by Cyrus Mistry
The scene I seem to recall having witnessed myself, but which I could not possibly have, was one in which standing outside the imposing wrought iron gate under the sun, my aunt absent-mindedly held with both hands, or leaned against, the gate’s ornamental fluted columns. Just then, Father came out himself with the money, and was incensed by what he saw:
‘Don’t touch! Keep away! Don’t press against the gate!’ he yelled at her from across the prayer hall. ‘What are you trying to do, girl? Have me reconsecrate my whole fire temple?!’
Even before she left from there, he instructed one of the temple boys to start washing the entire gate thoroughly with soap and warm water. Her humiliation must have been so great she never came back for her dole again. As it happened, the day after her last visit to the temple, a silver karasyo, that is, a ceremonial pitcher, was found to be missing. Anyone could have stolen it, I suppose, but my father chose to believe it was Rudabeh who was guilty of the theft, which was his explanation of why she never returned for her next handout, the following month, or thereafter.
How much of all that I imagined I remembered was factual, how much compounded by my own overwrought fancy I can’t really tell. But no sooner had I surrendered some of the less painful shards to approximately fit the vacant spaces of the puzzle, Sepideh herself began sifting through the grist of her melancholia trying to make further sense of it.
‘From earliest childhood, I seem to remember that Mother was often missing. She would put me to bed, and go out. If I woke up after she had left, Temoo was always there for me, to soothe me back to sleep with a feeding bottle, a warbling or a petting. But often, I would obstinately refuse to go back to sleep, and continue crying for my Mama; then, agitated, weary and tormented, Temoo would start muttering about his truant wife, would take me in his arms and walk me up and down the room, rocking me, calling her names under his breath which I didn’t quite understand but caught the emotional drift of. . .I felt very close to my dad at those times, even believed in his harassed love for me. Didn’t know then, that my mother was out with strangers at his behest and with his approval, doing what she was doing to earn some extra money—which meant, I suppose, money for all of us.
‘When I was old enough to walk about, stay up until later, sometimes I would see them myself: strange men I had never seen before come to pick her up in fancy cars. Only that last night I went to sleep rather early. She had kissed me and tucked me in; I didn’t even know she was planning to go out. The next morning she wasn’t there; when it was evening, and she wasn’t back yet, Temoo grew worried.’
‘He didn’t see the man who picked her up that evening?’
‘He couldn’t give the police a description, nor a name or address. This time, it seems, Temoo told me later, the client had only sent his car and chauffeur. We never saw her alive again. Thirty hours later, the police found her body, dumped on the rocks off Land’s End. Years later, I found out from Merwaan, whose childhood friend and neighbour had grown up to become an inspector in the police force. . .’
‘Merwaan?’
‘A khandhia, who died himself soon after. . . Somehow, he had kept in touch with this friend. . . Merwaan wasn’t even all that old when he died. Just past fifty. . .’
‘What?’
‘The post-mortem report showed my mother had been tortured, then strangled. There were cigarette burn marks on her body. Maybe some sexual abuse, too, I’m not sure. Her last client was some kind of pervert it would seem. . .I can talk about it now without breaking down. . .because it’s you I’m talking to. I know you care. . . It must have been horrible for her. . .horrible. . .’
‘He was never caught?’
‘No, never,’ she shook her head.
‘Poor Rudabeh,’ I said, in a whisper. ‘I’m so sorry. . .’
‘Temoo believes that everyone’s death is preordained. . .the time, the place, the kind of death we have. . . So there’s nothing we could have done to help her, that’s what he’s always said, perhaps to console me. And himself. Though at other times, he’s also raged against Framroze—held him responsible. . .’
‘My father?’
‘For never sharing Rustomji’s bequest, small as it may have been, with my mother. If we had a little more money, such escapades as she periodically undertook might have become unnecessary. . . Wait, let me show you my mother. . .the only photo I have of her.’
