by M G Vassanji
His “family” were John and Ginnie Morris of Runymede, New Jersey, and he’d called them collect, as instructed.
Mr. Morris, sounding ever so informal, almost jovial, said he had been waiting all day for Ramji’s call. He had been informed of his visitor and expected him to arrive in New York. Never mind. Would Ramji fly in to New York? No, Ramji would take a Greyhound bus — at about eleven next morning after meeting the foreign student adviser on campus.
“See you in New York, then. We’re all anxious to meet you.”
The lunar astronauts, even while making the giant leap for mankind, were at least in constant touch with planet Earth, to which they would eventually return. When would he return? Someday. Meanwhile here he was, plucked out from his old life and suspended … in this silence, in this darkness, in this alien air, with the alien smell of the pillow and feel of the mattress, the cold tiled touch of the floor below him when he dropped his hand and let his fingers run over it. Perhaps he was dreaming … or had died and, now a disembodied spirit, was looking down on himself as he lay on the lower bunk, eyes fixed at the sagging shape of longhaired radical Russell above him …
Back in another world the sun is rising, the street beginning to stir, the day’s impending heat a friendly suggestion in the warm air, the bright sky. The old woman in a loose frock, her face age-lined into a perpetual look of pain as if she’s swallowed bitter medicine, is up and about in her home, having returned from mosque. She is humming, perhaps her monkey song about the transience of the world. The servant will arrive, the rooms will be swept; morning tea is on the stove. Soon she’ll set off on some service or another — sweeping the mosque, preparing a corpse for last rites and the funeral, cooking for a festival. Outside, the radio at the Arab restaurant blares out the latest news in Swahili. Ah, that sound, the booming voice over the aromas of red-brown fried maandazi and the tinkle of teacups. Soon boys and girls in uniforms will set off for school. Shops will open. The street will be all a-bustle, and the sun bright and hot.
The tall leather boots of Russell expelled a pong close by and Ramji turned away to sleep.
The next morning the sky was clear; lugging suitcases, stopping to ask for directions, they lurched to the Square (the thought of the fare in shillings rendering a taxi unthinkable) and from there they took the Dudley bus to the Tech. The amiable yet patronizing letters of the Foreign Student Adviser had guided their applications over the previous twelve months and finally admitted them to the temple of learning, so it was natural in their minds to present themselves to him first. The lanky Mr. Neville was as friendly and easy as they expected. He gave them coffee and doughnuts, introduced them to his assistants, and assured them all was okay and it was best for them now to head for their respective host families, and see you on registration day.
The bus terminal was next to the Arlington subway station. The name rang a bell in their minds: Wasn’t “Arlington” the name of that famous cemetery? It would be a wonderful thing, they decided, to see JFK’s and Bobby’s graves and the Eternal Flame on this, their first day. But nothing like a cemetery was in sight.
“Yes, this is Arlington,” said the man at the ticket counter. The traveller’s cheques had put him in a sour mood. “You ain’t got no American money?”
“The cemetery,” Sona said to him, a little too cockily.
The man looked up, examined Sona, chewing his gum vigorously, then spat it out into a trash basket. “Come again?”
“Arlington National Cemetery. We’d like a quick look.”
“Hey Jack-o, come over here,” called the man, to the porter standing nearby. “Take a look at this pair.”
The porter came over, a stooping, elderly black man wearing a cap.
“Know where Arlington Cemetery is around here?” asked the ticket clerk. “Guys here want to go visit.”
The porter looked astonished. “What —?” he began, but saw the smirk on the clerk’s face. “Ah!” he said. “Arlington National Cemetery is in Washington, D.C. Yes sir. Washington Express — Gate Seven.” He pointed.
“I’m going to New York,” Ramji said sheepishly.
“Departing from Gate Twelve,” the porter said.
“Westport,” said Sona.
“For Westport, change at Hartford. Gate Six. But you ain’t goin’ to find Arlington National Cemetery where you’s goin’. No sir.” And he headed off, shaking his head.
