Abdul never stole a penny as far as it came to monetary gains. But when Balraj, his nephew, told him that Aapa-Bi had an iron box filled to its capacity with Urdu novels and magazines, he immediately asked Balraj to steal a couple of books only to return them later to their box. After, of course, a thorough reading. For he knew Aapa-Bi would never lend them a single piece out of her collection.
Though Aapa-Bi was an honest woman, a widow for years; yet try to borrow a book from her, and prompt would come her reply: “Abi Allah Mara, I don’t have any!”
What Balraj needed the most was a nod from Abdul, and now he’d got it. He at once launched himself into an operation mode. The mission was not impossible. No Tom Cruise was needed for this job. The work was easy. And he knew quite well how to dodge the silver haired old woman.
A voracious reader who commanded a refined taste of books, Aapa-Bi lived alone in a palatial mud house. A religious woman. She prayed five times a day. Other times, she’d read Holy Koran, sitting on a wooden takht placed in the middle of her three-pillared verandah. Her spare time was spent reading some Urdu romance or mystery, or horror or a mix of all these elements.
But a legend was rife in the village—her house was haunted. Spirits and apparitions roamed around there. In fact, Aapa-Bi was an unflinching lady. They say, one night she was so disturbed by some supernatural presence, she lit her old kerosene lantern, searched all nooks and corners of the haunted homestead thrice, swearing and scolding the invisible spirits. When found none, she climbed up the roof of the dilapidated house and made a thorough investigation there, too.
Next day she said to her neighbor Jamila, “Abi Allah Mara, the boys did not let me sleep last night.” The message flared up in the village like a forest fire. Talk was: even phantoms were afraid of Aapa-Bi.
Thus, the house seemed to fit in the Gothic Victorian setting: weird, scary, ancient and with no electricity supply. Friends and relatives avoided visiting it after sundown. But Aapa-Bi perhaps had a way with ghosts. She would scold them, if needed, as mentioned above. Lived like a queen, though alone, yet happy with herself. A singular woman of her kind.
***
As the mosque loudspeaker came to resurrection, and Hafiz Ji began to azan for the evening prayer, Balraj wore his shoes before he was off to accomplish his assigned task. Aapa-Bi’s place was not far away. He had to take only four turns of the narrow village lanes to reach the (haunted) mud place. It actually belonged to Bhaiya, Aapa-Bi’s only brother who worked and lived in Delhi, the national capital. Thus, the house was now under Aapa-Bi’s patronage.
Shrouded under the evening shadows, the palatial place had an eerie feel. The spacious courtyard had sizeable plants of pomegranate, mahogany, thorny black roses and white lilies. Balraj tiptoed to the front yard. Aapa-Bi as expected was occupied in the evening prayer, sitting on the wooden takht, her back to Balraj as he crossed the yard and entered her study, the first room from right.
Finding the iron box was not a big deal. It was of a man’s size lengthwise, and around four feet, widthwise. He withdrew from his trousers’ right pocket a pencil torch and snapped it on. Its yellow glow was the shape of a fish. The box was ancient and rusty, fortunately not locked.
He pulled up the lid and didn’t require much force to open it. In a couple of seconds, he had the view of his life—a sea collection of wonderful titles: Mirza Ghalib, Mir Taki Mir, the Biographies of Genghis Khan, Timur, Napoleon and Alexander of Macedonia.
Balraj was mesmerized by the great collection of hundreds of books in neat piles side by side. But Aapa-Bi might finish the Namaz any moment and return. He had to make it fast. Abdul’s suggestion was to fetch only fiction, and no non-fiction, at all.
Therefore, ignoring a great number of wonderful memoires and chronologies, he picked up some random paperback Urdu titles: Khoya Hua Jazeera, Manasgan, Foladi Shikanja, Maut Ka Panja, Hanste Jakham, Purane Kile Ka Bashinda and a few issues of Mashuka—a quarterly Urdu journal published from Saharanpur.
He put them on the room stool that stood beside the iron box, took out a polybag from his left pocket, and quickly stuffed the moth-eaten titles, one by one, into his satchel. As he was giving the final touches to this job, he felt movement of some sort inside the box. A rodent perhaps, he thought and quickly put the lid back to its former position.
