No Pain Like This Body (6 page)

“I feelin cold,” Panday said.

The rain sang and the thunder shouted and the lightning danced.

Ma picked up Panday. Her back was resting against the wall. She stared at the light inside the box, trying to see Rama. Nanny made a step forward. She slipped. She was falling with her head over the drum. Nanny prevented the fall by grabbing hold of the wall. The rain was falling heavier now. Brown water almost covered the floor. Outside, the thunder and the rain were shouting at Tola, and the sky God was listening; lis­tening real good. Ma and Nanny began to speak in Hindi. Balraj, Sunaree and Panday couldn't understand too well, but they knew what Ma and Nanny were talking about: they were talking about the rain and life; the rain and the thunder; the rain and the wind; the rain and the darkness; the rain and the past, and about the rain and the future; and about life and death.

There were small cracks in the earthen wall. Red ants started to come out of the cracks. First a few, then many. They started to sting. Real hard. It was as if fire was burning their skins. They moved from against the wall, but the ants were still stinging them, ants were in their clothes and their hair. They leaned against the ricebox; against the cold cedar board. Sunaree got a scrape in her back with a nail. She started to cry.

Rama was coughing and crying inside the ricebox; crying and coughing as if he was going to die. The water from the roof was still falling upon the box.

“Balraj!”

“Yeh Ma.”

“Son take de cutlass from de kichen. Go cut some fig leafs and bring dem and cover de roof. Rama feelin cold. He not sappose to get wet all de time.”

“Oright.”

The place was dark. Balraj went in the kitchen and got the cutlass. He went by the banana patch to the southern side of the house. He couldn't see to cross the drain. He waited for the lightning; as it flashed, he jumped over the drain. Balraj felt the wet leaves with one hand and he chopped them off the banana trunk with the other.

When he came back with the leaves, he saw that they were badly torn by the wind. He handed them to Ma and Nanny, and went back for some more. Ma and Nanny held the leaves over their heads. Crickets were jumping all over the place. Sunaree and Panday kept rubbing their feet against each other, trying to kill the crickets like.

Rama was crying and getting on inside the box; he was saying how he was getting wet.

The light was shut inside the box, because when Balraj had closed the lid, he closed the light in. Ma gave her leaves to Nanny. She went into the kitchen and made another flam­beau. She came back and handed the light to Nanny. It was as if Ma didn't want to have anything to do with the light.

Balraj brought the banana leaves. This time he was more careful; they were not torn by the wind. Balraj handed the leaves to Ma. He climbed up on the ricebox. He stood on the lid, and Ma handed him the leaves. He began to push the leaves between the rafters and the needle grass. But he couldn't fit the leaves properly, because the roof was too high. Nanny got a potato crate and handed it to Balraj. He took it and placed it on top of the ricebox. He stood on the crate in order to reach the roof easily. Balraj was working real fast. The water began to fall on the ricebox less and less. He was trying hard to cover the roof, but . . .

“O God!” he shouted.

Balraj jumped down from the ricebox. He fell on the ground and started to scream, bawling as if the life was com­ing out of him, getting on as if he was quarrelling with the wind and the rain. Ma and Nanny thought he saw an evil spirit; they began talking in Hindi right away, saying prayers and this kind of thing. Balraj was rolling in the water, keeping his hands high in the air. The rain was pouring and pouring and pouring down on Tola. Lightning flashed. Balraj told Ma and Nanny that his hands were on fire. The water came down from the roof and fell on the ricebox
drip drip drip.
Something fell from the roof
tats;
it fell harder than the water.

Ma and Nanny moved closer to the ricebox with the flambeau. There were three of them. Full grown. Deadly. Moving fast. Faster. Running on the ricebox. They were black like rubber. The long legs were hurrying. Tails in the air. Mov­ing faster and faster. Fire stingers. The scorpions. Little but deadly; they kept running and running.

“Move fast!” Ma shouted.

Sunaree shifted.

