A Matter of Geography

by Jasmine D'Costa

  She spent well over two hours washing the nuns’ habits and other miscellaneous clothes they gave her, and finally, not wanting to stay late at the convent, she carried a large bag of clothes home to iron. Sister St. Claire stopped her at the door and counted the habits—much to Mrs. Alphonso’s disgust—reminded her that they would require them the next day, and then allowed her through.

  Who the hell would steal a habit? No one wears those bloody things but those witches! thought Glenda’s mother. They were supposed to be above such pettiness. I have never thieved or slacked, yet they continue to count and check me every time I leave. Trust is definitely not their strong point, these women of faith. No, she definitely did not have the perfect job… If not for Glenda, I would kill myself. This is a shit life.

  Mrs. Alphonso slowly made her way home. No mob would want to kill her. Mobs were on a rampage, and kindness was not their job. No they would never be kind enough to relieve this depressed, dowdy specimen of her life. It wasn’t necessary to. Catholics were not part of this madness. And so no one interested themselves in this almost invisible human being trudging down the road, a huge cross swinging around her neck.

  We watched Mrs. Alphonso come up the stairs, all of us waiting for her to return. Mr. Fernandes and Isabel discussed whom we could share the information with and whose help we needed. Mr. Fernandes went next door to Anthony Vaz’s home. Anthony Vaz looked at his wife. Her face stern, she said,

  “Sorry, Mr. Fernandes, I do not see how it is our business.”

  “Mrs. Vaz, what if the roles were reversed and they had to save us?”

  “Mr. Fernandes, that will never happen. We are Christians and we do not interfere with other communities. We mind our own business and we do not engage in anti-national and illegal activities.”

  “Mrs. Vaz, in other words, are you saying that Ali should be condemned to die because he is Muslim and some Muslim may have committed some offences? You say you are Christian, but where is your Christian charity?”

  “You are better advised to mind your own business. Besides, you are not my spiritual guardian and I will work with my Christian conscience without your help, thank you very much indeed.”

  Mr. Fernandes now looked scornfully at Anthony Vaz, who sat in the corner, cuddling the kitten that had replaced his hen. Anthony Vaz looked away. Mr. Fernandes walked out of the Vaz household very discouraged, but taking comfort from the thought that at least he had not told them what the plan was. He wondered why, after all these years, he had actually expected them to do anything outgoing. Optimism ran strong in the Fernandes vein, he concluded.

  Meanwhile, Isabel returned from a failed campaign with the Oliveras, who really didn’t see how they were involved in this at all. I mean, we are not even friendly with them. I mean, they are not even Catholics. I mean, our children too are not that friendly with Ali.

  Failure was beginning to get to Isabel. For one who very rarely failed, this second disappointment almost brought her to tears. She returned to the Fernandeses’ sniffing at her snuff several times in that short distance from the Olivera household. Mr. Fernandes, much used to the building’s apathy, found strength in recalling all those times others had not joined in and yet he had achieved his aims nonetheless.

  “Isabel, do not be disappointed. Not everyone sees this as their duty. Somehow Christ’s teachings are not practical for everyone. There is so much confusion—‘love thy neighbour as thyself’ and then there is ‘charity begins at home,’ but is that from the Bible?”

  “Mr.Fernandes, do you think we should go ahead on our own?” Ignoring his ruminations on the confusion of being Christian, she brought him back to the issue on hand.

  “Isabel, if you recall, we have made a good team in the past. Going from the cooperation we have received from our neighbours, I think it is a bit far-fetched to expect Glenda’s mother to lend us a nun’s habit, let alone expect her to stop to listen. We will have to consult the Marchons.”

  Both Isabel and Mr. Fernandes went to the Marchon household. Mrs. Fernandes, Susan, Ivan, Francis and I were not far behind. It was the first time in years that we’d entered the House of Sin; our parents were too seized with the problem to bother about such a matter at a time like this.

  At the entrance was an old non-working Bosch refrigerator with no door, being used as a clothes cupboard. There were no obvious signs of the sinning life, just a very crowded home. Shirlen, Miriam, Oswald, Bruno, Carlton, Colleen, Mili and Joe were all seated in their living room, now crowded out of space with Isabel, Mr.Fernandes, Ivan, Susan, Anna, Francis and me. We could not see any of the room beyond the faces around us.

