21, Enlightenment

Once again Kamala found herself walking softly, swiftly through a forest path, one of a stream of women - silent but purposeful. This time, though, it was evening and the forest was already in darkness - the odd shaft of blood-red sunset piercing the gloom and seeming to set a leaves and twigs alight in its wake. Dhanmatbai led the procession, a black bundle under her left arm, a long wooden staff in her right hand. A group of older women followed, then Banu and Kamala and then the younger women. They had all bathed carefully before setting off, and one or two women had stayed behind because, as far as Kamala could understand, they were menstruating.

The only other woman who was not present, once again, was Ms Jensen. Dr Singh had tried to insist that Ms Jensen go too, but the women had been equally adamant that she stay. Dr Singh demanded an explanation, and Deepak spoke to the women for some time. Then he turned to Ms Jensen.

“I’m sorry Ms Jensen,” for the first time since Kamala had met him Deepak had appeared to be smiling - or rather trying to stifle a smile. “…but they don’t believe you’re a woman. I‘ve tried to explain but they say that the trousers, the boots, the hair all prove that you are not a woman.”

“Vot rubbish! Vould you like me to prove it to them?” She’d snapped, grabbing for the buttons at her trouser waistband.

“No! No!” Deepak and Dr Singh had shouted simultaneously - rather to Kamala’s disappointment, she thought it would have been rather interesting to see the reaction of the village women to the revelation of Ms Jensen‘s pale genitalia. Men were so prudish sometimes.

“It doesn’t matter,” Dr Singh had said. “I’m sure Ms Steel can handle it. Just do what I told you before, Ms Steel. Ms Jensen, you will be most useful back at base camp - I have some figures I need you to help me to collate.”

Ms Jensen had scowled, but hadn’t argued any further. As she and Dr Singh had turned to go back to the research tent, Deepak leaned towards Kamala.

“I didn’t have the heart to tell her that they not only don’t think she’s female - they don’t even think she’s human!” He’d said softly. Kamala stifled a giggle, partly at the thought of the poor, proud, dehumanised Ms Jensen, and partly at a sudden feeling of light-headedness that came over her when Deepak’s warm breath touched her neck.

She thought she’d seen her laughter echoed in his eyes, but it instantaneously evaporated (had she imagined it?) and then he’d looked at her earnestly, pleadingly “Don’t go!” he’d whispered fiercely, grasping her arm. It was almost as though he was concerned for her. Her heart had given a lurch, but then she’d realised that he probably meant “Don’t sell them out”, and she’d shaken him off.

“It’s not as simple as that - you don’t understand, they’re waiting for me.” She’d started moving towards the women, but he had pulled her back for an instant and whispered “Ok then. I’ll be close by.”

The forest path was almost entirely dark now, Kamala could just about catch the pale flash of the white bone decoration around Banu’s ankles flashing in and out of her skirts as she marched ahead of her. She concentrated on this, partly so that she could see where she was going and partly to distract herself from the thought of the stifling darkness around her - a darkness so complete it filled her eyes, her ears, her mouth as close and remorseless as a black velvet shroud. Unfamiliar sounds belched, and screeched and rattled at her out of the blackness, and she wished that the women would talk or sing, or even tread a little less softly. And there was something else - she sensed, rather than saw, that alongside the path there was a silent, slithering, scuttling accompanying her every step... she squeezed her fists tight, breathed in deeply and tried not to think about it.

Then suddenly she sensed a feeling of space, the faintest breath of light - or a slight loosening of the darkness. Banu put her hand gently on Kamala’s shoulder and they sat down on the ground. It was hard and stony, and Kamala tried desperately not to think about what might be creeping across the earth towards her exposed ankles. She tugged the hem of her sarong down over them and hooked it under her toes, making what she hoped was a an impenetrable tent for her legs. The darkness was making her eyes ache - she needed just a moment, a flash of light or shape or anything to help her get her bearings. She felt like she was floating in space, being suffocated by nothingness.

Over her sarong she was wearing a long-sleeved sweat-shirt bearing the Greenfields logo, and now she lifted the left cuff just a fraction to see the winking green light of the GPS wrist-watch. Reassurance. Guilt. But she was here, now, and there was nothing she could do. If the tree was nearby, the watch had already zapped its co-ordinates up to the satellites swinging over their heads and down to the listening post in Mumbai. Dr Singh was probably reading them off his laptop at that very moment and noting them in his little black book.

