Reborn to Endless Night:

Fragments from the Life of Anu Vijara

 

Jason Reynolds

 

Copyright by Jason Reynolds 2013

Smashwords Edition

 

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For Jenn

 

“You are not reading this. You did not read this.”

—Anu Vijara

 

 

Fragment I

Calcutta, India. 1883 CE.

 

Teeth grinding, nails digging into the meat of my palm, I had to pause for a moment and lean against a gaslamp, its soft glow fusing with the other streetlights to form a halo spread across a skyline crowned with spires, minarets, and smokestacks, becoming a gauzy veil against the heavens. The moon, a bright crescent freckled with craters, held me there in a sort of trance, a brief reprieve from the hot sour stench, the ceaseless murmurs and chatter—from the hunger gnawing at my insides. Finally, the tram hissed, spit a puff of steam, and chugged away from the curb. I headed into the road, shouldering my way across a thoroughfare clogged with sweaty bodies, sidestepping a rickshaw or two before entering Bowbazar.

The lanterns sagging back and forth from pagoda-shaped awnings gave the marketplace a blood-red shimmer. Chinese merchants, immigrants from the Opium Wars, cajoled me as I passed, pushing their leather goods, dry fish, and vegetables. I was dressed as a Babu, after all, a Bengali gentleman presumably with a pocketful of rupees. But I was not there for fish or shoes. I cut down a narrow alley, striding along the worn greasy brickwork toward the tenement I had settled upon the night before.

Inside, I asked the attendant, a portly Chinese gentleman, for a room, and he led me down a hallway to a small den in the back. Parting the beaded partition, he ushered me in and, striking a match, lit the lamp beside the door-sill. That was when I spotted the Englishman in the corner: gaunt, spindly frame stretched across a bamboo bed, gazing dully at the ceiling, arms folded reverently across his chest, hookah hose coiled around one hand, a book in the other.

He did not acknowledge us; he didn't even stir. I edged onto the bed by the door, watching impatiently as the attendant packed a sticky ball of opium into the hookah. He handed me a hose; I put it to my lips and pretended to suck as he laid a flame to the black ball, then blew out a mouthful of smoke, affecting a hefty cough. He grinned and nodded, the fat under his chin quivering.

“Yes,” I assured him, dropping more rupees into his hand. “Quite tasty.”

Calling me 'Babuji,' he bid me an adventurous evening, handed over the box of matches, and shuffled out of the room. I looked to the corner again and observed the Englishman.

“What brings you to Calcutta, sir?”

He did not answer—didn't even move—so I approached him, padding softly across the oriental rugs. Behind the neatly cropped sideburns and drooping mustache, the young man's face was pasty and moist as if from fever. From the cut of his linen shirt, the embroidery of his waistcoat, and the paisley cravat, I took him to be a man of considerable wealth, almost certainly a resident of Chowringhee Road.

“What brings you to the City of Palaces, sir?” I waved my hand across his eyes, still not getting a response. “An administrator for the Raj? Perhaps an actor on Theater Road? Or are you a man of private enterprise?”

I crouched and poked his shoulder. Nothing. Not even a flicker in his widened pupils. His mind no doubt swirling in its own reveries, he would remain perfectly oblivious to the operation I was about to perform.

I pulled the hose and book—The Complete Poetical Works of Lord Byron—from his limp fingers, placed them on the floor, and unfolded his arms, draping his left hand over the edge of the bed. Admiring his soft, pristine skin, I took out my scalpel and tonic bottle, dislodging the cork and setting it close by so I could fetch it once the bleeding had begun. That was when I noticed the tapestry hanging over the head of the bed—double-taking at the stark, terrifying image.

Kali, the fierce-eyed, four-armed goddess, gaped back at me. In Calcutta, her iconography was inescapable, even in a Chinese opium den. The temple where I had made my fateful offering to her was now a pile of half-buried rubble on the banks of the Bidyadhari River, but the goddess—her image and meaning, at least—had endured.

