The Wild Wind

by Sheena Kalayil

  Don’t underestimate Sissy, Prithi called over again, and I realised she was as worried about how I would fare in this gathering as I was. She’s a dark horse, she said.

  But, the man continued, ignoring her, have you not tried to get in touch with your father yourself?

  You’re right, I said, I should. But when I was younger, this was what took up all my energies – I gestured to my face – and then life moved on. My mother remarried and I love my stepfather.

  He peeled himself off the rug, sat up and brushed down his jeans, put his glass on the floor next to him, held out his hand and, surprised, I took it.

  I’m Ashok, by the way. Drink makes me unpleasant, he said lightly, but smiling apologetically. In my real life I run a business and on occasion we have call to investigate potential clients et cetera. You know, run background checks to make sure they aren’t child traffickers or terrorist motherfuckers. I can ask my team to look into your father for you.

  I shrugged. Why not?

  But by now I wanted to leave, because my heart was thumping at the possibility that this man and his pool of investigators would uncover my father deftly. And that with a quick flick through a phone book, the opportunity would present itself to me: do you want to meet him? The likelihood that this man would find my father, the chance of success when a search was done in the country itself, by professionals, was very high, and this appalled me.

  The following day, back at the conference, I felt ill with the several scenarios that were jostling in my head. My father, bedridden and unconscious, the nurses and doctors berating me: you must pay for his care, his bill is so high! My father, as tall and dark as I remembered, emerging with a woman on his arm: I remarried too, Sissy. This is your stepmother, and our five children are inside waiting to meet you. My father, in prison. He was, in fact, Raju Kumaresan, the pseudonym he had assumed when he left my mother.

  Are you all right? Prithi dug her elbow into my ribs.

  Just hungover, I managed to whisper back.

  The next day, the last of the conference, and the day before I was booked on a flight to leave for New York, back to my life of almost-penury, my solitary class and freelance work, Prithi passed on a message that Ashok wanted to take me out to dinner that evening, during which he would report on his findings.

  He arrived at my hotel in a huge 4×4 better suited for a safari than the narrow streets of Paharganj. As we drove back into New Delhi – he was taking me to a new Japanese restaurant that had opened not far from India Gate – he said, I won’t keep you in suspense, Sissy. We haven’t found him. But we can talk more over some food. Then he patted my arm.

  I stared out of the window. I did not feel relief that none of the scenarios I had envisaged would come true, I felt bereft. Here, in this city in which I had no investment, I had nevertheless felt that he was close, nearby, within touching distance. Was it because of the break-up a few months ago with my boyfriend, whom I had loved but who could not have loved me equally in return, choosing to leave me rather than stay? Was it because I had seen so many men in the streets, even at the conference venue, who looked like my father? Was it because I had imagined that the reverse might happen, that my father would look for me, learn that I was visiting New Delhi, sweep into the conference venue and step into my path: mol, it’s good to see you again after all those years. You’ve grown into a woman, but what happened, Sissy – touching my cheek – what happened?

  Ashok did not try to engage me in small talk, with a measure of tact that I would not have attributed to him when we had first met. Perhaps, as he had said, drink did make him unpleasant. Only when we reached the restaurant, and after he had parked the car, did he take my hand and lead me upstairs where a smartly suited maître-d’ showed us to the table. The restaurant was filled with an impossibly stunning clientele: every woman seemed to have the face and figure of a starlet, and every man seemed to be blessed with chiselled cheekbones and an enviably strong jawline. But compared to my gentle collisions earlier in the week – with the hotel receptionist, the autorickshaw driver, the woman in the tomb – here, the preening and posturing, the shrill voices, the wine bottles and music, the raucous laughter, were vile, ugly to me.

  As soon as we sat down, a man from the table across from us approached ours, threw his arm around Ashok: Sala! I heard you were engaged to that Rohini! What are you doing here with a beautiful stranger?

  But as he spoke he turned to look at me more directly, his face falling; either because of the scar that eclipsed half my face or because of the tears that had gathered in my eyes. Ashok shook his friend off, and as the man moved away, he took my hand.

