I can hear you now, cousin, chiding me for my old-fashioned attitudes. Things are different in America. You yourself married a white boy, without telling your own father—and when he found out, he didn’t even beat you for it. If my own daughter, my Kamala, had done such a thing, I would have considered myself within my rights to beat her to within an inch of her life. It would have been for her own good.
I know, I know what you will say. You don’t need to say it. I would never have been able to do it, even if I knew it to be the right course of action. I have always been helpless where my daughter was concerned. I have spoiled her terribly; she has grown willful. You warned me.
His wife says nothing from the doorway, only stares, scornful, as Velu slowly stands, pulls on his pants. The pants and shirt have lain in a suitcase for years; he has become accustomed to wearing only a sarong, has grown dark-skinned as a field-worker here. But today he will wear pants, and socks, and shoes, despite the parching heat. He buttons the pants, then sits down again, pulls on the socks. The shoes are more difficult—they have laces, and he has never needed to tie laces with one hand. She watches him fumble for endless minutes, then, with quick impatient steps, comes to kneel in front of him.
Velu leans back while his wife ties the laces on his shoes. He is surprised when, finished, she does not immediately get up. She leans her forehead against his knee instead, her face hidden in a darkness of falling hair. Velu tentatively rests one hand on her shoulder and finds it shaking. His wife, his proud, unloved wife is weeping. In eighteen years of marriage, Velu has never seen her cry. It is this that comes closest to breaking him, in the end.
Kili, may I finally tell you how I have sorrowed for your childless state? Your words, so terse, when you told me that you had lost another baby, that you did not think you would be able to bear a child…I went to church that very day and prayed for you. I have kept you in my prayers ever since, though perhaps God does not listen to those who are angry at Him.
I have been angry, I admit it. You have given me so much wise counsel over the years regarding my own children—you deserved to have children of your own. I could hear in your words, when you asked after my son and daughter, the hunger you held. I could hear the grief mixed in with joy, when you sent letters announcing the birth of your sisters’ children. It is a pleasure, I am certain, to be their favorite aunty, but it is not the same. To know that a child looks to you as their parent, that in your hands you hold all their hope and trust—that knowledge is a terror and a delight beyond anything I have ever known. I would that you had known it too, cousin.
If I had overridden my wife’s objections, and sent the children to you, to study in America, how things would be different now! My wife was jealous at the thought of you raising our daughter and son; she selfishly wanted to keep them close to her. I admit—I wanted that too. I couldn’t bear to let them go. And now see what has happened.
I cannot send this letter with that news. I am thinking it only, imagining that I am writing to my beloved cousin, the friend of my heart. In this way I may tell you all I never dared to write down. I may admit that I have loved you for years, your courage, your strength, though I know you do not love me. I may tell you that I do not blame you for not loving me, considering what a failure of a life I have lived.
I have not provided for my family; I have not managed to love my wife; I have not even protected my children. I am the most futile, ineffectual man I have ever known. Perhaps it is better not to have children than to fail them so. Perhaps you are the lucky one after all—though I am certain that if you had been in my place, you, even as a woman, would have done far better than I have done.
Velu stands, pulls his wife up into his arms, holding her close. She is stiff against him but does not pull away. They stand there for long moments, taking what comfort they can in each other. It is meager sustenance, but they have been starving for months. They have learned to live on crumbs.
His wife is angry with him, he knows. Velu is angry with her too. They both blame each other for what has happened, and he does not know, at this point, who has the truth of it. Perhaps it is both their faults, or neither’s. In some ways, it is easier, having someone safe to blame.
Others are not safe to blame. Others can destroy you in a single moment, at night, with loud knocking at your flimsy door.
Kili, my son has been taken. The army came and took him away on suspicion of being a Tiger. Can you imagine it? My gentle boy, always dreamy, always with his nose in a book. Can you imagine Pugal in the jungle, training as a guerrilla fighter? They wear suicide capsules on a cord around their necks, Prabhakaran’s fighters, so that if they are taken, they may die before giving any information. They are a most perfect young army—they are not allowed to drink, or smoke, or have sex, or marry. They are united in their cause, to fight for a separate Tamil country, a Tamil Eelam, as they call it, to fight against the injustices.
