by M G Vassanji
The world belongs to the young, when does one start seeing that? All of a sudden, the realization dawns without warning: it’s gone. It is their world now, just as it was ours once, not so long ago, yesterday, when we walked out with such confidence, con brio, and every adult said, The future is yours, go and grab it, and we went out and it was in our hands. And it slipped through, as it must. Always. And we stepped onto the other side and here I am, when everything sounds trivial, passé, I’ve-seen-or-heard-it-before, and therefore, obviously, I don’t belong anymore.
I predict movie endings. Plots I can place into a handful of categories. I imagine the young graduates employed to write them, new geniuses discovering the wheel, but it’s your problem, I remind myself, stop railing at them, they write for their age. They can’t know you. Weren’t you young and fresh once? Precisely. The only difference between then and now is that the villains are different. Substitute Muslims for Germans. Novels too sound tired, contrive profundity, struggle lugubriously with metaphors, perform verbal gymnastics saying nothing. How to while away those sleepless hours, then? It’s back to the classics. Your time, your books, your films, your music.
They get up for you on the subway these days, and the ladies open doors for you. Thank you, but I should have been the one to do it. The red face of old age. And do you call them ladies anymore? I don’t know even that. And I don’t care.
I’ve written what looked important once, had not been said before, so I thought loftily, but it seems laughably trite now in this turbulent world where news breaks every minute and opinion tweets at you from all directions. Moving with the times, as I can no longer do, my sober dailies sound hip now. They test your uptake like schoolmarms, give you a takeaway every morning like your school lunch. Interpret the world for you, but no thank you, we were taught to think for ourselves. That can be risky today.
The news is depressing, anyway. Hasn’t it always been? The Climate. The Wars. The rich and the poor. The immigrants and the refugees. But I’ve done my marching, don’t want to change the world anymore, let the young change it. It’s their moment, not mine. Look what kind of world you’re leaving for us, they mouth from their coddled homes; well, we paid the price for the luxury you have to say that. If you fear the climate, we feared the bomb…doomsday for us too lurked around the corner.
India was the great revelation when life was yet to be lived and expanded. It mattered, the spiritual home, the ancestral home, brought a smile to the lips. The first step I took there, I remember too vividly. That thrill too is gone. As it must. The friends I made are older or dead, the children I played with are gone abroad, everyone’s connected and wirelessly chatting. And hatred has leaked into the air. No longer the Phantom India, the mystical India of pirs and gurus, of Gandhi and Truth, and Shankar and Ray. Poetry and song. The wonder that was.
To repeat, I’ve lived and loved, had my small successes and failures. And now the body sends its signals, eyes, heart, blood, thankfully not ears yet, but that’s coming they tell you, and dementia awaits. Life is lived no longer for some lofty aim but to prolong itself, keep the numbers low and the momentum wearily rolling, cheat death. But why not invite it, laughing, or at least smiling the Buddha smile? That’s truly beating death. Stop pushing and let the stone roll down—Camus—and save on resources to leave for the complaining coddled ones when they grow old. We leave you a world without us, thank us, we will not be there to torment your budgets.
No one is missed, really. The kids have their own lives, the wife will join other wives and venture out on cruises and reunions. Find a new partner perhaps. Here I am, alone, in a beautiful town by the sea, watching young life passing by, not envious—I’ve lived, I said—go on, young people, to wherever you’re going, though you’ll wind up here in the end, watching other young people walk by…two men in Muslim garb, Moroccans, perhaps, a couple in jeans with arms around each other, his hand in her back pocket, we know where he’s headed—it’s rained lightly and the mist hangs and wafts along in the spring air and the light from the coloured shop signs is reflected in the wet pavement, and the young Bangladeshi shopkeepers close their shutters and insert their padlocks, and look around wondering what to do next—it’s all beautiful and quiet and I’m all alone and contented and suitably high on a good red, and no one will know if I go back to my room on the hill and overdose or something. Why not order first the fried potatoes I’ve been denying myself to stay healthy and then go and find my peace?
