One way

Translated from the original Tamil short story One way by Shobasakthi. The original story is available at his website. If you have any questions or feedback, please contact ez.iniyavan@gmail.com.

It is a deeply held superstition among the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora in Europe that an early morning call from Sri Lanka brings news of a death. Therefore, I always went to sleep with my cellphone turned off. Just as we do archanai in temples or conduct witchcraft cleansing in the hope of postponing the death of our loved ones, I developed the belief that turning off the cellphone would prevent death. A year ago, on just one night, I forgot to turn off my cell phone before I went to bed. At four in the morning, it woke me up with a scream to convey news of appā’s death.

Appā was a man of warped thinking. My mother, who was filled to the brim with naivete, was like a hostage caught in the tentacles of a crazed extremist. But if I even frowned at appā or exchanged words with him, my ammā would rush to his defense. She would berate me, claiming that her husband possessed a treasured intellect and fearless bravery.

When they got married, appā had taken ammā to see the movie ‘anpē vā.’ During the interval, a young man in the movie theater had smiled at ammā. Since he was in her class till grade 5 — ammā went to school only till grade 5 –, she had smiled back. Noticing this, appā had dragged ammā out of the theater, gave her a thundering slap in the middle of the street, and demanded to know who the man was. If this incident had ended then and there, I would have no need to tell you the story now. But even when he was eighty-one, just a few days before his death, he had slapped her, asking, “Who was it that grinned at you in the theater?” For fifty years, appā had been posing this question to her whenever it crossed his mind.

Despite his warped thinking, there is no doubt that he was effective at what he did. He traveled between Jaffna and Colombo for his tobacco brokerage business, slowly but steadily raising the economic status of our family. There were rumors that he engaged in some sort of fraud in his brokerage business. Even some lawsuits found their way to us. He bought a big empty plot of land in the middle of the village, turned it into a luscious coconut grove, and built a house. His first four children were girls. He had frugally saved enough money to marry them off. With his efforts and the natural beauty, they inherited from ammā, my sisters were quickly snapped up by grooms from abroad. My eldest sister Thilakā went to France and arranged a groom for my second elder sister Rōhiṇi. Their entire household was abuzz with celebrations to send her off to France. It is then that I ran away to join a militant group, turning the festive household into looking like a funerary one. My appā never forgave me for this misdeed.

When my youngest sister Vēṇi was leaving for France to get married, I was in prison. Vēṇi akkā came with ammā to visit me in Magazine prison before flying out. In those days, I could never even imagine being released from prison. Everyone said I would be sentenced to at least thirty years in prison. Did I not mention appā’s warped thinking? He did not visit me in prison even once. Once in a while ammā traveled from the village to see me, accompanied by some relative or the other.

Perhaps it was because of all the vows she made to deities in temple after temple, or perhaps it was because of the endless fasting she suffered through, I was released after seven years. As soon as I was released, my four sisters pooled money to pay for an agent to smuggle me into France. Once I arrived in France, they all told me in unison:

“Brother! We paid for your lawsuit for seven years. Now we have even brought you out of the country. We are not going to ask you to pay back all that money. But from now on, taking care of our parents is your responsibility.”

I came to France at twenty-seven years of age after souring on the militant movement and the Tamil struggle. While I was in prison, my militant group completely abandoned me. It was my family that protected me and rescued me from prison. I resolved to spend the rest of my life for the welfare of my family and began to work hard.

Five years after I came to France, I had saved enough money to pay for an agent to bring my parents to France. My sisters were also very keen to bring them over. But my appā, he of warped thinking, refused to move abroad. He declared firmly, “I cannot live a debased refugee life like you all. If you want, you can take your ammā abroad!” There is no need to explain that ammā would never travel alone without appā. It was with the savings intended to bring them that I paid an agent to bring my cousin Sevvanthi to France and married her. That was the only smart thing that I ever did in my entire life. In marriage ceremonies, people vow to never part ‘in sickness and in health’ as a mere formality. But my cousin Sevvanthi has stuck religiously to the letter and spirit of that vow.

