S. Jayesh writes

A handsome man among the drowned 
 

My dad, Cheerymoottil Vareeth, was a house painter. Me and my brothers, from our childhood days, played with paint tins as toys. When we grew big, only I followed my dad’s path. Even the wax in my ears melted listening to the constant bickering about how one can’t walk about the house without knocking against paint tins. See, it was my job. Also, I was the only son to trace dad’s footsteps.  Sometimes, it seemed like dad spoke so, happily lying in his grave. He had a special liking for me, didn’t he? Isn’t it why he used to share only with me the secretive tales in the village that no one else knew? He was an excellent story-teller and with him vanished the stories. My dad was such a man and I wasn’t. So, I could never grasp stories.

Job opportunities are scant now compared to earlier days. The newbies can finish in two days what I used to take seven. But, the situation is not so bleak. Those who know Eesho Pappee will not call another. Not just because of the quality of work. The past love they had for me is still full to the brim inside them. Age only lets it grow like a creeper. Who else but Pappee can enact the role of Christ on the way to crucifixion in the tableau on Good Friday? Everyone knows that. To remain motionless on the big wooden cross, body covered in paint and bleeding! For two …two and a half hours even the eye lashes will not move. The passersby will pray and make the sign of the cross. Their liking for me is built that way.  Anyway, I make enough to live without starvation and in peace. Also, consider that I also mellowed in consideration of my age.

I remember a tale that dad told years back.

If you walk towards the north for about one...one and a half kilometers, the first thing that your eyes set upon is the high rooftop of Vatican Chacko’s mansion. Earlier, it was known in the name of Chacko’s dad Eldo. The dad and mom have to give way when their children grow up, isn’t it so? The story that dad narrated happened during the zenith of Eldo’s power. It was a mansion of all mansions. So huge that two arks of Noah could be accommodated inside. Eldo was involved in all kinds of trading. Dad used to say in amazement that money used to pour in from all sixteen directions. Though he never helped anyone, no one was harmed by him either. Eldo, who was so powerful, always needed dad to whitewash the mansion. At home, it was like a church festival. It took two or three months to cover the entire mansion with the warmth of the lime. Whenever I went to help dad, I also made several rounds of the mansion. It was about two centuries old. Maybe more. There were about thirty rooms. On the top floor was a huge hall which was like a cinema talkies. Two or three bedrooms attached to the hall. All celebrations used to take place in that hall. Only a few people in the village would not have witnessed the many shadows rushing around behind the lights till it dawned in those nights of country liquor, songs and dancing.

On one such occasion, dad was again called for whitewashing. Till the job was done, me and my brothers had plenty to tickle our taste buds. When he came in the evening, dad brought something or other from the mansion to eat. Our life then was engrossed in relishing them. We remained unhappy for a few days after the whitewashing was done. When we tasted the kanji and chammanthi made by mom, we would be tasting the memories of chicken fry and crab curry.

One such day, dad talked about the window bars in the top floor hall. Dad was scraping with sand paper the old paint and rust on the bars. Dad said that the rust looked like clotted blood. As he scraped, the rust and the paint came off like raw flesh. Hearing this, my teeth grated. I knew that there must be something secretive about it if dad had said so and that the secret will come out soon. So, I didn’t question him further. Dad also went off to sleep without saying anything more.

Do not know whether it had anything to do with what dad said, but when it poured on the fourth day what came floating along the canal were not Kaari and Koori fishes relished by us kids, but Salomikutti thought to have eloped with a non-native guy two weeks back. The whole village was agog for one day at the college girl’s

disappearance. It was unbelievable the way she ran away from home and the village on a day when the college closed for vacation.

I, now, understood why dad did not reveal it to me. Dad was always like that. Like in a detective story he hid something to be revealed only at the very end. That did not happen this time. He went to the heavens without revealing the secret. 

Eldo died peacefully. On a Sunday, after the Mass, he returned to the mansion and died sitting on a reclining chair in the patio. When he saw Chacko drive away in his car as if nothing had happened after entombing his dad, even the Chaplain had a doubt whether Chacko was really the son of Eldo.

