by Anubha Mehta
Veer didn’t have to say more. I knew.
Even though I had lived apart from my parents, they had always been with me. But now I felt like an orphan.
My father’s family arranged to have my parents’ ashes scattered over the Ganga river as they had both desired. There was no reason for me to now return.
***
Listening to Diya practise her music was one of the few things that calmed me. Then one day as I was watching her practise, she suddenly stopped and said, “Mama, why don’t you start playing music again? It is just what you need to revive yourself. Didn’t you play a few instruments when you were young?”
And she was right. I regretted not having thought of this earlier. I decided to enrol in a program for beginners. But when I auditioned, they decided to place me in advance level classes. I was told that because of my experience, within a year I could graduate the program and even be ready to tutor if I’d like. I liked the idea of giving back and said I would consider it.
After graduating from high school, Diya had been accepted into one of the top music schools in Canada. It had been a year since she had left for Montreal and I missed her terribly. She was also an active member of the hikers’ club, and this gave her an opportunity to explore the great northern regions of Canada. She came home as often as she could and every time she left she said, “Don’t worry, Mama, I am only a flight away, and I will call every day.”
But when she called last weekend, her voice was pitched differently and I immediately knew that this was not a routine call. ‘
“What’s the matter?”
“Oh, Mama, you will not believe it. I am so happy! I have an offer to join my university expedition team to travel north, to see the Aurora Borealis!”
“The what?”
“The Northern Lights, Mama! We leave tomorrow, and we should be there in a few days. I will keep texting you, don’t worry.”
“Diya.”
“Yes?”
“Be careful.”
“Don’t worry, Mama, I will. ” For some reason I was nervous.
When Veer and I were feeding the doves the next morning, I told him about Diya’s trip but didn’t mention my anxiety about it. Veer had continued to pour his life into expanding his father’s business even after his father had passed away. His mother now no longer bothered to call home, since she knew he was never here. And even though he continued to come home late, he made an effort to talk most times.
“See, what did I tell you?”
“What, Veer?”
“When Diya was born I said that one day she will go north to the shining light.”
“Yes, you did.” I remembered now.
“And one day I will have my own patch of green to live by.” I also remembered that.
I wanted to ask him when that would happen. But just then his phone rang. He answered it and then got up to walk away from me. I caught a fleeting sentence of his conversation. “Don’t worry, Suzy, I am coming.”
It irked me that she continued to work for him, but I bit my tongue.
After Veer left, the house felt emptier than usual. I started thawing chicken in mushroom sauce and switched on the oven to roast a few vegetables Then I went to switch on the television. It was almost noon. I flipped the channels but could not find anything that grabbed my attention.
Soon it was time for the afternoon news. I got up to get my lunch. But something that the news anchor had just said made me turn around. It was a word, a place … no, a name. And then I heard it. Every single news channel was blasting this red alert news. There had been an avalanche. Up north. In a small village called Tuktoyaktuk. And a group of students was trapped.
I suddenly felt cold and my mind went blank. What was the TV saying? The screen was filled with scenes of snow-covered mountains, viewed from the inside of a helicopter, which then panned the Mackenzie River delta. A rescue party was being assembled, a reporter announced.
I picked up my shaking body and reached for the phone. “I want to speak to Veer please.” I could barely hear my own voice.
“Sorry, he is not available,” the receptionist answered flatly. I did not know what to say next.
“Please, it is an emergency. This is Maya…” I said. I think I was holding on for a long time. The woman had hung up.
Frantically I dialled and redialled Diya’s number. It was dead.
I picked up my keys and started my car. I punched Veer’s office address into the GPS. Images of the snow and the frozen river flashed in front of my eyes. I called out to Diya from my heart. I knew she was in danger, but I felt she was still alive. And I hung onto that thought.
***
Veer’s office was on the twelfth floor inside a glossy high-rise building. It had lofty domes and sparkling granite floors that made me feel like I would slip any moment. There was a gigantic artificial metal tree with bronze petals touching the ceiling in the foyer and a multi-coloured carpet under it that was making me even dizzier.
The twelfth floor opened into a reception area where two pretty ladies smiled plastically through their lipsticked lips.
“I am here to see Veer.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No, I am his wife.” They gasped.
I waited at the edge of a leather couch, holding my breath. A familiar figure walked out. It was Suzy. She looked sharp and not too happy to see me. But I did not care.
“Hello, Maya, what brings you to our office?”
“Is Veer there, please?”
“No, he is on a call with Columbia. Can I help you with something?”
“No, I need to see Veer. It is important.”
She went through the large maple oak doors again. I could not sit anymore and I started pacing.
Suzy came out again and said, “I was not able to talk to him while he was on the call. Unfortunately, he is booked solid in another conference call after, and then he and I have a lunch appointment with one of our new clients. It will be a while before you can see him. Maybe you should go home. Maybe I will send him home early today.” She sniggered.
