What a fabulous story... made me weep and laugh at the same time esp. as my
parents and grandparents are buried there!
Jx
From: [email protected]
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 19:28:22 +0530
Subject: [SALIGAONET] FROM STRAY MANGO BRANCHES: Not Mum's Jaw (Fatima M
Noronha)
To: [email protected]
Not Mum's Jaw
By FATIMA NORONHA
Waves of heat, along with the Angelus peal, rolled over us,but no one stopped
to pray. Namdev and Kistu wanted to
finish the job by lunchtime. So did I. Sweat dripped offtheir chins. Their
shorts covered with red dust, theyshovelled out heap upon heap of loam. I
coveted that mud,made of the goodness of human bodies. My chikku saplings
longed for compost like that.
One of the handles of Dad's coffin slid down the pile. Ipicked it up. It was
made from a biscuit tin. The otherhandles appeared in turn. Nothing else
showed there had been
a coffin. I stood at the crater's edge, waiting. Thediggers worked gently
now, lifting off shallow layers of softsoil. When they found the remains, they
brushed away theclods with their bare hands.
The skeleton in the blue-black suit lay as the body had laintwelve years
earlier, precisely the way Dad used to sleep. That suit -- he wore it to my
wedding, to my middle sister's
wedding in this very church, to my mother's funeral, and,shortly before he
died, to my little sister's wedding. Hewore the same dark tie, too, and I
would not be surprised if
it was the same white shirt every time. Whatever Dad couldspare he gave to
someone else.
"Do you want the skull?" asked Namdev, senior grave-digger atSaint Andrew's.
"Yes," I said. "Is there water in that tap to wash thebones?"
"No, bai, the tap stops by mid-morning. There is water in theopen tank."
They did their work, moving the parts that had long beenstill. Gone was the
mirage of a complete body. Shreds ofblue-black fabric mingled with russet
loam. The skeleton,
now visible, was only the big sections really, no carpals,metacarpals and
phalanges. Kistu shook the skull free, blewon it, and flicked a crust off the
forehead. Bar me, no oneever presumed to flick a particle off my father's
sleeve in
his day.
Within minutes Kistu handed me the perfect skull and three
long bones. He gathered the rest in his aluminium basin, which he
emptied into the open
ossuary -- the Ezekiel Corner -- at the edge of the
cemetery. Waiting for him to return, Namdev lit his beedi and sat
smoking on the nearest marble slab.
"Now you have to find my mother's bones. They were dug up onmy father's funeral
morning and buried in a suitcase at thehead of his coffin."
"It's a wonder you knew where to look for your father," he
said. "Even the headstone's been stolen. There's nothing toshow it's a grave
at all."
"Oh, I knew it was near the dentist's fancy vault over here."
In my youth I knew the dentist well enough, mildness itselfwhen you met him in
the street, but a terror with theforceps. We preferred to go to his rival,
Muhammad Ali,
despite the knock-out name. How often is a book like its cover?
Namdev was right about our family sepulchre. Archeologistswould probably not
have found it. When Mum died, there was
only standing room among the regular rows, so her restingplace was dug in the
odd space between the last row and thewhitewashed cemetery wall. Four years
later, in athunderstorm, Dad's coffin was lowered into the same grave.
My sisters, not I, kept track of the spot. On All Souls' Dayeach year they
covered the rectangle with marigold petals.They lit candles and said a prayer.
Being a vegetarian, I
have always taken a detached view of mortal remains. Maybethat is why it fell
to me to oversee the exhumation of ourparents' bones, to transfer them to a
niche in the graveyardwall.
It was well past midday. The workers had begun to losepatience. They had to be
careful, though, not to break anyvestige of my mother's bones.
"Nothing here, bai," Namdev declared after a while.
"Arrey, dig deeper," I urged.
Kistu's shovel clinked against something. He bent down andsifted the mud
through his fingers. He held his trophy aloft.
"Jawbone!" said Namdev, his own jaw slack.
His mate looked closely at it and gasped. He quickly handedit to me.
"This isn't my mother's jaw."
Kistu may have thought I was scolding him. He said, "Bai,there is nothing else
left."
I sat heavily on the dentist's tomb. True, it was a
long time since I had seen my pretty mother, but I was sure
the object in my hand bore no resemblance to her petite, hyperactive
jaw. It looked, as she herself would have said, like the jawbone of
an ass.
"I have to go and sort this out. Please wash those threebones, Namdev, and wrap
them in this cloth." I poked aroundin my bag. "No one will rob them from the
open niche, will
they?"
"Na, bai."
"Then keep them there. I'll bring the mason's boy tomorrow tofix the slab.
Thank you both. Please take this." They wiped
their hands on their shorts, and accepted their wages.
I stomped up to the parish office.
"Where's Father?" I asked the dormouse hunched over his empty
teacup.
"The parish priest is out," he drawled. He looked up at myface and hastened to
add, "But you may meet FatherNascimento, if you wish."
That was a stroke of luck. Padre Nascimento had at his
fingertips the four hundred and forty years of Saint Andrew's Church
and of our town of Vasco da
Gama, once a jewel in Goa's crown.
The vicar's audience hall was empty. I walked across to hisantique desk and
deposited the muddy jawbone on it. Padre
Nascimento walked in with a stoop more of courtesy than age.
