Swimming Lessons Read online

  So there I was in the darkness remembering my father and mother, Panjim and Cajetan, nice beaches and boats. Suddenly it was very sad, so I got up and put a light on. In bai-seth’s room their clock said two o’clock. I wished they would come home soon. I checked children’s room, they were sleeping.

  Back to my passage I went, and started mending the torn sheet. Sewing, thinking about my mother, how hard she used to work, how she would repair clothes for my brothers and sisters. Not only sewing to mend but also to alter. When my big brother’s pants would not fit, she would open out the waist and undo trouser cuffs to make longer legs. Then when he grew so big that even with alterations it did not fit, she sewed same pants again, making a smaller waist, shorter legs, so little brother could wear. How much work my mother did, sometimes even helping my father outside in the small field, especially if he was visiting a taverna the night before.

  But sewing and remembering brought me more sadness. I put away the needle and thread and went outside by the stairs. There is a little balcony there It was so nice and dark and quiet, I just stood there. Then it became a little chilly. I wondered if the ghost was coming again. My father used to say that whenever a ghost is around it feels chilly, it is a sign. He said he always did in the field when the bhoot came to the well.

  There was no ghost or anything so I must be chilly, I thought, because it is so early morning. I went in and brought my white bedsheet. Shivering a little, I put it over my head, covering up my ears. There was a full moon, and it looked so good. In Panjim sometimes we used to go to the beach at night when there was a full moon, and father would tell us about when he was little, and the old days when Portuguese ruled Goa, and about grandfather who had been to Portugal in a big ship.

  Then I saw bai-seth’s car come in the compound. I leaned over the balcony, thinking to wave if they looked up, let them know I had not gone to sleep. Then I thought, no, it is better if I go in quietly before they see me, or bai might get angry and say, what are you doing outside in middle of night, leaving children alone inside. But she looked up suddenly. I thought, O my Jesus, she has already seen me.

  And then she screamed. I’m telling you, she screamed so loudly I almost fell down faint. It was not angry screaming, it was frightened screaming, bhoot! bhoot! and I understood. I quickly went inside and lay down on my bedding.

  It took some time for them to come up because she sat inside the car and locked all doors. Would not come out until he climbed upstairs, put on every staircase light to make sure the ghost was gone, and then went back for her.

  She came in the house at last and straight to my passage, shaking me, saying wake up, Jaakaylee, wake up! I pretended to be sleeping deeply, then turned around and said, Happy New Year, bai, everything is okay, children are okay.

  She said, yes yes, but the bhoot is on the stairs! I saw him, the one you saw last year at Christmas, he is back, I saw him with my own eyes!

  I wanted so much to laugh, but I just said, don’t be afraid, bai, he will not do any harm, he is not a ghost of mischief, he must have just lost his way.

  Then she said, Jaakaylee, you were telling the truth and I was angry with you. I will tell everyone in B Block you were right, there really is a bhoot.

  I said bai, let it be now, everyone has forgotten about it, and no one will believe anyway. But she said, when I tell them, they will believe.

  And after that many people in Firozsha Baag started to believe in the ghost. One was dustoorji in A Block. He came one day and taught bai a prayer, saykasté saykasté sataan, to say it every time she was on the stairs. He told her, because you have seen a bhoot on the balcony by the stairs, it is better to have a special Parsi prayer ceremony there so he does not come again and cause any trouble He said, many years ago, near Marine Lines where Hindus have their funerals and burn bodies, a bhoot walked at midnight in the middle of the road, scaring motorists and causing many accidents. Hindu priests said prayers to make him stop. But no use Bhoot kept walking at midnight, motorists kept having accidents. So Hindu priests called me to do a jashan, they knew Parsi priest has most powerful prayers of all. And after I did a jashan right in the middle of the road, everything was all right.

  Bai listened to all this talk of dustoorji from A Block, then said she would check with seth and let him know if they wanted a balcony jashan. Now seth says yes to everything, so he told her, sure sure, let dustoorji do it. It will be fun to see the exkoriseesum, he said, some big English word like that.

