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Dedication

For Esther and Mariam, remembering Paul

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Lukose’s church

river and sea

waiting

summer, and then the rain

something barely remembered

the journey of dispossession

shadows painted over

snakes and fishes

fire drill

kidnapped in Casablanca

fairer far in may

returning to dust

cleft

ebbing

water birds

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Lukose’s church

My mother gave birth to me in a small room at the back of the house. The midwife was an old woman with a moustache, her hands gnarled but steady. She cut the cord with which mother and I had been linked with a flat heavy iron knife. It had no handle, and I would often look at it with dread, as it hung on the wall by two small holes inserted into nails. I had seen it cut off the heads of chickens when guests came, or at Christmas – a nonchalance of chopping which was repeated on raw mangoes, plantains, jackfruit. I had seen it, as a boy, being dipped into boiling water and taken in to my mother and her second son, so that the midwife could sever them too. Above the knife hung the fishing rods, and the long bamboo poles which mother used to knock down tamarind pods, guavas for us, and the raw mangoes she used in cooking.

I was the first son, and they named me after my paternal grandfather Lukose. My mother often told me that when I was born she was afraid, because she thought she had given birth to Grandfather – my eyes were clear and open, brown and unglazed. She said that I looked at her at the very moment of my birth and that there was a perfect understanding of her. I think it was her preoccupation with Grandfather and my resemblance to him that always created an intangible distance between us. She was always affectionate, but almost deferential, and she never held me close to her as she did my younger brother Behnan. It was not surprising then that when I took on ordainment and became a priest as my grandfather and his father, and his father before him had been, she began to call me Achen, Father – and it seemed the most natural thing that I should once more be severed, not by the spatulate kitchen knife, but by an equally blunt act of deference by mother.

I grew up by the River Pamba. It was broad and still, and its face was different from morning to evening. Kingfishers flew low across, their wings taking on the colours of sky, light and water. Across, on the other side were the green fields of paddy. And at the edge of the river were the swaying reed-like silhouettes of sugar cane which reflected themselves dark and ominous in the water. On our side of the river there were some large rocks, sand, and that beautiful wild plant which we call thotta vadi – touch-and-it-will-wilt. I spent many hot and lazy afternoons on the banks watching the kingfishers and waiting for mother to call.

I don’t know when it was that I received the calling. Perhaps it was that day when I felt the sun burn into my blood, and yet my head was filled with a cold and shattering sense of power. I shivered as I lay on the banks and felt that God was grey and cold and violent.

When I finally rose and went inside the house I saw the darkness and comfort no longer as shelter but somehow alien. I felt that the sun was forever in my blood, I was flooded with light, and yet there was the dreadful coldness, as if I would never again belong to the world of the living.

Mother said, ‘You had better eat some food. Don’t lie in the sun all afternoon. You should rest inside the house.’

We ate our meal in silence. Father never spoke, and while he was gentle with Mother, and always affectionate, he went about his duties as if language had never been made. I think it was because he managed alone the fields, the commerce, the workers. We were too young, and to Mother he never spoke about anything. He ate the food she cooked, and always seemed to delight in it, he said his prayers when all of us gathered in the evenings in a gentle monotone. I think he felt that Grandfather was still there. (I remember waking up one night and seeing Father staring at us as we slept on the mats. In the moonlight his face seemed strange, as if he were trying to possess us, understand us – what he did not dare do when we were awake. When he saw me awake, he turned his head.)

That evening, when we had eaten, Father gave me the Bible to read and what I found was a verse which said, I remember, ‘Thou hast known me from my mother’s womb.’ Perhaps that was when I knew I would serve God and His house. There was a church that was my right to serve, where Grandfather had served. I would go in apprentice to my father’s brother who now celebrated the Holy Eucharist there. He was an old man, venerated by all. I was nine years old. I told no one that day, though in some strange way my father understood that I would not after all engage in agriculture. He said it that very day, ‘I wanted to begin teaching you the accounts. I think Behnan can do that when he grows. Learn the psalms well.’

