by Jordan Deitcher

1/4/92  Kuala Lumpur

1 poosanikai gourd

30 limes

1 live chicken

3 types of flowers

1 young coconut

1 Guinness stout

2 tayathes (charm cases)

2 fat black strings

pooja incense

cooked rice

2 cigars

$121.25 Malay

This is what Mother has requested for the exorcism tomorrow night. I mean Kali. She didn’t need my questions, she told Shanti, who was translating for us, she saw it right away. I have been possessed by the evil eye. She thought it funny that we had to come all the way from America to see her, since she says there’s a large temple to her where we live. She is big over there. She asked that we come back in a few years and tell her how happy we are. This ritual will solve all our problems, Enid’s and mine.

I have been looking inside, and I believe that this evil eye is about to go. I am very excited.

Background

12/24/91 Langkawi

I am sitting on the beach on the island of Langkawi in the presence of a group of Malay fishermen, mostly boys in their late teens and early 20s. The old timer is 40, missing his front teeth and wizened. He came to get me last night, as I was lying on the sand recovering from the powerful rush of tobacco and ganja, to bring me back into the group by the bonfire. Enid had already gone back to the abandoned beach hut where we’ve set up. We’re just a couple of months in to this 8-month(?) trip, a last, all-in effort to stay together, but so far it hasn’t been going too well. I followed him to the fire, but never fully got back into it, my stoned mind turning in on itself in old familiar ways, my eyes suddenly not to be trusted, unable to take in what was going on or being said to me. I tried to bluff it, but I was half a world and thirty years away. I stand out in a place like this, not least because of my height, and they all know my name, Jor-dan, calling to me as they walk by.

Today we met Dawn and Din, who are camped further down the beach near where the bonfire was last night. Dawn is a cutie, a young Brit in the peaches-and-cream tradition. She got her degree in social studies last June, and came to Southeast Asia in search of warmer weather and a mission. Although I don’t think it’s what she had in mind, she may have found one in Din, a very bright young man from a prominent Muslim family in Kuala Lumpur. He, too, just finished university, which opened his eyes to a world wider than the strict and observant path that until recently was all he’d known. I commented that he sounded a lot like me, when I had felt compelled to leave Montreal twenty years ago.  He had so many questions, and I tried to explain that I had gone to New York to reinvent myself, away from the uncomprehending eyes of those I had grown up with. And besides, I winked, where else would I have found a fellow artist and traveler like Enid for a mate? I glanced at Enid on the chance that I might get some confirmation, but she was arranging her seashells on the towel. I told him he was lucky: Dawn had come to him; he hadn’t had to go anywhere. Very powerful. He smiled, and confided that Dawn, blonde and blue-eyed, was the most exotic woman he had ever met. She is his physical and cultural photographic negative. You can see how alive they are in each other’s presence. It’s nice. They are two lovers on the run, as his parents are not the least bit pleased about their relationship.

Dawn was telling us about a bomoh she met in KL through her Tamil friend, Shanti, called Mother, who channels Kali as a healing force, giving charms and counter charms. We’ve been hearing a lot about traditional healers on this trip, probably because we’ve been asking. They’re going back to KL tomorrow and will take us to her if we come. We’ll probably be there sooner than later, as we’re dying to get out of here – this island really doesn’t cater to ground travelers like us.

I’m going to tell Mother I want my third eye opened. That would make a total of perhaps 2 1/2.

1/2/92 Kuala Lumpur

We arrived in KL at midnight on New Year’s Eve in the pouring rain. By the time we finally managed to find a taxi, we were thoroughly soaked. We tried hotel after hotel, but it being NYE, no one had room. The driver ended up taking us down to Chinatown, and after a few tries we found a place. Thankfully it was dark, and we didn’t look too closely at what we were stepping into. We just dropped our backpacks on the floor of the room we were shown, fell on the bed and were asleep in seconds.

