Liar Bird
Azania I. Patel
“That Winter when my Faithless Lover Left me,
How cold the snow seemed!”
Jakushi
Reina sat in her car with the small light turned on. If she turned back and tilted her head just a little bit to the right, she would see a cemetery, a short walk and she would be at a different crematorium. This was an odd road in the city, named after its first Jewish mayor, Dr. E. Moses and it seemed to house too many macabre landmarks for her comfort. She wondered why on earth had she chosen to come here.
Viktor walked towards the car fast, almost running, his anxiety first had been that she wouldn’t come at all, now he was worried that she might just start the car and he wouldn’t get to see her even though she was so close. It was an unnecessary fear; she wanted to see him as much as he did. The last five and a half months had been hell.
He rapped at the window. She jerked, startled even though she had been in wait. She unlocked the car door and swung it open. He lowered himself into the little red Alto and closed the door behind him.
He looked at her short, almost school-boyish hair, their barely-there blue tips lay caressing the top of her ears. At the back of her left ear was a small tattoo, the outline of an origami paper crane. It hadn’t been there the last time they had met.
“New Ink? Is it for me?’
He wasted no time on greetings, instead offering warmth and an easy grin.
“Don’t flatter yourself.” She mumbled, trying to cover it with non-existent hair.
Of course, the ink was for him. It was a prayer in a way, she had made a thousand paper cranes once, nearly half a year ago, to please the Gods of his land, to bring him back to her. He had returned, she didn’t know whether it was because of her cranes or matters of political diplomacy, but she clung to hope. She had a bevy of tattoos across her body and yet it was daunting to permanently mark herself with the memory of someone.
“The Old Gods are cruel, my dear. They don’t fulfill wishes the way we want them to’. The geometric outline of the origami’s folds brought back old memories and warnings from his homeland. His Gods were foreign here and their rituals? Party tricks.
“You’re here though, aren’t you?”
He sat still for a moment and then reached to trace the lines of the bird. She leaned in towards him, holding her breath as the tip of his finger drew along the stained skin. At that moment, she wished the tattoo had covered her entire body.
She slowly turned then and wrapped her arms around him, her lips inching to a shy kiss. He reciprocated with only a moment's hesitation. It was a moment too long.
Reina pulled away with great difficulty, fiddling with the car wiper because she didn’t know what to do with her hands. If she did not keep them busy, they would reach for him once again. At the second uncalled for splash of water on the windshield, Viktor chimed in.
“Let’s take a walk, say hello to the sisters?”
Viktor didn’t have any sisters, he didn’t have any family as such except well, a wife who had been a cousin first. The ‘sisters’ were prostitutes buried at the Japanese cemetery, Karayuki- San was the proper term- victims of the yellow slave trade, poor Japanese women sold into prostitution in the glory days of the Empire. Relegated to dark corners of the mind during their lives, they were forgotten in death too. No one came to this cemetery anymore, it had been washed away from the city’s memory for five decades and only now had begun to gather some attention as a hotspot for hauntings.
Reina had visited the graveyard often, almost always at night, and would confirm to any who asked that the only thing that haunted it was abandonment. Even the ghosts had left the place a long time ago if they had ever been here.
Viktor had an affinity for the abandoned and a penchant for forging relations to things and people he had no claim to. He said he hated how no one prayed for these women. It was these musings; the whimsical quirks that he obeyed with the passion of a poet that had had Reina fall for him.
They walked silently through the memorials, her hand clasped tightly in his. At some point Viktor stopped to pray, closing his eyes. It was past one in the night. Reina was glad that this was the city that never slept, and thus the city that never put its light off. The orange light from the street lamps was unromantic. No warmth enveloped her lover as much as she would have wished when he was illuminated by the distant bulbs. At least here, she was the only soul around him, and not sharing him was a novel sensation.
Once he had prayed, he turned to Reina, letting go of her hand and reaching for his pocket.
“I got you something from…from home”
He pressed what she thought was a small wooden figurine into her palms. She looked at it closely, it was tubular, about as thick as a thumb. The top of it painted like a red bird.
“A bird for a bird?” Reina cocked her head, flashing the paper crane tattoo towards him.