So I was left alone to dream by the side of the river, only appearing at evening to recite a psalm, as the family and servants knelt on the yellow, fraying mats.

When I went to study with Father’s brother, Malpan Andreyos, I was thirteen years old. Mother made a white cloak-like dress for me – not quite like a priest’s kuppayam or cope but similar enough. She stitched a small round cap of some bright black velvet. It felt warm and snug on my head, it was already a second skin. It was animal-like on my head and when I took it off at night I felt bare and uncomfortable. Mother did not cry, because she said that she had known of this moment from the time of my birth. Father held my hand for a moment – that unaccustomed gesture of affection shook me. His hands were cold, dry, without life almost and we were both embarrassed by my tears which fell on his thin fingers. Behnan was nowhere to be seen, though we heard his voice distantly from the coconut groves. I looked towards the river, as I departed with my maternal uncle. It was a cloudy day, the river looked black and the sugar-cane shivered against the water. The house too closed itself to me, the wooden latticework dropping from the roof like thin creepers were inward looking; the old Persian Cross reflected candlelight bleakly from the door – it was a carving of the cross through which I as a child loved to put my fingers, till one day they got stuck and Mother beat me, while Behnan laughed and stood on his head with delight. The shadows of the mango tree had fallen on the wall, the light was both golden and dull, a storm was on its way.

My mother’s brother held my hand, and accompanied me to Malpan’s house. This uncle was a tall man, and I found it difficult to walk, chained by his affection. Yet in him I saw both tenderness and authority and I loved him.

‘Eat well. Andreyos forgets sometimes when he is at his books.’

‘Will you come to see me often?’

‘Lukose, you know my work does not allow me much time. I will come after Lent.’

‘Will you bring me mangoes from your field?’

‘Is that all you want?’

‘Bring me a cat too, and mulberries.’

When we reached the Malpan’s house it was locked. I looked in through the barred window – the room was dark, musty, there was a table with a clean white cloth on it. After calling ‘Andreyos Accha!’ several times, my mother’s brother Mathappi went to the cottage near the gate. A woman came out, and looked at us for a minute before she went in again. While we waited, a man with a grizzled head and a thin bent body emerged.

‘Who is it?’

‘I have come with Lukose Achen’s grandson.’

‘So this is Andreyos Achen’s brother’s son. How he has grown! Well, Achen is not here. You know me – I look after the graves. You can sit in the church if you like, it is open. Andreyos Achen has gone to a marriage in the next village. He will be back before night.’

Mathappi Achen, as I called him, held my hand and the small bundle of clothes my mother had given me, and we went into the church. The church had been built by my grandfather in 1880; the date was written under the cross above the door. It said 1055. The light had changed again. We sat in the back, on a reed mat, having left our shoes outside. I looked at the altar where I would learn to serve, and felt a deep sense of dread. What mysteries were hidden here? I felt that I would die. The Malpan was a stranger to me – an ascetic, learned old man, saintly almost.

As Mathappi Achen and I sat there the setting sun entered through the western door. The light was everywhere. I could see nothing for the white light. I tried to rise but I was helpless. I prostrated myself forty times, till my knuckles were dark with dust. I knew at the end of it that the lamp hanging from the rafters was lit and that I would one day celebrate the sacrifice, here, in this small lime-washed church.

Mathappi Achen looked at me after my prayers were over and said, ‘I have a long journey over the water. My boatman will be impatient. Stay here – you are safe. Andreyos Achen knows you are to join him. I will go now.’

He kissed my brow, and held me by my shoulders. I said nothing.

When Andreyos Achen came back he looked tired and frail. He saw me watching the shadows thrown by the swinging, flickering lamp, touched my shoulder to guide me, saying nothing. I think he too felt that the priestly line would continue, it was necessary at least for Grandfather’s sake, but his face was stern, a sense of horror at the closeness he would have to enter into with a young boy.

He showed me to my room in silence. It was very small, having but one window and a narrow bed.

‘We will speak tomorrow.’

