Rija cursed the evening that was melting away behind the labyrinth of distant hills. Sanwi, who was crunching a raw guava, kept tossing pieces of torn leaves at her sister. It was quiet, and for a moment it seemed that the little girls were two angels picked from someone’s serene dream. But the serenity didn’t last long as Rija squeaked in stifled rage, clutching her left cheek with right palm, “Stop it, I tell you. My tooth is aching.” Sanwi went rigid as though frozen, her big eyes stretching bigger. To someone else, not familiar with Sanwi’s eccentricities, this would have seemed as an expression of apology. After all, it indeed appeared that she was sorry. However, Rija saw this for what it really was: another of Sanwi’s childish tricks to annoy her. Burning with rage, partly because of Sanwi and partly due to her own pain, she continued, “Stop it! You hear me. Will slap you hard, I tell you. I don’t like it when you irritate me this way. Aah!” She then rose and, muttering to herself, headed towards home. Sanwi followed her, now tearing leaves off of a guava blossom, now from an orange tree and stuffing her pant-pocket with them.
The rugged, spiraling footway delivered them to the westward compound of the house where sat their mother and the aunt. They were feeding a group of goats. Rija squatted next to her mother, pressing her cheek with one hand and with the other fending off the black goat that craned its neck to nibble the hem of her frock. While she did so, another goat had already caught a lock of her hair between its teeth. Amid this chaos of goats Sanwi stole opportunity and showered grainy shreds of leaves on her and, with a loud giggle, ran into the house. “I’m gonna flatten your nose, you pumpkin!” Rija whined, her front teeth clenched so hard that her cheek muscles closed in on her eyes. “See mom, aah!”
“Are your teeth still hurting?” asked her mother, looking gravely at her.
“It’s the meat she gobbled up last night,” her aunt put in, cuddling the baby goat she had in her arms. “I mean it’s alright to eat a lot, but why grind bones that are hard as rock.”
“I like bones,” Rija snapped, her voice loud and assertive, as if the ache had suddenly disappeared. Then she sighed, running her tongue over the tooth she thought was hurting, and added, “Anyways, it’s not due to meat. Had it been that the pain would have taken over immediately after dinner or later at night. But that didn’t happen. Only today after the nap in the afternoon did it begin. I don’t know why the gods torment me this way. It’s always me who suffers, it’s always me who is in problems.”
“And you said you had a terrible dream during that nap?” her mother asked, rising from the stool and pushing one of the pot-bellied goats away.
“Yes, I was being carried off to hospital. I thought I was dying on account of something. It was probably a toothache. But I’m not sure.”
“Then your toothache, my dear child,” the aunt said so softly as if she was afraid some evil forces were lurking in the dark to eavesdrop on what she was about to utter. “Your toothache is not a real problem, it’s the black magic. Those nasty witches from the village downhill have put a spell on you. Poor girl!”
“That’s nonsense,” Rija said, “I don’t believe such crap.”
“Ambika,” her mother said, addressing the aunt. “Can you secure the goats in the shed and bring two lemons and some red chilies?” While the aunt dragged the obstinate goats away, she took Rija’s hand in hers, pressed it affectionately and asked, “Come here, sit on this stool. Yes right here. Now tell me, is it hurting a lot?”
“I think I’ll die, mom. It feels like someone is hammering my skull so hard from inside. Aah! It hurts even to speak. O god, kill me, kill me!”
“It’ll go away immediately once I cut the spell. These evil spirits are active during Dashain, you know. They look for opportunities to trouble the vulnerable souls of children. But this time they’ve targeted the wrong house. Bring it here, Ambika. Give it to me.”
Aunt Ambika followed by Sanwi, who was now in a different dress and looked somewhat pensive, came and sat on the empty stool next to her mother. Meanwhile Sanwi remained standing and leaned against the wall for support. Rija glared at her, trying to catch her eyes so that she could threaten her with her look, but before that could happen her mother set the ritual into motion. She began to mumble some mantras in Sanskrit. After slicing open the lemons she traced a circle around Rija with lemon juice and then asked her to bite the chilly and spit hard, without chewing, towards the east. Rija followed the instruction while her mother kept chanting the mantras and pressing the center of her forehead. “How are you feeling now?” her mother asked a little later.
Whether it was due to the distraction introduced by the somewhat curious ritual or the pain had actually subsided, Rija actually began to feel better. Of course the annoying throb, which stretched to her chin, was still there though it now seemed less intense. “It’s getting better now,” she replied, trying to smile.
“Those cursed witches. May their tongues rot in hell,” her aunt muttered in rage which, however, immediately gave way to a joyous emotion. Tickling Rija’s chin she exclaimed, “Now my girl, you should kick those nasty bitches if they hurt you ever again.”
“Let’s go inside,” Rija’s mother said, standing and stretching herself a little so that the bangles in her wrist clanked. “Come, come, it’s cold inside.”
Everyone rose and went towards the verandah. The night, heavy as metal, had already filled up the space between the sky and the Earth. The hills were barely distinguishable in the distance. To further distract herself Rija peered at the blinking bulbs of the houses that shone on those remote hills. As she stood by the verandah, still watching the hill through the swaying branches of the orange blossom, she felt a waft of old tobacco into her nose. Her mother and aunt, who stood by her for a while, now went into the kitchen where grandma was preparing dinner. “Grandpa, Rija’s tooth is paining,” a little later she heard Sanwi’s voice from behind her.