The scorpions were running down the sides of the ricebox. Nanny crushed one with the drum. Ma burnt another with the flambeau; it smelt bad. Some more fell on the ricebox. The scorpions were running down the sides of the box too fast. They couldn't kill all of them. Ma took the flambeau and started to smoke them off the ricebox. She didn't want them to go inside the box, because Rama was still inside the box. And the scorpions were running crazily all over the place; just running with their tails in the air. Some of them went under­neath the box. Others just crawled on the earth in the muddy water. Some went into the cracks of the earthen wall. A large black scorpion was climbing on Sunaree's right foot. She jumped up, and it fell in the water again. She took the flute and pounded it to death; pounded it just as the rain was pounding the house, and the wind was pounding the light.

Balraj was still bawling and rolling in the water. Rama too was screaming from inside the ricebox; screaming and saying how the scorpions were stinging him.

Nanna reached same time.

IV

NANNA RAN
splunk splunk
into the house. Balraj was rolling in the water. He was bawling. Nanna had no time with Balraj; he just jumped over him and ran by the ricebox.

Nanna didn't say a word. He ran by the box. The light that Balraj had placed inside the ricebox was out, so Rama was in darkness. Water still fell from the roof on the ricebox. Nanna stretched his skinny hands and lifted the ricebox cover. The cover was heavy, and Nanna was an old man, but he just pulled the cover like nothing and opened the box.

“Show me de light,” he said.

Nanny leaned over the opened ricebox with the flambeau. Nanna saw two scorpions inside the box. “Hand me someting fast!” he shouted, as he climbed into the box.

Nanny handed him the drum. The scorpions were making a run for it. But they couldn't run from the drum. Nanna held the drum firmly, and pounded them
bup bup bup.

Rama was bawling, and the wind and the rain were shout­ing at Tola and pounding the earth; water came through the holes in the roof more and more. Nanna picked up Rama. He handed him to Nanny and Ma. Nanna took the drum and came out of the box; the scorpions couldn't interfere with him, because he had the drum.

Balraj was rolling in the water; he was twelve years old, yet he was rolling in the water. The whole house was spinning with noise and water. Nanna picked up Balraj. “Now hush!”

“I deadin. Fire lightin in me hand.”

Nanna told Sunaree and Panday to get some ricebags and spread them out by the tapia wall. Sunaree and Panday went into the bedroom. It was dark. They felt the ground, slippery and cold under their feet. They searched with their toes for the empty ricebags. They were searching quietly because they were afraid that an evil spirit was going to hold them in the bedroom.

“I get one bag,” Panday said.

He bent down and took up the bag.

“Now shake out dat bag good, befo a skopian bite you,” Sunaree warned.

“Oright.”

Panday shook the bag
vat vat vat
in the darkness. It sounded as if he was opening a dry coconut with a dull cutlass.

Sunaree got a few bags too. She shook them and said to Panday, “Let we come outa dis dark place. I fraid if a lightnin cut out we tongues.”

“Why you makin me fraid?”

“I not makin you fraid.”

Nanna heard them arguing, so he said, “Come fast wid dem bags.”

“Oright,” Sunaree answered.

When they brought the bags, Nanna said, “Spread dem bags by dat tapia wall. It not have no skopians dere.”

Nanna placed Balraj upon the bags. Nanny and Ma rested Rama next to Balraj.

“It not have no dry coverlets for dese chirens to put under dey backs?” Nanna asked.

“No,” Ma said sadly.

And Nanny: “Me God! Where you is God!”

Nanna picked up a dead scorpion from the water. It was long and black. He took the light from Nanny and began roasting it. The scorpion went
sooey soeey,
then
crack crack crack,
as the flame licked the flesh. It smelt as if rubber or wet leaves were burning. The smoke came out bluish like. Then he removed the body from the flame; he blew it, then he broke out the end of the tail and threw it away. Then with a slow patience he roasted the body of the scorpion again. Nanna took the roasted scorpion and came near Balraj and Rama.

“Eat dis,” Nanna said, handing Balraj a piece of roasted scorpion. “It go do you good.”

“I not want dat!”

“Eat it boy. It good for you.”

“Me eh want it, I say.”

Nanna reminded Balraj that he and Rama were stung by deadly scorpions; the poison was working fast; they were going to die if they didn't eat the roasted scorpion.

“Sappose we eat it and still dead?” Balraj asked.

“Never!” Nanna replied.