When appā died some distant relative had to light his pyre. Those of us who had the obligation to light his pyre, I and my sisters, were living as refugees in France. We no longer had Sri Lankan passports. The temporary refugee passports given to us by the French government explicitly said <Not permitted to travel to Sri Lanka>. Even after siring five children, appā died like an abandoned old man with no offspring. Ammā was now eighty. Various maladies, the inevitable fruits of old age, had taken her over completely. Anxious that the same fate as appā’s would befall on ammā, I turned off my cell phone at night before going to bed.

But bad news found its way to me during the day. My eldest sister called me on my cellphone to say that ammā had been admitted to the General Hospital in Jaffna after being bitten by a snake that was hiding inside a pot. I called ammā’s cell phone immediately. The first thing ammā told me from her hospital bed was that I should bring her over to France.

We the children had begun to ponder this possibility right after appā passed away. But the various practical difficulties involved had stopped us on our tracks. It had remained a mere possibility. But now ammā herself requested it explicitly. Tell me, how can my uneducated ammā, not wise to the ways of the world, comprehend the practical difficulties that you yourself would struggle to understand fully!

We as refugees cannot sponsor her to come to France. The only way left to us was to use an agent to bring her here illegally. There was no other way. But how could we subject ammā to an illegal journey at her advanced age? She would need to cross icy deserts and frozen rivers on foot. Or she would need to travel by air on a stolen passport or a fake visa. If she got caught en route, she would be thrown into prison. My eldest brother-in-law made a suggestion. Let us try for a tourist visa for ammā. If she gets it, she could travel to France and then register as a refugee.

Since I had been given the entire responsibility for taking care of ammā, I made all the necessary arrangements. Once ammā had recovered, she went to Colombo with an acquaintance and applied for a tourist visa at the French embassy. At the interview, the embassy visa officer had asked just one question:
 
 “You are a senior. I don’t want to waste your time by making you run around. We can give you a three-month visa. But what guarantee is there that you would return to Sri Lanka after three months?”

I had anticipated this question. Therefore, I had warned ammā about it before the interview. Therefore, ammā responded to the question saying, “I have land and a house in my village. I would not overstay in France, abandoning them.”

The visa officer countered, “Lots of houses and land lie abandoned in Jaffna district. Their owners went to Canada and Europe but never returned,” and rejected ammā’s application for a visa.

My reaction to the rejection was to be furious at ammā. If appā and ammā had agreed to come to France fifteen years ago, when I first invited them, it would have been perfect. Then ammā had the strength to undertake a journey that involved crossing borders illegally. It was also not difficult to come here. A lot of people boarded planes in Colombo holding fake visas arranged by agents and requested political asylum as soon as they landed in Paris airport. At that time, France was accepting refugees without too much of a fuss because the civil war was raging in Sri Lanka. Now the civil war has ended. Ripe old age and ill health has taken over ammā. She takes fifteen different tablets every day. How many more years could she survive the cold and snow in France? Even the banana tree that rejuvenates itself like a Phoenix every time it is cut down, could not survive in France’s climate. The Sri Lankan sun and the life in harmony with nature would give ammā a long life. I found different reasons to be angry, as a defense mechanism to deal with my inferiority complex arising from my inability to do anything for ammā.

But ammā was firm in her desire to come to France. I really could not challenge any of the reasons she had for this desire.

“Listen carefully son! This village has been a wasteland for years. Snakes and creepy crawlies and rabid dogs rule the roost here. Every house in the village, save barely ten, lie in a dilapidated state. People who escaped the village during the war never returned. There is no one within a half-a-kilometer radius of our house. There is no electricity at night, only occasionally during the day. How can a sick old woman like me live here alone? An old woman who lived on the east street alone like me was strangled to death by burglars. No one knows if they were petty thieves, or people from the Ava group, or army, or navy. There isn’t a huge distance between the east street and the west street, is there? Anything can happen to me at any time.”

“Why don’t you go stay with some relatives for some time, ammā?”