Having finished his business with precision, he peeped out to see if it was safe to step out the study. To his horror, Aapa-Bi’s prayer was over, and now she was folding the pulpit cloth. It was impossible to hoodwink and sneak away from there, unnoticed. A sound from inside the box again, but Balraj paid not much heed to it, for more than anything else now, he was concerned about sneaking away from the room.
Then there was a rescue voice, a woman’s, not from inside the iron box but the call was from main entrance at the other end of the courtyard. “AAPA-BI!” The call was promptly attended. This was the only opportunity Balraj could avail. And he didn’t miss it. No sooner did he see the old woman going to the other door, he dashed out.
***
Abdul sat in his study as he went through the pile of books delivered to him. Balraj had his seat across the table as he looked on, seeking appreciation from the old fellow.
“Did anybody see you coming from her house?” said Abdul, turning the old yellow pages of Toofan se Pahle, an Urdu bestseller.
“It was difficult, but I managed to come out, inconspicuously.”
“Great!”
Balraj wanted to tell Abdul about the weird ruckus from inside the iron box, but then let it go. It was such a trivial thing to discuss with the old man. The purpose was served. He was home with the books he wanted to bring. That was all.
It took them a fortnight to finish each book. Cover to cover.
But as they’d smelled the refined literature; they wanted more of it. That was their food. And more food was needed now.
***
The first Sunday evening of the next month, Balraj got ready with the satchel of books to return and a pencil torch tucked into his right pants’ pocket. No sooner did Hafiz ji finish his Azan from the loudspeaker of the mosque than Aapa-Bi stood on her pulpit cloth for prayer. Balraj walked confidently to her study crossing the courtyard filled with a night-scented jasmine incense. He took out his torch and pulled open the large box. He was accustomed to it.
Emptying his satchel, he laid the books he’d brought back on the stool, before he could set then inside the box. Still, he could not resist his temptation to have a look at the titles he’d like to pick this time. But his hands stopped midway; for the titles he had seen last time were all gone, replaced by a different set of books. New and glowing. How could it be possible? Aapa-Bi hardly went to the marketplace. Even if she went, she wouldn’t buy so many books in one go.
Balraj frowned and piled his books in the left corner of the box. He selected some random new titles: Arab ka Saudagar, Jal Pariyon ka Ashiq, Gunah Ek Katl Do, Masoom Firangi, Jasoos ka Katl, Murdon ki Basti, Bahu Beti aur Vo, and Safed Hatiyon ki Ghati. He stuffed the titles into the satchel and turned back to shut down the box-lid. Something shook underneath that moved the rows of paperbacks.
For a long moment Balraj kept the lid held in his right hand, but then thought about the old woman outside. Her prayer must be about to conclude. He carefully closed the iron box and left.
Thankfully, she was still in her prayer.
***
“It seems there’s something more in the iron box than the books, alone,” Balraj said, putting the satchel on the head of the cot a couple of feet away from Abdul, who was smoking a Commander Cigarette.
“Speak plainly, don’t cloud your statement,” Abdul said, putting aside the hardcopy of Begum Zubeda aur Heeron ka Haar by Mirza Ahmad Baig.
“Beneath the books in the iron-box, something moves and shakes,” said Balraj. “First I thought it to be mice; but now I doubt it’s more than that.”
“Hmm! I see,” said Abdul and became thoughtful for a few moments. Then he spoke again, “Can’t you check it on your next visit?”
“How can I? There’s only this much time I can select and pick some good titles.”
“Who’s asking you to bring books on the next visit? Just go and check what lies under the piles of books. But be wary, it may turn up some poisonous reptile, too.”
***
Balraj’s next visit to Aapa-Bi’s house was easier than the previous two visits. The timing of the prayer was perfect. He knew exactly when and how to enter the chamber of secrets. Only today he was more prepared than ever before. Both mentally and physically.
While Aapa-Bi sat in her usual place to offer her prayers, Balraj opened the enormous Pandora box, some seven by four feet in girth. Though he was less interested in the speculative and romantic titles this time, but more in the creature hidden beneath the layered surface of Urdu magazines and novels.
Some fresh titles caught his casual sight: Himmete Mardan, Kali Nagin ka Intekam, Shikari aur Shikar, Badshah aur Fakir, Tuta hua Pemana, Khatarnak Khel and Kabristan.
