KUMARIMUTHU stared at the man. He was around 60, bald, wore a cap perhaps to cover the baldness, and was completely unremarkable except for the fact that his photograph was in the newspaper that Kumarimuthu was reading. In a missing persons ad.
And here he was, looking not only alive, but also wide awake, studiously reading the pictures in a film magazine. At first, Kumarimuthu had wondered if it was one of those after images. But no, the man persisted. So perhaps he was one of those six lookalikes that each person is allotted. But again, no, this man was not just a dead ringer, heh heh, he was definitely the original of the photograph, which was big and clear, and in colour. The birth mark left no room for doubt. It was on the forehead, large and shaped like Australia. Who else was it who had one like that? Gorbachev! Kumarimuthu was pleased with his memory power. The other possibility was that the obituary was a mistake. He had heard that the BBC had once announced the death of Queen Elizabeth. That was twenty years ago, and she was still proving them wrong. Yes, very likely it was a mistake.
Should he simply ask the man? How do you do, are you dead or alive? My sincere condolences, but aren’t you late for your funeral? Hello there, how is life? After death? Is there a dodo on the other side? How do you keep your feathers clean?
Kumarimuthu came awake with a jerk. His reveries frequently caused him to nod off.
He restarted the train of thought. Of course, the fourth possibility was too absurd to entertain even for a moment. No, he could not be a ghost. To begin with, it was 12 noon, not midnight. And they were in C-library, which was the favourite haunt of the jobless, not haunts.
Kumarimuthu looked around at the other people sharing the long table at which he sat. The ghost person sat across the table from him. There were several others, and nobody took any notice of anybody, sunk as they were in the listless torpor that only a library on a summer day can induce. There was no way to tell if they were merely not looking at the body or if they could not see it at all.
Kumarimuthu’s gaze returned to the deceased. He shivered suddenly. There was something unsettling about him. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but it was possibly the fact that he was in the obituary column.
Mr. Markandeyan
12.10.1955 – 15.5.2011
Passed away in a tragic road accident.
Deeply mourned by wife, daughters and family.
When he looked for the remains of Markandeyan again, they had disappeared. Kumaritmuthu’s eyes searched the library frantically. He spotted the late lamented near the exit, making his way out into the fierce heat of midday in May. He was wearing a longish veshti (under a blue shirt that needed a wash), so there was no way to tell if he was walking or gliding.
Kumarimuthu obeyed an impulse and hurried after him. Outside, he looked this way and that, squinting in the glare of the sunlight. There he was. At the tea shop by the gate to the library campus. The dead person lit a cigarette and received a glass of tea with the other hand. As Kumarimuthu watched, he took a long pull at his cigarette, with slow, deliberate enjoyment.
Kumarimuthu remained where he was, trying to look like he was not looking. He faced a notice stuck to a wall by the library doorway and kept an eye on the dead person out of the corner of his eye. The man from the obituary column did not hurry.
The sun was cooking his brain. Kumarimuthu slipped into the shade of the doorway to the library. This offered cover from both the sun and observation. Why hadn’t he thought to do this earlier? He closed his eyes to rest them. This insane heat. It felt like his eyes were on fire.
The dead person presently passed through the gate on to P_Road. Kumarimuthu followed. The body strolled down P_Road towards P_C_Road, as coolly as though it was a pleasant day in December and not a scorcher in May.
Kumarimuthu tried to stay in the shade of buildings and trees as he followed. It was half past noon and scarcely any shade to be found. He was shadowing a shade in the shade. He smirked and then grew sober. Perhaps the heat had affected his brain. Why was he doing this? Anyway, they were going towards Hotel A_, at the far end of P_Road, and it was time for lunch. The full meals. Their sambar was A1. So he would stay in Mr. Markandeyan’s wake for now.
The body stopped for a tender coconut. Whether it had a pulse or not, it certainly had an appetite. Kumarimuthu stepped smartly out of sight, into a store. He wished he could have a tender coconut too. He stood under a fan in the store. He noticed that he was standing near the refrigerator, which was full of frosty bottles of cold potations. He had a sudden and undeniable urge for a cool drink. He picked up a bottle and tried to will the lethargic person at the counter to hurry.
When he had poured the life giving drink down his throat and stepped out into the sun, the dear departed had gone. Kumarimuthu hurried down P_Road. He reached Hotel A_ without catching sight of him again. He shrugged and drifted into the hotel. Lunch was more interesting, anyway.
And there was the body in the restaurant, methodically putting away an Andhra meals. Kumarimuthu found a place some distance away, near a pillar. The pillar was clad with mirrors, so that if he leaned forward, as if to reach an appalam or the gongura chutney, he could see the late Markandeyan in it, without appearing to look at him.
Kumarimuthu had time to do justice to the Andhra meals, because the dead person was not hurrying. He was taking his time over the ice cream and pan when Kumarimuthu finished and strolled out. He then lurked behind a tree in the parking lot.
The body emerged a few minutes later, still chewing the pan. Kumarimuthu followed. He winced to see the dead person crossing the junction at P_C_Road, with a reckless disregard for the frenzied traffic, as though he had a death wish, which couldn’t possibly be fulfilled again, heh heh, and it explained why he had died in an accident, in the first place, heh heh, and the heat was getting to him again.
The remains continued down P_C_Road, which is a stretch barren of any interest for pedestrians, except for the jumpy guards at the Commissioner’s office, who always look grim and trigger-happy.
The dead person turned left at the end of P_C_Road and then right, on to P_H_Road. It was now close to two. The tar on the road was melting. The anal (nothing to do with the body part, but the furnace breath of summer) dried the sweat as soon as it sprang from the pores. The body moved on, apparently oblivious of the heat, and Kumarimuthu kept on too, wondering why.
They passed the music college, central station and came to the general hospital. Here the deceased paused. He appeared to hesitate, and then resolutely made his way into the building. Kumarimuthu was not far behind. He could all too easily lose sight of his quarry in the crowded maze of the hospital.
Kumarimuthu passed a tangled knot of people, some of them in hospital uniforms, making placatory gestures. It looked very much like they trying to gently pat down a raging fire. The other people were doing the raging. Kumarimuthu heard snatches of angry altercation as he passed. “How can a body disappear?” and “Do you mean to say it came back to life and walked away?” and “Do you think we are idiots?”
Kumarimuthu paid no attention to this at the time, for he was still intent on his pursuit of the body, which now stopped near a doorway with two metal doors that were kept closed by tired springs. Frigid air escaped from the gap between the doors. The late Markandeyan reached for a door handle. He then stopped suddenly. He turned his head slowly, deliberately to stare at Kumarimuthu.
And he raised his eyebrows enquiringly. They were beetling, thin brows, not meant for the genial expression here attempted. And the eyes below the brows. The eyes, they blazed, like funeral pyres. They transfixed Kumarimuthu like he was an insect specimen.
Forced to return the body’s steady gaze, Kumarimuthu noticed for the first time the ashen, desiccated skin, the absence of any complexion. And a jagged centipede of sutures that began just beside the right ear and proceeded upwards, disappearing under the cap. And the sudden whiff of decay that was like a punch in the nose.
Kumarimuthu turned away. So did the body with the compelling eyes. It passed on into the room, through the doors with the tired springs.
After a pause, Kumarimuthu gingerly pushed open one of the wings of the door, overcoming its feeble resistance. The man was lying on a battered wheeled stretcher, the kind that appeared to sag in the middle.
Kumarimuthu did not want to disturb him; the long walk in the sun must have been tiring. He stepped away on stiff legs, his throat tightening and head hot and throbbing, as though with an electric current.