Her brother would buy her tickets six months ahead of her departure in order to get the best price possible, and from the moment Appamma was informed of their purchase, the abstract notion of going abroad becoming tied to a concrete date, she would begin anticipating the journey ahead with a kind of slow, sweeping pleasure. Her preparations began a full two months in advance of her departure, with the chili powder she always took for her brother and other relatives, a process she would spread out over a couple of weeks, first leaving the curry leaves and chili out to dry in the sun, then having them ground together with coriander, turmeric, fennel, and cumin, sealing the resulting powder in airtight plastic bags so it was ready to be packed for international travel. The chili powder done, she would begin taking out the various items of clothing she’d kept stored in her armoire since her previous trip, mostly some nice saris and a few sweaters and socks she had no use for in Colombo, washing and folding them then laying them neatly aside. She would start pressing her daughter-in-law to begin the visa process, to buy the supply of heart and pressure medications she would need during her time abroad, would begin looking through her drawers for the various miscellaneous items, safety pins, rubber bands, pens, and batteries, that would come in handy during her stay. Finally, three weeks before the trip, she would order Krishan or his brother to bring out the two battered suitcases that were stored under their beds, leaving them open in a corner of her room, partitioning them into different compartments, and carefully filling them with the things she’d gotten ready. She would finish all her packing at least a week in advance of her departure, would spend the remaining days visualizing her daily routine in London to make sure there was nothing she was forgetting, making small additions and modifications to her bags, taking pleasure in their order and fullness, in the fact that she was prepared for any outcome or eventuality, so that when the day of her flight finally came all that was left was for her body and her suitcases to be flown to London, her mind having settled serenely in the spare room of her brother’s house long in advance.
When her brother had called three years before to suggest she make her next visit the following June, proposing they use the occasion to celebrate her eighty-fifth birthday in style, inviting not just their relatives in London but those who could come from Europe as well, Appamma had, needless to say, been flattered by the suggestion. Despite her attempts at nonchalance she was visibly gratified by the notion of going to London to celebrate her health and longevity, by the thought of having all eyes on her, the old but still vigorous matriarch of the family, the fulcrum around which the members of their dispersed family were brought together. Krishan and his mother had been a little more hesitant, for though Appamma’s trip four years before had been without any issue, her health had been declining steadily in the time since. Her body had become frailer, especially her legs, as a result of which she’d abandoned her trips downstairs, and her bladder had become less reliable, so that sometimes she went to the bathroom once every two or three hours, which in turn affected her ability to sleep. Her hearing too had gotten weaker, though she refused to use the hearing aids she’d been prescribed, making conversations more difficult to sustain and even her regular TV shows harder to follow. Increasingly forlorn as a result of her deepening isolation, the idea of a birthday party in London struck Appamma as precisely the intervention needed, energizing her so dramatically that neither Krishan nor his mother had the heart to air their reservations. In the weeks that followed she began exercising more, practiced moving without her walker over short distances; she became vigilant about what she ate and obsessed about her appearance, applying a cream with clinical regularity to the rash that had begun spreading across the back of her neck. Her initial excitement about going abroad, it soon became evident, was turning into anxiety about how she would perform on the trip and above all at the party, about whether she would be able to impress their relatives with her mental and physical vitality, and it was this anxiety perhaps that was responsible, as her departure drew nearer, for the unforeseen further decline in her condition, her loss of weight, her forgetfulness and repetitiveness in conversation, the increasing time she spent in bed.
