The Wild Wind

by Sheena Kalayil

  I was taken unawares. It was not simply for semantic analysis that I had so connected with Joyce’s poem. The poem’s themes touched my heart so deeply that I was sure Joyce had observed me, then penned his poem and presented it: here you are, Sissy. But I felt I could not disoblige the writer, and so began, my voice disloyally quivering with nervousness: Ho udito quei giovani cuori gridare/Spinti da Amore sul guizzante remo/L’erbe dei prati ho udito sospirare/Non torna, non torna più! I did not continue because, as always, on reaching the end of the first stanza, with the words ‘No return, return no more’ my eyes had filled with tears, and my voice was now not simply quivering but choking.

  You get the picture, I mumbled, my face burning, and I tried to sip my coffee nonchalantly. He said nothing, and when my nerves had calmed, I managed to steer the conversation to his novel and my impressions of some of the scenes. Did he wish the characters’ language here to be so formal – it would decide whether I used the second or third person – or was my interpretation misplaced?

  He did not deign to give me a response but said: you seem to be invested so much in my novel it makes me wonder why you don’t write your own.

  I wouldn’t know where to begin, I replied.

  Well, start with yourself. Have you had any interesting things happen to you of late? His eyes travelled over me. I mean why on earth are you an Italian translator? You’re Indian, right? And without waiting for a response, he continued: so immediately you have that whole diaspora thing going for you. That idea of returning. His tongue rolled over the last word, as if he was indexing my emotion earlier. Then he perused my face and shoulders, slowly, not flinching at my scarring, and I expected him to point and say: start with that, right there. There’s your story.

  I now eschewed the heavy make-up that I had worn like camouflage for a short period in my adolescence; it had only aggravated the skin and increased the irritation. I now embraced my scarring, which was, thankfully, as had been said many a time by a medical professional, not keloid, not that raised, could have been much worse. Take this young lady, Bill. Excellent outcome of a split-thickness graft we have here. Skin is nice and supple, take a look. I was paraded before medical students as a model of successful procedures. All through my adolescence I had also taken part in several clinical trials of non-invasive treatments for amelioration of the presentation of a facial trauma – silicon gels, cryotherapy, masks – all of which had made their small contribution to my recovery. But burns have a physiological and a psychological effect; while the surgeons who had overseen my care considered me ‘healed’, I still considered myself scarred. Our opinions, thus, diverged. Nothing could erase the fact that the scar tissue was a very delicate coral-coloured veil across one side of my face and neck, caressing one half of my collar bone. One of my counsellors told me that I had to develop a relationship with my scars as one would with a friend or lover. A perspective that we reached, and which helped me greatly, was to consider myself painted in half: on one side the golden-yellow caramel and clearly defined almond-shaped eye that pleased the viewer; on the other, a coral-pink, with a tougher texture. And an eye that functioned well enough but which, despite being the focus of the two operations I had undergone, did not close as easily; one that slightly unsettled the viewer. I looked, face-on, like an untidy yin-yang portrait, as if an artist had somehow downed his tools halfway through his work, in impatience. What I hadn’t shared with my counsellor was the other overwhelming sense I had of myself, veils half-open and half-finished paintings aside: that I had had a rebirth at a younger age. I belonged now to a different tribe.

  However, I was still a young woman, and I still wanted to be considered desirable, and it was not easy to allow the man in front of me to have his fill. Perhaps, rather than inspecting me, he was trying to provoke me into a reaction.

  I remained silent, and eventually he let his eyes leave that side of my face and neck, then asked: what’s with the name anyway? Have you anglicised it? Or is it your husband’s? You don’t have a ring on your finger.

  My stepfather adopted me, I replied, and that particular combination of words chimed like a bell and I remembered my meeting with Professor Tharoor, all those years ago. The writer nodded – unsurprised, unmoved – continued to press me for a glimpse into my aspirations. His manner was partly unnerving, partly amusing; he seemed convinced I would have a future as a novelist.

  That I had spent most of my childhood in Africa was not something I shared with many people; I was not going to spill out my life story to this man when I felt that I was embarking tentatively on a professional relationship. I was about to delve into the adventurous and colourful sex life his characters occupied; I was unsure whether I wanted to reveal more of myself. Certainly, while I knew that I found him attractive, I was beginning, as well, to feel a slight aversion to him, and I did not want that to develop. The fee I would be given for the translation and the kick-start this work would give to my career were welcome. But he touched a nerve, there is no doubt.

  I had, until then, lived my life without looking right or left, not to my past, not to my future, bent on the present and ignoring any reminder that I might have been tainted elsewhere, might even be moving inexorably towards some kind of understanding, some kind of resolution. It was that very same evening, after leaving his apartment in one piece, dignity intact, thinking to myself that on balance, disregarding my tears over the poem, that I had managed quite well under the circumstances, that I took myself back to the library on Washington Square.