AN AMERICAN FAMILY
He reads, in the Amherst Echo:
Wallace Brand, 63, died May 13 at Amherst Charity Hospital after a long illness. He was born in Baltimore, the son of Wallace T. and Marie (Livermore) Brand. “Wally” was a state trooper for seven years before attending UMass Law School. Following graduation he was legal consultant to a number of corporations and the Amherst School Board. Surviving is his wife, Laura; four children, Marie of Burlington, Vermont, Lucy of New York, Katy of Washington DC, and Tom of Provo, Utah; grandchildren Thaddeus, Lee, Ali, Sara, Paul, James, and Refat; and brother Tim Brand of Germany…
Private interment will be at Mount Hope Cemetery, Amherst.
Two years ago, on another listless afternoon, surfing the web he’d come upon the death announcement of the older Wallace Brand, who passed away in Baltimore, aged eighty-six. And now, Wally Junior, still in middle age; cancer? Timmy’s in Germany, not surprising, probably still plays with a band. And dear Marie, gone long ago. He sees them together in his mind as he saw them then, some decades ago: a small happy family in the suburbs that became his American family. That picture faded with the years, acquired context, became just one among the many from his life’s journey; still, it retains that something that spurs a shot of gratitude in him whenever he sets his mind upon it.
He had said he would come by Greyhound (what else) to New York, expecting to be met at a bus station not too different from Boston’s, where he had landed the previous night. In the morning he’d gone to the university to confirm his acceptance of its offer of admission, which had been put in doubt by the interference of his government. The foreign student office had been friendly, told him not to worry, plied him with literature, and offered him a coffee and doughnut; he had used their phone to call his host family in New Jersey, the Brands, who had been assigned to him by the Welcome to America Agency. In his excitement about going to America, he had rashly accepted their offer of a short stay with an American family before beginning his studies. As the bus arrived in New York, he did not feel so certain about the prospect anymore, though Mrs. Brand had charmed him over the phone. “We’re looking forward to having you,” she said.
The bus entered a dimly lit tunnel and stopped at a parking bay inside a vast underground garage, buses arriving, departing, parking. He picked up his suitcase and shoulder bag and followed the other passengers out and through a modest side door up an escalator. Yes, you go up to go out, someone confirmed to him. How, in this tumult—broke the thought in his mind as he stepped off the trundling wooden steps with his bags into an endlessly large bright hall, a madhouse of people rushing hither and thither like ants in an ant-heap, when a man stepped up abruptly in front of him. “Mr. Adatia?” Mr. Brand, as he would always call him, even though he himself would soon become plain Hussein, was a round-faced, pale-faced, medium-height man in a light grey suit, looking rather frazzled. He didn’t wait for an answer. “Am I glad I found you! Wallace Brand.” They shook hands. “I’m here to pick you up, as promised. Let’s get out of here.”
It became family folklore at the Brands’ how Wallace Senior, with only a passport-size photo in his hand, anxious about how he would recognize their guest among the teeming crowds at the Port Authority, had stationed himself at just the spot, the head of the escalator from the bus gates, scrutinizing every young man who floated up. “It must have been obvious,” Wally Junior would say with a grin; and Timmy, “Come on, Dad, stop exaggerating.” And Marie, a
s Mrs. Brand soon became, would remind them that their guest had been in the country less than twenty-four hours.
He can’t recall the walk to the car, a big black Pontiac Grand Prix, most likely parked outside the terminal at a nearby lot, but soon they were on the hectic New Jersey Turnpike at rush hour headed for Upper Montclair, and thus began Hussein’s American education, Mr. Brand chatting all the way. Why do you have to pay money to use the road?—Hussein’s first question. Suppose you don’t?—his second. The cops would come chasing after you on their motorbikes. See them parked at the sides? He didn’t, and it was already too late. Cheerfully bright, barely comprehensible giant billboards passed by them, and green road signs, as they rode with varying speed immersed in a sea of vehicles, his eyes glued to the window. I can’t believe I’m here.
