Snake House

by Gautam Sen

Arun Thapar and his family were nice enough people. His father looked like a film star past his prime, smoked cigars, and spoke little. His charming mother was garrulous, but spoke mostly with her friends over the phone, or at the women’s club she was a member of. His sister Arati was doing her PhD in Zoology, a subject no other member of the family had much interest in. Arati’s only real vice, if you could call it that, was that, for fashion’s sake, she changed her spectacle frame twice a year. Arun himself was graduating in English Literature and harboured a secret ambition of becoming a writer, although he had never heard anybody in real life say, “I want to be a writer.” Seemingly, only fictional characters said such things.

They thought of one another largely in terms of usefulness. The father/husband was the overall provider, the mother/wife was in charge of meals, the daughter/sister lent social prestige to the family because of her doctorate, and the son/brother was handsomer than most other sons or brothers.

Though individually they were pleasant people, they were as incompatible with one another as coffee is with tomato sauce. Not one of them shared a rapport with any other member of the house. Even when all four were in, a fearful emptiness loomed over them, threatening to devour them at any given moment. It took a toll on their mental and physical health, so when Arun thought he heard whispers in the house at odd hours of the day or night —it always happened when he was alone—he attributed it to an over-active imagination.

Now, unknown to many, houses too have a life of their own; they respond to what goes on within them. Generally, they may not be demonstrative about it, but there are exceptions. When there is a complete lack of affinity within its walls, certain vibrations are released into the atmosphere which can cause the house to develop serious abnormalities. And so it happened in the case of the Thapars.

One afternoon, when the dissonance within the house had reached its zenith, when mother, father, daughter, and son were all waking up and going to sleep at different times, taking their meals separately, and not going beyond monosyllables in their interactions, Arun was sitting alone in their commodious living room contemplating escape to a tranquil, mountainous getaway when a sudden movement caught his eye. He saw a long, black snake with dull yellow stripes emerge from the bottom of the opposite wall and slither towards him. He jumped up and vacated the room like lightning, banging the door shut.

Arati, who was passing by, threw him a mocking glance. “What’s up—seen a snake or something?” she asked.

That was more than monosyllabic and, in a way, an ice-breaker in the current state of their relationship. Arun, who had panicked eyes and beads of perspiration on his brow, was about to counter-ask, “Yes, but how did you guess?” but almost immediately realised that his sister was poking fun at him, so he modified his answer to, “Yes, believe it or not, I did see a snake—a black one with dirty yellow stripes. How about taking a look, Zoology Miss? For all I know, they might be teaching you how to catch snakes in your classes?”

Arati held her breath and stiffened markedly, not because of the audacity of Arun’s question but because she was mortally scared. A common crisis can unite disparate people. Brother and sister quickly made up with each other and rang their father, who was away at work. Within two hours two men—one young and the other middle-aged—appeared at their doorstep with a snake hook, leather gloves, and goggles. They entered the living room, sealed it off, and scoured every inch of it. There was no trace of a snake.

Arati threw Arun a look of contempt, his mother frowned at him, and his father, when he returned, icily ignored him. Once again the family lapsed into their monosyllabic home life. Father was mostly busy at work, Mother was perpetually preoccupied at the club, Arati spent hours at the university library, and Arun was prone to roam with his friends or play tennis once classes were over. Returning home meant having to face that ogre of emptiness again.

All of them tried to mentally dismiss the snake scare, but it stubbornly lingered at the back of their minds: what if there really was a snake and it had outsmarted the snake-catchers? Consequently, the Thapars stayed out even longer than usual—after all, now there were two threats; emptiness and a possible snake—and the living room remained unused, its door shut.

And so life went on. One night, lying in bed, Arun again thought he heard a whisper. This time it was much closer to him, and very confidential in tone, as if someone was sharing a closely guarded secret. When he turned towards the source of the whisper, however, all he saw was the wall. He stared at it for some time in amazement, convinced himself he was again imagining things, and went back to sleep.

A fortnight later, around one a.m., Arati came screaming out of her bedroom in her bedclothes, shouting “Snake, snake, a brown snake!” and waking them all. She slept with her parents for the remainder of the night.