The next morning we were awakened by the sounds of coughing and spitting up all around us. We opened our eyes to discover that we were in a cell-like cubicle. Daylight was streaming through the wire mesh that filled the gap from the top of all four walls to the ceiling, about 2 feet. The room was painted an institutional green, and the walls were liberally spattered with all manner of excrescence, from snot yellow to betel-nut red, the leavings from what we were hearing all around us. I had read that there were Chinese who ritually cough up bad spirits from the night. This is what it looked like.

We quickly gathered our things and stepped out into the hallway to see that ours was one of many such cells, all with wire-meshed openings at the top. An old tobacco-stained man sat wedged behind an antique receptionist’s grille at one end, a ledger book open in front of him. He watched us with only a hint of curiosity, squinting over the glow of his smoldering kretek as we went down the stairs into the roar of the street.

In the brightness of early morning, as far as the eye could see, enormous flames were shooting up from a hundred food carts lining both sides of the street, as woks were lifted then replaced on their powerful gas jets. It was like a scene from Blade Runner. We were tempted to stay in the area just to see what it looked like at night, but we thought it probably a good idea to get out of Chinatown.

We tracked down a hotel we had heard about called the Coliseum, a two-story edifice from 1920 in the old British style occupying a whole street corner, arcaded and columned in faded white stone. On the ground floor is a well-stocked bar, complete with swinging doors, its walls wainscotted in dark wood, above which framed disintegrating newspaper clippings and photos of uniformed men and colonial-era street scenes serve to hide the yellowing ivory paint. The restaurant looks much the same, but is larger and less adorned, with a visual order established by its two neat rows of white-clothed tables beneath vintage wood ceiling fans.

Our room on the second floor was extremely basic but clean, with a bathroom in the corridor. Most importantly, it was all mercifully air-conditioned, a welcome respite from the intense, steamy, sweaty, sooty heat of the street. We went down to the English-style restaurant, and for the first time in over two months had mashed potatoes and real actual bread.

We were unsuccessful at reaching Dawn and Din, but when we called Shanti at the number they had given us, she most generously invited us to her home that evening to share a New Year’s dinner with her family. Shanti is a beautiful and vivacious Tamil woman in her early 20s, with a melodic accent and an infectious laugh, given to braids, long earrings and lots of bangles. Her father was dressed in simple gray slacks and a white dress shirt open at the collar, while all the women were wearing traditional, richly threaded saris. Enid, unusually, was the least colourfully dressed woman in the room.

We were treated to a delicious meal, as well as a most interesting cultural experience. The house was a hodgepodge of ornately carved, gaudily upholstered furniture, most of which had seen far better days. A brightly lit Christmas tree competed for attention with Hindu iconography, which was everywhere. The whole place was filled with the incredible aromas of Indian spices wafting from the kitchen, which mingled with thin wisps of fragrant smoke rising from incense sticks placed around the room.

Shanti’s father, a medical doctor by training, is currently Deputy Minister in Malaysia’s Ministry of Health. When he almost died from a major heart attack a few years ago and was told that he could go at any time, he went to see Mother, the bomoh that Dawn had told us about. He claims that she completely healed his diseased heart, which his scans confirmed. He enthusiastically recommended that we go to see her. He is entirely comfortable living in multiple worlds at once, with no need to protect one from the other, to isolate one tradition from another.

Speaking of which, as of two days ago Shanti still had not heard from Dawn and Din, and she is worried that Din’s extremely traditional and powerful Muslim family may have done something to this woman who has the heart of their smart, sensitive, wayward, son. I wonder how far people would go here.

1/3/92 Kuala Lumpur

Last evening Shanti took us by taxi into the unpaved outskirts of KL, a totally non-descript area over which sprawl the rough dwellings of the poor. We arrived at a small compound, comprised of three clapboard one-storey buildings around a pitted concrete courtyard. On lattices of rusted rods swiveled louvered glass windows, many of which were broken. Dogs wandered in and out of the surprisingly sturdy iron gate through which we entered.  A weak fluorescent light barely augmented the many lit candles and paraffin chips scattered everywhere.  A crudely drawn mandala was painted on the concrete floor in red and white.