There have been injustices, many of them. There have been tortures of Tamils, and rapes, and deaths. I could tell you stories—not rumors, but incidents that have happened to people I know—stories that would drive you from your comfortable Chicago home to cry out into the night. Young Tamil men with burning tires around their neck. Young women and old, raped, ruined, killed, and raped again. Aged fathers forced to watch while their children are beaten, shot, thrown from high windows.
It has been months now since they took him to Colombo, to that fourth-floor room we have heard of, from which none return. I have heard him screaming, every night since then, in my dreams.
He was only sixteen years of age, my son. So beautiful, so bright. Pugal wanted to be a doctor, like you, his admired aunty. Kili, I would have sent him to you, oh soon, soon. I would have told my wife to be quiet, would have taken your money and bought him a ticket, smuggled him out to the capital, to the airport, somehow. You must believe—I would have sent my boy to you.
It would soon be dark—Velu needed to go now, before it got too dark, too late. Before he lost his nerve. He released his wife, and she stepped back. She followed him as he walked to the door, handed him a walking stick as he stepped out. Stood in the doorway, watching, as he walked down the path with strong steps, heading toward the road, then to the jungle.
In this, if nothing else, she would support him. Finally, they were united.
My wife has been a fervent supporter of the Tigers, as are many of our neighbors, our friends. If she were younger, I think my wife would have gone and joined the Tigers herself. Would have lived in the jungle, would have done whatever they allowed her to do—bandaged wounds, carried messages, even learned to use a rifle. She would, without compunction, have shot to kill. Perhaps my wife would have been happier with them.
But even she cannot be glad that our little girl, our Kamala, has ignored our every protest, has snuck off in the middle of the night and gone to join the Movement. Kamala is mad with grief for her brother. She is sure we will not see him again.
Now I must do what I can for my daughter. I must go to the fighters, must plead with Prabhakaran himself. She is only fifteen, our Kamala. She is only a girl, and underage, so perhaps he will let her go, will send her back to her grieving parents.
If he does, then I will do one thing right, at least. I will beg and borrow, threaten and cajole—whatever I must to find her a ticket, to put her on a plane and send her to you. If I can only succeed in getting her back, then I will write to you, my dear cousin, will beg you to take her in, as I know you will.
I will send my remaining child away, that I might not fail her too.
I will write you a letter.
The Vallipurams
A Gentle Man
Massachusetts, 1979
“Let no one cherish anything, inasmuch as the loss of what is beloved is hard. There are no fetters for him who knows neither pleasure nor pain. From affection arises sorrow; from affection arises fear. To him who is free from affection there is no sorrow. Whence fear?”
—Gautama
Buddha
SUNDAR WAKES UP HOURS BEFORE HIS FAMILY. THIS IS NORMAL, ALTHOUGH TODAY IS NOT NORMAL, TODAY IS A SPECIAL DAY. MOST days he makes tea, reads the paper, eats some toast without butter before going to work at his store. Sushila, his wife, never wakes until after nine. She likes to stay up late, talking on the phone with her friends. When the children were younger, he was the one who woke them, who ironed their Catholic school uniforms and put out milk and cereal. But now the children are able to wake themselves, and only Kuyila, his youngest, still sleeps at home.
It is Kuyila’s birthday today. Tonight all of their friends will gather to celebrate his youngest daughter’s seventeenth birthday. She has just finished high school and plans to start at the local community college in the fall. Not as smart as her older sister, no. His sweet Kuyila will never join Raji at Harvard. Just as well, considering what Raji is doing there, running around in public with white boys. It turns his stomach.
