Meat

The festival of victory would be held today. Basishthada had summoned Pola. His garden-house lay in Diamond Harbour. For a long time Basishtha had been sunk in financial ruin. Only recently had his fortunes begun to turn. The house itself, however, was neglected, left to rot. Padma, Bibhuti, and Bilu arrived to find it swallowed by jungle. The rooms reeked of mould and damp. Thorny creepers had crept across walls and floor. A ceiling fan hung broken, one blade twisted like a crippled wing. Glass tumblers and liquor bottles lay scattered. Upon the wall where, during a past revelry, a goat had been slaughtered, black stains of blood still clung. To that same wall Padma tied a little kid goat.
 
By noon Basishtha would arrive from Kolkata with Pola. Their charge was to bring the imported goods. The local contraband lay hidden in jars sunk deep in the pond behind the house. Hauling them up was Bibhuti’s work. They said he could remain under water, without breath, for an hour. Wherever his hand searched along the pond-bed, he touched only sealed earthen jars. He had already pulled up two, as commanded.
 
Even in daylight one side of the house seemed drowned in shadow. The pond, dense with thickets, closed it in. Most of the lower rooms were “emergency rooms.” Whose skeletons lay numbered within which chamber—only Basishtha could say. Beside those rooms stretched the kitchen. Entering, Bibhuti was greeted by the goat wagging its tail at him. He lowered the jars, broke the seal of one with a flick of his wrist, pressed his nose to its mouth, inhaled the sharp, sour spirit, then poured a glass.
 
Meanwhile, in Kolkata, a thin drizzle fell. At Sealdah Station Pola met Basishtha. They spoke in whispers. Then together they boarded the compartment.
 
Beside Pola sat a young girl. Her face and eyes were heavy with sleep, as though she were walking through corridors of dream. Again and again she turned toward the window. She had never seen so many unknown places. A faint crease ran across her brow from the morning when she had risen; it had not yet smoothed away. That she had slept at all last night was itself a marvel.
 
For this was the first time she had run away from home.
 
Until now she had scarcely glimpsed the world beyond her doorstep. The outside world appeared to her like visions in a dream. And yet in those visions quivered the coloured outlines of a future—fear-stained, yet radiant. At intervals she woke from her drifting trance. Taking Pola’s right hand in hers, she gazed at him with dreamy, trusting eyes. A strong, virile man. All of him belonged to her. To Kaberi. The thought filled her with mingled pride and joy. She had loved one man and for that love had left home without hesitation. She had taken upon herself the burden of shame, of reproach. With her pride keeping step beside her, the train crawled forward like a tortoise, leaving the platform behind.
 
Padma meanwhile was busy with the goat, peeling away its skin. Her hands were smeared in blood. The cooking would be done at night, yet the creature had to die at noon, for its cries had begun disturbing the neighbours’ siestas. Basishtha’s house had stood empty too long. Meat-cutting, salting, dicing onions, garlic, ginger—these errands were Padma’s mastery. But when true action began, she kept herself to the rear.
 
Upstairs, Bibhuti and Bulu had already drained half a jar. With rock salt and lemon, Bibhuti was preparing a cocktail. From Bulu’s hands came the steady shuffle of cards.
 
As the train pressed onward, Kaberi’s thoughts grew heavier. In her mind’s eye she could not conjure Polash Kumar’s home. His face, his eyes—always brooding, sombre, clouded. As though he had no wish to run away at all. Did Polash fear her gangster brothers? The unease churned her head like a whirlpool.
 
The train reached Diamond Harbour an hour and a half late. At the station Kaberi was introduced to Basishtha. “He lives near my uncle’s house,” Pola said.
 
Not for a moment did Kaberi suspect how badly tangled things had become. At the sight of Basishtha her courage swelled. They took a rickshaw-van for the last stretch, chatting all the way. Pola sat in silence. For the first time in his life, he felt like a fisherman holding a rod in alien waters. Basishtha, she thought, had crossed the ghats of the Ganges, carrying filth upon his shoulders. Speaking with him, Kaberi felt there could be no man on earth more venerable.
 
