Remorse

The only motorable road in Mukteshwar enters from east of the town, where the market is, shops line the left side of the road, as it goes up meandering like a river, as is the case with most motorable roads in the mountainous regions. It leaves the market behind with the last shop of Shahji, combination of a general store and stationary besides being a medical store and functioning as a phone booth too. Between Shahji`s shop and the butcher, which stands apart from the rest of the market, is the only blind curve the road takes in Mukteshwar, a bend, as called in the local language. Left to the road at this point is a vertical dip, going down hundreds of feet and on the other side is the slope of the mountain, leading to the verandah of the Bist family`s home, whose kids were very unhappy about, among other things, the position of their house as every unstopped straight drive during a verandah cricket match was likely to send the ball flying, hundreds of feet down the hill. They had lost a lot of balls.
After taking some meaningless turns, going up, crossing the pale yellow building of the church, the road forms a circle around a little park, at the center of which stands the forever standing flagstaff, on which the national flag is waved during a national day, if its not precipitating. The circle also acts as the only U-turn for the two government buses and other heavy vehicles that enter Mukteshwar. From there, crossing the State Bank, it goes straight up for sometime before it passes the surf-blue and white single story building of the government hospital, next to which lies the trail uphill to the temple, situated at around 7,000 feet above the sea level. The road ends leading to The Red Roofs, a small guest house owned by Shahji, which includes a big dining hall and four separate guest rooms. From its flowery garden, one can see the snow covered peaks of the Himalayas. There isnt any proper road after this, which frays into big and small trails going deeper into the mountains.
To Hament Bist, the cook at The Red Roofs, this motorable road was utterly meaningless, for nothing motorable ever came that far, usually taking a U-turn from the circle, leaving him with the only option of walking it back home, apart from taking the milk van, which left a little early and thus could not be taken when Shahji was around. He usually left around half past nine, after dinner was over. But as the rest house rarely received any guests after summer, making it irrelevant for Hemant Bist to stay that late, he offed around half past seven, throughout the year till the next year`s summer brought some (mostly misguided) tourists back to the guest house.
During this period, every evening, around seven, Bist would start cooking a meal for Dinesh, who did various odd jobs and was the only other employee at The Red Roofs, a little less than half an hour later he would be hurriedly walking up the road, roughly some four major turns away on it, till the hospital, where he would stop shortly facing the upward trail to the temple, hands folded, head bent impatiently mumbling an inaudible prayer.
He would hurry on after this, not paying any attention to the hospital or anything at all, till he reached the government liquor shop, which stood between the hospital and the bank near the circle, from where an upward trail took him to his house above the bend. He would be drunk by the time he reached home, to his wife and three kids; two boys and a girl, ranging between eight to thirteen, the girl being the second born.
Mrs. Bist, a homily woman, who spent most of her time in kitchen, cooking or in the bathroom, washing, with majority of the time left to her from that being spent in taking care of her younger son, less than half his actual age, mentally, due to an accident during pregnancy, dreaded the arrival of her husband, during this period, stinking of a whole bottle, but this dread turned to horror whenever she saw him carrying another. On these days, Hemant Bist would become insidiously aggressive and vicious with each gulp off of the second bottle and any mistake or mishap by the family members could cost them dearly, though they were rarely sure if anything they did, anything at all, wouldn't be seen as a mistake by Hemant. The kids would even stop breathing in his presence, least it turned out to be a mistake in their father`s eyes. Mostly, if he didn't see the kids, who tried to remain inconspicuous, though not successfully every time, the wrath of Bist`s intoxicated rage fell on his wife and the night ended with loud snores and subdued sobs, the former outlasting the later on fortunate nights.
The two elder kids went to a local government school where they, their minds filled with the horror and pain inflicted by their father, tried to hide any sign of it from their faces. But, usually as the bluish-purple bruises were difficult to hide and it was hard to make others believe that she was predisposed to getting knocked over or he somehow always got into the way of a hard hit straight drive, the siblings kept to themselves as much as possible.
