One day, as Akkayya, after finishing her bath, went and sat by the tulasi platform to say her prayers, she caught a bad cold, and that very night it developed into a high fever. My grandmother, naturally, gave her some decoction of herbs — a family secret she had known all her life. But the next day the fever was as high, and my grandmother gave her the same medicine. It was only on the third day, when Akkayya was almost unconscious, that they thought of calling a doctor. But she hated doctors — hated them like carcass-eating pariahs. To drink a medicine prepared with the hands of those wretches — those irreligious, low-born, dissolute blackguards! No. She would rather die. They tried to persuade her; then they threatened her. But it was all in vain. That evening when our neighbour Venkatappa’s wife came to see her, she brought a new decoction for ‘such a fever’—also a family secret. It did not do any good either, and on the fifth day the doctor was actually sent for without Akkayya’s knowledge. As soon as she saw him, shoes, tie, and medical bag, she rose up and, sitting in her bed, scowled and spat on him, so angry she was. But the doctor was accustomed to such dramatic welcomes. They said he was trained in Bombay, but nobody ever really knew. Quick and polite, he asked my grandmother and grandfather to hold her two hands, and in spite of her howlings and moanings, he examined her chest and mouth and declared it to be a serious case of typhoid. He told them to be very careful, keep her warm, give her light food, and gave them a prescription to be dispensed at the Civil Hospital. My grandfather and grandmother did not know how to proceed, as Akkayya would never drink medicine brought from the hospital. They sat together and argued about it back and forth, and as my grandmother was a clever woman she suggested the drug could easily be mixed with coffee or soup; and so the medicine was brought. When Akkayya said, ‘Sister, this soup smells horrible!’ my grandmother would explain that when people have fever ‘everything has a strange taste’, and Akkayya never discovered the trick. But the medicine did not work, for Akkayya always wanted delicious mango pickles to ‘clear her mouth with’, as she used to remark again and again. Besides, she kept talking the whole time despite her weak and delirious state.
It was a forty-eight-days’ fever and when it left her she was nothing but bone and eyes. For two months or more she could not rise, and when she even sat for a moment she complained that her bones ached. At last she decided she would get up for the Shivaratri, and every day she used to tell herself that she was going to be better, and how wonderful it would be to stand up and walk. Sleeping in her bed, she used to dream of the day she would have a real good bath by the well, say her prayers, adorn the idols, and keep awake all the night listening to the miracles of Shiva, the three-eyed one. In her joy she even sang in her hoarse, breathless voice:
Shiva is Sri Rama,
Shiva is the Lord of the all-dowered Gauri,
Shiva is Sri Vishnu,
Shiva is the King of the Crematorium,
Shiva is Ganges-crowned,
Shiva is snake-garlanded,
Shiva is poison-throated,
Shiva is the All, the All,
Shiva is Sri Rama,
Shiva is the Lord of the all-dowered Gauri.
My grandmother, who heard it from the kitchen, was happy too and prayed to God that her sister might soon be able to live as usual. Only, when Shivaratri came, they tried to lift her up and make her stand, but her legs had lost all their strength and they bent down like plantain bark. They tried to make her stand by giving her their shoulders to lean on; by giving her two boxes on either side to rest her hands upon; even by leaving her beside the pillars; but nothing would work. Akkayya was smiling all the while. She felt happy like a child that wants to stand up for the first time, and she persuaded herself that she would be able to go to the temple by the evening — though for the moment the experiment was not so great a success! Anyway, at ten, the barber came and shaved her, and she was happy to have her head free. Then they took her into the bathroom — they actually carried her — and she sat on the bath-slab smiling and joking. She would get better. Of course she would! After the bath they carried her to the sanctum and, leaning against the wall, she prayed as usual, her little silver pot by her and the rosary in her hand. Then they wanted her to go to bed, but she refused and insisted on eating with all the others. But, in the middle of the meal, when she was just going to put rice and curds into her mouth, she fell down and rolled across her leaf plate. They washed her and took her back to bed and it was over a quarter of an hour before she recovered her consciousness. She did not seem sad. Her eyes still glowed with the ecstasy of a child, and she lay in the bed, smiling.