"Good afternoon, Father."
"What a pleasant surprise!"
I glowered at the excavated specimen on the table. "Senhor
Padre, might you be able to explain how the jawbone of an asslanded in my
mother's grave?"
He chuckled. Then he said, "Sit down, ahn, dear lady."
He examined the maxillary relic, pausing to note the oneremaining tooth that
certainly was not my mother's. Hesmiled, his apple-smooth cheeks colouring.
"Would you like a glass of water?"
"No, thank you, Father. You have a theory, I can see."
"Yes. Only a theory."
Leaning back in the vicar's carved mahogany chair, he spoke
without hurry.
"In your dear parents' time, Sant' Andre had a temporary
parishioner named Sacra Familia: Holy Family, no less! I knew him
from my childhood, in
Saligao. There we used to call him Sacru, but one fine day
he started calling himself Sacrula! Why?"
I took a deep breath. I was in no mood to be entertained.
"Because," he said with a grin, "he was in love with hisneighbour Ursula.
Sadly, she said no. Poor Sacrula became --how shall I say it, ahn? --
unconventional! He wore brown
robes like a Franciscan, and gave pious orations wherever hewent. At first he
went round on a bicycle. Much later,towards the end of the Portuguese era, when
he came to livein Vasco da Gama, he rode a pony."
I sighed. Father Nascimento looked amused, and raised a bonyindex finger as he
went on. "He lived as a paying guest overthere, on the main road, near the
Pereiras' house. And he was
quite a sight, riding down Avenida Craveiro Lopes -- youknow, Swatantra Path --
all the way down to the praca. Heused to stop in front of the main entrance to
the CamaraMunicipal, our municipality building, and make his speeches."
"Did my mother know him, Senhor Padre?"
"It is likely she knew him by sight at least. Sacrula was theonly parishioner
who owned a horse. It is even more likely he
knew your dear mother. Maybe he was one of her silentadmirers. Many people who
never met her used to see her herein church. She was very active, I am told. I
met her once. Avery fine lady!"
He must have noticed my lack of enthusiasm. He studied myface. "You are a lot
like her."
"Hm." People said the same old things.
"But I must tell you about Sacrula's pony. That creature washis best friend. He
took good care of it. Even so, it fellill and died. Poor fellow, he wept like
the monsoons in July.
He came here and pleaded with the vicar to let his friend beburied in the
churchyard." I sat up. Behind the black-rimmedspectacles, Father Nascimento's
eyes brightened. His cheeks
turned pinker.
"‘Bury a horse in holy ground? No, no!' said the vicar -- atthat time, Padre
Pedro António, I think your grandfather wasa good friend of his. So Sacrula dug
a trench in the strip
between the cemetery fence and the main road, and buried thepony there. He
could see the spot from his window across theroad. A couple of years later, the
church's holdings weresurveyed, and the vicar built a boundary wall according to
official specifications, leaving only the required setbackfrom the main road.
The new wall brought the pony's unmarkedgrave into the cemetery, much to our
Sacrula's delight. With
each new coffin that went into the ground, the old boundarylines grew less
distinct. By the time I was posted here,there was no sign of the old fence,
although the sacristantold me about it -- you know, this gentleman is almost
eighty, he's seen a lot."
My hands were over my face, my elbows on the vicar's desk.
"My good lady, please don't be upset." I could not answer
him.
"I'm sure the parish authorities meant no offence, but Isuppose the pony's
grave was hollowed out to accommodate yourdear mother's coffin."
Giggles found their way out through every chink in my
anger. Three hours in that griddle of a graveyard had melted away
whatever poise I otherwise affected. I felt close to tears, but all
I could do was laugh. When I stopped shaking, I stood up.
"Thank you very much, Senhor Padre."
"You are most kindly welcome." He nodded, smiling. "God bless
you, ahn!"
I snatched up the pony's bone. It left a little red mud onthe mahogany.
Brushing it off in three strokes, my handlooked like Mum's when she slapped
crumbs off the dining
table. The similarity irritated me. It alarmed me. Was theresomething brutal in
my bones too?
Marching down the stairs and out, I thought it was just aswell only a brute's
bone was found in Mum's grave. If Kistu
had exhumed her jawbone, I -- ever the dutiful daughter --would of course have
washed it, wrapped it in white muslinand placed it in the niche along with my
father's skull andthree long bones.
That delicate little jaw of hers pronounced words of wisdomand comfort to other
people. They would not have believed hercapable of even thinking the words she
reserved for her
children, words that dug a pit in our path, words thatinsisted on keeping us
company years after her jaw was atrest.
The grave-diggers were gone, but the cemetery gate was open.
With a jawbone pointer to help me read names and dates, Isauntered between the
rows of graves of people I had known orheard about -- sweet Tessie here, my
teacher's drunkenhusband there, eight Dutch aviators who crashed into the
Dabolim hillock in 1959.
In an ancient Goan ritual, the voiz, or medicine man, burns
a dummy of the cause of your trouble, and you are promptly cured. The
poor pony had done
me no wrong, but its relic came in handy. I judged my
distance from the high whitewashed walls of the Ezekiel Corner. A
bone dump would do for a voiz's
fire, I thought, as I took aim.
--From Stray Mango Branches and Other Stories with Goan Sap. Contact the author
via [email protected]
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