Homeless Bird

by Gloria Whelan

  We reached Varanasi late in the afternoon. The city in all its confusion seemed too large for us. It was several minutes before we knew which way to turn. We pushed past crowds of beggars. Sassur paused to drop coins into their cups, for the giving of alms brings one much credit with the gods. He clutched the address of his old friend Mr. Lal, a Brahman scholar, who had invited us to stay with him. Sassur found two bicycle rickshaws. After bargaining with the rickshaw wallahs, Sass settled Hari and Sassur in one rickshaw and directed me to join her in the second one.

  The streets were crowded with motorcycles, automobiles, bicycles, and horse-drawn tongas. People clung to buses like swarms of bees on a branch. Cows and dogs and goats wandered in and out of the traffic. I even saw a camel.

  Hari’s face was flushed, and like me he was looking about in amazement. “Look there!” he whispered hoarsely. In this city of fifteen thousand shrines, each shrine was more splendid than the next, but he was pointing to the great mosque of Aurangzeb, where the city’s Muslims worshiped. Its eight towers were like lanterns suspended from the sky.

  Just before we turned off onto a narrow street, we caught a glimpse of the Golden Temple of Vishvanath and the great river itself, Maa Ganges. “How soon will we go?” Hari asked in a weak voice.

  “When you are rested, Hari,” Sassur said.

  Hari closed his eyes and made no reply. His silence broke my heart. All of Hari’s sullenness and temper were gone, and without them Hari seemed to be disappearing.

  Mr. Lal and his wife greeted us warmly. They were elderly and very stately. I was not introduced as Hari’s wife. I believe they took me for his sister. I wondered if Hari’s parents were ashamed to admit before this dignified man that they had married so young and so sick a son to get money. Mrs. Lal brought us a meal of dal and chapatis. Mr. Lal brought a small jar of water. With great ceremony he held it out to Hari. In a solemn voice he said, “From the Ganges.”

  We all watched, holding our breath and hoping for some miracle, while Hari drank the water. But there was no miracle that we could see, only Hari suffering a new attack of coughing.

  Though everyone was eager to take Hari to the river, he was too weakened from the long journey to go. Just before we lay down to sleep, Mrs. Lal gave Sass some mustard oil and camphor to rub on Hari’s chest. The next morning he seemed a little better.

  After a quick meal of tea and lentils we set off. Two men were hired to carry Hari’s cot. With Mr. Lal and Sass and Sassur, we began our pilgrimage to the Golden Temple. We could hardly move, for like us, half the city was making its way to the river. There were women wearing saris the color of jewels, many of them woven with gold. There were holy men whose faces were covered with ashes and who wore nothing at all. There were Jains with masks tied around their faces so they wouldn’t accidentally breathe in an insect and so kill a living thing, which was against their religion. There were Sikhs from the Punjab who never cut their hair but tucked it all up under their turbans. In their saffron robes, sadhus, holy men, were everywhere. They carried begging bowls, and the air was heavy with their chants.

  When I looked into the temples, I could see the holy sadhus sitting in long rows, bare chested, their heads shaven, holding sacred lamps and accompanying their chanting with bells. Pigeons fluttered in and out of the temple’s open doorways. I looked at Hari to see if he was as astonished as I at such sights. When I caught his eye, a faint smile came over his face. I thought he might have been telling me that I had him to thank for so wondrous a trip.

  At last we came to the Golden Temple of Vishvanath. A ghat, a long, wide flight of steps, led down to the river. With the two men holding Hari’s cot between them, we made our way down the ghat, pushing through the crowds. Hari had to hang on to the cot to keep from slipping off.

  Along the river’s edge women were scrubbing clothes and even washing their pots and pans. Barbers were cutting hair. There were dogs and a cow wandering about. Two boys were flying kites. We saw people with every kind of illness. Some could not walk; others were as thin and wasted as Hari was; some had terrible sores and deformities. I could hardly bear to look at all the misery. Yet the expressions on the faces of the sick were not sad. They were not hopeful, but they were peaceful. Even Hari looked more comfortable and content.