Just as she was beginning to wonder how long they were going to sit there for in the darkness and silence, Kamala started to sense, rather than hear, a low, steady humming sound. The grains of sand on the hard ground beneath them seemed to be vibrating with it. The fine hairs on her arms and the back of her neck arched. Her scalp prickled. The humming was slowly growing stronger, louder, more intense. Where was it coming from? Kamala looked around her, but of course, could see nothing but blackness. Then, beside her, she heard Banu take a deep, cleansing, filling breath and suddenly it was obvious. The sound was coming from the women themselves. For some reason, Kamala’s heart lurched. She gave a soft, experimental hum herself… it was instantly whisked into the greater sound, a leaf in a vast, steady wind-gust. It didn’t seem out of place. It seemed right.

So she took a deep breath and hummed again, and this time she kept the sound going, on and on, for longer than she could ever have imagined possible, her voice was at the same time inside her body and everywhere - the voices of the other women were flying beside hers, lending it their wings, taking it higher than ever before. She felt every chamber of her lungs emptying themselves out into the soft, thrumming, black night air… and when there was not an iota of breath left in her she stopped. Relaxed. The humming continued all around her, weaving itself into her hair, her veins, like a swarm of bees in a mist. And without any effort at all her body contracted and the air flowed back into her and slowly she felt every chamber of her lungs inflate again, fuller, stronger, more vibrant than before. And again she hummed and filled the night with the softness and power of her voice.

The darkness in front of her took on a different quality. She looked up. A space of more concentrated blackness the shape of a human figure. Kamala's heart contracted for a second - but then the figure bent forward and moved closer to her face and she saw it was Dhanmatbai. Her eyes were serious but kind and there was something about the way she was looking at Kamala that reminded her of the odd occasions when she'd caught Mother looking when she thought she was asleep. A look which seemed to express all the love and concern and pride that she couldn't, for some reason, demonstrate more physically. Dhanmatbai had pulled something out of the black bundle at her waist and now she was holding it out to her. A small clay bottle.

Dhanmatbai pulled the rag stopper out releasing a strong, sweet, nutty smell, which Kamala recognised from the white root they'd dug up in the forest that first time. She'd smelled it again in the village, as Dhanmatbai slowly stirred something in a big grey clay pot over the fire, murmuring an extra seasoning of words into it. She was murmuring again now, her words forming a subtle counterpoint to the humming around them. Kamala took the bottle and drank. A warmth and lightness spread through her chest, rose slowly and shimmered in her head, sank and gently swirled in her loins. The humming swam back into Kamala's ears, and she took a deep breath and swam back out into the humming.

She often wondered afterwards how she’d known - how any of them had known - the exact fraction of a second to stop. But the same moment they did, cleanly and perfectly at a precise pin-point in time, the full moon broke from behind the clouds and spilled an avalanche of light down onto the clearing. A spiky black shadow shot out from each of the women, sitting at even spaces all around the clearing, a soft silvery gleam outlined each covered head. Slashed across some of them was a deeper shadow - Kamala saw now that there was a tree in the centre of this clearing too, but this one was not tall and straight, with arms up-stretched. This was an old wreck of a tree, a tumble-down, knock-kneed hag of a tree, with arthritic elbows and untidy strands of what looked like dead moss hanging raggedly from a few thin branches that sagged from the trunk - or what was left of it. In the moonlight Kamala could see that most of the centre of the trunk was hollowed out.

She wondered for a second if the women were paying her and Dr Singh back for their planned betrayal with a cruel joke. You wanted a sacred tree? Well here you go - here’s a sacred tree for you. Hahahahaha! But no. She could feel the heavy weight of seriousness in the air around her. Every mind was entirely focused on the moment, every soul subsumed by the moment. This was more than the sum of seventeen individual women sitting in a circle humming, this was a living entity, it was timeless and boundless. She knew that, despite all appearances, the tree was not dead. She knew this because the tree was calling to her.

Unmoving, it held out its bony branches and said “Come, child. Come”

Kamala resisted the call. She had sworn that the next time she felt one of her funny turns coming on, she was not going to give in to it - she was not going to let herself go stark raving mad. She sat tight. What on earth would the other women think if she leapt up in the middle of their ceremony and started prancing round the sacred tree? She glanced at them. They were all gazing at her expectantly. The tree said.

“I am waiting.”

Banu nodded her urgently forwards, and Kamala could resist no more. She got up and started walking forwards. Something - a root, a bush? - caught at the corner of her sarong and it pulled away from her as she stepped towards the tree. A delicious swirl of cool night air wrapped itself around her bare legs and thighs and bottom. Like she sometimes had been in childhood dreams, she was vaguely aware that she was walking through a crowd of people - and had no pants on!