‘I am happy to be with you, Father.’

‘We will see. Have you brought your prayer books?’

‘I know them by heart.’

‘I will hear tomorrow.’

My bed was hard and narrow, but I fell asleep. I woke to the chiming of bells. It was barely dawn. I ran to the river and washed, listening to the birds as they called. When I went inside the small dark house of my uncle the priest, I found there was no food. I longed for the bitter black coffee, tinged with the flavour of wood smoke that my mother made for us. For a moment I thought, ‘The old priest hasn’t spoken to me, I can still go back.’ I saw the little bridge over the Pamba that separated the two hamlets, saw myself running over it, never to return to the church built in 1055 of the Malayalam era. I would marry, Father would build a house for me, I would walk in the rice fields and the slopes of tapioca and pepper that were mine.

Then I smelt the frankincense. It was bitter and fragrant and came to me from the windows of the church. I heard the priest call out ‘Kyrie Eleison’, Lord have mercy, and I went to join him. He was dressed in robes of gold, his feet shod in red velvet shoes. The church was empty as I kissed the steps and the pillars of the altar. He blessed me with his handcross, and I became like him, a servant, eager to see God, hardly ever succeeding in my desire, yet every day crying out to the people so that by standing at attention they would understand his revelation. At the moment, neither church nor priest, nor the world even, had significance and that was the truth.

river and sea

Leelamma had come with me to the station to meet Job. He was a short thin man, dark, with black large eyes. I recognised him at once from the photographs he had sent me. He dropped his suitcases and with no sign of diffidence he held my hands and said, ‘It’s you. At last.’ I was faintly embarrassed, and tried to pull out of his entrance. Suppressing laughter, Leelamma turned away.

Job was Father’s brother. He had been studying architecture in Italy as a young man, when he had met Marcella and married her. Grandfather and Grandmother were upset; there followed the usual tirades and threats of disinheritance, but Job would neither return nor leave the ‘Englishkarti’ as his mother called Marcella. There were no children, another reason for Grandmother’s continuous diatribes.

I was born to Father and Mother when they were very young. Mother had been sixteen and Father barely twenty years old. She was a lovely woman, my mother. I still remember her the day before she died. I was seven years old. Her name was Rahael. We used to live in a large old house. There were wooden walls and ceilings, courtyards, old trees and older furniture. Grandfather, whom we called Appacha, spent most of his time poring over palm-leaf manuscripts with hieroglyphics which he said explained our family genealogy for eighteen generations. His friend Thoma used to laugh at him – ‘Why do you need a genealogy? Can’t you see your nose?’

Mother tied her hair in a knot and always went barefoot. Her feet were long and once I walked into the room where Father kept his account books. She was sitting on his chair. I couldn’t believe it. I was shocked. I had never seen them together alone, Grandmother was always with them. The idea that they slept side by side would have stunned me at that age. I always slept close to Mother. Father slept alone. I had never before seen them together like this. I stared at them, feeling waves of anger and jealousy. They laughed and called out to me, but I ran away to the river. I sat on the steps and I cried till Yohan, my father’s elder brother’s son, found me and took me to my grandmother. ‘Why are you crying?’ she asked, holding me against her soft large bosom, where I could see the speck of gold which was her marriage locket.

‘Father and Mother are alone together without me.’ Grandmother laughed and said, ‘I will just call your mother. She has to grate coconuts for dinner.’

The next day my parents went for a wedding in the next village. It was called Mannar, and I’d always loved going there. The school had a heavy bronze bell, and the steps to the church were whitewashed. The river was green, covered with lilac water-hyacinths, and the boats had to fight their way through the root tresses of these water weeds. There was a storm that evening, and my parents never returned. I never saw them again, though they were brought home. I sat on the back steps of the old house and looked deep into the centres of the yellow canna flowers that my father had grown – wanton yellow with red fire lines. I looked inside the flowers for hours till I was dizzy and thought I would fall into their centres and drown.

