Haroon Bijli

(4654 words, 17 minutes)

When he was halfway up the hill, the young lawyer regretted taking the car. Not only was the climb steep, the road was narrow and its surface pockmarked with loose metal.  The old Alto was hardly the vehicle for these roads.

At around thirty minutes after he left the Main Central Road and began his ascent, he reached a crossroad. He hadn’t expected it; the printout of the google map didn’t show any other road. There was a rusted signboard with an arrow pointing rightwards. The metaled road twisted downhill from there, and a dirt road lead straight ahead. He checked his map again. The map confirmed what he suspected, the dirt road was not on it. Should he follow it? He had no way of knowing.

He looked around. At the curve, he could see a few roadside hutments and a shop. There was life; an old woman was sitting outside the shop.

He guessed the woman to be at least 90 years old. He yelled out to her, asking for directions. She didn’t reply but he’d got her attention. She turned to someone inside the shop, outside of the young lawyer’s eye view.

“Someone is asking something!”

He asked again, very loudly: “how do I go to Maleickal House?”

“Straight! Straight!” a male voice shouted from inside.

“How far?”

“Thirty minutes on foot! There is nobody there!”

“Okay, I know. Thank you.”

He estimated it would take him ten minutes by car. For a moment he wondered if he should walk the rest of the way, but it was early afternoon, hot, sunny and windless.

As he started driving, he saw the man come out of the shop in his rear-view mirror. It looked as if he has laughing but he had no time to confirm. The treacherous road, if he could call it that, needed all his attention.

He almost missed a perimeter wall that arose a few feet away from the edge of the road, with almost the same colour and texture as the road itself, broken in places, covered with foliage and dirt. The road was now sloping downhill, but had turned inwards towards the hill. It didn’t become easier to drive, but at least he didn’t have to worry about falling off into the valley.

Just as the road was turning uphill again, he saw a gate in the perimeter wall. This must be it, he thought.

It wasn’t a big gate, just a geometric maze of squares and rectangles made out of wrought iron, very common in the area. He got out of the car and checked the nameboard.

There it was, etched in black marble, embedded into the pillar holding the gate. Maleickal House. On the other side, “George and Mary Maleickal. 1977.” There was a rusty chain with a padlock.

The real estate agent had given him a bunch of keys. He tried the one which had the same name of the company that made the padlock. It worked.

The gate opened with a creak. The pathway down the gate was overgrown with foliage, as was the rest of the area. Around a hundred meters away, he could see a building. The assignment became real.

Now that the hard job of locating the house was complete, he went back to the car to refer to his notes and photocopies of documents. The brief from his client was clear: they wanted a legal opinion on whether they should sell the house and the property or if it had some potential for any kind of development, perhaps a resort or an AirBnb. He had no pretentions about his expertise in real estate matters but clients were hard to come by these days, and he had seen enough of his former classmates making good money off NRIs with inherited property.  

But first he had to figure out if all the documents were in order. It had been more than three decades since anyone stepped into the house, and it wasn’t included in the list of the local realtors. The client’s realtor was not even born when his father came in possession of the property’s documents.

He checked the notes which he had taken over Zoom calls with his client. Some facts were already clear. The last known owner of the house was Mary Maleickal, wife of George Malieckal. That checked out in the deed copy, the tax receipts and the names etched in the nameboard. George inherited the property from his father and uncles and built a house and the compound wall, completed in 1977. Must have been dirt-cheap then, thought the lawyer. The tax receipts showed two houses; the real estate agent said the earlier house existed from before his time. The land was also in her name: 14 acres of agricultural land with several separate title deeds, some of which overlapped each other, but despite this, they had only one name. More than half of the land had been a rubber plantation and the rest left fallow.

The young lawyer recalled a few patches of rubber plantations on the way up here, but there did not seem to be any activity; he knew that many of these estates had gone bankrupt in recent years. The area had also seen devastating floods a few years ago which shut out whatever hopes of revival the farmers had. That was one option he wasn’t about to give his client.