They took an exit, drove into a quiet and luxurious suburban avenue, arrived in the driveway of a large, grey-brick mansion. The family were waiting for him at the door. Mrs. Brand—Marie, a big blonde with a wide, welcoming smile, Wallace Junior, stocky like his father, wearing eyeglasses, and Timmy, lanky with shoulder-length hair. Both boys with curious smiles, twinkling eyes. And Mr. Brand regaled them with his tale of the miracle meeting at the Port Authority. Dinner was waiting. Chicken, he remembers, though not how it was cooked, and Marie gaily advised him he could use his hands to eat it as the boys were doing. Yes, he would have a Coke, and a can was brought for him. You press that tab to open it, Timmy explained, and showed him how. Back home a Coke was brought only for a special guest, purchased from the corner store, and after a glass had been poured out and served, the kids would fight over the remainder. He felt intensely shy and answered haltingly their questions about his home, his city, his country. Dessert fittingly was apple pie, after which they took their plates to the sink and dishwasher, and he was shown his room in the attic, Timmy helping him with his luggage. It had a double bed, a carpet, beautiful floral curtains, and an adjoining bathroom. There was no connection, he mused when they’d left him—with instructions to come down and raid the fridge whenever he got hungry—between where he came from and where he now was, except that the life he’d left behind still existed somehow in the circuitry of his brain. He walked around the room, looked out the window at the empty street and the treetops and the sloping rooftops that could be from a storybook, then he washed and sat down for a moment on the high, soft bed. Pulling up his legs, he crossed them and silently said his prayer before laying his head down on the pillow that smelled ever so sweet. I must never forget home.
Mr. Brand worked on Wall Street at a company called Bear Stearns and left early each morning for the train station. Timmy, with the long hair and scrappy, embroidered jeans, would amble down late in the morning, strum a few strains on his guitar for his mother, and go out to be with friends. He and his brother attended a military academy in Baltimore, though Timmy had declared his intention to drop out. Wally Junior, with neat haircut and tucked-in shirts, had a girlfriend in town and had become a Mormon. The family were Episcopalian. When Hussein was not accompanying Marie in the Grand Prix as she did her chores and showed him off and around, he would read in the den and watch TV. Back in Dar there was no television; now in the rec room in Upper Montclair he consumed TV shows with the uncontrolled appetite of a starved child. Lucy, Gilligan’s Island, Hogan’s Heroes, Bonanza, Gomer Pyle, Get Smart, I Dream of Jeannie, Perry Mason. Dick Van Dyke, Flip Wilson, Johnny Carson. Face the Nation. Meet the Press. He learned the lingo, became aware of issues, expanded his sense of humour. He would be chuckling away over daytime reruns when Marie would call him to have lunch or coffee with her in the kitchen, where she would sometimes watch her shows. In the evening, when Mr. Brand returned, Hussein would accompany him to the local park where they jogged side by side. They had taken him into their life without fuss, an ignorant, oddly dressed, and often clumsy brown stranger.
Marie and Mr. Brand talked easily with him. Mr. Brand had joined the war in its last year and spent it in England. He didn’t fight, for he’d been assigned for office work. Hussein knew about the war and D-Day from the movies. One day while searching for a sweatshirt for Hussein to wear, Mr. Brand pulled out an old shoebox from a shelf in the downstairs closet. Marie was not around. Mr. Brand fished out a snapshot from the box. It showed him in army uniform standing next to a woman. A plain-looking, thin Englishwoman in a loose dress, almost his height, with short curly hair and a rather nice squinting smile. She didn’t want to come to America, she had parents, Mr. Brand explained with a nod. Back in America he had worked briefly in army intelligence, where his job was to sift through newspapers. After his discharge he attended Johns Hopkins. No, he never made it back to England. And they didn’t write, he and Clarissa, no point. Marie was from Florida. She was on a bus trip to Washington DC with her three sisters when she met Wallace Brand, and they got married.
