Spirits don’t cry! Why, my husband did. You don’t believe me, do you now? The truth remains that he did. And for the reasons best known to the world of spirits, we don’t share our secrets with the rest, you know, the living ones I mean. Lor, lor, lor… he cried with such a tenacious heart that his eyes sank deeper and deeper as he knuckled them like a schoolboy does when someone steals his hat or a peacock feather tucked in dog-eared class notebook or a pencil sharpener. He cried and cried.
And he cried a little more. My heart melt away like wax under a candle’s flame that is caught in a fiery draught coming in through an open window at night. The fluttering orange and blue flames of his shame melt my waxen heart until it became matted, pale, amorphous, and loosely sputtered on the wooden plinth of my soul. We have been married for a very long time. We were married before we were cut loose form the captive overcoats of our human frames. It is generally agreed that the matrimony ceases to bind the husband and wife after they are regurgitated from life. As spirits hanging with feet from large boughs of banyan trees with our eyes cast on the grim epithet-carved tombstones of the graveyard, we no longer are bound by the vows and fancies that the living splayed on us. Spirits are free to choose. Spirits are polygamous. Well, most of them are. But betal and I were so close to each other that we decided to continue our matrimonial relationship beyond the grave, in the grave so to speak. We fancied each other, as they say in your world.
Two weeks ago, I, the wife of the infamous Betal, have promised my husband to avenge his shame. Vikram, his nemesis, arch enemy, has been the reason for considerable annoyance and grievance in my family. I will avenge my husband’s shame and that is all you need to know. I thought I would hint at, merely let you glance at the shadow of shame, not the sole of shame, for as I have mentioned earlier, it remains a secret within the family. But I must confess I have made up my mind. It’s a shame and shame remains a secret until such time as I see it befitting to split it open like a fig fruit and expose the seedy contents inside. Now is not the time, far from it I dare say!
I won’t mull over the past. Future is spread before my feet like the variegated shingle on a beach under clear sunny morning. Here, a susurrating wave tosses one horsehead of wave up in the air to stay there for a while and the heaving hiss rolls it back inside. The smooth roll of the pebble, the glimmer of a trough of water sheath, the bow expanse of the horizon, the blue sky and its white mange diseased clouds, the boulder and the funny mossy green tendrils on its underbelly, the breeze, the licking sound of the waves as though an invisible monster was licking the palate of its mouth with a largish-sharpish tongue…
So on and so forth. You must forgive me. We, the wives of spirits are a strange lot. We give in to ramblings a lot. We also speak in metaphors a lot. You must have figured that out by now. In fact, come to think of it, did not you already know so much about us from the stories? Be patient and I assure you, there is always a good story to be told. You are a guest here. Under betal’s roof, everyone is treated well with a nice story. Here we go, plunge headlong into the story I am about to tell you.
That reminds me, last night when I was fast asleep with my spirit encased in a new corpse that was buried the same day, under the crescent moon, as few ghoulish clouds swam past and cast sinister shadows on the graveyard; when the wolves howled and something ululated from the shadows beneath the rustling thicket of bushes; when the dry yellow leaves rattled past overhead, when the sound of horse hooves rumbled in my dream; when the overhangs of banyan roots, like the extended earlobes of the tree, heard for a twitch of my upper lip; when all this was happening, I heard a sound. It was the sound of a shovel burrowing into the fresh mound of mud overhead. The pall of darkness was not bothering the gravediggers. I shifted my weight to the left buttock as I crossed my right leg over the left in the supine state of my sleep. Why, this was my home and I don’t fancy intruders. So, I waited for them to get past the mass of porous termite-mottled red mud and dig my buttocks up in shovel-fulls. I was stationed in a new corpse that smelt like a budding rose. They say the spores of a flowery graveyard are in the new corpses. And whoever the intruders were, I was going to make their life as miserable as a spirit could the living.
