By Sohana Manzoor
“How long do we walk?” The boy asked.
The old woman with disheveled hair squinted her eyes while surveying the barren plain that lay around them. Finally, she looked at the sulking boy and said, “It hardly matters. We’ll just walk till we get there.”
The girl in her late teens looked warily at the singed-brown landscape. She could not spot a single tree or a blade of grass, let alone any other living creature. Finally, she said, “This place looks worse than the Sahara Desert. It’s like we can just die here and nobody would know.”
The woman giggled. “Die? You mean, disappear? You think it will happen anytime soon? That would be such a relief!”
The siblings looked at her with uncertainly.
As they walked, the boy said, “Did mom ever tell you about this place, Rumu Apu[1]? Why… this …” he looked about with distaste and finished the sentence with vehemence, ‘Ditch! Yes, that’s what it is – a ditch!”
His elder sister shook her head, “No, Pappu. I don’t think I ever heard of this area.” She wondered where their parents had disappeared. And where was their elder brother? Why would they just leave them at this God forsaken place in the middle of nowhere?
“We didn’t do anything bad, did we?” Pappu asked. Yes, he and his sister Rumu were having a bit of bickering in the car, but that was nothing new between the two of them.
The old woman walked ahead of them unperturbed.
Rumu said, “So, where are we headed again? Why don’t you just take us to Tilkati Lake? We can find our way from there.”
The woman stopped and looked at them with a big grin. The siblings realised with a shock that she did not have a single tooth in the cave of her mouth. Earlier, they had thought that like other village women, her teeth were plain black from chewing betel leaf with zarda[2]and tobacco leaf. For the first time, they also noticed her strange attire. Instead of a saree, she wore a greyish sack. The two shuffled uneasily and finally Pappu puffed up his chest and asked, “You know Tilkati Lake, right?”
The woman merely stared at them.
“It can’t be far from here,” Pappu persisted. “Our dad was saying that we were only a kilometer away from Tilkati Lake.”
Rumu added, “It’s very close to our grandparents’ house. You know the Chowdhuries? Hisham Chowdhury is our maternal grandfather.”
The woman finally said, “Once you’re here, you can’t go back. I will take you to the Old Man.” She turned around and said, “Follow me.”
Pappu cried, “What are you talking about? And what old man?”
Rumu clasped her brother’s hand and said, “I think she is a bit crazy. But let’s follow her— we need to get out of here.”
Rumu and Pappu trudged along with the strange woman through the parched wildernesses.
Then Pappu yelped, “What’s that?”
“Where?” Rumu looked around perplexedly.
“There, near that large rock on the left,” Pappu pointed to a boulder about twenty yards away from them.
At first, Rumu did not see anything. But as she looked carefully, she thought she saw something bright floating in the air. There was a pair of them, white and shimmering, and suddenly they flickered and disappeared.
Their companion held out her palms in a strange gesture and muttered something under her breath.
“Yes, you’ll see them sometimes,” she said.
“But what the hell are those?” Pappu was on the verge of tears.
The woman looked at them mournfully and said, “Eyes.”
Suddenly, Pappu started to bawl. He was only ten years old after all. He was also the darling of his family, born as a “sweet mistake” on his parents’ part. Used to having his wishes fulfilled all the time, the situation drove him crazy. He wanted his mother. Rumu vaguely recalled that they were driving to their grandparents’ place on the outskirts of Kumilla. Something happened when they were half a mile away from Tilkati Lake, but she could not remember exactly what.
When she woke up, she was sitting on a dirt road and the familiar green fields were replaced by a barren landscape. Pappu was lying near her on the ground and there was no sign of her parents, elder brother, or their car. She never wore a watch herself, and her mobile phone was in her purse, which was probably in the car. She tried the watch on Pappu’s hand, but it was smashed. Rumu looked up at the sky—what kind of a lurid color was that? And where was the sun?
Pappu’s incessant sobs brought her back to the present and she held him close. “There, there, don’t cry, Pappu. We’ll make it, I promise.” She looked at the woman and said sternly, “If you can’t say anything helpful, just keep quiet. Don’t scare my little brother.”
The woman shrugged and said, “But I was trying to help.”
Somewhere in the distance something howled. It was eerie and inhuman. It sounded like the lamentation of many people. Pappu sprang up and Rumu froze. They stood still hugging each other until the sound died down. Then they gritted their teeth and kept on walking.
Finally, however, they were brought to an abrupt halt in front of a tall building with an open door. Rumu looked up and realised it was not a building, but the facade of a mountain. She recalled the story of the Pied Piper of Hamlin who took the children of the town to such a mountain and disappeared through a door. She shivered, but slowly followed the woman and dragged Pappu after her. At least, they would be able to rest. Rest? She realised with a jolt that she was not actually tired. Nor was she thirsty. Yet they had walked for hours without any food or water. She bent down to look at Pappu. Unlike her, he seemed exhausted.
