Wolf At The Door
Look at the moon, tell me what do you see?
A tasty ball of yellow cheese?
Look at it hard, through the limbs of a tree,
As the branches sway in the breeze.
Meenaxi turned and looked at Yellappa, as he huddled beside the door of her house. He was ‘smiling’ at her, that quirky grimace that revealed a row of chipped and broken teeth. He never really smiled. It was always that grimace which was both quizzical and oddly friendly, and completely his own.
He had sung that little ditty in a surprisingly melodious voice. His command over English was also amazing. He must be an educated person, she was sure of that.
But what was he doing here, so far from town, at the door of her house? She had seen him before, of course, a number of times, always in town. Everyone knew him as a harmless vagrant from some remote village in Karnataka, now living in Goa for many years. He seemed to be both homeless and harmless, a man who never asked for, or accepted, money, only food. He had an intelligent gleam in his eyes, and though shabbily dressed he was always clean, unlike most vagrants, and carried himself with a quiet dignity. She had never met him before or spoken to him, only seen him in town sometimes and smiled at him. His turning up at her house, deep in the woods, far from his usual haunt, was completely unexpected. How did he know where she lived?
He seems obsessed by the moon, she mused. Poor fellow, he must be hungry.
'Are you hungry, Yellappa?' she asked him directly.
He smiled and nodded, revealing a few blackened teeth along with the white ones.
Meenaxi entered the house and opened the door of the small refrigerator in the kitchen. Her sister, Radha, had purchased it just the previous week with her earnings. Since their mother, Sita's, death three years earlier, Radha had dropped out of Higher Secondary School and had started working at a tile-making factory two kilometres from their house. She had saved assiduously and the new fridge was the proud result of her labour.
'Next year I'll take a loan and buy a washing machine and a mixer,' she had announced, 'And maybe after that, a microwave.' Radha had big dreams and ambitious plans. She was a gregarious, outgoing, stunningly pretty girl with a ravishing smile and a take-charge air about her. Most people, especially men, were drawn to her like moths to a flame. Meenaxi, on the other hand, who was seven years younger than her nineteen year old sister, was the quiet, brooding type who had few friends and only one confidant: her elder sister. Whenever people commented on the difference between the sibings, Radha’s only respoonse would be, ‘Still waters run deep. Right, Meenaxi?’ With an indulgent look at her kid sister.
Meenaxi adored Radha. Radha adored her back and, since their mother's death, had become more like a mother and best friend to her than an elder sister. She put Meenaxi's needs ahead of her own, always. That was mainly why she had dropped out of school to fend for the two of them after their mother's unexpected demise. There was no other choice. Their father had died eight years before with a rotted liver caused by chronic drinking. Sita, their mother, had worked as a ‘top’ maid in five houses, starting work at 6.30 am, after rising at 5.00 to cook for herself and the children.
She had been widowed at twenty nine and had brought up her daughters single-handedly. Radha quickly became Meenaxi's second mother and Sita's right-hand woman, rising to the occasion as swiftly and effortlessly as her mother. It helped that she had always wanted a younger sister, and had been thrilled to bits when Meenaxi was born.
Meenaxi thought of her mother, and a pang of sadness and melancholy shot through her. Sita had been a strikingly beautiful woman, with an unusually fair complexion, long, straight hair that she wore in a bun with a rope of fragrant mogris, and a full, curvaceous figure. Radha took after her; she, too, made heads turn.
Sita's body had been discovered by her daughters when they returned from their cousin, Pooja's, birthday party late one evening. She had been raped, and her head bashed in by a stone. No one had been arrested, of course; and everyone knew who had done it.
Meenaxi thought of the man who was almost certainly the murderer, and she shuddered. Yeshwant Zambaulikar was the Sarpanch of their village, a coarse, swarthy, strongly built bully, who had had his eye on Sita even before their father had died. She had successfully rebuffed his advances on more than one occasion, turning down his offer of a secure government job, even though times were very tough. After her husband's death, he would come around more often, skulking outside their house like a wolf at the door.
And now his son, Dhanush, had taken over, it seemed, coming around to their house late in the evenings and even harassing Radha at her workplace. He was in his mid-twenties, a college dropout, with his father's arrogance and swagger, and a penchant for wearing flashy clothes, chains and pendants.
Meenaxi watched, as a tiny sparrow hopped down from a low-hanging branch and trotted - hop, hop, hop - along the ground to where she sat. There seemed to be something in its beak, but before she could see what it was the sparrow took off, soaring up into the trees and out of sight.
