Something Barely Remembered. Susan Visvanathan
his voice distantly from the coconut groves. I looked towards the river, as I departed with my maternal uncle. It was a cloudy day, the river looked black and the sugar-cane shivered against the water. The house too closed itself to me, the wooden latticework dropping from the roof like thin creepers were inward looking; the old Persian Cross reflected candlelight bleakly from the door – it was a carving of the cross through which I as a child loved to put my fingers, till one day they got stuck and Mother beat me, while Behnan laughed and stood on his head with delight. The shadows of the mango tree had fallen on the wall, the light was both golden and dull, a storm was on its way.
My mother’s brother held my hand, and accompanied me to Malpan’s house. This uncle was a tall man, and I found it difficult to walk, chained by his affection. Yet in him I saw both tenderness and authority and I loved him.
‘Eat well. Andreyos forgets sometimes when he is at his books.’
‘Will you come to see me often?’
‘Lukose, you know my work does not allow me much time. I will come after Lent.’
‘Will you bring me mangoes from your field?’
‘Is that all you want?’
‘Bring me a cat too, and mulberries.’
When we reached the Malpan’s house it was locked. I looked in through the barred window – the room was dark, musty, there was a table with a clean white cloth on it. After calling ‘Andreyos Accha!’ several times, my mother’s brother Mathappi went to the cottage near the gate. A woman came out, and looked at us for a minute before she went in again. While we waited, a man with a grizzled head and a thin bent body emerged.
‘Who is it?’
‘I have come with Lukose Achen’s grandson.’
‘So this is Andreyos Achen’s brother’s son. How he has grown! Well, Achen is not here. You know me – I look after the graves. You can sit in the church if you like, it is open. Andreyos Achen has gone to a marriage in the next village. He will be back before night.’
Mathappi Achen, as I called him, held my hand and the small bundle of clothes my mother had given me, and we went into the church. The church had been built by my grandfather in 1880; the date was written under the cross above the door. It said 1055. The light had changed again. We sat in the back, on a reed mat, having left our shoes outside. I looked at the altar where I would learn to serve, and felt a deep sense of dread. What mysteries were hidden here? I felt that I would die. The Malpan was a stranger to me – an ascetic, learned old man, saintly almost.
As Mathappi Achen and I sat there the setting sun entered through the western door. The light was everywhere. I could see nothing for the white light. I tried to rise but I was helpless. I prostrated myself forty times, till my knuckles were dark with dust. I knew at the end of it that the lamp hanging from the rafters was lit and that I would one day celebrate the sacrifice, here, in this small lime-washed church.
Mathappi Achen looked at me after my prayers were over and said, ‘I have a long journey over the water. My boatman will be impatient. Stay here – you are safe. Andreyos Achen knows you are to join him. I will go now.’
He kissed my brow, and held me by my shoulders. I said nothing.
When Andreyos Achen came back he looked tired and frail. He saw me watching the shadows thrown by the swinging, flickering lamp, touched my shoulder to guide me, saying nothing. I think he too felt that the priestly line would continue, it was necessary at least for Grandfather’s sake, but his face was stern, a sense of horror at the closeness he would have to enter into with a young boy.
He showed me to my room in silence. It was very small, having but one window and a narrow bed.
‘We will speak tomorrow.’
‘I am happy to be with you, Father.’
‘We will see. Have you brought your prayer books?’
‘I know them by heart.’
‘I will hear tomorrow.’
My bed was hard and narrow, but I fell asleep. I woke to the chiming of bells. It was barely dawn. I ran to the river and washed, listening to the birds as they called. When I went inside the small dark house of my uncle the priest, I found there was no food. I longed for the bitter black coffee, tinged with the flavour of wood smoke that my mother made for us. For a moment I thought, ‘The old priest hasn’t spoken to me, I can still go back.’ I saw the little bridge over the Pamba that separated the two hamlets, saw myself running over it, never to return to the church built in 1055 of the Malayalam era. I would marry, Father would build a house for me, I would walk in the rice fields and the slopes of tapioca and pepper that were mine.
Then I smelt the frankincense. It was bitter and fragrant and came to me from the windows of the church. I heard the priest call out ‘Kyrie Eleison’, Lord have mercy, and I went to join him. He was dressed in robes of gold, his feet shod in red velvet shoes. The church was empty as I kissed the steps and the pillars of the altar. He blessed me with his handcross, and I became like him, a servant, eager to see God, hardly ever succeeding in my desire, yet every day crying out to the people so that by standing at attention they would understand his revelation. At the moment, neither church nor priest, nor the world even, had significance and that was the truth.
Leelamma had come with me to the station to meet Job. He was a short thin man, dark, with black large eyes. I recognised him at once from the photographs he had sent me. He dropped his suitcases and with no sign of diffidence he held my hands and said, ‘It’s you. At last.’ I was faintly embarrassed, and tried to pull out of his entrance. Suppressing laughter, Leelamma turned away.
Job was Father’s brother. He had been studying architecture in Italy as a young man, when he had met Marcella and married her. Grandfather and Grandmother were upset; there followed the usual tirades and threats of disinheritance, but Job would neither return nor leave the ‘Englishkarti’ as his mother called Marcella. There were no children, another reason for Grandmother’s continuous diatribes.
I was born to Father and Mother when they were very young. Mother had been sixteen and Father barely twenty years old. She was a lovely woman, my mother. I still remember her the day before she died. I was seven years old. Her name was Rahael. We used to live in a large old house. There were wooden walls and ceilings, courtyards, old trees and older furniture. Grandfather, whom we called Appacha, spent most of his time poring over palm-leaf manuscripts with hieroglyphics which he said explained our family genealogy for eighteen generations. His friend Thoma used to laugh at him – ‘Why do you need a genealogy? Can’t you see your nose?’
Mother tied her hair in a knot and always went barefoot. Her feet were long and once I walked into the room where Father kept his account books. She was sitting on his chair. I couldn’t believe it. I was shocked. I had never seen them together alone, Grandmother was always with them. The idea that they slept side by side would have stunned me at that age. I always slept close to Mother. Father slept alone. I had never before seen them together like this. I stared at them, feeling waves of anger and jealousy. They laughed and called out to me, but I ran away to the river. I sat on the steps and I cried till Yohan, my father’s elder brother’s son, found me and took me to my grandmother. ‘Why are you crying?’ she asked, holding me against her soft large bosom, where I could see the speck of gold which was her marriage locket.
‘Father and Mother are alone together without me.’ Grandmother laughed and said, ‘I will just call your mother. She has to grate coconuts for dinner.’
The next day my parents went for a wedding in the next village. It was called Mannar, and I’d always loved going there. The school had a heavy bronze bell, and the steps to the church were whitewashed. The river was green, covered with lilac water-hyacinths, and the boats had to fight their way through the root tresses of these water weeds. There was a storm that evening, and my parents never returned. I never saw them again, though