By the time the trip was two months away both Krishan and his mother had begun to doubt it was safe for her to go at all, and his mother decided at last to broach the subject with her, suggesting that maybe the flight should be postponed or that maybe it was better for her not to go. Appamma shrugged the suggestion off lightly at first, but when it became apparent that her daughter-in-law was serious she responded with uncharacteristic rage. She would be able to handle the long flight perfectly well, she stammered in fury, there would be attendants to wheel her through the airport, and during the journey all she had to do was stay seated. It would be a complete waste of her brother’s money to change plans now that tickets had already been bought, and if her daughter-in-law was tempted it could only have been out of jealousy that she herself didn’t have the chance to travel abroad. Krishan’s mother replied that she didn’t care about going abroad, that it was only concern for her mother-in-law that was prompting her to intervene—how could Appamma hope to fly halfway across the world, she asked, when she couldn’t even make it down the stairs? Appamma had turned away angrily, and after the exchange they were both cautiously taciturn, each acting as though it were obvious the other would soon concede. The issue came to a head six weeks before the flight, when Appamma asked Krishan’s mother why she hadn’t begun the visa application, whose outcome couldn’t be taken for granted and which in the past she would have initiated much earlier. His mother ignored the question, and Appamma responded not with argument or accusation but a profound silence, refusing to eat or to speak a word, rising from the chair in her room only to go to the bathroom or when it was time to sleep. Krishan’s mother pretended to ignore what she saw, hoping her mother-in-law would soon give in, but Appamma held firm in her fast and vow of silence till two days later, fearful she would collapse, his mother was forced to concede, informing Appamma through Krishan that she would apply for the visa, that she didn’t want to cause anyone such misery and that if going to London was so important then she might as well go. Appamma’s condition improved in response to the victory, and by the time the visa arrived Krishan and his mother both felt less nervous about the trip. Watching through the glass divider a few weeks later as an attendant whisked her through check-in they felt confident that nothing disastrous would happen, that the flight would go smoothly and that she would be handed over without issue to her brother on the other side, so that waving goodbye as she was wheeled off toward immigration neither of them could suppress their anticipation for the six weeks they would be able to spend by themselves.
They received a call from Appamma’s brother in London the next day, informing them she’d arrived safely. She was tired from the flight and hadn’t wanted to eat, her brother had said cheerfully, but she was jet-lagged and would be better after she slept. He called again the next day, some alarm in his voice, to say that Appamma still wasn’t eating. She had trouble moving, wasn’t really talking, and didn’t seem herself somehow, though what was different he couldn’t really say. He called each of the following days, repeating each time that he wasn’t sure what to do and that he was worried she would get worse, and then on the eighth day called to say he thought it best to send her back as soon as she was well. Appamma was eating now and had gotten a little better, he told them, she still wasn’t quite herself mentally, but would very likely keep improving in the coming days. She would soon be fit enough to travel, he felt, and though it would be expensive to change her ticket it was probably a good idea for her to return sooner rather than later, just in case her condition deteriorated again. They’d have a small gathering for her the following Saturday instead of a birthday party, would take her the day after to the airport so she could board a direct flight to Colombo. It wouldn’t quite be the party they’d planned, since their relatives from Europe wouldn’t have arrived, but there
was, in his opinion, no other sensible option given the circumstances. Krishan’s mother hadn’t objected, knowing it would be hard for Appamma’s brother to look after her in London if she did become unwell. A week later she and Krishan left once more for the airport, sitting beside each other in nervous silence the whole journey and arriving an hour in advance of the flight. They sat down in the cavernous hall for arrivals, their gazes shifting between the notifications board that hung from the ceiling and the automatic doors through which newly arrived passengers emerged, most of them tourists from Europe, Russia, and North America, large, oblivious-looking people who’d begun flocking to the country ever since the end of the war. Appamma’s brother had already called twice to ask whether Appamma had arrived, his impatience betraying real concern about how she would fare on the flight back, and they sat there in a state of tension till finally the arrival of the flight was announced. They kept their eyes pinned to the automatic doors, scanning each new wave of passengers several times over, trying to determine whether they matched the demographics they expected of a direct flight from London, or whether they were likely to have come from elsewhere. Half an hour passed without any sign of Appamma, and unable to remain sitting Krishan’s mother got up and elbowed her way to the crowd standing up front. Leaning on the railing between tour operators holding up their signs she rotated her phone anxiously in her hands, her eyes darting to the sides of the hall as though there might be an entrance she was unaware of. Another half an hour passed and then another, they began to feel sure something had happened, that they needed to find an official to speak to, and just as they were about to abandon their positions they saw the door slide open and a wheelchair being pushed slowly into the hall.