From then, it was the reign of Chacko. The wealth his dad had amassed, standing guard over it like a fiend, began to flow out of the mansion. Chacko would die for his friends. If someone asked whether there was any night without revelry at the mansion, he would get a reply that it was years back. By then, Chacko’s mom also went and lay in the tomb. It was not only the Chaplain who had doubts this time as they saw Chacko drive away in his car after the funeral as if nothing had happened.

Very soon, Chacko was hard strapped for cash. When only the mansion remained, the friends too left. It was many years since it was whitewashed.  If my dad was alive, he would have even touched the feet of Chacko to get it whitewashed.

It was then that a group of ten or twelve people, both men and women, came from Kollam or so to meet Chacko, to the amazement of the people.  They came in a white van. If they didn’t stop at the junction to ask the way to the mansion, no one would have thought that they came looking for Chacko.

After that, for many days, the villages were in a daze. The visitors were some kind of voluntary health people. They got funds directly from the Vatican. But, those were miserly sums. It became a big game when Chacko joined hands with them. Imagine! Chacko even went to the Vatican! To have a feel of that, one could just pass by Chacko’s mansion. People started gossiping that there was no space for people to sleep there because all the rooms were filled to the brim with cash. Though it was an exaggeration, I surely knew that Chacko brought his cash in big boats. Because, wasn’t it me, Pappee, who went to whitewash the mansion twice?

Dad always used to say that one should be alert when working in the houses of the neo rich and satans. We start our work by scraping the wall. Who knows what kind of stories will be revealed when the old coat of lime comes off? What kind of stories may be whispered by them. Dad said that if they had done something against the will of God, they could not but come out with them.

After the term Vatican was prefixed to the name Chacko, frankly I felt scared. Still, I agreed thinking that I should not shut off the path dad had charted. When I started working on the rooms on the top floor, I had started understanding whatever dad had said. The most terrifying thing was that the cries of a wronged woman will circulate in the air even after a century.

Even after many years, I was certain that the cries that I heard were of Salomi’s. If dad was alive I could cry telling him about it. When I finished the job at the mansion, the first place I went to was my dad’s grave. I went home only after crying my heart out till it was calm. I had another reason to feel so bad. The open graveyard where all people who strayed from the path of God were buried was just beyond dad’s tomb. On recollecting that Salomi too was buried there, a shooting pain like the heat from quick lime passed through my under belly.

But, worse things were yet to happen. Vatican Chacko had become a rich man again and had long been on the path of the devil. Don’t know the screams of how many women circulated in the air in the mansion. Chacko would use any dirty trick to drive those people away who did not stand with him in his pursuit of pleasure. Things came to such a head that the villagers began to run and hide at the mere mention of the word Vatican, let alone Chacko. But, Chacko never showed his true colours to me. I did go to whitewash the mansion once or twice. On such occasions I was oblivious to whatever my dad had said. I used to scrape paint from the walls only with my eyes and ears covered.

How many wars are fought in this earth! People massacre each other. How many people cry aloud without a way to slate their hunger! No one is courageous enough to think that their miseries are nearing an end. The attitude that the villagers had towards Chacko was similar. It was when everyone had surrendered to the view that Chacko was immortal and will remain a pain in the ass for a long time that his Benz car plummeted into a river on the way back from a visit to the church of the Holy Mother of Velankanni. No one believed that. No one uttered a word even when the ambulance carrying Chacko’s body stopped at the front yard of the mansion. I thought that Chacko had turned much more handsome after guzzling all that water.

My dad used to say always that no one should blame the dead. But, when I heard that Chacko was going to be buried right next to dad’s grave, I was overcome with grief. What wrong did my dad do? Even ten or twelve years after Chacko died, this grief never left me. When I used to light a candle on the grave of dad on each death anniversary, I needlessly grew sad that the flame would be seen by Chacko too. By then, Dad’s grave existed only in name. When new people inhabit the land, the old have to give way. The same law prevailed in the case of the dead too. When the newly dead came, dad’s grave was dug up and space was given to the new after removing all remnants from the old.