“I didn’t know… ” He flushed, stammering a bit before he realized she was pulling his leg. Then he continued, “It is an omamori, I guess you could call it an amulet. This one's called a Liar Bird; apparently, it takes the lies in your life and turns them to truths- I’ve kept one on the desk at my apartment too...”
Reina flinched. She was living a lie. This midnight date in a cemetery was a lie. The gift was a lie. She needed more than a wooden bird to make all this true. She needed the man in front of her, bringing her tokens from his trip back home to his wife, to grow a spine.
The walk back to the car was silent; Reina didn’t let him hold her hand this time, clutching at the wooden bird. They reached the vehicle and Reina stood by the door, leaning her sweating back against the cool metal.
“Are we going…?” Viktor stuttered half of the question not sure where the plans for their night stood, his pause was an ellipsis made tangible.
They had both dreamt of this reunion since the moment he had left. Of course, it hadn’t gone as either had hoped. The chasm of reality was far too huge for their imaginations to lunge over.
“You tell me, Viktor, you tell me. I am not the one with baggage in this relationship.” Reina shot back. Did she want to go with him to a seedy hotel, live out the rest of this ruse?
“Reina, my love, you have to understand…”
“Understand what? What exactly do you want me to understand? Do you expect me to be rational about this? Rational about gallivanting in abandoned cemeteries with a married man?”
Viktor was ashamed. He was always ashamed of his relationship with Reina. He knew he had to answer for this sin of his someday. He was ruining his life, and that was alright. He had to swallow the fact that he was ruining hers too. He didn’t even know for how long he would remain posted in Mumbai. If the consulate even got a whiff of this double life, he would be transferred before he could say Namaste.
In such a world of his making, what could he offer her but wooden birds and broken promises?
He reached out to touch her, take the hand clutching the liar bird into his, and brought his lips to her fisted knuckles. He didn’t have words to placate her, no lies for the bird to turn into truths. For a fleeting moment, he thought he could smell burning incense, wafting towards them the cemetery. He closed his eyes and the smell went away.
Reina waited for a few moments before his silence began to choke her.
“I didn’t mean to get so riled up.” She offered him half a smile. He reciprocated broadly- teeth and all breathing easy once again.
She turned and pressed her key into the door, turning it open. She sat in and gestured for him to follow through. In less than a heartbeat, Viktor was perched next to her. She started the car and pumped the accelerator towards the hotel on the other side of town before she could change her mind and abandon the faithless arms she craved. The little wooden bird taunted her foolishness as it rolled back and forth in the cupholder. She entertained a momentary thought of flinging it into the Arabian Sea as she crossed the Sea Link, its bright red beak unnerving her for some reason.
She didn’t do that, of course.
◆◆◆
Reina untangled herself from her lover’s arms, ignoring his flinch. The weary bed of the cheap Oyo rental creaked under her movement. Viktor reached out as she sat up, placing his palm on the small of her naked back.
“What’s the hurry, my love?”
She turned to him with a tired expression. “I want to put some clothes on before the fucking bedbugs get to me.”
Her lover sighed, getting up and passing her the t-shirt that had found itself at the foot of the bed.
“I miss seeing you.” He braved a last mumble.
It was Reina’s turn to flinch now as she jerked away from his caressing palm. His face fell, a furrow making its home between his eyebrows. Often, she wondered if she was cruel with her actions – or him with his words.
Viktor’s spine curled as he bent down to locate his own pants, a deep khaki that seemed to match the cheap rug tucked around the bed. A single bedside lamp threw some light towards them through its orange, moth-holed covering. This wasn’t the sort of place that one chose to hovel in for the aesthetic. In a country where morality was preached from tea stalls and corner shops, there weren’t too many hotels that would let a room to an unmarried- well, not married to each other couple. Especially not one like them, with her too short-too blue hair and his gorgeous mono lidded face. Those eyes in question glanced back, now that Reina was clothed.
“I don’t mean to make you angry, chikap, I just wish it wasn’t so difficult.” Viktor gesticulated in apology, his arms claiming space his words didn’t have the courage to. Reina sighed, not wanting to fight. This seemed to be the pattern with them. She’d be furious, he’d make a gesture, she’d fall in love all over again. Sense would prevail and she would be angry once more. It was a tedious dance. And she was so very exhausted. In a momentary truce with her internal conflict, she put her arms on his shoulders.
