Three Manny Opera
Justice is a dish best served sweet
Chapter One
The giant block of commercial ice stood dripping against the filthy wall outside the small shop in the heat of the Delhi sun. The stringy man stood next to the open doorway, dwarfed by the ice beside him. He wore only a pair of striped boxers with a drawstring waist, his feet dipping into the small puddles forming around the four corners of the ice, leaking away the profits of the shop owner who had died the night before. He took a long draw on his hand rolled bidi, turning his head up to exhale, letting the cold block next to him evaporate his perspiration. On the next long inhale, he closed his eyes to prolong the pleasure of this five minute respite from the grueling day waiting for him behind the open back door of the filthy shop where he had found the owner’s body this morning.
The icepick, the dull red paint peeling from its dry cracked handle, hovered near his chest as he absentmindedly scratched himself with the glistening tip of its seven inch blade. He took one last drag of the bidi, reluctantly throwing it down and putting it out with tip of his bare big toe. The icepick fell with a dull thud on the dusty summer ground as he bent to pick up the bidi butt. He stood up, leaning against the ice to prepare for the heat inside, closing his eyes to the grueling hours to come. The icepick, lifted by unseen hands, danced around his chest, circling his sternum, The glistening tip of its seven inch blade picked at his left nipple, sending ripples of pleasure down to his boxers, and just as recognition filled his opening eyes, plunged through the nipple and deep into his heart. A second push shoved the handle through the opening in his chest, holding him pinned to the ice, rivulets of red snaking down into the ice behind him and turning the puddles near his feet crimson. His eyes stayed open as his life ebbed, unblinking in his disbelief.
And that is how the second one died.
Chapter Two
The tree trunk was wide across, perhaps three feet, and a good three feet tall. It sat in the middle of the small empty lot that was sandwiched between the connected rows of government duplexes and the back alley of the small u-shaped market, comprising of a variety of shops: greengrocers, bakers, butchers, barbers, and two unhygienic little eateries called dhabas. The June heat shimmered, raising waves of distortion in the brightness of the afternoon sun. So she didn’t really know how many of them stood around her, surrounding her supine ten year old body lying naked on the tree trunk. Everything shimmered, until she closed her eyes: once to the sun, and forever to not knowing what happened to her that day. The gruesome silence that contained the hands and the icepick and the axe handle and the engorged penises that went up her every baby opening. The nervous laughter afterward, the smoke of the bidis rising around her face as they checked to see if she was dead or simply passed out. She surprised them as she climbed off the tree trunk, blood running down the inside of her rounded legs, her little white panties hanging off one thigh, her eyes still closed. She walked away sedately, not once turning around to look at them. Not turning around became her motto, and her way of life eventually. Disbelieving, they looked at her walking away, not running or crying, or seeming in any way affected. The same expression would be on each of their faces when they met their deaths.
Chapter Three
The chubby man with the greasy hair and bushy mustache offered her a little sweet, her absolute favorite, a maraschino cherry. He sat cross legged on the small footstool behind the grungy glass waist high counter. She took it and smiled her thanks, popping it into her mouth before anyone saw her with it. She paid for the small bowl of yogurt she had been sent to buy, whistling her way home in the dark, delighting in the secret of both forbidden pleasures, taking treats from the shopkeeper and whistling even though being a girl she wasn’t supposed to.
The man looked at her receding back, relief replacing the worry that had dogged him since he had given her the maraschino cherry at the tree trunk. It remained a mystery to him why no one from her family had ever come looking for him, or any of the others. Summer would be over soon, the monsoon rain washing away the heat and the memories of forbidden pleasures he seldom allowed himself. He swatted away the evening mosquitoes gathering around the fluorescent bulb hanging near his head. He looked for a rag to wipe away his perspiration, and finding none at the counter, raised his heft to get one from the storage shelf in the back of the shop. He felt his way in the dark, not wanting to have the mosquitoes follow him in. Something soft brushed his dhoti-clad legs, arousing him. It was the cat he kept to keep the mice clear of the storage room, and he kicked it away as he walked. But his foot met air, and he fell face first into a barrel of old sweetmeats. Raising himself to his knees, he smiled at the thought of almost swallowing something too rancid to even give to the beggar the next day. And his smile turned to panic when the sweetmeat lodged in his throat, held there by unseen hands, and to disbelief as he stood paralyzed, unable to free himself, his hands held firmly behind his back. Disbelief and life left his open eyes hand in hand.
And that is how the first one died.
Chapter Four
She could never understand how that memory made any sense: the point of view was from behind her left shoulder, but she recognized the girl in the foreground to be herself. She knew the shape of her own head, her two thick braids ending in her favorite polka dotted blue ribbons, hanging down her back. She knew her own small body in the thin white under dress of summer, standing alone in the second floor balcony, looking out at the empty lot in the back of the Delhi market. What she could never figure out was why she was alone in the house in the summertime. Or how she retained this memory in which she saw herself from behind. What she couldn’t remember had shaped her whole life.
The memory itself was very clear. There, overlooking the second floor balcony, is the back lot of the Pandara Road market. The tree trunk is visible behind Pindi Restaurant. This is an ambitious name for a hole-in-the-wall eatery that is covered in cockroaches and grease. Hands come into view raising a brown fowl to the tree trunk, setting it down, holding it down on the wide expanse of the leftover tree. A small axe with a yellow handle descends, and suddenly the chicken is in flight. It jumps off the tree trunk, is running around the circumference of it, blood burbling from its neck like a fountain. It runs around once, twice, before the girl notices the head lying motionless on the top of the trunk surface. The brown eye open, the pupil expanding and becoming red. Then a small man in a dirty pajama comes into focus, his brown eyes meeting the girl’s steadfast gaze. There is a threat in his eyes, and a warning. The girl stands motionless, unaffected, unmoved. She doesn’t know who stands behind her shoulder, giving her this memory.
She always thought this memory was the reason she remained a vegetarian, in a life surrounded by cooking meat. What she didn’t know had made her who she had become.
Chapter Five
He came out to the back, the hen in his left hand and the axe in his right, irritated the other one was taking so long to get the ice inside. He wiped his hands on his dingy lunghi, raising it up to wipe his sweating face, revealing his dangling genitals. He went straight to the tree trunk and sat down, holding the hen in his lap. He needed to sharpen the blade, and had no intention of letting her run while he sharpened. He pulled the sharpening stone to him with his foot, and squatted down, putting the axe blade to the stone. The hen fluttered between his legs, causing an unexpected erection. He reached down between his legs with the hand that held the blade to the spinning stone, the handle of the axe still in his other hand, grinding the edge on the stone. The stone turned faster, rolling away from him, and he scrambled to get the stone, hold the axe, catch the hen. Unseen hands found his left hand, swinging in a clean pendulum the axe he held there. He had sharpened it so well that at first he did not feel anything amiss. He reached down for the hen, and came up with his bloody erection, fully formed in his palm. In disbelief he turned towards the shop, getting the first glimpse of his helper standing nailed to the ice block. He slid down the side of the tree trunk, his head on the block. The axe did its work, and his head lay on the tree trunk, his eyes dilated in astonishment.
And that is how the third one died.
Epilogue
News of the bloodied bodies spread like wildfire that day, as did the others who had been at the tree trunk that June afternoon. But as far as they run, and as old as they grow, unseen hands will follow them until each sees her in their dying disbelief.
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