I had had enough. Who was this woman to stop me from seeing my husband? And nothing was more important than reaching Diya. I brushed passed her and purposefully walked toward the maple doors. Suzy tugged insistently at my sleeve. “No, Maya, you cannot barge in.” “Why not?”
“Because you are disturbing us.” There it was. Out in the open. “I am Veer’s right-hand person, and I have been appointed by his family to define his day, and who he has time to meet….”
I did not care for this drama right now. But I felt the hot tears on my cheeks. I immediately wiped them, hoping that no one had seen.
“Our daughter is in danger. She is on a trip, and I have just got news ….” I could no longer speak. I did not want to speak. I picked up my bag and headed for the front door. The two receptionists looked disturbed and smiled weakly as I passed them.
I clutched the handle to open the door and a hand came from behind to stop me. Veer pulled me in his arms I was looking into those hazel eyes.
“The receptionists paged me. I am so sorry….”
“Veer … it is Diya.”
“What about Diya?” His composure cracked a little.
“Have you seen the news?”
We walked to the boardroom and switched on the wall TV. The same pictures flashed, and I closed my eyes.
“Wait here.”
He walked out with fire in his eyes. I knew he was angry. When he didn’t return for some time I followed him. I heard his deep, low voice, the one he used when he did not shout but was raging with anger.
“… and on your way out, remember to write down all your passwords, and return the office keys please.”
“What are you doing? Are you firing me? You have gone mad. I know too much. I will
destroy you!” Suzy was shrieking.
“No one can destroy me unless I let them.”
“What about all that I have done for you?!”
“It was all work, Suzy, and it has made you a very rich woman too. You did it for the kill.”
“I will tell your mother and everyone.”
“Tell everyone? Everyone knows. Maya is my wife and no one can or will replace her….”
I collapsed back into the room once again, hidden from this ugly showdown. What a fool I had been to doubt Veer all these years. Only his inner demons could destroy him, and destroy us, not another living person. His occasional frenzy of doubt, his insecurity, his obsession with me and then his break downs and regrets — they were the demons that he had to fight against.
I picked up every ounce of strength and stepped out once again. A shaky receptionist was calling out to Veer with the phone receiver in her hand. “Sir, it is your mother from India.”
He came towards me, took my hand and started walking out. The receptionist called after us.“Sir, what do I tell her?”
“Tell her that I have gone to find my life.”
And, with that, we exited the building in search of Diya, in search of our life.
36.
WITHIN AN HOUR we had packed a small bag to catch the train heading out to the Arctic region, the Northwest Territories of Canada, to Nunavut, and a small village called Tuktoyaktuk. I knew in my heart that Diya was alive and waiting. I could think of nothing else but holding her close in my arms again.
As we entered our railway compartment, we found that we were not alone. Across from us was a very tall man with tan skin and high cheekbones, peering at us from under a caribou hat. I noticed his almond-shaped eyes immediately. They were bright green, the colour of the Northern Lights, and they had a distant look, as though he were someone who has seen life in all its starkness, someone who has travelled far. There was a certain restlessness in his eyes, like he was searching for something. He continued to watch us as our train steered and stretched across the cold, rugged Northern landscape. After a while of furtively exchanged glances, he came and sat next to Veer. “Hello, I am Anernerk.”
I opened my handbag and pulled out my book at an angle where I could secretly observe Anernerk from behind its covers. His largeness was even more consuming at this proximity. His persona seemed to diminish every object into irrelevance. His angular face dropped into hollowed cheeks that had weathered the severity of seasons. He had an ugly scar down his left cheek. He looked up directly at me and smiled, knowing all this time that I was watching him. I looked away in embarrassment.
Then he turned to Veer and said, “Anernerk is my Inuit name. It means angel. I was given this name by my granduncle when I saved a baby lemming off the coast of Mansel in the Qikiqtaaluk region where I grew up. My parents believed I had healing powers.” Why was he telling us this? Was this bizarre introduction leading somewhere?
“Where are you travelling from?” Veer asked.
“I come from Eastern Quebec, and I’m on way to visit my distant blood brothers, my tribe in Nunavut.”
“It must be terribly cold in Nunavut right now.” Veer commented.
He chuckled at Veer’s worry about the weather. “I am on my way to bless the start of a race of seal hunters.” He pointed to a very large canvas bag tucked under his seat. “I am carrying their harpoons with me.”
Then Anernerk fell silent as a few blocks of isolated tundra boulders flashed past us. He was sitting straight and, at one point, he was staring outside the window without blinking. When he finally spoke, it was as if he were deep in a trance. “After I was honoured with the name Anernerk, I was taught many things by my community. I personally believe that the spirits of the departed respectfully co-exist with the living. Some spirits take masculine and feminine forms and further incarnations of divine father and mother. I see you both in this personification, and now I am obliged to offer you help, the peace that you seek. You should know that this is not something I do normally. As you both entered this compartment, I could feel some chaos, some things unsettled, and some incomplete business in your life. But your spirits are unique, they bring energies from a faraway land.”
