SWAN SONG

A short story that I wrote in college.

My mother said that she was closer to understanding God. And then she left. I was six years old.

Well, at least she said something. I would have expected her to sneak away, melting into the blackness of the night, when the moon would be hidden behind the gray clouds, keeping her thoughts buried in the deepest trenches of her fragile self. Or perhaps she would lie about going to Mr. Bhandari’s corner store—Bhandari Kirana—to buy some milk just before he shut it for the night, and never retracing her steps back to the house.

Or maybe she would walk away when I’d be asleep in the afternoon when the rain would be scratching the huge glass windows of my tiny room and Baba would be fixing a leak in the garage.

I had thought that people disappeared in the solace of darkness—when others would be in deep slumber, enchanted with their fascinating dreams. But Mama left in the morning—a Tuesday morning—when the rain had trickled down to a slight drizzle. Baba and I were in the kitchen. He had just filled the kettle and placed it on the stove. He was making tea for the both of us, and I was standing right beside him, facing the creaky door that led to the living room and from where she suddenly appeared.

She had her green sweater on. It was her favorite sweater—it reminded her of when I was a baby—innocent, she used to say. She had knitted it herself when Baba was away in Birgunj for a seminar. She was lonely, she said, and I was a quiet baby who slept all the time. Those were the few times that she ever talked to me.

Baba had turned the radio on in the living room and faint voices drifted in. He was humming a tune that I had never heard before. The splatter of the rain falling from the broken drainpipe onto cold concrete outside was the only other sound that I could hear.

There were dark rings around her puffy eyes and as she looked at me, I think I saw them swell up even more with tears. She looked at me in silence for almost an entire minute while I clung on to Baba’s leg. I was cold. I think I was scared. Baba always told me that Mama was sick—that’s why she hardly ever left her room and I never saw much of her.

I had always been tempted to peek into her room and see what she did all day. Baba would be away at work and I would tiptoe up the stairs and sit down outside her door. I would press my ears on the door, hoping to hear her voice but there’d always be silence. Silence that drowned the sound of everything else. All I remember from those days is the smell of incense—Baba said she burnt them to feel better.

I tugged on Baba’s cotton pajamas when I felt that Mama might have something to tell him. He swung around but didn’t say anything. He never said anything to her—silence was a part of their relationship. Instead, he turned around and started fetching the cups for the tea.

Mama reached for the brown shoulder bag and black umbrella that lay beside her feet and before she staggered to the door, she said it.

“I’m closer to understanding God now. I’m getting there.”

Her shrill voice quivered and her words were lost as the kettle started hissing off steam. There was something else in her voice—it may have been remorse, or disgust, or sadness, or even a helpless whimper for help. I don’t know what it was. Baba kept quiet and didn’t even turn around to face her. He was pouring milk into the small porcelain cups.

I did not understand what she meant by that. Neither did I try to think about it too much. Instead, I convinced myself that it was the intention of adults to confuse me—with their use of fancy words and God’s name to make even trivial things sound dignified and spiritual. Whenever I had questioned Baba about the stars and why I saw them only at night and not during the day, he’d smile and hold me against his warm body that was washed in Old Spice. That’s the way God planned it for us, he’d say, and that someday I would understand. That was the end of it. But I knew—that someday wouldn’t be too long away.

After Mama stepped out of the huge oak door, I watched her from the window. She was slightly bent from the weight of her bag and the unopened umbrella in her hand. She walked towards Mr. Bhandari’s store. There weren’t many people on the street except for Mrs. Sharma, our neighbor. Mrs. Sharma was an old lady and she was in her yard when Mama passed her. Neither of them noticed each other. Through the droplets of rain that dribbled down the window, I saw Mama push her wet hair back. Other than that, the rain did not seem to bother her—she kept walking, in her usual staggering gait, without turning back, round the corner and into the rain.

I have often wondered if I should have stopped her—I knew Baba wasn’t going to. Should I have run out behind her, calling out to the back of her forty-something year old lifeless body that was hollow within? Or maybe I should have just run and clung on to her before she even left the house.

That was the last time I ever saw her. It was the last time that I ever heard her voice. There were no letters, no stories about how someone had bumped into her in the hundreds of tiny nameless lanes of the city. Mr. Bhandari never mentioned her either. Every time I went to his store to buy bread or those colorful candy that come without wrappers, he would ask me how I was, and how Baba was. Mama would be an emotional subject for a six-year old, he must have said to himself, and stayed quiet. And I never asked him if he’d seen or heard from her.

I speculated what became of her. Did she stay in the city or did she travel to an unknown place and start a new life? A new name, a new identity, new feelings and emotions, a new woman. Did she ever talk about Baba and me to her new friends and neighbors? Did she still burn incense to ward off ill health? Was she dead? Did my frail mother survive the cold nights of those long winters? Did she ever fully understand God—she was close; did she ever get there? Did she ever see the stars during the day?

Baba never said anything after his wife of more than five years left him. He was probably expecting it to happen—after a while he must have grown certain where their relationship was headed. He’d come back from work, occasionally ask me how my day was, and then disappear into his books and papers. Some nights he would sit by the window and drink his scotch and smoke well into the morning. I would sit by the big couch in the living room and watch him. It was there that I would doze off, and when I awoke, he’d still be there, smoking and drinking. And staring into the tiny world that he saw through the window.

Sometimes, I’d catch him staring at Mama’s framed picture on the living room wall, above the TV. It was a picture of her when she was young—those long youthful lashes and the slightly twisted nose. She was nothing like I remembered her. And she was smiling. After staring at the frame for a while, Baba would smile back at her and wipe his tears.

I’d run up to him and hold him tightly, and in his embrace I would receive all the answers to my questions. I would feel the warmth of the sun and the cold of the rain. I would know why I couldn’t see the stars during the day and why I couldn’t have them all for myself. And in his arms, I would be closer to understanding God, just like Mama.
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