  On the subway over the river I stood rather than sat, needing to feel my feet, hold myself up, rather than bow or bend. The young man beside me was wearing headphones, and moving his head in time to the beat of his music, engrossed. I was tempted to ask him what he was listening to, and this thought occupied me for the journey; from the movements of his head I tried to match him with a song. I would hum it to myself, in my head, and check if he kept the correct rhythm. His clothes and age singled him out as a hip-hop fan. My knowledge of the genre was limited, but eventually I found a match: ‘Fight The Power’, Public Enemy. Or, another ground-breaking discovery, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, depending on where I started. Perhaps he guessed my exploits because as we got off the train – we were both coincidentally descending at Washington Square – he glanced at me and gave me a grin. Such a light, unimportant, charming episode. But one that boosted my spirits, readied me for action, as I entered the library and ensconced myself not in my usual location, but in the archives, to find out more about the story of the plane.

  I had to read through screeds of newsprint before I found an article, among scores that detailed the vestiges of the Rhodesian bush war, its entanglement with the civil war in Mozambique, and the attempts by the Zambian government to be a broker for peace in the region. There was only this one article, from the Washington Post foreign service, dated September 7, 1978, the date alone giving me a jolt. Joyce had written his poem, the one I had recited earlier, on that same day, sixty-five years earlier, and my father left us not long after, nearly twelve years ago.

  Salisbury – A heat-seeking missile was responsible for the crash on Sunday of an Air Rhodesia passenger plane in which 38 of the 56 persons aboard were killed, confirms the Rhodesian government. They also report that ten of the survivors were killed on the ground by guerrillas.

  Joshua Nkomo, co-leader of the Rhodesian Patriotic Front guerrillas, has claimed responsibility for shooting down the plane, but has denied that his men were responsible for killing any survivors. He insisted in a statement issued from his place of exile, Lusaka, that the plane was believed to be carrying war supplies.

  Already a massive military operation to track down the guerrillas responsible for the crash is underway, and there is considerable speculation that it may target bases in neighbouring Zambia and Mozambique.

  The white population of Rhodesia is baying for revenge, and in parliament Co-Minister of Transport William Irvine released a statement, clearly aimed at internal
and external observers: ‘The people of this country will not let those innocent [deaths] go unavenged. I can promise the leaders of the Patriotic Front that those who seek to ride the wind will reap the wild wind.’

  I was startled by the final words, as if it were another sign that this newspaper article was meant to be read that day; that fate had deemed the time right for me to look back, connect my present to my past. The article goaded me with its tale, and I scanned through several screens, bracing myself for further revelations, but could find only this account. For it was a story that no one wanted to tell, it did not fit the narrative. A struggle for freedom required its actors to be pristine, noble, wronged, holding irrevocably the higher moral ground. If these men turned out to be capable of misdeeds, horrifying acts, in pursuit of their freedom, then did that make them less deserving? It embodied a moral dilemma, which I chewed over, all the while thinking I could do the same for him, search through piles of newspapers, go through a phone book, write hundreds of letters. I was a researcher, after all; I should be able to find my father, the loyal friend.

  The direction of my thoughts set my heart beating as a series of images entered the library and swirled around me like wraiths: a vision of myself in a dark night, and my childlike, younger face, and alongside that, another face, which with its planes and hollows made me feel a surge of something, from my belly to my throat. Something: love, most likely.

  I became morose, and for many minutes I sat quietly, reading over and over again the same article about the plane. There, I could hear the writer saying, there’s your story, right there. But I knew even then that I had other stories. My scars, my lost father. Which of this triad, I could imagine him pondering, which had the greatest literary worth?

  I eventually roused myself, pulled my thoughts out of the mire they were sinking into and left the library, to spend the evening with the writer’s novel, making notes and a list of questions with which to arm myself for our next meeting. In fact, I did not meet him again, face to face, until a few weeks later, when my supervisor invited me for lunch in her home in Manhattan. When I arrived, I saw he was there, with a woman, and was that day in a gregarious, charming mood, kissing me on the cheek and throwing me a casual, how are you getting on? I had intended to share with him how I had spent the evening after our first meeting immersed in memories of my childhood, to tell him how strange it was that a poem written by an Irish writer in Trieste could have such a resonance in my life, describe the sinister echo in an old newspaper article and how embarrassed I had been by my show of emotion, but how I had explored as he had recommended, if not to write a novel then at least to understand my life story a little better. But the ambience was not conducive, and I worried that I would appear too intense, too solipsistic. A few weeks later, I completed the translation, sent it off and received my fee.

  A few months after – it was by now late spring – I saw my mother. By chance or by design, my stepfather revealed that he had to be near New York for work and he could pick me up and drive me home for a visit, saving me a train fare. In the car, we shared our news: my mother was well, Danny was tied up with soccer camp. I gave an abridged version of my experience of translating the novel. My stepfather asked about my last research trip to Italy earlier in the year. He had visited Florence and Venice and Rome when backpacking around Europe as a young man, and was eager to reprise old haunts and loves. Then he took one hand from the steering wheel to grip mine. You look really well, Sissy, he said. A bit Italian, actually. Something’s definitely rubbed off.

  On returning to the house, I found my mother in the garden, tending to the anthuriums she grew in enviable quantities. My stepfather, after announcing my arrival with some fanfare, held back; it was clear she wanted to talk to me alone.