It took a moment to register that the person being wheeled out was the same person they’d said goodbye to eleven days earlier, for Appamma had lost so much weight that her sari gathered in folds around her body. Her blouse was falling loosely over her right shoulder, her bra strap visible over her skin; her cheeks were slightly hollowed and there was a glazed, uncomprehending quality in her eyes as she looked in disorientation at the wide, high-walled hall. Krishan and his mother signaled to the man pushing the wheelchair and quickly ran toward her, but seeing them Appamma only clutched her handbag and gave them a look devoid of recognition, the black of her pupils completely dissolved in the indistinct brown-gray of her irises. They repeated her name several times, heedless of the obstruction they were creating and all the people watching, and though something seemed to resolve in Appamma’s eyes each time her name was pronounced they dissolved back quickly into indistinctness, glistening like drops of oil behind the soft, drooping folds of skin that enclosed them. It was only when Krishan’s mother took her hands and introduced herself, slowly and loudly, as if to a child, that a partial clarity emerged in Appamma’s face, her features drawing together in recognition, and watching her during this brief moment of awareness, which couldn’t have lasted more than a couple of seconds, Krishan felt sure he could see a glimmer of embarrassment or shame in his grandmother’s eyes, as if she’d understood, in that brief moment, everything that had happened, the fact that all her hopes and plans for the trip had gone astray, that she’d come away having won not admiration from their relatives but pity. She mumbled something about her brother, her birthday party, and how time either had or hadn’t come around, repeated the latter several times before lapsing, once more, into a state of confusion. It was a condition she remained submerged in during the long days and weeks that followed, days and weeks in which she was unable to string words into coherent sentences, unable to feed or wash herself, urinating and sometimes even defecating on her bed, and thinking of that moment at the airport now as he continued making his way down Marine Drive, Krishan couldn’t help feeling that his grandmother had chosen to abandon her lucidity on purpose upon recognizing them that day, that she’d sensed in that moment that remaining conscious would mean accepting the powerlessness of her situation and decided, in some interior part of herself, that it was preferable from then on to be absent.
The number of pedestrians on the pavement had begun to diminish, the vehicles on the road moving faster now on the emptier roads, and looking up at the deepening blue of the sky Krishan realized that it was getting late, that he’d come a significant way from the house. In the distance ahead, on the other side of the road, was the little Pillayar temple that was the last of the landmarks he used to measure his progress on Marine Drive, and deciding that he would continue walking just a little longer, smoke one last cigarette before turning back, he glanced quickly in both directions and crossed to the other side of the road. The temple was more of a shrine than a temple, consisting of no more than a single, tiny room, but like the canal closer to their house Krishan was always reassured by its presence on his walks. Approaching it now he paused and looked in through the iron grille, at the Pillayar’s childlike smile flickering behind his trunk in the light of the small lamp, nodding at him in a kind of acknowledgment before he turned and continued walking. The temple had no official name, but growing up Krishan had always heard it referred to as the Visa Pillayar temple, since it was to petition for the granting of a visa that most people went to pray there, a petition that, in many cases, the Pillayar was said to have answered favorably. Flicking through Google Maps shortly after his return to Colombo he’d noticed the temple had been labeled Visa Pillayar by Google too, that thanks, no doubt, to the efforts of a grateful Tamil abroad whose visa had been granted, its colloquial name was now legitimized with a semiofficial status. No one he asked seemed to know much about how the temple had become associated with visas and emigration, and his main source of information about the place came from a long, nostalgic account of its history that he’d discovered in an anonymous comment on some diaspora blog. It was a comment that had clearly been authored by someone who’d lived many years in the area and then moved abroad, perhaps the very same person who’d campaigned to have the temple named on Google Maps, there were so many diasporic Tamils who haunted the internet in such ways, he knew, people who’d left or fled the country and now lived in bitter cold on the other side of the world, people who spent their free time trying to convince themselves that their pasts on this island really had taken place, their memories more than fantasies or hallucinations, representing people and places that really had taken up space on the earth.