The girl, usually second in line to her mother, in incurring her father`s wrath, as the eldest son was growing in size and the younger one tended to howl like a street dog after a few tight ones, was a timid and frail creature of around ten, malnourished with prominent dark half moons under her eyes. The insides of her tiny bony hands were pink and cracked from constant contact with dishwashing soap and detergent powder, which she used at various houses before going home after school. Although she didn't like the work and was constantly worried about her mother, she tried to delay going back as much as possible and usually met her elder brother at the little park, around which the road circled, their meeting point after he had delivered milk which the milk van brought in the evening and had to be manually supplied around, up and down the hilly tracks. Whenever she reached late, she found her brother flinging stones into the infinite of the valley next to the park. Clutching a dirty stone, glaring at it inimically, he`d fling the stone with all his might and then try to hear it land.
" You never hear the bastard hit the bottom." he`d say, his face so red with hostility that she was reminded of their father, in fact, to her he looked exactly like Hament, but it never stayed, the hostility and redness left his face like an uninvited guest, and he`d say, managing a forced, hollow chuckle," Maybe the sonofabitch got stuck in the trees."
By the time they reached, their father would be home, a sign of it was that the light in front of the house would be off, something which their father was very particular about, but it remained on if he wasn`t back, because in an unfortunate but not unprecedented case of his tripping and falling in the dark, things become ugly for the family as it either enraged him making him ever more dangerous or injured him, which lead to additional expenses. It was true that although Hemant Bist managed without much hard work at The Red Roofs as the guest house remained largely unoccupied throughout the year, apart from the five odd months of warm and constant sunshine during summers, when he stayed there, Hemant could hardly make ends meet, especially when the most important end for him to meet was his unquenchable and irrepressible thirst.
Every morning when he was staying home, he`d wake up with a splitting headache which drove him to work early, as Dinesh was bound to have something to drink. Usually he did and was ready to share it for a price, but there were days when he was dry, leaving Hemant to rid the hangover with strong chai, which he mostly did sitting in the garden gazing at the mighty Himalayan Peaks. Sometimes Dinesh joined him.
" You look like a dead fish, old man, I am sure it wasn`t less than a bottle last night."
" Last night is over lad, and will never come back, the only thing that comes back is the thirst, goddamn this thirst! god damn this need that never gets satisfied. I say, why the fuck couldn`t you save me a drop or two?"
"I don`t stock especially for you Bistji and I don`t own a liquor shop... guess we`ll have to wait around for food till the liquor shop opens up then? huh?"
"You are no less ungrateful than those sonsofbitches at that place. Goddamn you people.. Goddamn this all... Goddamn this and you people, all forever." he`d mumble bitterly, staring into the white mountains.
The five summer months always passed away like a warm musky waft. The family, safely away from Hemant, who`d be staying at the guest house, would go about their work as usual though feeling slightly uplifted. And though money was always short during this time, as Bist`s absence was physical as well as financial, the family didn`t mind it much, plus the meager earnings of the kids could very well satisfy their humble needs. But somehow, the dread remained, for they knew well that the summer wouldn't last forever, and Hemant would come back, back with his alcohol breadth and senseless violence and although the thought sent a chill through their spines, the family tried to enjoy whatever little time they had before the summer ended.
The younger son, too weak minded to have any notion of time apart from recognizing day in and day out, would also sense the ending of summers. The family became glum and pensive. Whatever little conversations tried to lift the heaviness, would keep getting abruptly hushed as the speaker would blank out staring into a particular corner of the room. But what made it clear to him that the big man with the stinging brown belt was not far away, was that the other two kids would come back home completely silent one day and lock themselves in their room, then his mother came into theirs to give him a kiss, which happened to be a little more moist than usual. Before long, as abruptly as he had left, Hemant Bist would be back at the door swaggering, swearing, seething.
