Ganesh

by Malcolm Bosse

And he said, “Work hard, Jeffrey. Not for any reason but the work being given to you. Do the work with detachment — do it because it is your work, and for no other reason. Remember I said this.”

  And one night, smiling, he said, “Isn’t tomorrow Divali?”

  It was Divali, India’s major festival, celebrating the triumph of good over evil. “I guess it is,” Jeffrey said.

  “You guess it is? Where are you going to celebrate it?”

  “Nowhere.”

  “Hasn’t anyone asked you to his house?”

  “Well, Rama —”

  “Then go.”

  “No, I will not, Dad.”

  “Don’t you want to go?”

  Jeffrey shook his head, although the truth was he hated to miss Divali. It was a celebration that he and his schoolmates looked forward to for months.

  “Jeffrey, go.”

  “I would rather stay here.”

  “Go to Rama’s house. Go on. Divali is a wonderful time. Enjoy it. Go to Rama.”

  And so at sunset the next day, having fluffed his father’s pillow and straightened the bed sheet, Jeffrey prepared to leave for the celebration. He promised to stay only an hour and again insisted that he didn’t really want to go, although his heart was beating fast at the sound of fireworks popping off in the distance.

  For a moment he held his father’s hand, then rushed into the gathering dusk. He passed through the center of the village, where festivities, started days ago, were reaching their climax this night. There was a low cloud of acrid smoke in the furious streets. Every shop was strung with colored lights — his father had once said it looked like Christmas in America. A young man was setting off a string of firecrackers that jerked and danced around the feet of squealing girls. Farmers were arriving from outlying districts to see the display and drink strong toddy; their bike horns made a constant tinkling sound along the main road. Vendors, smoking cigars, were selling peacock feathers, sweetmeats, and bright silk saris. Jeffrey waved at some boys from school who were crowded near a tea shop, smirking and looking suspicious as doubtlessly they were getting ready to set off a fusillade of spinners and twisters.

  Leaving the main thoroughfare, Jeffrey headed down a small lane; the sudden quiet sobered him. Should he have left tonight? He had vowed never to leave, but then father had insisted that he go. There hadn’t been a single flare-up for days; this afternoon there had been a little color in father’s cheeks. Yet why had he left the house? Because it was terribly grim being cooped up so long — and because this was Divali!

  He went on down the lane, whistling a jaunty tune to fit the evening. Firecrackers went off behind a compound wall. Ahead he saw a swish of blue flame, a riot of reds and greens, as a rocket exploded above the palm trees. Then he turned into Rama’s compound. The house was large — three stories — with a garage too, for Rama’s father was one of only eight men in the village who owned automobiles. Rama and his four brothers were already in the yard, holding sparklers with which they lit off rockets, dazzlers, and spinners, creating a wall of sound and light beyond the vast flowerbeds. Rama rushed to meet him and thrust a lit sparkler into his hand. Soon they were both setting off a variety of fireworks, while servants brought out trays of sweet rice and raisin curd. Rama’s father, dressed in slacks and a polo shirt, officiated when the dangerous cherry bombs went off with ear-splitting explosions. Thereafter the whole neighborhood lit up with shooting rays of fire and wriggling trails of glitter. Rama’s great-grandmother sat on the long porch, mouthing her toothless gums, enjoying the color, the motion. Inside the house Rama’s mother and grandmother were in the kitchen, supervising the preparation of more food. Later there would be gifts and games, and visitors from throughout the village would come for a songfest.

  Holding a sparkler, Jeffrey glanced at Rama, who smiled back, and then at Rama’s father, who bent down to light a spinner. Rama’s father… Rama’s father… Father.

  Jeffrey felt a rush of cold air blow across his forehead. He dropped the sparkler, turned, and ran.

  “Where are you going?” Rama called at his back. “Ganesh!”

  But Jeffrey was rushing through the night shattered by detonations that sent thunder into the sky and great bursts of brilliant light.

