The Assassin's Song (39 page)

It was as if I had been allowed to run with my liberty and my own private happiness, all the while a trap having been laid for me on the road ahead to teach me just this lesson that the gurus could then preach in their sermons. I had nothing but contempt for myself, for my naivety and my illusions. What perfect, terrible karmic symmetry I had called upon myself. In my desperation to escape my father I had become my father, each of us clinging jealously to his child; just that should have warned me: tempt not the gods. What deity of irony or mischief could have restrained himself from gleefully hurling at me my father's fate with a vengeance?

British Columbia
.

Years pass, a life detached
.

Alone again, and lonely, after so many years; a deafening silence, my interminable evenings, the aftermath of an explosion; absolutely no one in the world to call upon.

The Padmanabhs had abandoned me. The few perfunctory telephone conversations I had with them after Marge's departure were indication enough. There was nothing to say, no relationship to keep. I would not have expected this of Paddy. But grief has its own strange ways with people.

Neighbours knew well enough to leave me alone; I needed no pity and no reminders of what had been; and I presumed they needed no token of tragedy on their doorstep. It was suggested at work that I move and make a new start, find a job elsewhere. I ignored it. I would overcome.

Do I believe in miracles? No, but … But what? This, that a number of random-seeming events can connect themselves into a sequence that leads you to a remarkable outcome. A miracle? Perhaps only miraculous. The sequence I have in mind started long ago in Worcester, Mass., I think. And it's brought me here, where I write.

One listless, drizzly Saturday I drove down Kingsway, parked my car, and ambled towards Sammy's Café, hoping perhaps on the off chance to see
Paddy performing with his band. The hope of desperation; how close we had become, Paddy and I, the two in-laws. I would look forward to each visit by him with Cathy. By ourselves together, all the way to and from Sammy's, we would be passionately discussing poetry, religion, politics, and India the homeland. We had never been angry with each other, and our disagreements seemed ultimately to have been rather superficial. To my surprise now, the dingy Sammy's had metamorphosed into a cheerful, brightly lit, Bollywood-postered Sammy's Paan and Vegetarian Thali, where they also rented videos, and where I had a meal. Walking back to the car, I passed the Korean church, sheathed in a misty darkness, where a few years before Paddy and I had stopped to listen to an odd-sounding chorus emanating from inside. Perhaps it was this distant memory which had brought me here. It had nagged for a time, then I had pushed it back like so much else. No sound came from the church at this moment, but there were two young Indian men chatting against the pipe fence next to the sidewalk; seeing me hesitate, they pointed to the stone-paved walkway leading off in the dark to the side of the church. I followed it, came to an entrance lit by a naked low-wattage bulb overhead. The street was behind me some distance away, all was quiet here. The heavy door slowly gave to my push, and I stepped inside; a dim stone staircase led from the tiny hallway down to an airy basement, from which there seemed to echo the faint sounds of people. Still uncertain of myself, I started walking down, when suddenly there came the opening salvo of a song or hymn, which then abruptly stopped; it sounded familiar. I held on firmly to the banister and steadied my pace in an effort to stay calm. I had committed myself to my curiosity, there was no going back. The singing resumed in a few moments, accompanied this time by a chorus. And I knew that it was definitely a ginan, song of my childhood, song of the Pir.

The basement was a large cavernous space, one side of it partitioned into two long adjoining rooms with panelled frosted-glass walls; one room had its door ajar, through which escaped a wedge of light and the sound of singing. I went towards it, slowly pulled open the door. The devotees were seated cross-legged in rows on the carpeted floor. All eyes turned briefly to size me up, as I made my way to the back of the last row and sat down by myself. When I looked up to face the front, my father was staring down at me from a large portrait stood up on a table. He looked much the same as he did when I last saw him, I noticed, and about the same age as I was now.

An upsurge of feeling came over me. But I held my composure; I knew he could not help me. I had chosen my life and its consequences.

After the singing, everybody stood up and queued to take the holy water of the Ganges, as it was deemed, and the prasad, the familiar sweet sooji halwa. Then they milled around.

They were modest people, mostly, holding modest jobs of various kinds. I introduced myself as Krishna Fazal, a local professor, which raised looks of approval. Their curiosity extended to making sure I was a devotee and not some intruder or spy; in that they were satisfied, for I knew the right words. How trusting they were, how easy it was to fit right in with them. They seemed the same to me as I had known them, it was I who had ineradicably altered, changed my colour. With this uneasy thought I turned to depart, when a vaguely familiar face caught my eye from a distance. The man hurried forward past a number of people to greet me. By now I had recalled him. He wore checkered pants as before, but looked more suave and composed; and of course, older. The man from Worcester, the man with the bag of apples—the fertility apples—which I had blessed a long time ago.

“Namasté, Karsan-ji,” he said, speaking softly. “I am Dervesh, do you remember me? How are you?” He took my hand and kissed it.

“I am well, Dervesh-ji,” I said, quickly withdrawing my hand, and asked politely about him and his family. They were well, he said, his face lighting up. He had three children, a boy and two girls. His wife was somewhere in the room—he cast an eye around and pointed to a group of women chatting together.

