Tamarind Trees
Trigger Warning- Domestic Abuse, Alcohol Abuse, Murder.
He sighed heavily as he got into his auto. It had been easy to go back to the bottle, almost as if he’d been waiting for the excuse all along. His wife hated it, but there hadn’t been any love there for some time now. He couldn’t blame her, but it was easy to. Life had never been easy, but it had gotten progressively worse the past few months. But seemed to be a recurring word in his life, even if he preferred ‘yet’.
He chided himself, he had been told by that damned godman not to get too caught up with his circumstances. It was easy for the godmen to spout whatever they wanted, smearing themselves all over with powders of vermillion, saffron, and ash. People would still flock to them, hoping that their unkempt beards and hair hid wisdom and ancient intelligence. He had a deep disdain for them, all they’d done was stop shaving, which by all accounts, wasn’t particularly hard. There was envy too, for the lives they led, filled with material luxury after they denounced it to the masses. It’s hardest to practice what you preach, after all.
He could’ve easily gone down a different path too. It was his favourite pastime. To dream of an escape, a life where he had everything and nothing. Everything he could ever want, and nothing that would worry him. Daydreaming helped, for the most part, until reality hit. The baby hadn’t helped, not really. But his wife had become more tender, and the baby had brought home a sense of responsibility. He did find it cute, occasionally. Cute enough to make him quit the bottle for some time at least. He’d decided he didn’t want to end up like his father. The disdain for his father hadn’t stopped him from hitting his wife and abusing her as his mother had been. That hadn’t made him more sympathetic to her, ironically enough. He was self-aware, sure. But not enough to stop himself from hitting her from time to time. He didn’t mean it, not really, he’d been drunk most of the time. She never seemed to understand that though. She just grew more and more resentful every time, and soon enough, started to give as good as she got. Her incessant nagging and cutting remarks didn’t go unpunished either. They’d just devolved into a screaming woman and a very violent man. Maybe, that’s who they were all along. They’d had a truce long enough for the news of the baby to brighten the house. They’d both changed after that. They made an effort to be better, or at least try. The occasional drink didn’t do him any harm, or so he thought. It was always those days when she decided to be insufferable, and he had to restrain himself from knocking some sense into her. Striking a pregnant woman was wrong, even for his dubious morals. The baby came along soon enough, and the fragile peace they’d brokered fell away like the facade it was.
Like the thaw of ice on a stormy sea. All the fury of the past months, made worse by old wounds, came bubbling up all too soon. If his wife ever stopped screaming, the baby would begin. It was incessant. It would scream and scream, and nothing they ever did seemed to appease it. Enough to drive any man to the bottle. But this time, he picked up a different bottle. It was late. He’d been up for days, sleeping fitfully in the auto, whenever he managed to escape from the hellhole he had to come back to. He’d been tired and didn’t realize what happened until it was too late. He hadn’t meant to kill it, but how was he to know the dosage of what he’d slipped into the baby’s bottle? The screaming had stopped, and he felt at peace for what was the first time in months. It was also the last. The next morning, the baby didn’t wake. Nor the mornings after that. The doctors at the government hospital hadn’t looked too hard, and the case passed like every other unfortunate incident. It would’ve been entirely too ironic for him to ask for a thorough investigation. So he sat through it, stonily, like every other experience in his life.
His wife had been inconsolable for days. He hadn’t cried. He did regret it, sure, but there was no remorse. He liked the peace. He didn’t mind her sobbing in the corner. Of course, he did mind a whole lot more when she was accusing him of killing the baby. He had no idea how she knew, but he knew he didn’t care much for her ‘mother’s intuition’. All he’d wanted was peace. She’d never let him have that. As the rage solidified, he made up his mind. When she finally asked him to put her out of her misery, he was only too happy to help. He strangled her with the same shawl she’d used to swaddle the baby. It was fitting in a way. They belonged together. It was all too easy to string it to the fan and make it look like suicide. Everyone knew what a mother’s grief might make them do. No one questioned it, and it had passed.
That had been a year ago. His family kept telling him that it wasn’t his fault and that he was still young enough to get married again. He agreed, but something was holding him back. They’d taken him to godmen and astrologers, but their vague ministrations hadn’t accomplished much.
He didn’t know why, but he wanted to drive back to his old house. He’d left after his wife had died, mostly because of his family. They thought he’d needed the respite from all the grief. He knew that there’d be a third victim if he had to spend more time around them all, with their constant chatter, and “well-meaning advice”. So he went and was welcomed home by cobwebs and dust.
As he sat smoking on the porch, he saw the tamarind tree. There had been a huge tamarind tree behind the house, which was part of why he had been able to afford it. The tamarind tree was menacing, with branches that looked like limbs in the dark. It had always been shrouded in mystery. Everyone knew the tales about tamarind trees. It was supposed to harbour spirits, and one too many specters had been reported, swaying from this tree’s branches. It was a small plot, but property in the city was a nightmare, and he’d jumped at this, ghosts be damned. They couldn’t cut the tree, what with all the legends floating around. His wife had been the superstitious kind. A fat lot of good that did her, he thought and scoffed. He looked at the tree again and wondered. He’d buried the bottle he’d used under the tree, knowing that no one would dare go near it. After she died, he’d buried a few things there again. He had been scared of getting caught back then, but he knew better now.
He started digging but didn’t find the bottle or the trinkets. He looked around the tree but didn’t find the things he’d hidden. He was starting to panic. Anyone with that bottle would know that he’d killed the baby. It wouldn’t be very hard to connect the dots to his strangled wife either. He needed to find that bottle, and he needed it now. He dug around madly, on his hands and knees, unearthing soil with his hands, desperate to find something, anything. That’s when he heard the humming.
It was that song. That song she always hummed. She’d sung it to the child, like a lullaby. He’d know which of the three rooms he had to avoid when he heard that song. She had never stopped humming it. He didn’t like her voice, but this humming was different. Her voice had been high and clear. This was breathy and ragged. He looked up to find those anklets, all too familiar, swaying from the branch. The hair on his neck stood up. Every instinct screamed at him to run, but where would he go? He had come home, where he belonged. He got up. There she was. Holding the baby. It looked blue in the face, with a vein popping out, and frothing at its mouth. He wasn’t sure if it was gurgling or choking. It was grotesque. His wife had changed too. The face he had been so happy to forget had come back. It was swollen now, puffed beyond recognition. It was almost as if their bodies had started rotting. He felt nauseous. She hadn’t stopped humming. She’d been nursing the baby but looked up when he made a strangled sound. Her eyes were holes. There was simultaneously nothing in them, and too much. She had that knowing look, the one she had every time he lied about not drinking. The humming grew louder. He felt light-headed. He wanted to beg, to pray, anything to let him go. She just kept looking. The humming grew even louder, and everything went dark.
He was found in the morning, a thin ribbon of blood from his mouth leaking as he lay suspended, impaled by a branch on the tree. No one knew what had happened, but it hadn’t helped the reputation of the tamarind tree. They lamented the loss, but he’d finally got what he needed. Some peace and quiet.
