Amriika

by M G Vassanji

  The scholarly mind is like that of a shopkeeper’s: Leave me to my business, and you can go about your own. I will ask no questions, to each his own. What the scholarly mind needs is stable government, peace and order, and a certain sense of well-being, in which ambience it can peruse the faded manuscript, reflect upon historical confluences, scan the odd poem … enter some flight of fancy that is as absorbing as an average LSD trip but with yourself at the controls.

  Sona of course resented being compared to the tribe of shopkeepers (which is what his family were). The two of them were returning from Friday mosque, having detached themselves from the others. The reason why their people were having trouble in East Africa, Ramji said, was precisely this attitude — ducking issues while going on with their trade. This was a time in America when you simply had to speak out, there was no neutral ground when lives were at stake, silence meant collusion …

  “Look, you’re proselytizing! You’ve picked up the Christian ethic, you want to save the world — you’ve become an American!”

  The taunt was meant to suggest he was changing. It could, once, have hurt to the quick. But the instrument was blunted, if not entirely without effect.

  Ramji had to concede that an opinion regarding the war was ultimately a personal call, a very private choice. Only, the temptation was too great to act the missionary, to share one’s new conviction, to convert. War was a matter of life and death, of urgency. And what the heck, it had just been Moratorium Week, five full days of preaching peace — even the Tech’s Ronnie McDonald had stood up to speak for it. Every college campus in the country had rung out with nothing but cries for peace.

  The long tunnel that was the main corridor connecting the outside world to the inside of the campus was deserted, except for the few solitary souls like themselves caught in its dim transitory emptiness, feet crunching its grimy floor, voices rendered hollow and diffuse. On one side of the corridor lay the dark, cloistered world of the mind, and on the other the bright and real world that called and demanded meaning. The pamphlets announcing the Vietnam Moratorium activities of the past week lay scattered about, having served their purpose in mobilizing the Tech community into thinking about peace. All week long there had been speeches and seminars, loud rallies on Mass Ave, emotional exhortations in the corridors. Wednesday had been the Moratorium Day itself, a day of your life you could never ever forget. At twelve-thirty in the afternoon a solitary trumpet began playing “The Star-spangled Banner,” at which signal suddenly there was all around the campus a moment’s stillness, an awe-filled heeding of this call from a distance. Ramji was in Fletcher Lounge, on a break from a morning of leafleting. As soon as the trumpet finished, everyone — or so it seemed — stopped what they were doing and converged in one motion upon the green across Mass Ave, accepting blue armbands from volunteers, and gathered outside Henley Auditorium. Over loudspeakers they heard the president, Ronald McDonald, and members of the faculty make speeches endorsing peace. Finally, after a minute’s silence for the war dead, the Tech contingent set off eight abreast, behind the faculty, along Mass Ave, packing the entire Harvard Bridge from end to end, onto Comm Ave and Boston Common to join the tens of thousands gathered there. Senator McGovern addressed the rally. It was the day the Mets won their World Series game.

  They had arrived on Mass Ave, Sona and Ramji, without saying too much for a while, and several options presented themselves, one of which was to part ways, with this new sourness between them unhappily unresolved. A Dudley bus, carrying the Marlboro Man on its side, was gearing up speed and headed Boston way, having discharged the passenger now waiting for the walk sign to come on. Except for this brief spasm of life, the scene in front of them looked strangely depleted. But the night was crisp and clear; a return bus would approach soon.

  “Listen,” Sona said, offering the olive branch, “how about we go to the Square — sit at Pewter Pot and talk awhile.”

  And appear intellectual and do nothing.…But, “All right,” Ramji said, grabbing at the chance to make up.

  “Listen to this idea. Have you ever wondered if you could be deported for taking part in a demonstration? What exactly are your rights as a foreign student?”

  “I don’t think you can be deported for expressing an opinion …”

  “But what exactly can you do freely? My Moratorium idea is to produce a pamphlet with that information, for the foreign students. I have already been to the Dean’s Office and gotten all the information. It may be obvious, but a lot of the foreign students are too frightened to say what they think. They need to be informed.”