It was a fine portrait whose backdrop and lighting suggested it had been photographed in a studio; though the print had faded considerably with time. She was a handsome woman, with strong, broad shoulders, and an impressive bosom, wearing pendant earrings, and three long chains of beads, or semi-precious stones. The smile that flickered on her lips was faint, so removed as though it came from very far away, and wasn’t worn to please anyone. Her eyes showed great depth—or was it simply great isolation? She was clearly a very private person, and it was impossible to read any identifiable feelings into that half-smile, or those expressionless eyes. Sepideh took the photograph back from me, and folded it into the soft cloth she had unwrapped it from, before carefully putting it away. Another time, Seppy said to me, while speaking of her mother:
‘Oh, she had a wonderful sense of humour, a great fighting spirit. . .’
Wiping her eyes which had begun to glisten with the precipitate of anguished memories, she continued:
‘When I was really little, she would spoil me completely with her coddling. . .she couldn’t bear to see the slightest shadow of glumness or dispiritedness in my face. Immediately, if she thought she had sighted it, she’d do her best to cheer me up— by clowning, or saying something silly, or even performing a comical little jig just for my amusement. She would have me in splits of laughter in no time, till the tears started rolling down my cheeks. . . Only after she was dead, I often wondered if her desperation to keep me distracted and “happy” at all costs didn’t have something to do with a deep suffering of her own—or the memory of a suffering—something which she had never let any of us catch a glimpse of. . .’
Poor Seppy, she suffered, too. Until the end, there were days when she seemed completely overwhelmed by gloom. She told me she had never been able to quite rid herself of that feeling of guilt that kept coming back to haunt her—that she had been, in some way, responsible for her mother’s suffering and extinction. How strange then, that our own daughter Farida should have lost her mother when she was almost exactly the same age as Seppy had been when Rudabeh met her unhappy end: three years old.
Now older, Farida didn’t like being carried about in mine, or anyone else’s, arms. For me, there was nothing more pleasurable than to lift her lightweight, elfin body, and squeeze it tenderly against mine, as we strolled through the bamboo grove, or pear orchard, in the fading evening light.
This was the only free time I found to spend with her, after my work was done, and she had put away her schoolbooks. I liked to take her out, away from Temoorus’s obstinate fussing. But already, she had discovered she didn’t like being carried as much as she enjoyed walking beside me like a grown-up, conversing with me with the thoughtful circumspection of an adult. On one evening, that I can recall clearly, she seemed to be in low spirits. Her moodiness reminded me of her mother, Sepideh. For a while, she didn’t object to my carrying her; but, within minutes, she said rather firmly:
‘Put me down, Daddy.’
After only a short distance of walking hand in hand, her tiny palm smothered in my coarse and calloused one, a faint tremor informed her voice as she whispered the question that was, I realized, at the brooding swirl of her sadness:
‘Daddy, why did the snake bite my mummy?’
‘Well. . .’ I thought for a long time before answering. ‘Snakes don’t know right from wrong. . . Your mother must have stepped too close to that cobra, he must have been scared she would harm him. . .’
‘Mummy would never harm anyone. . .she loved animals.’
‘He didn’t know that. . . He was scared. . . And she didn’t
see him, until he bit her. . . Your mother loved all creatures. She would feed the squirrels with her own hand, and they were not scared to come up close and nibble. . .stray dogs, peacocks as well. . . That snake didn’t know all this, you see. . .’
‘But then. . .why. . .?’ She let her question trail off.
Farida was perhaps not able to state in words what she wanted me to clarify, but I sensed her meaning. Even had she found the words, I’m not sure I would have had the answer. It was a question that has troubled me for several years.
Throughout childhood and youth, I cultivated, as well as earned the reputation of being a good-natured simpleton. But despite willingly abiding in this rather low-brow realm, I remember harbouring always a secret yearning—even a quiet confidence, you might say—that there was, that there had to be, some overarching meaning to the universe.