So I grew up with Grandmother and all my cousins. After my father died, his father put away the lineage story into a shoe box and then took to visiting the river. He would stare at the water, at the strange and shifting reflections. Then he would come home and say nothing. Yohan’s father was always having to look after the family business: pepper. I grew up with the raw green beads of pepper, and the rain which fell on the twine and leaves. Yohan’s mother was a very gentle woman, but she never had time for me, having seven of her own. Leelamma and Yohan were older than me by five and three years each, but even so, they were my companions. Then when I was eighteen they got married and went to live in their own houses. Leelamma still came to visit us, but these visits were getting more and more infrequent. Her mother-in-law fell ill, there was too much work.

‘Leela, you’ve forgotten me.’

‘Anna, how can you say that?’

‘Why don’t you come home, then?’

‘How can I? I’m married now. People will think I’m unhappy if I keep coming home.’

‘Are you happy?’

‘You’ve seen Issac. What else could I be?’

‘Yohan never comes to see me, now that he’s built a house.’

‘Why don’t you go over, then?’

‘Mariam doesn’t like me. She leaves me in the outside rooms and goes away.’

‘That is right. You hang around Yohan too much. You’ve both grown up now.’

‘But I love him. We’ve always been friends.’

‘He’s married now. And he’s not your brother. You’re his father’s brother’s daughter. People talk.’

‘Won’t it ever be the same again?’

‘No.’

It was on that day that I wrote to Job, Father’s second brother. I sent him an old photograph of Father and Mother and a new one of myself. Twenty-one days later I got a reply. It was on a postcard, and it came from somewhere in Switzerland. He was there on business. Marcella was in Rome where they had a flat. His writing was small and cramped and he closed his letter with the words, ‘We have space. Stay with us.’

In my community, those who are far away always return. My grandmother’s grief lay in that Job, having married a foreigner, would never come back to her. ‘Even if it’s only to lie in the mud next to us, it would be enough, but now he’ll never come.’

I was surprised by Job’s invitation and showed it to Ammachi. She made me explain it to her. Then wiping her eyes with the edge of her gold-embossed shawl, she said, ‘Let him come here and take you.’

She seemed to have lost her rancour against Job’s attachment to the ‘Englishkarti.’ She was eighty-five years old now, her eyes blue grey with age. She had never recovered from the loss of my parents, and now that death came close, she wanted me to be settled. For her it seemed perfectly reasonable that Job should come, and that I should be in his care.

‘He is busy, and besides he’s only asked me for a holiday,’ I said, hesitatingly.

‘No. Job wants you to live with them.’

It was impossible arguing with Ammachi, so I let it rest. Soon after Job came home.

He was only thirty-seven years old, and looked like Yohan. For the ten days that he stayed in the ancestral house he quarrelled with Ammachi. It was terrible.

‘You didn’t bring the Madame?’

‘Marcella,’ Job said softly.

‘What kind of name is that? It’s not in the Bible.’

‘It’s a good name.’

‘She is not good, I know.’

‘You haven’t even met her.’

‘Cigarettes.’

‘She is very gifted. She is well-known in her country. Who cares what you think in this backwater.’

‘And her legs. Everyone in the street sees her legs.’

‘What about your mother? We all saw her breasts.’

‘She had children, she had once provided milk, she was ninety-five. How can there be shame then?’

‘My wife is an artist and a good one.’

‘Does she bring any money?’ Ammachi’s eyes were suddenly alert.

‘Mother, stop it. I’m going.’

‘Take Anna. After I go no one will give her rice.’

‘She has her inheritance.’

‘And what was it that fed her, clothed her and educated her for all these years?’

‘You Nazarenes, you followers of Yeshu Christu, have you never heard of love?’

‘What can I do? Abe controls the business. He says there is nothing for her.’

‘I’ll take her with me.’

Ammachi got up, and held Job’s hands and kissed them.

At the end of the month of June – ceaseless rain – Job and I left for Rome. I was so excited, I had dark shadows under my eyes from not sleeping for almost ten days. The whole village turned out to see us go, and anxious faces peered in at us when the taxi’s wheels churned in the deep sea sand. The river is on the east, the sea is close by, on the other side.