He drinks his tea, savoring the taste of cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, with shreds of ginger so fierce and strong. He’s tasted the tea in American stores—weak, sugary brews. Diluted, adulterated. Pathetic. His wife claims she likes it that way, but she still makes his strong, the way they drink it back home. She knows that his standards haven’t changed, that he still believes in doing things right. When she is with him, she drinks tea the way he does. But when she’s on her own—who knows?
Sushila is still asleep; she has stayed up late, cooking for the party, making curries that will taste better the second day. She has made beef curries and pork and chicken for their friends, who are all Catholic like her; vegetables for him, the lone Buddhist. He has sometimes been tempted by the smell of her meat curries, but the thought of actually eating meat turns his stomach. He has not had meat since he was twenty, back in 1946. Two years before they married; thirty-three years ago. He has held firm to his convictions. If he ate meat now, it would make him ill.
He can taste already her brinjal curry, savor the spicy coconut sambol and the pungent pickled limes. His mouth is almost burning, though the fire is wholly imagined, and he takes a long drink of tea to soothe it. He chokes on a piece of ginger and coughs for a few moments, his whole body shaking. Then it’s gone, swallowed down, and he is at rest again.
His wife is an excellent cook; none can deny that, at least, though he can guess what else they say about her. She won’t be awake until eleven at least. But there is a lot to do between now and then. He washes the cup, dries it, puts it away.
HE CALLS THE STORE; NO PROBLEMS. HIS ASSISTANT IS A SOLID MAN, his cousin’s friend, and reasonably trustworthy, although he wouldn’t give the man access to the store’s bank account. He knows that you can’t really trust anyone here, in America, not the way you could back home, in Ceylon. It’s just not the same; family and friendship don’t mean the same things here that they did back there. He has learned that the hard way. Still, the man works hard, and the store takes a lot of hard work.
The store has fed and clothed him and his family; in it he sells saris, lengths of shining fabric in silk and chiffon with bright gold threads. Sundar started the shop with money saved up from work in Colombo, the capital, back when they were newlyweds. He had saved enough to bring his wife and young children to America, enough to buy a partnership in a new sari store, one of the first in the country, and then worked hard enough to buy the store outright a few years later. He’s proud of the store, and it’s doing well, but who knows for how long? When they first arrived, it seemed that their white neighbors shared their values, knew the worth of hard work, the importance of family, of decency. He’d thought it a good place to raise children, a place of opportunities. But in recent years, America has changed, changed completely. Nothing here is as it was, nothing lasts. In this country, everything looks bright and beautiful and substantial, but it is so often a sham, with nothing real supporting it. Not like back home.
Time to start cleaning. Sushila does the light cleaning—she looks lovely wandering around the house in a simple green sari, feather duster in her hand. But ask her to scrub the bathroom tiles, or even move the furniture to vacuum behind it…But he brought her here, after all, against everyone’s advice. The first man in his village to go so far from home. It was his vision—America, land of opportunity, a shining bright future for his family. How could he have known that in America, you had to be fabulously rich to afford even a single servant? They are not fabulously rich, and his wife prefers not to think about the dirt that gathers in the corners, under the carpet.
He does not force it on her, though sometimes he is exhausted, coming home from the store only to find the house is so filthy that he cannot stand it. Sometimes he stays up late for nights on end, sweeping and scrubbing and mopping, while she talks on the telephone to her friends. She has so many friends, and they have so much to talk about. Sometimes he wants to take her face and push it down in the bucket of scummy water, just for a moment, just so she knows what she is forcing him to do—but he would never do that. He doesn’t even raise his voice when he asks her what she has been doing all day long; he is not that sort of man. The Buddha counsels calm in the face of the vexatious, restraint when in the presence of troublesome souls. He tries to follow the teaching.
AN HOUR LATER, SUNDAR IS STILL CLEANING, BUT KUYILA HAS woken up. She comes down the stairs in her purple pajamas with sleep still crusted in her eyes, hair falling tangled down her back. How many times her mother has told her to brush it with oil and braid it before sleep? She always forgets, like a child. His little one, his delicate angel. She looks just like her mother did when he married her; much the same age as well. So lovely. They sent her to a Catholic girls’ high school; both of them had agreed that it was best, after what had happened with Raji. But soon the boys will be swarming around her; even tonight, at the party, the sons of their friends will be drawn to her. His sweet innocent; if he could only keep her a child, safe, forever.
