The Wild Wind

by Sheena Kalayil

  They were eating something now, something dark and fibrous, which dripped with a liquid that made my stomach turn, and I wished I had not woken to witness this. I wanted to close my eyes against the sight but found I could only stare, fascinated. I watched as they chewed, swallowed, as their lips were dirtied by the wetness. But when Grace offered a lump to Ezekiel, he refused. She offered it to him again, and again he refused, his head half-turned away. Her eyes blazed, and she struck him across the face. Once, and then again, and as she snarled at him, unrecognisable, the same body but within it a different spirit from the gentle, clean woman I had known, Ezekiel took the soft, fibrous matter and his hand moved closer to his mouth.

  But I do not know if he ate or not, or if, just before he died, he was finally cured of his illnesses and his ill luck – the epilepsy and the vicious virus that would have taken his life anyway before the year would end. For the wind was finally victorious. The door of the small hut flew open, the latch broken by a gust, and it slammed against the head of the old woman, who let out a scream, her teeth bloodied by what she had been eating. Before anyone could tend to her, the lamps balanced on the beam around the hut toppled, one after the other, so the paraffin sprayed over us, bathing the interior like holy water from a priest’s incense pot, allowing the fire in the centre, that had until then been contained but already titillated, aroused by the small offerings, to leap upward with a release and an exhale of breath that reminded me of my mother’s voice – don’t stop, don’t stop.

  The flames did not stop, and within seconds we were coated with a golden heat that warmed me from my fever, so for a brief glorious moment I felt an intense pleasure at the cold ache in my bones being alleviated. And then the pain arrived, on my neck and on one side of my face and in my hair, a pain so intense that it felt like an epiphany. I could not see clearly, could just make out Ezekiel rising to his feet, the fire on his back and around his head like a halo, as he lunged towards me. The expression on his face was monstrous, terrifying me so much that I could hear myself screaming just as I could not even then use my voice. I felt his hands grip me, and with a strength that belied his skeletal frame, he picked me off my feet and threw me out the door, out of the hut, so I landed on the wet grass outside, snapping my wrist as I tried to break my fall, then lay on the earth, unmoving, as it shook and thundered beneath me with the stamps and screams of the people running towards us. But the small hut succumbed under the weight of the fire, disintegrated into ash. The interior and the people who remained inside – the old woman and the man, the person who had been Grace, and Ezekiel – purified at last by the flames, to join the soil, join the earth.

  So, how are you reborn? You are thrown up into the air, and you float above the world with your arms outstretched, your legs akimbo, as if you are lying on a cloud. Around you the air is sweet and cool and caresses your skin, which is shining, vital. Your eyes are open and brilliant, your lips are parted, as you breathe and breathe, feeling the air fill your lungs and flood into your heart, your stomach, through your limbs and into your fingertips and the ends of your toes. You see the universe ahead of you and the stars, and you smile and smile because now you understand. That you are wonderful and beautiful. A creation of such intricacy and excellence and innovation that you laugh out loud at your perfection. Your voice rings out like a bell, as melodious a sound as you have ever heard.

  And then you look down to the earth and you see gathered below you, and looking up, all the people you know and love and fear and dislike and envy. And swirling around them like black smoke are all the thoughts and deeds that you regret and feel shame for, all the words you said in anger, all the lies you told to save yourself. And as you grasp at the cloud it begins to shred and fray and you realise that you were foolish, so foolish, to believe that so fragile a bed could have ever supported you. You start falling, and you fall fast, and as you plummet towards the earth, you know you are leaving behind everything you knew before. And when you find that you have survived the descent, that you are still alive, with your feet now planted on the ground, you hold yourself erect and survey the world you have returned to. But everyone around you sees you with different eyes, just as you see yourself with different eyes. You are two faces: a before and after, a now and then. You have left your home and your people. And you belong, now, to a different tribe.

  24

  OF the events that followed the fire, there are some things I cannot separate from the many dreams that merged with my reality, so that the past, the present and the future, fictional or not, became one. I am certain, for example, absolutely certain, that I saw my father, the man who made me, sitting beside me in the hospital, while next to him was Ezekiel, the man who saved me. I know my heart broke and that I wept, for Ezekiel and Grace both dead, even for the old woman and the man, for who would wish for such an end? But I also know that I was unaware of their lot for a long time, would only have heard of the full extent of the tragedy much later, when I had gained enough consciousness to understand what was being said to me. Early on, in one of the days when reality and dreams were particularly intertwined, I saw my mother sitting by my side, in the chair she slept in through the nights. I want to say something, mol. She was whispering in Malayalam and I was not sure if she thought I was awake or asleep. Her eyes were huge and bright. That night, I know you wanted to see Jonah and I know what made you run away. One day, perhaps, you will understand. And whether this was in a dream or if this was indeed real and true, I could not respond, but only watched as her hands twisted in the folds of her sari.

