Independent Goa Observer

THE BENT WOMAN-II

Sarah’s curse on Mareenbai still baffles Jose in this concluding part of the story by BEN ANTAO.

HE STOMPED OUT the door, determined to accost this God - a God who was supposed to be good - and demand to know why He allowed Sarah to hurt Mareenbai.

He walked down the sandy path to a clearing in the grove of coconut trees and sat down with his back resting against the gnarled trunk of a tree that had seen more years than he as a human being would ever see. How should he proceed, he wondered? Should he close his eyes and bow his head, like he was attending a Mass? Should he recite the rosary, or say Our Father, or should he speak to Him the way he spoke to his friends? God was supposed to be a friend to everyone, wasn’t he? So why did He let terrible things happen to people?

“Hullo God.” He thought the words were appropriate to begin the conversation. “It’s me, Jose. I’d like to ask you a very important question, Sir.”

He thought God would be impressed to be addressed as Sir. He waited for a moment and opened one eye, squinting at the clearing to ensure he was still alone, and then he closed his eye and waited for an acknowledgement from God, rocking back and forth on his bottom, his arms wrapped around his knees.

“God?” No answer. “Hullo? Are you there?” Silence resounded in the clearing. Jose was physically uncomfortable. His feet tingled from a lack of circulation.

“I must talk to you about Mareenbai, God, it’s very important. You see she’s been bent over for a long time.” He wet his lips with his tongue and continued. “I don’t want anything for myself, God, but would you please remove the curse from her and fix her back? And God,” he steeled himself to present one more request. “Would you please punish Sarah for being so cruel?”

Jose counted to one hundred before he spoke again. “Should I come back another day? Are you too busy to talk to me today?” He wanted to give God every opportunity to address his questions. Still silence.

He opened his eyes abruptly. It was dark and still, and for a moment, he couldn’t remember where he was. The ground beneath him was moist with dew and the air was filled with the smell of the night. Moonlight flickered through the fronds of the coconut trees, casting ghostly shadows in the clearing. He intended to push himself to a kneeling position but stopped when he saw—something—he wasn’t sure who he or she was, or even if it was a he or she, just that whatever it was wore a white robe, whiter than anything he’d seen in all of his nine years. Whiter than the linen his mother used to sew shirts, whiter than soapsuds, whiter than cotton, whiter, even, than the foam on the waves rolling on the seashore. The fabric glowed with the brilliance of a thousand lights, so bright he couldn’t see a face above the robe or the feet below. The light filled the clearing, illuminating the greenery as if it were the middle of the day.

Jose tried to turn his head away. He couldn’t. He felt himself being enveloped in warmth from the top of his head to the tip of his toes, as if he was lying on the sand at the beach in the noonday sun. The warmth spread inside his body, into the deepest corners of his heart and soul. And then, his child’s mind was filled with the knowledge of the Divine, and he understood. Noone could have prepared him for this visitation. Not a priest. Not a liturgy. Not a book. Not all the teaching in the world. He felt compelled to bow his head with respect, knowing that he was in the presence of Almighty God.

The monsoons ended in mid-September, but Jose was forced to wait until late October before he could walk on the water-soaked land again.

Early on a November morning, Jose busied himself gathering manure for his mother’s garden. He lingered at the embankment before crossing over the creek, hesitating, in case Crazy Sarah happened by. He pushed himself out of the damp area and stood on the other side, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck bristle. He spun around to his right at the sound of snapping twigs and looked directly into Crazy Sarah’s eyes. They were bulged open; the whites were filled with red spider veins. She looked at him out of eyes that didn’t see. She gave no recognition that another person was on the path. Her arms were raised to waist level on either side of her, as if someone was holding them up. She was within inches of Jose and it was too late for him to move out of her way. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, knowing she was going to crash into him and knock him down, but before he could count one-two-three, she was on the other side of him, continuing her tirade down the path.

