by Roshan Ali
Some days I would visit Father George in his second-floor apartment. One evening he was doubting once again, and he felt very unhealthy.
‘I don’t know wadisthis illness,’ he said. He looked scared, even in his own home.
‘Have you seen a doctor, Father?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘What can doctor do for the soul, Ib?’
‘Oh, it’s that kind of illness, Father? Sorry, I didn’t know.’
‘Yes, Ib. Idis the pain of doubt. The torture of uncertainty. Idis the pain at night, when I wake up and there’s nothing here in my heart.’ He pressed his chest and his eyes grew moist with tears. ‘I sometimes don’t know, Ib, I don’t know . . . Is the sky empdy? Am I a fool? Do you know?’
‘No, Father,’ I said. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Yes, exactly, if you don’t believe, then why it bothers you? Whatever comes, comes right?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Whatever will happen will happen, am I right?’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘But wadabout hell, son? What about punishment? I must understand it.’
He was silent, looking up, and breathing harshly.
‘I will bray,’ he said suddenly. ‘Maybe I have some disease.’
That disease death that inflicts all of us, that strikes early, waiting with leering tongue crouching by the labia of our mothers, and enters through the fresh meat of the umbilical cord; then stays and licks at life; till finally it is dissolved and dripping on the floor of the world; and finally it dissolves with the heat from nature and the sun––you mean that disease?
‘Father, you need to rest,’ I said. ‘You’re too busy. You’re doing too much work.’
‘God’s grace, Ib, god’s grace,’ he said with dangerous resignation. He had abandoned ship, this captain of sheep.
* * *
One day, sometime in October, Father George arrived late, at 11 a.m., and was distracted by things while he tried going through some papers. When I passed his office, he called out to me, and when I went inside, he seemed to forget and continued to throw papers aside, mark things. When the clock by the cupboard struck once, splitting the hour in half, he suddenly looked up and saw me standing where he had left me, and was very upset. ‘Verry sawrry, Ib. You please can go now. I wanted some help, but . . . tomorrow. So much trouble . . .’, and expecting me to inquire further, observed my face, and waited. When no sympathy was forthcoming (he waited only a moment), he began again: ‘Nothing is clear, Ib. Everydhing is not clear. Why? Veerall just trying to live, right? So again I’m asking, why so hard everydhing is? You see this Internet? Idis very hard. Id makes everydhing superficial, so easy, right? One, two, gone. Khalaas. You have to work less and, but it does more! What is all this nonsense? So many mistakes I tell you, Ib . . . these modern times are verry, verry hard. In the olden times, there was no cheating, getting away with things. Now, Vobama, he just sits right, in his big office and one button, Ib, one button and people are dying. Dying everywhere.’
I said, ‘Sir, he killed Osama but. Isn’t that good for us all?’
‘Good, bad, all right. Who are we to tell peepil what is good and bad? Idis god decide. Right?’
Yes, I nodded. It is not healthy to disagree in a church.
But I felt his problems: The way the old guard scrambles for new weapons. And he was no Janus, not even having one direction covered, confused and scared, finding that his one true path gave him the same rashes, the same itches that everyone else had. ‘Anyway, what to do?’ he said shortly. ‘This is life only. It will go on and on and on . . . like this, till Jesus will come again. Then we’ll see! Then we’ll see who is going where!’ He paused dipping into troubled thoughts. ‘Ib!’ he said suddenly, ‘wait one minute. You come with me today? What you’re doing? You’re having some work?’ He seemed to cheer up over the next hour as we took an auto to the other side of town by the bridge. He wanted to show me something, he said. When we arrived at a temple, he turned and headed for the opposite side of the road, where we sat on warm steps. I lit a cigarette and noted the feet going by, all dusty and dry, with toes exposed. I didn’t dare look up at the owners.
‘Look at these poor fellows, Ib!’ he said, gesturing towards the colourful dome opposite us. ‘See how they are walking around like clowns, and painting things, feel the colour and smells and what all . . . what is this? Some joke, circus? Nonsense! Is this how we treat god? Throwing things on idols, all false idols, I tell you. All false.’ He was getting angrier and louder.
