Spectral Speech

Author(s): C. Ayyappan and V.C. Harris

Source: Indian Literature , Jan. - Feb. 1998, Vol. 41, No. 1 (183), ACCENT ON
MALAYALAM SHORT STORIES (Jan. - Feb. 1998), pp. 43-47
Published by: Sahitya Akademi

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23341293

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 Spectral Speech
C. hYYQppan

IVE ear to my words. I'm going to speak to you and sift the grain
VJT from the chaff in your mind. You lie chained here, and I'm the
only one left to speak to you. And I shall speak nothing but the truth.
I'm not interested in the trivial pleasures of telling ljes. You know why :
today I'm just a ghost, a lost soul. What makes me speak is a sense
of discontent, and a little bit of selfishness. You possess the lamp of
consciousness now. The sun's childhood is the adolescence of your
senses, and it's when the sun explodes and melts away in the dark
that madness seeps into you like moonlight.
I know it's the ignorance concerning the meaning of a suicide
and a murder that hunts down your wakeful moments. Now, be calm.
I'm going to draw your eyeline with the nakedness of truth. Don't
bat your eyelids or turn your head. What if my finger-nails get into
your eyes!
First about my suicide. I thought all of you understood why. But,
unfortunately, it's now up to me to teach you the grammar of my
mind. It's not a happy job, but I do it now because there's no other way.
I don't have to tell you—do I?—that I was your darling brother's
sweetheart, his secret lover. And between your brother and myself
there was everything that was possible between a man and a woman.
Something that I began at fifteen—a conduct, or misconduct.
One day during the monsoon, I came to your house to work on
the paddy that was spread out on the attic to be dried. Sifting the
paddy I stepped back and was trapped in your brother's arms. I was
dazed. I turned and squiggled as I realised the intent of Kunhacko's
hand. And then I blushed and turned red under his lips.
Climbing down the ladder, Kunhu said : "By the way, don't tell
anyone about this!" It was then that I was frightened a bit. I was a
dumb, silly girl at that time. And it was that dumbness that made me
ask Kunhacko some six or seven years later : "Will you marry me?"
His reply was a very honest counter-question : "How can I ever marry
you?" The sense of helplessness in that question pained me. Though

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I was a primary school teacher by then, no Christian could even
imagine marrying the daughter of an untouchable woman who had
been a servant in his household.
But, one evening, when I came back home after meeting
Kunhacko, I had reason to feel scared. Amma was telling my father
whispering in his ear, that one of my uncle's daughters had gone
astray. Will I too go that way? I felt out of breath.
It was useless, however, the way I felt I was out of breath. Even
at that young age Kunhacko was a smart guy. With the help of Pathro
who used to go to the Thrissur market with betel leaves Kunhack
got hold of the necessary things, but such precautions were reall
unnecessary for he didn't have it in him to offer a gift which a woma
couldn't digest. I realised this ever so slowly when I began to cultivate
the wish that I could live and die giving birth to his child and rearing
it. On learning about this desire of mine, he spat dirtily and said h
felt nauseated. And then he hit me on my face with his fist clenched.
Later he was quite desperately trying to get me to say I didn't lov
him. But in vain. Finally he said he would kill himself and he burs
out laughing. It was then that I began to think about it, I mean, about
suicide.
Everything went wrong for me and I found no peace of mind.
Everybody knew about the goings-on between Kunhacko and myself.
At home my father beat me up and crushed me to pulp. And at times
your brother would draw me out of my house in the middle of the
night and, once his needs were taken care of, beat the hell out of me.
But far more intolerable were Gopi Saar's antics. You know he was
my neighbour and he had given me some lessons at home after I had
failed in my pre-degree English examination. He said he had begun
to love me since then. He was of my caste, not bad-looking and a
good man. But the moment I heard he was in love with me, I felt
the way I did when, years ago, working in the paddy fields, I had a
leech cling onto my thigh, growing big with my blood. I didn't have
the guts to pluck it off, so I yelled, flailing my arms and legs in utter
revulsion.
One day, hiding his embarrassment in a put-on jocular vein, Gopi
Saar said : "I get the feeling that I should begin to love you." I replied
quite harshly : "No, don't bother." Then he said, with a touch of
vengeance : "That won't give you a pregnancy or anything of that
kind." I felt dazed as if I had received a terrible blow. There was no
way I could keep myself from telling him the truth. So I said : "There
is someone else—". "I know," he cut me short. "But that guy doesn't
care two hoots for you, does he?" Shaken to the core, I turned and