I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling this, and don’t deserve any special credit for it. It’s probably something about the way our brains are wired that makes us humans crave this grand design—some of us, like my father, even believed they had grasped, and harnessed it—that there is some divine formula or secret equation, that connects every phenomenon of existence, every shimmering facet of life and death. Father believed this divine secret wasn’t accessible to everyone, that it required deep and great faith to comprehend. But I’ve noticed, elaborate systems of belief have been concocted and espoused over the centuries by man merely to buttress this sad need for meaning; indeed to make life’s transience bearable.
Perhaps the question Farida had been unable to verbalize was just this: if her mother loved animals so much, and cared for them, then why, in our little garden of paradise, did the reptile have to infect our happiness so conclusively, so irreversibly? Was there simply no justice or propriety in this universe?
It was much darker now, as we approached the denser, gloomier forest at the top of the hill.
We had already left behind the three Towers, and now circumvented the fourth, defunct one, overgrown with weed and thicket, much of whose masonry had crumbled. . . Just a few yards away was Seppy’s favourite hangout, the giant banyan, its aerial roots so overgrown and entangled, it was impossible to see any detail of it in the dark: it looked just a huge woolly, prickly mass.
I would have preferred to turn back, but Farida wouldn’t hear of it.
‘Just a little further, Daddy, please. . .’
‘No one ever comes here, dear, really we’d better be getting home now. . .’ Stubbornly, she kept walking, looking at her feet, as if she hadn’t heard me.
‘If you want to go any further, young lady, I’ll simply have to carry you.’
To my surprise, she readily agreed—the abundance of ferns and thistle would have begun to scratch and tickle her ankles— hugging me warmly, as I raised her to my arms.
The sounds of the twilit forest pressed about us, eerily. The trees towered over us, encircled with thick, winding creepers that looked in the dark like monstrous serpents skulking for prey. Through the canopies of the trees, occasionally, one could still see glimpses of the cloud-banked evening sky. The ground I was walking on was a carpet of decaying leaves, dead branches and occasional, rotting fruit. There were mango trees here and banana, berries, pepper and wild pineapple. . . Soon it would be completely dark. I began to smell the prospect of a drizzle. But my little one, like her mother before her, wanted to press on, probing unrelentingly into her own unbearable, incomprehensible loss.
‘Was it here that she got bitten?’
‘Somewhere in these thick woods, I imagine. . . Don’t know exactly. I wasn’t home when it happened, if you remember. . . you may not, of course, you were so—’
‘I do remember, Daddy, I do. Her leg was swollen, she was in great pain. When they carried her in, I started crying. . .’
Myself, I was pretty familiar with these unfrequented parts of the estate: secret places that glowed in the late evening and night with a natural phosphorescence engendered by the forest itself and its unique mix of vegetation and decay. Nobody ever visited these areas, in the course of things. In any case, they were out of bounds for all except the corpse bearers who had no reason to wander so far beyond the Towers. But I had walked here several times, late at night, aching for some contact with my lost partner. Beside myself with grief, I would talk to her aloud in these woods, weep, rage. . . Had she merged with the forest, the banyan tree, those hills in the distance or those dark clouds? I would plead with her for some intimation, some sign. . . but there was nothing; never.
It was here, in fact, born out of sheer frustration, that the realization came to me for the first time, dark and comfortless: how inhuman and cold Nature could be, how alien to man. I hugged Farida tightly and said to her, rather firmly, ‘We have to go back now. . .’
The way back to our quarters, downhill, was that much easier to cover. But it had begun to rain, quite heavily. Though we got back in practically no time, Farida and I were both pretty wet by the time we reached Temoo’s portico. He was standing in the doorway, framed by shadowy lamp-light from the room behind, looking worried and rather haggard.
‘Where did you go?’
His voice was quavering with fright, or perhaps it was anger.
‘Thank God you’re back. So worried I was. Don’t take my baby out roaming so late. . .’ Handing her a towel, he said, ‘Wipe your hair, first. . .I even climbed up to the kennels, thinking you might be there with Nancy and Tiger. . .’