Little sparrow brings a letter
From the friendly moon:
The wolf-man will try hard to get her
He'll be coming soon.
Meenaxi turned and looked at Yellapa quizzically. He was sitting calmly at the door of her house, eating the plate of fish-curry-rice she had given him with evident relish. As she watched, he licked his fingers and gave her that same sidelong glance and quirky grimace. Then he took his now empty plate and washed it at the tap outside the house, cackling to himself as he did so.
'He speaks in riddles,' said Meenaxi to herself, 'Going on and on about sparrows and such. And the moon, always the moon, I don't know why. And what does he mean by 'the wolf-man', I wonder. Must have gone completely off his head. He's rambling on a lot today.'
Yellappa was looking straight at her. This time the grimace was missing. His expression was serious and there was a warning look in his eye.
Keep your gaze fixed high above
For the power of your love
Will help defeat the lurking beast
That comes in search of prey and feast!
'What does he mean?' Meenaxi pondered, 'What is this lurking beast he talks about? I can't make head or tail of what he's saying.'
Then a thought struck her suddenly and her blood ran cold.
'The only beastly person I know is that man, Dhanush,' she murmured, 'He's not just creepy, he's dangerous. Just like his father. The way he's always lurking around when Radha's home and the way he looks at her... just like a starving mongrel when you hold a bone in your hand but have not set it down for it yet. And those teeth of his - like vampire fangs in that movie they were showing on TV at Kavita's house the other night.'
Kavita was Meenaxi's nearest neighbour and classmate. She lived half a kilometer away. Meenaxi's house was the most secluded of all.
She looked at Yellappa again. He was nodding his head.
The sun will set; watch for the moon
And when the wolf is at the door
You will receive the promised boon
In limb and bone, in skin and pore.
Meenaxi looked up. The sun had gone down and the sky was turning an ominous shade of grey interspersed with red. As she watched, the moon came into view, a huge, red moon, quite unlike any she'd seen before.
She could hear the sounds of Radha busying herself in the kitchen, the familiar clinking sounds of pots and pans.
Yellappa's voice came again, louder and more urgent:
Look up once more at the moon in the sky
The wolf-man approaches, the end is nigh
Your plea to the moon will not go unheard
Child, human, beast - the line will be blurred.
Fascinated, despite herself, Meenaxi found herself looking up at the moon, as though hypnotised.
As though from far away, she heard the sing-song chanting of Yellappa's voice:
The yellow moon becomes blood-red
And turns the story on its head
The waxing of the moon reveals
When creatures change from head to heels.
Through the trees she saw a shifting shadow… a wolf, a tiger? But there were no wild animals in these parts? A wild boar, maybe? There had been glimpses of a wild boar or two in the recent past.
It was Dhanush, the Sarpanch’s son! He prowled stealthily out of the trees, making his way towards the door of Meenaxi's and Radha's house. He lurched unsteadily forward; he was clearly drunk.
A cry escaped Meenaxi's lips. 'Radha!' she called, 'Look out!' And scrambling to her feet, she hurled herself at the wolf-man.
Snarling, he turned and with a sweep of his hand swept her off her feet, sending her crashing to the ground. She lay there, winded and shaken.
She heard the door burst open as Dhanush aimed a powerful kick at it; heard Radha cry out; heard a crash as the door was slammed shut; heard the sounds of a struggle.
With a great effort, she sat up, her head spinning. She shook her head, once, twice, to clear it. Heard Yellappa's voice again:
Up, my child, banish all fear
The rescuer is at your door
The moon is up and help is here
And blood will stain the killing floor!
She sat there, gazing at the moon, her head and body aching from the hard violence of her fall. Miraculously her head cleared; she felt strength coursing through her veins. Her body ached no more; it felt whole and powerful.
She gazed fixedly at the blood-red moon, closer now and enormous, so close it seemed as though she could almost stretch out her hand and touch it.
Yellappa's voice came to her for the last time:
Blood-red the moon, for there will be blood
The change that you need will come in a flood
Keep looking up; hold steady the gaze
Get ready, my child, for the blood-spattering phase!
Meenaxi rose to her feet - her paws - and gazed at her powerful, furry body. She looked up at the moon and howled. The werewolf hurled itself through the window. There was the sound of shattering glass. And blood stained the killing floor.
‘Still waters do run deep,’ Yellappa said softly.
And then, for the first time, Yellappa smiled.
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