‘Father, let’s go over there to the shade and we can talk,’ I said. He agreed and quietened down, and still boiling inside, followed me to the blue tarpaulin shade of a cigarette shop. Labourers, in yellow hard hats and dirty T-shirts, sat laughing and talking. One asked for tea but didn’t have the money. The sun was inching over us towards the hard horizon behind, and it seemed to linger for a minute to allow us to talk. ‘You want tea?’ I asked Father George.
The dust grew from the road, raised by the walking and the loud cars, and the heat marked us down, on the back of our necks, through the tarpaulin that shuddered occasionally in the hot wind. As we sipped our tea, the light thickened, and finally after an hour and three cigarettes, we began to walk. There was a clamour of bells and chants that rose and fell, but a background of other noises—foul language, talk, various cackling discussions by the flower sellers who crouched by the side of the road—flew through the air like shrapnel. Father George was amused and smiled, enjoying the pagan misery. He left shortly after, mumbling and cursing. I was jobless for the day and wandered about. Shortly, the temple bells were in the distance as I turned a corner and entered a quiet road, a lane, under the bridge. A black river trickled by, obligingly, and it seemed like everyone had forgotten about it. On the far side, by the garbage-lined bank, a child played in the black water with a boat made of an old Pepsi bottle.
* * *
Father George was a creature from the past, a harmless monster from a foggy era of superstition and magic, blinded by the clarity of modernity, the sharp edges of technology and science. His face grew tired every day as the sky showed no sign of the god he tried so hard to convince himself existed. In that dusty weather he made his way here and there and saw nothing but reality, a reality he did not like, a reality of tyres and mud, sweat and death, naked children and their drunk fathers; and yet, he tried hard, very hard to believe in the fantasy of those black old ages, when knowledge began and ended in the pages of one book. That was an easier time, he used to say, because everything was knowable. And the knowable was pleasant. And the pleasant was god. And god was all-knowing and kind, master of flame and flood, and those who were naked were naked and those who were dead were dead, and those whose wounds were covered in flies had it coming and that’s why their children bled.
And so it was verily that Father George killed himself on the 2nd of August in a small room off the coast of Africa, where he was invited to spread the word of god to children whose best friends were flies. On the desk beside his white, bloated face was the King James Bible with all its pages torn out.
That whole month I had the same dream: We sat around a fire, me and some friends, laughing and watching as Father George danced around with a bottle of rum in his hand. It was a warm night and the stars were clear, and in the sky there was something comforting. Eventually everyone was asleep except me and the good Father, who twirled in the air, guitar in hand, singing the great songs of his time—Dylan, The Beatles, Rolling Stones. Soon his feet left the ground, and with a tune on his lips, he floated away into the night sky till he was a speck among the stars. But the tune continued and was all around. Suddenly my friend, the one with long hair, sat up and said, ‘Such is the end of a good soul, in a bad place’.
I missed Father George. His confusion was a pleasant relief from the arrogant certainty of the stupidly religious, and showed an intelligence which, alas, was the source of all his misery. Had he been an idiot, he would have been happy, prayi
ng every night, convinced that god watched over him (oblivious to the rape of the others). He would live out his life blessing people, giving deadly hope instead of safe reality. But he was gone now, and it was strange the way he was so absent in the same way he was so present. The shock of death was just that: Like a current that jolts your body; the alive are so present and the dead so absent. It’s the contrast that makes it horrible.
To continue in the library after the unplanned departure of Father George would have been stupid, and so I left the day after the news broke. But everyone was eager to know details, and so I stayed back the last evening to inform the cleaning lady and the other regulars. It was an overdose, I said, of medicine and alcohol. He had a massive organ failure. The cleaning lady didn’t understand. All she said was, ‘God bless him, ma. God rest his soul.’