“Where can I go? Your appā had made enemies of everyone before he departed this world. But it must be said that he never started a fight himself. But even if I went to live with some relatives, do you think they would take good care of me? They would be out to fleece money from me, son! This is not the Sri Lanka you left. Everyone is focused on money from abroad.”

“It is difficult to come here now ammā. They have tightened the rules. You have also become old.”

“That is no problem. Just last month, Sellaiyā’s wife was taken to Canada by her children. She is two years older than me. She moved around in a wheelchair. I still have strength in both my legs. I draw water from the well all by myself. I collect coconuts from the yard. When rainwater floods into the house, I am the one who empties the water by myself using a coconut shell. I catch a bus to travel to the General Hospital ten miles away. But how much longer can I live alone, son? I have fifteen grandchildren. My corpse would not even burn if I die without touching the face of even one of them? Will you come to light my pyre?

My sisters were unanimous in siding with ammā.

“Brother! Until now ammā had never asked us for even a single Euro. She did not extravagantly spend the money that we did send but saved it by living frugally. If we cannot fulfill her wish at the evening of her life, we don’t deserve to be her children. Brother… if you are short of money, we will give you money. Don’t worry that you will be burdened with taking care of her once she arrives here. We are her four daughters. We will not let her daughter-in-law bear the burden of taking care of her.”

I was angered even more listening to my sisters talk as if I was the one placing roadblocks on ammā’s way to France. Incensed, I started looking for an agent that very day. Kailāsanāthan, who works in the same natural food market as me, came forward to help. He introduced me by phone to a friend of his in Colombo who works as an agent for migrants. Even though the agent demanded a large fee, I agreed to it. It was to be a trip by air. I was required to pay half the fee up front and the remaining half once ammā landed in France. I did not want to borrow even a cent from my sisters. I emptied my bank account to pay the deposit. For the rest, we would use Sevvanthi’s jewelry.

Within a week of receiving the money, the agent took ammā to Delhi. He prepared an Indian passport she could travel to France on. He craftily inserted her into a group of elderly Indians going on a tour of France. But the airport authorities in Delhi thwarted this trick with an old simple counter trick. They had asked ammā to count from one to ten with her fingers. She had done so by folding finger after finger. Apparently, when Indians count, they open finger after finger, instead of folding them like us. Therefore, the authorities easily concluded that ammā was not Indian.

When the agent reluctantly revealed to me over the phone that ammā had been sent to the immigration prison in Delhi, I cursed him out with the choicest obscenities. Just think! An eighty-year-old lady being imprisoned in a country where she did not even speak the local language. Are you not more infuriated than I am! I did not let my sisters know that ammā was in prison. They would not be able to bear this news. All their sorrow will turn into anger at me for making a careless mistake with her travel arrangements.

The full force of my anger turned to Kailāsanāthan who had introduced the idiot agent to me. Having volunteered to help me, he was forced into a situation of having had to listen to a mouthful of abuse from me. But that kindhearted man understood my worry and anger and started harrying the idiot agent. Within five days, ammā was released from prison. When she called me on the phone, I could not help weeping. The idiot agent suggested that he could try once again via Mumbai airport. “Forget it! Take ammā safely back to the village,” I said. In that case, he said he could not return the 50% advance he had received. I responded, “That is fine, I don’t want that money back! It is enough for me if you take ammā safely back to Sri Lanka.”

The following week, ammā called me on the phone from Sri Lanka.

“Son! It looks like it is difficult to travel via India. Now they are showing on TV that people travel to France via Ukraine…”

“Ammā! There is a war raging in Ukraine,” I said.

“That is ok, son. I have seen enough war in my life! Don’t fret for nothing. They would not do anything to an old woman who could die any day now,” said ammā.

She called me every day on WhatsApp to talk. She repeated many times that she could not stay on in Sri Lanka for even a minute more. “What is the point of having money? Groceries are hard to find! People here are going to die of starvation. We are forced to eat the spinach that grows on garbage piles, and the rice paste that the Chinese are donating,” she wailed. How could we children have the heart to eat even a mouthful after listening to a lament like this?

