by Manu Joseph
Thoma remembers the times when he was in the care of Unni, how they walked hand in hand, how they played and how they laughed. How Unni would come steaming in when boys tried to push Thoma around. And he remembers the day Unni took him all around Madras in a suspenseful search for ‘the white sugar cane, which does exist, Thoma, somewhere in the city there is a white sugar cane’. They went in crowded buses, and in the train, they walked and ran down the roads in search of the white sugar cane and returned home telling each other that they would set out again to hunt another day.
Thoma stands in the churchyard until it gets dark, and when he leaves he is glad that he does not feel scared to be alone in a place like this any more. He wants to believe in ghosts, he really does hope that in this world there are ghosts.
THE CLOSEST OUSEP HAS come to seeing the future is when he goes down the mud lane to Somen Pillai’s house. This evening, too, he knows what is about to happen. Before he reaches the gate, the door on the pink front of the house opens and the man and wife emerge on to the porch, whispering to each other. They stand with their elbows on the short iron gate, and wait for him to arrive. Somen’s father is bare-chested, his mother is in a sari. Ousep can see their bellies. And their deep navels that gape at him as if they are the alert eyes of a long, indestructible tropical marriage.
‘Somen is not home,’ the mother says.
‘Where has he gone now?’
‘He has gone to a friend’s house and he will be late.’
Ousep searches the windows, searches for the furtive movement of a shadow, for a curtain moving an inch, anything that would give a sign that his quarry is inside, but there is nothing.
The father says, ‘You’ve started coming here every day, Ousep. What has happened?’
‘Does he live here any more?’ Ousep asks.
‘This is his home.’
‘I have been trying to meet him for the last six months.’
‘We have told you many times he does not want to meet you.’
‘Why?’
‘You must ask him that,’ the mother says.
‘That is what I have been trying to do. I’ve been trying to meet him. But, obviously, you don’t want that. You refuse to tell me which college he goes to, you refuse to tell me where he goes every day and what he does.’
‘It is not our fault if he does not want to meet you,’ the father says.
‘Is he in the house right now?’
‘We’re getting a bit tired of this, Ousep.’
‘I met a boy,’ Ousep says, ‘Sai Shankaran. You know him. He says Somen has run away from home.’
‘That’s nonsense – you go and tell Sai Shankaran that. Our boy is with us.’
‘Sai Shankaran says your boy may have gone somewhere to die in peace.’
‘Ousep,’ the father screams, ‘I have sympathy for you because of what happened to your son. But don’t wish that on everyone. I am not a drunkard. I feed my family, I keep them happy. My son has no reason to kill himself.’
‘Can I come inside? Let’s talk.’
‘The ceiling fan is not working,’ the father says. ‘So it is very hot inside. We must stand outside and talk.’
Somen’s mother looks incredulously at her husband and goes away inside as if she wants to search for a far corner and burst out laughing. Ousep holds the hand of Somen’s father and asks him softly, ‘Why are you doing this?’
‘What am I doing?’
‘Why don’t you let me meet your son?’
‘You see a deeper story in things, Ousep. Boys these days are busy. They leave early, they come home late. He is twenty, he is busy. And when they don’t want to meet someone they just don’t meet them. They are young people, they have their own minds. He does not want to talk about Unni, and there is nothing we can do about it. He will not meet you. He will never meet you.’
The man leans forward and whispers, ‘Ousep, just give up. Children do strange things when they are seventeen. That’s the age of madness. What can we do? Maybe there was a girl. There is always a girl. Move on. Get back to your life.’
‘This is my life. Unni is my life. I will be coming back, Pillai.’
Pillai goes back into his house and shuts the door. Ousep tries to understand the home. A home is a person. If you stare long enough at its face you begin to see beyond the façade. It is a small, simple house embedded at the end of the lane in such a way that there is only one point of entry or exit. All the windows are shut, which is strange for a house in Madras, and all of them have curtains, which is not surprising. On the terrace, just about twelve feet above the ground, there are some clothes drying. From what he can see, there are no jeans or T-shirts among them. There is nothing on the surface of the house that indicates the presence of a young man.
In the houses that flank the narrow lane there are people standing in the doorways, behind their windows and on the terraces. He goes up to a woman who is standing at her gate holding her infant. He asks her, ‘Have you seen Somen Pillai today?’ The woman spreads her sari over her chest, toys with her pendant and says, ‘I have not seen him in a while. What happened?’
‘When was the last time you saw him?’
That makes her think. Four men of four generations emerge from her house and step out to talk to him. They are amiable people, that is the nature of the world. People who do not know him always offer him the option of respect. He is an elegant man in daylight, a man with a greying French beard.
They have not seen Somen Pillai for a long time but they don’t remember when they last did. He walks across the lane to another house and asks the same question. ‘I see you here often,’ an old woman says. ‘I see you going to their house. Do you want some water to drink? It is a very hot day.’
‘It is a very hot day.’
‘My granddaughter says the world will soon become ice. But there is no evidence of that in Madras. Do you think the world will turn into ice?’
‘When did you last see Somen Pillai?’