He didn’t stand a chance, Marie said. Four sisters from the South had descended on the capital after the war one July, and marked him out in a hotel bar where he was sitting alone, his friends having left the table or something. Marie hit the jackpot. It was the Fourth of July. Marie was a talker, a carefree, happy personality. Often in their conversations she would mention the General, someone who had had a large influence on her life. He was, apparently, much older and had died a few years ago; Hussein gathered somehow that they had had an affair. The General had approved of Wallace Brand and helped the couple in their early years of marriage. Marie had a sister, Jane, who lived nearby, married to a tall, cheerful man, Harry Smith, who also worked on Wall Street. Always ready with a wisecrack, he made Hussein laugh. The Smiths had a daughter called Lucy-Ann, a slim girl with a ponytail and a thin, musical voice and fussy hands who had just finished her freshman year in Florida. On a Saturday before a barbecue at the Smiths’ house, Hussein went to see the film Love Story at the local theatre with Lucy-Ann and the two boys. The book was all the rage then, and Marie had given him her copy to read, saying he would relate to it, since he was joining university himself, and he had finished it in a sitting. He enjoyed the story, though he understood Lucy-Ann when she said that university was not as it was depicted in the movie at all. At the barbecue, he had played charades with the three cousins, though he barely understood the clues or the answers.
He thinks of the Black cleaning woman who came twice a week, wonders what she might have thought of him, who came from Africa. Marie called her Jemmie, and the two chatted for long periods when they sat down for coffee in the kitchen; once Jemmie brought her son, who was perhaps in his thirties, to thank Marie for a gift of clothes. He did not speak much but Hussein shook hands with him. Did Jemmie have another name? he wonders. She did his room and laundry, but they barely exchanged more than a formality each time, and what seemed a longish look. He had an impression that she had formed a definite opinion about him. Once during their rounds in the Grand Prix, Marie stopped at a deli, where they had lunch. She suggested he order a sandwich, and when it came he gaped at the whole two inches of its thickness and then up at her. How to pick it up. She smiled. “We don’t always eat like this. You’ll need both hands.” She herself had soup. It was a stroke of genius when he cut the sandwich into quarters and offered her a piece. When he offered to pay, as per the Welcome Agency guidelines, she put her hand over his and smiled. Two women in tennis outfits came by just then and he was introduced. They asked him about lions where he came from and he replied that you could find them in national parks. Later Marie showed him the local college, where the art instructor was very popular with the women, including those two who had come by at their table.
During his second weekend Mr. Brand drove him to Washington DC via Baltimore and Annapolis, and he saw the White House, the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, the Washington Monument and, what he was the most eager to see, Arlington National Cemetery and President Kennedy’s grave with its eternal flame; he sensed that the Brands were not very fond of the Kennedys. He for his part had gazed in admirati
on at the glorious photos of President Kennedy and his beautiful wife in the newspapers back home; the US Mail postage stamp on the envelope that brought him news of his admission and scholarship had carried an image of the eternal flame. He’s not forgotten the date of the assassination, to this day; he was walking home on Uhuru Street one afternoon when he saw the stark, bold Daily Nation headline in the hands of a vendor: Kennedy Shot Dead. Across the street from the White House now, where they had come out to stand beside the car and watch, Mr. Brand related to him how the national anthem happened to be composed, by one Francis Scott Key, and at Hussein’s naive insistence, rather bravely—as he now admits—his host sang it for him. On the way back, he met Mr. Brand’s mother at her apartment in Baltimore; he recalls vaguely a small, rather reserved woman with curly white hair who had brought them tea in a tray. Later, with Marie in town, they went for a seafood dinner and Hussein was introduced to lobster, clams, crab cakes; but he still refused alcohol. Marie’s older sister Liz was also present, a smoking, gritty-voiced professional golf player, who drank a lot and gave Hussein a kiss on the mouth and invited him to visit her in Florida.