Outside, rain paltered on the roof. He’d perceived the overcast sky that brought darkness earlier than usual at dusk.
As Balraj switched on the torch, it spread a dim shaft across the box. Realized he’d have replaced its cells, which didn’t have much life left in them. Therefore, the pencil torch did not seem suffice under the circumstances to explore the box. He repented for not bringing some big flashlight today. Life is unpredictable. Sudden things do happen and we have to face them impromptu.
He wanted to make it fast, for Aapa-Bi must’ve finished Namaz, and then who knew if she stepped into this room for some random errand. It was at this moment that there was ruffling underneath the piles of books. Hair rose on his neck and arms. The sound stopped too. He almost ran out of there, but something kept him rooted. He needed to know what lay beneath the works of authors.
Balraj clutched the torch between his set of teeth and picked up the books and magazines, setting them on the floor beside him. To reach the bottom of truth he needed to reach the bottom of the box.
His hands worked mechanically for the next couple of minutes. The moment he emptied the box, he was awestruck. Transfixed. Stood like an artistic statue.
The bottom of the box was not just the plain surface of rusted iron. It was a mammoth book in itself. Crimson hardcover. Written in jagged Arabic, in night-black ink, the bold raised letters read: TABOOT—means a coffin. Half of the letters covered the first half of the cover-page; while the other half was covering the remaining width of the page.
The moment Balraj tried to touch the rough surface of the cover, the torch slipped off his teeth and landed on the monster book. The cover page flipped over itself and underneath where the dedication page should have been, came into view the last thing that Blaraj had anticipated. A body covered in all white, perhaps…a shroud, starch neat white. The torch light-shaft was still illuminating a slight portion of the interior.
The body stirred and sat up. The high bosom hinted it was a lady. The woman made a rummaging movement with her right hand. Next second her fingers gripped the torch. The fingers were skeletal thin. Knuckles, white as petals of lilies. The nails and cuticles, long enough to have not been trimmed, it seemed for years.
A cold shiver ran through his spine. The woman stood ramrod. Her face was a crisscross of wrinkles from everywhere to everywhere. And silver-grey hair was pushing her to a hundred-year-old threshold. Despite the age, she remained steel strong and sane.
“Stealing is a horrible habit,” she whispered and crawled out of the box.
Her body parts could be perceived with a little effort. She was slender looking, of average height and her hair, untied, silver white akin to Aapa-Bi’s. Her private parts could well be spotted, for she wore nothing else but the shroud.
“May I talk to you, my boy?” she whispered again.
Blaraj’s throat was dry like a desert. She placed both her skeletal hands on his shoulders. It was a snowy touch, sending shivers again up to his spine. No longer could he keep his eyes open, and sank to the ground. Heard his own collapse.
A faint thud. And then he crossed to oblivion.
***
How much time was passed, Balraj did not know. He felt like he stood in the rain staring at the coal black clouds. Cold drizzling rain-droplets paltering on his eyes and face. Then the moon appeared before him.
He closed his eyes, and when he reopened them, there was no moon and no drizzling rain. It was Aapa-Bi, holding her kerosene lantern in one hand and sprinkling water on his face from a little yellow plastic bucket that stood beside her.
“Abe Allaha Mara, Balraj,” said Aapa Bi. “What the devil were you doing in my study?”
He sat up figuring out what story he should cook and serve.
“I… just came over here to… ask you… a few Arabic… no… Persian words. You’re a scholar, aren’t you?”
Aapa-Bi gazed at him grimly.
He added to convince her, “Didn’t find you around, so I thought to have a look at your collection. But… who…who was the woman in… white?”
“You’ve known today more than anyone ever did,” she said and hesitated, before making the revelation. “Let me tell you my boy: she was my mother. My words may challenge to your rationale, though.”
She locked the iron box with a big rusty latch and continued, “I didn’t bury her, rather laid her here in the box. As was her will.”
“But how the holy shit did her body not contaminate? There seems to be no decay.” Balraj barked, narrowing his thick brows.
She put the lantern on the lid of the mysterious iron box. “Do you believe in witchcraft?”
“No!”
