He was horrified at what he had almost said. I have always thought that this for him was the second that everything came into focus.
But you can ask him yourself, she said.
[nallu]
DEATH
DRAWING NEARER
.
Those who have been friends and have afterwards
forsaken him will return and join themselves to him
when the cause of disagreement is taken away.
— TIRUKKURAL , chapter 53, line 9
KUMARAN: MY UNCLE, WHOM I LOVED. HE IS DEAD NOW, BUT I remember his body, because in the third month that we were there, my father asked me if I thought I could manage to help him.
I realize that in the Western world, doctors don't care for the members of our families, he said to me. But perhaps you are now realizing that you do not live in an entirely Western world. As a Sri Lankan doctor, I constantly take care of my family. Other Sri Lankans. They ask it of us—they expect it of us.
Us. He was saying us so that I would know that he thought I could do it—be a doctor, like him, putting people back together. Helping whomever I could. Even or perhaps especially someone who was related to me.
Do you think I can do that? I said.
You are not his daughter, he said. I would not ask her to do it, although after what she has been through, she probably could do it. But you should do it. It will help him.
I am my father's daughter, and so I began to care for my uncle. As death comes, doctor and patient are more intimate than lovers. I knew everything about his decay, how parts of his body slipped away from him. When he slept, I used to comb his hair gently with my fingers. When the skin at the edge of his scalp started to flake, I rubbed lotion into it. At first, I only prepared food for him; I brought him a wet cloth if he felt warm and made sure that he drank enough water. As the months passed, I knew, I would earn other duties, none of them pleasant, and all of them acts of love: when he could no longer walk, aid to and from the bathroom, and then, the insertion of a catheter, or perhaps a bedpan; when he could no longer ask for painkillers, assessment of if he needed them, and then pills or perhaps injections; when he could no longer eat, the act of feeding him, food or perhaps liquid nutrition. When he became too tired to move, we would turn him over in his bed, plump his pillows, and check for sores. When his fingers became uncertain, when he could no longer turn the page of a book, or write a letter, I would do it for him. When he could no longer speak, I would translate for him. He would tell me: write it down. I told you a story that no one should have to know. Write it down, write it down.
I knew that no doctor should ever have to do this, and I knew that I would do it, because in the end, what he wanted was what anyone wants: to die in the presence of family, with no need for shame or secrets.
VIJENDRAN: A MAN WHOM my uncle did not want near his family. But he was coming back.
After Vijendran and Suthan left on that first day, others started to arrive. They would make furtive phone calls: We hear that someone is staying with you. We would like to come and see him.
Pay our respects, they meant. I did not want them there. I was learning to love my uncle despite what he had done, and they already did, because of what he had done. I heard my mother and my uncle fight about it.
Let them come and see me, he said.
I don't want them here, she said. Don't you think we're being watched? That these conversations are being repeated? Putting yourself in danger—fine, we both know why you're here, that there is limited time. I don't want to fight with you. What about your daughter? What about mine? Do you think that these people coming to see you isn't going to raise suspicion?
I saw my parents confer, late at night. My mother stopped against the wall of the corridor, the small of her back pressed up against it, her head bowed, my father talking at her in a low voice. She had wanted to keep her brother safe; perhaps she had not realized the impossibility of keeping him a secret there, in that closed and yet so open community. It was like a Jaffna village, my father said later: everyone knew everything about him, even before they had seen him lying there in that bed, dying.
Men came, bringing their sons; wives waited respectfully outside the bedroom where he lay. Daughters read books. They did not know him; they had only heard about him. Some of the men, even those who were older than he, called him Anna, which means respected older brother. My father thought that some of them left with wallets lightened by my uncle's obligation to the Tigers, his persuasive tongue.
Do you think he is fund-raising here? On his deathbed? Really, Appa?
Well, he said. They let him leave, didn't they? And they have promised his daughter to Suthan, who does the same thing among the boys of his generation.
The same thing? What did that mean? What did Suthan do? The question lay unasked. It followed us around, through the dim hallways of that house, crowded with visitors who told my uncle how grateful they were for what he did, what they did not have to do. Their sons, the right age and size and anger to be militants, in the wrong country. The thing about anger: it always goes somewhere.
KALAYANI: MY AUNT ARRIVES in the second month, having left her daughter and her family in Australia to be with her brother during these final days. We go to the airport to get her without him, and she arrives in the same terminal he did. I see the shadows of his earlier self everywhere. When he arrived here, he stood this tall; he could stand, if not for very long. He had hair; he weighed more. He did not know me, and I did not know him. I did not know what he had done, and I did not know what my parents would do for him.
