The House on the Yellow Fields
Photo: Karan Madhok
Fiction: ‘We tell each other that she must’ve found her peace. But her memory trickles down to my fist, and it feels heavier. As if it were carrying the slow-congealed weight of all the blood that you and I have drawn from each other.’
My father stands in the yellow fields
Pressing mustard with his barren feet
Forgetting how
His fingers could
Once fold a lover’s letter
Into a paper boat
My mother peers through the windowpane
And her eyebrows twitch into a catapult
“You’ll miss again”, I tell her still
By then, the rock has landed.
A heavy cloud leans against the balcony railing, slowly soaking the smoke from my cigarette into its cotton palms, and stuffing it all away in a secret, almost consanguine pact, which I don’t remember signing. I no longer feel the need to hide my vices from you or from myself; but somehow, the cloud greys and floats between us.
The cloud reminds me of Maa. Of her light, heaving body that had always been so prone to spasms at the thought of my flaring breath pouring onto your skin; or perhaps of your restless fists slamming onto mine. It is strange how she had borne the brunt of both our ferocities, with her lips stitched together in an accusation—never once letting out a sigh for herself.
And now, we tell each other that she must have found her peace. But her memory trickles down to my fist, and it feels heavier. As if it were carrying the slow-congealed weight of all the blood that you and I have drawn from each other. Of all the blood that she has ended up paying for.
It is the turn of another week, and even god prepares herself for rest. I wonder if Maa sleeps with her now—noiselessly; on a cool bed. The living room couch that had gotten so used to juggling your warring bodies through the wretched nights of summer, now lies vacant somewhere in this madhouse. Baba, why could you never choose happiness with such militant efficiency? Why could the couch not bear the collective weight of your silhouettes even for a wretched moment? I can still give you my word that she would’ve obliged.
The routines of common men, and of their common gods, have had no place in my mother’s deficient womb. Neither you, nor I, are remotely common creatures. We have both had our parts to play in wounding her so childishly from within.
Although I’m not done with it, I fling away the cigarette with a cough and run my palm over the prickle of my tonsured head. I feel your finger rise in accusation towards me. Yes, I was not done with it. I’m never done with it. I am your son too, after all. I wonder if you too have been hollowed out of all flesh and marrow as I have. But then, when was the last time you ate a timely meal anyway? The routines of common men, and of their common gods, have had no place in my mother’s deficient womb. Neither you, nor I, are remotely common creatures. We have both had our parts to play in wounding her so childishly from within.
Then again, I was indeed her child. But what were you? What else, but her vilest aspiration?
And so, perhaps I’m almost glad that, in her absence, we’ve agreed to renounce the taxing custom of feigning her unstirring piety. Perhaps, then, there is no god, but the one leaning over the black paint of my balcony railing at this instant. And it too shall float away to the sky and to wherever it is that my mother is, come the slow and viscous afternoon. By then, you would’ve trapped enough of yourself in your golden vase, and would only have to blow on it softly.
Speaking of gods, I wonder how long it’ll take for you to sully the one part of this madhouse from which her piety has kept away the dull crash of your vase. How long before the fetid sounds of your soft-hearted footsteps breach her even in the afterlife? How long before you—perhaps absentmindedly—misplace yourself among her clay-bodied gods and then end up bringing down the house looking for a way out? Should I wait for that moment, and watch you fall onto the cold white marble like you do every now and then? Would you shout out her name like a war cry again, and check to see if she was pouring all of you down the hungry kitchen sink?
Or perhaps this time, would it be in prayer?
Your chariot roars along the muddy road—that black and beastly motorbike; the rotten apple of your reddened eyes; the harbinger of my mother’s death. It carries the flaccid wobble of your thinning feet towards me without much discomfort. The cloud shudders at the sight, and dashes skywards, pushing me through the open door as it does. The sight is nauseating. You, in that moment, are more nauseating than you have ever been in all your gaunt immoralities.
I close my eyes and see her huddled over your snoring, insentient shape, while I hold my glass riddled face in pain. “He’ll die this way Anuraag…” she says. “He’ll die and leave me a widow.”
I cannot lie, and in fact must tell you, that I have felt envy each time that she has disregarded my pain and has poured herself over you. On each yellow evening, when she has tried and failed inevitably, to salvage even a fragment of the man that she loved so dearly. Even now, as I lie wide awake and naked, preparing myself for death instead of sleep, I cannot picture her tending to my pus-filled wounds, while you foamed and groaned beside me with churlish audacity. I say today, that you were undeserving of it. Of her.
