Lazarus

Lazarus
By unni kumaran

Max, our dog, once brought back a chicken; we don't know from where, but it could have been from the market near our house. It was late at night. Television was still new to the country and every evening the family sat up peering into the box until the last programme was over. It was a Saturday night and they were showing one of those serials that went on an on, week after week. Everyone including grandmother sat up for the show which was the last programme for the night and ended after midnight. So it was really late when Max brought his live chick home.

We were alerted by the chicken's beeping. First thought was that one of the chickens we reared had escaped from the coop. Looking through the window we saw it was Max. In his mouth was an almost featherless chicken squealing for her life. Someone charged out and pulled it out of Max's jaws. The rescued bird was put in a box at the back of the house where Max was not permitted.

Over the weeks Lazarus, which was the name we gave the poor bird, grew to be a cockerel of some size. It had brown feathers, yellow feet and a red coxcomb that drooped wickedly over one side of his head.

The cockerel had the run of the house. He and Sumi, who was the littlest person in our house of mostly adults, loafed around the compound together. Max the dog watched disgustedly from a distance, conditioned to stay away from the bird by the whacks he got whenever he made a bid to complete his interrupted meal.

There was a rule about animals in the house that was very simple - no dog, cat or hen was to be found anywhere in the built-up part of the premises. No exception my mother said, and that was law. Well, law for everyone except little Sumi who was known to smuggle the bold bird up to her room whenever my mother was not looking.

Nasty thing about birds of Lazarus' kind is that they wore no diapers like Sumi did, which meant they left little drops and puddles around the house that were sticky, smelly and had to be cleaned. Mostly by my mother, who did the daytime chores. The rest of the family left for work in the morning and returned only in the evening. The daily woman who came to help was an unreliable soul who was absent more often than present.

Lazarus grew with lavish meals of leftovers, the freedom of the house and compound and the love of all, particularly a little girl who ate with him, played with him and slept with him. Max the dog blamed everything on fate and took to other repasts, dead and alive, from and without the house.

So life went on.

Then one day the inevitable happened. The big bird soiled the bed in my mother's room. White sheets could be washed and dried all in a day but the mattress took many days to dry before it could be used again. Mother and father had to sleep on a mat on the floor until things got back to normal. They were not happy. Something had to happen.

My mother's law applied. The bird was banished from the house. No more freedom. It had to be caged with the other birds. Lazarus will be food if it ever enters the house again, my mother pronounced.

Lazarus however, had friends in the house, so he escaped being put him in the coop with the other chickens. A special cage was built to house the favoured jailbird. His wanderings and walkabout with Sumi was limited to the hours when there were people to supervise the daily exercise.

Then one day the unthinkable happened.

Lazarus became curry.

It was all a mistake. A new woman had come to help. Mother told her that we would have chicken for lunch. It was a Saturday. Mother went shopping. The maid could not tell one chicken form the other, so she picked the largest bird. Lazarus.

Everyone comes home in the afternoon on Saturdays. Lunch is special on Saturdays. Meat, fish vegetables, whatall . . .

There was no joy on that Saturday. The children howled. Sumi howled. No one ate the curry.

Not the old people who stayed at home.

Not the adults who went to work.

Not the young ones who came for lunch from school on Saturdays.

No one.

No one, except Max.

Fate, my mother said.