  Some things I know for certain. That the men in the settlement fought the fire valiantly, endangering their own lives trying to rescue the four who remained inside but succeeding only in containing the blaze to the one hut. That one of the women had run in the dark to the convent, woken one of the nuns, who had then driven me, wrapped in the wet chitenges the other women had swaddled me in, and in Jonah’s arms, to the hospital, where my mother and Mr Cooper arrived, having received a deathly phone call that erased all their pleasure and joy from that night. I know that Charlie Lawrence and Fee Munroe harnessed the aid of Rahul’s father to contact my great-uncle Monuchayan, who promised he would do his utmost to get a message to my father of my injuries; this promise itself was dispiriting, in that it was clear that my father was not easily to hand, and would have to be unearthed. When my mother finally heard from him, she had already made her decision: to leave my father and take sole custody of myself and Danny. I know that Sam Cooper was at my bedside as much as my mother was, his face as stricken by my fate and as determined to right it as if he were my father himself. I know that he moved heaven and earth for us. But not without the assistance of his then-wife Cindy who, when given both the news of the fire and my injuries, and the declaration from her husband that he had fallen in love with my mother, had from some inner strength and a deep well of integrity and goodness chosen to process and react to the latter only after she helped stage-manage our arrival in America a few months later. She would grant my stepfather a divorce, without acrimony, and pave the way for my mother’s second marriage. It did not happen immediately, but over time we became a large, if not quite blended then untidily knitted family so that when it was time for graduations and house-warmings, the turn of the daughters to get married, everyone attended everyone’s celebration. My stepfather walked both Ally and me down the church aisle and town-hall aisle respectively; Mary-Anne and her husband got married on a beach, no aisle in sight. Cindy never remarried, but as testament to the deep respect and love they had always had for each other, and the love they both had for Ally and Mary-Anne, she and Sam Cooper remained close. While my stepfather was imprinted as ‘Mr Cooper’ in my mind – I even jokingly referred to him as that and he signed my birthday cards as such – Danny had never known another father. He was always ‘Dad’ to Danny, and eventually I followed my baby brother’s example and called him the same.

  I know that Jonah came to me both in my dreams and in
reality. I know the dream, and I know it was a dream because I could see both of us, as if I were watching myself on a film. And I had no bandages on my face, and my skin was smooth, and my hair lay around my shoulders and framed my face, and I was smiling as he held my hand with one of his, and in the other, on his palm, lay the two tiny hands, the gold chain and the leather cord intertwined. This was not true; I know that my clothes were cut from me at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka, and the wooden hand and leather cord disappeared in the charged adrenaline of the emergency room in the hospital, the gold chain removed and bagged. My mother told me later that she had shown it to Jonah, asked if it was his. Whether she had clasped it around his neck as I had wished to, I did not ask. All I know is that he told her that it was from his mother, as if in apology and an explanation for why he would reclaim it, not leave it in my possession. At least, then, part of my mission that night when I had walked to him in the rain was accomplished.

  I heard his voice. He spoke to me, but I cannot remember what he said, only that his voice was deep and soothing and his tone persuasive, like it had been when he spoke to the cook, Juliette. I don’t know how long he was allowed to stay by my side, or how many times he visited, but I do know he was there and often, and that this was not a dream, because my mother told me of this. And that he kissed me – on the top of my head, above the bandages, when he said his farewell – and this news had given me comfort; that he had not been repulsed by my shaven scalp. He might have kissed my mother, too, but she did not tell me, only that she felt, when he had left, that she would miss him. He had told her that he had not attended the exams he had been due to take and he had not yet decided if he would try to sit them again in the new year. He was returning to the Copperbelt where he would join his father and brother and look for work. He had no wish to remain in Lusaka or at Roma, even though my stepfather offered to help him find different employment.

  And both my mother and I, when she gave this news to me, weeks later, when I was well enough to listen, having had to recover not only from the fire that burned me from without but from the pneumonia that burned me from within, both of us felt something profound and powerful: a bond with Jonah that would connect us inextricably, more than the memory of my father ever would. A bond that would survive the anger I felt towards her for many years, and the guilt she bore for all her life since. That she remained her undamaged self while her daughter was maimed; that she had found love, again, and was loved, again, while her daughter for so long believed herself to be unlovable. We were bound irrevocably by our shared hope that Jonah would stay safe and find happiness.

  Not long afterwards, when I was sitting up, sipping a drink through a straw without assistance, when we knew that we would be leaving Zambia to begin a new life across the ocean, even further from my father, my mother presented me with the envelope.

  ‘This is for you, mol.’

  I turned it over in my hands. It said simply: For Sissy.

  ‘From Jonah,’ she said.

  I looked up in wonder, and she continued: ‘He left it with me to give to you when you were better.’ Her face crumpled at the words because we both knew that I was a long way from any kind of recovery. ‘He left it when he said goodbye to you, that last time.’

  My whole body felt as if it were caught in a moment of time that would never find its end. ‘Did he say if he was coming back, Mama?’