  Dustoorji was pleased, and he checked his Parsi calendar for a good day. On that morning I had to wash whole balcony floor specially, then dustoorji came, spread a white sheet, and put all prayer items on it, a silver thing in which he made fire with sandalwood and loban, a big silver dish, a lotta full of water, flowers, and some fruit.

  When it was time to start saying prayers dustoorji told me to go inside Later, bai told me that was because Parsi prayers are so powerful, only a Parsi can listen to them. Everyone else can be badly damaged inside their soul if they listen.

  So jashan was done and dustoorji went home with all his prayer things. But when people in Firozsha Baag who did not believe in the ghost heard about prayer ceremony, they began talking and mocking.

  Some said Jaakaylee’s bai has gone crazy, first the ayah was seeing things, and now she has made her bai go mad. Bai will not talk to those people in the Baag. She is really angry, says she does not want friends who think she is crazy. She hopes jashan was not very powerful, so the ghost can come again. She wants everyone to see him and know the truth like her.

  Busy eating, bai-seth are. Curry is hot, they are blowing whoosh-whoosh on their tongues but still eating they love it hot. Secret of good curry is not only what spices to put, but also what goes in first, what goes in second, and third, and so on. And never cook curry with lid on pot, always leave it open, stir it often, stir it to urge the flavour to come out.

  So bai is hoping the ghost will come again. She keeps asking me about ghosts, what they do, why they come She thinks because I saw the ghost first in Firozsha Baag, it must be my speciality or something. Especially since I am from village — she says village people know more about such things than city people. So I tell her about the bhoot we used to see in the small field, and what my father said when he saw the bhoot near the well. Bai enjoys it, even asks me to sit with her at table, bring my separate mug, and pours a cup for me, listening to my ghost-talk. She does not treat me like servant all the time.

  One night she came to my passage when I was saying my rosary and sat down with me on the bedding. I could not believe it, I stopped my rosary. She said, Jaakaylee, what is it Catholics say when they touch their head and stomach and both sides of chest? So I told her, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Right right! she said, I remember it now, when I went to St Anne’s High School there were many Catholic girls and they used to say it always before and after class prayer, yes, Holy Ghost. Jaakaylee, you don’t think this is that Holy Ghost you pray to, do you? And I said, no bai, that Holy Ghost has a different meaning, it is not like the bhoot you and I saw.

  Yesterday she said, Jaakaylee, will you help me with something? All morning she was looking restless, so I said, yes bai. She left the table and came back with her big scissors and the flat cane soopra I use for winnowing rice and wheat. She said, my granny showed me a little magic once, she told me to keep it for important things only. The bhoot is, so I am going to use it. If you help me. It needs two Parsis, but I’ll do it with you.

  I just sat quietly, a little worried, wondering what she was up to now. First, she covered her head with a white mathoobanoo, and gave me one for mine, she said to put it over my head like a scarf. Then, the two points of scissors she poked through one side of soopra, really tight, so it could hang from the scissors. On two chairs we sat face to face She made me balance one ring of scissors on my finger, and she balanced the other ring on hers. And we sat like that, with soopra hangin
g from scissors between us, our heads covered with white cloth. Believe or don’t believe, it looked funny and scary at the same time. When soopra became still and stopped swinging around she said, now close your eyes and don’t think of anything, just keep your hand steady. So I closed my eyes, wondering if seth knew what was going on.

  Then she started to speak, in a voice I had never heard before It seemed to come from very far away, very soft, all scary. My hair was standing, I felt chilly, as if a bhoot was about to come. This is what she said: if the ghost is going to appear again, then soopra must turn.

  Nothing happened. But I’m telling you, I was so afraid I just kept my eyes shut tight, like she told me to do. I wanted to see nothing which I was not supposed to see All this was something completely new for me. Even in my village, where everyone knew so much about ghosts, magic with soopra and scissors was unknown.