That year, during which the usually refreshing winter of Mukteshwar, proved quiet troublesome for its inhabitants, for it not only killed the postman stone dead under a huge Deodar branch, fallen from the weight of gathered snow, but also destroyed Shahji`s PCO booth, more or less completely, as an adjacent fifteen feet tall old Pine tree crashed into it one stormy night near mid January, the girl found her brother staring into the valley, the muddy golden light of the setting summer sun making the outline of his body shine. He was clutching a boulder considerably big for his small rough hands and his eyes were tracing the top of the hills on the other side of the valley. She felt the agitation building up in him as he told her that their father would be coming home, tomorrow morning,
" The couple from dilli leave in the morning, I asked Dinesh bhai. They are the last one." She did not wait for him to do his ritual stone throw, and started clambering the trail up their house, with heavy steps. He followed her and they dragged themselves home, sullen and quiet.
The summers in Mukteshwar end when the dark grey clouds swell up from the foot of Himalayas, rising slowly for some days, spreading towards the small hill town, and within weeks of getting visible, they`d be pelting cats and dogs over Mukteshwar. The heavy rain would continue for days without respite, and it could sometimes take more than a week before the people could dry their laundry on the line in the sun. The old stone walls of the three room Bist house would become so damp that the children got their backs moist as they tried to hurdle against it, usually trying to avoid a dashing object hurled in their direction by their raving father. As the rain didn`t stop for days and the little one tended to wet his bed regularly, Mrs. Bist left the laundry to dry under the shade in the back verandah, but as there were never enough laundry clips, the wind kept blowing the clothes down into the valley. Mostly the kid remained bottomless. Such days could bring disaster to the family, as everyone was forced to remain under the confines of the house, making it impossible to avoid confrontation with Hemant Bist. Usually on these days their father woke up late and the elder son was sent to the liquor shop, with an umbrella sometime after that, and then the apprehensive family would insidiously wait for their inevitable mistake and its unavoidable punishment.
A winter that comes soon, goes late. Everyone in Mukteshwar knows that, and they knew it that year too, as the autumn quickly started turning from pale to grey, like a child maturing before its time. One night as her elder brother was sleeping under the barely warm covers, the sister woke him up. He woke up to see a slight smile on her face, broken near a corner of her joint lips, and suddenly he felt winter breathing in the room. He knew it was snowing. They got up and tiptoed out of the verandah door. The night was shining bluish white with the iridescent feather like snowflakes leisurely floating down from the bright black starry night sky.
" See it is here." said the girl stretching her tiny palm below a falling flake of snow, " Now it is not long before the wet and the cold will go and people will come back to the hotel." The boy who was already busy catching snowflakes and putting them in his mouth, said, while looking for a big one, "That man from Dilli, one with a new wife, he said he`d bring his wife to the hotel again." Winter was the final and harshest season of hardship, but it was also the last and the snow was always good.
Within the next week, the only motorable road in Mukteshwar was rendered useless for the people from excessive snow fall. Newspaper supply stopped. One of the two government buses which brought them in stood stone cold near the market, only the top of its big black wheels visible. Milk was brought in on a mule, every second day. And then one morning when the postman was found buried under a Deodar branch, his body too, along with his khaki bag, was taken to the hospital on a mule. Sometimes the snow stopped bringing a bright sun out making the snow covering everything, smoke, but it wouldn`t be long before the army of clouds would again receive its troops from the Himalayan base and shower its snowy ammo into a melting, water-bleeding earth. The constant snow storms disoriented most of the TV antennas which survived their vulgar display of power and if one forgot to keep a track of the calendar or wind his watch, total oblivion of time surrounded him, unless he got some brave visitors or himself dared to go to a neighbor, defying the storm. The time from the first snow fall to the last was, more or less a frozen time capsule in Mukteshwar, when everything, inanimate or animate, retired from life. Days went by, white and meaningless, the church remained largely empty even on Sundays, the market saw not one customer strolling along engaged in leisurely shopping, people usually came hurrying, clutching at their coats or caps, and left quickly after buying important supplies. Christmas warmed few, New year`s went unnoticed, the newspaper showing pictures of incredulous fireworks from Beijing, Sydney and New York on the front page arrived four days late and the telephone echoed an electric storm somewhere.