According to his notes, the Malieckals built the house while they were in Kuwait and had moved in some time in the 1980s along with their three children. The children had almost completed schooling by then and went to college soon afterwards. The client said his father, the youngest Malieckal, spent only little more than a year in the house. None of the children returned to stay, except for brief visits during Onam and Christmas.

He climbed to the top of the pillars of the gate to get a better view. Overgrown shrubs obfuscated the view, but he got an idea of the layout of the estate. There was a driveway, now partly disintegrated, that led straight into the porch in front of the house. There was no vehicle there, quite obviously, but everything was invaded by overgrown foliage, a lot of it dried brown. This could be a fire hazard, he noted. On the far side of the house, there was a structure with an asbestos roof. Next to it was a smaller structure that could be a well. Was there an electric line leading to the well and the pumphouse if it was that? He traced a line that led to an electric pole on the street, but the electric pole itself did not seem to be connected to the next one. Maybe with some investment, the power network could be revived. To his left, the perimeter wall seemed to go on and on till it disappeared around the sloping curve of the road. “It’s a big property, they must have been very rich,” he said to himself.

“Hello sir,” said a voice, startling him.

It was the man he had seen earlier in his rear-view mirror after he’d asked for directions. He was carrying a pickaxe, a shovel and a gunny bag.

“Hello. Going somewhere?”

“Yes, going home,” the man said, squinting against the sun, now directly behind the young lawyer’s head. The young lawyer sat down on the pillar.

“You live around here?”

“No, it is a little far. I take around an hour to get there on foot. What about you? What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I am a lawyer,” said the young lawyer.

“Survey?” asked the labourer.

“Yes, survey,” agreed the young lawyer, relieved at having found a word that described almost exactly what he was doing.

“Don’t see many people here. In fact, you’re the only one I have seen asking about this place. And I started coming here around ten years ago,” said the labourer.

“Yes… the owners asked me to check it out.”

“Owners? I thought they were all dead,” said the labourer. He sat down on his haunches, using the shovel to support him.

“No, their grandchildren are in America.”

“Okay. Didn’t know. Ammachi didn’t mention about any children. Thought the couple was childless.”

“Really? The ammachi knew them?” asked the lawyer.

“No, not directly. Her aunt worked with the couple. She died long back, a few months after the woman in the house died. She knows some stuff. But I don’t know… some days she doesn’t even remember my name,” he laughed. “She is very old.”

“Will I get a bottle of water at your store?”

“No, we closed already. Anyway, we don’t have bottles of water. We hardly have anything, just some groceries. There is no one around here who buys water. We have a pot there if someone is thirsty. If someone wants some labour, they come there, so I sit there till afternoon. Also to give her some company. The old lady closes after lunch. Then I leave, because it gets dark very early… this is not the place you want to be after dark. I might have work tomorrow on the way here, so I am carrying this stuff with me,” he said, pointing to his equipment.

“No streetlights?”

“No. Some connections are there but they never repaired anything after the floods. Ammachi uses an old kerosene lamp. She doesn’t see much anyway so it doesn’t matter,” he chuckled.

The young lawyer looked up and down the road as if to confirm. There were electric poles along the road. Some had lines. All of them had creepers winding upwards. The one closest to them had a bulb that was dangling away from its holder.

“Not a good idea to stay long,” said the labourer. “Would suggest you wind up soon.”

After a long pause, he got up and collected his stuff. “So long, then. You don’t talk much, looks like.”

The young lawyer was alone again. He watched the labourer trudge away from his view. He wondered how life was up here for them, and the Maleickals. All the money they made, the property they bought, the house they built which had no one to look after, and yet there are people who had to walk miles to earn an uncertain wage.

The fall of a dried twig from a tree broke his reverie. He had a job to do, and fast. It was still sunny, but the shadows had started becoming longer. He estimated that he would have an hour and half, at best. He would have to start driving back in reasonable daylight if he were to reach the main road before dark.

He wondered whether he should explore the estate or the house. He figured it would take him too long to cover the estate; it was much too large and getting around would be difficult. That meant taking a quick peek inside the house. He had the keys: all he had to do was to check the state of it, and see it was worth restoring.