In one corner of the courtyard, tucked within an ornamental wrought-iron gazebo, a tiered altar had been created with oriental tile, framed by fabric walls, blood-red in colour. At the front corners stood tall brass lampstands, and arranged neatly around were offerings of flowers, bottles of beer, cigars, and other things it was too dim to identify. Seated on an ornate chair at the top was a life-size figure of a mustachioed deity, his face painted in the Hindu style.

There were others waiting to see Mother for healing, mostly women and all Tamil. They sat talking quietly on the concrete, which was still pocked with little pools of water from an earlier rain. Shanti knew one of them and we sat down to chat. The women, mostly older, were particularly curious about Enid who, being small with black hair and olive skin, didn’t seem so different from them. They kept on asking Shanti questions while looking shyly at her and giggling. “She wants to know how many children you have,” Shanti translated in her delightfully melodic English. “I don’t have any children,” Enid replied. Shanti translated, and the women seemed disturbed, murmuring to each other. One of the women put her hand sympathetically on Enid’s knee, while speaking to Shanti. “She says maybe Mother can help you have children.” “I don’t want any children,” Enid asserted confidently, being the busy NYC artist that she was. Shanti hesitantly translated. Now the women were really shocked.  One of the other women said something that was greeted with a mixture of laughter and solemn clucking. “She says that if you come to live here you will have children very soon.” Enid smiled at them warmly but noncommittally, rolling her eyes for me.

Mother had apparently been in trance for a while. One after the other, the patients would be led into her chamber, to re-appear sometime later looking noticeably dazed and fluffed. “Kali represents Time, the destroyer of human ego and illusions, Shanti said. “An Indian poet described her as terrible and beautiful; terribly beautiful.”

About an hour later, the man who had been escorting everyone in and out of the chamber emerged to beckon us to enter. We had been rehearsing with Shanti the questions we wanted to ask, refining them for clarity and spiritual profoundness.

It was a small chamber, lit only by bits of paraffin scattered on the floor, all very eerie, with a palpable energy. On the right, an altar to Kali, with her many arms and many weapons, her bloody tongue and her necklace of heads, was overflowing with offerings from those who had been treated – cigars, bottles of beer, flowers, coconuts, rice, incense, spices. On the left sat Mother, cross-legged on a small raised platform finished with common bathroom tile, like some huge goddess, wearing only simple Indian-style clothing, including a turban.  She smiled magnanimously at us, her teeth glowing in the candle light.  Shanti gave a traditional bow and introduced us as friends from New York.  Enid tried out her Bahasa: “Selamat, Ibu.” Shanti explained that Mother only spoke Tamil, but that in any case we weren’t talking to Mother, we were talking to Kali. Mother indeed seemed to embody an enormous spirit.  She said something to Shanti and smiled at us. “Kali says she is very big in your city, that there is a large community who worships her.” Enid and I looked at each other. We had no idea if this was true. There was a bit of an awkward silence. I urged Shanti to ask the questions, but before she could begin to do so, Mother waved her off and said something as she pointed at me. “She says that she doesn’t need any questions, that she sees the problem. She says that you have been possessed by the evil eye, and that she must get it out.”

Needless to say, I was somewhat aghast. Mother started rattling off a list of instructions, including a shopping list for things she would need when we came back on Sunday, when she handled her serious cases. Shanti made sure she had written everything down correctly, then Mother dismissed us, and we got up, made little bows, and left.

1/4/92 Kuala Lumpur

The evil eye. Kain ayin hara, as my grandmother always used to say. No evil eye. I guess many traditions have it. Actually I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised. She was my protector, at least in the family. “Leave him alone,” she would say, “He’s a peculiar duck.”

I started traveling because it was easier to be a stranger in a strange land than a stranger in my own. My left eye had already begun to drift by the age of six, searching, I imagine, for a more hospitable universe. Now that my epiphany at Machu Picchu has resulted in its straightening out, it’s time to evict the evil eye, which I suspect has been living where mine should be.