That morning, Hemant Bist woke up late, irritable and with a headache. He had finished his and the liquor shop`s last remaining bottle the previous day and Mrs. Bist was getting worried. Her husband was still in the bathroom, when there was a knock at the door. As the Bist family rarely received any guests, apart from Shahji`s servants sent to fetch Hemant for some errand, Mrs Bist opened the door feeling a little hopeful. The servant boy told her that a tree had fallen on the phone booth of Shaji`s shop, who required Hemant Bist to come immediately. Her husband went out grumbling and mumbling curses under his breath and she closed the door to stop the chill from entering the already cold room, and went about doing her work with a little relief. The two elder children came out of their room to help their mother and the youngest one gave out a low moan, making a sound, first time in days, to indicate that he was hungry.
The afternoon slowly rolled into evening and the evening turned to night, which finally brought Hemant home, exhausted and cranky. He did not waste time in making his family aware of his bad mood and the preceding bad day. He went into the room of the younger son, who upon hearing his heavy footsteps, turned blue in the wet cold covers, as he tried to hold his breath. He saw his father`s face, twisted from disgust and contempt.
"Look at this disgusting pig." he fumed, " I froze my joints, trying to chop that goddamn tree in this cold and this swine lies here, happily shitting the bed." Mrs Bist, who was in the kitchen making tea, realizing that her husband was in the child`s room, started becoming restless and agitated, she concentrated all her effort on hearing what was happening in the room.
"I slog from morning to night, trying hard to provide for all of you, and I can`t even expect a clean bed to rest my bones when I am back." Suddenly hollering like a loudspeaker, he bawled, " Woman! Do I have to sleep in the shit of this filthy excuse of a child you`ve made!"
Shivering violently with fear, her mind focused on the boy, Mrs. Bist reached towards the shelf above the gas stove for a cup, the tea suddenly rose up boiling in the pot, the cup slipped from her hand, she quickly tried to take the pot off the stove, but before she could reach it, the cup crashed on the floor, multiplying into a million pieces, the noise stunned her and she dropped the pot filled with hot boiling tea.
The commotion made Bist lose it, he went thumping into the kitchen, roaring like a thunderstorm, "You crazy ungrateful whore!" and grabbing her hair pulled her out. "Is it not enough for you to burden me with these worthless bastards that now you go around throwing and breaking stuff I bought with my hard earned money!" As his hands proved unsatisfactory to him in bringing his wife to justice, who was successfully avoiding any substantial hit by curling up like a centipede, Hemant drew his belt out and began unmercifully lashing his wife. The pathetic yelps that the belt inevitably elicited from her upon contact, made the two elder kids helplessly stare out through the crack of the door in horror at her, while their father continued his verbal and physical violence, blaming their mother for his miserable life, the cold, the snow blocking everything, the absence of alcohol, the falling of trees and the death of men. But as Hemant could not quench his appetite for punishment, he intensified his lashing making the iron studded end of the belt puncture her skin, making the reddish black blood flow effusively through the holes.
Standing behind her brother, sobbing noiselessly, the younger sister, feeling scared and unsafe, took hold of her brother`s arm and realized that it was strained, she looked down at his hand and was shocked to see him clutching a big boulder in it. She looked up at his face and gave a shriek of terror. It was burning red with hostility, just like Hemant Bist, in fact, he was Hemant, and this Hemant behind the door was glaring bitterly at the Hemant outside the door.
The shriek diverted their father`s attention to them and leaving his wife in tatters, he went towards the door with heavy steps, cursing, "You require a taste of this belt too, I feel. You scoundrels! All of you! Scoundrels!"
The door opened with a jolt from the father`s forceful push making the son stagger back, holding the boulder, while the father staggered in clutching the belt. As the man`s eyes focused in the darkness on the boy holding the rock, the girl ran out to her mother, who was lying half dead in front of the kitchen. She did not hear the thud as the boulder landed on the floor or the vehement cursing by her father, or the minute long dull and continuous thumping sound that was followed by an eerie stillness .