And yet here you are, still insentient, but more alive than I’ve ever thought of you to be, while I can only smear her onto my face and cry.
The roaring gets louder, and my breath ceases to be again. I hear the cackling creak of the iron gate like the cocking of a gun, and from the open window, I see the cloud rise higher and higher as you come nearer to me. The sight of you in Maa’s absence is disarming; provocative even. Tell me, did your chariot roar the day that you smashed it into what you say was a cruel, bloodthirsty pillar? Did it even whimper?
Did you?
Those who had mourned my mother with me had spoken in pity. There was nothing dramatic, they had said, as their hands—large and light—perched on the crook of my shoulder.
A man with a mouth that opened like a golden lake.
A soft, almost soundless collision.
A woman who couldn’t keep herself afloat.
Yes, you mourned uncontrollably. Almost penitently. And even I dared and felt a little sadness at the sight of you crumpled up in the crackling yellow light of your lair. At the sight of her palms clasping at your waist instead of mine, as you fizzed through the hot, flooded city. At the sight of my own absence. And then, in a day, or perhaps two, your crime rose up quietly to the sky like the smoke from my mother’s pyre, and no one spoke of it again.
The pillow gathers in my fingers, like the soft and greying cloud that leans against my balcony railing. Like my mother’s heaving body smeared with oil and set ablaze.
Well, perhaps to have life in this madhouse is to die and be birthed over and over again. I have myself died this way many times over, and you have birthed me a few times more. And each of those times, I have heard the dull thud of your golden vase smashing onto my own face like gunfire. And so, I take a moment—and not without reason—and let myself believe that Maa has not really left us, but has only walked out into the open road to look for you. That she shall step back in at any moment with your collar in hand, and then I shall soak in your routine rampage. Will the madhouse ever erupt again the way that it used to? I cannot help but wonder this in what can only be described as a perverse longing that equals your own.
But I just want my mother back.
Once you’re inside, you whistle my name, having no one else to snap your fingers at. But I’m sure you understand that I no longer have it in me to spare you even a sigh of reciprocation. With you, it is only a matter of waiting. Of outdoing you in patience. Of letting your memory falter before my own; and letting you come crumbling down on your marble bed before I lose courage and kneel to you in prayer. It is a matter of simply outliving you.
And so, I wait until the acid air plucks out my name from your throat, and gently puts you to sleep. Maa could never understand that this had to be done. That there was no other way out. She was too madly and helplessly in love. Always ready to stay captive within the feral cage of your belongingness.
But even now, I dare not deny her this juvenile impatience. Was she not human, after all? Was she not to give in to love?
Perhaps it is she who tugs at my skin when I slide down the warm and slippery stairs. But in her death, I do not stop. You lie crucified on the marble bed with your arms spread open in a way that could put Christ to shame. The vases lie everywhere, having been emptied into you; each a loaded Molotov that you have flung towards the sky; perhaps to light it up in your search for your beloved. I breathe you in with open eyes. The rancid smell of my childhood. The tempting gurgle of a river.
“He’ll die this way Anuraag… He’ll die!”
I let out a chuckle, and then a tear foams in my eye. A gentle wind nudges the window to a close, hiding you like she used to. The pillow gathers in my fingers, like the soft and greying cloud that leans against my balcony railing. Like my mother’s heaving body smeared with oil and set ablaze. Like the tired weight of my face in the mirror. You do not move until it smothers you. You do not move until the very end. And even then, it is only your feet that wobble restlessly, as if I were the motorbike.
I close my eyes and weep my mother’s name.
***
Ayaan Halder is a poet, author and Doctoral research scholar at the Department of Law, Gauhati University, Assam (India). His works primarily engage with the contestations and coexistences of social indigenous and diasporic identities in postcolonial/post-partition Northeast India, and draws heavily from his own diasporic life spent wholly in both belonging and not belonging to the region. His works have been published in various regional, national and international platforms such as Sahitya Akademi’s Indian Literature Magazine, The Little Journal of Northeast India, The Wire, Littera Magazine (Bangladesh), Kitaab Magazine, among others. You can find him on Instagram: @_inkslinger__.
