Authors: Mary Anne Mohanraj
What more is there to say? I didn't write in this journal again. I took the guilt on willingly. My life since then has been entirely for my daughters. I lost myself, buried myself, in caring for them. But they aren't children anymore. Savitha is married and gone away; Chaya is finally leaving too. At first I couldn't bear the thought, but lately, I've been waiting for her to go. I've kept her too close to me for too long.
I thought once that I would die when this day came, that I would fade away, a widow in mourning white.
I'm forty-nine. I have lived more than half my life unthinking, and the rest for my children. Now, shall I live for myself? Or should I turn myself in, pay for my crime? Chaya, when you read this, come and tell me what you think. I stole away your father, and you have never seemed the same. Silent instead of laughing. So serious. I did what I thought was best; I did it for myself, but also for you. Should I have done differently?
I wanted to be a good daughter, a good wife, a good mother. I am not sure that I succeeded at any of those, even the last.
Time to pull out all the threads and start over.
VELU
'
S HAND SHAKES LIKE AN OLD MAN
'
S AS HE CROUCHES NAKED IN THE DARK ROOM, A TIN BOWL OF WATER BEFORE HIM, A THIN WASH-
cloth in his hand. It is miserably hot, the worst of the Jaffna summer heat, and he knows that by the time he walks from his house to where the Tigers are encamped, he will be drenched in sweat. Still, he must do what he can, and so Velu dips the cloth into cool well water, passes it over his thin body. He has always been thin, but the deprivations of the last several years have left him emaciated, his bones poking out, sharp against loose skin. He rubs the skin fiercely, to compensate for the lack of soap, to compensate for all that has happenedârubs until his skin feels scraped raw, flushed and swollen. When the cloth goes dry, he reaches for more water and overbalances, falling sharply onto one bony knee, unable to catch himself with only one good arm. The other hangs limp at his side, useless since the bullet caught it. He resents it, and at the same time is grateful to it. Its obvious uselessness saved his life the last time the army came through.
As he washes himself, he composes a letter to his cousin in America. It is a letter he can never sendâso many factors conspire to keep
him from speaking as frankly to her as he would like. But for long years, ever since his cousin first wrote to him expressing her condolences over the untimely death of his father, Velu has kept up a secret conversation with her, in his mind. For every line that he puts down on paper, that he shows his wife, that is undoubtedly read by the Tigers or the government clerks before it finally makes its way across the seas, Velu writes a dozen more in the cavern of his mind, lines that echo there, pulsing with truths that cannot be spoken.
If he could, he would say this:
Kili, dear cousin, I do not know if this letter will reach you. Not because of the troublesânot yet. Letters are still going through; we are not yet to the days grandfather spoke of, when he would send letters to his daughter in Oxford, not knowing if they would ever be delivered. Shanthi left Colombo in an evil time, going to school in the midst of war. I was only a child, five or six, but I remember how our grandmother wept at the harbour. Did her father know what he sent Shanthi to, in 1942? Would he have kept her back, if he could have, safe by his side?
All he had were her letters, for that brief year before his untimely illness and death. He never knew that she married, moved to America, had six children. Perhaps I should send the letters to you, so you may know the girl your mother was. But I do not want to let them go; I find comfort in laying my fingers against the thin blue paper. I close my eyes and imagine America, imagine freedom, and prosperity, and peace. You have told me, over and over, that America has its own troubles, and I trust you are correctâbut Kili, cousin, I must tell you that America does not know what trouble is.
Velu will not write that, of course. It would not be safeâand even if it were, he can hardly bear to think of his troubles, much less put them down on paper. As he rises from his body wash, he remembers the room he used to bathe in, as a boy in Colombo, in his grandfather's
house. Hot running water in the silver taps, a marble tub big enough to sail small fleets acrossâand he had those fleets too, light wood boats carved by that same grandfather. He had sailed his boats in the tub, in the small pond in the gardens behind the big house. He had played tennis in the tennis courts, had taken meals at his grandfather's club, had enjoyed all the privileges of a young Tamil gentleman in Ceylon's capital city, both while the British ruled and after their departure.