Rumu whispered to the woman, “Can we have some water? Pappu is tired. He needs water. And food too.”
For the first time, the woman was ruffled out of complacency. Her eyes widened as she bent down to examine Pappu. Muttering something to herself she bade them in. On entering the place, Rumu saw a long tunnel diving endlessly into some dark interior. There were small oval shaped openings on both sides of the tunnel. She ushered Rumu and Pappu into one of those holes and hurried off.
The small room was roundish in shape and the floor was smooth. There was, however, no bed or chair. Rumu sat on the floor and put Pappu’s head on her lap. After a while, the woman returned with an earthen jug. She was followed by an old man. He was small and thin and carried a staff in hand. For some reason, he reminded Rumu of Yoda from The Star Wars. The woman sat before them and poured water between Pappu’s lips, Rumu noted detachedly that there was no glass.
As Pappu slowly woke up, the woman brought out a small bowl with some fruits in it. Rumu did not recognise any of the fruits. As Pappu munched on his food, Rumu stared at their hosts who were speaking in low voices.
“Where did you find them?”
“The usual place.”
“Hmm, but the boy is not supposed to be here…”
After that Rumu could not hear anything clearly.
By then Pappu was done with eating, and he wanted to sleep. They brought out some ancient looking bedding and tried to make him comfortable. Then the old man asked Rumu to go with him. Rumu was reluctant to leave Pappu, but the old man said with a smile, “He will be safe here. Don’t worry.”
Unlike the woman, the old man seemed kind and concerned. Rumu turned to look at her brother who had already fallen asleep on the makeshift bed. She felt an acute pain in her chest as she was convinced that she would never see him again. But she had no will to protest. She felt she was living in a dream and she surrendered herself to the inevitable.
Rumu and the old man walked through the endless tunnel which looked dark. However, after a few steps, things seemed tolerably clear. The ground probably was an uneven black surface smoothed by years of usage. The walls emitted a greyish light, and they could see in the dark. But the girl suspected that her companion knew the path well and probably did not even need the light.
After a long, long walk, without any warning they reached an opening. Turning right Rumu found herself out in the open. Her feet touched something soft and she saw that she was standing on a bed of pale blue grass. Rumu realised that though the sky was still lurid, the garish landscape had softened into pastel shades here. Not too far away, there were clusters of people.
For some reason, she felt a strong urge to remember what had happened before she and her brother arrived here, but everything seemed hazy. She shook her head and went closer to the old man. She could see the people more clearly now– one woman was crying for her jewelry, another weeping over a lost child. Suddenly, a young man appeared before them and said, “Hey oldie, can’t you send me back? I just got married. I can hear my wife crying everyday.”
The old man replied, “No going back. Even if you go back, she won’t recognise you.”
The man covered his ears with both hands and howled. Then he sat down on the ground and started to sob. Rumi slowly stepped forward and asked the old man, “Can you please tell me where we are?” Her voice sounded hoarse even to her own ears.
The old man remained silent.
“Am… am I dead?”
The old man turned to look at the girl and said, “We have to wander around till we forget everything about the world we come from. No hunger or thirst. No need to rest or sleep. Here it’s all about waiting.” He raised his staff and pointed to something in the air. As Rumu squinted her eyes to see better, she noticed those strange bright things again. They shone for one last time before vanishing into the air.
“Those are the last remnants of what you call human. Once the eyes disappear, the owner of the eyes will enter the realm of the dead.”
She stared at the bright things mesmerized. “How long does it take?” she whispered.
The old man shrugged. “There’s no way to count time. No watch. No sun. But the sooner you forget the world you left the better.”
“How long have you been here?” the girl asked. “And what’s your name?”
“Time does not matter. Names neither. All those belong to the other world.”
She remembered Pappu. “Pappu…? He’s not dead, is he?”
The old man smiled. “You’re sharp. No, he’ll go back. He’s gone to sleep, and he’ll soon wake up somewhere in the old world with his family.
In the distance, she saw some people who were very small in size, and yet they were not children. Her companion said quietly, “They are closer to getting to the other side. Very soon, their bodies will disappear and only the eyes will remain. Once the eyes are gone, their journey here is over.”
“How long…” then she remembered there was no way to measure time here.
The old man said, “All you can do is wait. That’s why it’s also difficult to forget the world you left behind. But forget you must. Or you will be swirling around in this no man’s land forever.”
“No Man’s Land!” The words sounded like some kind of enchantment.
“What’s on the other side?” she asked softly.
“I don’t know. Nobody does.”
[1] Elder sister
[2] Dried and boiled tobacco leaves, limes, arecca nut, additives, spices, and tannins – used to flavour paans or betel leaves.
Sohana Manzoor is an Associate Professor at the Department of English and Humanities at ULAB, a short story writer, a translator, an essayist and an artist.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles
Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International
Borderless 