"Remember the first time we met- I touched you just like this and you wouldn't stop shaking," Reina whispered into his ear. It was true though, many moons ago, the simple act of having this wild foreign woman's hands on his shoulders in the most platonic of settings had given the ex-pat jitters.
“You were very shameless then.” He pulled her closer, kissing the top of his head.
“I wanted you. And see, now I have you.” She raised their interlocked hands to his eye level.
“Still shameless.” He gulped, unable to hold her gaze.
“Still scared.” She responded, softening the taunt with a kiss.
In that moment of closed eyes, they were back to the Goethe Library, overlooking the majestic Kala Ghoda in South Bombay, she a participant, and he a revered guest at a Documentary theatre workshop. A local theatre troupe had collaborated with the German and Japanese embassies to fund the expo and fly in performers from their respective countries. Reina had driven for more than two hours in peak-time traffic for the shenanigan and Viktor had been drafted by his employers to mark an official presence.
The evening had been laced with typical theatre activities- trust falls, mirroring, dramatic readings, and too often to be accidental, the two star crossed creatures and found themselves looking at the other. Reina had made her move when the workshop facilitator had asked the participants to walk around the room as she played music- and when the beat stopped, to find the person nearest to them and look into their eyes till the music started again.
She’d consciously strutted around the armless chair the awkward guest sat perched on and when the room fell silent, she’d walked up, put her arms on the startled man’s shoulders, crouching to get eye level and stared. She could hear some odd gasps somewhere in the distance, the facilitator’s cluck of disapproval, but it hadn’t mattered. She had felt powerful at that moment. She was in control. Perhaps it was one of the very few times in her relationship with Viktor has she felt absolutely certain that she held sway over the way the universe bent.
He broke away from the kiss in the present as his phone rang out loudly- and the phantasmagoria of nostalgia fell apart. Reina had never hated modernity and all its technological paraphernalia as much as she did when Viktor reached for his glass-backed android. The way his face paled coupled with his hands making the universal gesture for silence- a finger on the lips- were enough to tell her who was on the other side of the line. It was a call from home.
Reina left Viktor to his phone call, trying to shut her ears to the words he spoke in a foreign tongue, words that would never be said to her. She moved to the edge of the room, shifting the musty yellow curtain just a little to take a peek outside. Dawn had just started to break, and the road seemed fairly deserted. She could see her car parked by a mangled tree, the shadow of the wheels merging into the shadow cast by the arboreal trunk. Distracted by the sudden cawing of a lone craw by the next door windowsill, Reina thought she saw a feminine figure leaning by her car. The moment she jerked her sight to the vehicle- there was no one by it.
Shrugging the sense of uncanny away, Reina moved away from the curtains to turn to the now silent room. Viktor had switched the main tube light on now and was putting his shoes on.
“Time to leave?” Reina asked already reaching for her bag.
"Time to leave," Viktor affirmed.
The duo put the room to order- making a cash payment at the reception. As they went their separate ways, Reina in the little red Alto and Viktor in a kali-peeli, the crow on the window sill ceased its cawing. The bird’s beady eyes followed the crimson vehicle with an almost pensive stare.
◆◆◆
Four days passed as Reina’s empty WhatsApp inbox and the lumpy Liar Bird mocked her in unison. Every few hours, she’d be tempted to reach out and she’d tap in her phone password and scroll down to the little chat box with his name. There her eyes would meet with the encircled image that he’d set as his display picture.
It was the same photograph as the one they used on the Embassy Website- she knew this because she had checked. In the initial rush of feelings, she’d scoured the internet-wide to tell her who this mysterious man was. A prized download once- she despised the picture now. Viktor was looking straight into the camera- smiling widely, his black three-piece suit appropriate against the pristine white background. It was an empty smile- his eyes as hollow as the insides of bird he’d gifted her. She did not know what it was about that little token that frustrated her so… it just felt ‘off’.
Frustrated and aimless, Reina put her phone away, wandering into the kitchen to fetch a jar of raw mango pickle. The glass bottle holding the pungent aachar was coated with a thin layer of oil, greased by her previous gnawing sessions. The salty chewiness and the dopamine release the sour treat promised was just what she needed at that moment. Snacking and social media scrolling seemed a good way – the only way to pass time in melancholy it seemed.