Jose opened his eyes, not believing what had just transpired. He knew there wasn’t enough room for her to go around him, but he was still standing. She hadn’t knocked him over. That meant she must have…he refused to admit the possibility and turned around to watch her as she walked away from him. Unbridled fear gripped him from head to toe. Crazy Sarah wasn’t alone. Each of her arms was held up by slimy black masses with skeleton-like arms and long claws for hands. They simultaneously swivelled their heads around to leer at Jose with their yellow, dragon-like teeth and blood-red eyes. Their heads revolved 180 degrees as they slithered down the path with Crazy Sarah secure in their grasp.

“It’s her fault. It’s her fault,” she rambled on without stopping for a breath. “She ruined my life. No one will love me now. I hate her. No one will ever want her. I made sure of that. She’s my prisoner. She’ll never be free.”

Jose’s legs felt like blocks of wood as he tried to cross back over to the safe side of the creek. His heart pounded. His hands shook and he almost toppled the container of pig droppings into the creek. He ran back to the safety of his house and slammed the door shut, startling his mother.

“You look as if you’ve seen a ghost, Jose. What happened?”

“Nothing,” he lied, determined to keep his sojourn into the spiritual world a secret. “Nothing. I don’t feel well, that’s all.”

Jose headed for his bedroom and threw himself down on the woven, multicoloured quilt. He sat up on the cot. He needed to have another talk with God. He closed his eyes hard, and sat cross-legged with his hands resting on his knees.

“God,” he began, not wanting to sound too friendly. “We need to have a talk.”

Fifteen minutes later he summed up his prayer with a hearty “Amen” and then flopped back onto his mattress.

December 3 rd marked the feast of St. Francis Xavier in his village, and Jose’s excitement about the fair scheduled to begin on the eve of the feast mounted with each passing day. When the evening of the fair arrived, he left the house with his mother. At the church square she leaned over and gave him a kiss on his cheek. “Have fun in the fair, son, but don’t stray away from the square. The spirits will be out in full force tonight.”

Jose frowned at the mention of spirits and scurried off to explore the delights of the occasion. He didn’t want to think about spirits on this special night. He had plans. First he’d eat, and after he stuffed his belly with spicy bhajias, he would listen to the band, and watch fireworks shoot across the velvet sky. Soon he came upon a group of men playing a game of dice. After half an hour, he turned away from the brightly lit table and allowed his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness.

“Baba?”

The voice had a familiar ring to it but he couldn’t see a face. As she moved closer he recognized the tic-tic-tic sound of Mareenbai’s cane on the sandy path. No wonder he couldn’t see a face. He was looking too high.

Mareenbai held out her hand towards him; it was clenched into a fist.

Jose dropped his hands to his side, hesitated to take what she was offering him. What if it was something unpleasant? But Mareenbai was insistent.

“Please,” she insisted. “For you to enjoy.”

He reluctantly held out one hand, wincing as she opened her fist and dropped two annas in his palm.

“For being a good boy,” she said haltingly, smiling at him. “Good boys deserve something special.”

“Thank you, Mareenbai,” Jose replied, realizing it was the first time he’d ever called her by name.

She nodded her approval and turned to walk away. Jose blinked his eyes, staring at her back. Shivers raced up and down his spine as the spirit’s bulging eyes returned his stare. He wanted to shout, to scream, to point out the huge creature sitting on Mareenbai’s back, but who would believe him? He’d be the laughing stock of the village. His mother would drag him to the priest who would, in turn, tell him never to make up stories about evil spirits.

Jose raced back to the safety of his house and locked the door. “God?” he called out. “I saw it. I saw the spirit, God! Why didn’t you take it away? Why does she have to suffer?”