She wraps her arms around his neck as he bends over the bathroom sink, scrubbing at a stubborn stain. “Good morning, Appa.” Oh, good morning, my daughter. Happy birthday. I hope you have a very happy birthday today…
Then she’s off to eat cereal before starting to help with the cleaning. Dutiful child, not like her sister, who had always found some excuse to be out of the house when there was work to be done. Even today—where is she? Has Raji come home to help? No. She’ll take the late train from Boston, waltz in the door at four o’clock when the guests have arrived and the work is done. And he’ll have to count himself lucky if she comes alone.
So far, Raji has at least kept her shameful behavior with her at college, not brought it home to their house. He’s not sure how much it matters, since she isn’t discreet enough to keep it a secret. Running around in broad daylight, holding hands and kissing. All of their friends know what she does at night, when her mother calls at eleven o’clock and she isn’t in her dorm room. One friend called them from Australia to tell them what she had heard—oh, how troubled she was, how concerned about their Raji. Sushila has pleaded with him to do something about it, has raged at him. But what can a father do? Raji has made her own choices. He will educate her, that is his duty; then she will be on her own.
THE HEAVY CLEANING IS DONE. NOW THERE IS JUST A LITTLE straightening left. Though soon Sushila will be up with an endless list of errands for him to run. He turns the sofa cushions in the family room, his fingers digging deep into the fabric, threatening to tear. She always has lists for him, and never mind what else he has planned; she never asks—that’s yet another of his jobs, after all. To run around after his wife. He deliberately relaxes his hands, breathes deeply, releases the cushions.
He pulls open the curtains to let sunlight into the fading room. Sundar straightens the photos on top of the TV; so many of them. His beautiful wife, laughing at party after party. She likes parties, where she is always surrounded by her female friends. He can imagine the others not in the picture, the ghosts surrounding her. He is standing behind
her, there to hold her up, catch her if she falls—the good husband.
There is Raji, so tall and straight and serious. His studious one, always busy alone in her room with her books and paper and paint. He had such hopes for her…all gone, now. And Kuyila, his angel girl, like a flower. Kuyila dancing, like her mother, a twirling burst of colored flame. After her Arangetrum, her graduation dance performance, she stood up on the stage so seriously, and thanked her teachers, her sister, her amma and appa most of all. You could see in her face her sweetness, her love for her family; it was clear from the light shining out of it. You can see it still.
There is a face missing from the photos as well, his son’s, Raksha’s—but the boy abandoned his family, and all the photos that contained him were thrown out long ago.
IT’S ALMOST TEN—TIME TO WRAP KUYILA’S PRESENTS. SUSHILA HAS chosen most of them. Pretty dresses, and one of them not to be wrapped, since Kuyila will wear it today. A white handbag. A dark green sari.
Sushila wore green the day after they were married. Sitting at the table with him, his mother, his sisters—he remembers how beautiful she looked in that green, how she smiled and blushed when one of his sisters teased her about the night before. His young bride.
He had been so nervous the night before. His friends had been full of coarse advice; he was the first of them to marry; they knew nothing. One of his aunties had pulled him aside—he can’t remember now which one it was. She whispered to him: “The girl’s more scared than you are.” Then she stuck a chicken roll in his hand and went away. The older relatives never remembered that he had given up eating the flesh of animals two years before, when he became a Buddhist. But it was good advice. It had calmed him down and let him be very patient and gentle with Sushila that night. She had been so vulnerable, so sweet and still as he unwrapped her crimson sari. Afterward, he had fallen asleep with her small hand held tightly in his own. When he woke, it was still there. Sundar aches even now, at the memory of it.
Bodies in Motion Page 13