I think Enid’s a little miffed that I’m getting all the attention. She doesn’t know if she’s possessed too, but she feels that the evil eye’s been keeping us from treating each other more lovingly. Perhaps that’s true. That’s what old wounds do.

If I’m going to be exorcised, it had better be now, when I’m halfway around the world.

1/6/92 Kuala Lumpur

Instead of a taxi, Shanti surprised us by turning up with Dawn and Din. We were relieved to see them, and they filled us in a little on the drama they were living out with his family. I’m glad I never had to deal with what they’re confronting. My family loves Enid, and even though we live in New York, they’re relieved that at least she’s Jewish. Dawn and Din, Romeo and Juliet, were going to Mother tonight for help.

So there the five of us were, packed into Din’s tiny car, the two guys in the front, the three ladies in the back, representing four of the world’s major religions, Enid and I for once being in the majority as Jews, laughing and commiserating about the messes that religion can precipitate, Shanti, our guide into the Hindu realm, periodically calling out, “air con, air con” for Din to ratchet it up, giddily on our way to Mother’s to have Kali sort out our lives.

We hadn’t originally been planning on staying until Sunday, having already booked a flight to Borneo, but there we were, at Mother’s front gate at about 7 p.m., with the things that she had instructed us to buy. Mother had not yet begun to go into trance – Shanti pointed out that it was in fact she who was moving around the courtyard, freshening the altars. She didn’t seem so huge at all. In fact she was quite petite.

After a half hour or so, various family members emerged from their living quarters and began their preparations: candles and camphor chips were lit and placed in doorways and on altars, the crude red and white mandala painted on the concrete floor was touched up with chalk. It was already dark, and only the flames illumined the altar figure, with its surrounding paraphernalia and offerings. Mother then disappeared inside her chamber and we heard nothing from her for about an hour.

A Tamil woman of around 30 was carried in by a man and a woman, and now lay on the ground on a couple of flat cushions, supported by the two of them. She had womb cancer, and apparently was in a lot of pain and unable to walk. Every now and then she would attempt to shift her position, wincing and groaning as her companions tried to calm her. There was not much talking this night.

Trying to keep their voices down in the still night air, their faces dancing in the flickering light, Dawn and Din discussed alternatives, along with their possible consequences. It’s too bad that his family is so insistent, because Dawn is a lovely and well-educated young woman, and it’s clear that each recognizes what is special in the other. Din has come tonight because she asked. Muslims have their own bomohs, with very different imagery and traditions, so Din’s being here would probably be considered a provocation by his family.

After a sporadic series of strangled growls and cries from inside Mother’s chamber, a man suddenly came out and made us all move back. Then a woman in costume came stomping out, giving warrior yells and brandishing an ornate dagger. She moved about in an exaggerated fashion, striding, stamping her feet, occasionally casting her eyes around menacingly at those who watched. She strode towards where we were all sitting and put her hand on the forehead of the woman with cancer, who began crying from the intensity. She stomped to the altar, handed her dagger to her assistant, and took a thick braided rope from about the neck of the deity, who apparently was the one she was channeling, and draped it over her own. He then handed her a large saber, which she lay behind her neck across her shoulders. Taking a cigar from the altar, the assistant placed it in her mouth, and then held out a match for her. She began puffing on it long and hard, as if sucking the essence of the deity into every cell of her being.

A small old woman approached her and began to make her supplication, kneeling, kissing her feet, entreating relentlessly. The costumed woman, now fully the Deity, took some ash from a plate held by her assistant, who was feeding the bits of fire with camphor chips, and with her thumb and forefinger she applied it to the old woman’s third eye. Each of us in turn went up to her to receive the same blessing, but the old woman kept up her pleading until the Deity got angry, and her assistant warned the woman to move aside for the rest of us. She finally stopped. When all had been blessed, the Deity gave a last fierce look around and went back into the chamber.

