Pa Smand stared at the beautiful grounds ahead - florid rising and splashing fountains, radiant flowers and fine trees - with the deep vagueness of an ageing mind that he did not notice the approach of the duo from behind him.
When Netu and Timi came to stand next to Pa Smand, however, in a florish of instinct peculiar with the aged with sight on the decline, the perfume of human presence assailed his senses. Apprehensive of a sudden, he turned and saw in the blur of his failing sight two figures towering by his side.
"Who is sneaking up on me? And what is it?" Pa Smand queried.
"Pa Smand, it is Timi Liati. You have an august visitor here," she said, brightening up.
"Oh," Pa Smand drawled. "Timi, I didn’t notice your entrance." His gaunt features leaped with a sudden glow like the merry bursts of a flame in cavort. "Did I hear you right? A visitor? And who could it be?"
"Netu Deo!" Netu said without waiting for Timi’s introduction. "Pa Smand, it’s your son, Netu Deo." He took up a position perpendicular to Pa Smand’s gaze.
"Ah, ah, Netu! Forgive the poor sight and weak memory of an old man. What a pity I couldn’t recall your face and your sweet voice. Come, come son, come sit by my side!" Smand fawned.
"Excuse me Netu. I guess I’ll drift along till you’re through with your daddy here. I’ll be in the reception area by the gate. Pa Smand, please, take care of your son," Timi Liati said retreating.
Pa Smand dismissed Timi with a waved his hand. He wanted more than anything to be alone with his spiritual protégé at this moment of reunion. "He’s in good hands surely. He’ll join you much later. You can go my dear daughter."
"I’ll be with you shortly," Netu told Timi. She left them in a hurry.
“Son, quite some time you’ve been off the scene," Pa Smand began. In his rheumy eyes were glints of trepidation. "I was going to call you for a long chat at Danabi City the last time you were there but the next thing I knew - you were gone," he snapped his fingers, "to oblivion. But I’m glad you came to see me here."
"Pa, my visit to the headquarters of the Brotherhood was a short one. I tried to contact you while there but protocol worked against my schedule so I had to leave. I’m sorry we couldn’t see till now."
"It’s no longer an old man’s pain since you are here son, and I believe you are in good mental and spiritual shape."
"Everybody thinks so, Pa."
"And what do you think?"
"I don’t think what I think matters."
"Well, if you want my opinion, I think they are right son. I can sense from your aura that all is well with you."
"I believe you Pa if you think so yourself."
"I can feel it so. It’s in the air. And we’ve discussed about you a lot - Father Manu and I. I’ll let you into our little gossip, but it can’t be right here. Son, I think we better move inside. They gave me this cosy little apartment bordering the poolside over there.” He pointed towards the swimming pool. “We’ll go inside and get it all spilled and sorted. Help me with my staff and shirt and I’ll lead the way."
Pa Smand lumbered to his feet. Netu went to fetch the shirt and staff on the edge of the lounging chair.
On return, Netu observed Pa Nyto Smand. Sixty-five years of real thawing, plus fifteen years of reclusive life in search of esoteric meaning and the last ten that winded up at the Brotherhood, never in a way robed Pa Nyto Smand of his huge build, nor his spiritual ardor. Sixty-five years in rewound time, the now stooping Pa Smand would have easily loomed amidst his Waji clansmen or the various societies of his spiritual sojourn as the most likeable of the brawny, brash, macho men around.
His great height and size perhaps were the measure of the degree of his abundant compassion and the roots of a glaring father figure Netu treasured. What would have looked like a large skull with a thick shock of black hair had been shaven clean with a gleam like polished eggshell. Wrinkles had also made gutters on his otherwise handsome face and formed ringlets around his sky blue eyes, and the inevitable sagging of his nose-line, lower and upper jaw turned his speech to a jawing, guttural treat. But the old man still had livid strength that surprised Netu as they went round the pool to his apartment. And Pa Smand’s cheery attitude seemed as if he was a child all over and time reset to the dawn of his youth.