  By the time they’d caught the bus and arrived at Pewter Pot they’d discussed Sona’s project. He would do the dogwork, prepare and mimeograph the flyers. And Ramji would assist in stuffing them in the foreign students’ mailboxes the following evening.

  And so they lingered in the crowded restaurant over tea and muffins, discussing home.

  There’s a game I sometimes play with myself, Ramji said. I try to imagine what it’s like back at home, now. But which “now” — nine o’clock Friday night or, taking the time difference into account, Saturday morning at five? Depending on my mood, I imagine either … Friday night at nine, Uhuru Street is empty, people have come back from mosque, the shops are closed …

  Upanga being suburban, Sona said, talking of the area his family had moved to recently, people linger outside the mosque, they go home in groups, chattering all the way, and the kids play in the lanes between the row houses …

  They sat quietly for a while, drank more tea; all around them chatter and bustle, smoke, frantic waitresses trying to cope. Outside, Harvard Square, brilliant and busy as at midday.

  “You know,” Sona said, “you couldn’t demonstrate like that back home.”

  “No. I’d be in detention somewhere and my family would be desperate over my whereabouts.”

  They recalled the friends they had left behind, whom they’d known, it seemed, since time began. What would they be up to? Having fun, now that they were in university, going out in large and loud groups with all those sondis from Girls School they had previously (and longingly) watched from afar. Ultimately, they would get paired off and married.

  “Do you regret coming to America?”

  “No. And you?”

  “No.”

  There was no going back to one’s previous state of being. The longer one stayed here, the more altered one became. The odd thing was that part of one’s new consciousness was to become more devoted to the country one came from, and to appreciate more its problems. There was no doubt in their minds that they would return as soon as possible to their young nation and participate in its development.

  Sona, feeling isolated during Moratorium Week, had gone and spoken to his friend and adviser Marie Lundgren. I think I should do something, he said, but I have no convictions in this matter — it simply confuses me.

  Marie, an ancient, diminutive woman with silver hair, looked at him across her large desk in her book-filled and paper-strewn office, with twinkling, kindly eyes. Among her past students, it was said, were (besides illustrious scholars) one of Henry Kissinger’s advisers, a Mossad agent, and a PLO official.

  You could do something useful, Marie said to Sona. We scholars are not meant to demonstrate in the streets. What we are good at is sorting and presenting information. Sona thought that was an excellent idea — he would obtain information on foreign students’ rights to demonstrate and distribute it. This was not quite what Marie had in mind, but she smiled and said, Go ahead, it can’t hurt. And so Sona produced his pamphlet, entitled, “The Foreign Student and Free Speech: Your Rights.” You are free to express your opinions, it said, after a rhetorical preamble; it warned against silly things like getting caught in the possession of drugs or attacking policemen, and it gave a list of phone numbers to call in case of arrest.

  On Saturday night, at about nine o’clock, while he was stuffing the mailboxes at Rutherford House with his flyers, Sona overhe
ard something that sent a chill up his spine: someone was discussing him and Ramji.

  “They’re using the foreign students … one of them is right here, putting flyers in mailboxes, another’s on his way to the west side … I’ve got one here.…You’re free to express your opinion it says …”

  It was Steve Mittel, on duty at reception, talking on the phone. A solitary guy, Mittel — tall and athletic-looking, often seen manning the late shift here while absorbed in his course assignments. He was at his table now, round the corner from the wall of mailboxes so Sona couldn’t see him. Who is he speaking to so intently, passing on information? What can they do — who are they? The FBI? Is this guy an informer? A quiet chap, but his close-cropped hair, his button-down shirt and trouser pants are a statement of sorts.