  When he reached the broken gate of the compound, he breathed a sigh of relief, for all the way home he had imagined that the house had been set on fire by a wayward firecracker. There was only an electric light shining inside the tiny house — father was safe. For a moment Jeffrey almost turned and went back to Rama’s. At least he should look in on father, having come all this way, so he entered the house and saw, from the doorway, a man standing in his father’s bedroom.

  It was a temple priest with whom Father often talked about God.

  Dressed only in a dhoti, the man stood by the bed with his hands held together in the attitude of prayer. He was speaking. Was he talking to father? Or chanting?

  Slowly Jeffrey drew nearer and saw, to the right of the priest, the head of father, eyes closed.

  Jeffrey leapt forward.

  The priest, startled, turned and stepped aside, so that Jeffrey had a full view of his father. Eyes closed, lips compressed.

  “Some time ago,” the priest explained quietly, “the housekeeper found him, Ganesh. Then sent for me.”

  “Some time ago?” Jeffrey wondered how long he had been gone. He came to the bed and looked down. It was his father, only the face seemed pinched and smaller, the long, hawklike nose sharper, without any flesh at all. Jeffrey’s lips trembled.

  “This was in his hand.” The priest gave a lined sheet of yellow paper to Jeffrey. “He must have been writing when it happened.”

  Jeffrey read: “A holy man once said, ‘I am supposed to be dying. But how can I die? I am here!’”

  Jeffrey looked at the priest.

  “It is very auspicious,” the priest said.

  Jeffrey clutched the sheet of paper and reread it; the scrawled words swam in front of his eyes. Glancing up, he was astonished to see the parchmentlike gray skin of his father’s face. It was and was not his father. It wasn’t fair for him to look like that — so gray, so distant, so unreal. The priest was talking quietly, as if of the weather: Mr. Moore, being who he was, would be given the rites of a Brahman, with certain omissions, of course, since he had never been invested with the sacred thread of that caste. Just the same, Mr. Moore had lived a good life and had done good work and most importantly had traveled on many pilgrimages with the Swami, and at the time of his death had written down auspicious words, so tomorrow a modified Brahman funeral would be given him.

  Jeffrey slumped to the floor, rocking slowly. His father was gray, eyes closed, lips compressed. His father was dead.

  “I have sent for assistance from the temple,” said the priest. “They will help with everything. I have also informed the cremator. Ganesh?”

  Jeffrey looked up at the heavyset priest, whose head was shaved, aside from a topknot of long black hair. There were three ash marks across his forehead; he was a devotee of Shiva. What had the man said?

  “Ganesh,” said the priest. “The funeral. We will need money for it.”

  Listlessly the boy nodded.

  “Do you have the money now?”

  Jeffrey waved his hand vaguely and continued rocking.

  “Will you have it then tomorrow?”

  Jeffrey nodded.

  “In the morning?”

  He nodded.

  “Because people must be paid. There is firewood and ghee for the fire and flowers to be bought. First thing in the morning?”

  Jeffrey nodded.

  The room became still, not even a fly buzzing to break the silence, and Jeffrey thought the priest had left.

  Then behind him came the low, gentle voice. “Ganesh, go to your own room tonight. Do not stay here.”

  Jeffrey nodded, but without moving. He would stay in his father’s room tonight. “What time is it, sir?” he asked the priest, without looking u
p.

  The priest told him.

  So, Jeffrey thought grimly, he had left the house more than two hours ago. If he had returned on time, as promised, he might have seen his father alive. Could he ever forgive himself? Just for some fireworks, for sweets, excitement.

  Looking at the paper, which, in his grip, was now crumpled, he read the words again. The last word, “here,” was badly scrawled and the exclamation mark scooted off the page. Had Father written it when the attack came? What did the priest mean by “auspicious”? The word meant “favorable,” and in Hindu usage a promising outcome for the soul. Yes, but what soul! There was no soul. Swami and the others had not helped Father when he needed it. They did nothing, those men in search of God. All they had done was exhaust father on all those pilgrimages, leading him from temple to temple until his heart gave out.

  “I am supposed to be dying. But how can I die? I am here!”

  But Father was not here. Something lay on the bed, growing pinched and small, its color changing into the metallic hue of a rock.