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walked away in haste. Only to reach Kunhacko and ask him : "Do
you love me?" He spat out an unalloyed cuss word and bared his
teeth. I broke into tears. Not because that was the first time he had
done so with me, but because at that moment I knew he didn't love me.
And weeping and weeping and weeping, I had my neck caught
in a noose.
Now let me tell you about how and why your papa killed your
dear brother. What I'm saying is—that was a good thing he did. Yet
I could never imagine, while I was still alive, that someone would
finish him off like that. Well, let it be. What you're unhappy about
is the question why your papa did such a thing. Let me now prick
and burst the boil of that unhappiness.
On the sixteenth day after my burial, I got out of the grave. I
came straight to your house. Kunhacko was not there. Must have
gone off to see a late night movie, I guessed. All right, let him come
back. Meanwhile, I came over to your room and found you sleeping
in your bed without having turned off the light. I found it quite
interesting, the way you lay huddled up hugging a pillow, your white
skirt curled up revealing your knees. Enter Kunhacko. He had a peep
into your room, probably because the light was still on. He found
you smiling, and was dazed. Then he took a quick and anxious look
around and started moving in toward your bed, his eyes on your face.
It was then that you gave a laugh. He was startled, and he moved
away a bit and studied the expression on your face. And then, heaving
a sigh of relief and with his face flaming hot, he switched off the
light. That moment a certain light flashed in me. And I gave a
scream—out of fear or helplessness. It shattered your sleep. In a trice
you hugged him. As you got frightened, I got into your body through
the fissure it created. Then I began to laugh. And your papa, and
you yourself in your wakeful moments, began to cry. The people
around you were amazed, for your whole conduct and behaviour
were so unusual. You wouldn't leave Kunhacko by day or night, you
haunted him, you couldn't be at peace with yourself without sitting
close beside him. And whenever he beat you up, the music of laughter
rose on its wings in your wailing. Everyone except your brother was
convinced that you were possessed, that my ghost had entered your
very being. But your brother thought that you were just plain mad.
He had never believed in ghosts and demons and the like, only in
madness and rationalism. Some said I should be secretly nailed on a
Kanhira tree and taken to the Chottanikkara temple. But your papa
didn't agree. When your relatives rounded him up and questioned
him, he blurted out in desperate anger : "That might help cure the

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illness. But once she recovers, what if she remembers whatever she
has done and then does something terrible?"
I was scared of something else. Would Kunhacko end up doing
something terrible! If he died, how could I enjoy the smell of his
sweat like this? Then I thought of something else and that gave me
some kind of consolation. If he died, he too would become a lost soul
like me, and would not lie down in any graveyard. Then the two of
us could have a good time» But even then I never thought he would
meet with such a terrible death.
Your papa is a real saint—your papa who hacked Kunhacko to
death as he lay sleeping in your bed hugging you. But, like all saintly
acts, this too is difficult to comprehend. Why did he do it? Was it
because Kunhacko had used your illness to his advantage? I'm not
sure. But I'll tell you what I think about it.
He did so because Kunhacko was in love with me, not with you.
Your papa is my father too. It was only after my death that I realised
this. Amma didn't know for sure, probably because your papa's
younger brother too had fooled around with her at the time she used
to work in your household. It was God who revealed to me my pater
nity. He called me a sinner whose nakedness had been unveiled by
my own brother. I didn't flinch. With true grit I uttered a severe
imprecation and asked him : "How the hell does an untouchable
woman become sister to a Christian, old man?"
And God was literally dumbfounded, as if a banana had been
thrust into his mouth. His eyes popped out and he bowed his head.
Well, let it be. Rosykutty, your papa believed that I was your sister.
If I put it in God's language your papa—poor guy—didn't know that
even before my mother's marriage, her nakedness had been unveiled
by his younger brother as well. You could very well ask why, in that
case, he never tried to put an end to my relationship with Kunhacko.
In fact, Kunhacko himself told me once that your papa had tried to
do so. One day he put on a devilish face and chided Kunhacko : "Your
affair with that untouchable girl—stop it." And Kunhacko, who was
shocked to see the expression on your papa's face, told him the truth :
"But I'm not really going to marry her at all." The old man was
dumbfounded, a banana in his mouth as well.
Now you have learnt everything, haven't you? It was my naked
ness that Kunhacko unveiled. When he hugged you, he was hugging
me, for you were I. It was with me, with me alone, that he did 'wrong'.
And it was that wrong which your papa corrected. That's why he is
now serving a life sentence.
Now about my own selfishness in this whole affair : I'm about to

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move out of you. I was afraid that something dangerous would happen
to you if I left without telling you what's what. You should live on.
But first you should do me a favour. Fetch our Kannan Parayan and
ask him to dig open my grave and place three measures of mustard
seeds in it. If that's done I won't be able to get out. For, a ghost cannot
get out unless and until it takes precise count of the mustard seeds
placed in the grave. And you know it's never possible to do so in the
course of a night.
I know you are now wondering why I don't wish to go around
happily with your brother who too has become a lost soul. Well, well,
now it seems you have got your doubts cleared yourself. Your face
is lighting up. You are now thinking that your brother is mine as
well, aren't you? You are wrong, my sister! That's not the point.
It was with a lot of expectation that I watched Kunhacko die. I
waited with bated breath to be able to move up to his soul that was
about to separate itself from the body and to throw my arms around
it. But the moment he died I realised the truth : Kunhacko had no
soul! What he had was mere breath, or life. Why? Perhaps because
he was a rationalist who didn't believe in the soul. Or because of the
way the Bible-babbling God went about crying and weeping and
gnashing his teeth.
So I can't help getting back into my grave. Don't forget the
mustard seeds. Here, I grant you my freedom. Look at your feet for
proof of my leaving you. Where, where is that chain? □

Translated by V.C. Harris

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