Deep in the Countryside
It’s almost 4am. I rub at my sore eyes, and try to concentrate on the book spread open on the desk in front of me. The warm orange glow from the tungsten filaments of the table lamp illuminates the pages. It’s no use. I’ve been reading the same sentence for the last ten minutes without taking in any meaning. I can hear the joints in my back pop as I stretch. Pushing back from the desk, I stand up and arch my back, in an attempt to relieve the soreness.
Turning off the table lamp I look outside my window. Through the bars I can see the bluish hue that precedes the light of dawn. Everything is swathed in it. A square of yellow light shines through the overhead window of the latrine across the front yard. I wonder if anyone else is awake right now, or if someone just forgot to turn it off. Beyond that over the roofs of our tenants’ houses, I can see the land stretching out and the dark trees standing tall against the open fields. I feel the need to use the toilet myself, so I make my way out of my room.
I step out onto the first floor landing. The living room below is blanketed in darkness. Over the deadly silence, I can hear a pained moan coming from downstairs. That would be Jhorna. She’s been like that for the last two nights, hiding under my nanu’s bed.
Two days ago, around midnight, I was studying in my room for my ongoing exams. Suddenly, I heard a crash, followed by someone yelling “Oh baba go, maa go, amake bachaan!” I rushed downstairs to see what all the commotion was about, nearly crashing into my mother who had also been alerted by the scream. We discovered Jhorna sprawled senseless across the steps halfway along the staircase. My mother told me to quickly carry her to my nanu’s room, since Jhorna usually slept on the floor beside my nanu’s bed. As we put her down on a mat beside the bed, nanu woke with a start, and started asking what happened. I’d like to know that myself, I thought. My mother sprayed some water on to Jhorna’s face, and her eyes flickered open. Once she’d realized where she was, she got up with surprising haste, and almost hurt herself trying to get under the bed.
“What are you doing? What happened?” asked my mother.
“I saw. I saw,” came Jhorna’s whimpering voice from under the bed.
“What? What did you see?” I asked, impatient.
She didn’t respond for a while. I was just about to repeat the question, when she said, “I was taking a shower because the weather was so warm and couldn’t sleep. Suddenly, I experienced a weight on my shoulders. Like a demon had jumped onto them!”
Now, the sceptic in me was starting to rear its head. Really? A demon?
“A demon! What?! But what did you see?” asked my mother.
“The demon held on tight. I thought it would strangle me to death!” cried Jhorna. She was sobbing heavily now, her words almost indecipherable over her whimpers. Then she continued, “I managed to grab hold of the wrinkly arms around my neck and pushed the demon off.”
Oh, a wrinkly skinned demon? And you pushed it off too? Whatever next? I was almost on my way back upstairs now. Mum and nanu looked appropriately shook and convinced by this story, but I didn’t have time to listen anymore. I had an exam to study for.
“I ran across the yard towards the house immediately, and I wanted to rush to khalamma’s room but then…”
“Then what?” prompted my mother. Despite my scepticism, I halted in my tracks, curiosity getting the better of me. Jhorna’s breathing was getting more laboured.
“Then I saw. At the top of the staircase, blocking my way… a black figure, but not human. It looked as if it was not even solid, like a shadow, or some dense other worldly smoke. And... and...” she sobbed harder than ever, “...it had two big blood red eyes!”
With that, Jhorna theatrically fainted again, though I suspected this time it was staged. I sighed and mentally admonished myself for my morbid curiosity. She had clearly made up some horror story to entertain herself, or gotten scared of her own shadow and the wind. I couldn’t blame her. There wasn’t much to be entertained by around this boring countryside anyway. I shook my head in exasperation and went upstairs to my room.
Now however, standing on the first floor landing of a house that seemed oddly alive in the darkness, with only Jhorna’s whimpers and cicadas chirping in the distance to alleviate the silence, the memory of her story is making my heart beat faster. I tell myself to get over it, and make my way downstairs and out the front door without looking back.
As I step out of the house, my heartbeat returns to a more sedate pace. There is stillness in the air, the leaves on the surrounding trees, motionless. It’s a warm windless summer night. I hurriedly walk towards the latrine, and pull open the door before I can recall Jhorna’s experience in here too vividly. And then I stop in my tracks.
There’s an old woman wrapped in a white saree sitting in the corner of the bathroom. I know her as Jamal-er ma. She used to work at our house till a few weeks ago. I hadn’t expected her to be sitting here, for obvious reasons, and my body gears up again with the flight or fight response, heart beating so hard against my ribs, I’m afraid they might crack. My head however, is oddly calm.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
She doesn’t reply. She doesn’t even look up at me.
I decide to ignore her as well. I walk past her, towards the squatting pan, and relieve myself. I make sure to not turn my back towards her, even though it makes me somewhat uncomfortable. No sudden movements, I tell myself. Once I’m done, I slowly rise, and begin to wash my hands, keeping her in my vision all the while.
“Are you the one who’s been disturbing Jhorna?” I ask in a steady voice. At this, she laughs.
“Just a little joke,” she says.
“What do you want from her? Why have you returned?” I ask, sounding braver than I feel.
Again, she remains silent. I steel myself before asking the next question.
“Will you let me leave and go back to my room now?”
For a while, she doesn’t reply. Then finally, she nods.
I firmly walk past her, cross the corridor, walk up the stairs and close the door after I enter my room. I don’t let myself think of anything before I get into bed and wrap my blanket around my shoulders. I can feel the perspiration all over my body, but I hold onto the blanket for dear life. When I close my eyes, the only thing I can see is Jamal-er ma’s face, a face I saw I last saw at her funeral a couple weeks ago.
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