The daughter stared in utter horror as her father emerged from the room with someone on his shoulder, who could have been her brother, but was bloody and badly bashed out of recognition. She followed him with her eyes, as he went out the verandah door and although, the terror she felt was too overwhelming to make her move, a strange morbid curiosity made her follow him. The partially headed body was perfectly motionless, on Hemant Bist`s shoulder, the hands and legs hanging down loose, waving gently with the strong wind, as he crossed the Verandah and went down the slope. She followed, the morbid curiosity giving way to a strange morbid certainty. Her father had reached the end of the slope, and was standing above the bend, only the lamppost and a small portion of the road visible below, dividing him from the valley. He paused there a while, looked left, then right and then below, all was inked in black, the sky, the snow, the bend. Suddenly a wave of panic crossed her, cutting through her curiosity and certainty, and she started moving faster, breathing heavily. She was some ten steps away from her father as he hurled the body of his son down hundreds of feet, into the bosom of the valley.
She froze to the ground, the step she had taken seemed not just some inches in the show, but buried miles into it and her heart suddenly paused after a giving a loud thud, as if it had free fallen all the way down from its position, inside her chest next to her foot, miles down, deep in the snow. She did not realize when her father returned or how long she stayed peeping over the edge into the ocean like blackness of the valley, but as she tore through the stormy wind, towards the house, she suddenly couldn't rid herself of a particularly nagging thought which had taken hold of her completely and by the time she reached her unconscious mother, she was so worked up about it that her breath was fast and heart was pounding rapidly. The mother came to, as her daughter gently tucking at her sleeve, choking with sobs. She couldn`t understand for a few moments what her daughter was rambling through her sobs, as her whole body was throbbing, hot and stinging, with pain, but she forgot all about the torment when she finally understood her. I think he is stuck in the trees because I didn't hear him hit the ground, was what she had been trying to tell her mother.
Only a few remember that winter from anything more than the loss of their postman and a hazy recollection of a fallen Pine tree on the phone booth of Shahiji`s shop. But, as seasons come and go and times past always remain minuscule in the memory as compared to times present, even the harshest of winters, barely survived, remind people of nothing more than a pale feeble feeling of gratitude at having withstood it.
It was a week or two into the delightful and warm spring following that winter as the snow started disappearing, exposing things it had been hiding underneath her, when the local inspector at the police station in Mukteshwar received the news of a child`s body being found, hanging dead in the trees, of valley by the bend and soon he realized that he would have to inform the cook from up at the guest house of Shahji about the discovery of his missing son, which had been reported by him sometime during the winter.
The inspector couldn't help but notice the marks on the face of the cook`s wife, as she opened the door to him, neither did his trained eyes miss the disquiet in her eyes. As Hemant Bist was at the guest house, he had to give the unfortunate news to her, but he could not understand why he saw more distress than heartache in her response to the news.
"Mrs. Bist, I know it`s a very unfortunate thing and you must be going through a lot" he said in a low voice, carefully observing her responses," But if you could think of someone who might have done this, you know based on suspicion, it`d become easier for me to catch the offender, and bring justice to your child." He could clearly see her hands fidgeting in her lap, her head sunk low, going up and down with her breathing, which was slowly speeding up. His husband`s formidable face, as he undid his belt, kept dancing in front of her eyes. She hadn`t witnessed the incident herself or knew how it was done, but she hadn`t a trace of doubt in her mind as to who had murdered her son. She was going through a commotion within her, as she tried to hold something which was trying to break loose. The inspector glanced around the room, and noticed the head of a sickly little girl looking at him timidly, with big sad eyes, before it disappeared quickly behind the door again. Mrs. Bist began heaving, highly agitated by her effort to control herself, her struggle was palpable in her gestures. And then, finally, as if the matter within her had ultimately been resolved, tears flowed down her cheeks, falling into her lap. She gave a sigh and looking at the inspector denied knowing anyone who could have killed her son.
"He was so young, so innocent, just a little child, who could`ve harmed him?" she said remorsefully , forcing out every word which seemed to resist leaving her mouth, as if it was aware of being a lie, being an insult to the memory of the dead child. After the somewhat puzzled inspector left, the mother went into her room, and slumped down next to her sleeping son, the daughter followed her in. Since that disastrous winter night, all that the little girl could think of was her brother, stuck in the trees, under the snow. As her mother wept, hugging her, she stared blankly at the wall behind her, knowing that her brother had spent the cold winter stuck in the trees, under the freezing snow.