* * *
After the end of Father George Mathew, I wandered for a while and did nothing. But soon I went back to Mr Bagram who said he had work for me any time. He had moved his business into real estate and could always use me. I joined him one morning at the old office (they were moving soon, he said), and he explained what I would do there. ‘I’ll pay well, Ib,’ he said, ‘ask any of the boys. I pay everyone well. We must keep in everyone’s good books.’ I was glad he was offering me a job again and wasn’t bitter like some powerful men when you shun their first offer. The others said, ‘He likes you, Ib, he’s in a good mood after you come.’ I wasn’t sure why he liked me. Maybe in me he saw a soft clay that he could mould to fit his shapes and purposes. But this didn’t upset me, and I enjoyed the feeling of being the one who brought good cheer to the otherwise glum and poorly lit office. Even the few windows that existed were on the wrong side and were grimy with years of natural dust and oil, so the little sunlight that entered had that quality of neglect, as if it was some long-forgotten tomb and even light felt hesitant and not in its best form here. Murali, a peon, who mostly brought tea and carried papers here and there, but who was also strangely sensitive to matters of lighting, tried to poke me towards asking for new windows. ‘He’ll listen to you, Ib,’ he said one day, after placing a steel glass of steaming milky tea on my desk, on an old stain, so there wouldn’t be a new one. I considered the suggestion, but then decided that it was too soon. It would appear like I was taking advantage of my privileged position, and that to me was the worst thing possible. ‘Next meeting,’ I told him, and he flashed a satisfied smile. ‘Did you watch the match last night?’ he asked. I shook my head and looked down as he began to talk about some cricket match or the other, ashamed that I didn’t know what he was talking about and tired from the knowledge that it didn’t matter whether or not I knew, he would still go on for an hour.
Those were the good times, when the real-estate companies had it easy and there were more new apartments coming up than number of people alive. And apparently it was a good year for Indian wine. It was suddenly Bagram Sir’s favourite boast: Wine, after all, was such a classy thing, unheard of in these parts, but now being made not 500 kilometres from here. He had a friend in one of those companies from whom he would get 100 bottles every month, and the cartons would lie stacked like bricks in the corner only to diminish slowly in number. Nobody knew where the bottles went, only that nobody we knew was getting any. ‘It’s probably the politician guy,’ said Amar, chewing his gutka, looking at actresses in a local paper. It probably was. Mr Bagram was involved with some shady characters: you had to be, if you wanted to be successful.
* * *
The following week I received news that Ajju was sick, sicker than wellness could reverse, and was in a hospital. It was the same hospital where Appoos was treated. So in the end his spirituality and religion had put him exactly where a crazy person went. And wasn’t the whole point of spirituality to delay death, I thought, or even if that power was not granted to a simple mortal, at least make death a flowery and aromatic affair, without suffering and stinky medicines, and bedpans and shit? A spirited, holy, divine goodbye, with a background score of humming and chanting? A celebration rather than mourning because, after all, death was just the beginning? Nothing doing. In the end, whatever record you have tried to set sitting cross-legged and bearing the pain in the quiet domain of a church or a temple, you’ll still beg for the ambulance, for a better hospital room, because the cheap ones smell of piss.
And so it was with Ajju, who, because of a contact of a contact, was in the suite, the best room around, with air-conditioning and a television and a constant corner nurse. The room Appoos had been in was way below, in the dirty alleys of that antiseptic city, while Ajju was high up in the princely castle.
When I went, Amma was there, sitting in a chair by the bed, and staring into space, although the window with a nice view of the park was not five feet away. She saw me and smiled sadly.
Ajju lay on his back, covered in a white sheet from toes to chest. His face was white and his eyes were open.
‘Ah, Ib,’ he said, in a croak, ‘how is your work?’
‘Fine, Ajju,’ I replied and sat on the chair mother was on. She was walking around the room trying to arrange things.
‘How is the crook Bagram?’
‘Same, trying to run his business.’
‘He’s a crook, Ib, watch out. I have a feeling he’s a crook,’ he said secretly.