After a bit of teasing around, the thin fan blade of the shovel hit the mud crested nostril of the twenty something woman in whose corpse I was stationed at that time. The gravedigger was not the sort that you imagine you would find in a graveyard looking about him hysterically shoveling away. This one was a wealthy man, red bearded, in finely ironed pinstriped black trousers and a white shirt that would have blown the day lights out of my mind. He was demure, the quality hitherto I thought only my kind (women) possessed. His lips quivered as the corpse was lifted out and his slaves, two knickered boys, brushed the crumbs of mud away from the corpse’s face. He kneeled before her like she was the goddess on an altar. He cupped her hand in his like it was the chalice that he was groping from the heavens. I saw the gloom in his eyes, the pause in his breathing when he mused, the nostrils that flared when he sighed, and the pupils that widened when he blinked. From his leather satchel, he pulled out a pair of sharp scissors and leaned before her. He expertly raised the corpse’s head and rested it on his knees. Now he proceeded to cut a strand of her ebony black hair that was frail and handsome. The fingers that clasped the scissors were tremulous as he clenched his arm tight to make a tensed cut just above her temples. Now he examined her hair for a bow made of pink satin ribbon. As he untied the ribbon, he released the corpse’s hair that breathed air as if a tight corset had been released from around a woman’s breasts. The ribbon however, by the very nature of its fabric, slipped through his fingers and with not so much as a susurrating sound, fell into the deep pit darkened with the stench of dead.
It was the bridge between the dead and the living. His slaves ignored his request. One knickered boy ran away while the other stayed behind to patiently explain to the white-shirted pinstriped-trousered man. It was a bad omen. What does the man do next? Why, he jumps inside right away, doesn’t he! He retrieved the ribbon that was hemmed with bright pink lace and had his name knitted across it in the middle. He stayed inside the pit for a while as he fingered the ribbon, crossed his heart and clenched it between his dry lips that were muddy with grave wind. Once outside, he closed the lid of the gold lettered box in which he collected the strands of hair and the ribbon in two separate red velvety blocks. He tucked the turquoise painted box in his arm pit and hurried past two very old brick ledges whose epitaphs were washed away by the corrosive simmering sights of spirits that stationed inside them. On his horse’s saddle was a pouch that clanked when he tugged at it. He drew the sash tightly round the neck of the pouch after swaddling the box with hair and ribbon inside it.
He strode back to the tomb and mumbled few apologies that seemed to house an undercurrent of promises to revive the corpse back in his laboratory. Anyway, the corpse was flung back into the pit and mud pattered over it. Two hours later, he kicked the spurs of his boots to the rib-flanks of his horse that sported an auburn mane and was gone into the thick of the night. That, by the way, was vikram. My husband told me later. And what was he doing here? Apparently, he was trying to bring his wife back to life. And, what did my husband make out of it? After all, vikram was his nemesis! Poor thing, my husband was so dreadfully pessimistic that he was more corpse than any corpse that I had seen. He threw his head back and shrugged. I knew the look and quickly associated it with the words that were left unsaid between us - Did it matter what he thought?
No, it did not matter. But I had no stomach to say that to my husband. So I gulped the surging words back into the reservoir of my emotions. So here we are now, in the present. The wind is sprightly and the weather melancholy from yesterday’s romantic gravedigger escapade. I still remember the days when king vikram cast a spell on my husband, slung him on his left shoulder, waved the polished sheen of brilliantly thin and gleaming blade of his sword before him as he strode away from the graveyard. I remember how king vikram taunted my husband, burrowed the corpse encased shell-spirit of my husband and valiantly dashed into the kingdom, for he had promised someone that he would gift my husband. I can imagine how that vile man must have promised something that was not his in the first place. What nerve that man had! Betal was my husband, not his! What was he thinking, the pretentious, pockmarked, bat-dropping-stunk goat of a man with his Adam’s apple protruding out like a baboon’s. I ask, what was he thinking? My spirit blood boils when I think about it. Anyway, I remember those days quite clearly. Every night, the king cast a spell on my husband and walked away like he was slinging a bag of spirit bones on his broad shoulders. He was young back then. King Vikram wore his crown to graveyard. Funny man, he was! His tanned shoulders, mass of hair on his chest, the beaded chains round his neck, the tortoise shell-like armour plate and the folds of fabric round his thighs would have seduced any woman. No, not me! I was devoted to my husband and that was that.