‘I see his sister once every three months or so. She comes for the weekend. She goes to a medical college in Kerala. Girls are so smart these days. But the boy, I have not seen him in a long time. Never struck me before you asked. I’ve seen him grow up on this lane. I’ve seen so many grow up on this lane, it did not occur to me that I have not spotted the boy in ages. Maybe he has gone somewhere far away to study. They all go away, don’t you know? Why don’t you ask his parents?’
Ousep goes to every house and asks. Nobody has seen Somen Pillai in a long time. ‘Why don’t you ask his parents? They live right there,’ a man says, wiping his scooter, which is parked inside the house, near the front door.
‘I did ask them but they are not telling me. Something is wrong. I think the boy has gone missing.’
‘How can a boy go missing? I heard he goes to Loyola College.’
‘That’s what they told me once. I’ve checked. He doesn’t go there. He has gone missing.’
‘Why are you asking about the boy?’
‘He has borrowed a lot of money from people I know and now he has gone missing.’
By the time Ousep reaches the end of the lane it is clear to him that Somen Pillai has not been seen on the lane for an indefinite period of time. It is possible that he has been dispatched to a college in another city and his parents do not want him to be bothered by Ousep. But if that were true the boy would still be visiting home once in a while as his sister does. What Sai Shankaran had said begins to make sense. Somen Pillai has probably gone somewhere to die in isolation. The way Unni died was too conspicuous, setting off a relentless father on a trail. Somen probably did not want to draw too much attention. He wanted to be presumed lost. But why?
Ousep returns to Somen’s house at midnight, his walk unsteady, hair tempestuous. This time the house does not see him come. He stands at the gate and asks, ‘You can’t see well in the dark?’ He goes up to the front door and begins to pound it. The lights go on. Somen’s father looks through the
window. He glares in fury but in a moment turns nervous. The man studies the night outside to see whether Ousep has brought any muscular friends along. When he is reassured that the drunkard has come alone, he opens the door and stands with tight fists, legs parted. Ousep withdraws, walks backwards in kung-fu steps and holds his hand as if it is a cobra about to strike.
‘Master, I’ve come to meet Somen Pillai,’ he says.
‘What’s wrong with you, Ousep, are you drunk?’
‘Is he back? Has Somen Pillai returned home?’
‘Why have you been bad-mouthing us to our neighbours, Ousep, have you lost your mind? You’ve been telling everyone that the boy has gone missing. You’ve been telling everyone that he has borrowed money from people.’
‘Is Somen Pillai home?’
‘Don’t come here ever again. I warn you, Ousep. Don’t push me.’
The door shuts, there are sounds of all the latches and locks being invoked. Ousep screams, ‘Where is Somen Pillai? Where is Somen Pillai? Where is Somen Pillai?’
Lights go on in the houses on the lane. People stare from their windows. It is a moment Ousep is familiar with, a moment in the night. Lights going on in homes, people peeping through their windows, seeing him in a way they would never have imagined in the light of day, and everybody agreeing without a word that they are better than him. This lane, too, now knows of Ousep Chacko.
He comes back at seven in the morning and stands at the gate to take the house by surprise. Nothing stirs. He waits. That is his talent, he knows how to wait. After about an hour, he sees the maid come down the lane. He is struck again by her face, a face that is hard but very aware of its own frugal beauty. She is probably in her early thirties, middle age for maids, but there is much left in her that a man can see. She does not look famished like the other maids, her breasts are full and proud, and she is fleshy in a shapely way. She must be the queen of her slum. She is an anomaly; women like her usually do not survive as maids. She walks towards him, her head bent, and when she raises her eyes they look with the incurable contempt that all Tamil maids have for men who are not film stars.
‘Is Somen Pillai in the house?’ he asks her.
She walks away without a word.
‘Does he live in this house?’
She rings the doorbell. Somen’s mother opens the door and is startled to see Ousep at the gate so early. She shuts the door in his face. Ousep waits to see how the morning unfolds. The maid leaves in about an hour, which is not unusual. When the man and wife emerge, they are in office clothes. They lock their door, and do not meet Ousep’s eyes when they go past him. They walk to an old grey scooter that lies by the side of the lane. The man kicks it many times until it roars into life. His wife sits on the pillion holding his paunch, and they leave.
The large padlock on the front door has a melancholy finality about it. Has Somen really abandoned his parents and vanished for ever? But if the truth is that Somen has gone missing, his parents just need to tell Ousep that. Considering what a nuisance he is, that would be a simple solution to get rid of him. Surely there is no shame in telling Ousep that they have lost their son to philosophy. There is no shame in saying that to Ousep. But they have not done that. In fact, they have insisted that their boy lives with them. Also, there is still the glow of life in their eyes. They do not look like parents who have lost their child.
He returns in the evening but the house does not see him any more. The door does not open, the couple do not emerge to face him. He rings the doorbell several times but there is no response. He can hear the sounds of life inside but the Pillais have decided to ignore him.
OUSEP IS IN FULL view of all the women who are standing on their balconies to bid goodbye to their husbands. He is across the lane, facing Block A, and smoking two cigarettes at once. He looks to his left once again, down the whole stretch of Balaji Lane. The car will appear any time now at the far end.
