Chapter 8 Demonology
It’s embarrassing, but after just an hour of dancing, my legs are too tired to continue.
I remember when I could dance for hours, performing full shows for three nights in a row with no problem.
But now, I can barely make it through a warm-up tatkar and basic tukdas before my feet started to ache.
By the time I finish my main set of todas, my arms burn from being held up for so long.
I stumble through a namaskaram and collapse on the floor.
My body is overheated even though my apartment is cold, and I’m covered in sweat.
I should shower, but I probably won’t be able to get up for at least an hour.
Now that I’ve stopped dancing, my brain starts thinking again.
Chandini saved her whole town with the help of Muya.
Muya, who just left my apartment. Chandini seemed to look right at me at the end, watching me watching her life.
Choose action, she said. As if it’s that simple.
My whole body hurts and I’ve definitely got blisters on my feet, but there is something tingling beneath my skin, a current that has been moving through me ever since I touched the statue.
Magic, Muya would have me believe. Demon magic.
I search Apasmara again, thoroughly this time, and come up more empty-handed than I’d like.
If this weren’t my real life, I would think it was pretty funny that we know so little about the demon of ignorance.
I learn that he’s a dwarflike creature (the Muya I’ve seen most definitely is not), represents not just ignorance but greed and epilepsy, and has some sort of astrological significance.
Given that I have a distaste for astrology as it is, anything requiring the decoding of ancient Indian star charts is definitely a dead end.
I call the Art Institute research desk for a bit more clarity, getting bumped around a bit before someone says, “Oh, you want provenance.”
After spending more time on hold, a bright, female-sounding voice joins the line. “Provenance research desk. Who do I have the pleasure of speaking to?”
“Uh, N-Nina,” I say, panicking and providing the name of one of the nurses at the clinic instead. “Hi. I have a question about a statue.”
“My name is Brittany,” she says. “Happy to help! Do you know the name of the piece?”
“It’s a Nataraja statue,” I say. “N-A-T-A-R-A-J-A. I’ve seen it in the museum for years, in the South Asian art exhibit.”
“Hmm.” I hear the clacking of keys, before she continues, “That’s odd. I know exactly the statue you’re talking about, but I’m not seeing it in our system.”
“Was it sold?” I ask.
“Even if it was sold, it should be in our system,” she says, and I can almost hear her frown. “There’s no record of it.”
“Oh, well, never mind then.”
“Can I put you on another brief hold?”
“Of course,” I say. I hope she’s not going to cause a fuss. I’d rather not call any more attention to the situation. But after several minutes, Brittany returns, sounding slightly out of breath.
“Thanks for waiting, Nina. I work this job to make a little extra money, but I’m a postdoc and know how to do archival research.
I never get asked to use my skills, so I got a bit carried away.
Weirdly, the file on this piece wasn’t there, either.
I don’t know, someone could have pulled it for something.
” She barely pauses to take a breath. “So I checked our donor files, and I found it, first try. I don’t have any information on where it originally came from, but if you have a pen and paper, I can give you the name of the donor, at least? ”
I scramble to grab a notepad. “Go for it.”
She gives me a name that sounds like old oil baron money, and I double-check the spelling. “Thank you so much,” I say. “Sincerely. This piece means so much to me, and I… it means a lot that you went to all this trouble.”
“Happy to help!” Brittany says. “I had fun! Feel free to call back if you have any more questions.”
“I definitely will,” I say, although I sincerely doubt the Art Institute can answer questions about demons. “Thank you. Have a great day.”
Immediately after hanging up, I remember that I never called Aai to explain what happened this morning. She’s probably about an hour away from coming down here to verify I’m fine with her own two eyes.
Sure enough, she picks up so fast the phone doesn’t even get the chance to ring. “I was wondering when you would call, especially after your mysterious texts.”
“Sorry, Aai. I’ve been busy.”
“Have you been eating?”
I roll my eyes. “Yes, I just had a sandwich.”
“So what are you busy with?”
“I was actually… practicing Kathak.”
Aai is silent for a few seconds, and then asks, “How was it?”
I hear her barely controlled glee, and feel a bit bad for telling a half-truth. “It was nice. Very nice. I’m weak, though.”
“That’s okay, that’s okay, I’m just—it makes me so happy to hear that you enjoyed it. Good for you.” Aai sounds like she might be tearing up.
It took me six months to finish physical therapy after my accident and get cleared to dance again.
But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Dancing belonged to a past Nisha, an ambitious Nisha, a Nisha who could rely on the world to make sense.
I couldn’t sully Kathak with my apathy. Aai kept suggesting I take it up again, until one day she gave up.