On the ride back, my mother and her sister talk so fast that there are almost no silences between the end of one's sentences and the beginning of the other's. I have seen them together before, but not for many years, and I catch my aunt's eye. She sees me laughing at them and pauses to smile back at me. I love her for this: she will make room for jokes in the worst of situations. We have picked her up to see her brother die, and she knows that some things are still funny—she and my mother foremost among them.
She pauses. Only child, she says to me. You should have had a brother, or better, a sister, and then you would understand.
My father recoils a little and I see this in the rearview mirror, and he does not meet my eyes. I know that my father is glad that I am a girl, that he thinks that this keeps me safe from Suthan's world, and whatever he does there. I already know that he is wrong.
LUCKY: AMONG THE MAN WHO came to see my uncle as he lay there dying was a classmate from his days as a student in Jaffna. Lucky, whose real name is Lakshman, knew my uncle long ago, before he joined the Tigers and before Lakshman's own brother, a politician, was killed by them for daring to disagree with them. For daring to say that they did not speak for all Tamils, that they did not speak for him. That he did not believe in war.
Although I do not have a sibling, I know that one's relatives do not always share one's politics. My uncle has always been the best example of this.
When she opened the door for Lucky, my mother rushed to hug him, and she looked glad to see him. She had not shown that happiness to any other visitors.
I didn't think you would come, my mother said to Lucky, considering.
Considering what? Lucky said, spreading his hands wide. My brother is dead. Yours is alive. That one is alive after all this, we should be grateful.
As Suthan had stood behind his father and loomed, a girl stood behind Lucky and made herself tiny. She was not actually tiny, but she pulled her lanky frame back, holding it close, so that she did not overtake her father. I liked her already for this.
I brought my daughter, Lucky said. She looked so much like him that she could not be anyone else. They shared the same long, straight nose, and the same crinkles at the corners of their eyes. My mother embraced her too, and, awkwardly, she allowed it.
Where is Lalitha? my mother asks.
The face of the nameless daughter shrank a little, miserably, at this question. Lu
cky's face did the same. I guessed that it was her mother, his wife.
Lalitha could not come, Lucky said.
I brought Rajani, though, Lucky said, his voice too bright. Because I thought, perhaps, your daughter? Would like to go out? They can take the car?
Rajani looked at me, and I looked back at her. We were already friends, united in a desire to protect our parents from this, whatever this was. But as with everything else, we were too late. Decades too late.
RAJANI: I LIKED HER because of her shyness and her bluntness, an odd combination that meant that when she spoke, she always said something that mattered.
Let's go to a little Jaffna store, she said, catching the car keys her father tossed to her. She had not even taken off her shoes. My father said you hadn't seen any of it yet, and that should be enough to entertain anyone. It's like the village. I mean, really. We can get some takeout.
Take-out what?
You can get take-out Sri Lankan food here, she said. I know your uncle wants your mother's cooking, but you can get everything here: fish cutlets, vadai, mutton rolls, dosai, pittu, idiuppum, everything.
She was starting her father's station wagon, buckling her seat belt, before I even realized it. I was still standing in the driveway.
Are you coming?
I got in the car and before I fastened my own seat belt, we were off. The roads of Toronto continued to be a maze to me; it all seemed like a big circle. But I recognized the part where we stopped. She pulled into a main drag where it seemed like every parking lot was full of Sri Lankans—women in day saris, coming out of jewelry shops and grocery stores, tugging the hands of small children sticky with Indian sweets. And I saw a steady stream of young men whose dark jeans, sneakers, and close-cropped hair resembled Suthan's.
My father says that your cousin is getting married, Rajani said, parking.
She did not waste time, Rajani. I had to admire that. I had learned the value of this habit myself. No time to waste here.
Yes, I said. To Vijendran's son, Suthan.
Her eyes widened.
Really?
My parents had not told me not to tell anyone.
Yes. Why? What about him? I asked.
Nothing, she said dryly. But if you were not a Sri Lankan and wanted to buy, say, a large shipment of drugs in Toronto, he might be one of the people you could ask. I'm not even sure his father really knows that. But all of us do. The kids, I mean.
You don't seem like the kind of person who would know that, though, I said.
You mean, I seem good? She grinned, and she looked even more like her father, with his pleasant smile.
I laughed. Yes, you seem good.
She shrugged. Should we get out of the car? She opened the door on her side, but then turned around to look back at me.
I am good, she said. Suthan? Suthan is not.
I followed her into the store she had selected, a sari store. A bell rang as we entered. Sari after sari lay in glass cases.
It's good that we're here, then, she said. You'll need a sari for her wedding. She'll need a sari for her wedding.