The gods send demons into the land of fools, so that they may be worshipped as gods. A brick dropped into the pond; ripples spread soundlessly. Human footsteps soon shattered that silence with brutal weight. Entering the half-lit house, Kaberi felt a wave of dizziness. Basishtha had bought her a packet of peanuts. She felt reckless, as though she could face any fate by sheer virtue of her own will. As she stepped inside, it seemed the entire day collapsed and churned into her stomach, only to surge up her throat as a strangled cry. From the inner rooms four henchmen came forth to greet her. At the sight of Polash’s face, she feigned ignorance. His eyes did not reflect betrayal’s sorrow, but aloof defiance, as though sparks smouldered within them. Kaberi’s anxieties fell away.
 
Like petals trembling loose from a flower burst open, Kaberi trembled. She had never imagined such a world of fallen branches and dry leaves.
 
Evening passed into night. Yet in that house, night was perpetual. Paatan Mama entered first. Then one by one his disciples. Polash Kumar would be the last. Such had been arranged.
 
In a fevered trance Kaberi surrendered again and again, while Pola vanished into the jungle below, lost, incapable of deciding what to do with himself. From the deep pit where his body had sunk, pulling himself free was too great a labour. Would marrying Kaberi ever cleanse him of this sin? Man does many things that teach him nothing but lament.
 
The morning clouds lifted. Moonlight spread like a pall across the sky. The bed was drenched. Many flowers remain alive even after losing half their petals. Many, too, fall. When the final petal loosened, Padma understood the girl had died. He was astride a corpse. With a cry sharp as a wild beast, Padma shrieked.
 
Crouching low, Basishtha brooded, then commanded that the emergency room be opened. Bibhuti, they said, had the strongest nerves. In this garden no full corpse was ever allowed to remain. The body must be hacked into small pieces, Basishtha ordered. Bibhuti, they said, had a gifted hand for this craft. No one could tell if the pieces were goat or human. But tonight he was too drunk. He mistook Bulu for Padma, Padma for Bulu. Yet still Basishtha sent him to the ground floor with the corpse.
 
Two hours later, when the frenzy had stilled, Padma lit the hearth.
 
None of them had meant to kill the girl. After so long, a woman had died in Basishtha’s garden. So young, barely budded. What had she seen in Polash Kumar to fall into his snare? Padma wondered. Basishtha never shared his own women with others—but he always claimed the share that belonged to another man.
 
Polash was nowhere to be found. Grief-stricken, he mourned her death. Padma laughed again. Out of drunken incoherence came the words: “Pig’s child.”
 
Deep in the night Padma carried rice and meat curry upstairs. Polash was still missing. The others, their stomachs hollow with hunger, gathered. On sal-leaf plates the meat was heaped, mashed into the rice. Liquor, darkness, hunger—wild ghosts circling in the silence gone mad.
 
“Is Pola fasting for that whore’s death?” someone mocked. Laughter burst out, wild and reckless. Another said, “Was the goat in heat? This meat is good, Padma. Excellent.”
 
Something caught in Basishthada’s mouth. “The bones are too brittle,” he muttered.
 
A metallic edge pressed against his teeth. The others laughed, careless. But Basishtha’s smile vanished. In its place welled a deep terror. From his mouth he drew a silver ring.
 
The ring glimmered in Basishtha’s trembling palm, slick with spit. For an instant it seemed the whole house tilted, as though the crooked fan above might slice open the night. The laughter of his men caught, choked in their throats. Their mouths stank of liquor and flesh, yet their eyes now mirrored the terror crawling across Basishtha’s face.
 
For the meat had betrayed them. It carried within it the echo of the girl’s body, innocence butchered into unrecognizable morsels. Basishtha chewed no more. The ring slipped from his hand and struck the floor with a small metallic chime—like a pebble dropped into silence—yet it cracked the night like thunder.
 
Outside, the pond rippled as though another stone had been thrown. The jungle swayed though no wind stirred. Far within the thickets, dogs howled and fell silent. The air thickened, as though the house itself drew in one long, suffocating breath.
 
And Polash still sat among the shadows of the trees, his face buried between his knees. The jungle closed around him, and the moonlight pressed down like a lid upon his bowed back.