But unlike the dreams this didn’t seem wrong. The onlookers were not jeering, they were simply there. What seemed wrong was the sweat shirt. She pulled it over her head and dropped it behind her.

The neck of her sweatshirt had caught on her hair band and had half way pulled that off too… she reached back and brushed the band off completely so that her hair poured down her back. The night air enfolded her body completely now. She moved steadily closer to the perfectly still, but nevertheless beckoning tree. And as she reached the inner edge of the circle of women, Dhanmatbai reached up and snapped the last impediment to her nakedness off her wrist. As Kamala took the final step into the space inside the tree trunk, naked as a newborn, she heard a satisfying crunching sound and knew without turning her head that the GPS device was being rhythmically crushed between the wooden staff and a rock, the way she'd seen Banu grinding spices to a paste with a stone pestle and mortar.

Kamala turned and leaned her back against the rough, cool, inner chamber of the tree. The ridge at the back fit perfectly with the groove down the middle of her back, as though it had been made to measure. I'm home, thought Kamala. Yes, I am home, said the tree. You are my Mother, thought Kamala. You give me life, said the tree. The faces of the women were turned towards her each with an identical expression that was not an expression, but which partook of a vast and unshakeable peace. Something flashed white between the trees at the far edge of the clearing. Then the age-crusted lips of the tree trunk began to draw shut across her face and the last thing she saw before the darkness completed itself, was Deepak bursting through into the clearing, his eyes wide, his face pale, his mouth a speechless cavern.


* * *

Kamala woke in her wooden cot back at the hut. She felt more rested, more alive, more complete than she had ever remembered feeling in her life… though she did have a vague memory of one time… she couldn't quite place it... it was a milky, soft, moist time... and at the same time she felt so tired she couldn’t even open her eyes. She heard a voice saying… “She’s smiling! She’s ok!” A voice like warm chocolate. A voice she wanted to pull around her like a fleecy blanket, to sink into like a warm bath. “When will she wake up?” I’m awake, Kamala wanted to say, keep talking. But she was too sleepy. So she let herself drift away again.

Some time later - a lifetime it seemed to her - another voice came, this one was somehow more complicated, it was smooth on the outside but jagged inside like human skin covering sharp implements, jagged bones. “Where is it? Where is it? Search her… That item is worth several lakhs of rupees! Someone must have stolen it! Or she’s dropped it! Send someone back into the forest to find it. Tch! This is what comes of entrusting valuable equipment to irresponsible young girls!”

Kamala wondered who this voice could be referring to. Not her, certainly, because she, she now knew, was not young. She was as old as the universe itself. And not irresponsible - she knew she was responsible for something huge… if only she could remember what it was… It amused her to think that someone could be so upset about the shifting of one tiny, single, object from one place in the universe to another - when eternity was sparkling and undulating endlessly around them and folding yeastily back on itself to recreate itself again and again… with a little help, of course.
“What’s she got to smile about?” the voice said tetchily.

Another few aeons of darkness passed. Then a voice that was not a voice said.

GOOD GIRL. GOOD GIRL.

And Kamala smiled in her sleep again. When she semi-surfaced again later there were more voices, these ones were rough yet smooth (the opposite of the smooth yet rough voice earlier) - in the way that an animal’s fur can be, in the way a tough little stream shoving steadily across its rocky bed can be. At first the meaning of the voices was hidden behind a kind of mist, but soon the mist melted away and the sense of it crystallised in Kamala's mind.

“This was a good thing. The maiden did well.”

“Yes, we were lucky she came.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it - she was sent.”

“Luck is one way of talking about that.”

“Yes, you are right.”

“So it is well now? It is safe?”

“I don’t know. The Mother's belly has been filled, her thirst has been slaked again, thanks to this girl. But something is not right.”

“What?”

“It is hard to say. The bangle she wore… it is dangerous.”

“You broke it.”

“Yes, but it is still dangerous.”

“What should we do?”

“I don’t know. Things are starting to happen which are beyond my understanding.”

“The girl will know.”

“No. She knows nothing.”

“But she is powerful”

“Her power is good in one world. In this other world it is no good. They are using her.”

“What can we do?”

“There is nothing more we can do. This is beyond us. We must wait and see. And hope for help.”

A shadow of anxiety fell across the vast golden lagoon of Kamala’s happiness, it wormed into her sleep and gave her troubled dreams, a grain of unease in a soft oyster of joy creating pearly nightmares - swelling into an urgent sense that she had something she had to do... had to do.

When she finally woke up properly and opened her eyes, she was ravenously hungry.
"What happened?" she murmured.