Beloved Strangers

by Maria Chaudhuri

  My father was as solid as a rock in his resolution to preserve the car as one might a family heirloom. It was at first funny, then annoying, and ultimately an embarrassment. Each time there was a friend’s birthday party or a lunch or dinner we’d have to ask other friends for a ride. Even going to school or out to shop became a nuisance. We were perpetually at other people’s mercy or suffering through the hazards of Dhaka public transportation, despite the shining white (ancient) car supine in our garage, like Sleeping Beauty. We gave it up and went about our business, my father being incorrigible when it came to his beloved car.

  One evening, Father agreed to pick up some sweets from a neighbourhood store as we were expecting guests. He let me come with him. On our way back, we saw, about fifteen feet ahead of us, the slow progression of a mob. In Dhaka, political rallies and public protests were routine scenes. They were carrying banners and flags and the people in the front lines were chanting loud slogans that the whole procession zealously repeated after them. Traffic was halted as the mob filled the expanse of the street. Cars honked impatiently, knowing full well that on Dhaka roads, it was far more important to endure the workings of an excited mob than the breaking of traffic rules. Then again, if fate ever was tempted it was on the streets of Dhaka. As the crowd slowly passed the line of vehicles and came nearer, another irritated round of honking rose from some of the cars. In the blink of an eye, a young man wearing a bandanna unclasped a hockey stick from his waistband and brandished it at one of the cars. Before he had finished breaking the windshield of that car, a few other men unclasped their hockey sticks as well.

  I watched the scene unfold with rapturous attention until I heard a strange rasping noise and turned to see father clutching the steering wheel, trying to gulp air as if it were his last breath. I was sure he was having a heart attack. ‘What is it?’ I asked him again and again but he couldn’t respond. What was I to do? I looked back at the crowd and saw, thankfully, that some kind of negotiation was already underway. Many drivers had stepped out of their cars and two traffic policemen appeared out of nowhere. ‘Father, look, it’s going to be fine,’ I said hopefully.

  He shook his head. ‘My car,’ he whispered finally, ‘they could’ve hurt my car.’

  I touched his shoulder lightly. Sweat was dripping profusely from his scalp, down his neck and shoulders, but his breathing was slowly returning to normal.

  ‘The car is fine,’ I said gently.

  Someone honked behind us and I realised that the crowd had been streamlined to one side of the street and cars were being allowed to pass. ‘Go!’ I yelled and Father clutched the gear, shaking uncontrollably. I kept a hand on his shoulder all the way home. I was not sure if the physical touch helped him or if he even noticed it but that was the closest I ever came to showing my fondness for my father.

  The distance between my father and me, the unbearable, unconquerable distance that perpetually kept us apart, was fraught with veneration and curiosity. I saw him briefly in the mornings, wearing dark suits and silk ties. In the evenings, he headed out for a game of tennis in a white polo shirt and white sneakers. On nights and weekends, he filled a glass with beer or whisky and got to work. He wrote and wrote, his meticulous handwriting filling yellow notepads, which he carefully tucked away in his black leather briefcase. Opening his briefcase when he was elsewhere was a forbidden pleasure. It was cool and neat inside, with the crisp smell of all things foreign, since the briefcase diligently went around the world with Father. The pens, pencils and paper he kept inside were so different from the ones we bought from the local stores that I often felt compelled to steal an item or two as souvenirs of his adventures. Adventures I imagined he had. Those items hinted at the stories my father never had time to tell.

  If he wasn’t working, he seemed preoccupied with being productive in other ways. His clothes, after being washed and ironed, were left on his bed, as he preferred to put them away in the exact arrangement he favoured. If it were only up to my father, undoubtedly our home would have been as pristine as the inside of his briefcase or closet. He always walked with his eyes down, scouting the floor for dirt, picking up strands of hair, brushing imaginary dust off every conceivable surface. His usually peaceful demeanour was liable to be incensed by the slightest disruption of orderliness.