After another 20 minutes we heard a wailing growl come from inside. I believe Kali was now inhabiting Mother. The woman with womb cancer was lifted and taken in by two men. For at least an hour periodic shouts were heard. One man or another would come out looking for something – a container to hold some liquid, the red chicken that was sitting in a plastic bag, which was taken in squawking and was silent a moment later. Then finally the Deity woman came back out, brandishing the saber, followed by the woman with cancer, who was supported by the two men, her face exhausted and tear-stained, but actually on her feet.

Dawn and Din were then motioned to enter the chamber. The three of us settled back, ready for a long wait, but not five minutes later they emerged, looking shaken, distracted, anxious to follow the instructions they had been given. With barely a goodbye, they drove off in search of the required ingredients, leaving us there to watch them go. There went our ride.

Then it was our turn. We gathered up all the items we had bought earlier in the day, including the scruffy white chicken. The woman who sold it to us had first chosen one which had momentarily caught her eye, but then she looked at it and put it back, exchanging it for this scruffy one. Shanti said it was the chicken’s karma. On the drive over to Mother’s it was in a plastic bag at my feet, and I almost suffocated it without realizing as I tried to keep it still. Din caught me just in time. The chicken was heaving for breath and soaking wet.

Mother looked just as huge as the first time, the flickering camphor chips only adding to her impressiveness. She got right to work with no preliminaries. She motioned me to sit cross-legged on the cement floor and for Enid and Shanti to move to one side. A heavy chain was placed on the floor around me. Mother counted out fifteen limes and put them on the floor beside her. An assistant daubed all our foreheads with bright-yellow turmeric powder and ash, while another tended flaming chips of camphor placed on vermillion-dusted slices of lime spread out on the floor around me. Shanti was then asked to leave.

As Mother was about to begin, a man with a sword came stomping in and approached her. She touched his forehead, which made him emit a grunted shout, following which he stalked out eating a whole uncut lime, rind and all.

Mother drank from a young coconut which had been opened for her, then started to organize all that we had brought. She inspected the jar, opened it and put in a couple of inches of water, ash, turmeric and a nail. She ripped to size a square of cotton for the jar, and then another length of cotton which she used to tie the square over the jar’s mouth. Enid and I each spit on the cloth three times, after which Mother swirled the contents around, then upended it to create a moisture seal. She circled our heads with it, then set it inside a large square tin, over which she closed the lid, tying it down with string.

She then took the tayathes, small silver capsules with loops for hanging around the neck as amulets, and opened them up. For each she cut a small piece of copper foil, on which she inscribed something which included our names, added vermillion, turmeric, betel-nut leaves and jasmine buds, rolled it all up inside the capsules and sealed them. She stuffed each of these amulets inside a turmeric-sprinkled lime, and wrapped each in newspaper.

Shanti was called back in.

Mother stood up from her cross-legged position on the platform. She took some limes and circled each of our heads in turn, then put six limes in front of me and five in front of Enid. She quartered two limes and sprinkled vermillion on them, then wrapped each in newspaper with some betel leaves, giving one first to me and then to Enid. She spoke to Shanti. “She says you are to sleep with this lime every night under your pillow.”

Mother then sprinkled two more limes with vermillion and wrapped them loosely in newspaper. She spoke again to Shanti. “She says you are to take one of these limes and throw it in the river tonight, and the other you are to throw out your window where you stay.”

Mother spoke again. “She says each day for six days you are to bathe every part of your body with the juice of one lime, and you are to eat a whole lime every day also. For Tamils, limes embody all the essences of a human being.”

Mother held out the tayathes, which were inside the limes wrapped in newspaper. “She says that after tonight you are to remove the tayathes and hang them around your neck and always wear them.”

Mother then produced some pieces of red, white and black string, which she knotted together in a considered way. She tied one around my wrist, then one on Enid’s. She spoke again. “She says you are not to take these off until they fall off by themselves.”

Mother then began speaking at some length to Shanti, who at one point started to look a little sick.

We were to go to the river and throw in the lime and the tinned jar. Then Shanti was to cut the chicken’s throat, circle our heads with it three time, and I was to throw it into the river as well. Then I was to take the squash, smash it on the ground, and walk away, never to look back.