Reaching the edge of her bed, she felt a strange shiver run down her back, and the feeling of being watched crept over her. Her grasp on the jar slipped, sending glass shards, oil, and pickled mango flying across the marbled floor enveloping the room in a musty smell. Biting back a cuss, Reina crisscrossed to the window, pushing it open before she bent to pick the larger chunks of glass. Flinching at the oil spots that had sunken into the edge of her bedsheet, she collected what remained of the jar in her left hand. Her unfocussed handling of the sharp edges wasn’t cautious enough and the largest of glass pieces cut a neat gash across her palm. She didn’t hold back her expletives any longer.
As she pressed against the bleeding hand with the other, blood-stained glass shards unceremoniously scooped upon the window ledge, the sky ceased to sting with its sharp sunlight and the heavens opened up outside. The early July monsoon showers were here. A lump formed in her throat as the grey clouds gathered and the wind began its cacophony. A sharp wind smacked the tree opposite her house, and the accompanying gust tossed the omamori onto the floor from its perch on her dresser. For a brief moment, she thought she heard a wounded squeak, before pushing the uncomfortable thought away. The sensation of being watched did not go away though.
That’s it, she decided, picking it up and shoving it in her jean pocket, furrowing her eyebrows at the almost feather like crimson shape the bleeding on her palm made.
A struggle with a drifting umbrella later, Reina was buckling in her seat belt and squinting through the water splashing on her windshield as the wiper tried to put up a brave fight. Her feet were soaked, she could feel the sludge that had homed itself between her toes. The tips of her hair rested coldly above her ears, dripping slow rivulets towards her eardrums. Her once grey t-shirt seemed to have black spots and her teeth chattered as she clutched the steering wheel, her cut palm thrumming against the material. As she drove forward towards the southern side of the city, a two-line address fed into her cellphone GPS, she wondered if that fated wind had pushed the sense out of her mind too.
As she took the turn towards the city’s Japanese High Commission, her unfaithful lover’s workplace, she realized she hadn’t thought anything through. For half of the second, it had taken for her to shove the amulet in her pocket, her only thought had been to give it back to Viktor- end things, be done with the lies. She couldn’t possibly storm into his workplace- a diplomatic mission of all places- clutching a wooden bird, looking like a madwoman, rain-soaked, and still bleeding.
She let out the sob she’d been holding in since it began raining the sense of how pathetic she was in that moment truly enveloping her. Matching the sound of her solitary wail, a deep thud rocked her windshield. She shrieked, steering the wheel to the left, her foot instinctively pumping upon the brake, bringing the car to a screeching halt. The pandemonium was far from over as her suddenly halted car seemed to have pushed a pedestrian on to the road. Immediately killing the engine, Reina stepped out, panicked at all the damage she seemed to have wrought.
There seemed to be no sign of the crow that had dashed into her car, except for a smattering of red being fast washed up by the pattering raindrops and a few inky feathers that were scattered on the car hood. The pedestrian- a petite woman draped in a black shawl, clutching at a little yellow seemed no worse for wear either and was trying to get up, one hand perched on the car for support. Reina rushed to her aid apologizing profusely, getting further drenched. The woman let her help her up, brushing away the apologies.
“It was an accident, dear… and just a shock. I am barely grazed.” Her accent was reminiscent of Viktor’s and realization dawned upon Reina as she caught sight of the woman’s face. She was clearly of Japanese roots. Which meant that at worst she’d nearly mowed down a diplomat and at best a tourist. She would be lucky if the embassy and therefore her lover did not hear of this. Disgusted at her narrow thoughts, she shook her head.
“Still… I am so sorry…. a bird dashed into my window shield…and the rains…” At that the pedestrian unfurled her umbrella, taking Reina within its expanse as well.
“One never gets to the rains in this city do they?” The woman smiled, seeming to be in another world altogether as she looked up at the sky. She seemed too serene for someone who’d been in a car accident on foreign land. It was as if she had not even registered the fender bender.
"The monsoons are always rash yes…" Reina was growing more unnerved by the moment standing by the main road with this strange woman and her bright umbrella… "Is there anywhere I can drop you to… the embassy perhaps?" She offered in another attempt to apologize.
The woman looked at her then, truly looked at her, with a steady, almost beady gaze. “The embassy isn’t much help to those like me…” Her words drifted, her voice matching the tone of the rustling wind, “You could drop me near my house though…I don’t reside to far...but I would rather not walk in this weather.”