Diverting my eyes, I focused on the blade, carefully settling it between the man's thumb and pointer finger, like a writer putting pen to paper, but, just as I was about to make the incision, his fingers flinched. He clasped my wrist.

I blackened my eyes and unsheathed my fangs

He said, “Vam—”

I hissed and placed a finger to my lips, ordering his silence. I loomed over him, anticipating a violent struggle, but across his face there bloomed a strange, almost relieved look, a dreamy glint wavering in his half-shut eyes, a bizarre expression I attributed to the opium. Instead of pushing my hand away, he actually pulled the scalpel a little closer, stretching his neck, as if offering himself up for sacrifice. The gleam of the blade reflected against his throbbing carotid artery.

“The bare bodkin,” he said, his voice soft, measured, theatrical. “Quietus has brought me to Calcutta.”

So eccentric was his manner, so weary and jaded was his stare, I lost my grip on the blade. He retrieved it from his chest and, twirling the instrument with a precision that suggested some expertise, handed it back. He sat up, plucking the cravat from his neck and using it to mop the film of sweat from his brow. Then, as if he we were old friends, he gestured to the edge of the bed, offering me a seat. The Englishman adjusted the silk bolster and, after sliding his suspenders over his shoulders and straightening his wavy, auburn hair, leaned against the wall—against the bottom of the tapestry of Kali. I wanted to ask why he wasn't afraid—why hadn't he fled the room screaming? He grinned, as if he understood the nature of my bafflement, and nodded at the hookah in the floor.

“The Chinaman swears this the best opium in Calcutta,” he said, twisting the dark tuft of whiskers beneath his lip. “Black Earth they call it, gateway to the hidden self, the unconscious sea with—” He abruptly checked his pocket watch, widening his gaze, focusing. “—Within,” he continued. “You must understand, Babuji, I have dreamt of a moment like this many, many times. So I am still trying to determine if it is really happening.”

His unfazed expression suggested that he grasped both the depth of my hunger and the precarious situation I was now in: if he screamed, others would come running. How many would I have to kill and maim in order to escape?

I un-blackened my eyes and withdrew my fangs.

“Have a seat,” he said, glancing at the empty bottle. He grabbed and studied it. I slid onto the bed, staring at the container as well. He asked my name.

“Anu Vijara,” I eventually mumbled.

He introduced himself as Arthur Pennington and told me he had a proposition, hoisting the bottle as if making a toast. “Tell me about yourself, tell me your story, and I will fill this for you.”

It must have seemed like a simple enough request, a straight forward quid pro quo, but I wasn't much of a storyteller, and I certainly wasn't keen on telling a Mortal the truth about myself. The fact that I hadn't crushed his neck yet could have been deemed a violation of our code.

On the other hand, who would believe an opium-eater? After all, he barely believed this was happening. Telling him my story seemed the most reasonable way of resolving my predicament.

As I thought about where to begin, though, a rush of images swarmed my mind—a jumbled, jagged stream as clamorous as Bowbazar. I was not in the habit of reflecting on the past, let alone stringing my memories into a coherent narrative. The empty bottle became my motivation. Blood for memories. Once again, I found myself locking onto Kali's stark eyes and red, lolling tongue, the garland of skulls looping around her neck, beads weaving in and out of hollow eyes.

“You aren't really a Babu, are you?” Pennington asked, ironically, as if helping me get started.

I took notice of my Bengali garb, the white dhoti and flowery bracelet—my stiff, oily hair.

“Anu Vijara hasn't always been my name,” I answered. “I took it after I arrived in Calcutta, a few months ago. It translates into English, roughly, as 'timeless one.'”

“Why did you take that name?”

 

Fragment II

Chandraketugarh, India. ca. 3 BCE.

 

Sitars droning, drums pulsing, the raga invited me inside where—except for the countless candles around the altar—the sanctuary was dark, air thick with incense and fragrant flowers, the scent of blood. I proceeded to the altar—mantras and shrieks filling my ears—as if I were being drawn by the blood itself.