“Is it?” her grandpa’s thick, tobacco-smothered voice came. “Is it really so, Rija?”
“Aunt says it’s the witch,” Sanwi put in even before Rija could respond. “Bad witches have entered her teeth, grandpa.”
“How is it now?” grandpa asked, looking at Rija who was now sitting beside him with a gloomy expression.
“It’s getting better,” she lied, despite the fact that the pain was beginning to get worse once again. “Mom did the ritual which has helped in certain ways.”
“That’s good, that’s good,” the old man said, pushing tobacco under his tongue and mumbling to himself.
“So the witches are gone,” Sanwi pinched Rija’s arm and ran into the kitchen. Rija went after her.
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After dinner, during which she struggled to choke her pain, Rija went off to sleep. A moment later when her mother came into the bedroom, she was groaning, her face red and contorted with pain. “Why are your teeth still hurting? Those rotten witches!” her mother muttered angrily.
“I’ll die today, mom. I’ll die. Aah!” Rija gritted her teeth and began to pound her head despairingly into the pillow. “Kill me, kill me. I don’t want to live.” She was screaming now, her voice reverberating through the mud-walls of the house.
Her scream awoke everyone, even Sanwi, who was sleeping with her aunt in the adjoining room. Following the grandma and grandpa’s arrival Rija caught sight of Sanwi through her tear-stained eyes. The little girl was standing right beside her aunt, her head partially hidden behind the aunt’s arm. In any case, Rija did notice the sad look of fear, the fear that one suffers when one’s loved one is in trouble, in her sister’s eyes. At this moment, despite the pain that had blunted her heart, she could sense how much her sister really cared for her. “Let me check your teeth,” she heard her grandpa’s voice who, after sitting on the bed beside her, was now leaning over her with an oil-lamp directed right at her mouth. “Open it wider,” he added after peering into her mouth and tapping some of her front teeth.
Rija found it difficult to further widen her mouth while lying flat on her back. The crowd of family members that had gathered around made her feel sequestered. Besides, the smoke from the oil-lamp was streaming right into her nostrils which was, no doubt, suffocating her. She propped her back against the frame of the bed and, with a moan of pain, tore her mouth open. Her grandma, who was standing to the opposite side with her mother, settled a pillow between her and the frame of the bed. “Push your head back, yes, a little more,” her grandpa said, now thrusting his index finger under her left cheek and passing the lamp to the aunt.
Rija groaned when the old man struck one of her molars. Groping in the maze of her mouth, he caught hold of one specific tooth and said impatiently, “Here, shine the light here. Fast!” The aunt shuffled forward anxiously and leaned towards Rija’s face. She then directed the light towards her mouth with her cupped hand.
Meanwhile Sanwi had come forward too and stood, like before, close to her aunt. When the old man felt the teeth and found that it was shaking and indeed could be taken out easily, Sanwi had thrust her head so close to the lamp that her hair would have caught fire had the grandma not pulled her into her arms at the right moment. The old man, still holding that specific tooth, threw an annoyed look at Sanwi, then, as if nothing had happened, went on with his examination. In the clinician's voice he asked Rija, “Does it hurt, this tooth?”
“It does!” Rija’s stifled groan cut through the silence. She could barely open her eyes due to the throbbing sensation brought on by the ache behind her jaws.
“Now?” her grandpa asked, giving that tooth a harder shake.
“Here father,” Rija’s mother, who had some experience with pulling children’s teeth, said, holding out a bowl containing a balm made by mixing lemon juice with turmeric powder. The old man didn’t even look at the bowl and simply shook his head, “There, keep it there. Move away a little.”
“It’s hurting a lot,” Rija moaned. “I will die. I will die.”
“But soon it won’t hurt, dear,” the old man spoke softly and caressingly for the first time. “I’ve caught the ghost, this one.” He then let out a groan, the type of groan one sees on the face of someone who thinks he has accomplished something impossible. “Look, your demon is here!”
Rija opened her eyes, her mouth now throbbing with paralyzing pain, and peered at the little white teeth which had only a moment ago been a part of her. Somehow it relieved her to see it out.
“Here girl, here,” her mother rushed to clean the blood from her mouth. After Rija had gurgled, which of course took a while, she smeared the turmeric paste across her left gum.
“Mom, put that paste on my gums too,” Sanwi drawled sleepily.
“Come with me, Sanu,” the old man addressed Sanwi, enticing her with the teeth which he held between his thumb and forefinger. “Come, we’ll bury it there in the ground.”
As they went out with the aunt, Rija lay down to sleep, distorting her face because the pain, instead of easing, had grown worse. “Now sleep, dear, my poor girl,” her grandma, who had not uttered a word in the presence of her old man, said soothingly. “Sleep dear,” she added after spreading the blanket up to Rija’s neck and went to her bedroom.
Rija tried her best to endure the increased pain in silence. Her mother returned from the kitchen and lay beside her after closing the bedroom door. She heard her ask, “Is it better now?” Buried in the endless swamp of agony, Rija could barely speak. She didn’t say anything and pretended to have fallen asleep. A little later she heard the muffled clatter of her grandpa’s bedroom door, then it creaked and closed. The world had fallen under the sway of midnight silence and Rija was still awake. Not knowing what to do she now slowly guided one of her fingers under her left cheek and felt the new gap between her teeth and realized, with her heart in throat, that her grandpa had pulled out the wrong tooth.