  Jeffrey stretched out on the floor, staring at overhead cracks in the glare of a naked light bulb. “But how can I die?” Father had died; he was not here. But the priest had said “auspicious.” Maybe Father had not really died; maybe he was still here. But Jeffrey felt no presence save his own, his own that had betrayed the most important of trusts. He had given up the last precious moments with his father for a couple of firecrackers.

  *

  Before dawn he awoke, with the light still on and people moving about the room. The scent of flowers and sandalwood paste filled the air, along with the murmur of chanting voices; outside the open window the strident call of crows had begun, bringing, as usual, the first sound of morning into a village compound. Jeffrey got up and rubbed his eyes. He dared to look at his father, whose face was nearly hidden beneath lotus petals. Two old women had apparently dressed the body in a clean white dhoti and placed about the neck a garland of fresh flowers. The priest sat crosslegged in a corner, bent over a Sanskrit prayer book, mumbling rapidly.

  Jeffrey left the room, bathed, and changed into a dhoti himself. He knew how to handle the long piece of cloth, how to air the “wings” of a dhoti, which, untucked, reached to the ankles. Like any Indian, he knew how to fight the midday heat by pulling the cloth folds loose from the waist and spreading them to the breeze. Now, however, just at dawn, the air was almost cool. Jeffrey brushed his teeth with a stick in the yard and as usual went to the small chicken coop to see if the hen had laid any eggs. He did not let himself think; he simply moved through the early light, watching one foot go before the other. It was almost cool, his father was dead, there was a single egg in the hen house, his father was dead, the crows were now setting up a terrible racket in the peepul tree, his father was dead.

  He couldn’t stop himself from thinking, “I am here.” Where? Had Father meant hovering around the bedroom or wandering through the village or beyond into the land of India or into space, or had he meant being here in an abstract way, like a principle, a spirit or soul described in a book? Ideas caught in the flow of Jeffrey’s mind like a logjam. He tried to break them free, but they remained stuck, letting other impressions flow past, unable to break free themselves and go on. “I am here.” In the bedroom? On earth? In the cosmos? With God? Who was God or what was God — and did it really matter to Father, now that he lay wreathed in flowers with sandalwood paste rubbed into his gray skin, his hands unable to brush the flies away?

  All morning Jeffrey sat in the front room, while people came to pay their respects. When Rama came, he looked shy and guilty — doubtlessly recalling their mutual gaiety at the precise moment when a man died. The two boys went outside together and stood under the peepul tree in the gathering heat. They were silent awhile. Finally Rama said, “Ganesh, where will you go?”

  Jeffrey shrugged. “I can’t think of it now.”

  “I hope you stay here.”

  “That’s what I want to do.”

  Both boys looked at the ground, scuffing their sandals in the dust.

  “Father wanted me to leave,” Jeffrey said.

  “Yes, I suppose he would.”

  Jeffrey looked at his friend in surprise. “Why would he?”

  “If he wasn’t here with you, he’d want you to go home.”

  “But this is home.” Jeffrey tapped the earth with his foot. “Right here.”

  “That’s true. And yet —”

  “Don’t I belong here? Rama?”

  “Of course. As much as I do. I hope you always stay here, because you are my friend. Only —”

  “Only what?” Jeffrey persisted.

  “It will be different without your father.”

  “I always got along when he was away.”

  “But everyone knew he was coming back.”

  Jeffrey thought about that. “Rama, what are you really telling me?”

  “Well, some people will think you don’t belong in the village anymore.” Rama stared at the ground.

  “I have lived here five years.”

  “Yes, but these people have lived here for generations. And — you’re a foreigner.”

  “I’m an Indian!”

  Rama shook his head sadly. “Some people won’t see you that way. I can. I will. But they won’t. They’ll say you should go, now that your father no longer goes with Swamiji on pilgrimages. Thing is, people will treat you differently.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  Staring at the ground hard for a few moments, Rama then reached out and gripped his friend’s arm. “You are closer to me than my own brothers. I will never forget you.” With that he walked away, head down, feet dragging, his hands thrust deep into his pockets.

