I had always loved the idea of writing words and then folding them inside themselves, along the dotted lines, sealing the edges. By doing so, the words were concealed, kept safe, until someone slid a ruler into the slit, made a clean cut, to open, unfold and liberate them. In our house, it was often I who was given this task; my mother knew I loved doing it. But I had not seen this aerogramme. It must have been collected from our post box in town by my father when I was too ill to take notice. The address of the sender – written in English, in a neat, precise hand – showed the name of my mother’s cousin, now married and living in Madras. The letter began: Dear Lailamma. Inside, in blue ink, were the comfortingly curly loops and swirls of Malayalam. I recognised the letters that formed my name, which I knew how to write, a few more, but not many. It was a script that was so familiar to me, yet one which remained mysterious. Interspersed among the softness of the Malayalam were the alternating spikes and curves of a few English words. These I read carefully: cinema, haircut, business, Delhi.
I took the aerogramme with me to my room and lay on my bed. I held it above my face so that the light from behind filtered through and the words written on the other side threw their shadows on the words facing me. I read out the English words in a low voice, imagining my aunt saying them as she bent over the paper, writing her letter. With her dark skin and curly hair, she looked unlike my mother, bearing a greater resemblance to my grandfather, Pappan. But I knew they were close; they were the same age and had shared a room for some years in adolescence. The aerogramme fluttered closer to my face as my hand drooped. I dreamt I was back in the bird sanctuary, the river in front of us and the sun a molten ball in the sky. My mother’s cousin was sitting next to me, holding my hand. I looked up and saw on the other side of the river Ezekiel, wearing his crooked smile and a worn grey shirt.
I woke to a scraping sound outside. The aerogramme lay on my face, like a blue sheet. I pushed it aside and struggled to a sitting position. I went through to the living room, and from the window facing the road, at the end of our front yard, I saw two men with a ladder. They were putting up what looked like bunting; the school was being decorated for the anniversary celebrations. There was a long trail of red string, holding what looked like multi-coloured flags, but closer inspection revealed that they were alternating pictures of the president and the emblem of the school. One man held the ladder while the other climbed to the top, fixed the line to a lamp-post, then the ladder was dragged a few metres down the road, and the process was repeated. When the men were directly opposite our bungalow I realised that the younger one, who was climbing up and down the ladder, was Jonah.
I opened the door and went out onto the veranda. The older man looked back at the sound of the door closing, then turned away, but not before he saw me wave. I saw them exchange some words, and then Jonah waved at me. He climbed up the ladder and then down again. It was only when he saw me still standing there that he said something to his companion. He came up the path to our veranda, walking with his now-familiar long strides and easy athletic grace.
‘Muli bwanji, Sissy,’ he said. He smiled, a wide smile, as if he was genuinely pleased to see me.
‘Ndilo bwino, but . . . I haven’t been well,’ I replied, the extent of my Nyanja having been depleted.
‘I know, Sissy. Every afternoon you have been asleep.’
He looked down at me, still smiling. We had never spoken like this before, facing each other, and I found I felt a little shy. He stood before me with his hands clasped together, as if we were accustomed to each other’s company.
‘Are you feeling better?’
‘I’ve missed school all week,’ I said, and to my chagrin, saying the words made me feel the loneliness of my days, the silence inside the house, and the long hours that stretched before me. I knew the American girls were back home and not giving me a second thought. I knew that Bobby and Aravind would have been enjoying each other’s company without me. My dispensable existence seemed, suddenly, to overwhelm me. My eyes welled up with tears. Jonah continued to smile, but I could see that his eyes had darkened, and he tilted his head in sympathy.
‘Ah, don’t be sad, Sissy.’
Then he pointed back to where his companion stood waiting, the ladder resting against his shoulder. ‘Do you see?’
I nodded, tried to smile, brushed my tears away with the back of my hand.
‘It will be a big party!’ Jonah grinned. ‘Singing, dancing.’
I nodded again.