  The crowds on either side of us and behind us swept us forward. Ahead of us was Maa Ganges. As the pilgrims reached the greenish-brown river, they walked right into the water. They faced the morning sun and began their pujas, reciting their prayers and making their offerings of flowers or grain. The saris of the wading women floated on the surface of the water like the petals of pond lilies. Beyond the pilgrims hundreds of small boats skimmed over the river.

  Sassur and Mr. Lal helped Hari from his cot and eased him into the water. As the water slid over his body, Hari appeared surprised, as if he could not believe that at long last Maa Ganges was wrapping herself about him.

  I did not know whether I might be allowed to step into the water myself. When I looked at Sass, she nodded her head. It was still early in the morning, and the water felt cool on my legs. I waited, not knowing what to expect. Hari had been too weak to walk to the river on his own legs, but now the river seemed to strengthen him. He had taken his shirt off to bathe, and I could see draped over his left shoulder the sacred thread given to Brahman boys when they come of age. He called out to me, “Koly, look here. I can make myself float. Try it for yourself.” Hari played about in the water, even splashing me. For the first time I could see what Hari must have been like before he became so sick. I thought he was very like my brothers.

  Sassur was shocked. “This is not a game, son. It is a sacred river to be treated with respect.” Though he scolded, I saw that he was pleased at Hari’s liveliness.

  Hari’s liveliness did not last. He had to be helped from the river. He was shivering and then feverish. When we returned to Mr. Lal’s house, Hari was put to bed at once. His coughing became so bad that a Varanasi doctor was called. The doctor wore a proper black suit and carried a black bag. When at last he came out of Hari’s room, he looked very solemn. Speaking in a low voice so Hari could not hear, the doctor said, “I am sorry to have to tell you this, but the boy is gravely ill. There is nothing to be done.”

  It took me a moment to understand what the doctor meant. I turned to Sass, and we held on to each other. We were both crying. If she wished me gone, or I believed her unkind, neither of us thought of such things now. All that was in our minds was our worry over Hari. I had not known Hari for very long, but I remembered the verses said at our wedding by the priest: “I am the words, thou the melody; I the seed, thou the bearer; the heaven I, the earth thou.” How could all that be with just one of us? I couldn’t understand what was happening to Hari and me.

  After the doctor left, Mr. Lal said in his quiet voice, “At least your son will die in Varanasi.” Though he meant his words kindly, they did little to comfort us.

  No one slept that night. Hari’s coughing grew louder. I heard the voices and footsteps of people hurrying back and forth. In the middle of the night the doctor came again. After he went into Hari’s room, there was silence. A moment later I heard a terrible wailing. I knew it was Sass and that there could be only one reason for such a cry. I folded myself into as small a ball as I could and pulled the quilt over my head to drown out the frightening sound.

  When Sassur came in to tell me of Hari’s death, I would not listen. He sat down beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. “We should never have let you marry our son,” he said. “It was not fair to you. We only wanted him to get well. We thought if we could bring him to the holy river, there would be a chance. You must be like a daughter to us now.” At last I heard his heavy steps going away.

  Whatever my sassur had said, I knew Sass would never think of me as a daughter. I was nothing now. I could not go back to my parents and be a daughter again. I was no longer a wife or a bahus, a daughter-in-law. Yes, I thought, I am something. I am a widow. And I bega
n to sob.

  In the morning Hari’s body was wrapped in a cloth and covered with garlands of marigolds. I put one of the garlands on him for Chandra. Hari was carried on a bamboo platform through the streets to the Ganges. Walking behind the platform were Mr. Lal and his wife, Hari’s parents and I, and a priest who was a friend of Mr. Lal’s. As we walked along, we chanted over and over, “Rama nama satya hai,” “The name of Rama is truth.”