Men on scooters leave the building, one after the other, giving him cold glances. Some women on the balconies disappear, some appear muttering prayers. The figure of Mariamma, unexpectedly, stands on her balcony. She pulls his shirts from the wire, without affection it seems. She sees him and is, naturally, puzzled. Ousep standing quietly on the road, she has never seen that before. She vanishes inside, but she is probably watching through the curtains.
He sees a woman approach; she walks slowly past him carrying an empty basket. She is going to the vegetable market. He does not know why but he is unable to take his eyes off this plump, unremarkable, asexual woman. Her face is calm and unseeing, and it reminds him of the great peace of failure, the peace of simply giving up.
When the car finally appears, he is not sure whether this is the one he has been waiting for. The man had said it would be black, and the car is black, but it is surprisingly grand and obscene. He has never seen such a car before, and it comes towards him like an object from another time. A scooter going in the car’s direction veers to the edge of the road and stops because the lane is probably too narrow for the two of them to pass and the scooter has accepted its inferior position. As the car passes, the man tilts his scooter to his left, like a dog about to urinate. Guards from the other blocks run out into the lane to stare at the back of the car. One of them salutes. The car stops near Ousep. The guard of Block A, in his cheap military outfit, points a finger at the steering wheel and laughs in mild confusion, which looks like a type of sorrow. He has never seen a left-hand drive before, never knew such a meaningless trick was possible. Ousep throws his cigarettes away and gets into the back seat. The car smells like another country, which it is, in a way. Krishnamurthy Iyengar, in the back seat, looks smaller than Ousep had imagined. He is, as before, in an oversized shirt buttoned at the cuffs, his silver medals pinned on the third button, eight fountain pens and a tiny black torch in his shirt pocket.
‘A gift from my son,’ Iyengar says. ‘It took one year to reach me from America. Chevrolet Cavalier, it is called.’
‘I’ve never been inside anything like this.’
‘It is the only car I have, Ousep. I didn’t bring this to scare you.’
‘I was surprised when you called me.’
‘And you would like to know why I called you, of course,’ Iyengar says, but he does not say anything else for a while. When the old man had called early this morning he had said, in between coughs, ‘Don’t have any expectations, I just want to meet. There is nothing more to it.’
The car leaves Balaji Lane and heads towards Arcot Road. The whole way, people stare as if the Chevrolet is at once a foe and a beautiful woman, which is the same thing in a way. ‘I’ve been thinking of calling you the whole week,’ Iyengar says. ‘Then I decided that if I am ever going to meet you, now is the time. Now as in today, this morning. Because I am going to the airport.’
The old man sinks into a comfortable silence once again, so Ousep says, ‘I don’t see the connection.’
‘I am going to America,’ Iyengar says. ‘I am giving a talk at Johns Hopkins. Then I am going to spend some time with my son and his family. Then my daughter and her family. Because I am a jobless old man.’
‘So, you didn’t want to wait. Is that what you’re trying to say?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know if you could have waited?’
‘What I want to say is that I want to talk to you in the car, when I am on the way to the airport. Yes, that’s what I want to say. Because that way I can say what I wish to say and just get rid of you. You may have questions and more questions, but I don’t have the answers. I want to say what I have to say, drop you somewhere on the way, and go away.’
‘And what is it that you want to say?’
Iyengar runs his fingers through his silver hair, and appears to gather his thoughts, though he has surely had a lot of time to do that.
‘Unni told me something one day,’ Iyengar says. ‘He told me that in the greatest stories of the world there are always opposites – there is th
e superhero and the supervillain, the good and the evil, the strong and weak. He asked me if the Corpse Syndrome had an opposite condition. Are there people in this world who feel very alive, who feel every moment of their days as if life inside them is the greatest force in the universe. People who are hopelessly happy. I told him that for some strange reason neuropsychiatry does not deal with such conditions – it deals with conditions that need a cure. The anti-corpse would not need a cure. The anti-corpse is the aspiration of mankind. And Unni said, “I am the anti-corpse.”’
‘Doctor, why would a person who is so happy choose to die?’
‘It is possible,’ Iyengar says slowly, with unfathomable caution, ‘it is possible that Unni Chacko was not what he thought he was.’
Ousep feels an enormous weight on his chest, as if a powerful adolescent boy is holding him in a fierce embrace. ‘Do you believe that, Doctor?’
‘Or, Unni was everything he thought he was, and we do not understand the happiness of other people. Maybe happiness has nothing to do with life, maybe we are overestimating the lure of life.’
‘So what are you trying to say, Doctor?’
‘Just this, what I told you. That’s all I wanted to say.’
‘But what do you make of it?’
‘See, that is the problem, Ousep. My opinion is not important. It would be unfair, too. I have not formally studied him.’
‘Be unfair. Tell me.’
Iyengar considers his own wrinkled fingers, then his tired palms. He says, ‘Many times in my career I have wondered if some of my patients are in my room only because they have seen beyond what the normal brain can see. What I am trying to say, very inarticulately, is this. What if Unni was a person who could see more than others? What if he saw the world in a form that he could not explain?’