“New York?” Ramji leaned towards the man across the aisle from him.
“It’s New York City all right,” said the man indulgently and smiled at him.
Of course, of course, this was New York, finally … his heart thudding inside him, his face glued to the window. Several times on the way he thought they had arrived, as they approached what looked like a big city, only to speed by it, and he had sat back. There was no mistaking where he was now, what he was looking at. The sheer bigness, the busyness … this endless maze of streets, its thick and crawling traffic, blaring store signs, littered sidewalks … awash with people, droves of them rushing from place to place, crowding at the intersections … or standing idly or doing their jobs selling, unloading, washing windows.…And the Empire State Building, the skyscrapers, where? — Only when they were suddenly cruising through sunless streets did he realize that they were right in the midst of them, in between the tallest buildings in the world.
They entered an underground garage of buses and stopped at a numbered bay.
A metal-framed glass door led into the terminal, which he entered following other passengers, his blue vinyl suitcase in one hand, airline slingbag over his shoulder. Almost immediately, having taken a hesitant step or two, and a desperate sweeping look for his host, whom he didn’t know by sight, he was caught in the tide of people heading towards the stairway. At the top, after two flights of stairs, he picked a spot to stand, set the suitcase down, and slowly took in the scene. Ahead of him, in the distance, doors opened into a busy street. Behind him, far away, the same. All around him a tumult. Long rows of busy ticket counters; a restaurant and newsstand, a picket line, demonstrators. How would Mr. John Morris pick him out from among this multitude …
A boy roughly his age catches his eye, starts walking towards him. Friendly purposeful look on the face, but rather unkempt with long hair and torn jeans and a half-open red shirt.…Two other similar-looking characters also converge upon him from opposite sides. Peace, man, says one, another one nods and gives a V-sign, they start talking of war and the military, and companies that make weapons, and he’s caught in a barrage of words, a confounding jumble of expressions and ideas. You can be sure it’s Buttonhouse … the friendly company that makes the refrigerators that keep your orange juice cool also makes your friendly missiles … you know what a cluster bomb looks like … sharp metal pieces flying in all directions embedding into innocent baby flesh … or how napalm scorches the skin? … He’s staring at a picture: a horribly emaciated girl running stark naked, face contorted in pain.…There’s more — take them. Flyers. What? he asks helplessly, recoiling a little. Peace, man, take care, they depart gravely, heading in the direction they came from. Why take care, are they warning me? … He looks quickly through a flyer. Namasté, a girl’s voice close to him — he’s surrounded, enveloped in swirling swathes of wildly bright colours, red and orange and blue. Namasté. This book contains the teachings of Lord Krishna … God, the speaker is incredibly beautiful, like a dream girl, blue eyes, long brown hair, tall, and she is dressed like an Indian, in a sari! Do you know of the Bhagavad Gita, she asks. He has the book in his hands, looking at blue Krishna with a flute and the sign of Om … and all around him a circle of close-cropped guys and angelic long-haired girls in orange robes and saris singing Hare Rama, Hare Krishna … and the deafening jangle of tambourines … and the pretty girl is saying … what? Krishna teaches the yoga of devotion.…What? With a beaming look, The donation is five dollars.…Reluctantly he puts a hand in his pocket … the cause is good, but this money is supposed to go a long
away …
“No, we don’t want the book,” said a voice firmly beside him. “Mr. Ramji, I presume?”
“How about incense from Benares?”
“No, we don’t want that either, thank you.”
A round-faced man in glasses, grey suit, medium height. Ramji nodded to him, immensely relieved. “Mr.…”
“John Morris. John. Am I glad to see you.”
Ramji had expected a taller American, a big man, if only from the voice on the phone last night. Lyndon Johnson-like.
They shook hands.
“Didn’t know which gate your bus was arriving at, or which stairs you’d take.” Mr. Morris paused, added: “I guess you found out there’s at least a couple of buses leaving Boston every hour for New York.”