Of course she could not go to the temple that night. But she would soon — by Sankranthi. After one year, she still lay in her bed, much too weak even to sit up. But how very gay she was! Here, cousin Ramu, who told us the story, suddenly lowered his voice and began to whisper as though he were going to tell us a secret. We were anxious and listened with all our ears. ‘The truth is,’ he murmured, ‘the truth is, I think she has a bad disease. . ’ Bad disease! I did not know what it meant. Nor do I know now. I only saw that my father’s face turned grey as a coconut and my stepmother shivered. ‘She stinks, she stinks horribly. .’ whispered cousin Ramu with disgust. ‘She stinks like a manure-pit. I could not sit by her. I could not stay near her for more than five minutes. . And yet,’ he said, as though consoled, ‘you never saw her smile like that. She has the smile of a godly child. . ’
That night I had a terrifying nightmare.
It was to be a cold morning. My bedding in hand, I walked down the station to our Old-Well house where my grandmother now lived. (My grandfather had lately died and uncle Shama, who loved his independence, stayed away in the Fig-Tree house and sent Akkayya and my grandmother to the other one.) As I entered the courtyard my grandmother hailed me from the verandah where she was sweeping the floor. It was not a very big house. Just three rooms and a kitchen, with a spacious, elevated verandah, and a large courtyard with a sweet-water well in the middle. As I neared the house every step seemed to drag back and every breath sniff and choke at the thought of Akkayya. I looked at the doors. They seemed so gruesome and bare. In which room was she? In which?
My grandmother whispered to me.
‘The children are asleep,’ she said.
‘Which children?’ I inquired.
‘Why! Sata’s. . Sata’s. .’ she answered, a little hurt.
‘But. . you mean they’re all here?’
‘No, no,’ she whispered, beckoning me to sit on the parapet wall, ‘only the last two are here. The father kept the eldest son and the eldest daughter with him.’
‘When did they come here?’ I asked.
‘Over a month ago. Soon after Sata’s death. . ’ It made me sad to think of aunt Sata. She was the dearest of women; she had died in childbirth.
‘How is She?’ I managed to say, trembling.
‘Who?’
‘She. . ’ I pointed towards one of the doors that seemed, I cannot say why, to be Akkayya’s room.
‘You mean Akkayya?’ she said, pained.
‘Yes!’
‘Well!’ here my grandmother had tears in her eyes. ‘Well, my son, she is between life and death. I wish she would die soon.’ It sent a sharp shiver through my back. For a brief moment we did not say a word to each other.
‘Anyhow,’ she began, trying to change the subject, ‘tell me, how is everybody at home. Your father? Your sisters?’
‘They’re all well,’ I said casually. My eyes were strangely drawn towards that door — Akkayya’s door. Was she there?
In the meanwhile the milk-woman came and my grandmother went into the kitchen to get a vessel. I looked around. The morning was breaking. The sun was spreading his feathers like an amorous peacock. But it was still very cold. And somehow even the mango tree I loved so much was sad and sickly. The bullock-carts were creaking along, and the dust of the morning was rising. I was not going to stay with my grandmother. I had decided to go to my uncle’s and had dropped in here only to pay my respects to her and to inquire after Akkayya. Now I must be going. . Somehow I felt breathless and worm-eaten. Even my grandmother’s face, which was always lively and young, looked as though she were being strangled. No, I must be going. But my grandmother insisted that I should stay and have a cup of coffee. I could not refuse it. But I could not stay there any longer. Telling my grandmother I would go and wash my face at the well, I walked out into the courtyard. The raw air, the pomegranates and the sky above seemed to give the sense of a fresher reality. I sat on the wall of the well, thinking of my grandfather, aunt Sata, Akkayya, and all those whom I had loved and lived with, and who were slowly disappearing one by one.