He stepped down from the pillar and walked down the dilapidated driveway, pausing to whack out the overgrown brush with the hard paper binder he was carrying. It didn’t make for a great tool, but at least he could move forward.

He’d subconsciously started counting the trees he encountered. Six coconut trees, at least two guava, half a dozen arecanut, and a few large ones he couldn’t identify. Some were overgrown parasitic plants. There were a few stooping Ashoka trees on the periphery. And a large jackfruit tree right next to the house, laden with fruit. Several of jackfruit had ripened and struggling to hang on to the tree. Strangely, no birds. Too early for bats, but there were no insects either. It struck him that he had not seen any animals either. Not even stray dogs.

It felt strange, but the young lawyer shrugged it away, making a mental note for future reference. If there was some kind of pollution – the old asbestos came to mind – he would need to have it checked. But later. For now, he had to finish the house visit.

He stepped onto the porch. The concrete floor had blackened and disintegrated with grass growing from between the cracks. The walls had a sort of cream shade which may have been white at some point. He could discern a black tyre mark or two on them.

He went up the steps from the porch to the verandah. The verandah was dusty, with sand and remnants of rainwater seepage. He was expecting a collapsible grille across the front door; the number of keys in the bunch had indicated a second padlock but there was just a door. Deep brown, weathered, with some of the surface peeling off from the sides. There was a brass knocker and a steel doorknob, a luxury for those days. He inserted the key that looked like the same brand as the lock. To his surprise, it opened smoothly. As if it had always been in use.

He stepped inside to find the fan still whirring.

His first instinct was to look for a switch.

The second instinct was to stay calm and look around. At the far end of the wall, there was a portrait of Mary and Jesus. Next to it was a smaller portrait of a man. Both had lamps, electric ones that mimicked candlelight. Still flickering a dim orange light. There was furniture.

The third instinct was to turn around and run. But before he could react, he heard the voice of a woman.

“Who’s there? Mercy? Go and look. Seems someone is at the door.”

He froze. His feet would not move but he tried to turn around and reach the doorknob. In doing so, he shut the door from the inside.

Another voice responded. “I will take a look, amma.”

A face peered from a doorway halfway along the wall to his right. If the hair wasn’t silver and the face weather-beaten, he would have thought it was a child.

“Who is this?” she asked.

He could only mutter ‘me’. His throat was dry, with his mind still processing what he had just seen. His feet were still stuck to the floor, and his hands were still on the doorknob.

They looked at each other for what seemed an eternity. He could almost hear his own heart pounding. He gently turned the doorknob hoping the woman wouldn’t notice. She was looking at him, straight into his eyes. The young lawyer thought he saw a mix of recognition and joy in her eyes, but he had no idea why.

The woman shouted into the corridor.

“Amma! I think your grandson as come!”

“You don’t recognize me, do you?” she asked. “Well, how would you, you last saw me when you were four.”

The young lawyer could only stare back.

“Girl! Come and help me get up,” said the voice from the back of the house.

“Coming,” said the small woman and disappeared into the doorway.

Her departure offered the young lawyer a little autonomy over his body; he tried opening the door with both hands. It wouldn’t budge.

He heard smatterings of conversation from behind the house, and a chair or a table being moved. If he was to escape, he had to be quick. He looked around: along the wall to his left, the side from which he’d let himself in, were windows, all of them barred and closed. The curtains were half-drawn, and the textured glass panes let light in but nothing else. There was an alcove which he figured was a staircase leading to the floors above, but this was directly opposite the hallway. He might be seen. Next to it was living room furniture: a large settee, a few cushioned chairs, all with steel arms, the kind he had seen at his Gulf-returned relatives’ homes. Beneath the portraits of Jesus and Mary was a table with a few showcase items. A large TV – a Sony – stood on a stand. He couldn’t see the shelf below, but he was sure that it held a video player and a sound system. On the other side, just beyond the hallway was a four-chair dining table with a jug and a few glasses, and a vase with plastic flowers. Next to the table, a refrigerator, a small one, with a voltage stabilizer on top. There was no escape route, and no place to hide either.

He could hear them coming. Small steps, with the sound of a rubber flipflop slapping against the walker’s heel. The women emerged from the hallway, the small woman holding a larger older woman by the elbow.