  “Joe,” Isabel said, “we have special information that Ali and his mother are in great danger. Never mind how.” She raised her hand to preempt any curiosity for the source of such information. “We have decided to move them tomorrow into Ms. Ezekiel’s home—if she agrees—at night. We need to ensure that no one sees this happen. We also need someone to ferry their baggage and food over. Right now we have a problem with Mrs. Farooqui, very real, though it is silly. She refuses to take off the burqa. We don’t need to elaborate on how dangerous that can be. So we thought a nun’s habit would be better to make her less conspicuous. That could work, especially since very few people have seen her face completely.” She stopped for breath, took a pinch of snuff, and left it on the skin under her nose before resuming, “Francis came up with the idea of dressing her in a nun’s garb, the clever child, but we cannot find one.” This addition came only because Francis was tugging at her sleeve. “No use asking Glenda’s mother, no help there. Only God knows how we will execute this operation safely.”

  She stopped to take a breath once more, and at that very moment Sammy staggered into the room. Riots were no deterrent to the small home-brewed liquor joints scattered all over the city, and Sammy had guzzled up to his nose. This did not affect him seriously, except in his gait; his body was long used to the fluid.

  We turned on Sammy like he was an answer sent by God himself, all ten people in the room with the very same thought in their heads—or at least Isabel and the Fernandes family thought it was God’s answer, and the rest of us thought it was logical.

  Oswald and Bruno dragged Sammy to the mori. Bruno held his head forward and Oswald poured cold water on his head. Sammy, of habit, did not protest; he knew he was no match for his brothers. Instead, he giggled—what are you guys doing? hey, hey, it is cold man, stop it—and they stopped and sat him down. Mili, who had put a pot of coffee on the stove, set down the hot fluid in front of him.

  “Drink,” she said, briefly though not unkindly. He was her son, after all.

  Sammy, sitting down, smiled amiably at his neighbours, quite uncomplaining of the rough handling by his brothers. In a sense it was an acceptance of who he was and a lack of embarrassment at it.

  “I did not steal anything,” he said, denying any responsibility in a very sweeping way, to cover all missing items in our homes or his own home.

  “Ok, sure,” Mr.Fernandes said placatingly, “sure, but we want you to,” he added, nodding his head

  Sammy giggled, quite sure this was a joke. He kept giggling without saying anything. Oswald and Bruno stood him up once again and took him to the mori. “What are you doing now? I am sober, stop it, Oswald,” he protested, and stopped giggling.

  “Sammy,” said Mili, “we want you to steal a nun’s habit from Glenda’s mother.”

  “What?” He looked at the hopeful faces around him—this definitely was a joke.

  “Yes, we want you to steal it, since she will not part with it if we ask her,” Isabel explained.

  If Sammy hadn’t been used to not understanding most of the processes around him, being too drunk most of the time, he would have asked why. But he refrained. Whatever the reason, it seemed really important to all of us, for us to be looking so kindly at him. Of course, anytime—he was ready to steal it, but there were some important questions he had to set to rest first.


  “For how much? Who’s paying?

  “Ten bucks, and I will pay,” said Mr. Fernandes. No sooner had he offered to pay than he felt sorry. Sammy acquiesced so quickly that he felt he would have gotten away with five. But errors will cost money and so he agreed to put the ten rupees out.

  “It should be done today, and in utter secrecy. Do not go around trying to get more for it,” Oswald warned, knowing his brother, “or you will not only not get the ten rupees but you’ll have hell to pay.”

  Sammy sat in the passage waiting for Glenda’s mother, who was now labouring up the stairs, to return to her room. The Alphonsoes had two doors to their home, being the last room near the stairs that led down to the street on Nesbit Road. So Oswald went to the front door and Sammy went to the back. Sammy knocked on the door leading to the stairs and waited for Glenda’s mother to make her way from the front door off the verandah to the back.

  Glenda’s mother was not very athletic in her gait. She ambled slowly towards the door. Barely had she pulled down the inside bolts when there was an urgent knock on the door leading onto the verandah. She sauntered back without pushing up the latch on the door.