“The dancing made me think about our old stories,” I say. “About rakshasas and asuras and all. It made me think about when I was a kid, how I was so scared of Ravana that I thought he might jump out of the bushes to grab me…”
Aai laughs. “There are plenty of people who still believe, especially back in India, that rakshasas are real. And I’m sure some still claim that the reason Hindus are so learned and powerful is because we conquered rakshasas and asuras.
” I hear the click of the gas stove turning on and smile to myself. Aai must be making chai.
“Ah, more nationalist talking points.” I sigh.
“Come on, Nisha. Not everything is some political conspiracy. These were stories passed down through generations. I heard that my great-great-great—”
She cuts herself off abruptly. Aai almost never talks about her family.
I speak to her parents through WhatsApp on birthdays and Diwali, but I know nothing about her childhood, her cousins, her village.
All I know is that she came to America when she was eight months pregnant and built our life herself.
And I know her family must have kicked her out—because of me.
So before she can become too sad, I joke, “So if there was a demon under my bed?”
Aai gives me a small, forced laugh. It’s a real question, but she’s right that it would make a poor joke. “Well, I’m always telling you to pray. Maybe if you did, you’d be safe… I can ask around at mandir about adult dance groups for you. You could come with me?”
I don’t go to mandir anymore and she knows it. But I also know that if I truly am dealing with rakshasas and other demons, I should visit. It can’t hurt.
“I’m kind of busy right now, but in a week or two?”
“That sounds good, baccha,” she says. “That sounds good.” I can practically hear Aai’s wonder and happiness, and I hate myself a little more.
Later that night, after I’ve run a pretty lackluster volunteer training and am unable to sleep, I find myself falling down an internet rabbit hole about demons and demonology.
On a poorly designed blog that looks straight out of the aughts, I read a pull quote that catches my interest: Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.
You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?
—Matthew 7:15. I feel compelled to investigate further, although I cringe at the animated angels framing the text.
And because I have no self-preservation instincts, I use the find function to search for “abortion.” Sure enough, there are quite a few comments about seeing demons at abortion clinics, but nothing useful.
So I start reading the comments from the top.
I saw a woman, her face as dark as night, with horns emerging from her enormous hair. I saw her forked tongue.
Holy racism! Just underneath it, a different user, anonfarmer47, wrote:
Nobody believes me, but I met a demon at a crossroads.
Not a literal crossroads, but a fork in my life.
I did not know which path to take, and he appeared to me at night.
He seemed to be a normal man at first. I thought he was there to ask for directions, but instead he said I had called him.
Something about him pricked at my skin. A huge oil & gas company had already sent a few different representatives my way, the lone holdout on my block, to convince me to sell my house.
I was standing in the way of what promised to be millions, maybe.
I told him to go away, said I wasn’t interested in making any deals with the company.
And he said to make a deal with him instead, that he’d make all my dreams come true.
I wasn’t sure if he was a competitor or what, so I just laughed and asked for a million bucks.
Next thing I know, he’s spreading his hands, and I swear to God, his eyes flashed red.
There was a crack of lightning in the cloudless sky. Behind him, his shadow expanded.
I am a God-fearing man. I ran inside faster than you could say the Lord’s Prayer.
I know that I saw the devil, and worse, I may have forged a deal with him.
I researched frantically how to release myself from such a contract.
But in time, when nothing happened, my wife convinced me that it was a dream.
We stayed in that house, and I believed her.
I believed her up until the day she dropped dead, of no cause at all.
The doctors could find nothing wrong with her.
There was no point in being in that house without her.
She was the reason I had stayed, she had been the one who loved the place.
I accepted the company’s offer and moved to the city.
On the day I moved into my new apartment, there was a knock at the door.
It was the devil. I made to close the door, but he held out a hand and stopped me.
He passed me an envelope, then he disappeared before my very eyes.
Inside the envelope was bank information for an account in my name, with one million dollars deposited in it.
I am shocked to reach the end of anonfarmer47’s story. Underneath it, the comments are skeptical.
Demons don’t behave like that. They don’t work for corporations, and they don’t keep their promises.
I’m sure it was traumatic to lose your wife. Perhaps seek therapy.
The devil doesn’t give out millions, or everyone would make a deal.
I feel so angry on behalf of this man that I have to take a few deep breaths to quell my body’s fight-or-flight response.
I’m scared. That man’s story doesn’t prove anything, but his descriptions of a banal-looking man with an aura of wrongness making mysterious offers hits too close to home.
I don’t know what to make of it, but I am starting to realize just how much trouble I am in.