  This time the crowds did not push past us but stood a little aside to let us by. A few men joined in our chants and followed us for a short distance. There were many processions like ours that morning, all moving toward the Ganges. Some of the processions were accompanied by music and dancing, for in the midst of the sorrow there was happiness that the death had taken place in Varanasi.

  Only the men accompanied Hari’s body to the Manikarnika Ghat for the cremation. After the cremation the scattering of Hari’s ashes over the Ganges would set his soul free by returning his body to fire, water, and earth. As we three women waited at a respectable distance, we clung to one another. I could hear the men recite the chants for the dead; Hari’s voice was to go to the sky, his eyes to the sun, his ear to the heavens, his body to the earth, and his thoughts to the moon. Finally we heard the words “Amar rahain,” “Live eternally,” and the ceremony was over.

  When the men returned, we made our way quietly back toward the Lals’ house. As we walked through the Golden Temple, a dove wove a pattern just above our heads. I knew that the spirit of the dead hovers about for a time, and the swooping dove seemed very like Hari.

  Before we left Varanasi, Sass purchased a cheap white cotton sari for me. “It is what widows wear,” she said.

  four

  When I returned home with Hari’s parents, everything was different. We all tiptoed by the room where Hari had slept as if any noise would awaken him. I felt his not being there more than I had felt his being there. There was little talk in the house. We all moved silently about our tasks. As the days passed, Sass had little to say to me, addressing me only to give an order or to scold me for not carrying the order out as she wished.

  I was glad to have Chandra with me. When Chandra mourned for her brother, we put our arms around each other. When I woke in the middle of the night to find the room full of ghosts, the reassuring sound of her soft breathing sent them away. She told me what Hari was like when he was growing up. I told her of my own brothers. Chandra had movie magazines that we looked at together. One night a fruit bat flew through our window, and we hid, giggling, under the covers until it was gone.

  A few weeks after Hari’s death Sass told me to put on my widow’s white sari. “We are going into the village,” she said, but she would not tell me why. She hurried us past the outskirts of the village, where the untouchables had homes made of bits of metal and old crates. “You must not let their shadow fall upon you,” she warned, “or it will pollute you.”

  Sass seemed to take pleasure in finding someone who was worse off than she was, while I could not believe there was anyone more miserable than I was.

  Sass led me to the government office, where there was an official wearing a suit, shirt, tie, and jacket. As we approached the official, Sass warned me in a low whisper, “There will be no need for you to talk. I will explain.”

  “What is there to explain?” I whispered. Sass only gave my arm a yank and propelled me into the office.

  “Sir,” Sass said to the man, “my son has died. This is his widow. Does the government not have something for her?”

  The man gave me a quick glance, and after saying he was very sorry to hear of Hari’s death, he pushed some papers at Sass and me to sign. Since neither of us could read the papers, Sass said she would take them home so that her husband, who was a scholar, could read them. Then she would return them with our marks.

  When we were outside the office, I asked, “What does the government have for me?”

  Sass brushed aside my question. “It is a way of speaking. The papers are only to record Hari’s death.” I was sure there was more to it, but the mention of Hari’s death had set her to weeping, and I could do nothing but trail along behind her as she hurried home with her misery.

  After that, each month an envelope with a government stamp came for me. “It is official business,” Sass would say, taking it from the postman, “and nothing for you to bother about.”

  In her sadness over Hari’s death Sass grew bitter. Her angry words buzzed around me, stinging like wasps. “Your dowry did not save Hari, and now we are burdened with one more mouth to feed,” she scolded. She made my own name hateful to me. All day long she sent it screaming through the house and across the courtyard: “Koly, we need water!” “Koly, sweep the courtyard! The geese have soiled it.” “Koly, the clothes you washed are still dirty!” “Koly, the spices you ground for the masalas are too coarse!”