“Then you’re ignorant to the whole world of dark wizardry,” she said coldly. “My mother, Aapa, was a clandestine witch. Never revealed it to anyone—not even her husband. And through her magical potions enabled her body like this.”
Balraj did not understand, still he was glued to her as if he was getting somewhere.
“It was her will,” Aapa-Bi continued, “her body should be preserved after she is gone. So, I did as I was instructed.”
***
We came out in the three pillared veranda. Aapa-Bi now sat on her wooden Takht made of Mahogany. Reclining over her pillow, she took out a string of beads. White as pearls. She read some aayat—a verse from the Holy Koran.
For a wee while, she remained pensive, then parted her eyes like saucers. Stared for a long while into the vacuum. There was vicious glitter in them as she muttered undertone, “I know… now… I know… who sent you here… it’s Abdul… isn’t it?”
Balraj was not sure, to respond a yes or a no.
“The curse of my mother will befall on you both,” she added.
“WHAT CUR-CURSE?” Balraj barked, his feet trembling.
“Your sender will die a madman, and you Balraj… no woman will take interest in you… ever.”
“What rubbish…?” said Balraj. “How can you be so callous, Aapa-Bi? Uncle, just sent me here to fetch some books only to return them undamaged. No harm done.”
“All sins have their rewards.”
“You’re just faking. Curses aren’t real.”
“You will find out soon. Now, away with you,” said Aapa-Bi, closing her eyes.
The paltering of the rain had slowed down as Balraj stepped out, musing over the weird curse. It was already night and he had to use the torch to find his way. Baffled to his wits he trudged along the wet street, homeward.
***
Abdul looked haggard as Balraj sensed something wrong in his manners.
“Uncle, are you okay?” he said.
“Yes, fine,” he said, “Just tell me if you found there anything substantial?”
The boy told the old man everything he’d experienced at Aapa-Bi’s place.
“Hmm!” Abdul said. “This Budhiya is far more bizarre than our anticipation.”
It was still raining. The old man and the young man sat together in the former’s verandah and discussed the prospects. Fatima, Abdul’s wife served them tea with Parley-G biscuits.
“Aapa Bi has just given a hollow threat,” said Balraj, lifting up the cup of tea. “Uncle, better we need not be worried.”
“A witch’s curse will have to be thwarted with some counter magic,” Abdul said, sipping his tea. “Or we’re damned.”
“Maybe she was faking,” Balraj said, putting his cup back in the plastic tray beside them and picking up a biscuit.
“She was not,” Abdul said, his eyes fixed at a vulture, that had just perched on top of the neem tree in the yard. “See, gidh the vulture. A bad omen.”
Balraj looked at the big bird that was fluttering its strong feathers. Said nothing. He was not superstitious. But knew well, Abdul could not be wrong in his perceptions.
“I’ve never practiced Sifli ilm, but it exists,” said Abdul, taking another sip of his tea.
“What the devil is Sifli ilm?” Balraj said, his eyes still on the vulture.
“The base form of occult practices,” Abdul clarified.
“Come in with me!” He finished his tea and stood up from the cot. Balraj could not say where. He too put down his cup, and followed Abdul like an obedient pupil.
They reached Abdul’s study. A rectangle shaped room of the ancient mud house.
The old man struck a match and lit a kerosene lamp. Ghastly yellow light spread squarely across the room. Two doors in the left of it opened into the drawing room; while the straight front one led to the last chamber that made a T-shape of the house.
The room had two boxes; the first one was a dowry gift—a king size wooden armoire. The second was an obsidian iron box with a latch but no lock. It contained most of Abdul’s books. Hundreds of them. As the old man hinted; Balraj released the latch and lifted the lid of it. It was filled to its ridges. All types of reading material.
Balraj grabbed the top book—the Kamsutra. The cover was of two statues in a compromising position, a wild contortion. It was weird to imagine sex could be done in this way too.
Abdul snatched it abruptly and put it away on the charpoy positioned just opposite. He handed Balraj the kerosene lamp, withdrew a chair and sat himself in it. Its two legs moth ravaged. He started a search.
“A counter-black-spell is necessary under the circumstances,” repeated Abdul, putting the book in hand at the edge of the jute-charpoy and picking up some books from the left of the rugged iron box.