Breathing a short sigh, Reina immediately agreed, letting the woman into the car. Driving more cautiously now, Reina shifted against the seat, the beak of the omamori poking against her back. It seemed to have gotten heavier in the last few minutes. However as the embassy blinked past in the distance as she drove according to the woman’s directions, heading somewhere near the racecourse, she felt a sense of relief. Despite the awfulness of it all- the low flying crow and this strange woman had saved her from her own idiocy.
"I'm sorry- I never caught your name, I'm Reina by the way…" She supplied as a way of conversation.
“Karayuki- San…that’s what they call me.”
The name sounded familiar to Reina, she couldn’t recall where she had heard it. Perhaps from Viktor, she mused to herself.
“It’s a lovely name, and you’ve been in Mumbai for long? For work?”
“You could call it work, I guess…I’ve been here longer than you, dear, I was here when they called it Bombay.” Karayuki San turned to Reina with a chilling smile.
The prickling sensation was back on Reina’s nape and instinctively she knew if she asked more questions, she wouldn’t like the answers. As the car hurtled towards a familiar path, the chill within Reina grew. They were nearing Dr. E. Moses road. The GPS voice announced their location in its mechanical monotone.
It can’t be. It’s a joke. It’s a joke.
Reina's thoughts were half attempts at rationalizing and half prayers. The wooden bird in her pocket seemed to be growing heavier and beating in rhythm with her fast-rising palpitations. A corner eye glance at the woman's unnaturally pale pallor did nothing to calm her. She half hoped, half prayed that they would cross the turning of the cemetery road with no comment.
“You can stop here…I’d prefer to walk the rest of the path.”
Reina didn’t say a word. Karayuki- San stepped out, opening up the umbrella. She took a few steps forward into the lane as Reina tried to take a few deep breaths, then she turned and rapped the window with nails rimmed with mud, eyes twinkling. Her heart beating in her throat, Reina used the controls on her left to roll the windows down.
“Oh…I almost forgot to tell you…lies don’t ever turn into the truth. You give up the lies for the truth.” At that she flitted away, an odd vision, her black shawl spread like raven wings, fingers wrapped around the blot of yellow covering her. In the heavy showers, she soon faded into the distance.
A minute later, Reina couldn’t help but abandon the car and chase after the figure she’d seen. It had to be a joke…some twisted prank or cruelty planned by Viktor. The lane ended at a dead end- there was no one around. Braving a few steps, Reina went to where the ‘sisters’ lay. She could smell incense mixed with petrichor. A crow perched on a Copper Pod tree branch was the only living creature in sight. The beast cawed, shaking the already terrified girl. At that she reached for her back pocket, realizing its heaviness seemed to have disappeared.
The omamori wasn’t there anymore.
Reina fished within the denim with dawning horror, only to pull out a single black feather- with a small splotch of yellow on it. The smell of incense was overwhelming, she looked up, meeting the crow’s beady gaze. It cocked its head before taking flight. Holding the feather like a talisman, Reina retraced her steps with a hurry she hadn’t known before. Dashing into her still unlocked car, she let go of her ragged breath.
Karayuki- San.
Miss- Gone Abroad.
Reina chuckled at the irrationality of it all. She’d been wrong then, the cemetery was haunted. Surprisingly, it didn’t feel too bad. Like the end of well, not a nightmare, but a long convoluted dream that you were glad to wake up from.
She was awake now.
She unrolled her car window as she passed the Sea Link, letting the black feather drift into the ocean. Maybe it would find its way home on the waves. Maybe it would exorcise her. At the next signal, she pulled out her phone and exorcised the first ghost, deleting the contact of the man with a hollow smile and a three-piece suit against a white background.
The monsoon she left her faithless lover, crows sang from the blooming yellow copper pod trees.
Azania Imtiaz Patel is an urban narrative researcher working primarily in Mumbai, India. She is also a Rhodes Scholar for India (2020) enrolled in the Modern South Asian Studies Programme at the University of Oxford.
Liar Bird draws its theme from the idea that myths and histories repeat themselves and spins a paranormal web around an everyday misery. Centered around Mumbai's often forgotten Japanese Cemetery, the story ponders upon what it means to be haunted.