  I did the best I could, thankful for a bed to sleep on and food to put in my mouth. Each morning I got up before the sun swallowed the darkness. It was so early that I felt as if I were the only one awake in the world. I made a respectful puja, bowing to the household shrine. I washed at the courtyard well and brushed my teeth with a twig from the neem tree. I gathered dried leaves to light the dung in the stove so the water for tea would be boiling when the family awoke. I slapped the cow dung into nicely shaped cakes and plastered them to the walls, a neat handprint on each one. After the sun dried them, they would feed the fire. I hurried to the well for a pail of water. When you hold water in your hand, it weighs nothing, but put it in a pail and it is as heavy as a stone! I threw sticks at the bandicoot, the nasty rat that lived under the house, to keep it from getting our food.

  If Sass had let me creep quietly about my tasks, I would have been content. I still would have had a little place inside me to go, a place I could wrap myself in like the cocoon a caterpillar makes. You can touch the cocoon, but you cannot touch the little thing inside unless you tear it apart. That is what my sass was doing to me, worrying and badgering me with her never-ending orders and scoldings.

  She screamed at me, “You are no better than the bandicoot that burrows under our house and eats our food. Go home to your miserable parents!” But she knew as well as I that I could not go back to my village. It would have been a terrible disgrace to return like a hungry dog to my parents’ home.

  To comfort myself, I began a quilt. When I explained to Sass that the quilt would be a way to remember Hari, for once she was not angry with me but only cautioned me to finish my tasks before taking up the quilt. She gave me rags for the quilt and a few rupees to buy thread. Though she pretended to take no notice of my work, even complaining that I was neglecting my tasks, I would sometimes come upon her looking to see what I had stitched. I embroidered Hari in his bridegroom’s headdress as the two of us sat before the priest. I stitched the train that took us to Varanasi, and Hari splashing about in the river. At last I made the procession to the Ganges with Hari’s body covered with garlands. All around the edge of the quilt I put a border of bugs and butterflies.

  In February on the night of the full moon we could hear the sound of drums in the distance. It was Holi, the feast that celebrates the god Krishna’s love for the fair Radha. At first Sass would not allow Chandra and me to go into the village. At Holi a special red powder mixed with cow’s dung and urine is thrown at everyone. But Chandra kept pleading, and finally, after we promised to wear our oldest clothes, we were allowed to go. To our surprise Sass decided to go with us. She said it was to see that we behaved, but I believe she was glad of an excuse to leave the sadness of the house.

  In no time everyone was covered with the red dye. Small boys ran about squirting everyone with their water guns. Late in the evening, when the dancing became wild, Sass hurried us home. But for a few hours we had forgotten our troubles.

  When the hot weather came, I worked on the quilt in the courtyard, hoping for a little breeze. Day after day the heat pressed down on us. I longed to be like the turtles in
the dried-out streams, hidden in the mud, waiting for the rains to give them life again.

  Chandra loved to watch me embroider. “Your needle makes the pictures come alive,” she said.

  “I can teach you,” I offered, but Chandra only shook her head.

  “I’d rather watch you,” she said.

  Chandra was not lazy, but only a little spoiled. She was allowed to sleep later than I was in the morning, was given more food to eat, and had fewer tasks than I did, always the easier ones like airing the quilts and pillows. Still, I could not be angry with her for the way Sass treated me. Chandra was willing enough to help me, but she gave little thought to a task. She was always dreaming of something else—the shape of the clouds or the color of the sari she had seen in the marketplace or, most often, the husband she would have one day.

  I sometimes teased her for her daydreams, but I was happy to have her for a sister. If Sass scolded me, Chandra would find an excuse for me. When she was given some treat to eat that was not given to me, she would secretly save some and give it to me when we were alone. Chandra had tied a rope to the mango tree, knotting the end. When Sass was busy elsewhere, we hung on to the rope and swung ourselves into the treetops.

  The best parts of the days were the afternoons, when Chandra and I had the courtyard to ourselves for our baths. We took turns pouring pails of water over each other. We would unwind our saris. Only then, as the cool water washed over me, could I forget Sass’s scalding words and the fiery sun. We would put on fresh, dry clothes, making sure all the while that no parts of our bodies showed, so as to preserve our modesty.