Balraj looked on, holding the kerosene fueled lantern in hand. The muscles of his face twitched, in bewilderment, as Abdul withdrew from the box a human skull. Looked at it as if with appreciation. A mannerism to negotiate a talk with it.
“Uncle, where did you get this…skull from?” he muttered, eyes fixed at the human remnant.
“Long story, Ballu,” said Abdul, wiping it with a dusting cloth. “But in short, it was a gift from an Aghori Sadhu, who claimed to have once dug an ancient grave to retrieve it from a cemetery. Let’s test its power tonight.”
Balraj felt uncanny, wiping the cold skull. Its grin was giving quivers up to his spine. He wanted to ask more questions but kept a mum as Uncle Abdul was still busy searching in the box, a faint smile on his face. Then he pulled out a black leather-bound book titled Witches’ Blood and Witchcraft.
***
The drawing room had two wooden gates connecting it to the master bedroom, and three wooden doors that opened out to the garhi—the kuccha Rasta leading to the link road and its bridge over the large village pond.
In the center was a phantom table surrounded by a dozen wooden chairs. The rectangle room had still space enough to accommodate a dozen more people. Two closets of 5×3 were fixed in the opposite mud walls of this chamber. Both of them contained books on various subjects ranging from palmistry to alchemy, history to spiritualism. The cabinets also contained some different size bottles of serums.
The floor looked like pure mud, but strong like marble tiles. At the far end near the third door, Abdul made a circle with a chalk, in the center of which he drew a hexagon shape. Kindled seven tappers and positioned them at the frontier of the circle in a half-moon shape. He sat himself in such a way the eerie hexagon was facing his hands that held the book of dark magic, Witches’ Blood and Wizardry.
Balraj sat in the second chair on the right of the phantom table. Balraj was the solitary spectator, looking down at Abdul who wore a long black gown on this occasion. Apart from the tappers lined on the circle the other source of the light in the room was the kerosene powered lamp positioned in the middle of the table.
“There, Ballu,” said Abdul, hinting toward the almirah to his right. “You’ll find a craned shaped bottle. Fetch it to me.”
Balraj went up to the closet. He gave the wooden doors a little pull and they gave way. A cloud of putrid decay and dust swarmed him, and it was all he could do not to gag. The top two shelves were stuffed with books as big as dictionaries. Most of them moth eaten. Ravaged. The third shelf from above that came to his chest height was a mess with bottles of varying sizes and colors.
He spotted the black, crane-shaped bottle filled with a thick glossy liquid—God knows what it was. Balraj dared not ask. He grasped it, closed the doors and silently gave it to the old man.
Right beside the hexagon Abdul positioned an Angithi, the brazier. He put a few dry billets into it, uncapped the crane shaped bottle, poured the red glossy liquid on the wooden pieces. Finally, he lit the match, and the fire came alive.
Balraj wiped the dust on it with the corner of his checkered shirt. The surface shone crystal clear like the waters of a mountain lake. He saw his reflection. Tongue in cheek. Unlike a common looking glass, it showed things beyond. Balraj felt like watching his own soul.
The hatred inside him for people. The jealousy. The lust in him for young girls. Bad wishes to tear their clothes apart and suck their tits and doing more horrible things with them. Watching them naked and fucking them all. He could not keep on looking for more than four seconds. He’d never realized his head carried such filthy thoughts.
Abdul put the mirror on his right and Balraj positioned the table lamp inside the circle. The old man opened the book of occult practices and read aloud:
“Rabbin Sunni Alla, komal kafrin,
Rabbin sunni alla, komal mursadin,
Rabbin sunni alla Mukid hijran,
Rabbin sunni alla, Aapa-Bi ka fallan…!”
His one hand held the skull and other one kept the book of dark magic open. The old man repeated the weird spell. Twice, thrice, fourth time, fifth time, sixth time, seventh time… hundredth time… and then Balraj lost the counting.
The flames in the grate leaped up monstrously. Balraj added some more billets to the flamed ones at Abdul’s gesture. The old occultist poured more liquid from the crane shaped bottle. More flames lengthened. The tappers were, by now, finishing, giving the last glow of their light.