The next afternoon the snake-catchers made a re-entry into their house and were asked to go about their job with greater application. Given that Arati’s bedroom was substantially smaller than their living room, the search took far less time. The men came out looking like they were dealing with crackpots, and they left with a parting shot. “Don’t expect us to come here again,” declared the older man. “I think you should get your heads checked.”

The next morning Arun’s father was duly seated on the luxurious commode of their toilet with a look of satisfaction when he saw, in open-mouthed disbelief, a green snake with black patches making its way down in a most business-like manner from a corner of the ceiling.

Instinct took over—he quashed his considerable dignity in a jiffy—and flew out to the adjoining bedroom, slamming the bathroom door behind him with a noise that awakened his sleeping wife who, seeing and not believing, rubbed her eyes, looked again, and sat up like a jack-in-the-box. Lying beside her, Arati slept like a log. She was covered in a cotton blanket up to her neck, and her mother, not wanting to take chances, hurriedly pulled it over her daughter’s eyes. Seeing her husband in that state somehow diminished her respect for him, and she did not want him to fall in their daughter’s estimation as well. Just the other day she had overheard Arati’s telephone conversation with a friend, in which the two were having a great laugh about a professor turning up in class with his fly open.

It was so important for the young to respect their elders.

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To compensate for his possible fall from grace with his wife, Arun’s father spoke gruffly and in a deeper voice the rest of the morning. A firm believer in the maxim “Seeing is believing,” he also dispatched an emissary to the countryside to hunt out a snake charmer and get him over at any cost with his basket and flute; but that very night, as Arun was dozing off to sleep, he heard a whisper he could for once decipher: “Friend, for heaven’s sake get some warmth into the house. Melt the ice.”

The whisper came from the wall immediately to his left.

Arun put an ear against the wall and listened with a degree of concentration he had rarely achieved in his life. At first, he heard faint heartbeats, but the more he listened, the more distinct the heartbeats became. He would not have thought such a thing possible, but when it did happen, he could not but look upon it as a miracle, of which he was the chosen witness. It inspired him. It stimulated his mind.

Come morning, he made a beeline to his classmate Reshmi, who owned two German Shepherd pups. “Give me one,” he pleaded, “and I’ll be your slave for life.” Reshmi, who was very partial to the idea of possessing a life-long slave, readily consented.

Arun kept the phenomenon of the whispering wall a secret. He knew there were things you should never tell others, however close they were.

When he brought home the bouncy, bright-eyed, podgy little bundle of delight that was given to frolicking and endlessly wagging its tail, the entire family fell instantly in love with him and held their first joint meeting ever to give him a suitable name. After weighing the pros and cons of half-a-dozen alternatives, the name “Togo” emerged as the consensus choice. In terms of family amity, it was a historic occasion.

Togo became everyone’s playmate. They took turns feeding him, petting him, cuddling him, playing ball with him, and addressing him with such innovative baby-talk that they themselves were surprised at the creativity flowing out of them like sparkling water from a natural fountain. Little by little, the love everyone felt for the pup began to inform their relations with one another as well. They began to take meals together, and to watch TV in one another’s company. Before they knew it, every vestige of snake-thought had receded from their minds. They recalled the futile snake searches and took heart from their rejuvenated morale.

When the house went to sleep that night, it whispered “Thank you” to Arun. Arun again put an ear against the wall and sensed—–he could not figure out how—that it was smiling. He smiled in return and patted it like an old chum. He was surprised when, in response, a snake peeped out from it and regarded him with interest. Arun, who had grown up believing that snakes were dangerous creatures, automatically backed off in a hurry, stumbled, and almost fell. The snake retreated into the wall.

"How come?” Arun thought. “The atmosphere in the house has changed—what made the snake come? I better ask the house.”

But before he could do that, the snake re-appeared, and gently, smoothly slid down the wall. Arun observed its black body with yellow stripes and realized that it was the same snake that had once struck terror in his heart, but now, incredibly, it exuded warmth and good-will. It moved towards him like a thin mountain stream, climbed up his right leg, and embraced him around the waist. Togo, who had no business being up at that time, started scratching the door and whining, as if it could not wait to welcome the newest addition to the family.

“Well, well!” Arun mused, lapping up the great peace he felt within him. He petted the snake. But would it actually be around, he wondered, or would it again melt into the walls? Maybe it was not meant to be seen, but was just a private conversation between the house and himself.

When the scales fall from your eyes, enemies turn friends.