I remember how my husband talked him into a story telling. And you know the rest. If betal tells you a story, you are in for a toss dearie! Why, my husband tricked the king on so many occasions that you would think it was humanly impossible for one man to weave such densely caustic stories of morality. Hey, but my husband was no man, and he managed just fine! Until of course, the day came when the king kept his mouth sewn-shut like an ox’s horn on its head…
The humiliation that my husband was put through... I cannot begin to tell you how bad it was. Where else would a spirit go but come back to the graveyard after whatever it was that they did to him in the kingdom. Well, he returned. And, the spirit community isolated him. He was an outcast. Betal was stripped of his rank. If he still chose to make his living in the graveyard, then he had to beggar for his life. Why, he did not even have a tree branch to sling on. Can you imagine how demeaning it is to a spirit without a branch to sling on? It is like a dog without a tail or a woman without hair. So, you see, I sheltered him like a hen does its chicken. Well, of course all was ‘swell’ until a sneaking little bugger spirit found betal encased in an old putrid termite-laden hollowed corpse. Well, you see, an outcast has to live in the chill of the outside world. Traditionally, if a spirit has brought shame to its community, then the graveyard could condemn the said spirit un-corpse-worthy. That was two weeks ago. So, there it is, I have said it. I promised myself that I would carry the secret with me to the grave (well, from one grave to another! see, we are sort of nomad spirits). But I suppose I had to tell you. Well, I had to tell someone. I am burning with rage inside.
Now to the question of what I am going to do. The avenging part! Well, the king vikram is no longer a king. He has lived for a while now. And, it turns out that he was ousted a while ago from his throne. What is he now? An old man who colours his beard red! Apart from that, being a former king, he is stinking rich and wears all the modern drapery that one could think of. But, as you have seen yourself, he still rides a horse. He prefers it over the steam carriages that ‘coo’ through the cities like segmented black snakes hissing and issuing lush smoke through the head. I am of course referring to the railways, in case you did not figure that out. If king vikram who is now just ‘vikram’ is trying to burrow his wife back from the dungeons of the dead, then I will make sure that he fails in doing so.
My search for his wife’s spirit did not take my very long or very far for that matter. She was right here under my very toes. She was new to the place and our graveyard has this policy of inducting the new-ones into our environment. There are always mentors, chosen or volunteered. It is the onus of these mentor spirits to teach the new ones how to snuggle the small of their backs comfortably in the arched hollow of a young corpse’s pelvis or how to lick your way down the lax ribs of an old corpse. One has to stay away from the chill of the night. One must, unless one is an outcast. As you can imagine, I found the mentor, bribed the stocky gentleman (gentle-spirit) and paced down the skirts of the graveyard with the new one, vikram’s wife.
Vikram’s wife’s spirit, henceforth referred to as VWS was convincingly simpleminded. In fact I would think it is not so farfetched to call her a simpleton even. I thought I had to do a bit of work in gaining her trust. Turns out, she was an easy ‘knead’. Back home, that is on the longest bough of the tree that never shivered in the chill of the night, we talked. In my time here in this graveyard, I have seen many newcomers and I have myself inducted a good lot. So, you see, when I say that VWS was just about an average spirit, I mean it.