According to the comment what was now the site of the temple had originally been an ordinary middle-class residence, a small, single-story house that had been vacated by its owners in the early nineties, when the government was reclaiming land close to the sea in order to construct the road that would become Marine Drive. Among the rubble of the half-demolished house that was visible to passersby afterward was an abandoned stone sculpture of Pillayar, sitting there with his usual placid expression despite being plastered in dirt and exposed to the elements, too heavy, the anonymous poster hypothesized, for his owners to have taken to their new residence. Flowers would occasionally be seen strewn in front of the Pillayar, sometimes even an offering of fruit, and at some point someone had washed off the dirt encrusting his face and trunk, cleared a path through the rubble so he could be accessed easily from the street. This had been in the mid-nineties, when thousands of Tamils displaced from the northeast had come to Colombo hoping to find a way to leave the country from there, to make it somehow to Canada or the UK or Europe or any other place that could be identified with the possibility of future prosperity. Most of these people stayed in Wellawatta, where they had the relative security of being in a Tamil area even in the country’s far south, and it was some individual or group of individuals from among these displaced people, according to the anonymous commenter, who’d first built a small shed for the Pillayar, so he didn’t have to sit under the open sky. A small brass lamp had been placed in front of him soon afterward, not long after a till box for donations as well, thus setting up the makeshift shrine that, over the course of a few years, thanks to do
nations received from local residents, soon became housed by a permanent concrete structure, a structure that deserved to be called a temple, the commenter stressed, despite being maintained not by male Brahmin priests but by older women of presumably different castes.
The darkness around him was becoming heavier as Krishan left the temple behind and entered the final, deserted stretch of Marine Drive, where there were hardly any shops or streetlights, silence except for the occasional passing car and the gentle breaking of water against the rocks. There was a bus parked with its lights off by the side of the road, and making his way around it he saw that he’d come to the unmarked stop for overnight buses that made direct journeys between Colombo and Jaffna, the same spot he’d been picked up and deposited on so many of his visits home while working in the northeast. There was nobody there now, it was still a little too early for departures, but he continued walking till he’d gone a good distance past the bus stop just in case, stopping finally at a narrow, unlit lane that went up to Galle Road, one of the last such lanes before Marine Drive came to an end. Standing with his back to the wall of an empty lot he looked past the road and tracks at the water stretching out darkly from the shore, the shimmering lights of cargo ships visible now in the distance, charting their heavy, patient paths between port and sea. He remained there unmoving for a while before he drew out a cigarette, turning away to light it then looking back at the water as he took a first drag, remembering for some reason the time when Rani, who didn’t of course smoke cigarettes, had told him she chewed betel leaf. It was a confession he’d found hard to believe at the time, partly because it was a habit he associated with laboring men, partly because he’d never seen Rani chewing betel at home. He’d never seen Rani getting up and going to the toilet or garden to spit out the viscous, blood-red cud, and she’d hardly ever left the house by herself either, certainly not enough to maintain an addiction or even a mild habit. She only chewed betel when she was back home in the village, she’d told him with a smile, obviously proud of her self-control, it wasn’t something she’d let herself do in another person’s house. It wasn’t something she’d always done either, she told him, she’d started only recently, about a year or so after the end of the war. She liked chewing betel, found that it soothed her, though she was careful not to do it too much, since she didn’t want to become too dependent on it. He hadn’t asked her more at the time, perhaps because it would have felt too intrusive, perhaps because he simply hadn’t thought to, but thinking of her confession now Krishan wished he had, for there was always something more to how people began such habits, not just with betel or cigarettes but with other, more addictive substances too. Whether an addiction came about quickly, before one knew what was happening, or whether it happened more gradually, with the tacit consent of the individual involved, there was always a story that divulged something about the specific or general sense of absence that allowed the dependency to develop. Addictions were, so often, at the beginning at least, a way of tolerating or managing yearnings that were too intense or too painful, a way of catching hold of desire that floated too freely, without an object to which it could be fastened, functioning for so many people as a means by which desire could be taken hold of and brought back down to the earth, relocated in easily acquired and reassuringly concrete objects like cigarettes, betel leaves, and bottles of liquor. Rani’s habit of chewing betel had been a response no doubt to everything she’d seen and lost during the war, but what specific role it had played in her last years, what specific consolations it had given her, he had no idea, and having failed to ask or find out when she was still alive it would remain unknown to him, he realized, like so many other things about her life.
A Passage North Page 6