The Hungry Ghosts (43 page)
Within a month of her departure, Renu was threatening to return, writing that she was homesick for Canada. My mother replied with sympathetic but firm letters warning her not to give up the wonderful opportunity luck and talent had put in her lap. When my mother told me about this, I wondered if she understood that Renu had no intention of returning. Her declarations of homesickness were motivated by pity and guilt, meant to console us for being stuck here. I missed my sister’s fiery presence around the house, the whirlwind of her comings and goings, her certainty.
Then she phoned one day towards the end of November. “Have you heard, Shivan?” she cried, when I came on the line. “Sriyani is coming to Toronto. She has been invited by the University of Toronto and Amnesty International to speak on the situation in Sri Lanka.”
I was too taken aback to answer, recalling now that Sriyani had said she might be coming my way.
“So, are you going to go?”
“I … I don’t know.”
“
Ttttch
, Shivan, don’t be such a billa. You must go.”
The university hall was crowded, a subdued hum of expectant chatter giving gravitas to the event. Most of the audience was Sri Lankan, though there was a scattering of white students—the kind who wore handmade toques, scarves and peasant blouses from South America and were earnestly interested in uplifting the “Third World.”
The more affluent, integrated immigrants from Colombo sat in clusters near the front and spoke to each other in English. The men wore sweaters, ties, dress pants and sports jackets. A group of middle-aged ladies smiled and conversed with each other in an easy, familiar way, their hair backcombed, their blouses formal with shoulder pads and bows at the throat. I suspected they were Sriyani’s school friends, or were related to her. A large number of
Jaffna Tamil men sat closer to the back, distinguishable because they spoke to each other in Tamil, were poorly dressed and wore unfashionably thick moustaches. There was also a contingent of South Asian students in the first rows who were probably members of the university’s Sri Lankan Association. Looking at them, I felt how much older I had suddenly become.
The back doors opened and Sriyani entered with a white woman who was her host. A ripple of silence followed them as they made their way down to the lecture pit. I watched her draw near to my row and felt a swell of longing for the smell and humid heat of Sri Lanka, for Mili, for the life I’d had there. Sriyani wore a heavy coat, which made her look frail and lost. Yet once the host had taken her jacket, I saw she was wearing her usual Barbara Sansoni shirt and slacks as if in defiance of the cold weather. And as she shuffled her papers on the lectern, then squared her shoulders, she became even more the poised woman I knew. While the host introduced her, she looked around the room with that distant smile of hers, transferring it to the host when the words of welcome were done.
At first, Sriyani’s talk described nothing so different from what I had already heard discussed by the workers at Kantha—abuses by the Special Task Force, the Prevention of Terrorism Act, the atrocities committed by the Tigers. But then she mentioned a new development I hadn’t known about, having avoided any news of Sri Lanka. The conflict between the Tamil Tigers and the Indian Peace Keeping Force had reached a decisive point a month earlier in what was being called the Jaffna University Helidrop—an operation launched by the Indians to disarm the Tigers and secure Jaffna town. The guerilla leadership had been using a Jaffna University building as their tactical headquarters, and the plan was to drop three waves of Indian troops by helicopter on the university football ground and capture them. The Tigers, however, had pierced Indian military intelligence, and the operation ended with nearly all the Indian troops massacred. Sriyani saw this battle as the beginning of the end for the Indians in Sri Lanka. Neither the Tamils nor the Sinhalese wanted this force that acted increasingly like an occupying army.
Sriyani spent the latter part of her lecture talking about the growing violence in the south, where the JVP were tightening their stranglehold. In early September, they had called a country-wide curfew, and the entire population
had observed it, even in Colombo. Not a shop, not even a pharmacy, had dared stay open, and there had been no vehicles on the roads. People were scared even to turn on their radios and televisions, frightened of being punished for not taking the curfew seriously. The insurgents were also beginning to attack members of the intelligentsia they considered traitors—left-leaning academics, human rights workers, reporters and artists who questioned their movement. In response to all this, the government had invoked emergency laws and killed many young people. The government had also increased its attempts to stifle dissent through censorship of the press and threats to human rights groups.