  My mother was dressed in slim-cut jeans, a cream-coloured soft woollen sweater; she had discovered an elegant style which suited her new life as an American wife, a part-time administrator at the local college. I only ever saw her in a sari on the rare occasions she and my stepfather were invited to a party and he managed to convince her to wear one. She blamed the climate, although the summers in Philadelphia could be sweltering. Her hair was shorter now, just scraping her shoulders, and at that time was cut into a fringe which accentuated her heart-shaped face. She was still slight, youthful-looking; few would believe she had a full-grown daughter. We kissed, she hugged me. I was taller than her by half an inch. She touched my hair, fingered the necklace I was wearing: you look different. As always when her eyes skimmed my face, I saw her expression change – as if she was steeling herself or as if she was saying a prayer.

  But I was different, she was right. I was exhausted by the undertaking of translating someone else’s words into another language. I had found it consumed me, so that much as I was drained by the task I found I was enlivened by the task. I had found my métier. But it had taken a toll, and I wore my exhaustion on my sleeve, although literally, I wore sleeveless vests and ripped jeans designed to show my fragile frame, my slender limbs, as if to provoke the world: how can you expect me to endure such agony? None of this would I share with my mother, and I was not so self-absorbed that I did not notice a sadness in my mother’s eyes, a greater effort on her part to smile and laugh at any comment I made.

  What is it? I asked. Has something happened?

  I got a phone call a few days ago, she said. From my brother.

  She had long stopped referring to relatives by their names, but chose to preface them with ‘my’, as if by saying ‘my brother’ I would not feel as much attachment as if she had said Sibichayan, or even ‘your uncle’; as if she wanted to assert that these people, they were attached to her alone.

  My mother has died, she said.

  I flushed. The news shocked me, and perhaps because the anger was always there, just below the surface, because it was so easy to feel a quick-fire hate for her, which would burn instantly to be replaced by a searing love, but which, nevertheless, flared brightly for a brief moment, I said, Ammachi?, calling my grandmother by the name my mother called her, and which I had done as a child.

  It worked, whatever I had hoped to achieve, because my mother turned her face away, biting her lip, and I saw tears gather in her eyes, as if she realised that she had a match now, that I was no longer so young as to be a weak adversary.

  She acknowledged all of this by saying simply, yes, Ammachi, mol. And then, turning to face me fully as if she knew that she had to punish herself in some way, she spoke with a generosity: do you remember her?

  A little, I replied.

  But by then any wish I had to punish had disappeared and I longed to talk of piazzas and vain novelists and hidden Etruscan gems.

  Shall I help you with this? I asked, pointing to her flowers, and the bag of compost next to her feet.

  If you are not too tired. Aren’t you hungry?

  I shook my head, and she had smiled; that quiet, sweet, familiar smile. As I helped her with the digging, neither of us wearing gloves and both of us enjoying the feel of the soil on our fingers, she spoke in bursts, relating short anecdotes of her mother, Ammachi, who, in the tradition of mothers of her generation, had never once wondered whether her children were happy, well adjusted, well cared for. It was enough to provide food and a place to sleep. Ammachi, who had completed six years of schooling but no more, and who had met my mother’s wish to study for a degree in Trivandrum with utter incomprehension – apparently it was my grandfather’s employer who had paid my mother’s college fees.

  I was surprised to find my mother so loquacious, but did nothing to stop her. I knew this was a singular opportunity; she would never repeat these stories. I simply listened and lost myself in her voice. Neither did I trouble her with a request to talk of my father. I had long relinquished those incursions and why would I choose this occasion to burden her? She was speaking of her past and the past and at that moment in time, working in the garden with my mother in the soft evening light, that was enough for me.

&n
bsp; 7

  THE next day, the first Sunday without my father, Rahul drove us to church in the morning. He had a small car of his own which he would be selling in a few weeks when he went off to university in Bombay. I watched from the back seat as he talked to my mother. She had a teasing tone to her voice, and he often smiled at her. It was only when we arrived at the small church at the bottom of the hill and I noticed the other Malayalee families, among the rest of the congregation, that I wondered why it was Jonah who had come to help us with the water, Miss Munroe who had taken my father to the airport.

  As my mother was climbing out of the car, balancing Danny on her hip, her bag fell onto the ground, upside down, and its contents spilled out. Rahul quickly walked around to her side to pick up the objects: her hairbrush, her small mirror, an address book, a purse with a brass clasp, her kohl pencil, Danny’s teething ring. An unexceptional collection of items, nothing one would not expect from a woman’s handbag. But as Rahul handed it back to her – here you are, Aunty – and as she smiled up at him – thanks, mon – the crowd of Malayalees stood still and watchful, like a dense clump of trees, menacing, shutting out the light; behind them a warmer, sunnier glow. As if we had all witnessed an act of great intimacy. As if Rahul touching my mother’s possessions was tantamount to Rahul touching my mother. I saw his mother watching us, her expression cool, impassive. But when we were in the church, all seemed as normal.