Izmir sat at the dinner table, seething. The food at his
disposal suddenly lost all its allure. The morsel in his mouth suddenly felt
rubbery, tasteless. With some effort he forced it down, his ears burning, fists
clenched, mind reeling. His mother’s tirade did not seem to be heading for the
finish line anytime soon. He had been at the receiving end of these tirades for
many years, but they never seemed to get any easier to bear. Try as he might,
he could never block them out and every word penetrated to his very core and
left him helpless and angry, usually resulting in a loss of appetite and a
sleepless night. He was eleven years old now, but his emaciated cheeks and
baggy, sunken eyes gave him the appearance of an older, malnourished kid.
When he was younger, the tirades were few and far between, a blip on an
otherwise happy and fulfilling childhood. But with the birth of his little
sister the financial strain on his mother increased and she was never one who
was known for dealing with pressure. His father, a lawyer, left soon
afterwards, without a word of apology or explanation. The abandonment, coupled
with the loss of his income, meagre as it was, struck blows from which his
mother’s psyche could not recover.
The tirades did not need a trigger, they came at regular intervals and with
little or no provocation and they were always aimed at him, never at his little
sister. But for this Izmir was thankful. His four year old sister, Manna, was
everything to him. No matter how dark his day, one smile from her innocent,
chubby face would put his mind at ease. He spent many an hour on summer days
carrying her on his back and taking walks in the fields. They’d talk of
anything and everything, Manna’s questions never ceased and Izmir’s patient
replies supplied all the answers she could wish for. For the questions he did
not know the answer to, Izmir used his wonderfully creative mind and created
fantastical answers which Manna gobbled up with relish.
Izmir’s greatest fear was that Manna, on growing up, would also have to bear
the vicious attacks from which she had thus far been exempt. His nightly
ruminations were constantly visited with visions of her green eyes overflowing
with tears, her otherwise ready and piercing tongue stunned into silence.
At all costs, that day must not arrive, resolved Izmir.
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Two years on, Izmir realised his fears had been well founded. Manna had just
begun to become the target of her mother’s tantrums. Izmir recognised the signs
from his own experiences. And already he could see it affecting her mood. She
had been an exceptionally cheerful child, and still was, but one sensed a
troubled mind behind that winning smile that always played on her lips.
The fact that he was at a similar age when his mother’s behaviour towards him
had taken a turn for the worse was not lost on him. Soon his mother would stop
all pretence at civility and spout venom at every instance she was brought face
to face with her daughter. And Manna’s intelligent, inquisitive mind would be
clouded with anger and resentment. Izmir knew all too well from his own
experience just how crippling those sentiments could be and he shuddered at the
prospect of seeing his sister go through such an ordeal before him.
The long walks the siblings habitually took together
lengthened in duration and length, but now the solace was needed by Manna more
than her brother. Having experienced nothing but pure affection at the hands of
her mother and brother for all of her young life, this sudden change in her
mother’s behaviour had shaken Manna and her mind was too frail to adjust just
yet. She did not understand what caused this drastic deviation in her life and did
not accept its finality. Even in the midst of the worst of the tirades, Manna
still held her arms out to her mother in the hope that she would be hugged and
forgiven just as she would have been a few short months ago that now seemed a
lifetime away. But all she got in return was a cold stare and a chilling
response that would reduce her to a quivering pulp. When this happened, Izmir
would hold her hand and slowly but firmly lead her out of the room and out into
the fields, no matter what hour of the day or night it was. They roamed for
hours sometimes under the starlit sky, discussing possible shapes and
constellations that the stars formed, and interpreting them with fabulous tales
laced in no small measure with their own dreams and hopes to prevent them from
crumbling under the weight of reality.
Sometimes they would return to find the door locked from the inside, their
mother fast asleep, deaf to their pleas and protestations. These nights the
both of them would spend outside, Izmir comforting his sister, keeping her
warm.
Things seemed to continue in the same vein, but there was a subtle shift in the
undercurrents which would have long standing repercussions. If their mother had
been a little more attentive to their feelings, she might have noticed it too,
but as it was, the undercurrents remained undercurrents and the tirades kept
coming. Only they seemed to affect the two children less each time, a new and
somewhat disconcerting defiance could be found in their eyes. They took her
tongue lashings with their chin raised, silent but by no means cowed, holding
each other’s hand in a show of solidarity in the face of a storm of words.
Frustrated by the lack of response she was used to getting, the mother on one
occasion grabbed a rod from the fireside and struck Manna on the arm raised to
protect her face. This was the first time she had resorted to physical violence
and the tension in the room was palpable.
“Let’s go, Manna,” were the quiet words from Izmir. The lack of emotion in the
words held more menace than all the hours of shouting they had endured in their
lives.
