It was when Sampu Lalsiamliana went outside the village to attend the three-day carnival in town, that disaster struck in the guise of irony. Hers was a little hamlet in the farthest, most north-east corner of the country. Even the fumes from its chimneys, when they sneaked past the tips of the guardian hills of the valley, were only faintly distinct from the constant overhang of clouds grimacing at it as they headed Eastwards.

The town was a long distance off, two days away in fact — the first had to be spent in the district bus that came reluctantly to the village every three days and the second was spent in the train with vertigo as it nervously descended the hills on toothed narrow-gauge rails — but Zoram Tanuhlmanga felt sorry for his new sixteen-year old wife who would have to stay at home all through the coming year because of the rats and let Sampu attend the carnival along with her sister and niece. Besides, he had already carefully reasoned, the carnival would uplift her spirits for the following week during which he had to impregnate her in time for the baby to be born at the start of the famine.

At the carnival, Sampu was fascinated by the jugglers, the giant ferris-wheels, the carousels and the town-air free of the smell of dry husk, but what she loved most was the shop that sold smooth bangles, fortune-beads and charm-stones that were collected from the riverbed and dyed in colours of turmeric and beet. It was on one such occasion, after she and her niece had just stepped out from their ride at the ferris-wheel, that she came by the woman sitting by herself adjacent to the trinket-shop, lining areca and dried coconut into her betel-leaf preparation. She looked other-worldly — Sampu pictured her to be from the West where there were temples for rats and vast mounds of sand that burned by day and blustered by night. The woman’s forearms were covered from wrist to bony elbow-triangle with sturdy bangles that had no room to clank when she moved — in fact, Sampu began to wonder if she moved at all. But then, her eyes had fallen on the silvery bracelets she wore around her ankles. No woman with such beautiful pieces of jewelry on her feet could go without walking miles together just so that they jingle and slap against the bull-mount of the ankle.

“You like them?'’ The woman’s voice startled Sampu. She hadn’t noticed that she was herself being watched. She nodded sheepishly.

“Where do you come from?'’

“From the village in the North-East. My husband let me come to the carnival for three days.'’ Somehow there was an easy camaraderie that Sampu felt she could strike with this unknown woman of the West.

The woman smiled benignly and unclamped the bracelet from her right ankle, “You can wear this one if you like.'’

As Sampu put the anklet on, a cool, calming sensation spread from bottom and completely benumbed her. She felt weightless and memoryless. Nothing about the village or the husband she had to return to, seemed to matter. And suddenly, nothing else seemed alien either — she yearned to journey far beyond her ken, through the Plains, by the wide and mighty streams of the Ganges, into the West, upon the backs of the long-necked brown-hide horses that swam over the sand, oblivious to the ferocious storms and whooshing noises.

Suddenly, her niece prodded her and shook her out of reverie. Sampu looked at the woman with mixed guilt and desire, “Would you sell these anklets to me?'’ She looked in turn at both the one around her foot and the one bewitching her from below the woman’s garb.

“Hngnn.. you will hardly be able to afford them,'’ the woman replied. Sampu began dejectedly to look to her ankle, ready to part with the anklet.

There was hope however for Sampu when the woman said, “I will be by this land of the green mountains yet again in nine months time. You may wear my anklet till then, but you must make me one solemn oath — for your own good and if you want those anklets to sparkle day and night.'’

Sampu looked on, suppressing her glee. She couldn’t wait to jump up and listen to the anklet sing, “What is it that is in reach of my promise?'’

“You must not let your husband enter you for the nine months you are in possession of the anklets.'’

For a number of reasons, it was not hard for Sampu to acquiesce to what may have seemed to the woman a rather steep rent to demand. For some time now, she had been waiting at nights for Zoram to visit her mat and even though the approach and proximity of his body would make her tremble, she had received elaborate instructions from her sister, prior to the wedding, as to how she ought to proceed once Zoram had initiated the unclothing of her garments. But nothing ever came to be. There were a few occasions when he would, perhaps in his sleep, roll over to her side of the floor and suddenly splay himself over her body but it could never have been interpreted by Sampu as a sign for her to pull up her night-robes to waist-height by herself. And after the first few months of uneventful happenings at nights, Sampu had concluded that either Zoram had not wanted to enter her at all (He was twenty-six; maybe she was too young for him) or that there was something about her that repelled him, and she knew not what it could have been.

Presently though, the sight of the silver anklets shimmering around her dark skin like the rims of two parallel eclipses etched out everything else in near or distant horizon.

Zoram considered it grace from above the clouds that they had been married in the January preceding the famine-year. The fields were to lay fallow between June and November — until the village had seen off the last of the Mautam rats that came, lured by the elusive flowering of the bamboo shoots that blossomed every fifty years, and plundered and pillaged the village of all its grain and gram. While some no doubt turned bounty-hunters, out of desperation or perhaps disgusted with months of mind-numbing ennui that would follow, and hunted the rats to fetch a rupee for the tail of each to be deposited subsequently in government-installed canisters, Zoram had already made arrangements to keep himself pre-occupied. The dowry from the marriage had been ample enough for the two of them to subsist on without having to till the land, and also allowed him to set some away for the child they would have in June — just when the infestation would begin. It was risky, particularly because the child (he had budgeted for twins, but he was hoping it would just be a boy to begin with) would be born at a time when there would be great ill-will and malice at the start of the famine, but it could hardly be more opportune — Zoram, without having to worry about sowing seeds, impaling scarecrows made from cotton bags and heckling with the sarkari workers to fix the price of rice and barley, would finally have the time to be at home and look on at his beautiful, girlish wife and to show the infant the white teeth it would inherit from him.

