3.2 Badi

“Wake up! Wake up!” his grandmother called, “I be damned you sleep whole day! Your lunch is cold!”

Muaz was still dazed. He had lunch and spread to Women’s Lane. This time he went alone. He walked up a quarter when he began to hear footsteps following from behind; laughter, clapping, giggles and a cry of a woman.

He looked around but there was nobody in sight. He could see quite some distance over his shoulders for this area was cleared of trees. He carried on.

Briskly, she appeared in front of him fifty yards away. She was leaning against a palm with a foot raised. The woman in red dress – the hundi – harmless in nature – if you do not disturb, they do not disturb.

It makes more sense if we listen to his narration. He said, “She peeped at me but she was partially hidden behind the palm. I knew if I get closer, I’d be able to see her face and find out who it was but something inside me at that moment was telling me to turn back…turn back. I could still hear voices and a cry of hoah.

“I turned back and the voices ceased. I can’t hear the footsteps. I walked and walked the same path of the palm rows. Sometimes I feel I come to the same spot like I could distinguish the plants. I obviously noticed a black velvet flower twice. A huge flower about eight inches in diameter on a low bush beside a palm. Women’s Lane got no linking paths. It’s just a long road.

“People term this phenomenon a ‘hallucination’ or a ‘mirage’. Let me put it this way, literally, it’s a baffling path-blinder. I was lost. I sat down and sweat.

“Hours passed. A fear crawled on my skin. Hair-raising. I glanced behind over my shoulder and I saw the moon rising over the treetops. A big moon. In fact, it was Full Moon. I knew the village would lie in that direction. I got up and started to walk keeping the moon in my focus. I walked and walked for hours, darkness falling and the moon shining.

“I don’t know how it happened but I saw a nook and I took the turn. In few steps I began to see something familiar looming in front of me. I realised it was the rear side wall of Chandni. That crude wall…that was recently built so very white. Moonlight gleamed on the wall. I have passed that wall three times by then. It was a relief to me. I made it in the end. I picked the lanes and arrived home safely. I did not go to the concert that evening.

“That girl came around eleven wearing the same dress…olive-green top and white skirt. She took time to light the candle but I was off mood that night. I didn’t see her on the previous night.

“My friends don’t want to believe a single word I say. They believe their jaunts to the islands were more adventurous than mine.”

 

“That was our last show,” Mannan expounded in his narration, “We already planned a moonlight rambling on the western beach with Malé crowd so we rushed our tea and climbed a tractor that Ibre organised, loaded our stuff. It was on the tractor that I noticed Wafig in his grey tracksuit.

“It was a long way through a narrow bumpy trail cut through the wood half a mile away. Once we reached there, we had a better visual. I can’t describe how I felt.

“It was a Full Moon night. So clear that we could make the horizon and no islands around. It is an isolated island connected to no atoll. That beautiful beach lit up in the moonlight. We dropped our gear and set up a grill. Lit up and placed some fish. Red fish already scaled. You know how much we love to eat its skin!

“I took my acoustic guitar and for a while we sat around the fire and sang. We had grilled fish and drinks. We took six bottles on the trip. We were left with two. Salt keeps them but we don’t drink that much. Our sound boy has an empty stomach or a hole in it. He was not with us that night. He stayed to pack the band instruments as we plan to leave by the afternoon.

“There were those juveniles in this Malé crowd, playing in the water and on the beach. We drank, we sang, we danced, we smoked.

“It was around four, I guess, she got drunk. She got drunk pretty fast and removed all her clothes. Nisha could hardly stand on her feet.

“She lay alone on the beach thirty yards from us, knocked out, spread-eagled, lying on her back. No life in her. We lost interest there. We then carried on with our last drop. A big moon hovered right in our eyes. Moonbeam reflected on the water. You can see the beach lit in silver to its stretch.

“Suddenly, we caught a flame. Someone shouted and I tossed my guitar, darted towards Nisha. She was on fire. Someone torched her. She woke up faintly, released a meek cry. We grabbed her legs and drew her into water. I could smell burning hair. She burnt badly. She was still incapacitated.

“The tractor was called to fetch us at six, an hour ahead. That was the only engine on this big island besides Multi-Ibre’s loud motorbike. The moon was setting at the hour. We still got a barrow.

“We put her lame body into the wheelbarrow and headed up the trail to the village. We placed some leaves and branches on top of her. It’s good we took precaution to cover her body for we arrived at sunrise, past six.

“Wafig was not with us. He ran away.

“When I reached Nisha, I saw a funnel between her legs and the fuel can tossed on the beach. We used it to light the grill.

“It was Wafig. I met him several times after that but he keeps insisting that he meant to make mischief by burning her pubic hair.

“Truth is…he placed the funnel in her legs and poured fuel. Torched her and ran away.

“She was okay. Ibre treated her with some herbal medicine of crushed leaves. We were not there to see her heal. We returned that afternoon.”

 

And while the revelry took place on the western beach, Muaz got up from bed and checked the time; two-thirty in the morning. A bright moonlight lit the oleander flowers outside the French windows so he stepped out and walked to Giruva Magu. He saw sparks and the ember of a hookah in front of Badi House; Farida’s place. Muaz paced up to find Farida perched on the joli dragging on a hubble-bubble water pipe. She wore her concert dress – blue bell-bottoms and sleeveless blouse.

“I’m waiting for you,” said Farida.

“Listen!” he sat down on the next seat, “I saw the hundi today. I got lost on Women’s Lane.”

“You shouldn’t go there alone.”

“Is it real?”

“It is. You don’t want to believe me!”

“I missed the show.”

“They have gone to the western end to carouse on the beach. I know. Salt told me they have spirits.”

“With the girls?” he asked shocked.

“Only Malé girls. Do you like that stuff?”

“What stuff?”

“Spirit.”

“I never tried.”

“Neither did I,” said Farida winding the pipe on the shank, “Come! I have something to show you.”

Muaz entered the room in the glow of the naked flame. One of the dancing girls slept in the bed wearing that sleeveless mini dress and gold on her body.

“Who is she?” he whispered.

“Kishala,” returned Farida.

“Why is she sleeping here?”

“Her family knows she is here,” Farida sat down beside the girl and drew him next to her, “Tailor Don has little choice. I am their coach. Chandni House is supplied with electricity from Moonlight Club. He is compelled to send a girl to perform in the dance or else he stays in the dark.”

“Is that the deal?”

“Precisely!” she uttered, “Giruva Magu divides the village into two wards. All houses on the south belongs to Moonlight Club and north belongs to Sunlight Club.”

The girl in bed wore a golden girdle on her waist with a series of gold coins and medallions.