Veer looked aggravated at what Anernerk was saying. He got up to move away, but I gestured to him to sit down.
Anernerk continued, “Have you travelled far?”
“Just from Toronto,” Veer replied dryly.
“Yes, but where did you travel from to reach Toronto?”
“From India,” I replied.
Anernerk turned towards me and smiled quietly. A smile that told us that he had found the correct answer now. Then once again he sat in silence. When he emerged, he spoke to me for the first time: “What is your name?”
“Maya.”
“Maya … Maaayaaa … Maaaya.” He toyed with the word on his tongue, playing with its last syllable. “What does that mean?”
“It means an illusion, a spirit.”
He smiled that knowing smile again. “Maya, you have a special gift. You need to express it.”
I was taken aback. This statement was unconnected to anything he had said before. It was Veer’s turn to have fun now, and he returned the same gesture to me as I had to him a few minutes ago—to stay calm.
Anernerk pulled out a large walrus-ivory box engraved with pictures of arctic owls. I remembered seeing those treasures at the Royal Ontario Museum. He brought out a rectangular object and opened its tassels. “This is seal-skin wrapping,” he said. “It was given to me by my father to carry special objects like this gift I am about to offer to you.”
Wrapped inside was a small turtle-skin rattle, not bigger than his palm. I recognized it instantly. I had read about these. They were used to keep the rhythm with the beating of the drums in Inuit ceremonies.
“Here, take it.” He extended it toward me and I heard a pebble-like jingle.
As I took the rattle in my hand and I saw a miniature black etching on its handle. A lone tree blowing in the wind, braving the storm. My finger automatically touched the winding strokes of the branches. I gasped at the similarity, at the symbolism. Oh my God. I remembered something. This was like the stencilled tree in Gayatri’s diary. Was this a coincidence? I scolded myself. No, that was in another country, another time.
“We cannot accept this,” Veer said.
Anernerk put up his hand. “The spirit of this object speaks to its owner. I was just the carrier. It has found its owner.” Anernerk was watching me closely. “Keep this in a music room. It will bring rhythm and balance to your life.”
“I don’t have a music room, so what will I use this for?” I asked.
“The use will present itself to you when the time is right. The moment you embraced this, I could see that the spirits were calmer. You will be okay now.”
He turned his gaze upwards and held it at an empty space just above my head. The train was slowing down, and we had reached our next stop. He stood up and raised his hand to Veer. “Son, you will be absolved of the burden , of the curse that you carry. Wait for the white chariot with wheels of faith and true love.”
Both Veer and I were taken aback at his ramblings.
Anernerk picked up his small backpack and his large, heavy bag of harpoons, and he was about to leave when he stopped and turned around one last time. He looked at both of us now and said, “The wild love from an ancient land flows in the blood of youth. Let the darkness guide you to revival in a new life.”
With that, Anernerk disembarked. We sat perplexed and confused. What had he meant? It did not make any sense. We both acknowledged that the encounter had been so unique and powerful, nothing like what we had ever experienced before.
Veer finally spoke. “Maya, make sure that someday you have a music room where the sound of the turtle-rattle destroys all unwelcome spirits. Promise me.”
“Yes, Veer, I promise.”
He continued, “Maya I am cursed by my family’s past. I don’t think I can escape it. Everything that I wish for turns out wrong. I wished the Northern Lights for Diya and see where it has landed her. I wished you away from the mansion and see the life we have lived here. But I will not let life be taken away from both of you….”
“Hush, Veer. Don’t talk like that. Diya will be with us tomorrow. I just know. And I can find a thousand interpretations of what Anernerk said. Shall I tell you?”
But he was not listening, as usual.
***
Even in the train, there was no escaping the icy, cold draught blowing uninterrupted from the North. The whole night I dreamed of Diya, as a baby in her pink bassinet, standing up for herself with her teacher, catching frogs with Bella in the moon-soaked Algonquin River, and practising her musical notes like a religion. I knew that harm could not touch someone so beautiful. And I knew that before spirits touched my little girl, they would have to pass through me.
When we arrived it was still dark. Wearing our thermal under-layers, we stepped out onto a frigid, barren, and strikingly beautiful landscape. The powder-blue sky was speckled with dusty vapours, and our vision of the earth was seamless. For miles, there was nothing to see except the serene completeness of nature. The biting Arctic wind had started with a low whistle again.
Veer had arranged for a guide, and he greeted us at the station. His snow gear was lined with thick fur, and the only parts of his body that were visible were his swollen red eyes, cheeks, and nose.
“Are you Mr. and Mrs. Raa … sing…?
“Yes, we are,” Veer answered, relieving him of the agony of pronouncing our foreign name.
“Hello, my name is Aippaq, meaning companion in my language. I am your musher.”
“This is Veer, which means the brave one, and I am Maya, which means the illusion,” I said, a little tickled by my own translation.
Aippaq smirked at Veer, as if sizing him up. Then he said to Veer, “So you are the brave one, eh?”
“I had no choice but to be the brave one, living with her.” Veer snorted.