Spelunker
(In memoriam)
Risk-averse, timid me, now an explorer hacking away at the plaque built up in her cavernous labyrinthian mind — I seem to have lost the map a long time ago, if there was ever one. Because perhaps she always changed her hiding place and I moved from dripstone to dripstone, crying out her name, afraid to lose her — my cornerstone, my rock, my north star. Afraid who I was without her, who I would be forced to become. And yet here I am, descending into the dark depths without a headlamp or pickaxe, feeling my way through, eyes closed, confident I can get to her with my hands alone, my little hands always in her coarse ones, tightly holding on as she wrapped her strength around me, as if I could ever hope to become her by osmosis alone. But why must we always become someone else, even if it is someone we love beyond measure — I was content to slip behind the mantle of her sari when a stranger approached me, shy and skittish as a newborn fawn. We were a pair, she and I, perfect foils to each other, 47 years apart and why should that matter — when we fought like siblings and made-up minutes later, laughed at the same things, a kind of silly senseless guffawing that made us gasp for breath afterwards. That bubble we lived in — there was no force that could enter it or break it, and I did not think I would ever feel the need to escape it. The womb outside the womb. Because some of us need more time and nourishment to grow. 47 — her age when she became my grandmother. 47 — the year India broke free of colonial chains. Now I am older than her and I cannot avoid the doorbell anymore. I cannot block the insistent rings of the rotary phone and stuff my ears hoping the noise would stop. Because the only voice I want to hear is the one that is no longer audible. She has seen it all, filed it away behind those glassy eyes and all that’s left is a confusing catalog of disjointed fragments that I cannot piece together. That voice, that commanded and led, fearlessly fought and advocated, that voice which gave a damn when her accent broke through her imperfect flawed phrases in new languages she was forced to learn, that voice is now silent, waiting perhaps for someone, anyone to understand her unspoken plea. Of agony, of pain that no balm or drug can cure. This is the silence of loneliness, of being left behind to exist in daily monotony when all her peers have long gone to the promised land, abandoning her as the lone survivor of events that none of us remember. My trowel carves around her mushed insides gently probing to see if anything can bring her back to me. But I am no massage therapist or nurse – those who heal the suffering of others without tiring their hands. I am no semi-permeable membrane that can selectively filter joy, no seagull that sheds the excess salt with its tear ducts. My voice takes over, I sing all the songs she sang to me – a child at night not wanting the day to end. Except now, she is the child, weary of play as the eventide shadows stretch long towards the nadir of the horizon. She wants not to inch towards the finish line, but gallop like the fearless steed she once was, not looking back once to see if she has infused her essence in me. Because she knows. I have imbibed her sarcasm, her blunt tongue. I can cut through people and hold their hand, because I can see what they want. Just like she was the only one who could untangle my jumbled knots, and only for her would I draw a straight line that led from my heart to hers. I do that now, singing into the only ear that works still, my voice quavering as I steel myself from dissolving. Is that a glint of recognition I see now, when I hold her bony hands, more veins than flesh, hands that have done their part. Now it is my hands that cover hers, cold and shaky. I know she will forget me the next day. I know I will repeat the same routine, until she mouths my name in a frequency only my childhood can hear. She is here, yet she is not. She is that sea monster in the Ray Bradbury story that emerges from the deep once a year, searching for her lighthouse hoping this time the foghorn will come to her when she beckons to follow her to that nameless trench. To reminisce together the time gone by. To wait endlessly for time to hurry up. To put an end to her long suffering – which was the word her placard spelled in a childhood play in her convent school – binding her to this cruel fate of watching the world morph into something unknown and scary. She was my guide once, when my only sanctuary was the kitchen corner under the sink, and the world felt too big and bad and intent on breaking into my little box. I want to be her guide now, even if she is lost to everyone else. I will find her again and again, as long as it takes. In the kindness I bestow to others. In the peals of temple bells that resurrect my faith. I will be her emissary, even if I cannot row her boat to help her cross to the other side. And when she is ready to ascend, I will be her rope, her carabiner, leading her to the light. I will always find her in her rosary, her prayer box. I have what I need. She is in me.