  There was one task my father undertook that I looked forward to. On wintry Sundays, he sat peeling dozens of oranges that he lovingly distributed among us. Even though the orange is not my favourite fruit, I am still inexplicably drawn to its shape and colour, because it reminds me of the only elaborate show of fatherly warmth, on those lazy Sundays, when Mother and the four of us sprawled on the sun-dappled veranda floor while Father sat on his white cane chair with a basket of oranges and a sheet of newspaper on his lap. Other than oranges, however, Father was strangely repulsed by the flesh and seed of all other fruits and mindlessly swooped down on our half-eaten fares to fling them into the garbage. It made me feel as if he organised our communal orange-feasting more out of his appreciation for that sweet seasonal delight than anything else. Not that I would trade the ritual for anything. When else would I see my father without the silk ties and travel luggage, constantly racing towards something? Something other than us.

  The blessed day did arrive though, when I was eight or nine years old, when Mother suggested that we come along on one of Father’s trips abroad. She reasoned that it was the only way we would ever take a family trip together. None of us kids had ever been abroad and even if it meant that Father would be working half the time, it was still better than not having a family vacation at all.

  We were all for the idea, even though Father seemed indifferent to the plan. He nodded absently when Mother brought it up so we took that to be an affirmative. Naveen and I started planning what we would wear on the airplane. We had been to the airport many times to see Father off and had noticed how well-dressed everyone was, or at least those who were going somewhere. Father, certainly, was always dressed in a suit and cut straight through to the business-class counter that had a shorter queue in front of it. It all seemed very formal and proper. Naveen decided she would wear her Indonesian wraparound skirt with a white blouse, and I, more of a fashion victim than her, decided to wear my orange pantsuit with dark sunglasses.

  We knew Father’s next trip was to the Philippines and we wondered if that’s where we would be going for our much-awaited holiday. We had no idea what any place was like except through the gifts and souvenirs that Father brought back for us. From Manila, he always returned with the most delicious sweets, soft and milky white, creamy and coated with a dusting of sugar. We never tired of them. But one evening, we heard Father telling Mother that it would be best if she met him in Bangkok rather than Manila. Thailand was much more fun than the Philippines and also a shorter flight from Dhaka.

  We were giddy with excitement. Bangkok was a popular holiday destination among our friends and we were practically the last kids in our respective classes to be going there. We knew Bangkok had, among other things, huge malls, crowded beaches and spicy, mouth-watering food. We were a little troubled by the fact that we didn’t own any beachwear but at least we could go into stores and choose what we liked instead of having Father pick out what we needed.

  The morning Father left for Manila, he hugged and kissed each of us goodbye as usual but no other words or instructions were exchanged. We didn’t mind. We figured Mother knew what had to be done for the Bangkok trip, which was coming up in a week. A few more days passed and then Mother told Amol to retrieve her green suitcase from the dusty attic. Once Amol placed it on her bedroom floor, she started packing her clothes and cosmetics into it, humming cheerfully the entire time. Naveen and I sat on her bed, watching, waiting for the moment when she would tell us to start packing our things too. I had already packed and re-packed my suitcase a thousand times in my head, so I knew exactly what I was bringing on the trip.

  It wasn’t until Mother was almost done that we realised we were not
going to be packing our things. Because we were not going anywhere. Mother was meeting our father in Bangkok all by herself. ‘It’s just easier, you know. How can I manage the airplane journey alone with four kids? And your brother is still just a baby.’ She smiled kindly. ‘Please make your lists. I’ll get you whatever you like.’

  I remember crying to sleep that night. I remember making a long shopping list in the middle of the night and then tearing it to bits. I remember going to the airport with Mother to see her off and feeling heartbroken all over again. I remember vowing to myself that one day I would travel the world all by myself. But I don’t remember my father ever realising how he disappointed us that time or many a time after, when he simply refused to understand what we wanted.

  My parents did take a few trips together – not as many as would have satisfied my mother – but our family trip never happened. How I wish it had and not because it would have allowed me to buy all sorts of goodies or swim in the ocean or frequent those delicious eateries that I had only read about in books. I wish it had happened so that I could have removed my father from the everyday canvas of home and work and built a memory with him that was different, so colourfully different, from all the grey ones I have.