‘Pappa, rest,’ Amma said.
‘Rest, rest all the time. These goddamn doctors don’t know a thing. To gain strength, one must work more. That’s what I told my men.’
His face fell at once unconvinced by his own words, suddenly remembering how old and how sick he was.
‘Ajju, how’s Silly?’ I asked.
‘Silly died last month, Ib,’ he said. ‘She was an old thing, my old girl.’
I looked at mother. She looked startled and had stopped folding clothes and looked like she wanted to say something. But the door opened and a young doctor entered in a hurry.
In a hurry he asked Ajju how he was, took his pulse, looked at a chart, told him everything was fine and left.
‘See,’ Ajju said, ‘what a good doctor.’
If everything was fine why was Ajju in the hospital and why did he look so weak?
I took Amma aside and we stepped out of the room.
‘Is this doctor good?’ I asked her.
She shrugged.
‘Didn’t he seem in a hurry?’
‘He insisted on this doctor because a friend recommended him,’ said my mother with resignation.
I went back in. Ajju had turned on the TV, and was watching a documentary on World War II.
‘Ib, get me a mango juice,’ he said. ‘Take some money from my wallet. Rukku, give him some money.’
‘I have money, it’s fine,’ I said. But he insisted, and my mother took out a note from his wallet.
‘Did you hear? Mango,’ he said loudly again as I left the room.
At this level, the hospital was clean and airy, probably because the sickness and death was hidden inside air-conditioned rooms like Ajju’s. The passages were white and spotless and nurses gossiped in the corners and doctors rushed past looking at charts. It was a different mission in this part of the building as opposed to the lower levels—here they tried to make the sick comfortable; there, all they did was delay death.
The shop downstairs had a strange assortment of beverages and snacks, but they were out of mango juice. I called the room from the reception and Amma picked up.
‘There’s no mango juice, ask him what he wants,’ I said.
After a second Amma’s voice came back, ‘He says to go and find mango juice.’
‘Amma, tell him I need to go somewhere—work and things.’
Again there was a brief silence and then mother’s voice: ‘He says these days even a sick man needs to beg. Ib, please just go and get it.’
I said OK and hung up.
The receptionist looked amused and said, ‘Sir, there’s some shop there. You can get mango juice.’
I thanked h
er and left. Outside, the sun was dim and the air was cold, or maybe it was just my mind. Those days things were dim.
A few days later, Ajju died, and nobody was in the room with him. Amma had stormed out because he had asked for mango juice again and the shop was out of it again and he wanted her to go down the road. She refused and he called her stupid and she was standing outside the room crying. An hour later, a nurse on her rounds went inside and found that he had died. The warning system had failed apparently, and they were very sorry.
But nobody made a big fuss. Amma was upset that she wasn’t in the room when it happened, but other than that, she wasn’t trying to fight the hospital or sue them. The whole thing was wrapped up and over, and what was the use of digging it up again, she said. I agreed.
The funeral was the day after that in the crematory. Some relatives were shocked and whispered that the colonel wanted to be cremated on the banks of the Ganga in Benares. But Ajju had told us no such thing, and we took his body to the closest facility available.
Ajju’s brother pleaded and begged that we should at least scatter his ashes in the holy river. Amma agreed and said she would take the ashes to Benares.
Once the body was placed on the wood and set alight, Amma began to cry. It wasn’t like she missed him already, but the sight of his old face turning to lava and ash was too much for her weakened mind. Appoos stood beside her, and from some deep place in his soul, had summoned a real seriousness that I hadn’t seen in him for a long time. His eyes were upon the high, hot flames, and his hand held Amma’s tight. He glanced at me and smiled with a strange sadness.
When the heat was spent and the fire smouldering, and the priest tired, the gathered people began to turn around and go home, leaving only Amma, Appoos and myself. Amma said she would have to stay till the ash was cool enough to collect. ‘Take Appoos home,’ she said, and went to the priest to ask about the technicalities of ash scattering.