  The question was clear in my head, but I had to repeat myself many times because my words were still not clear, my facial muscles and vocal cords not yet fully functioning. When she finally understood she shook her head, stroked my cheek, laid her palm against my face, my bandages – no, mol – and for a second I was not sure if we were referring to my father or Jonah. She stood up then, and she turned to leave me with the envelope, before we realised that I was trembling so much I could not open it. But after she had helped me slide out the folded sheet from its sheath, she left the room so that I could read it alone.

  It was short, but on clean, stiff paper, of the type you would find in a high-quality stationer’s; it would have been hard to find something like that at that time in Lusaka. I had never seen Jonah’s handwriting before and I found it exquisite: sloping and even, the capitals extending high, and then tapering down. He began the letter with Dear Sissy, and when I read those words I had to close my eyes; only one eye could cry, but my whole body could ache. He continued: When you read this I hope you will be feeling better. I am so sorry for what happened, but I know this will make you more strong, more beautiful and more kind. Nothing can change how special you are inside. Adeus, Jonah.

  No mention of the tiny hands that had failed, no mention of friendship, of marriage, or of love, or that we would never see each other again. But I knew the words were steeped with these sentiments, and I felt his presence so strongly that I had to put a hand on my chest to stop my heart from breaking. When my mother re-entered the room, she did not ask to read the letter, but helped me fold it carefully and place it back in the envelope, where it still lies – an everlasting memento of, and a farewell to, that night, that man and my childhood.

  Epilogue

  WHEN my stepfather died aged seventy-two, after a mercifully brief period of illness, my brother and I arrived at the house in Philadelphia for a consultation with my mother. She refused to move in with either of us. Yes, the house was large, but she wished to remain where she was for as long as she felt able to look after herself. Her words only brought into relief how she appeared suddenly much more fragile and debilitated, as if she had held the ageing process at bay only until she found herself alone. But she was insistent and could not be swayed; she wished not to be a burden to us.

  While driving to the airport to catch the flight back to Boston, I said to Danny: maybe it’s time to go back.

  To where? my brother asked.

  Back to India, to Kerala. We could go together and see if we can find him.

  Danny’s hands on the steering wheel slid right down to the lowest curve, and he was quiet for some time before he said: find the old man? Do you even know where to start?

  Monuchayan, I said. I’m sure he will have seen Papa, at least when he first returned. He’s still alive, Monuchayan, that is. I’ve been in touch with Sanjay Tharoor, who’s found out where he lives now.

  My brother did not probe, but he will have known this was a timely request. He knew I had been unsure if he would accompany me while my stepfather was still alive. Eventually he nodded, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

  Just the two of us? I asked.

  Sure, he said. If that’s the way you want it.

  I had rehearsed the conversation; it was not made on a whim. I had pondered whether I wanted to make the journey with my husband and my seven-year-old daughter. I had wondered what I would say if Danny wanted to bring his girlfriend. But my baby brother, while finding success as the host of a frivolous radio talk show, was no fool. And when, a few months later, I watched as he kissed his girlfriend on the lips in goodbye, I felt a wave of guilt. Perhaps I was imposing my own desires on my brother who, now in his thirties, had never shown any wish for such a quest. But when we were alone on the plane and in transit, when I was rediscovering how much I enjoyed his company, he said that he had visited my mother a few days ago, to find her listening to an old vinyl album, playing it on my stepfather’s treasured old record player.

  Malayalam songs, he said. I’d not heard them before.

  I remembered those afternoons when she had barricaded herself in the bedroom in the small pink bungalow, with me and Danny, then not yet two, left outside, listening through the closed door to words I did not even then fully understand. I looked at my brother. He appeared pensive, unlike his usual, more ebullient self. He was not tall, not like my father had been, and he resembled my mother, as did I. It was as if we had decided as a trio to erase my father, given his decision to abandon us.

  Maybe, he said suddenly, maybe because Dad has died, she’s letting herself think of
Papa a bit more.

  He rarely used that term to refer to my father. In fact he, all of us, rarely spoke of him at all.

  I wonder why she cut herself off so completely, I said. I mean I’m sure her family were horrible to her at first, but years and years, Dan. So many years have passed.

  He nodded. I know what you mean.

  Was it because of me? I gestured to my face. Did she think that no one would ever forgive her? That they’d blame her?

  I don’t know, he said.

  Years and years, I repeated.

  And then he said hurriedly, I wouldn’t want to judge her.

  He had always been quick to defend her. She had not, as she had promised, disappeared.

  We landed. It was hot and humid. Danny looked around in a daze. That evening we walked up and down the promenade, just a few streets away from our hotel, taking in the atmosphere, the breeze, the sounds of Malayalam, the smells. Waves of memory washed over me, and crashed against my head and my heart, but I realised for Danny it would all be a new and a not insignificant experience, to see it all finally with his own eyes.