The Narrow Road to Palem Read Online Free Page B

cannot lie to the dead, Yenki.’
    Yenki closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. As the dead fingers ravished her body, she said out loud, just under her breath, ‘Come tomorrow, come tomorrow, come tomorrow...’ And her mind kept saying, ‘You cannot lie to the dead. You cannot lie to the dead.’
    And the wheel of the sewing machine kept turning.
     
    * * *
     
    She woke up to bright sunshine. The first thing she saw was the gleam of the knife in Ranga’s hand. And she sat bolt upright.
    Ranga was sitting in the armchair, facing her, leaning forward. He looked at the knife as he spoke. His face, like it had been the night before, carried no expression. His eyes were kind. ‘I sent Satish to school.’
    ‘Okay.’
    ‘You pushed her into the well, didn’t you?’
    Those slithery fingers, dripping with pus, slid down her back. Her lips parted. Her tongue went dry.
    ‘I heard you this morning,’ he said. ‘You were speaking in your sleep.’
    Malli’s words came back to her. Am I really here, or is your mind playing tricks on you?
    ‘She looked after you like a sister. She cared for you. You never loved our son, but she did. And when he loved her in return, you burned, didn’t you? You burned like a match, even though you had me.’
    ‘He’s my son.’
    ‘I was such a fool. Such a fool.’
    Yenki saw his grip on the handle of the knife tighten, and she moved back on the mat by instinct.
    ‘No,’ he said. ‘I will not kill you. You’re the mother of my son. And I will not tell the police either, because I have no evidence except the look in your eyes right now, and I know that it will change by the time they come asking questions.’
    Yenki said, ‘Ranga, you don’t understand. There is a ghost in this house –’
    ‘Not a ghost, Yenki. A demon . A demon we brought home. A demon that has destroyed everything in our lives.’
    ‘I will not leave my son here at the mercy of this ghost –’
    ‘Your son?’ Ranga pointed the knife at her. ‘He is not your son. He never was your son. I saw yesterday how you beat him. No mother can beat her son like that.’
    ‘But you don’t understand, he had to be taught a lesson –’
    ‘Enough. Just stop talking.’
    For a few minutes, neither of them spoke. Yenki sat cross-legged on the mat, watching the knife. Ranga gazed at the sewing machine. Sanga and Lachi laughed out on the street, on their way to the lake.
    ‘I have called for the cart,’ said Ranga at last. ‘It will take you to your mother’s house. Just never return to this village again.’
    Yenki bent her head. From the corner of her vision she saw that the knife in Ranga’s hand went limp. At that moment, she leaped at her husband and closed her fingers around his throat, just under the adam’s apple.
    His eyes became hard as black marbles. A muffled moan escaped his mouth as he struggled to draw breath, and Yenki wrestled him to the ground and mounted his chest so that she could pin his neck down against the mud floor.
    ‘He’s my son.’ Her eyes bored into his. ‘Do you understand? My son!’
    Ranga’s grip on the knife loosed. Colour left his face. His eyes bulged, and his breathing became a hoarse sound. His tongue came out and flapped against his lips like a dying fish. His fingers dug into the earth. ‘Yes, my son. Nobody takes my son away from me.’
    It was then that she looked, because she felt a warm touch on her forehead. A gust of wind blew in from the open window. Dust flew into her eyes, but she kept her hands fastened on Ranga’s throat. The sewing machine swayed to the breeze like it was made of cardboard, and it fell on Yenki. She freed her hands to protect herself from the falling weight, and in that one moment, Ranga pushed her off him and scrambled to the side. When he got to his knees, he had the knife in his hands.
    Yenki pushed the machine away and turned to her husband. ‘No,’ she said.
    But Ranga walked up to her, clutched her hair, pulled her head back to