The Brotherhood had been kind, indeed generous to Pa Smand from Netu’s on the spot assessment inside the apartment. An old man’s welfare was as sensitive as that of a sulking toddler and this factor accounted for the unsparing care given his apartment. His needs in relation to his wiles were extravagantly catered for in the choice of décor and other accessories by a team of residents under the supervision of the head of Vidya Valley’s Brotherhood of Father Manu.
A courteous attendant assigned to Pa Smand appeared as they entered the living room. He gave a solemn salute and asked, "Would you need anything so urgently, Pa Smand?"
"Bless your soul Niima," Pa Smand responded. "I was about buzzing the pager to draw your attention to our visitor here. Netu is back and that means you’ll prepare an early dinner for two or three. He’ll be having dinner with me, and let it be real sumptuous like the one you prepared the other day. We have to give my son an unforgettable treat. I’m sure he doesn’t even remember how food in the Brotherhood tastes like anymore.” He puffed brightly. "If I need anything else I’ll let you know."
Niima who wore loose red slacks and yellow apron turned to Netu. "You’re welcome, Netu!" He bounced out of the room thereafter.
"Now son, have a sandwich or two and a cup of warm milk before Niima prepares dinner," Pa Smand said offering Netu from a side pier table of cross-banded mahogany a tortoise shell commode, which held some fruit sandwiches.
Netu accepted the commode with gratitude. Pa Smand poured a glassful of warm milk from a polychrome teapot on the pier table with swiftness that belied his age, and placed it on a dumbwaiter by Netu. Only then did Pa Smand retire to his favorite walnut sofa, a patriarchal glint of satisfaction inundating his pale blue eyes.
While Netu ate the fruit sandwiches, every slight twitch of muscle of his or faint fidget from the ageing man, seemed an interminable pulse of expectation between them. Their minds reeled with secrets they were willing to share with no other than themselves.
Pa Smand waited patiently for the right moment. He allowed Netu finish the last of the two huge sandwiches he had made by himself, which was all to boost his ego as a once high ranked chef and let the young man also gulp the last drop of milk in the medium glass before unburdening his mind.
"Netu, I think it’s high time you made a U-turn," Pa Smand said impassively. "We can’t have you running around out there to our detriment. Son, there’s no gainsaying that you belong here. There have been great upheavals ever since you left us. The whole place is never the same again - it appears charged with radiations that are burning everyone up. They are all confused - the residents. They lack everything you had; your kind of humility, leadership traits - good Brotherhood relation went extinct with your days. The Manu knows this and confided in me so many times. After you left, everyone started seeing the gem in you, sadly not before. That is a bad precedent but we must learn to forgive the past. Son, there’s so much ahead of us to worry about, so much to hold on to. Endeavor to see Father Manu as soon as you can and tell him you are back for good. Do that for me, son. This time you’d be held with high esteem. Of course, people have always had regards for you, especially people like me who know who you are."
Pa Smand trembled as his gnarled hand searched for a handkerchief in his side pocket with which he wiped off cascading teardrops. His impassiveness all the while had only been a cover for an emotive thrust.
Netu knew the old man was just as vulnerable as any other he had known despite efforts to maintain a calm posture. The tears he saw streaking down Smand’s face roused Netu’s emotion too. He stood up and lent a soothing hand, touching Pa Smand affection
ately on the shoulder.
"You’ve always been nice to me in words and in deed and I wouldn’t now pay you back with defiance, but Pa Smand there’s much to consider,” Netu said and wandered off to the right corner of the room to observe a blown poster of Father Manu on the cream papered wall.
The grizzled look on Pa Smand lit up with no foreboding traces when he saw the possibility of a mellowed heart from Netu’s remark. He almost smiled now.
"You’d come right away then?" he demanded.
Netu backed away from the poster, ignoring Pa Smand’s bloated optimism, nodding without great commitment. "Come I will, but it can’t be right away."
"Why delay when you know you can ride the storm as it is?"
"I can’t back out of some important business commitments, fast yielding deals, so abruptly. It won’t tell well of me."
"When will you be through with these deals of yours?"
"Say a couple of days, weeks, perhaps a few months."
