The book of Shadows - Excerpt - Fiction

New Internationalist, Oct, 2001 by Namita Gokhale

Bitiya is a young university lecturer from Delhi, whose face has been disfigured in an acid attack. Her fiance had committed suicide by hanging himself and, blaming Bitiya for his death, his sister takes revenge by throwing acid in her face. In this extract from The Book of Shadows by Namita Gokhale, the main character moves between different levels of unexplored consciousness as she tries to grasp her new reality.

In the flat light of my hospital room, of my clean white hospital room which still smelt of construction, my hospital bed which did not creak, this new environment so disconnected from the final moment in that month of insanity - in this room without shadows, I felt contrition. Not regret at Anand's death - I hadn't killed him, of that I was sure - and not even anger at his sister's revenge. No, I felt contrition. Love, touch, joy, passion, the hard reality of my best friend's husband secure in my welcoming womb, the elation of being alive, of riding life - these were the culprits. I felt safe in that room without shadows: no harm could come to me there. My mind too yielded its recesses, its secret pockets of pain and hope and expectation, and lived for the one clean moment of inhalation and expiration.

My face had been banished from memory. Even in the bathroom they had taped up the mirror so that all I could see when I brushed my teeth in the mornings was a white sheet of paper that flapped faintly when the exhaust fan near the window (the barred window) was switched on. This was a new, fancy hospital, a plush and expensive hospital in the outskirts of Delhi, they were full of care and concern and newfangled ideas about the psychology of the patient.

After great pain, formal feeling comes - The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs - The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore, And Yesterday or Centuries before?

Emily Dickinson, here in Ranikhet, in this bed which creaks, in the candlelight (the power has gone, a wire snapped, a pole fallen) with the insistent rhythm of the rain on the slate roof and a world of shadows closing in around me. I do not sleep at night; I am afraid of closing my eyes. I dread both dreams and reality hut most of all I dread the half-light of that moment when one is not yet asleep, when the realities of night and day interlap, when the will is suspended and unreason begins its reign.

As a child, I was never afraid. My sister would whimper and cry at the slightest excuse or provocation, but I possessed a secret, hidden pool of resilience and belief that lay submerged somewhere between my mind and my young bodyscape, which I could access at will. As I grew older I forgot the way to this dream pool, and then, finally, it dried up. Now the shadows overtake me.

During the nights, I am possessed by the most dreadful sense of urgency, and the gentle eyes of our old Bhotiya dog, Lady, light up the dark that fills my room and save me from drowning. It is Lady's persistent breathing that keeps me sane through the nights, the kinetic nights when words and phrases from my childhood crowd the room, illuminating faces I can remember but do not recognize. It is on such nights that I put on the lights and count the rafters (there are forty-two of them) and blank out those memories which still flit between the shadows.

My uncle in Bangalore had bought the house when we were very young. My sister and I had played in the garden in the summers, we chased the butterflies, plucked the hydrangeas, killed wood bee ties and buried them near the stems of the climbing roses that clambered over the veranda. When evening fell and the shadows lengthened we would retreat into the security and safety of the house.

An Englishman who had never lived here had sold the house to my uncle in an inordinate hurry. Lohaniju came with it: Lohaniju who told us stories; Lohaniju who held us tenderly when we stumbled on the steps or were stung by the nettles that grew high and wild on the tennis court.

There is a young girl in my memories; she is thin and shy, she is hiding behind a curtain in this very bedroom, behind the curtain in her parents' bedroom, and as she watches them fornicate, as she watches them at their loveless joyless task, her mother's eyes heavy with resentment, she feels someone else watching them with her. She does not know who this is, but it is a calming soothing presence, it holds her hand, it gently strokes her forehead, it instructs her to shut her eyes and pretend nothing has happened. When she shuts her eyes she can see a garden in bloom, a sweet-smelling garden in which a beautiful woman in a blue dress is walking, holding an enormous bouquet of flowers. It is the garden outside this house. When she opens her eyes again her mother is tugging at the drawstring of the petticoat she wears under her sari, and the girl waits until they have left the room before she emerges from her hiding place. I suppose that girl was me.

I remember that after they had left the room and I crawled out from my spot behind the curtain, I found a sparrow searching for an elusive morsel on the polished wooden floor. Motes of dust danced in the sunbeams as the sparrow looked up enquiringly, not in the least intimidated, I felt for a moment happy and complete and without a care in the world. The curtain moved and rustled in the breeze. I was brushed by a tangible presence, by a whisper of consolation and comfort, a dim consciousness which haunted memory yet evaded recognition.