Neema Muneer
Black-Inked Pen
Sometimes when the itch inside my head makes itself heard, I sit down with a blank paper and pen, preferably a black-inked one, or if not, any kind of pen I can quickly get my hands on, and I start putting down words. Words, sometimes short, sometimes succulent, always a much sought-after distraction. One by one, in neat rows and columns, with full stops according each its own dominion, or lined up in queues that seem to have no end. Sometimes in clusters that whisper or sometimes a singleton who turns around and ridicules. Their fall from headspace to paper feels like thorns being plucked, thlopp thlopp. A shot of twitching pain as their shallow roots come out but then definite relief. I suppose it is a form of therapy that I do not need to pay for and one that is very effective as well. They were teaching us about Therapy at school and how helpful it is in dealing with the problems that crop up, with or even without provocation, in adolescence. We were all urged to talk—to our teachers, our parents, to trustworthy elders—but nothing seemed more ridiculous to me. Instead, each time Naju Kaka is finished with me or I with him, after the splattering of his juices, I scamper out of bed in search of blank paper, for there is no one to talk to, no one who hears me anymore. Of course, more cleaning up is always needed to fully erase the evidence of his pleasures. But that can wait, the words will not.
Naju Kaka is Ma’s brother, but he is younger to her and is known to be a cool guy. I might be only twelve, but Naju Kaka says I’m the wisest little lady he has ever known and also that he loves nobody more than me. When my parents or the elders of our family teased him about being old enough to get married, he would whisper in my ear that he would marry me, only me, and I always used to blush and giggle uncontrollably in response to his sweet humor. It was the best thing to be his favorite but not anymore. Now it hurts. It hurts that he doesn’t listen when I tell him it hurts. It hurts that he pushes my head down, which makes me terribly pukish. It hurts that my mother does not seem to see, that I cannot make myself tell her, or anyone. It hurts that I hate her now, that I hate them all. It hurts that Uppa has left us. But when my hurt makes Naju Kaka angry, he pulls me by the arm and holds me so tight that I cannot even look up at him, and then I know that Naju Kaka doesn’t really love me, not anymore at least. And that perhaps hurts the most.
I think of the times when Uppa was around. Ma did not have to go to work then. Uppa too was a very angry man, and even Naju Kaka was afraid of him. Naju Kaka could never take the bike out in those days. Now he is always on it, even though it is the very same bike that handed over Uppa to the angels of death. Ma tells him openly when they get into their arguments to go ram himself into a truck soon so that she would be spared his trouble also. They fight and scream a lot. I believe it is Ma who is winning mostly. But Ma also tells us that we would not have survived so far without his help. Uppa’s death opened the door for Naju Kaka, and I wonder if I will ever be able to close that door again, with him standing once more outside it.
On Saturdays and Sundays, when we don’t have classes, Ammu, the little one, sticks close to me. Ma pushes her over to me for all her little needs, and I don’t really mind. This slow afternoon, Ma went downstairs to check on Usha Aunty, our neighbor and Ma’s devoted friend, while we, Ammu and I, lay on the floor tackling homework, our books scattered around us, when Naju Kaka came in and fell on the sofa. I felt the world slow down around me, and a familiar dread lodged itself in my chest. Ammu looked up from her book and smiled widely at him. He extended his hand and she took it. Come, show me what you have been writing, he said. As she recited the alphabets, he began to tickle her till she fell all over him, beet-red and breathless. Naju Kaka, stop, stop, she kept saying, though it was evident she did not want him to. I started to feel lighter in the head and thought I would faint when suddenly he stood up and went inside the bedroom, beckoning me to follow. I did and closed the door after me. He removed his pale blue silk shirt and hung it carefully over the chair by the dressing table. He then removed his pants and lay on the bed with just his underpants on. Without missing a beat, I first removed my skirt and then my shirt and went up to him. I had been scolded enough for going in with my clothes on, so now I knew better. He cradled me within the crook of his arm, and my head rested in the space between his neck and shoulder. He smelled fresh, though I knew that would change soon. Quickly, I started writing in my head. The first word I put down was Transfixed, it was a new one in my collection though I could not remember from where exactly I had chanced upon it. It was one of those words that I felt I already knew and did not have to check up on in the dictionary. I then put Chagrin beneath it. Now this was a word we had discussed in Mrs. Pinto’s class. She had gone poetic in the explanation of it. Her head pulled down and hand aflutter, she had read aloud from her book, annoyance or distress at having failed or been humiliated; Chagrin. I wondered if that was what I had been feeling for a long time now. But it seemed too mellow to describe what was burning up my insides. Burning, on the other hand, seemed to be close enough to what I was going through. It was against the rules to bring reality into this game of mine but now that I had, there was no way I could avoid bumping into that word in my head, so I put it down as well, under Chagrin, and got it out of the way.
Transfixed
Chagrin
Burning
The next word did not jump at me, and momentarily I saw myself return to the scene. Naju Kaka had his head between my thighs and the wetness felt dirty to me. His louder breathing made me look away, and I was lying still when Warrior appeared right above my point of vision, etched on the ceiling. I lifted my hand and brought it down, it needed some dragging but then came along and sat down below Burning, without resistance. It was when I was nudged to straddle him and my hands were made to clasp his fat stick that I saw Bougainvillea sprout on his hairy chest. That was a tricky one, and it took all of my focus to put it down without error. I slipped a little but soon got it right. As he pulled my face down to meet his, I saw the blackheads on his nose up close, and Sesame Seeds spilled all over, between us. I liked the cadence of it, Se-Sa-Me. Adding the word Seeds seemed like an extravagance, but I had never thought of them as separate, so for now, I let them be. After all, those were trivialities. Trivialities, hmm, not bad at all. But something whispered faintly in me that the word should not make it to the list today, and I did not protest, which led me to the word Protestations, of which my whole being immediately approved.
I worried for a second that I might forget the order in which these words had appeared, and even as my grip tightened in concentration, guided by his low moaning, I could not assemble them five words in a line anymore. Or had they been six? A wave of helplessness hit me, and I worried I would cry. I did not want to make Naju Kaka mad, so I swallowed my panic, but when he pushed my head down to where my hands had been, I went completely blank. Up, Down, Up, Down, the world went, and when I tried to look, I still could not find my words. Salt and Sweat tasted like Shit in my mouth, and every strand of hair on the back of my head wailed in pain. Before I could stop them, a few tears escaped my hold, but I wiped them away, discreetly. It was when the stick pulsed up and throbbed in pleasure and Naju Kaka pulled my head up one last time that the words rushed back in, lined up and in salutation, over the length of his taut, goose-bumped body.
Transfixed
Chagrin
Burning
Warrior
Bougainvillea
Sesame Seeds
Protestations
A shallow breath later, I climbed out of bed and into my clothes and left the room to find a blank paper and a pen, preferably a black-inked one. And my words too stood up from where they lay, all seven of them, and followed me out in one straight line.