  Shaken and disheartened, he continued the chore. The more he stuffed, the more worried he became. He had never shown his hand on the issues; this was the first time, and it was almost a neutral hand, yet here he was face to face with opposition. “They’re using foreign students” — when there is a “they” there is also a “we.” Would his name be filed on a record somewhere? A frightening thought, all he seriously desired was to be able to do his beloved research. When he had finished the job, from one of the phone booths in the lobby, so he couldn’t be overheard, he called his own dorm in the west campus where Ramji had gone with his share of the flyers.

  “Has a tall guy come there with flyers … a tall Indian … no? If he comes —” What, if he comes? “Tell him to wait there, his friend Sona is coming.…Yes, Sona, without the ‘r’ at the end. It’s urgent. He shouldn’t move.” The joke about his name was getting pretty stale, he thought.

  He hurried towards the west campus. The long walk through the Tech tunnel-corridor allowed him to compose himself. Perhaps he had overreacted, there was no real urgency; but it was no idle gossip he’d heard — not from Mittel’s mouth. He’d sensed menace, and instinct told him to find Ramji right away.

  As he crossed Mass Ave, the rhythms of music from a party came throbbing down from the direction of the Student Center. It’s either the homosexual party or the Thai party, he thought. He’d seen posters around for both events. Tekle the Ethiopian passed him with a wave, on his way to spend the night at the Student Center library. Isaac the Cameroonian and Stavros the Greek had spent a fruitless time hunting American girls at a singles club, and were now also on their way to the Student Center. The sight of the building reminded Sona that he himself had a date there in fifteen minutes on which he had placed rather high hopes. Earlier in the day, while delivering an overdue homework assignment, he’d befriended Amy Burton, the professor’s secretary, who actually also was an Eng Lit student. She had agreed to meet him for coffee that night. And what a lovely night, cool but not cold.

  Where is Ramji?

  When Sona reached the chapel, across the green from the Student Center, where the residences also were located, he ran into an odd-looking threesome emerging from the alley: Ramji supported by a guy on either side.

  “Ramji!”

  “He got mugged,” one of the guys said. Ramji nodded wearily.

  “It’s all right,” Sona said, “I’ll take over from here.”

  “Thanks, guys,” Ramji said gratefully, “I won’t bother you anymore,” and the two Americans disappeared. Ramji hobbled along beside Sona, using a shoulder for support.

  “So what happened?” Sona asked, and Ramji told him. He had been not mugged but jumped on by YAPs, who had been waiting for him.

  Ramji had first visited MacDonald House, the newest of the west campus dorms. Having finished stuffing mailboxes there he came out the back door, pulling up the collar of his coat against a wind gusting from the river, wondering if there was any point at all in doing the rich dorms with their carpeted corridors and panelled walls. He was walking in the dark alley between the chapel and Mac House when he heard simultaneously a brief shuffle of footsteps and a mutter behind him, some fifteen feet away, he sensed. He became instantly nervous, his hairs tingling, throat constricted; he reached out to feel his wallet in his pants pocket, as if that would make a difference if he was going to get mugged. He started to run, when from behind a dumpster ahead of him a big guy in an open overcoat stepped out. If Ramji had continued running, he would have been tripped, so he stopped, and said, “What do you want?”

  “Got you.”

  Someone seized him in a tight neck hold from behind, pressing against him, another knocked the flyers from his helpless hands, and the third, the guy in front, punched him several times in the stomach. He was let go and crumpled to the ground.

  “Fucking wog! If you don’t like America, go climb up the tree you came from.”

  Ramji looked up, recognized a face. “I know who you are,” he said, clutching his stomach in pain. It was the YAP he thought of as Chunky Crewcut, the guy who went about writing over Shawn’s graffiti. He was holding a camera.

  “Hey!” There was a shout and approaching footsteps, and the three attackers disappeared.

  “When I was down, they had the audacity to take a photo of me,” Ramji said to Sona as they walked back to Rutherford. “I think they were right,” he muttered, after a moment, “I should go climb up my tree —”

  “Nonsense! This is America, everyone has a right to be here, even to protest.”

