I stumbled, “What … I don’t know—”
“These are age-old rituals, Anisa. And they can be incredibly powerful. Absolutely transformative,” Shiba added.
“But it’s disgusting,” I said. “You can’t deny that it’s disgusting.”
“But that’s what I’m trying to explain to you. It’s not inherently disgusting. Our bones and muscles, they carry unimaginable wisdom, immense capability. It’s for that very reason that these practices have been demonized, made to seem primitive, barbaric. But there is nothing inherently revolting about flesh and blood,” Shiba said.
“In the animal kingdom, this is a commonplace interaction,” Arjun continued. “Underwater, in fact, over ninety percent of organisms engage in the practice.”
“What?” I asked, feeling disoriented.
“It’s a perfectly natural strategy employed often, across species. For nutrition. Or population control. And perhaps other reasons we’re not yet aware of. And then, of course, there is also sexual cannibalism—this is usually when the female consumes the male, either during or after copulation.”
Shiba smirked when Arjun said this, but quickly wiped the expression off her face. Her reaction amused me for a second before I remembered what we were talking about.
“You said that you’re both Storytellers. So, you’re going to … do the same then? You’re going to leave your bodies to the Centre?”
“Yes,” Shiba replied. “It’s better than being buried in the ground, isn’t it? What a waste that would be.”
“The truth is,” Arjun added, “we’ll end up in the ground eventually anyway. But this way, we’ll pass through another being on our way there. I think of it as doing one last round before the grand finale.”
“A kind of prolonging,” Shiba chimed in, “an extension.”
“And you don’t feel weird about being, I don’t know, chopped up, cooked in a frying pan?”
“No weirder than being burned to ashes in an even bigger oven at the morgue,” Shiba retorted.
“Or being wrapped up in fabric and left underground,” Arjun added.
“Also,” Shiba explained, “it’s not like what you’re imagining. It’s done with more care than that—”
“It’s true,” Arjun interjected. “Each specimen, you see, can feed up to five Learners. We process and extract the raw materials carefully before adding them to other animal meats, a kind of mélange, if you will. Of course, we do prepare some of the particularly palatable regions in a more traditional manner. After a certain age, the meat can become fairly tough, but …” he put his hand on his lower back, “tenderloin in particular—”
“I don’t need to know the specifics,” I interrupted.
“Of course. My apologies.”
For a while, nobody spoke. I could feel Arjun and Shiba looking at each other and at me expectantly.
“And you said this began here? With indentured laborers?”
“That’s right,” Arjun said. “We tried to pick elderly ones, since we wanted to get the process moving quickly. You’d be surprised how difficult it is to find older laborers. Most of them die around sixty. That is, if they even know how old they are. Many don’t. We had to estimate. If their teeth had fallen out, that was usually a good sign.”
“Sixty’s so young,” Shiba said to her dad. “You’re sixty.”
“Life expectancy for the poor,” I said, “at least in Pakistan, is fifty-five, maybe sixty. But for the rich, it’s equivalent to Western life spans, about twenty years longer. It must be the same here.”
“How do you know that?”
“My father,” I said. “He’s a medical professional.”
“Sounds about right,” Arjun said. “They die obscenely young, poor chaps. And the debts these people accumulate is unbelievable.”
“It’s passed on through generations, that’s why,” Shiba said.
“But then how consensual is it? If you’re using test subjects who have no other choice?” I said.
“My dear, it was more than consensual. They were desperate for us to take them, for our help. And it felt good, I must say, to give them that last bit of relief.”
“I … I’m not sure I want to talk about this anymore,” I said.
Shiba and Arjun exchanged another apprehensive glance.
“Of course,” Shiba said. “Look, we don’t ever have to talk about this again if you don’t want to.”
“No, I want to. Just, not tonight.”
We walked back to the main house, and I went straight to bed, lying there, wide-eyed, for what felt like hours. Suddenly, I was keenly aware of what a stranger I was to this city. How I had absolutely nowhere to go. How I knew, literally, nobody outside this household. I hadn’t even bothered to learn street names. I imagined sneaking out in the darkness, past the servants and the chowkidar—where even was my suitcase? Roshan had tucked it away somewhere, and even if I did manage to leave the premises, then what? Getting an auto at midnight? Was that safe? And finding a guest house or hotel? Would it be best to make up a Hindu name? How had I let myself become so helpless, so absolutely dependent?
I suddenly, desperately, missed my dad. “What’s up?” I texted him, but it stayed unread. He was obviously asleep. I didn’t want to worry him or anything, just to say hello and feel the comfort of our familiar routine. He’d respond, “The sky. What’s down?” and I’d message back “The ground, what’s sideways?” It’s surprising, the things you crave in moments of distress. But no response. So I texted Naima.
Are you there?
She replied a few minutes later.
You’re up late! Partying with Shiba?
I miss you
Same, hun! Look at your little meowster
She sent a photo of Billee, curled up on her bed. I started to cry and didn’t respond. Eventually, I suppose I fell asleep.
·
The next morning at the breakfast table, the men greeted me with sympathetic looks. I couldn’t eat a bite and told Kumar I wanted only chai. We sat quietly for some moments before David broke the silence, asking how I’d slept.
“I dreamed I was being eaten by earthworms,” I replied in a dry monotone.
“‘Those are pearls that were his eyes,’” George quoted.
“Huh?”
“Shakespeare,” he explained. “‘Nothing of him that doth fade, but both suffer a sea-change into something rich and strange.’ The earthworms eat you, thereby you become the earthworm, and then you eat another.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“He means, my dear, that you are both the earthworm and she whom the earthworm consumes. It is beautiful, this cycle,” Eric explained.
“The dream wasn’t beautiful,” I said. “It was scary.”
“Fear is a blockage. A way to stop you from looking further,” Arjun said.
I turned to George. “You said your wife is a Storyteller?”
“Yes.” He smiled. “The beauty of this process is that we can keep each other close even after we are gone. Now, how many other couples have that opportunity?”