  Opening the front door, she encountered Oswald. Now she looked really annoyed. What did this man want? She had nothing to do with the Marchon family—why was he here?

  “Is Glenda at home, ma’am?” he asked, respectfully and politely.

  No inquiry could have been better designed to throw her into a fit. It is a burden to have a daughter to support without a husband, but a daughter who is a young woman is a challenge to any parent. Keeping them from getting pregnant is every mother’s concern. Oswald, young, handsome and eminently ineligible, sent blood rushing into her creased face and got her stuttering. “W-what, d-do y-you w-want with m-my ddd-aughter, y-you no-gggood w-waster? I-if you d-dare to l-look in h-her ddddir-rection I w-will h-hit y-ou w-with a brrroom.” As if to illustrate her point she went in and came out with a broom, giving Oswald just enough time to peek around the wall and see that Sammy was gone. When she came out, Oswald had also vanished.

  Satisfied with the results, Mrs. Alphonso closed the front door and went once again to answer the back door. Finding no one out there, she locked the door and went back to making dinner for Glenda, blissfully unaware that she was minus one nun’s habit.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  It seemed that the city had swallowed Dad. Involved in all kinds of cases as he was, the situation growing worse, as the 6th of January dawned we did not know his whereabouts. If one looked out of the window, which in our present confinement seemed the only thing to do, one noticed that nature continued, in its very insensitive fashion, to be what it was supposed to be, despite the unrest in the city. One almost felt angry with the sun, shining like all was well. But then if nature followed the city’s mood, we would never be able to predict the weather.

  The mood in the city fast deteriorated from fear to hatred that very bright day. Dad’s job in the Nagpada Police Station became never ending. Seven cases of death by stabbing had been reported, and none of the deaths were random—all seven were Hindus who had unfortunately found themselves on either secluded roads or by lanes, where they were stabbed after the attackers had confirmed their religious identity. We heard on the radio that there were 18 stabbings in the city, and casualties in the Hindu community exceeded those of the Muslim. Paranoia mounted.

  These deaths of strangers not even remotely connected to us, our neighbourhood, or our lives, unfortunately brought to our attention how time was running out...

  We hadn’t heard from Ms. Ezekiel yet; we were now doubtful that we ever would. Maybe, just maybe, she’d been playing a return prank on us. Anna and Francis, however, had not yet passed the age of faith. I’m sure, I’m sure, Anna said, and Francis, forever her echo, added, yes we are, yes we are. It was drawing near to dusk and they still hung on the verandah’s cast iron balustrade, hopeful.

  Closer to 9.00 p.m., the situation in Mahim, at the edge of Bombay, right beyond which the suburbs began, was reported to have gone out of hand. It was an area populated by a large concentration of Muslims. Muslim and Hindu mobs clashed violently, both in fear and in hatred. In various lanes and roads throughout the city, both sides, enraged largely by what they saw as lack of security protecting them from the other, decided to be proactive. In the confusion and rapid deterioration of civilization, it was hardly certain who or what or how. Who cast the first stone? Is that even relevant when people are killing each other? From a distance, it seemed like the question to ask. Who deserved to die depended on who cast the first stone. But we had missed the point. No one needed to die; no one should have; why were we fighting?

  Excited voices emanated from the first floor as Surve’s son stepped out of their room with a sword in his hand and stomped noisily down the stairs to the street in front. He paraded up and down, brandishing the sword high above his head. This was the first time I had seen a real sword, not one made of plastic and sold in toyshops. He strode with a gang of other young men who carried sticks and hockey sticks and whatever weapons they could muster, as if protecting the neighbourhood. It seemed like a war dance, or the martial art dance Chhau of Orissa, except lacking culture and grace. And while everyone at their windows held their breaths in expectant voyeurism, the moon—leading towards the full moon calculated to appear on the 8th January—as if joining in our occupation, shone brightly on a thin line of white paper moving frantically under Ms. Ezekiel’s door.