  Then bai spoke once more, in that same scary voice: if the ghost is going to appear again, upstairs or downstairs, on balcony or inside the house, this year or next year, in daylight or in darkness, for good purpose or for bad purpose, then soopra must surely turn.

  Believe or don’t believe, this time it started to turn, I could feel the ring of the scissors moving on my finger. I screamed and pulled away my hand, there was a loud crash, and bai also screamed.

  Slowly, I opened my eyes. Everything was on the floor, scissors were broken, and I said to bai, I’m very sorry I was so frightened, bai, and for breaking your big scissors, you can take it from my pay.

  She said, you scared me with your scream, Jaakaylee, but it is all right now, nothing to be scared about, I’m here with you. All the worry was gone from her face. She took off her mathoobanoo and patted my shoulder, picked up the broken scissors and soopra, and took it back to kitchen.

  Bai was looking very pleased. She came back and said to me, don’t worry about broken scissors, come, bring your mug, I’m making tea for both of us, forget about soopra and ghost for now. So I removed my mathoobanoo and went with her.

  Jaakaylee, O Jaakaylee, she is calling from dining-room. They must want more curry. Good thing I took some out for my dinner, they will finish the whole pot. Whenever I make Goan curry, nothing is left over. At the end seth always takes apiece of bread and rubs it round and round in the pot, wiping every little bit. They always joke, Jaakaylee, no need today for washing pot, all cleaned out. Yes, it is one thing I really enjoy, cooking my Goan curry, stirring and stirring, taking the aroma as it boils and cooks, stirring it again and again, watching it bubbling and steaming, stirring and stirring till it is ready to eat.

  Condolence Visit

  Yesterday had been the tenth day, dusmoo, after the funeral of Minocher Mirza. Dusmoo prayers were prayed at the fire-temple, and the widow Mirza awaited with apprehension the visitors who would troop into the house over the next few weeks. They would come to offer their condolence, share her grief, poke and pry into her life and Minocher’s with a thousand questions. And to gratify them with answers she would have to relive the anguish of the most trying days of her life.

  The more tactful ones would wait for the first month, maasiso, to elapse before besieging her with sympathy and comfort. But not the early birds; they would come flocking from today. It was open season, and Minocher Mirza had been well-known in the Parsi community of Bombay.

  After a long and troubled illness, Minocher had suddenly eased into a condition resembling a state of convalescence. Minocher and Daulat had both understood that it was only a spurious convalescence, there would be no real recovery. All the same, they were thankful his days and nights passed in relative comfort. He was able to wait for death freed from the agony which had racked his body for the past several months.

  And as it so often happens in such cases, along with relief from physical torment, the doubts and fears which had tortured his mind released their hold as well. He was at peace with his being which was soon to be snuffed out.

  Daulat, too, felt at peace because her one fervent prayer was being answered. Minocher would be allowed to die with dignity, without being reduced to something less than human; she would not have to witness any more of his suffering.

  Thus Minocher had passed away in his sleep after six days spent in an inexplicable state of grace and tranquillity. Daulat had cried for the briefest period; she felt it would be sinful to show anything but gladness when he had been so fortunate in his final days.

  Now, however, the inescapable condolence visits would make her regurgitate months of endless pain, nights spent sleeplessly, while she listened for his breath, his sighs, his groans, his vocalization of the agony within. For bearers of condolences and sympathies she would have to answer questions about the illness, about doctors and hospitals, about nurses and medicines, about X-rays and blood reports. She would be requested (tenderly but tenaciously, as though it was their rightful entitlement) to recreate the hell her beloved Minocher had suffered, instead of being allowed to hold on to the memory of those final blessed six days. The worst of it would be the repetition of details for different visitors at different hours on different days, until that intensely emotional time she had been through with Minocher would be reduced to a dry and dull lesson learned from a textbook which she would parrot like a schoolgirl.

