Making a sincere attempt to bring an unimagined and unexplored treasure trove of modern Sinhala literature to the English reading community, Montage is bringing Mahinda Prasad Masimbula’s award winning novel Senkottan translated by
Malinda Seneviratne, veteran journalist, writer and poet. Senkottan (The Indelible), a remarkable creation of literature by Mahinda Prasad Masimbula was his debut effort in his literary career for which he won the State Literary Award in 2013 and short-listed in Swarna Pusthaka Literary Awards and many other Literary Award Festivals in the same year. The book has been published by Santhawa Publishers and ‘Senkottan’ has blazed the trail in the self-publishing industry as one of the best-selling books in Sinhala literature.
CHAPTER 8, PART 2
In the morning of the following Thursday Podina came to the top of the rock as arranged. She stuffed a piece of cloth into her bag and left the house saying that she was going to see the tailor in Malwatte to get two sari jackets stitched.
There was a strange solitude that had enveloped the entire area. Although it was early in the morning the sounds that came from the surrounding thicket were disconcerting and even fearful. Nevertheless the love that bubbled in her heart as well as the new hopes she was entertaining stood together to do battle with that inauspicious and scary feeling. They scored a telling victory. She savoured it for a while and then walked towards that spot which was familiar and special to her.
Eight years had passed, but the memories were fresh. She wandered among them. She recalled, again and again. She closed her eyes for a moment. The faint desire born in her loins moved up to her upper body, passed her neck and cheeks and stopped at the top of her head. She felt the heat rise in her body. Her entire being insisted that it would be good if the devil called lust could swallow her, having chewed her to pulp. She held close the only thing she had, her bag.
That entire universe vanished temporarily with the soft sound of dry leaves being trampled. She turned and looked with a thousand eyes. These were the thousand eyes of hope that belonged to her. The image upon which her gaze stopped however terrified her. She stood up immediately. It was a man who stood before her, but a man who looked like a wild animal. He looked at this beautiful treasure with a slight smile at the corner of his mouth. When this man, tall and heavy like a giant, black as black could be and a body covered with thick hair smiled like a little child, his betel reddened mouth opened out and covered half his face.
Podina took a few steps back. Having chewed betel all day, the spittle dribbling down the sides of the mouth had taken on a rusty colour. He had folded his sarong and tied it up above his knees. He held something in his eyes but the rest of his face uttered something else. What separated him from beast was just the fact that he could speak, Podina felt.
‘Anagihamy unnehe told me to take you to where he is.’
It was then that Podina felt the blood moving within her once again. There was no reason to worry now.
‘Why didn’t Anagihamy unnehe come here?’
‘Have you accidentally consumed amu? Unnehe’s woman is constantly watching him. Let’s go. Unnehe is waiting above the dried stream bed and has been there from an hour ago.’
The wild animal took the lead. Podina followed him. They climbed down from the rock and entered the jungle along a dried stream.
There were difficult points along the way. On account of rain that had fallen a few days before a thin line of water had moved from rock to rock, resting in slight depressions here and there. New moss on old made it slippery in certain places. Sunlight that streamed through enormous trees left spots on the floor of the jungle. There was a big spider spinning a web across the stream. The wild animal brushed it aside with a branch. Podina saw the creature struggling helplessly. The rocky and slippery path was getting more difficult now. The wild animal moved easily as though to indicate to the innocent creature behind him how familiar the jungle was to him. He offered her his hand when the going was particularly difficult but she didn’t take it.
When they reached the highest point of that dense and dark jungle, she asked, ‘Where is Anagihamy unnehe?’
‘Just a little way from here,’ the wild animal replied.
There were moments when Podina moved ahead of him and when this happened he was able to get a good measure of her. The fullness of her body and the long hair was the most precious stone in the jungle, he felt. The perspiring body, the wet clothes, the tiny leaves and twigs sticking to the sweaty skin and her soft panting brought much joy to the wild animal. He was angered by the fact that she had not taken his hand when he tried to help her navigate difficult areas on their journey. He climbed onto a fairly large rock along the path and looked around triumphantly. The woman struggled to follow him.