‘You will feel better then and so you will enjoy.’
My head was beginning to throb. We fell silent. With no story to relate about my school day, my head feeling heavy and my throat beginning to scratch, I couldn’t think what to say.
‘You need to rest, Sissy. Go inside and lie down now.’
He spoke with an authority that held an intimacy which made me stare back at him. I was only accustomed to being spoken to like that by my parents. Then he walked across the veranda and opened the front door for me, waited until I was back inside, and closed it. I watched him walk back down to the road. It was a new, not unpleasant, sensation to have obeyed Jonah. Behind me I could hear the ladder scraping down the road to the next lamppost. I went back to my bed and drifted in and out of sleep.
When my parents returned later, they were relieved to see me awake and reading a book, my knees drawn up; even more when I repositioned myself in the living room, on the sofa. When Jonah arrived at the door he smiled his hello, before busying himself in the kitchen, then moving outside. He seemed more assured, as if he had moved up a few notches those days while I was sleeping. My father, in contrast, seemed disgruntled; I suspected he missed driving out of the campus to pick me up from the American girls’ house, his chats with Mr Cooper. And my mother looked tired; she had been worried about me, and without my help, the afternoons had been fraught for her. Our bungalow seemed even smaller than ever; our lives seemed even more squeezed into that road, the campus.
While my father took Danny outside to keep him company as he dug in the garden and tended to his vegetable patch, I watched my mother clear some space at the dining table, and then Jonah re-entered, washed his hands in the kitchen sink, and sat down across from her. I noticed she did not use her teaching voice, even though she was correcting his work; it was gentler, as if she was being careful not to hurt his feelings. He asked an occasional question, and his voice in turn was respectful and tentative, as if he were afraid of revealing what he did not know. I enjoyed hearing their voices in the background, as I read my book. You know which is oxidation and which is reduction? And if there is no acid present, madam?
The light began to fade and my father came back inside, Danny on his arm. As he walked past, he squeezed my mother’s shoulder. Jonah took this as a signal, and lowering his eyes, he stood up and gathered his books, then stepped outside. On the veranda, he bent down and picked up a bag he had left there.
‘Sir,’ he said to my father, ‘I made this for the baby,’ and he unfurled what he held, an ingenious small wooden cage, polished smooth and varnished, with ropes attached and trailing down. My mother’s eyes were wide, and he smiled at her obvious surprise as my father grunted a thank-you, stealing a look at my mother.
‘It will hang well there.’ Jonah pointed to a branch of one of the trees in the front yard.
I saw my father put his arm around my mother’s shoulder as if to stay her enthusiasm, and we all watched as Jonah went outside, slipped the ropes around the branch and knotted the ends expertly. He gave the swing a little nudge and it leapt forward encouragingly. My mother wriggled from my father’s clasp, scooped up Danny, and skipped outside. I watched as Jonah helped her place my brother in his seat and give the swing another little push. Danny gripped the front bar and kicked his legs with delight.
‘Jonah, it’s wonderful!’ My mother was looking up at him.
‘Wait, I will make this tighter.’ And he reached up to fiddle with the rope on the branch, in a gesture that
was at once graceful and wholly masculine. Danny was bouncing up and down with glee, and both my mother and Jonah laughed at his antics. She touched his arm. ‘Thank you so much.’
‘It’s nothing, madam.’ He smiled down at her, clearly gratified by her reaction, and then he looked across the yard to me at the window and raised his hand. ‘Bye bye, Sissy.’ He called out, ‘Tomorrow you will be even better.’ Then, to my father: ‘Sir.’
His attention touched me; he had not forgotten me. I raised myself on my knees and watched through the window as he kicked himself off on his bicycle and in a fluid, practised movement, his bag slung across his chest, glided away.
My father went out to push Danny, my mother came to sit next to me, and I asked, ‘Is Jonah clever?’
She laughed. ‘What a question.’
‘Why are you helping him?’
She looked amused. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘You didn’t help Ezekiel.’