This time Balraj saw the process more minutely. The glossy liquid was crimson red. A realization dawned upon him: might it be a witch’s blood? He shivered at the very thought if it was really… a witch’s blood as Abdul repeated Rabbin sunni alla…
***
It was close to midnight. An owl hooted somewhere out. Balraj’s eyes were getting heavy with fatigue and sleep. Abdul’s chanting was getting rougher and slower than before. A bed never seemed so tempting as it did right then for Balraj.
But then three things happened one after another.
Two enormous black bats came from nowhere and hovered just overhead. All the doors were closed. They seemed to have materialized from the fire flames.
The second thing was the rattling sound Balraj first thought was that of Abdul’s, but it was not. The sound originated from the rattling teeth of the skull. Sleep divorced Balraj as he sat upright. His gaze fixed at the skull that appeared to have been resurrected. Aghast, leaving his chair, he stood beside Abdul. Though the young man was still out of the circle.
The third thing was worse than the first two. As the occultist finally tossed the ghost skull into garret fire, the blazing flames rose as high as the ceiling. Followed by a familiar voice: “Stop it, you Lucifer!”
For a moment Balraj could not know the source of the shout. Then he could not believe it. The gothic mirror had produced this sound. The reflection showed a woman. Aapa-Bi’s mummified mother. “Stop it now, or burn in hell!”
“—Rabbin Sunni alla Aapa-Bi ka fallan,” continued Abdul.
Balraj turned white like a shroud. Two hands protruded out from the ancient mirror. Abdul reclined back, but it was too late by then. They grasped his head, firmly, and pulled it toward the looking glass. Like a trapped animal, the occultist tried to free himself, but in vain. Balraj felt too powerless to help his mate. He stood frozen, like a statue.
The dead hands of the undead old witch proved to be stronger than the physical strength of the living old man. The looking glass shattered with the blasting collision. The shards of the glass pierced into Abdul’s skull. Mini streams of blood oozed out from half a dozen places. The bloody witch disappeared with the shattering of the magic mirror. Now it was Abdul’s blood, which was emblazing the fire in the brazier.
The bats hovering over their heads had multiplied. Now they were four. Six. Eight. Ten. and then a dozen. Chasing one another without physically touching.
Abdul caught hold of his head and screeched hysterically, as Balraj looked on. Shocked. His senses numb. A storm was gathering out, the mad winds pushing the doors. The latches gave way and the middle one was flung open. The fire in the Angithi was furious, blazing in all directions now.
Abdul forced himself to stand up, struggled, stumbled and tripped over the brazier. His long black gown caught the fire flames. The winds flared it up. He rushed out in the garhi. As if from a slumber, Balraj shook his head and ran after the occultist. The old man ran helter-skelter, now his whole body in flames. Balraj behind him.
Finding no option to save his life, the occultist ran toward the main road. He reached there in no time and plunged from the mini-bridge into the old village pond.
The fire doused.
Balraj halted for a couple of seconds. The pond water under the bridge was pitch dark. He was not sure where Abdul had thrown himself. The night was silent as death. And no stars shone tonight.
He faintly heard the bubbling like the water-sound when someone drowns. Not much time was there to waste. Not even time enough to come out of the clothes. He dived, head forward.
Down there under the bridge—black stale water welcomed him. All the village houses drained in this pond their shit and piss and toilet waste. Balraj fished around, found polyethene, plastic bottles and nameless filthy things.
Then realized, he’d have to go deeper to locate Abdul precisely. Deeper he went. First to his right, then to his left. Forward and backward. The old man seemed to have vanished. Balraj came up to catch some breath and then repeated the pattern. For around five minutes he explored blindly before his fingers touched the toes of Abdul.
Balraj gave his uncle a push upward. Nosed out. Held his hand tightly and dragged the drowning man toward the bank of the pond. He feared the body might go inside again. To avoid that he kept Abdul to the side until he fished him out. Panting and huffing he found the old man’s wrist to check his pulse, but the occultist was soulless now.
Balraj cried in the pitch-dark night. The black bats were circling overhead in the open sky. The villagers, with torches and lanterns in their hands, began to gather around the body.
Someone whispered, “What happened?”
Someone answered, “Fatima became a widow tonight.”
“Poor woman!” a third villagers said.
“But how did it all happen?” a fourth villager asked.
There was no answer. Just silence persisted.
by 
Ziaul Moid Khan
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