The wild animal started laughing like a bull frog. Podina, loath to indicate that she was helpless in the slightest, clung on to a rock, placed a foot on another and pulled herself up. Noting that the wild animal, sitting atop that large rock, was looking at her breasts, Podina bent and adjusted her jacket. She thought for a moment and told herself that when she meets her lover presently all this would be over. She took courage from the thought. However, as she moved to another rock and yet another, she reverted to her previous state of helplessness. Each time she faltered, the wild animal was infused with a fresh burst of energy. The forest became even more foreboding. Under the dark canopy there were just two life forms now. In each mind had taken root desires distinct from one another.
The wild animal was within grasp of the greatest privilege ever presented to him. The woman was a few feet ahead of him now. He smiled to himself watching her trying to move from one rock to another. It was then that he witnessed something wonderful. A bead of sweat moving from neck downwards and through her jacket had emerged below to move along the naked area below and disappear into her cloth. He lost all patience.
When he placed his hand on the naked flesh below the jacket she was struggling to find a foothold on the rock. She realised that this was what her subconscious mind had expected all along and turned around as though struck by a bolt of lightning. She cried out when she saw the wild animal looking at her with a burning pair of eyes.
‘Tell me the truth, man…where is Anagihamy? There’s no reason for him to be this far away from where we arranged to meet.’
The wild animal laughed. Although Podina was putting up a brave front, her entire body was trembling. Weariness and fear bathed her in sweat, as though she had dipped into a pool of water. The wild man continued to laugh as he approached her. There was no way to turn and run. It was a place surrounded by rocks. He approached her stalking her as a creature would its prey. Terror made her breath come heavy and fast. She bent down and felt around looking for something, anything that she could hold in her hand. The rocks weren’t small enough, they were as big as a jackfruit.
The wild man came to her and held her in a tight grip. Podina screamed and bit his arm. It wasn’t even as irritating as an ant bite as far as he was concerned. He shook her from side to side and slapped her face again and again without once relaxing his hold. Then he twisted her hair in his hand, using the grip to hold her close against him, and then suddenly caught the top of her jacked and ripped it off. He crumpled the jacket in his and and threw it up and away. He twisted her hair once around her neck and tightened the hold. The most valuable ornament she had, her beautiful tresses, had turned into a device that was strangling her. She had no strength to wrestle with him, so she screamed. As the grip on her neck tightened it became harder and harder for her to scream.
She felt she had been caught in a whirlwind from which she could never escape. She was barely conscious now. She had lost all her strength. The wild man pushed her against a rock and pressed himself upon her. Roughly squeezing one of her breasts, he brought his face close to hers and spoke.
‘Do you know, bitch, that the villagers call me Val Naide? Women don’t come anywhere near a pathway that I may choose to walk on. It was Anagihamy Unnehe who told me that you would come to that rock today. He has helped me a lot. What do you think would happen to him if his woman found out that you were coming after him this way, you bitch? The other thing is that he is now the Basnayaka Nileme of the Ambevila Devale. So how can he attend to those duties with any peace of mind when you come like this at will? I wouldn’t have brought you this far if you were any other woman. But you are more beautiful than any woman I’ve set my eyes upon. So I wanted to be with you as I wish. Anagihamy Unnehe sent me to give you even more than what you desired. Right now, what I am trying to do, is to satisfy that hunger of yours.’
Podina had no strength to speak. With the greatest difficulty she brought her hands together and worshipped the wild animal. She couldn’t tighten the cloth that had now come loose. That secret touch she had with coyness and a love offered by a sensitive heart she had to suffer several times with utmost roughness amid wicked blows that weakened her, an onslaught unleashed by an insane wild man with a body like a wild boar. Having done it once, the wild man rested upon a rock triumphantly and then returned to her, turning her this way and that, cruelly extracting his pleasure. Then he returned to the rock and stretched himself out.
Her body lay limp among the rocks. She moved her right hand, looking for her cloth, but it was nowhere close. She saw however her torn jacket tangled in a high branch above her. What would happen next? She felt the pain rise from her loins and spread to each and every pore of the body that had been bitten, crushed and bludgeoned by the wild animal. The painful stillness lasted only a short time. An immense weight fell upon her and she felt the sound of her head being crushed under it.
There was no space for any new pain, but what came next was a dense darkness.