The words arrived from somewhere I was unaware existed. She looked at me with a level gaze, and I thought for a moment she would stand up and move away, her lips pursed with annoyance.
She spoke finally: ‘I never felt comfortable with Ezekiel . . . I know you thought of him as a friend—’
‘He was a friend.’
She shook her head. ‘Sissy . . .’ She stopped, started again. ‘It’s unusual for a girl your age to be friends with a man Ezekiel’s age.’
‘But how old is Ezekiel?’
She smiled. ‘To be honest, I don’t know. Twenties? We can ask Papa, he might know.’
‘And how old is Jonah?’
‘I’m not sure.’ She paused. ‘Same age as Ezekiel, or perhaps a little older.’
I turned my face away. Jonah and Ezekiel: biblical names for ordinary men. They were the same age, and shared the same background, inhabited the same world. But I realised from where my discomfiture lay; my mother was picking and choosing in a way I did not like, even as I felt my loyalties to Ezekiel seeping away. I felt troubled, as if aware that very soon a small crack would appear in the bubble that was our lives. And that small fissure could not be sewn shut, but would fray and stretch, wider and wider. Until we fell through it, into the world, waiting for us, outside.
5
MY father left not long after that day, the day of the swing. But of the circumstances surrounding his departure, I remember very little. He must have told me he was going away but I do not recall the conversation. My mother did not seem more vexed than usual. There was no stand-out row, my parents facing each other, eyes blazing. My thoughts were without a doubt elsewhere occupied. I was, at the time, upset by a growing sense of disconnection from the boys, and an incipient worry that the American girls, too, would begin to detach themselves from my company. I was unaware when a blue aerogramme arrived, unaware that it was opened and my father’s decision made. Whatever news that rectangular blue sheet held had sent my father away.
Now, thinking back, while there was no set-piece event, I do remember snatches of conversation. But it is only my father’s voice I can recall: it might be too late already. What do you mean? You’re not alone, you’re surrounded by friends. And one evening, after I had gone to bed, but then woken in the night to use the bathroom, I remember thinking that the dream I had been having was continuing, for there was a murmur of voices coming from the other side of the window. I opened the curtain a fraction to see my parents standing near the vegetable patch, facing each other. Even then, there was nothing distinctive about their body language to alert me to the ensuing separation. More memorable were the meetings my mother had to attend with the Mother Superior, in the days that followed. We had already had an extended stay in India to show Danny off. My father’s sudden absence was, unsurprisingly, roundly condemned, and the Board of Governors initially called for his dismissal. However, after a long deliberation, they signed it off as unpaid leave. The tacit agreement was that my mother was too valuable to antagonise, being a chemistry teacher with exam classes and an excellent track record. Better to excuse one Olikara in the short term than sever ties with both Olikaras. The nuns became benevolent, offered to take charge of Danny in the afternoons until I could be properly returned from school. The Mother Superior gave her blessing – irrelevant, because by then my father had already gone.
Before that, however, we enjoyed our last airing as a family of four. A father, a mother and two children: a girl and a boy. Nondescript in many ways, but a unit and undeniably attached, with the father’s arm around the mother’s shoulder, the baby in the woman’s arms, and the girl holding her father’s other hand. Dressed for an occasion, too: the mother in a turquoise silk sari, her hair pulled into a bun at the back of her head, gold hoops at her ears. The father in a white shirt and tie. Even the baby boy was dressed up, in embroidered yellow shirt and shorts, his feet in matching yellow boots. And the older child, the girl, in a skirt-and-blouse combination, stitched for her on their last visit to India, in Mattancherry, a few months previously. It was the day of the school’s anniversary celebration, and as Jonah had predicted, I was well enough to walk down to the netball courts at midday.