The assistant removed the chain from the floor. Shanti got up a little shakily, as did Enid and I. We made our little bows to Mother, but as we started to leave I asked Shanti if Mother, or Kali, could tell me when this evil eye had gotten inside of me? Shanti posed the question. “She says that when you were eighteen years old somebody very close to you departed from your life and left you vulnerable to the evil eye.”

Her assistant gave us the tin with the jar and the rest of the limes wrapped in newspaper. I left the money in an envelope at the foot of her platform, said thank you, which she shrugged off, and we were led out.

Once in the courtyard, the assistant got us organized, making sure we had the tin and the squash, as well as the chicken. Shanti said something to him, and he went inside for a moment, returning with a small, not very impressive knife, which he gave her. We all thanked him, looked around once more at the others who were now lined up to see Mother, and left.

We walked nervously to the river along a dark, unpaved street that took us to the main road near the bridge. We were pretty shaken up. At the bridge we began doing as we were instructed, throwing first the tinned jar into the water, then the lime.

Now came the chicken. Shanti had never killed anything, nor had either of us. We had no idea how to go about it. Following Shanti’s directions, I held the poor bird on its front on the pavement, as she tried to saw through the back of its neck with the useless knife she had been given. It wasn’t working. I finally turned the madly fluttering chicken on its back, and after some rough sawing, Shanti managed to cut its throat, drawing some blood. She picked it up and circled it about our heads three times, the chicken making a last squawk, as it clearly wasn’t yet dead. She handed it back to me, and I threw it into the river. I worried that it would still be alive when it hit the water, but if so it probably, hopefully, drowned quickly. Karma. I picked up the squash and threw it on the ground, shattering it. We all started to stride away, making sure not to look back. After a few steps we broke into a run.

Miraculously, we found a taxi, dropped Shanti off at her home, then rode back to the Coliseum, the driver seeming to take a longer way than necessary. Once in our room, we hurriedly completed the rituals, got into bed and turned out the light.

Whew.

I don’t know how long we were in with her. Enid thinks a half hour, but it seemed a lot longer.

1/9/92 Kuching

Borneo. Finally. The Malaysian part, Sarawak. Its capital, Kuching, which means Cat. They love their cats here – everything in every shop has a cat on it. If we thought KL was steamy, this place takes it to a new level. Just a few minutes after we got situated in our dingy, extremely tiny, but thankfully air-conditioned, room, it started to rain. I’ve never seen a rain like this before, like all the taps were open, hard, pressurized, beyond cleansing, like it could strip off paint.

Just talked to my parents for the first time in weeks and told them about kain ayin hara. My father informed me that Mamama died on January 5th, 1968, the very day of my exorcism, twenty-five years ago. When I was nineteen. Mother was off by a year. I prefer to think that maybe Shanti got it wrong.

With Mamama no longer there to protect me, the rest of my poor defenses were overrun. My left eye continued to look for a way out by turning in, leaving me with only one eye in this world, at the mercy of those who exploited such things. I no longer trusted my own eyes, and I couldn’t figure out why the world made no sense when I tried to see it through theirs.

It was at Machu Picchu, when I was far away from those eyes, that I had my epiphany: I suddenly became aware that my left eye had been tracking our daily journey on a vastly different time scale from my right, in the context of 600 years of Incan civilization. In that instant everything snapped into focus, the two worlds aligned, and my left eye straightened out. I still struggle to break the habits of my old ways of seeing, though. That’s the evil eye I hope Mother has cast out.

I’m being faithful to my daily tasks, making sure that the juice of the lime touches every square inch of my body, eating another lime, rind and all. And I must say my meditation goes a lot better. I feel pretty good. Mother said everything will change after the limes kick in. We’ll see.

I asked Enid if she’ll still love me without my evil eye. She said those limes better kick in soon.

I wonder what will happen to Dawn and Din. By the time we left KL yesterday, Shanti hadn’t heard anything. If he can’t resist his family and stays, she’ll probably have to leave and continue her search for a mission elsewhere. If they decide to run, well, they have our address. Hmm.