They had not consummated their marriage as yet. Yes, it was awkward for Zoram to admit to his cousins who especially came from the village to the south to mock him, but he could hardly explain how this was all ordained and set to precise rhythm. There were times at nights when, even though they slept on separate mats placed two feet apart, he would roll over to her mat and come to place his hand on her breasts and his leg over her thighs with fake pretension to undress her but perhaps her trembling body or his own gumption would always get the better and he would quickly roll back trying best to still his erection by invoking in his mind the coming onslaught of the Mautam rats. And he could hardly let her in on his grand scheme for fear that it may spill out amongst the community — she was only sixteen and bound to talk — and soon all the village will have known of his conception and would spite him for it.

While Sampu was away at the carnival, Zoram arranged for the floors to be swept with sandalwood soap and replaced the old, stretched out mats with one wide enough to hold two bodies. He installed a makeshift shade around the solitary lamp that dangled above the mat — complete darkness would hide the experience away from both of them; at least the light would bear some record of what would transpire on the night of connubial bliss. He had even bought some drumsticks and eggplant, paying quite a premium for them as they had to be procured from town, hoping Sampu would return and prepare a stew that they would both partake of just before laying down.

At the end of the week, Sampu returned with two new pieces of ornament on her feet and an angelic smile worn well on her face — both of which pleased Zoram immensely; it was as if she had already been communicated of his intentions.

“You look beautiful today, Sampu. You will not believe how much I missed you,'’ he announced to her beamingly as she alighted from the bus.

“You like my new anklets?'’ Sampu hurried excitedly.

“Yes, I do. But I hope you didn’t spend a fortune on them. Let’s go home. I had the floors wiped with sandalwood soap to prepare for a special night tonight.'’ He embraced her tightly, and could already feel a tingle in his groin.

Sampu recoiled, if inconspicuously, from Zoram’s embrace. It was plain to her what Zoram was referring to, and she was taken quite by surprise. There was no doubt that she should have been instantly relieved that all her fears about either Zoram’s inability or apathy were mere cinder-dust imaginings, had it not been for the promise the woman from the West had extracted from her. She bore ill to the woman for her wicked scheming, but having already seen her powers of future-divining she thought it foolish of her to entertain any more evil thoughts against her. She was not sure if she should confide in Zoram either — perhaps he would fly into a rage and ask her to disown the anklets, which she was loathe to do. Besides, it could still technically be said to be in her possession and hence that would serve no purpose.

When they returned home, Sampu prepared the feast of drumstick and eggplant stew as she was instructed by Zoram. She had considered several devious plots to delay what was to happen in the night, even though oddly she could not stop rehearsing all that her sister had thought her. They included adding a whole vial of poppy-seed into the milk which was sure to put Zoram to sleep for the next twelve hours and rubbing green chillis and pickle into her hands just before she went to bed so that upon contact with her husband’s penis he would cry and howl with pain but surely not thrust it any further — she could always blame it to not having washed her hands well enough after dinner.

“You must be wondering why tonight is so special,'’ he began as he eyed her soft olive midriff that revealed itself from the line of her blouse when she stooped to serve him more of the drumstick stew. He quickly looked up to face her, “Tonight, we shall sleep on one mat — for ourselves, and for a new one to be born when the rats are running amok.'’

Soon after dinner, Zoram dabbed rose-water on the walls and set light to incandescence sticks by the head of the mat. He had already done away with any unwanted clothes and was going to make do with just a half-sleeved vest that would keep him from rubbing his sweat onto Sampu’s belly, and the dhoti — a quintessential necessity for the night. He was hoping Sampu would wear something equally simple — just the regular night-robes would have sufficed.

Sampu had lost all hope of thwarting Zoram’s intentions — so single-minded she found him to be, that neither the suggestion of inauspiciousness nor the feigning of indisposition would sway him from his mood. She looked down at her anklets and even now admired them in spite of all the woes they were to bring if the woman’s warning, or curse — she feared the latter even more, would bear out true. She lay down ready for him to turn off the lights and move his hands from her shoulders down.

Zoram had heard the squeaking for quite some time now, but had dismissed it carelessly as mournful crickets sulking at the moon. Only when he was about to set down by Sampu did he spot, from the corner of his eye, a growing line of blackness building along the wall closest to the crack of the door. Sampu shrieked in a frenzied pitch as the rats streamed in from outside — there were more than twenty inside, and several more filing in from outside as if each were taking up battle position waiting to attack. It hit Zoram then — Mautam was already here. He had not noticed the bamboo shoots flowering earlier than usual in all the anticipation of the night, nor had he caught sight of the villagers stockpiling their grain into rodent-proof silos far away from the outer flanks of bamboo. It was, as he always knew and believed fervently himself especially during Mautam, each to his own — so he could scarcely blame anybody other than himself. He slumped in shame by the only wall that hadn’t yet been commandeered by the rats — the incandescence sticks burned brightly there and left a trail of hot ash that put them off.

If she could, Sampu would someday visit the temple for the rats in the West.