I could not focus properly on my work at my natural food market. I kept thinking about ammā. Would she die of her unfulfilled desire to move to France? My head was in turmoil. My Jewish boss noticed my disquiet. He called me over to tell me that there was an order from the old lady Olymp and asked me to collect all the items on her grocery list and deliver them. Usually, I would be excited at making a delivery to Olymp. Although I did not have the same excitement this time, the prospect of visiting Olymp did bring some peace of mind.

When I joined this Jewish natural food market two years ago, my first job was to take groceries in a cart to Olymp’s house for delivery. Her house was not far away. The old house was on a small plot of land just opposite the tram stop where I usually get off on my way to work.

Olymp was born to French-Corsican parents. She was about the same age as my ammā. Like ammā, she, too, lived alone. Although she was of average height, her back was bent, which made her look rather short. She had a dusting of facial hair, and a small bald patch on the top of her head. Old lady Olymp rarely ventured outside her house. She had a degree in psychology. Her house was full of thick hardcover books with black covers.

On the very first day I went to her house, the lady looked at me with her gray eyes shining and invited me to come inside her house and sit down.

“Handsome young man! Are you Sri Lankan?”

“Yes… madame,” I said.

Thereafter, every time I went to her house to make a delivery, the old lady told me this story little by little:

“Yes son! It was only a few years after the second world war. France was starting to flourish again after being liberated from the Nazis. Our family lived in this house even then. My father had died in the war. My mother had befriended a rough Greek fellow. I was thirteen years old.

A Sri Lankan family came from somewhere to settle down in this village. I don’t know if it was a Sinhala family or a Tamil family or a mixed one. There was a young boy in that family, close to my age. He joined our school. At the beginning, he didn’t know a word of French, but could speak a bit of Portuguese, which I could understand somewhat. His name was Thomas.

Very quickly I fell in love with that shy, young, brown man. Then this was a tiny village. The woods were full of flowers. Unlike now, there was a lot of water in the river. Horses would graze quietly in the meadows. Thomas and I would play in the woods and on the river. Shall I tell you something interesting? Thomas didn’t even know how to kiss. I taught him that.

When my mother found out about our relationship, she scolded me strongly. Her Greek lover beat me brutally. But I did not stop seeing Thomas. But one day, the entire Sri Lankan family disappeared from this village. I could never forget that relationship which lasted barely two months. I harbored the idiotic notion that one day I would travel to Sri Lanka. This old woman does not need to hide that from you, son!”

There were many books, pictures, statues, masks, and maps about Sri Lanka in her house. She had read a lot about Sri Lanka from books. She told me that it made her very happy to talk to me. But it did not make my boss very happy that I spent time in Olymp’s house without promptly returning back to the shop after making the delivery.

One day, I invited Olymp to my house and served her a variety of Sri Lankan dishes. Even though the spiciness made her eyes water, she enjoyed the food and finished it without leaving anything behind on her plate. It was a French habit.

“Madame… I will take you to Sri Lanka one day,” I told her frequently. She would smile like a child. Olymp did not know that I myself did not have the ability to visit Sri Lanka.

The first question Olymp asked me when I entered her house with my pushcart was, “Is your mother in Sri Lanka well? I read in the newspaper that people had occupied the presidential palace in Colombo, and there were protests and scuffles all over the country. Is there any problem in your village?”

I will tell you the truth! The moment Olymp said ‘problem,’ an idea suddenly lit up brightly in my mind. While there was a fierce battle in my mind as to whether I should tell Olymp about this idea, my pitiful tongue spoke up:

“Madame, would you be able to do me a favor?”

“Tell me son! I will definitely help!”

“The situation in Sri Lanka is not very good now. Famine is spreading. There is a shortage of medicines, too. I would like to bring my sick mother over to France so that she could live with me for a while, Madame…”

“Yes, you should certainly do it, son. How can I help you?”

“If you can give my mother a sponsor letter, I think they would issue her a visa…”

“Is that all! Just assume that your mother is already here! Tell her to get ready for the trip. I will go to the town council office right this minute to start the paperwork and get all the documentation needed for the sponsorship. Come to see me in the evening after work.”