Netu might as well have knifed Pa Smand at the temple with his evasive answers for the light on the old man’s face dimmed fast.
"You are not too keen on coming back, are you?" Pa Smand quizzed in a manner that looked almost like a plea.
Netu went back to his seat worried. "I’ve always belonged here Pa, so I don’t fret over a return match. It only requires my being on the gutsy side. I’ve cause not to be hasty in my decision to return though. My mother - she needs all the help she can get from me, lest she thinks I’ve abandoned her as fate abandoned her when she became an orphan so early in life. I’ll come once I’ve seen to her urgent needs, and then she’ll have no excuse to hold me back from whatever I want to do."
Pa Smand sat, brooding on what Netu had said; caustic though the meanings of it, undeniable were the facts. Soon he gave oblique assent.
"Mothers are a precious lot and we need more than perfection in handling them if one must gain their respect and necessary blessing," Pa Smand said. “At the same time a man’s independence of mind and spirit is non-negotiable."
"True," Netu concurred despite the ambiguity of Pa Smand’s words. “Right as ever. The line of tow between the two options is thin - and wisdom is the determinant, right?"
“Take your time and balance the simple equation my son," Pa Smand urged in cryptic undertones. "The world isn’t going to end today or tomorrow. You have a lot to gain or lose on your side. For me, time has been friendly, fair."
Pa Nyto Smand unfurled the secrets he wanted to share with Netu after this attitudinal display of wisdom.
"Son, you’ve never failed, never ever through all your incarnations. This one is no exception. You’ve always fought bravely till the end. And this is authoritative. Take it from me or leave it. See, it was you and I who toiled to lift Father Manu up the podium of world acclaim. We did all we could to get him there – son, you were marvelous with your brave, selfless efforts - but there was a sudden brazen intrusion that got us gasping at the eleventh hour. Kinsha, that retrogressive son of a seven-humped bitch, stole in on us and extinguished the sea of light and the props we’d put to enhance the lift of the Manu on the world stage. There came an eerie darkness as a result and stampede ensued. People screamed, howled, shouted and the cursed name of Kinsha rang out everywhere as the culprit. The perfidious, good for nothing brat escaped in the stampede, but we knew it was him. Our vigilance paid off somehow. Else, that idiot would’ve mired us all silly, though it caused us a hell of pain to rectify the damage. That’s the kind of hatred you’ve been up against. I know it son. It isn’t easy but you have the right courage and resilience to overcome the most brazen of adversaries," Pa Smand said in restrained rage, the target of which was Kinsha.
"When was this," Netu asked, bewildered.
"Few months back," replied Pa Smand. "Father Manu confirmed the revelation. He was sure it was no fluke experience."
"I see," Netu’s mind reeled on a puzzle-piecing shuttle and many isolated events began to glue back in poignant whole. All the battles he had fought with the Sectwean cult, the Locci, and other spiritual power blocs, all boiled down to this – Kinsha and the horde of avengers of his role in the end of Atlantis.
They rambled on for another hour, which included early dinner before Netu managed to escape Pa Smand’s chatter to see Dullab in his galleried office adjoining Father Manu’s near the row of stucco buildings.
The Vidya Valley’s Brotherhood of Father Manu spanned seventeen and half acres of sweeping lawns broken in an ingenious fashion in the interspersion of vibrant trees, lofty fountains, superbly contrived row of four stucco buildings, a five thousand capacity auditorium, a hard tennis court, part Lemurian style refectory and dressing rooms for non-residents, and the Manu’s magnificent duplex with a galleried entrance hall.
The overall view of the Brotherhood’s expanse either from the keen eyes of an insider or from its prominence on the crest of Vidya Valley was as fresh in aesthetics as it had been for Netu at the dawn of its birth. It stood now eight years later even grander in quick appraisal on his way to Dullab’s office.
The whole place still remained un-deflowered; voluptuous and intrinsic in its wooing of Netu’s mind like a pretty lady, yet untouched her vaginal beauty.