  Then the priest called Jeffrey aside. “It is very hot today, Ganesh. I have talked to Subish. You know Subish?”

  Jeffrey nodded. Subish was a tea-shop owner who doubled as the village cremator.

  “Subish says we should do it this evening.”

  “So soon?” The idea of having the funeral this very day was overwhelming to Jeffrey. “Why not wait at least until tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow will be uncomfortable.” Jeffrey understood “uncomfortable.” The priest meant that in this heat the body would begin to smell. The idea sickened him: his father stinking.

  Earlier this morning, after eating a rice cake for breakfast, Jeffrey had taken the instructions from the table drawer. They had led him to a strongbox buried near the hen house; he had opened it with a key taped to the instructions. He had never known Father to be so thorough and detailed about practical matters. From a large cache of rupee notes inside the box, Jeffrey had taken enough to pay the priest and others. Then he had closed the box again and — following instructions — had locked it with a small chain to an iron ring, which had been used long ago to tie a bull next to the hen house. Then he had piled some leaves over the box and left it.

  Now that the priest and his assistants had their pay, they were in a hurry to finish the task.

  “Then this evening,” Jeffrey agreed listlessly.

  With a sigh the priest hurried to make sure that preparations, already under way, proceeded quickly. Returning to the front room in sweltering heat (there was no fan), Jeffrey received more people from the village. They entered silently, holding their hands in prayer, often prostrating themselves before the bed of his father.

  Rama is wrong, he thought. These people will not let me down.

  *

  In late afternoon with shadows inching up the gray sides of the tiny house, the stretcher arrived, carried by four strong young men. It had been decorated with flowers. Jeffrey clenched his fists, as they lifted his father’s body and placed it on the stretcher. A flutist and a drummer had been hired by the priest to furnish music for the funeral procession. They grinned at Jeffrey and their red-rimmed eyes suggested that they had already been drinking. Other men, gathering for the procession, were drinking from a bottle. It was arrack, a strong liquor
made of fermented palm juice. The arrack was colorless like water, but when they drank it, they gasped and wheezed.

  “Ganesh,” said the priest and thrust a lit oil lamp into his hands. “I brought the flame from the temple.”

  “Thank you,” Jeffrey said gratefully. He himself must light the funeral pyre; it would not do to use any flame but a sacred one. The priest had been thoughtful to bring this fire from the temple.

  The procession of a score of men, with the pallet in their midst, set out to the lively beat of the drummer. The priest led the way, with Jeffrey just behind him, carrying the lamp, which actually was a deep brass dish of oil with a wick floating in it. As they moved into the lane, people came to their compound gates and silently watched. A few small boys joined in, racing alongside the pallet, studying the drummer, whose two-headed drum hung from a strap around his neck. Some of the men, passing the bottle, began a shuffling little dance in the dusty road. They snapped their fingers and preened like fighting cocks with wings flared; they circled one another, their faces rapt in solemn concentration upon the movement. Then the flute began accompanying the drum; it was a long flute of bamboo, and the player ran the scales effortlessly in a carefree rhythm, its sound thin and reedy. More people lined the road, some of them joining the procession, passing bottles of arrack. Some threw flowers in the path of the mourners.

  Jeffrey looked straight ahead, walking carefully in order to keep the oil from spilling. This was his job, to carry the flame. He must concentrate on doing it. He must think of nothing else. Yet the outer world impinged upon him: he saw curious or solemn faces in front of doorways and heard behind him the rhythm of flute and drum, and he knew, even without looking, that some of the men were dancing, for like the small boys accompanying him, he too had followed such processions.

  The procession snaked through the main market, drawing glances from merchants, from men drinking tea in dark stalls. Scooters revved up indifferently, radios screeched. More men joined the dancers until a full dozen were leaping and kicking in front of the borne stretcher. Jeffrey tried to think only of the flame jetting from the deep brass dish, but in painful flashes he imagined what was behind, not ten steps away: his garlanded father on a pallet, being drawn through the casual village streets toward incineration.