I was speechless with gratitude. When she saw my eyes moisten, she came over with a childlike smile to hug me.

While I was at work at the market, Olymp called me on the phone from the town council office. She asked me details like ammā’s name, address, and date of birth.

I went to her house that evening with a thousand questions racing in my mind. She sat me down at her reading desk and gave me five neatly folded documents.

“Listen son! The first document is the approval from the town council for me to invite your mother here on a three-month tourist visa. The second has details of my bank account. The third is a copy of my French national identity card. The fourth is the letter from me to your mother inviting her here as my guest. The fifth is unnecessary… but they told me at the town council that it is the most important one. It is my consent to let the Interior Ministry begin legal proceedings against me if my guest didn’t leave France within three months. If your mother takes these documents to the French embassy in Colombo and submits a visa application, they would definitely grant her a visa. I am very eager to meet your mother. I will come to see her myself!”

Each of the five documents had a scribbled signature by Olymp’s shaky hand.

Even a scribbled French signature carries weight, does it not! Within ten days of applying for a visa at the French embassy in Colombo, she was granted a three-month visitor visa. When my sisters heard the news, they were exhilarated, and could not stop kissing me over the phone. Thereafter, they started a fierce competition among themselves to decide in whose house ammā was going to live. As usual, my third sister Malar, who is stubborn and never yields an inch, won.

While they were rejoicing, my heart was in turmoil. My ammā would definitely have to leave France after three months. She would need to leave her five children and fifteen grandchildren to return alone to Sri Lanka. But I did not have the courage to tell her this. It would certainly spoil her joy at the prospect of finally being able to come to France. I thought I could gently tell her once she arrives in France, and convince her to return within three months. There was another possibility. The impending harsh winter, the cooped up apartment-living here, and the habit of keeping cooked food in the fridge for a week to eat reheated food every day could all make ammā weary enough to want to return to Sri Lanka. Having lived here for twenty years, even my own heart yearns to return to Sri Lanka. If ammā, too, develops such a yearning and chooses to return to Sri Lanka, then the problem would be solved amicably. Perhaps she could pass on in peace, and her body would turn to dust in our own village cemetery with the satisfaction of having seen her grandchildren.

The third day after ammā’s arrival in France, I took Olymp to Malar akkā’s house. Olymp, who came with a bouquet of mimosa flowers, held ammā’s hand all the time until she left. All four of my sisters were there. Even though they all welcomed Olymp cheerfully, they exchanged glances among them as if to indicate that she was an unwanted guest.

One day, ammā told me:

“Son! There is no one back home to look after our house and land. Before some neighbor tries to take them over with fake deeds, we should sell the house. It won’t fetch much. In that largely abandoned village, a third of a hectare of land would barely fetch one lakh rupees. A missionary group has been asking to buy the house and land. We should sort out the paperwork to sell them soon.”

“Ammā… that was the house we all grew up in. That is the only identity we have left in Sri Lanka. Let us leave it be….”

“So what! None of us are returning to Sri Lanka. Did your appā gain all that wealth for thieves to enjoy? Get on with selling it, son.”

I did not imagine that ammā would come to like France so much. She enjoyed the snow and cold like a little child. Once when I visited Malar akkā, she was sitting on the carpet learning French from her granddaughter.

“Ammā! Don’t sit on the floor… you would be cold,” I said.

“Chī chī.. I think this cold is just the right medicine for my maladies. Since I came here I have not caught a cold or had a fever… one should learn the language of the land one plans to live in, son. That is why I have started to learn French. Your appā was able to go all the way to Colombo to succeed in business because he knew Sinhala,” she said.

Two-and-a-half months had passed since ammā came to France. Even though she was based in Malar akkā’s house, she did the rounds among the homes of the other children, spending a couple of days in each. In between, my eldest sister and her family took ammā to Lourdes. Ammā toured Paris and its suburbs visiting all the Hindu temples. After going to the riverbank to play with the grandchildren, she marveled, “Chchā, what a wonderful country! Is there even a single bug, or creepy crawly or snake?” From time to time, she reminded me that we ought to sell the house and land in the village.