Ahead of us lay at least an hour of speeches, then a buffet lunch, followed by the entertainment – the singing and dancing that Jonah had mentioned. As we made our way to our seats in the marquee, I saw Bobby and Aravind standing at one end, both with their hair plastered down into neat side-partings. Aravind gave me a wave, and I smiled back weakly, trying to suppress the automatic gratitude I always felt at any acknowledgement from the boys. If I had been feeling better, this would have been a day of freedom, to be spent with my playmates, but I felt disinclined. I settled on my father’s lap, as if I were years younger, but he did not remind me of this; my mother sat beside me with Danny. My outfit, although ridiculously over-dressy, I felt, in red and orange satin, was luxuriously soft against my legs, and I appreciated the way it caressed my body, still achy from the fever. The speeches began, the first by the bishop invited to oversee the day, who droned on, and behind me, his hand tapping against my leg, my father whispered: okay, mol? I turned my face so that it would brush against his sideburns, then reached across and took one of Danny’s hands. He turned to me with delight then tipped himself into my lap. I pulled him close. We were a triple layer now: my father, myself and Danny. Beside us, my mother smelled sweetly of talcum powder. I saw my father’s hand go to the back of her neck, to caress it briefly, his hand a dark mahogany against the gold of her skin. It was the last such moment I remember witnessing.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bobby and Aravind leave the gathering and run down the steps away from the netball courts. I watched them until they were out of sight, then asked my father if I could take Danny for a walk. But I should not have left the comfort of my father’s lap. As soon as I walked away, or rather was led by Danny – bent over him, his fingers twisted into mine, his hands held aloft while his feet marched, one in front of each other, a look of faint surprise on his face, as if he were being propelled by his limbs – I felt unsteady on my feet, my head in turns heavy and light. My tongue felt dry and over-large in my mouth, and it was only curiosity that spurred me on. If we positioned ourselves at the end of the netball courts, just before the hill which led down to the science laboratories and then on to the girls’ dormitories, I would have a view of what Bobby and Aravind were doing. They were huddled together, and I saw Aravind pull something from under his shirt, a pamphlet I thought at first, before realising it was a magazine. Both boys then leant over, their heads touching as they turned the pages, their backs to me, and I felt suddenly unwilling to remain in my crow’s nest. I steered Danny away, thinking we could head back to the tent where I could get a drink, but when we reached the edge of the slope, I saw Jonah, by the small standalone storeroom that stood just below the brow of the hill. He was not alone. I recognised the young woman he was with, one of the cooks from the school kitchens.
She was leaning against the storeroom wall, her hands
behind her back; Jonah had one forearm pressed against the wall above her head, so he was simultaneously pinning her in place and shielding her view with his body. He was wearing a long-sleeved dark green shirt over smart navy trousers, and the cook was wearing a fitted red dress, a white turban covering her hair. Against the terracotta wall they were both vivid splashes of colour. They spoke in low voices, their faces only inches apart, and they spoke fluently: Jonah did not have that reticence or stiffness as when he spoke with my parents, and as far as I could tell, he was in the middle of a long speech. His voice was gentle but there was a persuasive tone. I understood nothing, but his companion did; the cook’s eyes never left his, and she punctuated Jonah’s words with brief nods. Danny was motoring down the hill with furious intent, so I had to follow, and before I could change his course, we arrived in front of them. The cook’s eyes slid behind Jonah to me, and she murmured something, straightened up, so that Jonah dropped his arm and turned around. He said something to the cook in Nyanja which I did not understand, then, ‘Hello, Sissy.’
They looked down at me, smiling, but I could sense that they were both taken aback by our appearance. Jonah glanced again at his companion, gesturing to me. ‘Musungwana wokongole,’ before continuing. ‘You look beautiful in your dress.’ The cook nodded in confirmation and repeated in a surprisingly high voice, ‘Very beautiful.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. And then I ventured, ‘So do both of you.’
They laughed, and I saw the cook touch Jonah’s arm briefly.
He bowed at me, his face serious but his eyes dancing. ‘Thank you, Sissy. Are you better now?’
‘I think so.’
He said a few more words to the cook and she clucked her tongue in sympathy.
The Wild Wind Page 5