What do you mean? About Suthan? Rajani?
The women behind the counter were watching us, probably because we were speaking English and did not have any mothers with us. Other young women milled around the store, attended by mothers anxious to ensure their propriety. Rajani and I had no one.
You can call me Rajie, she said.
All right. Rajie. Tell me what you mean about Suthan.
She called to one of the women, beckoning her to our end of the glass counter with a sudden, convenient smile. When the woman came over to us, Rajie spoke in such fluent Tamil that I was shocked. She pointed to one sari, another, another, another.
How do you feel about green?
Yes, green is fine. How do you speak Tamil?
I made myself, she said. That's all. You have to decide to do it. Where you came from, there probably was no option. But here there is school, there is a community. You just have to decide that it matters. Decide to go, to speak to your parents in their language.
She glanced over at me.
I'm sorry—I don't think it means I'm better than you. I mean, a little. She smiled. It's probably far more shocking that I speak Sinhalese, she said. My mother is Sinhalese.
Lalitha, I said.
Yes, she said.
She isn't coming to visit my uncle, I said.
No, she isn't coming.
Why?
She won't visit your uncle because she hates him. She knows that he was friends with my father, and when she heard that he was here, that he was so sick, she was—
I knew that I loved my uncle then, because I did not want to hear what her mother had said. Rajie must have seen that in my face, because she stopped.
I'm sorry, she said. I have a habit of saying things I shouldn't. But my mother not coming—it's not just some simple matter of rudeness. The Tigers killed her father about ten years ago. My grandfather. I never met him.
I'm sorry, I said, a little stiffly. But I meant it.
No, she said. Don't be sorry. We didn't do this, this stupid war, this stupid fighting. They did this. Your uncle, and the Sinhalese politicians. Some of them are even related to me. They disowned her long ago.
The woman had brought the saris over and laid them out on the glass.
Look at the embroidery, the woman said. Very nice.
How much? I asked.
She lifted one price tag at me, and I winced. Several hundred dollars. Even for a nice wedding sari, I knew that my father would think that this was too much.
Your father won't think this is worth the money, Rajie said. But Suthan? Suthan can afford this. Let's go.
Thank you, Amma, she said to the woman behind the counter, who looked disappointed and then began folding the saris. We will come back, Rajie said to her, and her face brightened just a little bit, although Rajie said it with more than a shade of something ominous.
AFTER THAT, I WENT out with Rajie all the time. It was suddenly something that needed to be done, like washing the car, or going to the temple. My mother needed mangoes; my mother needed a certain special kind of bread that could be purchased in one of Scarborough's Little Jaffna stores. My mother needed bananas, she needed rice. She wanted an order of fish cutlets, so that she would not have to fry them herself and waste precious time she could have been spending with my uncle. She wanted curry leaves, and snake gourd, because it was his favorite. And so once or twice a week, after a day of classes at the university, Rajie would come and get me and we would run errands my mother had concocted to get me out of the house. While we did this, Lucky would visit with my uncle. My father liked Lucky, because he kept coming to see my uncle, although his wife would not accompany him. He liked Rajie even more, because like my mother, although he wanted my help, he thought that I should not spend all my time inside that house, waiting for my uncle to die.
The same was true of Janani, but she rarely left the house. On Rajie's third visit, they finally met.
Hello, Rajie said in Tamil to Janani, extending a hand politely. I saw clearly for the first time that Janani was not friendly—it was not just me; she did not like this place or these people or this country, and she did not want Lucky visiting her father. At the same time, when we moved to leave, her eyes followed us with what I thought might have been envy.
Would you like to come with us? Perhaps? Rajie said uncertainly.
If Janani's face had ever moved, if she had ever spoken in a way to give something away, I might have known what that question meant to her. She was eighteen years old, but so much older. She had done all sorts of things that I did not want to ask her about; she was going to be married. She had never been to college, but she had fought in a war, probably held a gun and knew how to assemble and disassemble it.
Yes, she said. I would like to come.
What she really wanted, although I did not see it at the time, was her mother. She wanted her mother in
this life, life here in Toronto. It was not Sri Lanka, but it was the next best thing: full of Tamil people, as close to Tamil country as most of us might ever get. And she wanted her mother to see it with her. Her mother to go to stores with her, to shop and plan for her wedding in a city with no curfew and no bombs. No shelled houses full of holes, no weapons training. She wanted a mother who had never fought in a war. She did not want rebel parents, and she did not want to be a rebel herself. Who really wanted this, after all? Not even Janani, with the fierceness of her belief. Because Janani's mother was not there with us, and Janani could go and buy her Wedding Sari with us, but it would not be the same.
Love Marriage Page 11