The Memorist

Chapter 99

Indus Valley, India-2120 B.C.E.

Without a moon, the terrain was treacherous but Devadas had no choice. He had to travel during the night in order to reach his destination in time. Tradition required that all sacrifices be made at sunrise. So in just a few hours, Sunil would lay his daughter Ohana upon the stone altar and with great ceremony slit her throat from one side to the other, giving his virgin daughter up to the gods.

As if the gods wanted human sacrifice.

For the rest of the night, as he trudged through the countryside, Devadas tried to come up with an argument to talk Sunil out of his plan. Searching for any line of reasoning that might change the mind of a man so mired in superstition and the old ways. Why would Sunil listen to him? As one of the village’s seven holy men, Ohana’s father thought Devadas and his brother, Rasul, were heretics.

But when they played certain songs on the instruments they crafted, the listeners were healed and soothed. The tones from their flutes and drums did ease complaints like sleeplessness, pain and nervousness. If their own father hadn’t been one of the holy men, the two brothers might have been run out of the village. Instead a small cult had formed around them while rumors about their practices raged. Radical thinking and alternative forms of healing were suspect; the brothers were too controversial for their elders.

But since what they offered helped even if it put them in danger, they’d decided to live with the risk. It was worth the threats to see the look of suffering fade from a woman’s eyes, or feel a child’s forehead cool. Even when Devadas’s wife and her family ostracized him, forcing him from their home, giving him the ultimatum that he’d lose his own children if he didn’t forsake his healing practices, he couldn’t.

Sunil must have seen him approaching from inside the house because he cut him off on the road. “What business have you coming here?” he snarled.

“I request some time to speak with you.”

“You don’t speak. You blaspheme. And I’m busy. I have preparations to make.”

A faint glow of light materialized on the lowest part of the horizon. Devadas estimated that the ritual practice would begin in less than two hours. Staring beyond Sunil at the family domicile, he imagined Ohana asleep on a rush mat in the room she shared with her two sisters.

Rasul had begged Devadas not to make this trip, but he was determined to save his lover. No matter what happened, he owed it to Ohana for what he had taken from her, even if she’d given it willingly.

They had met innocently. Devadas’s wife had thrown him out and he had been living on his own at the workshop he shared with Rasul for over a year when Ohana had come to him for help with terrible headaches she suffered.

She came back five times. On the sixth, after he’d soothed her pain with the music, he offered her a cup of tea. They talked as they drank and he came to realize her pain was related to her fears about her upcoming arranged marriage with a man who was off at sea. All young girls were betrothed to men their fathers chose for them but Ohana was rebellious; she didn’t want to wed a stranger. Devadas understood-he and his brother didn’t agree with the old superstitions either.

As the sun set, they discussed what they each believed. Her mind was so keen and her curiosity was so honest, he was drawn to her. Too drawn to her.

Their dangerous affair had started that day and had been conducted in the shadows. More than once, he’d tried to end it but she’d changed his mind, telling him it would end soon enough when the man she was to wed returned from his voyage.

Then a month ago her intended had drowned, and Sunil read the tragedy as a sign his daughter was destined to be the village’s annual barbaric solstice sacrifice.

Did Ohana even know what today was to bring? Was she sleeping peacefully or staring out the window at this moonless sky imagining her death? The thought chilled his heart.

“Please, indulge me just for a few moments, Sunil.” Devadas made a great effort to be humble, knowing it was his only chance.

“If you want to walk with me, then fine. I have to collect wood,” Ohana’s father said as he took off toward the riverbank and the grove of sacred ashoka trees that stood by the shore, tall and straight like sentinels. Walking beside the elder, Devadas helped Sunil pick up the twigs and branches he’d need later to burn at the altar. Although it was dark, the melon-colored flowers on the trees glowed as brightly as if they had their own internal light and the air was so heavily scented with their perfume, Devadas felt nauseated. It was said that if you washed the flowers in water and then drank it, you’d be protected from grief. All healers kept jugs of it at the ready.

“Are you still planning on giving your daughter to the gods this sunrise?” he finally asked.

“What business is that of yours? You, whose very name means ‘servant of the gods,’ dare to question me on a holy day?”

In a few hours, hundreds of people would be coming from far away for the ceremonial welcoming of the new season, but no one was out yet. Devadas knew it was still safe to speak without being overheard.

“I came here to tell you that if you offer Ohana to the gods you’ll be insulting them and they will visit their wrath on you and our village.” The words were like salt in his mouth but Devadas knew this was the only chance he had to change Ohana’s fate.

“And why is that?” The elder man sneered.

“Because the gods require a virgin.”

The older man straightened up. His face was set in cold fury. “What are you saying?”

“Ohana isn’t a virgin.”

“How dare you?”

“I’m telling you what I know as the truth.”

Sunil stood as immovable as the mountains on the horizon. “How do you know such a thing?”

“Because I’m the man who has been with her,” Devadas whispered, feeling ashamed, not for what he had done with Ohana but for sullying those precious moments by talking about them now using ordinary words.

Water lapped gently on the shore of the Ganges. A single bird flapped its wings as it flew overhead. A dog, in the distance, barked a steady warning.

“My daughter…” Every one of Sunil’s words was an effort, each threatening to explode in his mouth. He swallowed and began again. “My daughter has been promised to another man since she was a child…” He paused, thinking, trying to process the new information. “My daughter was promised to another man and you took her? You, who have a young wife and children of your own?”

How could he defend his actions? Even being exiled from his wife’s home, Devadas was still married. How could he explain what it was like to be with Ohana? How he’d felt as if his very soul had been waiting for her from the very beginning of its first incarnation. He could see in the man’s eyes that he’d accomplished what he’d set out to do. Sunil believed him. Ohana’s life would be spared.

The blow took him by surprise. Sunil was older but had rage on his side. The rock hit Devadas on the side of his head and he went down. Lying on the ground, looking up at the furious man towering above him, Devadas was sure he could take him but a lifetime of instinct kept him from striking out at Sunil. It was in those few moments, while Devadas made the effort to overcome the lessons that he’d been taught-to respect his elders even if he didn’t agree with them-that Ohana’s father brought the heavy stone down on his head again and Devadas, drifting in and out of consciousness, lost his chance to defend himself.

Unable to move or see through the blood filling his eyes, Devadas sensed this was his end. Here, on the road in the early dawn hours, he was going to die. Through the pain he thought he saw Ohana. Or was he just wishing he could see her? He wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to cry, that he’d done this gladly. Given her his life and his love. Nothing hurt him anymore. He’d stopped feeling the rock even as Sunil hit him over and over, venting his rage. All the pain was gone. In its place was the great golden sense that he was saving someone’s life. There was nothing more he could offer up. He’d been given a chance to make this sacrifice-maybe had lived expressly so he could die now and save her life. Everyone had a purpose. Understanding that purpose was a gift and he took it with him as he left this life and went into the darkness where the past and the future merged in another dimension.