  Is this a bad idea? Shall we go somewhere else? Somewhere quieter?

  But I was loth to stand up and leave, make even more of a spectacle of ourselves, so I shook my head. Just give me a minute, I whispered.

  And he did, giving me more than a minute, ordering the specials, and arranging for water and wine, fussing with the table setting, as I felt the gale inside me settle until it was just a flutter in my belly, like the first tiny kicks of a newborn baby.

  I did the whole American thing, he started, and prepared you a dossier. He pointed to a slim folder he had placed on the table. You can read it in detail later but basically, there has been no official registration of a death, no marriages, bank accounts, no businesses listed. That doesn’t mean that none of the above have not actually happened. What it means is that there is nothing we can find through official channels about him, after the court case you mentioned. Before, in the sixties, there’s plenty, but I’ll let you read all of that yourself. Your father was involved as a party member when the Communist Party split, and he joined the Marxist branch, so he features in records and minutes and things, and there’s evidence of his friendship with the Kumaresan fellow.

  Our food arrived and we each made a good fist at pretending to enjoy our meals. It was when we were halfway through that he spoke again, choosing his words carefully: Sissy, sometimes men abandon their wives. Sometimes wives abandon their husbands. They leave their children. Something happens inside them and they just can’t face going back.

  His voice was gentle and he was looking at me intently, even though I found it difficult to meet his eyes.

  I’m not saying that you need to accept or even understand that, he continued. I just don’t want you to think that a positive outcome is solely in your hands. You mustn’t feel that you are the only one who can solve this and then blame yourself for not succeeding. I mean, your father could try and find you, couldn’t he?

  He added, after a few moments of silence: it might be sometimes that you have to be on the ground, asking around, talking to people.

  I knew what he meant. I could take myself to Ernakulam, find the house of my great-uncle Monuchayan, who would surely have seen my father, at least when he had first returned to India; who could point me in the direction of the mountain, the cave, the seminary, the lonely hut at the top of a hill in which my father had spent the last eighteen years.

  Did you find anything about Raju Kumaresan? I asked finally. Did he have a wife and children that my father might have wanted to take care of?

  He frowned. Then, still munching, he slid a finger into the file, glanced through some pages. His mother and sisters are mentioned, as you already know, no one else.

  But there was no need for further clarification. I had found a plausible fairytale that cast my father in the role of protector and chivalrous knight. The storyboard was already designed in my head: my father taking charge of a poor illiterate woman, husband imprisoned and children hungry, a scenario not uncommon in India. This would be the narrative I nurtured, not by any means outlandish, and this would be the narrative that would enable me to return to my former life, pick up from where I had left and carry on. For the other – that my father had simply left, turned his back to face forwards to a future without us – was a story that deserved to be as buried as that story of the plane I had uncovered those years ago
in a library on Washington Square.

  Ashok drove me back to the hotel but parked at the top of the street where it was quieter. He took my hand and drew me close. I felt his breath against my forehead as he pressed my face into his chest. I did not resist but neither did I melt against him. He might have been feeling pity or desire. I had no idea, and felt no inclination to understand. When he released me, I got down from his ridiculous vehicle, the file clutched in my hand, and as I was fumbling with the door he said, goodbye, Sissy Olikara.

  I entered my hotel bedroom alone, lay down on the bed alone, and wondered whether I should have invited him to stay the night. Anything to displace the memory of this trip as being a failed attempt to connect with my father. I read through the dossier that night, met Prithi the next day and exchanged contact details with promises to keep in touch, took myself to the airport, and in a blink of an eye was back in the studio apartment I was renting – back in Bed-Stuy, phone messages to listen to, a class to teach the next day.

  That night I called my mother: I’m back.

  How was it? How was your paper?

  Fine, it’s an interesting place.

  She laughed. I’ve never been, but it’s something, isn’t it, to visit the capital?

  I said: I had someone look for Papa.

  My mother fell stone silent, even though, surely, she must have expected, at least in passing, mention of my father.

  I added after some moments: he found nothing.

