Part 3. Broken Nest

[NOTE: This is part of an ongoing short story. Read parts 1 and 2 before this to make any kind of sense.]

“Those nights that once were;

On rooftops when stars rained light.

Dreams that seemed impossible by day,

Came alive in the dead of night”.

Mother of mine had been a poet. It seemed like centuries ago- the memories my mind had created in its fancy. How she might have rocked my cradle at night, how she’d have recited her secret poems to my readily receptive ears. How those words swallowed whole and unquestioned must constitute to me at present. How a parent gives to their children in more than just biological ways.

The BEST bus lurched sideways as it turned the final right towards Veera Desai Road from Link Road. The height of monsoon was upon Mumbai and, like every year, the authorities had only been half-prepared. The roads were predictably holed up in craters, harvesting water. One would have expected the on-foot commuters to run for shelter given the intensity of the downpour, but the Mumbaikars were no longer naive enough to be caught unawares; people sauntered about under the cover of umbrellas as if it were a balmy Sunday afternoon.

The bus halted at what google maps indicated was the closest stop to the residence of a certain Bharam Swami. I alighted holding on tightly to my raincoat, and the sling-bag underneath. The raindrops fell harshly on my uncovered head and I ran for cover under a tea vendor’s shanty on the footpath.

Have you even felt a knot in your stomach right before a crucial moment in your life? I‘m not much into grade-boasting or scorekeeping but examinations were sort of a big deal for me growing up. As the number of days separating me from the D-day decreased, the knot in the tummy would tighten and coil itself around my intestines like an invisible viper. I‘m sure some of you all might share the feeling.

I felt that snake tightening its lethal grip around my waist as I neared the man’s house.  So far I‘d steeled myself from overt emotion because thirty years is a very long time. But that old familiar feeling of dread and peril and all things dark and ugly was coming back to me as I took slow, unsure steps towards the red pin on my mobile.  

Zilleh cooperative housing society loomed up ahead like a haunted relic. A dilapidating off-white building resembling countless other crumbling residential blocks dotting the ugly suburban landscape. Fresh raindrops had drenched the buildings sheathing the few top floors in a deeper hue. Paint peeled off from the walls and exposed the cement underneath. A rusting brass gate swung untethered by the gust of cold wind. No one questioned who I was or where I wanted to go at the gate; the guards did not bother in the heavy rain. The old fashioned complex had two blocks: A and B, both having four storeys and a narrow flight of stairs leading to two cubbyhole houses on each floor’s landing.

My steps grew heavy and difficult and my breath grew more labored. My hands were now shaking not so much from the dampness but from an indescribable dread. There should have been people here, at least a small group of mourners outside house number 242. I started to climb up the stairs, an uncomfortable rigidity catching hold of my legs. As if someone had left their bicycle unoiled for too long. 

 At the first floor landing I felt like throwing up. I supported myself against the railing. I could make out some faint activity emanating from the floor above. A general sound of people. Some thoughtful  undertones. I struggled to climb the last flight of stairs, choking up, unsure of what I would encounter, the monsters in my chest heaving and throbbing. The curiously numbered 242 lay just out of the corner of my sight now. The man responsible for my broken nest lay dead a few feet away from me but his ghost appeared before my eyes. I felt myself going weak and my limbs collapsed under their own weight. I fell with a thud and a sharp stinging pain at the back of my head. The apparition straddled and crouched close to me.

 I slipped into the dreams of past…

*

The Kotkars ensure her daughter sleeps in their room, the door firmly closed on their fights. But they do not anticipate Namah’s curiosity. She slips out every night, woken up by the deafening screaming matches, and becomes a voyeur to their violence.

“We must end this.  Cannot go on like this, like nothing ever happened.”

Namah presses her ear against the door.

“Why do you assume I can? You think it’s not hard on me? Living through everyday?”

“This is it. I want a divorce; a proper one. You don’t get to touch me-“

A chair is overturned. 

Father is attacking mother!

Someone is thrown against the door. 

She’s hurt her head! What do I do?

Namah steps away from the door but does not dart back into her room like the last time. The door is ajar now, allowing a better view of perpetrator and the perpetrated...

Her memory starts to crack and shatter. She is not sure what she is seeing; perhaps her mind is playing tricks. In a flash of memory, she realizes everything. The rapist. The obituary. The face. Ms. Taraporevala. And the monster under her bed.

*

I woke up inside the apartment that had been my destination. I could see a bunch of solemn mourners huddling around me instead of…the deceased. Awkwardly, I propped myself up on my side, seeing more of the place. The living room area had been cleared for a tidy floor mat, where I had been laid out.

Someone asked me how I was feeling, but it barely registered in my brain. Something restless and anxious was growing within me; a strong revulsion for everything, and I was already zoning out once again. The pain in the back of my head returned gradually but greatly, probably from having fallen over in the staircase.

The flash of memory returned all at once. I swung around like a woman possessed. The lifeless body of M. Bharam Swami lay right behind me, draped in a modest white cloth draping it from neck to toe.

In death, his colorless face bore almost complete resemblance to the man of my nightmares: small pair of  lips pursed together unevenly, caught mid-sentence; high cheekbones - not bony - wrinkled with age; and most strikingly, round, bulging eyelids hiding a large pair of eyes.

From somewhere under the folds, the tips of his fingertips were also exposed. I frantically crawled over to the cadaver and dug up its hands. Some commotion arose behind me: alarmed voices ordered me back. Restless and almost panicking for answers, I unearthed the hands of the ‘man’, and only confirmed my greatest fears.

Feline, graceful and wrinkly as they would have grown after all those years, I knew the slender fingers of my rapist could have belonged to none other than-

‘MOTHER!’

--

[Epilogue coming soon...]