The slaughter-man slit a goat’s neck, draining the red juice into a bucket. A gray-bearded Brahmin came over, dipped a cupful, and began sprinkling drops into the lap of the black statue above the altar: Kali, the Dark Mother, her white eyes beckoning me. She spoke to my heart again, a voice as gentle and deep as a calm sea.

Come, she said.

I knelt before her, the priest placing a garland around my neck and the red dot of devotion upon my brow. I scrutinized the goddess, blood seeping into her lap, bright and shiny in places, dark and dry in others. She reeked of death, a stench no amount of incense could ever mask, her lips curving into a smile that promised there was no amount of suffering she couldn’t devour—no heart she couldn’t put at peace with the Wheel of Time.

And then she sent me a vision of human blood dripping into her lap. She didn’t show me how this would be accomplished, but the Dark Mother had guided me this far. I trusted her.

Clasping my hands together, I rocked back and forth, praying for further instruction—rocked and prayed until a priest grabbed my arm. “Come now,” he said, “others are waiting their turn.”

Resist, Kali whispered, so I flung his hand away and continued praying. He called another priest over, and together they tried to remove me. Resist, resist. So I lunged, squirming my way into Kali’s lap, gripping her waist, hoping she would show me what to do—blood soaking my face and smearing across my body.

The chanting stopped as gasps and screams filled the temple.

When the slaughter-man rushed over, the Dark Mother finally showed me what to do: as he grabbed my sash, I snatched his blade. He reared back, my sash still in his hands. Several priests were now jerking my legs and clutching at the silk robe I’d stolen from the marketplace earlier. I kicked one of them in the stomach, my garment ripping as he tumbled to the floor.

He pointed back at me, eyes bulging in disgust. The sanctuary fell silent at the sight of the unclean creature who had sullied the sacred shrine. Laid bare for all to see was the ill-defined lump of flesh, the fruit of a curse born of my mother’s indifference. I was no stranger to these expressions. My own parents had regarded me with the same repulsed gaze. Now they all knew I was neither a man nor a woman. I was both.

At Kali's command, I put the knife to my throat, my hand quaking, until she blew a calming breath into my lungs and whispered, It is time.

As if on cue, the statue began to wobble and a terrible moan filled the sanctuary, like the sound of an immense horn—of divine rage itself. I tumbled to the floor, losing my grip on the knife, which came to rest several feet away. As panicked devotees pushed toward the exit, priests scurried about the room like mad hornets, one of them snatching up the blade, preventing me from retrieving it.

When the last devotee had fled, the great wooden doors were shut and locked.

There were scraping sounds—stone grinding against stone—as Kali’s statue slid away from the wall, slowly at first, then quickening. The massive idol was actually a kind of door. When it finally halted, a Brahmin stepped into the shadowy vault, torch in hand, motioning for me to come.

I followed him to the bottom of the coiling steps where I saw another statue of Kali at the far end of a cavernous, candlelit chamber. Upon a golden throne, the goddess sat in a tiger-skin robe, large, bare breasts sagging behind her garland of skulls. In her left hand was the Khatuanga, her skull-topped staff, to either side of her stood dark-robed figures, faces obscured by hoods.

I waited for instructions, but this time Kali remained silent.

“Go to her,” ordered the priest.

So I took slow, awkward steps across the chamber. The idol's eyes and lips were shut, mouth and chin streaked with dried blood. The robed-figure to the left shifted, the sword beneath his robe gleaming, and I was sure he was about to hack off my head and offer it to the goddess. I kept going, though, anticipating the blow.

Craving it.

But the coup de grace did not come. I knelt before the statue, staring, waiting for her judgment, staring and waiting until finally those stony eyelids lifted and black, glistening orbs blinked back at me, the lips parting to reveal sharp fangs and a long red tongue. I prostrated myself, clutching the gilded hem of her robe, weeping in a pious fit of fear and love. “Holy Mother,” I cried over and over, my tears drenching her cold, bare feet.