He had been twenty-two in 1958, when the first riots erupted in the streets, Tamil and Sinhalese neighbors lifting hands and stocks and rocks to each other. Velu had not wanted to leave the capital, but his parents had insisted that they would all be safer in Jaffnaâand besides, there was a girl there that they had heard about, a beautiful, respectable girl, a doctor's daughter, a very good match for their son. If he would just come north with them and meet herâ¦
In the end, Velu was a good son. He did as his parents wanted and went north. He met the girl, and she was indeed most beautiful. Velu married her within a year and settled in a nearby village. They worked, and talked, and sometimes laughed. They made plans to move back to Colombo in a few years, when things settled down. They were blessed with children.
It is photos of those children that Velu sees now, as he steps, naked, from one dark room to the next. A black-and-white photo on the dresser, two smiling faces. His son, Pugal, is seven in that photo; his daughter, Kamala, is only six. Their faces are so small.
Velu turns from the dresser to the bed where his clothes are laid out. His wife is not speaking to him, but she has pressed the clothes flat for him, as best she can. She knows he must look good today. A pillar of the community; a man of stature. Someone worth listening to.
If he only knew what to say.
Shall I hold on to these words? My wife does not want me to write to you. She has a myriad of reasons, and some of them are even good
ones. She worries that this letter may fall into unsympathetic hands, that it might be used against the Tigers. She is also afraid that if the Tigers or the government read it, our children might be put in further danger. She believes that it is better to keep your problems to yourself, and that distant family, in America, family we have never even met, are not really family at all.
If my wife were writing to you, she would only tell you good things. Oh, she might go on at length about the injustices Tamils have been subjected to, here on this island where we, the minority, once ruled like kings. She would certainly bemoan the loss of my grandfather's fine house in Colombo, with its cars and chauffeurs, its marble floors, its Sinhalese servants, though she never lived there herself. She would speak of those few Sinhalese who were once our neighbors, our friends, in such language that makes me embarrassed to call her my wife. But she would not say one word against the Tigers, despite what they have now done to us.
Perhaps she is right, and they have done nothing to us. Perhaps we have done it all to ourselves.
Velu sits down on the bed, which creaks under his slight, sudden weight. He shrugs the shirt over his arms, pulls it closed against his sunken chest. He does not think about his limp arm; it has been years since the incident, and he has long since learned to cope, uncomplaining, with everyday life. Others may have praised his courage, his fortitude, in dealing with the injury, but Velu never saw much worthy of praise in his actions. In the end, it was not so big a thing, to lose the use of an arm. It was bearable. It would not break him.
It made life harder for his wife, though. Velu had rarely made love to her before, and after the incident, he had an excuse for avoiding such activity. She was too proud to ask, and so he became celibate. It was easier.
And of course, cousin Kili, my wife also does not want me to write to you because she is jealous. She has resented you since that first letter you sent. Although you and I have never met, I have enjoyed an intimacy within our letters that I have never found with my wife. When my marriage was arranged, I was pleased; she was a beautiful girl. And in many ways she has been a good wife, has taken care of me and of our children as well as she could, given the circumstances. But we have never learned how to talk together. We do not share the same beliefs.
She is bitter, my wife. She mourns the loss of our fine things; she grieves for the house that was promised her, the beautiful home she will never have. I decided my father was right to bring his family to Jaffna, to this Tamil stronghold. I thought that surrounded by our own people, we would be safer, and so I did not take her to Colombo when I could. And now, seeâwe are trapped. The fighting comes to us, and we have no resources to escape it.
Velu looks up from his shirt buttons to see her standing there, in the doorway. She is still beautiful, his wife. Her hair falls past her waist, dark and rich as a girl's. But he feels no pang of desire when he sees herâhe is only reminded of their daughter, their Kamala, who has chopped her hair short. All that beautiful hair, which should by rights have helped win her a perfect husband. Velu hadn't asked for a rich man for his daughterâhe had never cared for that. He had only wanted someone kind, someone patient enough to put up with her high spirits, her passionate ways. A husband who would cherish his daughter's fierce soul, would train it to worthy tasks.