That night Manna and Izmir did not come back to the house, they spent the
entire night in deep discussion, never leaving each other’s hand for a moment
and the red dawn found them lying side by side In the fields a few kilometres
from home.
They returned to the house for breakfast, silently sitting through another
round of remonstrations. But their mother might as well have been speaking to
the wall for all the difference it made to them. At one point Manna even burst
forth in a giggle after an exchange of secretive glances between the giggles.
This unconcerned behaviour put their mother ill at ease and seemed to subdue her
if only temporarily.
“Ma, I’m going to the town to see if I can get any work for today. I won’t be
back till evening,” Izmir called over his shoulder as he picked up his jacket
from the chair.
His mother did not reply.
He walked over to Manna, gave her a hug and a kiss, ruffled her hair and walked
out into bright sun.
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Izmir spent the day working in the town, cleaning people’s houses or shops in
exchange for a pittance. Usually he would only work for those who agreed to pay
him at least a dignified amount, but today he seemed more concerned with
covering as many houses as he could rather than earning a good pay. On his way
down the streets he made it a point to greet every shopkeeper and passerby
whose eye fell upon him. He worked feverishly quick, covering a number of
houses that he ordinarily would have covered in three days. When he saw the
evening shadows lengthen and the day approached its close, he set off back
towards his home.
Manna was waiting for him in the fields, her cheeks flushed and eyes bright.
She seemed a little unsteady on her feet, almost intoxicated with the intensity
of the emotions she was experiencing.
Izmir approached her, gave her an all encompassing hug and quietly whispered
into her ear.
“Is it done?”
“Yes, brother. Just like you said.”
“Good, now listen to me very carefully. Do you love me?”
“Yes, brother.”
““Do you want to stay with me always?”
“Always.”
“Then you will do as I say? No matter how scary it is?”
“Yes, brother.”
Izmir smiled, looked into those beautiful eyes. Somehow they had still
preserved their innocence.
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The police lights outside the house attracted the neighbours from miles around.
A scandal of this magnitude had not been seen or heard of for many generations
in this area. The townsfolk whispered nervously to each other, recounting the
horror that took place within those four walls. The police too, unused to
dealing with anything more serious than cattle theft, seemed unsure of how to
proceed.
One female officer had the unenviable task of speaking to the children. She
spoke to Izmir first.
“Hi, Izmir, my name is Caroline.”
“Hello,” Izmir said, his pale face streaked with mud and tears.
“I know this must be very hard for you, but we need your help to find out what
happened to your mother.”
Izmir looked up, the most sincere look of helplessness upon his face.
“I went into town this morning, I go there to work sometimes to earn a little
extra money. We don’t have a lot of money at home. When I got back, I saw
Manna, that’s my little sister. She was telling me she made the bad man go
away.”
“The bad man?” asked Caroline.
“Well, you see, my mother used to get very angry sometimes. She would shout at
us, sometimes even hit us. But when she didn’t get angry, on the good days she
was very loving. She was Manna’s favourite person. So I told Manna that on the
bad days the spirit of a bad man would possess Mama. He would creep into her
heart and make her bad. ”
A feeling of dread crept slowly up Caroline’s spine. “Dear God, no,” she
whispered.
Izmir continued.
“I went inside and I saw Mama…” his voice broke, “I saw Mama like she is now.”
“So, it was Manna? She did that?” Caroline asked, desperately hoping there was an
alternative explanation.
“It’s not her fault. She didn’t do anything, please don’t take her away. She thought
Mama was possessed. She is just a little girl, please don’t punish her,” Izmir
pleaded desperately, tears flowing from his eyes.
Caroline could not muster up a reply. Disbelief and horror had paralysed her.
She stared silently for a moment, then turned and walked away to speak to her
superior.
On questioning Manna, Izmir’s story was corroborated. The mother had been fine
that morning, but in the afternoon had flown into a rage and beat Manna with a
rod. The ugly welt on her arm was proof of that. Manna, wanting her Mama back
from the “Bad man”, resolved to make him go away. The gruesome result was there
for all to see.
The question of what was to be done with the kids was resolved with the arrival
of an aunt who agreed to take them in. Izmir and Manna shifted into their new
home and seemed to take the death of their mother quite well for a couple of
children their age.
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If one were to carefully sift through the books in Izmir’s room in the old household,
one would find a book of law, originally owned by Izmir’s father. On a certain
earmarked page, one would find the law stating that if a child under the age of
seven commits a crime in India, he/she cannot be convicted and must be treated
as though he/she did not commit a crime at all.
Izmir and Manna never visited their mother’s grave. One cannot explain things
to the dead.