“Yes. I didn’t realize that the station would be so … big,” Ramji said sheepishly.
“Glad you made it.”
“How did you find me?” Ramji asked.
“Luck. Also there’s not many people with your features in this place, and looking utterly lost.” John Morris looked at him and grinned. “Good thing, though, you stayed close to those stairs.”
He picked up the shoulder bag and showed Ramji where to throw the flyers he still clutched in his hands, after which they set off towards the Seventh Avenue exit.
They crossed two noisy intersections bustling with crowds of people before arriving at a sleek black car in a parking lot.
“The Grand Prix is Ginnie’s. I drive a smaller vehicle. But I don’t bring the car to work, today being exceptional. The commuter train’s more convenient from Runymede.”
John and Ginnie Morris. He repeated the names in his mind, recalling the letter he’d received from them only a couple of days before he left Dar. Their sons, John, whom they called Junior, and Chris, eighteen and fifteen years old. He couldn’t remember what it was that Mr. Morris did …
Everything was America now, everything would be America. You could say that word, Amriika, a hundred times without repeating it once, each time would be different, that was the wonder of it. Where did it begin, this place, it simply happened all around him. He couldn’t follow his host’s remarks, the observations and explanations as they drove on the noisy New Jersey Turnpike, the world’s busiest highway, busier than usual today at this hour and hot for the August weather, its toll booths where you flung money into baskets before you could pass, the enigmatic yet chummy billboards, the exits into Hoboken, Passaic, Teaneck, Montclair. Once as a boy he’d read an account in the Sunday papers about the famous Greyhound bus that covered every little corner of America; little did he know that one day he would take a ride on just such a bus and emerge in New York.
Mrs. Morris — Ginnie — was a big vivacious blonde, with shoulder-length hair, in a shimmering bottle-green form-fitting dress; she had a great wide smile for him as she opened the door, and gushed forth, “Oh, we’ve been so excited this past week — haven’t we, boys — ever since we were told you were coming.” Beside her stood a lanky long-faced youth in jeans, long straight hair covering the ears, a stray front lock across the forehead: Chris; and, on the other side of her, shorter and a little stocky, clean-cut and with glasses, his brother John Junior.
Ramji shook hands with all three, taken aback by the reception, and coming out a little too shifty with, “I’ve been looking forward too, to meeting you …”
“You must be jet-lagged,” said Chris.
“I beg your pardon?”
“The time difference between your country and New Jersey —”
“Oh yes. It’s eight hours.”
“Past your bedtime then.”
“I don’t know what time you’re used to eating dinner, but we eat early. I hope that’s not inconvenient for you,” said Mr. Morris.
“Oh no. It’s fine.”
They went straight to the dining room. Ramji was shown his place, beside Chris, opposite Ginnie and Junior. At the head sat Mr. Morris, who, when they’d settled, looked around and said, “Ready?”
They were all watching Ramji. He looked down and stared at his fork and knife, grateful there was no fish today to confuse matters with a fish knife and extra fork. Then he looked up and realized they were holding hands, waiting for him. Mr. Morris took his right hand and Chris took his left, and Mr. Morris said, “We thank thee, Lord, for this food, and bless Ginnie, Junior, Chris, John, and Ramji.”
“Amen,” they all said, each in his own fashion and time, and looked up.
“Is, er … isn’t Ramji his last name?” Junior asked with a twinkle in his eye.
“Oh, in school everybody called me Ramji, it’s almost like a first name now — you can call me that!”
“Let’s start, everybody,” Ginnie said, as the boys popped open cans of Fresca and Coke. He could have Dr Pepper if he wanted, she told him. He thought he’d try the Fresca, which was her choice too.
“And — Ramji, you can use your hands for the chicken, we all do.”
Mr. Morris beamed across the table, benevolent and happy, the guest delivered into Ginnie’s hands.
Besides the fried chicken, there was a potato casserole, broccoli, corn on the cob, and soft bread rolls they called biscuits; he was famished and did not hesitate over possible gaffes in his eating habits. Along with the boys he accepted seconds.