Presently, she was shivering and the sprightly night cold was stirring a leafy branch or swaying a scrawny trunk. I took my position on the ledge of a cement tomb and gestured for her to dig into it headlong. I waited for her to crawl in with her pointy fingers. I waited until she lodged herself in the girth of a pregnant lady’s corpse that the worms were having a feast of. You see, when a spirit slips into a pregnant lady’s corpse, you better be very careful. You do your groundwork (what a word to choose, groundwork ha!). You read up the family history and ‘minutes of meeting’ from the spirits that were stationed at the time of burial. It is very important that you don’t miss any detail. Because if you do, you are a goner dearie!
To put things into a perspective, let me tell you that if you are negligent and slither your sinuous shift of a spirit into a girth that has a developed embryo, alive or dead, you never return. No magic wand can bring you back from the walls of an embryo. It must be the epithelial casing or it must be the mutating genes. Whatever it is, if the corpse has a girth and if you have heroically, hedonistically, without thought, like a pimpled teenager, dived in…. you may not come back. You see, I know this because it happened once in this graveyard.
Betal is not as smart as you think he is. If you have to know, I told him a story every night like the mistress in Arabian nights. Well, my betal, as the wonderful salacious king was not going to impale my bosom with the polished sheen of his blade. No, I was not saving myself as the thousand mistresses who could not and the one who survived a thousand nights. No, in my case, it was betal who needed surviving. And, I gladly accepted the challenge. It was never my husband’s originality but the vicarious knowledge of the stories that I told and retold until he learnt them by heart. Yes, of course betal improvised as he was slung on king vikram’s left shoulder. Well, who would not? The hilt and scabbard of king vikram’s sword with his wife’s name written across it was enough to turn any spirit into soap suds and pig slops. My husband was no better. He was an ordinary bugger who beggared for his life. Nonetheless, beggar, he may have been but my husband all the same. Why did I go to such lengths to protect his skin (well, read it ‘skin of spirit’, like a metaphor if you may. As you can see, I am one of those spirits that struggle with human language), and why did I even bother to avenge his shame is he was so bloody incapable of saving himself from a poultry-farm smelling spell, ha, yakkk!
Lor, lor, lor, he cried, didn’t he? Why, I melted away like a wax candle under a flickering flame, didn’t I! The others thought I was foolish to even spend time with the wretched fool of a spirit. Don’t you remember the beginning of the story? That was how it has always been. Betal would go ‘lor, lor, lor’ and I would tell him a story. I was more maternal than matrimonial when you come to think of it. I have protected him like a mother does its child, a hen its chicken, and a spirit its husband… well, not any other spirit, but me. I loved him outside the graveyard and I loved him inside it. But behold, I am not a woman who loves, for, she feels neglected or that she is needy and wants a man to comfort her. No dearie, I am not that woman. I am a woman who chose to care for him like a man does his wife. Yes, in our strange relationship, I have always been the caretaker, the husband. It has been an inverse relation between us.
But the conventions don’t define our relationship that well, inverse or otherwise. I am a woman who feels strongly about an egalitarian relationship. I have never liked the fellow women (human or spirit) who submitted themselves to the comely underpinnings of the societal structures. In matrimony, I wished to be an equal in everything. You must think I am a headstrong woman (spirit), but you are wrong. I am an equal and I had just that in my mind when I dabbled my feet in matrimonial waters. Betal was aware of it. He was kindhearted and it was a marriage of the sort that I always dreamed of. I had my personal space around me like the girth of a pregnant lady which he always acknowledged.
That reminds me, oh dear! The pregnant lady’s corpse! Vikram’s wife’s spirit has locked herself inside the embryo. Ah, how so comforting. I told you, I am a bit of a rambling and metaphorical story teller. So, while I rallied away like a tirade-issuing machine on feminism in a male-fascist institution, the poor thing sieved like sand through a mesh, into the embryo from where she will never return. No matter what! And that includes the strands of hair vikram tucked away in his turquoise box. Yeah, yeah, yeah! even the ribbon… Nothing matters any more. I won. I always win.
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