  The afternoon light begins to wane when my father returns from work, shoulders slumped, head bent, the picture of defeat. This is how he looks, every day, when he returns home from his new job. Slowly, he walks down the narrow hallway, past the kitchen where Amol is arranging tea and biscuits on a wooden tray, past the dining room where I am standing. I watch him step into the bedroom, put his black leather briefcase down and reach to unclasp his wrist watch and that is precisely the moment he falls. My mother is running. So am I, with Amol right behind me. By the time we get to him, my father is on the floor, frozen in shock. He cannot lift himself up, nor can he manoeuvre his left leg or arm. The three of us haul him onto the bed and gently prop his head against the pillows. In the broiling heat, the blood drains from his terrified face. ‘It must be the heat,’ says my mother, ‘you’ve been out in the sun too long.’

  It isn’t the heat. It couldn’t be, because Father hasn’t been out in the sun. Even after my mother places him under the ceiling fan with a cool rag on his forehead and feeds him iced lemonade through a straw, my father’s pallor continues to turn sickly and his body more slack. His head drops to one side and he dozes in and out of an exhausted stupor. Mother asks him if he’s in pain but he has trouble speaking. The words come out of his mouth in a garbled litter. I see the terror in my father’s eyes, reflected in my mother’s. I watch her reach for the phone as she retrieves her small phonebook from her handbag. I know I should stay near Mother. I should look for Tilat and Avi, who are somewhere downstairs, playing with the neighbours’ kids. Most of all, I need to be here for my father. But I cannot bear the sight of his sallow face, nor the faintly sick fumes of his breath. I turn towards the open windows aware now of the sweet smell of young mango buds drifting in, heralding the beginning of summer. Twilight has painted the skyline scarlet. Yet, tonight, this sweet scent nauseates me. Tonight, the scarlet horizon is nothing but the heavens gushing blood. I am running again, fast and faster, until I reach the precarious tin ledge above our roof, hidden from the view of the world, soundless, except for the beating of my heart. This delicate and demanding heart.

  I must have fallen asleep. Amol’s voice comes from far away as the squeaking of his rubber slippers halts directly under the ledge. If he hauls himself up to the ledge he will see me lying there, shivering under a full moon. I stay still, wondering which of my parents Amol has brought to my secret hideout.

  ‘Your father is not well,’ he says quietly, ‘you should come down now.’

  The scratchy material of the straw mat under me bristles through my dress. I look up at the diseased moon, its luminous belly bulging with infection. I force myself to sit up straight. As I make my way down the stairs, I hear the sirens of an ambulance.

  To anyone looking in from outside, my father, forty-seven years old, fit as a horse, smart, successful and mild-mannered, was not an obvious candidate for an early aneurysm. But nobody knew just how fragile he was, until the stroke made it evident. The brittleness of his nature surfaced sometime after he was fired from the company he had dedicated himself to for ten tireless years. The same company that had robbed us of our family holidays, demanded that Mother’s music remain a hobby and left us children feeling as if we were always on a wild goose chase for Father. How many Eids had passed with Father at the office, the white Toyota resting in the garage, and us, sparkling in our new clothes but stuck at home because Mother refused to put on a new sari or take us anywhere without her husband. We would plant ourselves by the window, taking in the festive flow of cars, baby taxis and rickshaws on the street below. Eventually we’d get tired of pretending that we too were going somewhere and settle in front of the television, new clothes neatly folded away. How many birthdays and school plays and summer holidays had passed without a sign of Father? He was always at the same place, devotedly stationary, but never where we needed him to be. This company, the faceless monstrosity that loomed in our lives every day, decided one day to withdraw its trust and dependence from its most faithful member. We heard Mother and Father whispering late into the night. At ten years of age, it was the first time I heard the term ‘office politics’. After about a week, my parents stopped whispering and spoke openly of the terrible betrayal that my father had been a victim of. Mother mourned luxuriously and at length. For months on end she deliriously chanted the names of every colleague who had possibly plotted against my father and cursed them wholeheartedly. Then came the season of sorrow. Tears were shed at the drop of a hat, regret and loss oozed from her skin, each day was a painstaking eulogy to the death of a man who was still alive. But she lived her pain, no matter how unbecoming it was. With each lament and every slander, she retrieved her strength and sanity.