  Last year, Daulat’s nephew Sarosh, the Canadian immigrant who now answered to the name of Sid, had arrived from Toronto for a visit, after ten years. Why he had never gone back he would not say, nor did he come to see her any more. After all that she and Minocher had done for him. But he did bring her a portable cassette tape recorder from Canada, remembering her fondness for music, so she could tape her favourite songs from All India Radio’s two Western music programs: “Merry Go Round” and “Saturday Date.” Daulat, however, had refused it, saying “Poor Minocher sick in bed, and I listen to music? Never.” She would not change her mind despite Sarosh-Sid’s recounting of the problems he had had getting it through Bombay customs.

  Now she wished she had accepted the gift. It could be handy, she thought with bitterness, to tape the details, to squeeze all of her and Minocher’s suffering inside the plastic case, and proffer it to the visitors who came propelled by custom and convention. When they held out their right hands in the condolence-handshake position (fingertips of left hand tragically supporting right elbow, as though the right arm, overcome with grief, could not make it on its own) she could thrust towards them the cassette and recorder: “You have come to ask about my life, my suffering, my sorrow? Here, take and listen. Listen on the machine, everything is on tape. How my Minocher fell sick, where it started to pain, how much it hurt, what doctor said, what specialist said, what happened in hospital. This R button? Is for Rewind. Some part you like, you can hear it again, hear it ten times if you want: how nurse gave wrong medicine but my Minocher, sharp even in sickness, noticed different colour of pills and told her to check; how wardboy always handled the bedpan savagely, shoving it underneath as if doing sick people a big favour; how Minocher was afraid when time came for sponge bath, they were so careless and rough — felt like number three sandpaper on his bedsores, my brave Minocher would joke. What? The FF button? Means Fast Forward. If some part bores you, just press FF and tape will turn to something else: like how in hospital Minocher’s bedsores were so terrible it would bring tears to my eyes to look, all filled with pus and a bad smell on him always, even after sponge bath, so I begged of doctor to let me take him home; how at home I changed dressings four times a day using sulfa ointment, and in two weeks bedsores were almost gone; how, as time went by and he got worse, his friends stopped coming when he needed them most, friends like you, now listening to this tape. Huh? This letter P? Stands for Pause. Press it if you want to shut off machine, if you cannot bear to hear more of your friend Minocher’s suffering…”

  Daulat stopped herself. Ah, the bitter thoughts of a tired old woman. But of what use? It was better not to think of these visits which were as inevitab
le as Minocher’s death. The only way out was to lock up the flat and leave Firozsha Baag, live elsewhere for the next few weeks. Perhaps at a boarding-house in Udwada, town of the most sacrosanct of all fire-temples. But though her choice of location would be irreproachable, the timing of her trip would generate the most virulent gossip and criticism the community was capable of, to weather which she possessed neither the strength nor the audacity. The visits would have to be suffered, just as Minocher had suffered his sickness, with forbearance.

  The doorbell startled Daulat. This early in the morning could not bring a condolence visitor. The clock was about to strike nine as she went to the door.

  Her neighbour Najamai glided in, as fluidly as the smell of slightly rancid fat that always trailed her. The pounds shed by her bulk in recent years constantly amazed Daulat. Today the smell was supplemented by dhansaak masala, she realized, as the odours found and penetrated her nostrils. It was usually possible to tell what Najamai had been cooking; she carried a bit of her kitchen with her wherever she went.

  Although about the same age as Daulat, widowhood had descended much earlier upon Najamai, turning her into an authority on the subject of Religious Rituals And The Widowed Woman. This had never bothered Daulat before. But the death of Minocher offered Najamai unlimited scope, and she had made the best of it, besetting and bombarding Daulat with advice on topics ranging from items she should pack in her valise for the four-day Towers Of Silence vigil, to the recommended diet during the first ten days of mourning. Her counselling service had to close, however, with completion of the death rituals. Then Daulat was again able to regard her in the old way, with a mixture of tolerance and mild dislike.

  “Forgive me for ringing your bell so early in the morning but I wanted to let you know, if you need chairs or glasses, just ask me.”