  Anna and Francis, still on vigil, froze. They looked around furtively. Anyone watching them would have been moved to investigate. But thankfully Surve’s son was now on the streets doing his dance; they ran down the stairs to the first floor. Anna whispered, ‘I am here, ma’am,’ as respectfully as she could, hands folded in prayer, hoping that it was not a trick. It is the hardest thing to hope that the person you’ve victimized will come through for you in your time of need. To be fair, Anna was not the transgressor; I take full responsibility. I cannot even blame Susan and Ivan, who only went along with all my pranks. I was the elder brother, friend, and mentor. Right then, I felt the pain of asking someone who I had taken such pleasure in penalising, to give up her privacy. One picks up lessons along the way, I suppose, I have reflected since, wanting to be forgiving of myself.

  Anna and Francis came straight to Isabel, and she ran with the paper to Mr. Fernandes. Hidden behind a cloud, the moon smiled.

  We sat looking at the paper, not knowing what to make of it. Once again it was brief. Don’t knock. Enter after 7 pm.

  We did not know whether to be excited or worried. What if we take the Farooquis down there and she does not open the door? Do we have a backup plan? All heads turned towards Mr. Fernandes, who in turn looked at his wife.

  “Nathie, darling, you know if we were in the same position we would go to anyone who would help us. But what if those we seek help from refuse us? We have brought up children with precepts from the Bible. How many times have we repeated to them, ‘…do unto others as you would unto thyself.’ I would not be able to live with myself—and besides, how can our children keep the faith if we are lax on our own principles? I suggest that Ali stay with us, and his mother”—he turned—“Isabel, would you keep his mother?”

  Isabel looked at me and nodded. “Mr. Fernandes, you can fully rely on me. As it is, Mr. D’Souza will not be home with all this trouble in his precinct. So she can stay with me. She will be more comfortable at my home… not because your home is not comfortable,” she added kindly, always mindful not to make enemies over petty misunderstandings. “I mean, with fewer people around her, she will feel more comfortable. I am thinking of that disguise in black that they wear…”

  With plan B now in place, we set to working on making room for the Farooquis in our homes. Mother bustled back and forth from our home to the Fernandes household, making space in the closet and taking out the mattress from storage under the bed to air out. Mr. Fernandes asked his wife to decide what Ali would
need to be comfortable. “Same as Ivan, dear,” she said and went about the cooking.

  We decided to make the move late at night, around ten the next day. First Ms. Ezekiel’s door would be tried at about eight to ensure that it could be opened. We planned to work surreptitiously with the transfer later.

  That night we slept fitfully.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Nature, ever detached from our worldly turmoil, ever separated, almost indifferent, made the day seem like any other. The sun rose a little off the coconut tree behind the B.I.T chawl, spending a good one hour sitting on the terrace of building no 3, and then finally disappearing in one blurred splash of brightness in a clear blue sky. Thank God for that. Would we want darkness to engulf us for the time our hearts were down? Or the birds…should they join in our madness? The crows continued their morning routine. Sitting on our windowsills, they cawed, sometimes facing into the room and sometimes into the far distance, but at all times following the routine they had set for us. They did not reflect our fear, or our disgust at what we had done to our city. The mild stench of garbage went unnoticed, our minds on the task of the day.

  The situation on the 6th and 7th of January in the area around Nagpada, Belasis Road, and Clair Road was so tense that we knew that our plans would have to be executed without dad’s help. The Marchon boys, mainly Bruno and Oswald (we kept Sammy’s role to the minimum, right man for the right job and all that) would take Ali’s baggage and transfer it to Ms. Ezekiel’s room. Then the two of them, Ali and his mother, would walk down separately when signalled and enter the Ezekiel room without knocking. We would be on watch and ready to distract any attention from them; our main concern being Mr. Surve’s son, who seemed to be the only one who kept moving in and out. Knowing that he was part of the vigilante Hindu group that was patrolling the streets quite boldly now made our task even more precarious. But expedience was demanded by the daily statistics that streamed in to Dad’s police station. For the past two days the number of Hindus killed had overtaken that of the Muslims. Neighbours had ceased to exist; all that remained in their stead were neighbourhoods of religious divisions. Fifteen million people rubbing against each other in single separateness—everyone a potential threat. We felt safer with our crosses conspicuously around our necks, but our neighbours, the Farooqui family and the Surve family, were both under threat.