  Two weeks after Father lost his job, my friend Saba informed me that her parents were about to invite mine to one of their famed social events. These parties hosted the elite of Dhaka – small, close groups of people who clung to each other for reassurance. It had been about a year since Father’s company had promoted him to the highest position in all of Asia. The news of his success had travelled beyond the professional realm. Acceptance into and by an inner circle of the city’s successful men and women had arrived in the form of a much-coveted invitation.

  ‘You should come along,’ said Saba. ‘We have so much fun. The parents just sort of forget about us . . . and we’re allowed unlimited Coke and Pepsi. Wear something nice!’

  I wasn’t so excited about drinking Pepsi and my wardrobe was still wanting but it never crossed my mind that the end of my father’s height of success also meant the end of our social selves. Mother politely turned down the invitation and then sternly instructed us not to disclose anything to anyone about our great misfortune. ‘When your father finds work again, people will know he changed jobs. Until then, no one must know of what happened.’ What, indeed, had happened? I had not quite come to grasp how Father’s achievements, his very image, defined me in others’ eyes. Until then, I had only been aware of how he saw me and what he wanted me to be. Who was I supposed to be now that my father was no longer what he had been?

  The story is never as simple as the plot. The plot has a beginning, a middle and an end. The story continues, spilling in all directions, drowning the plot in its tidal wrath. As far as the plot goes, my father loses his job, injures his pride and disappoints himself. Eventually, he finds other jobs, takes care of his family and the rest happens as it might have, under any circumstances. We continue to live in the same house, go to the same school, eat the same food. Inside our story, this is not the case. Inside our story, time is no longer linear, space is no longer tangible. Father’s job was his soul’s sustenance; the small, square space of his office his only real home. So even though Father met his fate with a dignified silence on the surface, an i
ncurable malignance brewed underneath. It struck me that my father, seemingly patient and self-restrained, had always worn his heart on his sleeve, so much so that it never stood a chance in the face of adversity. Reeling from his loss, we turned our home into a mourning chamber. Like ostriches, we buried our faces in the ground and hoped that no one would notice. Mother stopped throwing dinner parties and we never invited friends over during school breaks in case they saw Father at home in the middle of the day. We did get better at concealing our unspeakable secret. After a few months, if someone called on us, unannounced, the smiles easily rose to our lips, the conversation never missed a beat. But we should not have mourned with such ceremony the loss of Father’s worldly feats when in fact his biggest disadvantage was an incapacity to adapt to the world.

  As the years went by, my father’s elegant persona took on an aura of melancholy; the strength and precision of his ambitious mind swerved out of focus; the purity of his filial love was obscured by undue expectation, embittered by subsequent disappointments and fuelled forward by duty alone. If my childhood was ablaze with my parents’ fiery disputes, it was their mutual, cold and bitter discontent that hung like an ashen haze over my adolescent years.

  The year before I left for college, I sat with the humongous SAT prepbook every evening and diligently plodded through the practice tests. Usually, my parents maintained a respectful distance during these sessions. After all, studying was comparable to an act of worship. But that evening, I heard their voices loud and clear, travelling all the way from their bedroom to the dining room where I sat. We had just moved into our own house, a house that my parents had built, brick by brick, with their entire lives’ savings, the house that had been among the top three items in the prayer list my father had made for us a very long time ago. Back then, I hardly understood the larger implications of my (forced) daily imploration to the Almighty; what spurred me to pass on the request in the first place was the pledge of a big and majestic home. Of course I wanted my own room, my own bathroom, and yes, a garden too. Spellbound by storybook fantasies of a kingly abode, it never occurred to me – until much later – that for my parents so much more was at stake than mere space and sparkle.