When barely two weeks were left before ammā’s visa was to expire, I called my eldest sister on the phone and said:

“Periyakkā… you are the one to gently tell ammā that she needs to return to Sri Lanka on the thirtieth.”

“Thambi.. What crazy talk is this? After all the trouble we went through to bring her here, should we send her back? What would this woman do in Sri Lanka? She will only be alive for another year or two. Let her live here. You don’t have to struggle anymore. I will take care of everything that needs to be done. The day after the visa expires, I will take her to the Police to register her as a refugee.”

“Akkā, did I not tell you already? We cannot do that. If she does not return, Olymp, who sponsored her, will be in legal jeopardy.”

“Olymp and Polymp! If that old woman wants money, we can give her some. But we cannot send ammā back to Sri Lanka.”

“Look here Periyakkā… Olymp did not do it for money. She did it out of love and the trust she had in us. She is older than ammā. How can we put her in a situation where she had to go to the courts? She might even be sent to prison..”

“Don’t be crazy, thambi. How many people come here as sponsored visitors but remain behind seeking asylum. Has there ever been a problem? Nothing you fear will come to pass.”

“No Periyakkā… I cannot breach the confidence Olymp placed in me. Ammā must return back.”

I called my third sister Malar on the phone. Before that my eldest sister had called Malar and apprised her of the situation. True to her nature, Malar barked at me as soon as I called:
 
 “Is that so! Is that how it is! Let’s see how you are going to send my ammā back. I would take her passport right away and burn it,” she said haughtily.

“You cannot, Malar akkā… ammā’s passport is with me.”

“You have shown your true militant group brain, thambi. This old white woman has become more important to you than our own ammā! Please don’t tell ammā that she has to go back home. She will die of anguish right this minute. Don’t bear that burden!

But in the end, I had to bear a burden. For a week, there was no grocery order from Olymp. I did not have the courage to go over to her house to see if everything was all right. Ammā’s visa problem took a heavy toll on me. One day, when I was returning home, I noticed that Olymp’s front door was padlocked from the outside. Flyers that had been stuck into the gaps between the door frame and the door were hanging clumsily. How did I miss noticing this when I saw her house every day from this tram stop? I realized that some sort of guilty conscience had unconsciously entered me; dirty saliva of guilt pooled within my mouth. I spat it out, crossed the street and rang Olymp’s neighbor’s doorbell. I was somewhat familiar with her Italian neighbor. I delivered his groceries, too.

The Italian neighbor said that Olymb had had breathing difficulties and was admitted to the Central Hospital. I went back to the tram stop and started waiting for my tram back home. A thousand thoughts materialized within my brain like black ants and started busily running around.

On the way home, when the tram stopped at the Central Hospital station, my legs involuntarily got off the tram. I walked as if I had consumed a kilo of narcotics. When I stood listlessly in front of the reception, the receptionist may have mistaken me for a patient. I asked her for Olymp’s room number and walked up the stairs to Olymp’s, without even taking the elevator. The truth was that I was trying to postpone as much as possible the moment I would have to confront Olymp.

Olymp was lying on the hospital bed with her eyes closed. There was an oxygen mask covering her face. She looked like a still doll in her knee-length blue hospital gown. When I asked the head nurse about Olymp’s situation, she said mechanically, “This lady’s health has been deteriorating steadily… We cannot say anything certain about her health.” I sensed that my soul that had been restless until that point, was gradually calming down. Once again, guilty saliva secreted copiously within my mouth. Until I reached home, I resisted the temptation to spit it out

Before I could step into the house, my youngest sister Vēṇi called. I spoke with my mouth full of saliva.

She asked, “What is this thambi.. Are you really going to send ammā back home?”

I am not sure if she understood what I meant when I responded, “We cannot say anything certain.“

For the next four days, I went to the hospital every day without fail to visit Olymp. She lay still like a log, with her eyes closed. Because I went there every day at the same time, the nurse became acquainted with me. When she said no one else came to visit Olymp, I thought of my ammā.

My ammā never returned to Sri Lanka.