As Sriyani catalogued the atrocities committed in our country, I felt doors shutting inside me until I was in that numb, quiet place I retreated to so often. The only emotion I felt was homesickness, evoked by her accent, which had not flattened out like mine to accommodate being here.
When she finished speaking, only the students clapped. Then the discussion was opened to questions from the floor. A Tamil Catholic priest in a cassock leapt up. He treated the room to a harangue on all the wrongs done to the Tamil people and insisted Sriyani call the Tigers freedom fighters, not terrorists. On behalf of the Tamil people, he demanded an apology from her. She listened to him impassively, nodding. When he was done, she defined a terrorist organization according to the UN charter and said that by using child soldiers and targeting civilians, the Tigers fitted the definition. As she spoke, an angry murmur went through the Tamil sections of the room.
Next she was attacked from the Sinhalese side. A man in a suit and tie got up to say she was a traitor to Sri Lanka and that the government had the right to defend its sovereignty in the Tamil north. He demanded to know why she was sympathetic to the JVP and asked if she wanted Sri Lanka to descend into a Cambodia. She replied that she did not support the JVP but felt their grievances were real and should not be ignored. Government tyranny was not the way to fight insurgent tyranny.
Sriyani had mentioned she was here to raise funds for sewing machines so that women affected by the war could be self-employed. A white woman stood up to take issue with this, asking Sriyani if she was not perpetuating gender stereotypes by giving the women sewing machines. Sriyani struggled to hide her surprise and amusement. She answered simply, “Who are we,
Western feminists, to tell these women what they should or should not want.”
When the lecture was over, the host invited everyone to a reception at Massey College, across the road. I had come not knowing if I would speak to Sriyani, but now I couldn’t leave without making contact. She was surrounded by the Sri Lankan students, yet as I rose to put on my jacket, thinking I would get a word with her at the reception, Sriyani saw me and gestured that I was to remain in my seat. She said something to her host. The woman came and ushered me to an abandoned classroom.
I leaned against a desk, arms folded tight to hide the trembling in my hands. Soon the host brought Sriyani, then discreetly shut the door and left us alone.
She examined me, legs slightly apart, hands behind back, smiling in her inscrutable way. “Shivan, it is good to see you. I was hoping you would come.”
I grinned and blushed, tears pricking the corners of my eyes. It was as if Canada had fallen away and I was back home. She gave me a quick hug, patted my shoulder, then stepped back. “But, my, you look older, nah? Is it your hair? Are you growing it out?”
“Um, yes.” I could not stop smiling. “And how are you, Sriyani?”
She made a sideways nodding gesture. “What can I say, trudging along, trudging along.” Then she asked rather urgently, “Was my accent clear, did people understand?”
“It was very clear.”
“Good, that’s good.” She gave me a knowing look. “So, when are we going to see you again?”
“Back in Sri Lanka?”
“Yes, of course. What did you think?”
I blushed again.
“Now, despite everything going on there, you must return, nah? After all, your poor grandmother, her second stroke …” She trailed off as I stared at her in shock. “Oh, dear, but I thought you knew, Shivan.”
“I didn’t.”
“Hmm. Well, I visited her after hearing the news.”
“What happened? How is she, Sriyani?”
“Still fiery as a chili. But with this second stroke her left hand is useless. And of course the old servant woman really cannot manage. She told me your
grandmother will not abide attendants and nurses in her house for fear of being robbed by them. The garden is a mess because she had a fight with the gardener last month. And I must say, the house looks ramshackle without a coat of whitewash.”
Sriyani did not look at me while she spoke. She had known I was unaware of this stroke.
There was a soft knock and the host put her head in, wincing apologetically. “We should really go to the reception, Sriyani.”