  She said: I’m very sorry, mol.

  Have you not heard from him, Mama? I asked the question that I had long stopped asking, and received the very same answer as before.

  Not since the divorce, mol. I’m sorry.

  I put my hand over my eyes, the light in my apartment seemed suddenly too bright.

  Are you there, Sissy? Her voice was soft.

  My head hurts, I said. And I have a class first thing in the morning. My voice trembled suddenly with self-pity.

  Drink lots of water, my mother said. Don’t work too hard, Sissy. Get some sleep and you’ll feel better tomorrow.

  11

  THE curfew enveloped our lives. The darkness it brought was like a pall. Being trapped indoors from just before sunset, with curtains pinned and cardboard cut-outs in place, was stifling, especially when on the other side of our walls was open land under a wide night sky. Even though before, because of the crickets and the insect life and the ever-present fear of snakes slithering into our yard from the bush behind us, we did not have a habit of sitting out in the warm nights, now we felt compelled to enjoy the veranda and hence felt thwarted by the edicts issued daily on the radio, repeated by the school authorities. We lowered our voices, heard every glug from the fridge as it battled through the night, every gurgle from the pipes if we were lucky enough not to have a water cut. Windows were closed; at least the nights were always cool and we did not suffer from the heat.

  I did not sleep in my mother’s bed that night, our first under the curfew; I stayed in my bedroom. On Saturday afternoon, she dug out the old, rickety pushchair that we had been given by a neighbour and which Danny hated. But we held him down, his body arching in resistance, his face bright red with fury, slipped on the straps, and belted him in. Then we wheeled him off the veranda, down our short drive and onto the road, turning left, to walk past only two bungalows before reaching the steep descent to the entrance gates of the campus. We passed through the gates and carried on walking. Past the settlement of tin-roofed houses, carrying on and on, with no destination in mind, only to find a pleasing space: an outcrop of rocks or a patch of grass under the shade of a tree.

  My mother was wearing one of my father’s shirts – light blue, made of a faded, thin cotton – oversized on her but she had rolled up the sleeves. And the navy-blue stirrup pants, bought at a department store in Bombay on our way back to Cochin, this purchase made under duress from my father. It was my mother’s very first pair of trousers, and he had coerced her into trying them on, and then swept away her coyness and taken them to the till. This was a couple of years ago, and the stirrup pants were worn rarely. But they suited her, and combined with my father’s shirt, she looked carefree, unbounded by the respectability of a sari. You look nice, Mama, I had said on seeing her, and she had grinned. Not so sure, mol. But she did. She looked young and bright; she had tied back her hair, unplaited, in a ponytail. She was small and small-boned, I was beginning to realise. I reached her forehead now; she was not much taller than me. Danny was gabbling contentedly, and we exchanged a glance and smiled. She took one hand away from the handle of the buggy, and tucked some of the hair that had escaped my own ponytail behind my ear, then laid her palm against my cheek briefly. It was my birthday. I was twelve. We were taking a picnic of cake and cordial to enjoy in the fresh air.

  That morning my mother had crept into my bedroom, gently pushing me across and, climbing into my bed, pulled the covers over us both.

  ‘Before Danny wakes up,’ she whispered, then kissed me. ‘Happy birthday, mol.’ Her eyes were sad. We both remembered our words from the previous evening. I searched my mother’s eyes for any lingering anger or resentment, and only met her gaze: bright, loving, a hint of regret somewhere behind her lashes.

  ‘Sorry no party, mol,’ she whispered.

  In fact we had agreed, weeks ago, that we would wait until my father returned before booking a trip to the cinema with my school friends. In years past, we would invite all the Malayalees for an afternoon of songs and cake, but I knew without asking that this would not happen today. She produced a small parcel: a new anklet and bangles, bought, I knew, on our last visit to India, in preparation for this day. And I thought of how she had to think ahead but had probably no inkling when she bought the trinkets that my father would not be with us. I slipped them on to please her and she exclaimed at how well they suited me, how elegant my limbs appeared decorated with the jewellery, not mentioning how incongruous they were against my pyjamas. This pair were in lurid stripes of orange and green, another of my mother’s bizarre choices.