  “Tell that to the YAPs. What would they want with my photo anyhow — they can get a better one from the yearbook, or the registrar. You think they took it as a trophy?”

  Then Sona told Ramji about Steve Mittel and the telephone conversation he’d overheard and how he’d suspected that Mittel might be a police informer. They mulled over that awhile, then concluded they’d done nothing wrong.

  Sona walked Ramji to his room, then went to the Student Center coffee house to meet Amy Burton. At his desk at the Rutherford House reception, Steve Mittel was painstakingly writing up his homework.

  7

  The great hall of Building 10, under the second classical-style dome of the Tech, overlooks Mem Drive and the Charles exactly halfway down the main corridor — where every moment of the working day scores of people are scurrying along in either direction, like neurons in a throbbing central nervous system going about their tasks acquiring fresh information, new knowledge. To take a break from this frantic activity is to feel wilted, redundant. And yet there are three tables set up here offering respite. Behind the middle table sits Ramji, eyeing intently the urgent traffic moving past. The white manila banner hanging from the table’s edge proclaims in large red and black letters: “MARCH ON WASHINGTON: SIGN UP!” His pocket transistor is tuned to mellow WBZ-FM. Beside it on the table a ballpoint pen, coupons for bus reservations (seventeen dollars per round trip), an envelope full of money, a pile of pamphlets from the Mobe, the group that has organized the march. And he’s also allowed a liberal space at one end for pamphlets left by assorted radical groups. You just can’t refuse them, even the completely screwball ones (“The story of Dick the little Prick with BIG DREAMS”) or the cockeyed ones demanding a STOP or END to almost everything. Before you know it you are part of the movement, you learn to live with the differences. The important thing is to end the war.

  High on the white marble walls of this great hall, to either side of him, is a reminder of the two world wars: etched in gold, a roll-call of the Tech’s contribution of lives. Only names on the walls now, all those young lives that once hustled through these very corridors twenty-five, fifty years ago. Where will I be a quarter century from now? … Bright sunlight pours in refreshingly through framed doors and windows behind him, beyond which lies a peaceful, lush green lawn.

  Two Afghanis mind the stand to his left, their tape recorder playing lilting string melodies. And to his right is the SDS table crowded with its assortment of causes: support the dining workers’ demands; support Maria Delgado, fired from the libraries for her political views; join the rally against Poseidon-MIRV-ABM; etc. Behind it sits an amiable guy with small goatee c
alled Eddie Shapiro. The two Afghanis are fair green-eyed men, soft-spoken and polite. They have an open album of photographs on their table depicting the victims of torture carried out in their country, an article cut out from the New York Times, and for some reason pamphlets in Afghan. Eddie walks over to them every now and then to ask pointed questions. Finally they look at each other in exasperation as he arrives, and he walks back to his post guiltily, and stays put. But when the Afghanis have netted another interested party, he leans over and says to Ramji: “CIA — they work for the CIA, you can bet on it.”

  “Really?” Ramji replies. Just when he was thinking how nice they were, how as a fellow Asian he could identify with their reserve and politeness, even their music.

  Two of the YAPs from the other night, Chunky Crewcut and companion, have passed by with the day’s traffic, perhaps too many times, and he’s met their looks squarely. He’s filled with a new confidence, there’s not going to be another instance of physical aggression from them, not without his making such a noise, they’ll be sorry.

  I’m going to D.C., he said to Ginnie when she phoned him last, three days before. And he told her what he’d been up to the past month. First the Moratorium, now the March. And she, bubbling over with her usual enthusiasm: Chris is home, he twisted his ankle playing lacrosse.…And Junior should get married to his girl by springtime. You can’t hold back the hormones, Mormon or not.

  What did she think of the war? What did they think of the war? They never mentioned the subject, expressed no opinion in front of him. He assumed that John, veteran and former intelligence gatherer — his job had been to cut clippings from newspapers, he once told Ramji — must support the military. And Ginnie would simply want the war to be over, regardless of the politics.