“Ah, yes, of course. Are you coming, Shivan?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, hope I see you soon. It’s time to come back.” Smiling at me, she made a gesture of farewell that I will always remember, clicking her heels together, a small ironic salute. Then she was gone.
When I came outside, the world had transformed around me. Snow lay over the pavements in swirls and crescents, like fine sea sand washed by a wave. There was a hushed stillness, the cars and pedestrians seeming to hold themselves poised. Then the wind came down the street, picking up snow in a roaring cloud before it.
The next morning, I waited until my mother left for work at the law firm. Then I informed the filing department I would be late, and telephoned my grandmother.
Rosalind answered. When she heard my voice, she let out a little cry. “Babba,” she whispered, “is that really you?”
“Yes, Rosalind it is me.”
“Ah, baba.” She began to weep.
My grandmother called out, asking who it was, but our ayah was too choked to answer. The clack of her walking stick echoed as she drew near. She picked up the receiver. “Who is this telephoning me?”
That old sadness rose in my throat. “Aacho,” I whispered, “it’s me, Shivan.”
She was silent, her breath harsh across the line.
“I … I heard you had another stroke.”
“Ah, is that why you called? Hoping I am going to die soon and you will inherit my fortune?”
“No, Aacho, no.”
“Don’t bother. I am giving everything to the temple.”
“Why didn’t you let us know you were ill?”
“Why should I, after the way you betrayed me?”
“Aacho!”
“Do you know how hard it has been for me, struggling along on my own, having to construct that bana maduwa and look after my properties? That is why I have ended up this way. It is you who has caused this stroke.”
“Aacho, please, I beg you, stop.”
“Now you feel guilty, nah? But it’s too late for that. What use is your guilt? It’s like rain falling outside a water barrel. My left hand is useless, useless! Through your selfishness, you have deprived me of my hand.”
“Aacho, I … I’ll come and see you. I’ll return. For a little while at least.”
“I don’t need you anymore. I wish I had never taken you into my house. You have brought me nothing but misfortune.” She slammed the phone down.
I went and curled up on my bed, stunned by her hatred.
When I arrived at the office later that morning and took up my work, I was thankful to lose myself in the monotonous search for documents along rows and rows of metal file shelves.
I was supposed to meet Paul on my lunch break, but instead went to a park across the road and sat down on a bench, my bagged sandwich next to me. The weather had taken an unexpected turn, and it felt more like the first day of spring than late November. A mild breeze came up from Lake Ontario, bringing an odour like fresh fish on a market stall. The last of the green grass was holding out in places against the surrounding brownness, and a few purple asters bloomed improbably beneath my bench.
Somewhere between that telephone call to my grandmother and sitting in this park, I seemed to have arrived at a decision. I had to leave Toronto.
When I finally set out in the direction of work, my step was lighter.
I considered Montreal briefly, but settled on Vancouver because it looked nothing like Toronto. There would be no reminders of my previous life, which was what I needed. Just as I had arrived at this decision to leave in some intuitive way, I also understood I would not tell my mother. I simply could not bear another parting.
Since Renu had left, my mother and I had fallen into an evening routine
of dinner on the sofa as we watched
Jeopardy
. The show had no appeal to me, but my mother was gripped by it and often announced the answers or berated the contestants for being stupid. The evening before my departure, one of the categories was Broadway Melodies. I was good at this, and my mother knew nothing about the subject. When she got the first question wrong, I offered the correct answer. She pretended to be unsurprised at my participation, and when the next question came up she said, “Carol Channing’s signature song? Now, who on earth is she?” I gave the answer, and we fell into a light patter of question-and-answer, even as my mind was churning with the secret I was keeping from her.
My flight was on Saturday afternoon, a plan I had made so I could leave our home while my mother was working at the doughnut shop.
I arrived in Vancouver that evening, just as the sun was going down between the mountains.