Father George, my teacher, looked in through the glass. He was desperately trying to say something.

‘Don’t forget your prayers, Anna,’ I finally heard, as I lowered the pane.

‘No, I won’t forget.’

‘Don’t forget your Malayalam. Have you taken the Gundert?’

Job asked, turning back to look at me, ‘What on earth is the Gundert? And I must buy you a box. You have a tin trunk? I didn’t even know they still existed.’

‘It’s a dictionary. The Gundert is an English–Malayalam dictionary. Father George is afraid I’ll forget to read and write the mother tongue.’

‘Write every week. Don’t forget the algebra,’ the old man shouted once more.

‘Yes, Father.’

‘Meet Father Agnello. A Catholic, but a good man. Holy.’

It started to rain. I saw Yohan. He was looking at Mariam and smiling. He looked towards me and waved. The taxi began to move, and then through a blur of tears, I saw Yohan open out a large black umbrella and Mariam stood close against him.

Marcella was wonderful. She was older than Job, and the love between them was so tangible I was forever surprised by it. Job stopped speaking Malayalam to me, and I was forced to learn Italian. My English was very good, because Father George had a degree in literature, in philosophy and in theology from Cambridge. He had been our parish priest for twenty years – unusual for our sect where priests were constantly transferred. It was he who had educated me, and by the time I was sixteen I had read almost everything that he had. The Russians were indecipherable to me, and Father said that I would have to wait till I was thirty before I could begin. I sometimes told Yohan what I read and he would look strangely at me. His eyes were narrow and black, and his cheekbones so sharp that they jutted through his skin.

‘You don’t even know how to cook.’

‘Shall I translate Aristotle’s Politics for you?’

‘That’s all very well. You had better marry soon, Anna. You have charm, but no beauty. Your father died too early. You can’t even cook or sew. You’re thin like your mother – she almost died when she gave birth to you.’

‘Yohan, why are you saying all this?’

‘I’m worried about you. And you should stop coming to see me. I’ll talk to Father about finding a match for you.’

How long ago all that seemed here in Rome. I realised as the years passed that love threatened us both. I understood, sitting under another kind of sun, why Yohan no longer acknowledged me.

Marcella never talked to me of marriage. She bought me an expensive camera almost as soon as I arrived.

‘We can’t afford to send you to the University. We want you to have the best, but university – no. We cannot afford. You’re too late to sculpt. The camera is good, you learn and sell. That is how you will live.’

So my future was carved out, and I spent those early months walking miles every day, in the cold breeze and the spring rain, learning to use a camera. My early photographs – now with Father George – were mainly of fountains and plazas, colonnades and arches. Marcella was not pleased.

‘Stupid tourist bitch,’ I heard her screaming to Job.

‘Marcella, she’s a child, from the country. Don’t speak like that.’

‘Let her hear what I think.’

Two years later I did a study of the Colosseum. The earth was deeply stenched with rain, weeds grew. I sent them to a German magazine which printed them at once. Celebration! Marcella was pleased at last. She gave me one of her odd, rare and brilliant smiles.

I wanted to go back home, but Job dissuaded me.

‘Things will not be the same. Ammachi is dead, what is there to go for?’

‘Yohan is there, and Leelamma.’

‘Yohan? That silent boy, Abe’s son? You want to see him?’

‘I want to hear the rain, I want to eat mangoes, sit by the river.’

‘You’re a fool. Nothing is the same ever. Ask Marcella for money if you want to go. I have none now.’

So I never went back. Sometimes in the dark green Roman street, ancient cobbles under my feet. I would think of the old house where I grew up. There were children, frogs, spiders, crows in the backyard, dark recesses, mangoes ripening in hay, and hens laying eggs in a chest of rice. I missed the high pitched Syrian chants from the village church, and the white cotton clothes edged with gold metallic thread that our women wore. One day I would go back to my ancient village where the wind brought to us the sound of the sea, and the hush of river water.