  She also produced a neatly ironed trio of cotton training bras. So she had noticed how I was growing. She had made a cake during the week, with the chocolate she had asked Miss Munroe to bring back, months ago, from Ireland, and which she had saved for the picnic. We spread out a blanket and released Danny, who grabbed the side of the buggy and raised himself on his feet, then after looking around with surprise, dropped back down onto his bottom.

  I poured out the squash, my mother arranged some candles on the cake; after I blew them out, she handed me the paper plate. We both sank our teeth into our slices and munched in silence. I was in heaven, the cake melted in my mouth. She had brought our pack of cards. We could play rummy, she said, but I shook my head and stretched out onto the blanket, on my stomach. Maybe later, I said, after more cake. She laughed, then lay down on her side beside me. Danny was rolling the squash bottle between his legs.

  ‘You know,’ she spoke suddenly, and reached across to smooth my hair down, ‘I wanted more than this for you. When I was your age,’ she said smiling slightly now, but with that same sad look in her eyes, ‘I had my brothers, my cousins, so many friends. We ran around, there was always something to do, someone to play with. We had the lake, the river. There was always a party at the church to get dressed for, to wear nice clothes. My dancing lessons. It’s so quiet here. I know you have friends but we live so far away from them. And now with Papa not here and me not driving . . .’ She stopped. ‘I wanted more for you.’

  We were silent for a long time, and then I said, ‘But I like it here, Mama.’

  ‘Do you?’ She smiled widely. ‘Tell me what you like, mol.’

  ‘I like the quiet,’ I said. ‘I like our house . . .’

  She burst out laughing, but covered her mouth quickly, ‘Sorry, carry on, mol.’

  ‘I like Ally and Mary-Anne and Grace and Jonah . . .’

  She had stopped laughing, and while a smile still played on her lips,
her eyes were now grave.

  ‘. . . I like it when the holidays come and me and Bobby and Aravind can play all over the campus.’

  She said, ‘You haven’t played with those boys for some time now.’

  Those boys. She was not looking at me now, her eyes were on Danny.

  I replied, ‘I think they’ve grown out of me.’

  She glanced at me, with a brief rueful smile. ‘I think you’ve grown out of them, mol.’ Then she sat up, pressed her knees together, laid her chin on them, facing forward. ‘I wanted you to have piano lessons or singing lessons or even dancing lessons,’ she said. ‘I could find someone in town, I knew. But then we would have to drive somewhere. Papa didn’t like that. Then there was the petrol shortage.’ She shook her head. ‘Always something happening. Always an excuse.’

  I sensed it was the right moment to ask, ‘Why don’t we go back as well, Mama? To be with Papa?’

  She did not stir, did not look at me, and stayed quiet for so long I wondered whether she had not heard or whether the question had so affronted her she would pretend I had not asked. Then she hugged her knees tighter and looked at her toes. ‘I wish it were that simple, Sissy.’ She turned to me. ‘But where would we stay? With Monuchayan?’ My father’s uncle in Mattancherry. ‘Or go back to Pappan?’ My grandfather in the Ghats. ‘Back to Kothamangalam?’ Her childhood home. ‘When a woman marries she leaves her family. They will not be happy if I come back. They don’t even know Papa is there . . .’

  ‘But—’

  ‘And what would we live on? Do you think Papa will find a job easily? Or me? Why do you think we’re here?’ She shook her head and bit her lip, and stared fixedly at her feet. ‘All our savings,’ she spoke quietly, ‘all the money we made, all these years, Papa has given it away. To help his friends from college. To help friends of his friends. To pay for the weddings of his friends’ sisters.’ She shook her head again. ‘There is always someone asking.’ She turned then, to look at me. ‘But he never thought to ask me first. To see if I was happy for the money I earned to be given away, to people who . . .’ Her voice broke off, and there was a silence, but then she resumed. ‘When I lost the baby . . .’ Her eyes flickered over me. ‘Do you remember?’