Netu met Dullab, "the pragmatic governor" as peers often called him, and his aides in the galleried entrance hall of Father Manu’s, which doubled as temporary office for the head of Vidya Valley’s Brotherhood. Netu had easy access to the office on the ticket of his status as a respected ex-resident of the Brotherhood despite normal time wasting protocol.
Most of the present drafts of residents were far beneath Netu’s station during his time. But he had taken time in his clamber up the hierarchy of the Brotherhood to cultivate friendship with other residents through deep-seated care and wisdom. His genial disposition had endearing qualities too that they had often turned to as parameters for divine growth. Their obsequies and express clearance for him to see Dullab and his retinue of assistants this day therefore hinged on his actions of the past.
The centre point of Dullab’s plea - a blunt repetition of what the others had hammered in vain - hinged on the grand effect Netu’s return would have on the entire band of adherents. Netu stood his ground; as inscrutable as ever. He was not going back to the Brotherhood no matter what.
“I don’t think I want to come back, Dullab,” Netu said frankly. “But I’m happy seeing you guys.”
The excitement he felt surging now, if he would ever call it that - even as he was rumored as the head that bore the crown next – centred on the great physical condition of Dullab and ninety percent of the other male residents. They were charming, healthy and sturdy in spirit quite unlike half the females whose physiques and spirits had known the sledgehammer of a present yet improbable monster. Their motherly natures perhaps made them more prone to dreary influences, Netu thought with slight discomfort.
"Should you be in need of funds or some physical assistance, we would be here to give you a hand," Dullab said while stashing few Rinai bills into Netu’s side pockets as he escorted him half way to the gate much later. "You deserve a better treatment than this Netu, but do bear with us. We’ll make necessary amends next time. Call my attention any time and be assured of our cooperation whatever the matter is."
"I won’t forget the offer," replied Netu, shy as usual.
"See me before the week runs out. If there’s a streak of luck and unexpected cash flow, you can be sure of something coming your way too," harped Dullab.
“Thanks for your concern."
"Hey, forget it. What’s more to living if not this caring and sharing that we champion daily? Nice thing you called here - others won’t even bother about what goes on here once they are out. And if not for the bureaucratic bottlenecks we often encounter here, people like you shouldn’t be left alone to jostle out there. There should’ve been adequate plans for the future, the welfare of
your kind...” Dullab paused in his lamentation. "Gosh! It’s sad! Let’s just forget it. Before the weekend, right? Be here. Okay, catch you then."
"So long Dullab," Netu said with a handshake.
Netu dashed back to see Pa Smand to thank him for his hospitality as Dullab retreated because his attention was needed at the auditorium.
Netu retrieved the brown envelope he had lodged on arrival with Fiara at the reception. Pa Smand’s words, “We’re waiting for you to come help put the house in order” echoed and trailed his thought. Much like the shadow of his profile cast on the stone terrace in the awning of early night by the lights around the reception area. The old man’s words haunted him a great deal. Yet, he had made up his mind about the choice he would make.
As Netu Deo made to leave the confines of the Brotherhood after Fiara had crosschecked and certified the contents as he had left them on his arrival, word of his exit spilled around. Timi, Pere, Manda, Fiara and others came to see him off. They were not allowed beyond the gate because it contravened the rules and regulations of the Brotherhood for residents. A resident could go outside the gate if on an important assignment but leisure walk was forbidden beyond the gate.
Pere Mejeli earned Netu’s admiration by breaking the Brotherhood’s tradition in a bold, audacious manner. She smiled her way through the security team of Rebono, Tifan and Timoni at the gate, rallying as if about to retreat but instead walked past them to Netu’s side on the driveway. Although she had gone beyond the gate, no one raised an eyebrow.
To Netu’s surprise, they let her have her way with him as one of those they had admired while in the Brotherhood. Besides, the Brotherhood was neither a slave camp nor a torture chamber where only the master’s will prevailed in spite of the necessity for spiritual and mental discipline. Freedom at any pedestal seemed untenable if the individual will was bond by the strange fetters of human caprice. Netu thought the young men at the guard post must have viewed it from this perspective and might have been sick and tired of some of the Brotherhood’s out-dated traditions by this gesture of theirs.
Titan Race Page 28