“Mone? Son?”

It was the kindest face he had seen in a long time. White hair with a few strands of black, neatly tied into a bun, frameless eyeglasses perched on the nose, and eyes that looked at him with curiosity mixed with affection that he was not expecting. She was wearing a white saree draped syriani style with a golden cross for a brooch.

“At last. I never thought I would see you again. Come and give your granny a hug!”

In that single second, the young lawyer felt it best to obey. He dropped the paper binder he was carrying on the settee and went into the old woman’s outstretched arms. She pulled him down towards her neck and he did not offer any resistance.

She felt unexpectedly warm and comforting, the soft muslin of her saree caressing his face, the feel of which took him back to the time he hugged his own grandmother for the last time. It was the day he’d finally cleared his law exams, and she’d held him tight and wept, his tears mingling with hers, and within hours she died, leaving a gaping hole within him which this woman’s embrace reminded him of. The mild perfume she was wearing took him back to his childhood home where all the women shared the same bottle, an imported one a Gulf-returned relative had given them which was taken out only on Sundays before church. And the faint smell of jackfruit and jaggery on her person, which was his mother’s fragrance after a day’s hard work at making jackfruit halwa for the family.

A million thoughts came to him, all at once, overwhelming him with grief and joy and childhood and youth and everything in between, pushing up all kinds of emotions that he had held at a distance while he concentrated on kickstarting his career in law. Who was this woman who felt like a stranger in a surreal film playing somewhere in the far-off distance yet was so close that his heart seemed at peace, and he found himself surrender. He wept.

He wept until the old woman gently pushed her shoulder upward, just like his grandmother used to do.

His sight was blurred with the profusion of his tears, his body a little unbalanced and holding on to his shoulders. She sat him down in one of the cushioned chairs. The old maid immediately got a dining chair for the old woman to sit on.

“We must talk,” she said. “But only after you have had something. Mercy, heat that fish curry and make appams. I am sure he never gets to eat that in America.”

Mercy scurried off, wiping her own tears with the towel that served as a drape across her chest.

The chair was soft and comfortable, and enveloped the young lawyer. He was emotionally spent, and realized he was physically tired as well. He looked up at the old woman, wordlessly. She seemed to be praying softly under her breath and ran her fingers through his hair as he did so. The fan whirred, he felt cooler, and her touch was soothing. A delicious smell wafted in from the kitchen. He should, he thought to himself, yield. There is nothing to worry about here, everything was good, everything was real. Maybe he was indeed her grandson, and maybe the life he lived up to this point was the unreal one.

And then his eyes fell on his file which he’d put on the settee. He felt his muscles tighten slightly.

Mercy came in with a plate of steaming appams and a bowl of fish curry. The old woman was now looking indulgently at him, just like his grandmother used to do after he’d done something which pleased her.

“You look just like him,” she said.

“Like whom, grandma? My father?” the young lawyer asked.

“No, like Mr Maleickal, your grandfather.”

His muscles tightened even more. He wondered if the old woman sensed that as well.

“Why don’t you have some food and then take rest? There will be load shedding any time now. Mercy, bring out the candles.”

The young lawyer got up from the cushioned chair and moved to the dining table. It was an old one, the kind with a melamine top that had a faux wooden graphic that were in vogue decades ago. They had lain a textured table-cloth over it which smelled faintly of sticky oil. The drinking glasses which he’d observed when he came into the house were still there. This was so familiar, the lawyer thought, almost exactly like his childhood home was, when his grandmother was in good health and used to run the house. He didn’t know why his muscles were stiff, with the stiffness only increasing as he sat down in front of the plate laid out for him.

Mercy was not very generous with the curry so he reached out to ladle himself some more of the liquid. The old woman laughed.

“Mr Maleickal also did this! All those years in America and despite who your mother is, you’re a chip off the old block!”

The young lawyer smiled. He felt encouraged to pour even more. Both Mercy and the old woman got up to serve him, bumping against each other. In that melee of three hands and enthusiasm, the young lawyer knocked off one of the glasses. He instinctively tried to grab the falling glass. Instead, his hand only reached the floor and poked against a broken shard.