“Stand,” said the goddess. The sharp, hissing voice now spoke outwardly, not inside of me as before. With the attendant’s help, I climbed to my feet and, clearing the tears, sheepishly glanced in her direction. Her black eyes lowered, examining my blood-caked body.

I looked away in shame.

“Why did your father not have you castrated? Turned into a eunuch or at least present you to the cult of Aravan?”

She was speaking of the great warrior Aravan who was willing to sacrifice himself to Kali in exchange for one more blissful night with his wife. Moved by this wish, Krishna transformed himself into Aravan’s wife, fulfilling the warrior’s carnal desires before beheading him the next morning. People with bodies like mine were often given to Aravan’s temples where they became a means for well-born men to satisfy their ambiguous sexual needs in a ritually-clean manner.

“I was presented to Aravan,” I said, stuttering a bit, nervous and confused as to why she was asking about things she surely knew. “But I refused to let the priests treat me like an animal. I ran away from the temple and have lived as an Untouchable ever since.”

I was an outcast—lower than a Shudra, the lowest caste—a living, breathing piece of cosmic detritus so foul people were afraid to step in my shadow for fear of contamination.

“Why haven’t you accepted dharma?” she asked. “Why have you refused your duty?”

“Because my mother brought this upon me.” Struggling to push the words through my trembling lips, I recounted the story an aunt had told me before I was sent to Aravan’s temple: the tale of how my mother, while pregnant with me, failed to give alms to the lowly beggars outside of this very shrine and how they had cursed her womb. “Why should I suffer for her transgression? Why should I be burdened with this body?”

I was now staring into the goddess's eyes, speaking with a clarity and passion I’d always attributed to her inspiration. This was the height of hubris. Surely her sword-wielding attendants were sizing up the back of my neck.

“But wouldn’t it be more prudent to see your mother’s callousness as the fulfillment of your karma, transgressions from your past lives?” Kali leaned a little closer. “You still haven’t answered my question: why have you refused to submit?”

“I listened to the words you put in my heart, Holy Mother. I thought this was what you wanted.”

“You think I told you to do this?”

Her gloomy eyes seemed to reach inside and squeeze my heart.

“That was always your voice,” she said. “You are a beautiful creature. In the land of the Greeks and Romans, you’d be called an androgyne, the female and male principles unified in one body. You would be considered a blessing from the gods, a seer, a prophet. You are here for a reason, my child, but not the one you’ve suspected.”

She snapped her fingers, and an attendant took the skull-topped staff.

She spread her arms and said, “Come.”

I eased into her embrace, nestling my head between her iron-hard breasts, sobbing, a lifetime of deprivation and loneliness seeping onto her garland of skulls.

“Release me,” I begged her, “free me from this flesh. Please, Holy Mother, let me be born again.”

She gently rubbed my head. “Reincarnation is a lie, my child. When the life-force leaves the flesh, the soul fades to nothing, like smoke from an extinguished candle. That is the fate of all humankind. But it doesn't have to be yours. You are meant to be like me, to possess your own soul, to be incarnated forever. You can be an Uroboros. That is my gift to you.”

I looked up at her, confused, her words contradicting everything I had ever been taught about suffering and duty—about samsara, the cycle of life and death.

“Eternity in time is possible through the Elixir,” she said. “As long as the body’s energy is in perfect harmony, the flesh endures.”

She told me about the extent of her powers and what one would have to give up in order to obtain them—explained it all in great detail, but all I recall is that, lying there in Kali’s arms, I just wanted her to be my new mother.

“Do you accept my gift?”

When I nodded, she spread her lips and plunged her fangs deep into my neck. I struggled at first, but my instinctual resistance was soon quelled by the warmth flooding my body, and I sank into her lap like the sated infant Shiva. My Metamorphosis had begun (See Appendix A for a scientific account of the processes involved in the transformation...