Those names Farida had chosen herself, when she was only four, for a pair of dogs Buchia adopted after Moti died. Farida liked to think of them as her own pets, as Moti, and before her, Jehanbux, had been her mother’s.
When she had changed into something dry, Temoo took the towel from Farida’s hand, and asked, in a kind voice:
‘Bhookh lageech, dikra?’
Farida nodded dumbly.
‘Come. . .the food is hot.’
‘Ask her,’ I said in my defence at last, ‘she didn’t want to turn back even until just ten minutes ago.’
‘Never mind, never mind,’ said Temoo, more conciliatorily, as we took our places at his table. ‘Wash your hands first, baby. Come Phiroze. Some potato-gravy and bread.’
Whenever he felt up to it, which was pretty often, Temoo cooked a meal for my daughter and me.
‘What do I have to do the whole day?’ he would say, ‘Cooking helps me pass the time.’
But that cloying protectiveness he felt he owed my little one was the price I had to pay for such familial comforts.
Nevertheless, she was his granddaughter. And the sudden loss of Sepideh had been traumatic for him, too.
He was alone at home when she got bitten, and Seppy compounded his panic when she told him she believed it was a cobra that had stung her. He was frantic. In those days anti-venin serum was not available, even though I heard some months later that the Haffkine Institute at Parel had begun producing a very limited quantity. God knows if they had had any in stock at the time Seppy needed it. But in such emergencies, most people would resort to the services of witch doctors and shamans. To Temoo’s credit, during my absence, he actually went out and found one, who claimed to be able to cure even the most poisonous of snakebites. And if it was a cobra that bit Seppy, it is remarkable that his unusual methods succeeded in prolonging her life for up to ten hours.
When I came home at a half past three that afternoon, I was astonished to see a wild-looking faqeer, with thick matted hair, a long, dusty beard, and ugly, misshapen teeth, in Temoo’s front room. His mouth was red with betel juice, his eyes bloodshot. He was chanting some peculiarly tuneless refrain in a low voice, while moving his feet in a shuffling sort of step-dance he was performing around a small clay pot of milk that was placed on the floor. Around the pot of milk, in red chalk, some spells, symbols, had been inscribed in an unknown algebra. Some of my neighbours were gathered on the veranda, grimly unresponsive to my salutations; and of course, Temoo, inside, who burst into tears as soon as he
saw me. He could not bring himself to mouth anything articulate or comprehensible, but instead gestured to me to go on inside.
On Temoo’s cot lay my dear Sepideh. Her foot had turned purple, presumably on account of the ferocious coir-rope tourniquet fastened above her ankle, but also because of a blend of yellow, green and several other colourful powders which her wound had been liberally plastered with. As soon as I uttered her name, she opened her eyes and smiled at me.
‘Thank God you’re back. . .’ she whispered. I held her face tenderly between my hands. But I saw that her sense of relief at my homecoming was shadowed by a vast sadness in her eyes: a reluctant resignation to the fact that our great romance was perhaps drawing to a close. It was now my turn to dissolve into tears, and I had to bite my lower lip hard to keep from sobbing aloud.
‘Seppy, my darling, don’t worry, please. You will become completely well again, my love. Don’t you worry.’
But even to my own ears, my confidence sounded hollow and credulous. Perhaps I imagined it, but Seppy responded with a very slight movement of her head that disavowed my reassurances. As yet, the paralytic effect of the cobra venom had spread no further than her leg.
Temoo had now collected himself and began to explain to me what was going on. He said that the disreputable-looking faqeer in fact had a formidable reputation in these matters; that his incantations and dance steps were meant to placate the serpent deity, so that after it ceased to be angry with Seppy for stepping on it, the very same cobra would appear again at Seppy’s convalescent bed; and with a second bite draw out the venom from her body; following which, he or she would spew the poison into the bowl of milk, thus neutralizing its effects; then Seppy would definitely recover and return to normal health.