Resting on the wet bags, Balraj and Rama ate the scor­pion meat. They ate in fear, because their eyes were wide open as doors. When they finished the meat, Nanna made his hands into a cup. He asked Balraj and Rama to piss in his hands. Rama coughed and said that he was too sick to piss. Balraj kept saying that his bladder was empty, because he had pissed when he went for the banana leaves.

Sunaree and Panday were listening. They were looking on; feeling sorry for Balraj and Rama like.

“I go pee in you hand Nanna,” Panday said.

Nanna objected. He said that the piss was going to act against the poison only if it came from Balraj and Rama. “Now Balraj and Rama all you pee in me hand!”

“I not!” Balraj said.

“Well den you goin to dead! And Rama too!” Nanna shouted.

When Balraj learnt that if he and Rama didn't pass water they were going to die, he began to piss in a great hurry.

Nanna took the piss and rubbed it on Balraj's hands; on his face; some even went into his mouth. Balraj spat; “Man Nanna, pee does taste wost dan skopian meat I tell you!”

With Balraj it was easy, but Nanna had a great deal of trouble with Rama. His feet were trembling; he was almost too weak to stand, but he was strong enough to piss.

Then Balraj and Rama settled on the wet ricebags again. Balraj was silent, but Rama was going
kohok kohok kohok
like a dog.

Nanna looked on with worried eyes. He believed that some evil spirit was causing Rama to cough like a dog; the evil spirit

was making the poison work too. Nanna started to recite some

mantras from the Hindu scriptures; he was trying his best to drive away the evil spirit. But the spirit was upon Rama alone,

because Balraj was not coughing like a dog; only Rama was coughing like a dog and getting on. Nanna stopped, then he told Nanny and Ma to go and get some scorpion bush.

Nanny took a cutlass, and Ma held a flambeau; they went behind the house to look for the bush. The rain was still

falling. They saw the night bolted against the sky; they wit­nessed the total darkness rebelling against the light and life; the night loomed and loomed and loomed as a mountain of wet coals before them. They heard the wind ripping Tola as a claw from the shapeless darkness; there was the thunder too, reaching through the night as a potent god to clout them. In the darkness they felt the fear pinching their hearts.

“Careful de drain,” Nanny said.

Nanny spoke too late. Ma fell
splash!
inside the drain. Nanny helped her up. They walked on.

Water came from the riceland and covered up most of the yard. Most of the scorpion bush was covered by water.

“All dis gobble,” Ma said, “and me husban not know not-ten. He by some rumshop drinkin rum. But by de help of God, me chirens goin to come man and woman in Tola.”

“Stupidness! Leff de man.”

Ma said she was not going to leave Pa. She was prepared to stick with him somehow.

“Dat is because you stupid,” Nanny said.

Ma and Nanny kept on looking. They heard the frogs croaking in the yard, and they heard the night birds beyond the river going
craw.

Sunaree and Panday took out their eyes when Nanna said that an evil spirit was causing Rama to cough like a dog; they were afraid of the evil spirits, especially the ones who didn't like children. They believed that the spirit came from the forest because of the rain; the spirit was really strong on Rama, because the rain was falling and falling and making the spirit mad. Sunaree and Panday stood close to Nanna and looked on.

Nanna closed his eyes as he recited the Sanskrit verses; he was begging the great sky God and also the minor Aryan gods; he was begging the gods; begging them to forsake their beds and their wives in heaven; begging them just to look down from the sky through the rain clouds on Balraj and Rama. He was talking to the gods like a child. He was asking them to drive away the darkness and the rain and beat the evil spirit out of the house. He believed the gods were listening to him. He opened his eyes and blew three times on Balraj. He closed his eyes again, disturbed the gods again, blew three times on Rama too, then he closed his eyes again. . . . Suddenly he asked Balraj, “How you feelin?”

“I still sick.”

Just as Nanna was about to pray again, Nanny and Ma walked into the house with the scorpion bush. Nanny handed him the bush saying, “We had to look like hell for dem bush.” “We go use de bush later,” Nanna said.

“Why?” Ma asked.

“Because de prayers have to work.”

Nanna stood up. He closed his eyes tight, and started to pray hard hard; he was not quarrelling with God or anything; he was just begging him to beat the evil spirit and drive away the rain. Nanna prayed and prayed and prayed, but God was too busy sending the rain to drown the earth.