana?’

  ‘And why would I kill Ramana?’ Chotu said. ‘On the other hand, we know that Aravind and Ramana…’ he let that hang in the air, incomplete. ‘Also, I’ve been reading a lot of guilt in him ever since he got here.’

  Sarayu said, ‘But you’ve had your own gripes against Aravind, haven’t you?’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Chotu said, lowering his head.

  ‘Really? Ever since Aravind stamped you down in that well, you’ve hated him.’

  ‘I could have drowned,’ Chotu replied in anger.

  ‘Yes, yes, you could have. So you do hate him still. And you tell us that you’ve read guilt in Aravind, with those abilities that did not pick up anything in the field whatsoever, those abilities that are probably non-existent.’

  ‘You’re wrong.’

  ‘You could be telling the truth,’ Sarayu said. ‘But unless you have anything as hard evidence, how will we know that it wasn’t you who killed Ramana and you’re just using this opportunity to frame Aravind?’

  ‘Besides…’ Chanti said. ‘Just because you read guilt in him doesn’t mean he has done it. He could be feeling guilty about something else.’

  Sarayu said approvingly, ‘Very good, Chanti.’ To Chotu she said, ‘But why do we think it has to be one of us who killed Ramana? It could have been anyone from the village. If she really wanted to kill Ramana, would she have chosen one of us to do it? It would have been a lot easier for her to pick one of the other villagers for the job. Yes?’

  Chanti nodded uncertainly, looking at Chotu as if for approval.

  Chotu shook his head. ‘Something is not quite right. I did not feel her… at all.’

  ‘Great, just because you couldn’t feel her, she isn’t there?’

  Chanti said, ‘But the crowd! They all came when we went to dig. They were all there. Doesn’t that prove that she was there?’

  Sarayu nodded at Chanti. ‘Very good again, Chanti.’

  ‘I don’t know…’ Chotu said. ‘Something doesn’t just feel right.’ He looked out of the window. In the smoky darkness, a figure appeared at the gate and made its way to the side door. A latch clicked to give way, a door sneaked open and close, a latch clicked again.

  ‘On the other hand,’ Sarayu said slowly, wonderingly, a thoughtful smile playing on her lips. ‘On the other hand, Aravind and Seeta… Aravind? And Seeta? Really?’

  They walked through the tamarind bushes, listening to the sounds of crickets all around them.

  ‘Nothing has changed,’ said Chotu, kicking away the thorny branches that bent in his path. ‘Remember the night? It was equally noisy back then too.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Aravind said.

  ‘I want to ask you something.’ Chotu looked down at the ground intently. ‘Remember the day you drowned me? In Saraswatamma’s well?’

  Aravind said, ‘Yes, what about it?’

  ‘If Ramana had not saved me, would I have died?’

  Aravind shrugged. ‘You already knew how to swim. Besides, no one ever died of being stamped in a well. You go down, you always come up.’

  ‘Not always,’ Chotu said. ‘My father didn’t.’

  ‘Nobody stamped on your father. He jumped in.’

  ‘He was terrified of water, and yet he jumped in. I’ve always wondered about that. That, and why he poisoned my mother.’

  Aravind nodded at the way in front of them. ‘Do you think we’re going to find her over there?’

  Chotu shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I don’t feel anything.’

  ‘Not even a crazy mob?’

  ‘Especially not a crazy mob.’

  ‘That’s a relief.’

  They walked around the bend in silence. No crows could be heard today. From somewhere afar, they heard a koel call, then another, and another. The Arthur Cotton dam stood in the distance, its gates closed. Even from such a distance, the green lines of age were visible on its walls.

  ‘This is a village of death,’ Chotu declared.

  ‘Boy, you’re in a good mood this morning.’

  ‘Think about it. Every landmark in our village is named after someone who has died there. Ellamma Cheruvu, Mandiramma Banda, and now they will name the school after Ramana.’ Chotu lumbered on, beating the branches with his stick, stamping on them with his feet and breathing hard.
‘Even when we were young, remember how many people died at the same time? My parents, Sarayu’s father, Ramana’s brother, your father…’

  ‘What are you getting at?’ Aravind barked.

  ‘I am saying there is a history of death associated with this village. I never thought of it that way when I lived here, but now, thinking back… even the story of Pichi Lachi is a story of death. She killed her husband and killed herself.’

  ‘Well…’ Aravind said. ‘All the more reason for us to get out of here.’

  They entered the compound of the Shivalayam and stood by the disused well. Chotu went to the edge, peered over and said, ‘You know, I was here yesterday.’

  Aravind did not reply.

  ‘In the afternoon,’ Chotu said, and turned around to face Aravind directly. ‘When you said you were here.’

  ‘What were you doing here?’ Aravind asked.

  ‘That’s irrelevant. The point is that I was here and you were not.’

  Aravind did not speak for a moment. He looked at the well, then up into the sky. The sky was grey now, and the stars of the night sky were gradually winkling out one by one. It was going to be yet another clear day once the sun came out.

  He focused his eyes back on Chotu. ‘Do you have any witnesses that saw you here?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘Are you admitting you’re lying too?’

  ‘What has this got to do with anything?’

  Chotu took a step closer to him and looked down at Aravind. ‘It has got everything to do with whether you were at the school during the time you said you were here.’

  Aravind looked at Chotu, blankness in his eyes turning into incredulity. ‘You think I killed Ramana?’

  ‘Can you prove that you didn’t?’

  ‘You’re an idiot,’ Aravind said. ‘Shall we stop this nonsense and get back to what we came here for?’

  ‘Where were you yesterday in the afternoon?’

  ‘It’s none of your business.’

  Chotu frowned at him. ‘You were at the school, weren’t you?’

  ‘I was not.’

  ‘Prove it!’

  ‘Why do I have to prove anything to you?’ Aravind took a step back but Chotu covered the distance. ‘How can I believe that it isn’t you who killed him?’