by Unknown
Dad has already told me to rush home if the slightest thing goes wrong. We could get a refund on the tickets. I could stay here, get a job atThe Times of India .
I keep walking.
I turn around to wave. They are getting smaller and fainter by the second, like the setting sun sinking into the ocean. I feel myself grow large and demon-like with each step. I imagine that everybody at the airport can see the monster inside me, that people will avoid me all my life because this dead spot in my heart will grow, will travel up my bloodstream until it settles in my eyes. That I will always be a half-person, living a half-life because of this unnatural act I am about to commit.
I come from a people for whom geography is destiny. My family members have not moved even six blocks from where they were born. Who am I to dare to travel eight thousand miles? Immigration is an unnatural act, an act born out of frustration and yearning. Surely nothing good can come out of such an inauspicious beginning. There is a reason why, for thousands of years, people stayed put. Yes, the history of hu-mankind is also the history of migration but that was different—people moved with their families, their tribes, their villages. This individual taking leave is a twentieth-century phe-nomenon. There is something non-human about this.
Oh knock it off, cut the bull crap, drop this pseudo-historic shit. The fault lies in you. You’re not strong enough to see this through, admit it. Who were you kidding all this time—all the time and money and energy wasted on begging for loans and applying for a visa and getting admitted to a college stupid enough to admit you—all this effort and now, at the moment of reckoning you can’t see it through.
So end this masquerade right now, run back into their waiting arms and tell them you can’t do it. Slam the door shut on dreams of learning how to do your own laundry and staying out late at night and being independent. Trade in vague, ab-stract notions of freedom for guaranteed love. Come on, throw in the towel. You always were a quitter anyway, nobody will be too surprised.
God forgive me, I keep walking. I am approaching a corner and once I turn this corner, my people will disappear from my view. And if they disappear, they, who are all I know, will I disappear too? Will I recognize myself, without the old sign-posts?
I look back one last time. And see my dad hurrying toward me. He has struck gold again. With his sweet, trustworthy face and quiet dignity, he has charmed the security guards into letting him accompany me as far as he can. ‘I told them you had a sprained wrist and needed help with your carryon bag,’
he whispers. ‘They gave me security clearance.’ We share a quick chuckle. The smooth businessman with the honeyed voice has triumphed once again.
Dad takes my bag from me and puts his other arm around my shoulder. We stand side by side as I turn around and wave to the entire family. They wave back frantically. Then we’re around the corner, dad and I.
But not for long. ‘Dad, stay here a minute,’ I say. ‘I have an idea. I’ll be back in two minutes, tops.’ Leaving my bag with him, I sprint back to where the rest of the family is waiting.
Even from this distance, I can sense their amazement and delight. I feel a little embarrassed at prolonging this melodrama but I can’t help myself. I run faster. ‘What is it, Thritu? What did you forget?’ Freny asks but I head straight for Mehroo and grab her in a hug. ‘You see how quickly I came back?’ I say, a little out of breath. ‘Just when you thought you wouldn’t see me any more, correct? See how quickly things can change? Well, that’s how it’s going to be.
The two years will fly by and I’ll be back before you can say hello-goodbye. See?’ I stand beaming at her, as if I’ve just proven some brilliant and complex scientific experiment.
All of them chuckle. ‘Correct,’ says Jimmy uncle, Mani’s husband. He smiles at me appreciatively. ‘Cent per cent correct.’
I catch Jesse’s eye. She gives me a quizzical look but I can tell that even she is pleased. When I take my leave this time, the mood seems lighter. Now that I’ve made this minor miracle happen, other miracles suddenly seem possible. They let me go this time as if expecting me to return to them over and over again.
Dad is waiting for me. ‘For a second I thought you’d changed your mind and I’d have to get on that plane in your place,’ he jokes. He, too, is pleased by my impulsive sprint halfway across the airport.
But my job is not over. ‘Daddy, listen,’ I say urgently. ‘Don’t let the mood at home get too sad, okay? In fact, tomorrow morning when you all wake up, take everybody out for a morning drive or something. Just get through the first few days. After that…’
‘Thrituma, it is my responsibility to take care of all of them,’ he interrupts. ‘Your job is to go to America with a free and open mind, study hard, shine in your studies and make a name for yourself. Now promise me, no thoughts of home at all. I will manage everything at this end.’
We smile at each other.