There might have been a time when we could have left for America. You so kindly offered to send us money for the tripâit would have shamed me to accept it, but I should have, for the sake of my family. Since moving to Jaffna, I have tried one business after another, to support my wife and children, but I have not had much
luck. I was never meant to be a businessman, you know. I was bred to be a gentleman of leisure, to read Shakespeare and the
Ramayana,
to argue the relative merits of each. I was once a fine batsman, the pride of our cricket team. I ate roast beef with horseradish for lunch, and an array of breads and rich curries for dinner. And nowânow my wife eats plain rice for her single meal. She has grown so thin, my wife. Yet she always set some of her portion aside for the children.
They are so beautiful, my children. You should see them, Kili.
I would have gone to America, would have tried my luck there. But my wife did not want to leave her home. Her friends are here, her relatives. Having made one mistake, having kept her from comfort and relative safety, kept her here, trapped in this disaster, how could I have forced her again?
I should have. I know. It is a man's responsibility to make such decisions for his family.
I can hear you now, cousin, chiding me for my old-fashioned attitudes. Things are different in America. You yourself married a white boy, without telling your own fatherâand when he found out, he didn't even beat you for it. If my own daughter, my Kamala, had done such a thing, I would have considered myself within my rights to beat her to within an inch of her life. It would have been for her own good.
I know, I know what you will say. You don't need to say it. I would never have been able to do it, even if I knew it to be the right course of action. I have always been helpless where my daughter was concerned. I have spoiled her terribly; she has grown willful. You warned me.
His wife says nothing from the doorway, only stares, scornful, as Velu slowly stands, pulls on his pants. The pants and shirt have lain in a suitcase for years; he has become accustomed to wearing only a sarong, has grown dark-skinned as a field-worker here. But today he will wear pants, and socks, and shoes, despite the parching heat. He buttons the
pants, then sits down again, pulls on the socks. The shoes are more difficultâthey have laces, and he has never needed to tie laces with one hand. She watches him fumble for endless minutes, then, with quick impatient steps, comes to kneel in front of him.
Velu leans back while his wife ties the laces on his shoes. He is surprised when, finished, she does not immediately get up. She leans her forehead against his knee instead, her face hidden in a darkness of falling hair. Velu tentatively rests one hand on her shoulder and finds it shaking. His wife, his proud, unloved wife is weeping. In eighteen years of marriage, Velu has never seen her cry. It is this that comes closest to breaking him, in the end.
Kili, may I finally tell you how I have sorrowed for your childless state? Your words, so terse, when you told me that you had lost another baby, that you did not think you would be able to bear a childâ¦I went to church that very day and prayed for you. I have kept you in my prayers ever since, though perhaps God does not listen to those who are angry at Him.
I have been angry, I admit it. You have given me so much wise counsel over the years regarding my own childrenâyou deserved to have children of your own. I could hear in your words, when you asked after my son and daughter, the hunger you held. I could hear the grief mixed in with joy, when you sent letters announcing the birth of your sisters' children. It is a pleasure, I am certain, to be their favorite aunty, but it is not the same. To know that a child looks to you as their parent, that in your hands you hold all their hope and trustâthat knowledge is a terror and a delight beyond anything I have ever known. I would that you had known it too, cousin.
If I had overridden my wife's objections, and sent the children to you, to study in America, how things would be different now! My wife was jealous at the thought of you raising our daughter and son; she selfishly wanted to keep them close to her. I admitâI wanted that too. I couldn't bear to let them go. And now see what has happened.
I cannot send this letter with that news. I am thinking it only, imagining that I am writing to my beloved cousin, the friend of my heart. In this way I may tell you all I never dared to write down. I may admit that I have loved you for years, your courage, your strength, though I know you do not love me. I may tell you that I do not blame you for not loving me, considering what a failure of a life I have lived.
I have not provided for my family; I have not managed to love my wife; I have not even protected my children. I am the most futile, ineffectual man I have ever known. Perhaps it is better not to have children than to fail them so. Perhaps you are the lucky one after allâthough I am certain that if you had been in my place, you, even as a woman, would have done far better than I have done.
Velu stands, pulls his wife up into his arms, holding her close. She is stiff against him but does not pull away. They stand there for long moments, taking what comfort they can in each other. It is meager sustenance, but they have been starving for months. They have learned to live on crumbs.