When the Bishop came to inspect the cemetery, I tagged along. When he knocked on the tomb and ordered its demolition, I felt the grating of the sand paper scraping rusty window bars inside me. But, I relaxed at another thought. Somehow or other dad escaped from the company of Chacko. Praise the Lord!

After Chacko’s death, a silence shrouded the village. There remained no rogue of his calibre to surpass him. Chacko’s sons migrated to distant places along with their mom. Once in a while they came to the mansion to celebrate vacation and left. There used to be such festivities then. But, they were careful not to let anyone brand them as Chacko’s offspring.

My dad used to say that the sins that you commit will affect even the future generations. Nothing of that sort happened in the case of Chacko’s kids. All of them reached high positions and lived happily married lives. It used to bother me whether whatever Chacko did were not sins. Anyway, only if the poor commit sins, they are passed on to the later generations.  God may shut his eyes on the sins of the rich. When dad came in a dream one night and laughed, I felt that I was right in my understanding.

Later, I understood that I was wrong in the case of Chacko. It was when Chacko’s kids came for vacation with their mom. The very day that the Bishop came to inspect the cemetery, Chacko’s wife breathed her last. Death came in a bedroom that was suffused with the cries of many women. As if nothing had happened, the kids began to look around making arrangements for the funeral. The Bishop knocked on Chacko’s tomb and screwed up his face as if he was not pleased. Chacko’s kids were not ready to bury her in any other tomb. So, the Bishop ordered its demolition.

My dad used to tell riddles. If he told a story, I knew that there was something deeper in it. In all tales that dad told just before dying he left a thread that could not be untangled. Though I knew he hid something within him, I was too scared to ask him.

Pappee, even if we die, we can’t leave this world. Our sins and noble deeds will still be lying around unfinished. Everyone’s fate was to wander about sensing them. Or, when Chacko’s body,  blocking the passage of others, was exhumed, why did everyone become shit scared?

Everyone who had a glimpse of it ran away screaming that it was the end of the world. I still can’t forget how mothers ran away hugging their kids. I saw with my own eyes the lambs, who had strayed from the path of God by uttering blasphemous words, also cower in fear. I recollected that if dad was alive he would have told me some story with a secretive smile.

Chacko’s body had been laid in a new coffin and placed in the middle of the cemetery. He looked older than when he died. Yet, he lay there undaunted not succumbing to the ravages of the earth. As their dad’s body lay thus, the kids were thinking about how to bury their mom. No grave was left in the cemetery to dig up.

Some suggested to them that with some cash they can arrange for an alternative grave which the kids refused to do. Even I was amazed when they insisted that she will be buried only in the family tomb. They made one wonder whether they were really Chacko’s offspring. Apart from that, the unwritten law stated that one should become one with the earth after burial. Only then can space be given to other members of the family when they died.

My dad used to say that the person who left his native place will lose his land or he should resurrect. Only now I grasped the deeper meaning of that. As if dad knew this will happen to Chacko. He also told another story. Of a body that was washed ashore from the sea. It was a very handsome corpse. All the village women fell for it. That corpse changed the whole village. Esthappan was his name. At the end, everyone joined together and bid farewell to him by offering him to the sea. Though the story was good I did not find it much credible. But, dad realized my predicament. He said...Pappee…you won’t believe it when I tell the story now...but you will believe when you are face to face with it.

When it was decided to abandon Chacko’s body to the sea, I went to dad’s grave and prayed fervently. I was sad that if only I had listened to dad, so many secrets would have revealed for me. By then, a coffin with Chacko inside was on its journey to the outer sea.

Three boats were launched. One had Chacko’s coffin. The other two carried the Bishop and a few stones and ropes. We stood on the shore watching till the boats disappeared from sight. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief only after the boats returned without Chacko in it. Still, I did not quite believe it.

I was thinking whether I missed something in the story told by dad. The sea had grabbed more land than usual and was roaring in the high tide. The waves were like a wail rolling in from the under belly. Every day, I used to be at the beach, watching the sea in the evenings. It’s nothing much really, but it was when dad was narrating the story of Esthappan that he felt a pull at his chest and how I lost my dad. What I keep thinking when sitting here every day is how to ask my dad whether Esthappan will make a comeback eventually. 

-- tr by Ra Sh