“Damn this stiffness,” the young lawyer muttered beneath his breath as he examined his bloodied finger.

The old lady and Mercy yelped. Mercy went somewhere to get cotton or a band aid. The old lady examined the cut.

“Not very deep, should be okay. But are you okay?” she asked.

The young lawyer hadn’t felt this peaceful in a long time, not since he’d left home for studies and thereafter in pursuit of a career. But he was unable to explain the sudden stiffness in his muscles. It was as if the body was acting on its own.

He said so too. “I’m okay. Maybe I am tired.”

“Yes. America is far, no? Mercy!”

Mercy arrived with a piece of cotton wool dipped in water. He wiped the blood with it and held his cut finger in his mouth.

“Mercy, get the bedroom ready for the young master. Let him sleep. What time does the power go off?”

“Eight, Amma. Any time now.”

The young lawyer followed Mercy into the alcove and up the stairs. The bedroom was dimly lit, with warm diffused lighting, the kind one might see in luxury hotels. The furniture was less luxurious but not spartan. There were bookshelves stacked with bestsellers and some Archie comics. The room of a well-off teenager, thought the young lawyer. He’d seen this décor at some of his well-off friends’ homes.

Mercy lit a candle for him and left. The lights went off almost immediately.

For the first time inside house, the young lawyer was alone. The glass planes on the first floor were plain and untextured, but it was pitch dark and there was nothing to see. He wondered if there would be sufficient moonlight as the night progressed.

He lay down on the bed; his body ached but he was not close to sleeping. He loosened his belt but decided to keep his shoes on, at least for the time being. The pillows were soft and the mattress comfortable, and as his eyes adjusted to the dim candlelight, he sized up what he saw around him. The smell was also familiar; it reminded him of the cupboards where his friends kept the goodies their parents had sent from the Gulf. He could hear a clock ticking. He checked his phone; it was almost nine.

He felt the emotional tumult within him subside and his body relax. This would be a good time to think the events through, he thought to himself. Everything was real: the cut by the shard of glass, the taste of the food, the fragrance of this room, the touch and the warmth of the old woman, the electric lights. Everything. Yet, it couldn’t be. This had to be an illusion.

The candle was dimming; it was close to the end of the wick. He didn’t know when the power would come back on. Even if it did, was it real? He had no way of knowing. He had to find out and get a grip on what was real and what wasn’t.

He went to the door and put his ear against the keyhole. They were noises. Normal, household noises. A clink there. A creak here. The old woman calling out to Mercy. Mercy responding. Pots and pans being moved in the kitchen.

He opened the door, turning the knob very gently. To the other side of the hallway were more rooms, with the doors closed, and a sitting area at the end. There were no lights. Towards the staircase, he could see the glimmer of a candle and some shadows of objects. Nothing suspicious – a shadow of a jug perhaps, and the vase with the plastic flowers. He reached the top of the staircase.

If he proceeded down the staircase, he was certain to be seen. The two women were up and about; he wasn’t sure where, but from the direction of the voices, he could surmise that Mercy was moving around and the old lady – if she was Mrs Maleickal – was seated on one of the large chairs.

He went back to the room with all his questions unanswered. Maybe it was wise to wait till daytime? He located the bathroom and relieved himself, using his hands and feet to navigate quietly back to the bed.

He shut his eyes and dozed off.

He was not sure what woke him up. He distinctly heard a click. A sharp one, like a key turning a lock. There was no other sound. Even the clock had stopped ticking. He fought the urge to check his phone for the time.

Everything was still. And dark. He held his breath.

He saw the doorknob turning. The door opened.

Mrs Maleickal. Mercy holding a candle behind her. She didn’t look at all like the kind grandmother he’d met earlier.

“So, you came here for the property, didn’t you?”

“How… how did you…” the young lawyer stammered. He was up from the bed, moving backwards towards the wall.

“Oh, just look behind you, you fool,” said Mrs Maleickal.

He turned around and looked out of the window.

In the dim light of dawn, he could see the unmistakable figure of a man with a pickaxe, a shovel and a gunny bag.