Two days later Mareenbai’s body lay on a bed of bamboo sticks, bound in a white cotton sheet. She was lying on her back, her spine straight for the first time in many years. Jose’s heart swelled with gratitude towards a mighty God. He knew Mareenbai was safe now, free from evil spirits, with a straight back. He wiped a tear off his cheek and held the silver container of holy water as he walked behind the male labourers carrying Mareenbai’s body. They followed the priest to the walled cemetery and joined half a dozen mourners—three former employers, Rosita, Jose’s mother and, off in the distance, Crazy Sarah and her spirit companions. They leered at Jose, just as they’d done that day on the path, although he was still the only one who could see them. This time, however, he wasn’t afraid. This time, he met their gaze head on, locking his eyes onto theirs, daring them to accost him.

Jose fastened his eyes on Mareenbai’s body as the priest intoned the last prayers, bade eternal rest to the corpse, and sprinkled holy water on the grave in keeping with the ritual of Christian farewell.

When the priest was finished, Jose stepped forward and butted up against something that seemed to be very hard and tall. He blinked his eyes once, twice, then three times, speechless at the sight. They were everywhere—the angels—some hovering above the grave site, some forming a protective ring around Mareenbai’s body and the mourners, and some ascending and descending what appeared to be a giant ladder that stretched into the heavens. And there, at the top of the ladder, was Mareenbai, standing perfectly straight, smiling at him.

He turned his head and watched, with a kind of amusement, as a burly angel tackled the evil spirits and knocked them off their hooves, sending them spinning wildly into the atmosphere. Moments later they were nothing more than wisps of smoke, but as quickly as they disappeared from sight, another pair, more hideous than the last, appeared to take their place. Jose raised his head to glimpse Mareenbai one more time before she climbed the last rung of the ladder, and when she was higher than the clouds, the curtain leading to the spiritual world closed.

He accompanied the priest back to the church, being careful to hold the silver container of holy water tightly.

The archbishop blessed the page on the missal that contained the final prayer, and motioned for the new priest to continue. Jose opened his mouth to speak and stared—past the organist, past the congregation, past the ushers standing at the open back doors, to a figure on the steps outside the building. She looked oddly familiar and he searched for a place in his past that would help him to remember.

Her gray hair was matted and it travelled in several directions at the same time. It had obviously been without the benefit of a comb for a long time. The skin on her face was scaly and wrinkled; her eyes were hidden in the puffiness of her cheeks. Her clothes were dirty and they hung from her body in tatters that reached the ground. Her arms were held out at waist level. Jose was seeing the spirits. They didn’t seem to be quite as large as he remembered—at the tender age of nine, everything seemed to be bigger than it really was—but they were every bit as hideous with their yellow, pointed teeth and eyes that looked as if they were floating in pools of blood.

“So,” he whispered, “You’ve come calling at MY church, have you?”

Jose smiled. He raised his hands to bless his new congregation and added, “Heavenly Father, we call upon your angels to guide and protect us from the enemy of our souls.” As if in direct answer to his prayer, an angel the size of not one but two football fullbacks hurled himself down the aisle toward the spirits at lightening speed. The spirits howled at the sight of the massive angel bearing down on them and raced outside, into the church square. They pulled Crazy Sarah, their captive for all eternity, with them.

Jose watched his parishioners file out of the building, each with an angel beside them, and each unaware of their assigned protector. The archbishop rose and draped his arm around Jose’s shoulders.

“You have a big job ahead of you,” he cautioned Jose. “The spirits drove the last priest away with their constant harassment.”

“Perhaps he didn’t know how to use the visions, your Grace.”

“Perhaps,” the archbishop nodded. “And you? Are you up to the task?”

Jose faced him. “No human being is up to it. All we can do is pray. God will do everything else.”

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POLL WATCH
TIME TO CHANGE POLITICIANS
By Ben Antao
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ARCHIVES
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POLL WATCH TIME TO CHANGE POLITICIANS By Ben Antao --------------------------------------------------

ARCHIVES --------------------------------------------------

POLL WATCH
TIME TO CHANGE POLITICIANS
By Ben Antao
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ARCHIVES
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