Short story

The devil strikes back

by Lalitha Somathilaka

I am an old woman now: older than many women in our village. In the evenings, I like to sit on the small wooden bench in our front garden enjoying what I see and hear. Our house on a small mound from which I could watch the scenery around. How changed our village is from that of eight decades ago, to which I was born? I could see the road running like a big serpent, instead of the footpath we had then.

At sunset, the sun looks like a big red ball of fire in the far horizon. The sky is lovely, painted with various shades of red. I sit there mesmerised by the scene, a painted picture it looked. Memories come flooding into my mind, happy ones as well as the sad ones. Only the hooting of the vehicles disturbs my reminiscence.

How different it was when I was a small girl! The buggy carts were used then as conveyance by the few who could afford that luxury. Walking to the town that was about three miles – sorry, I am still used to that way of measurement, not the metric system – was nothing tedious for our villagers. The two boutiques supplied the villagers their daily needs. The pingo-bearers, supplied the fish. This was in addition to the fish caught at the stream that flowed at the edge of our village. Some caught fish as their livelihood while a few angled for their home needs. A few peddlers visited us often, bringing cloth, soap, powder and all such necessary things as well as beautiful bead necklaces and other such gimmicks.

My father was the Village Headman, the “Ralahamy”. We studied not at the village school, but at the school in the town, while my brother, being the only son was boarded at a “College” in a far away town.

I was reminded of the incident, which my brother called “The death of the village Reuter.” This incident happened during a school vacation. It was a Saturday. I was about ten years old then.

Drum beats

“Mumbo-Jumbo today also,” said my brother as the whistling nightly winds brought the sounds of some drumbeats. “We are in the twentieth century. I don’t know why these fools still believe in these figments,” he carried on.

“It is not easy to get away from the beliefs that had been rooted in society for years,” replied father.

“We are better now,” joined mother too. “There was a time when they believed in the Kattadiya, more than the Vedarala. When somebody falls ill they first go in search of the former and not the latter.”

“Sometimes, the Vedarala himself would carry out the exorcism. Our villagers always believed in the evil eye and the evil tongue,” said my father.

“For them Mahasona and Reeri Yaka are more powerful than germs,” laughed my brother.

“With the passage of time these beliefs would change, no doubt,” said my sister. “Do you know that even in our school there are girls, who come to school with yellow cords tied around their necks or hands.”

Talisman

“Oh yes,” I too joined them. “Indra is wearing a talisman around her neck. She says she is disturbed by various yakkas and monsters in her sleep. So she had been advised to wear it.”

“If children from urban areas too believe in these, it is no miracle that our villagers still perform thoiles,” said mother.

“When we were small, there was hardly a Saturday without a thoile in the village. Sometimes even on Wednesdays,” said my father.

“Do they perform devil dances only on those two days?” I asked.

“Normally,” replied my father. “Those two days are called kemmura days. They are considered as special days for offerings for the gods as well as the devils. Unless it was something very urgent, these rituals are performed only on those two days.”

“Idiots,” laughed my brother.

“Don’t laugh at them. It is how they had been brought up. They will get out of them in time, but not immediately. We don’t hear these drum beats as often as we used hear them a few a few years ago.”

Rustling sound
“Rubbish,” said my brother again.

The rustling sound of the leaves was clearly heard through the opened windows. It made my father step out of the veranda.

“It’s going to rain,” he said looking up at the sky. It was very dark. The sky was laden with thick clouds.

Some people rushing down the road in haste made us all attentive.
“What is it?” said my father going down the steps towards the road.

“Ralahamy,” we heard somebody calling. “Ralahamy, a devil had attacked Maggie. I am sure she is dead. She had been rushed to the hospital”.

“What?” I heard my father asking.

“Sopina had asked Maggie to close all the doors and stay inside because of the thoile at Karlina’s house. They were seated inside when they had heard somebody knocking at their back door. Maggie had opened the door and stepped out. At once she had rushed inside screaming and had fallen face downwards on the floor.”

“Who went with the patient?” asked my father.
“Sopina’s husband and two others.”

He resumed his walk down the lane and my father came inside. We were all silent.

Maggie was like “Reuter” in our village. She was unmarried and lived with Sopina, her sister’s daughter. She observed Atasil every Poya day, but used the whole day not for meditating or listening to the sermons, but to collect all the information and gossip, especially about the new, secret love affairs of the young generation. They would be no secrets any longer. In fact, the news spread afterwards by Maggie was more exaggerated and distorted with all the added spices to make the story more dramatic.

Disputes

She used to carry tales too which ended in many misunderstandings and disputes among families, especially between in-laws.

“I don’t think anybody would feel sad that she had left this world. Some might even feel happy,” said my sister.

“She must have seen the actual Reeri Yaka,” laughed my brother. She had been so friendly with him for years creating problems among the families here that he might have decided to take her to his own kingdom to train her in the latest tactics.” We could not help smiling at our brother’s prediction.

However, the thoile was not disturbed because we heard the drumbeats going on. The next day we heard that doctor’s verdict. It was a massive heart attack. However, some villagers did not waver from their own verdict that it was the work of a devil.

“These doctors,” they said. “What do they know about devils and their work? They know nothing. They too believe in them but do not want to show the world that they do. That’s why they put everything under the label of heart attack”.

According to the villagers, it was certainly the work of the devil because there was a dark big blue imprint of the devil’s hand on Maggie’s back. It was where the devil had struck her.

“You know, the imprint clearly showed all the five fingers of the devil,” said one of the villagers who visited us the next day.

“Reeri Yakka’s hand imprint,” laughed my brother. “But I thought that the devils had webbed feet and webbed hands, like the owls.”