The cherrywood table, deep red tablecloth, high-backed chairs, floral placemats, sparkling chandelier; Ramji was overwhelmed by it all. The entire house looked beautiful and expensive; he would have to tread gingerly, try not to look an utter savage, or break things or slip somewhere, or whatever.
What do you say to them, who’ve got it all? That there is greater moral fibre and spirituality where you come from — as he’d been taught — and less materialism? That we don’t go searching for useless causes and new faiths as Americans do, we know exactly who we are? That we have the secret gnosis that is the key to the universe … ?
Chris told him he’d joined the Buddhist faith. Junior, their mother said, was studying to become a Mormon minister; but he had a Catholic girlfriend with Catholic inhibitions. She smiled mischievously and Junior protested with “Mother!” The Morrises were Episcopalian. Chris went to military academy, which he hated; his brother had graduated from it and was attending college in Baltimore.
“It must be beautiful, where you come from,” Ginnie said.
“Yes,” he grasped the line gratefully. She was very kind and motherly.
“I saw a TV show about animals once — elephants,” she said.
“Some years ago an Englishwoman was mending a puncture outside Dar and an elephant came by and stood to watch her!”
“I’d be scared out of my wits! And lions? And leopards? I bet you must have them practically strolling through your living rooms —”
“Mother!”
“Only in national parks,” said Ramji, smiling at her, not a bit offended.
After dessert, which was apple pie, they all went and sat in the den, Ramji and John and Ginnie with their coffee, and John narrated to everyone’s amusement how he had come upon a bewildered and besieged Ramji at the bus terminal. Then Ramji went to his luggage, lying at the foot of the stairs, and brought out his gift for the family: a wood carving. It looked so modest here, he thought, so rough. But serious carvers in Tanzania did not paint or polish their work, arguing for a primitive, uncommercial look. It was an expensive piece, though, of dark brown wood, the kind only tourists could afford. But Grandma had somehow brought it on his last day and told him to take it for his hosts. He presented it to Ginnie now, saying with a shy smile, “There are also monkeys in Africa.”
“Is this a monkey — wait a minute, I must have it the wrong way up —” She turned it around a couple of times in her hands. “Oops!” It almost fell from her hands.
“It’s a Makonde carving,” he explained. “It’s an abstract monkey, or monkeys — you can see the arms and legs, too many for one monkey … and an eye, an ear, and a mouth —”
They were all
staring at him as he explained.
“It does look complicated …,” Ginnie said.
“The motif is the well-known saying, See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,” Ramji concluded.
“And do no evil, I bet! Well, it’s beautiful, it will go right up on the mantelpiece here!”
She liked it for his sake, but he hoped she would grow to really like it.
“Well, we should call it a day, I think,” Mr. Morris said. He had been quiet for the past little while.
“You must be tired,” Ginnie said to Ramji; and to her husband, “You too, dear.”
Ramji nodded.
Mr. Morris gave Ginnie a peck on the cheek, wished all a good night, and went upstairs.
Ramji was shown his room. It was in the attic, to which narrow carpeted stairs led from the second floor where the couple and the boys had rooms. He was to have his own bathroom, a luxury that would save much embarrassment. It had no shower, if he needed to use one, though, he could use the boys’ bathroom, he was advised. He didn’t think that would be necessary. And if he felt hot up there, he could turn on the air conditioner. Finally, if he got hungry, he could run down for a late snack.
He quickly said his prayers, sitting up in bed. And then as he lay down to sleep, he thought the bed was so soft, and the linen so wonderfully crisp and fresh, he had never smelt anything as sweet before.
Sona loved writing letters.
“… Have they shown off their automatic garage doors, and can opener and fancy phone with push buttons and the garbage disposal, and car windows that go up and down with the push of a switch?! Have they taught you the arcane secrets of their football, and that game of rounders that’s as awkward as an itch and called baseball? …”