As we walk toward the boarding lounge, I catch a glimpse of the two of us reflected in a glass door. We both have crooked noses and we both walk on our toes. The observation makes me unreasonably happy. I sneak a glance at my father and will myself to memorize his face—the wide forehead, the gentle, brown eyes, the big Parsi nose, the sensual lips. A friend of mine had once observed that even when dad took Ronnie for a walk, he carried himself like an admiral in a military parade and watching him now—straight backed and dignified—I smile to myself…Good old dad.
The plane is late. ‘Bombay,’ dad sighs and there is a lifetime of love and hate in that one word. But we are glad about the delay because it gives us a few more minutes together.
Finally, the dreaded announcement. We linger in the lounge, allowing all the other passengers to board. Dad actually talks his way into walking me right up to the entrance of the plane.
Then, he takes my hand and simply holds it to his chest for a minute. I kiss his hand. He has beautiful hands, the hands of a kindly country doctor. Mine are younger, darker, smaller versions of his. I tell him that when I miss him, I will gaze at my hands and know that he is right by my side. He smiles. I know he will remember that comment, that it will keep him warm on those silent mornings when he wakes up and realizes that I am gone. I want to say other warm and comforting things to him but a cold numbness, a hazy forgetfulness, is settling like mist on my brain. Besides, the stewardess is boring holes into us with her frosty smile.
It is time to enter the open mouth of the steel monster. We hug one last time. I slap him on the shoulder. ‘See you soon,’
I say.
He nods. ‘Look after yourself, sweetheart,’ he whispers. ‘For my sake.’
The cold, synthetic blast of the air-conditioner hits me immediately. Already, the air smells different—not the loamy, sweaty smell of India but the affluent, cool scent of what I imagine America will smell like. I stare out of the small aeroplane window at the lights of Bombay and begin to sob. My entire family is still in this building that I can almost touch (I know they will stay until the plane takes off) and yet they might as well be a million miles away. I keep looking out the window the whole time because I do not want the kindly middle-aged Britisher sitting next to me to see me cry. I suddenly feel terribly young and scared.
The plane is beginning to crawl down the runway. To distract myself, I lean back in the seat and start to read Jesse’s letter.
It is just as well that I have my seatbelt on. It is just as well that the plane is taxiing fast and the lights of the city are beginning to seem as distant as childhood. It is just as well that the door is shut and there is a tall, sturdy Englishman in the seat next to me, blocking my way.
It is a marvellous letter—one that holds me close and yet nudges me away; that sings to me the wonders of flight as well as the importance of rootedness; that speaks of love and then defines love as the courage to let go. ‘You will never be far away because you live on my skin,’ Jesse has written and reading that line, I wish I could fly like dust and settle on her skin.
The plane g
athers speed. I hear the whine of the engines and clench the arm-rest, preparing myself for the queasy feeling in my stomach as we take flight. In another second, I will be one of the sky people I’ve always dreamed of being. The lights of the runway are fading into a blur and now, I am rising—rising like hope, rising like the prayers that are un-doubtedly on the lips of all the family members I have left on the ground. Bombay is underneath me, faint as a memory, distant as love.
And then, I am gone.
Acknowledgements
I ONCE READ A LINE that said something to the effect of, ‘Thank God we don’t get what we deserve in life.’ While writing the story of my childhood, I have on more than one occasion appreciated the wisdom of that saying.
I would like to thank all the people who populate the pages of this book. Each one of you has had an impact on my life and has given me gifts that I am grateful for. While telling this story was emotionally painful at times, it has also given me a re-newed appreciation for the world I grew up in and for the love that saved me. Even when that love came with strings attached and conditions, it still made a big difference in my life.
I thank my immediate family—my parents, uncle, and two aunts—for encouraging me to follow my dreams even when they were struggling with fulfilling their own. Their example of selfless love and sacrifice is one that I will spend a lifetime learning how to emulate. I thank my cousin Gulshan for teaching this only child what it was to have a sister. I thank Mani aunty for teaching me to fight with the moon.
I am also grateful to Eustathea Kavouras and Sara Throop for their encouragement—and Sara’s occasional scoldings—in getting me to finish this memoir.
About the Author
THRITY UMRIGARis the author of the acclaimed novelsBombayTime, The Space Between Us , andIf Today Be Sweet . She has written for theWashington Post and other national newspapers, and con-tributes regularly to the book pages of theBoston Globe . An associate professor of English, she teaches creative writing, journalism, and literature at Case Western Reserve University. She lives in Cleveland, ohio.
www.umrigar.com
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