“You gave me my first child, Karsan-ji. You blessed our womb and our home. When I was in Pirbaag, I told Saheb about this, and he was proud. Proud, Karsan-ji,” he said with emotion.

Did he know of my defection?

“And your first child—boy or girl?” I asked.

“My son, whom we named Karsan in your honour. He is in Atlanta. He has a job.”

I had no choice but to tell him where I taught, and give him my work phone number. He wanted to tell me about his visit to Pirbaag, and about the Saheb, but I hurried out before I compromised myself further.

I never went back to that basement. But one more link had been added to a sequence, and the miracle, or miraculous, would be apparent later.

I recovered from my loss, slowly and partially; how could I look at a boy, any age, and not recall my own Julian. The possibilities. The innocence. The joy. Why should that be extinguished and cynical old age, failed adulthood, remain. An age-old question, a cliché, I know; but tell that to the sufferer. The key to survival now was a life of unattachment; as Gautama the Buddha had taught, after he saw a world full of suffering; as my father the Saheb of Pirbaag had always taught. And so many others. They were right. And so I closed my life to the possibility of relationships, and refused an offer of marriage. I kept busy with college administration; and I volunteered for local charities. More and more I lent my name to multicultural causes. Occasionally I dabbled with writing poetry and translating from my native Gujarati. In the summers I volunteered as an umpire and coach for local cricket teams and these were some of my happiest moments.

One spring I went to Winnipeg for a conference. Early the morning after my arrival, as I sat in the hotel restaurant with my breakfast, perusing my program, Paddy walked in the door looking for me. The same little smile flickering on his lips, though he seemed slighter, and the age lines on the face had cut deeper. I stood up and we embraced warmly. I told him I would have called, and he nodded.

“How are you coping?” he asked after a while, concern on his face.

“Fine, fine …”

“You didn't remarry or …?”

I shook my head, surprised at the question. But there was a look in that face as he averted it, and so I asked,

“How is Marge? Do you hear from her?”

“We call,” he said slowly. “She's well.”

“And?”

“She lives on one of the islands now,” he added, then blurted out, “She's remarried. He's an old friend—an American.”

Past the initial shock, more acute because she lived so close to Vancouver, I knew that I was pleased for her. It was the right thing she had done for herself, find a companion to help her heal. I wondered who he was. Not Steve, surely? But there had been others we had not spoken of. In our grief we were useless for each other; and it was now useless to agonize over why
this had been so, though I could hardly control the rush of thoughts that came to torment me. Had our love been so shallow? Had I been only a shelter for her to escape to, after her disappointments? Was the child our only real cement? I did not ask Paddy if she had any children. I imagined that he and Cathy must visit her sometimes; they would pass through Vancouver, where we had spent so many happy times together as a family. And I guessed, sitting there, watching me, he was reading my thoughts; he reached out for my hand and pressed it.

“Life must go on.”

“Yes, it must,” I said, because there was nothing else to say.

“And you? You've found someone?” he asked with concern.

“No, but I have survived. And how is Cathy?”

He nodded sagely. “Well. A bit more into the religious stuff, though … goes away on faith trips …”

We met once again before I left, and he promised to come visit me. I did not think he would. And I did not see Cathy.

British Columbia. February 2002.
The call of Pirbaag.

One day after a lecture that had ended at noon, as I was strolling over to the cafeteria for lunch, accompanied by a student, the department secretary came running after me waving an envelope. “Professor—a letter!” she panted. “Is it urgent?” I asked in surprise, taking it from her. Secretaries were more apt to bully you, not run outside after you on their high heels with your mail. “It is from India,” she gasped. I had not received any mail from India at my department, and she must have concluded—or hoped, as her look seemed to indicate—that this one was something special. We went back a long way at the college. I smiled my thanks, then stared at the handwriting on the front, as familiar as an old photograph.

And so the miracle-miraculous was complete: he had finally found me, in his hour of need.

It was some time later, when the student had excused herself, that I had the chance to tear open the envelope. I had hardly touched my food.

“My dear son Karsan:

“May this letter find you in the best of health and circumstances. May Pir Bawa bless you.

“My son, until recently I did not know where you were. Some of my letters to you were returned from America, others were probably lost. But in my heart I knew that you were safe and doing well, and I prayed for you
constantly. Recently, however, our Dervesh Bhai was on a visit from Canada and told me where you were; and also that at work you were known as Krishna Fazal. A good name, it pays appropriate tribute to our heritage. How is my daughter-in-law? Mira: a beautiful name also.

“My dear Karsan, I was deeply saddened to hear from Dervesh of your son's death. Julian: what does it mean? Something worthy, I have no doubt. It sounds beautiful, a lovely name. He would have been the new gaadi-varas. But we must believe that Julian's purpose in life was fulfilled; a great soul departed having paid its karmic debt. It has found its eternal resting place.

“I am aware that you have been loath to hear from your Bapu. I have dictated my will upon you; I placed an expectation on you that you had no desire to fulfill. I gave no thought to your own feelings and inclinations— at least, so you thought. But as Saheb I believed I knew better, and that I knew my own son, who was in line to a seat that has not lain vacant for seven hundred years.