Closing the Accounts
Raymond Pillai

The foul miasma of putrefaction wafted out when the orderly opened the door. Oh God, no! They must have had a power failure and the body had decomposed. But the stench dissipated after the body was rolled out and transferred to a table. I steeled myself as Uncle Kandaswami unwrapped the shroud to reveal a dark form, hands bound together at the wrists with strips of cotton cloth. I half expected my father’s hands to slide apart when Uncle Kanda snipped off the loops, but they remained where they were, clasped across the belly, and the whites of his upturned eyes maintained a vacant stare. “Can’t you close his eyes, Uncle? He looks so terrible.”
“It’s just cotton wool,” said Uncle Kanda, removing the wads.

I looked into my father’s lifeless eyes, and felt it was safe now to touch the icy cold forehead and the damp sunken cheeks. The face bore a sullen expression; the upper lip was drawn up, exposing the top teeth, like a dog ready to snap at a hand that strayed too close. I tried to massage the flesh and pull the lip down over the teeth, but the skin kept creeping up to form into a grimace again. “Don’t worry, son,” said Uncle Kanda. “The skin will soon soften and his face will look normal again. You’ll have to give him a shave.” A shave? Didn’t hair stop growing after death? I hadn’t been fully aware of the white stubble on my father’s face. I brushed the lather on and began shaving the cheeks clumsily. My hands were trembling. “I can’t do it, Uncle.” Uncle Kanda patted my arm reassuringly. “It’s natural to be afraid of touching your father. But you’re doing well. You shouldn’t feel bad about giving way to your emotions. Be brave. Remember who you are, his first born son.” I continued shaving, trying to block out the rasp of the razor that was magnified by the silence. The razor slipped from my grasp. “No, I can’t do it! But I don’t want Appa buried with stubble on his face.” “Yes, of course,” said Uncle Kanda. “Your Appa was always very particular about his appearance. Even till the last day, he insisted on shaving himself.” “Here, I’ll do it, bhaiya,” said Shiva. I was happy to be relieved of the task, but a harsher ordeal lay ahead, the ritual washing of my father’s body. I quailed at the prospect. Appa had been a tyrant who had oppressed his family, and even now he exerted a baleful authority. But I was determined not to shrink from my responsibility. To my dismay, there was no basin or washcloth. I had to use a hose pipe connected to the wall. It was distressing to rub the cold limbs, to lift the stiffened body on to its side and scrub the back and the shrivelled buttocks, and even more distressing when Uncle Kanda sluiced off the suds with the hose. It seemed so undignified, so impersonal - like washing a car. I dried the body and applied perfumed oil to the chest, arms, thighs, calves and feet. This was the last personal service I would perform for my father who had sired, clothed and fed me, then virtually abandoned me. It was impossible to control my divided emotions. I surrendered to the welling tears. “You don’t have to stay,” said Uncle Kanda, taking me outside. “We will do the rest. Shiva and I will dress the body.” *    *    *    *    *    *    The house had been taken over by a coterie of female relatives from my father’s side. (There were none from my mother’s side – they were all resolutely estranged, implacable in their hatred for the man who had enticed Amma from the bosom of the church and then discarded her along with his own son.) Amma, long dead, was spared the empty rites, but I couldn’t evade the duties of the first born. I let my aunts direct me and guide me through the various rituals, rituals that were foreign to my Christian beliefs but which had to be honoured to obtain moksha for my father’s wretched soul. I knelt before my father’s photo at the head of the casket and placed a garland of marigolds on it. It was a flattering studio portrait showing him as a young and handsome man, radiating wholesomeness. And he still possessed some of that aura as he lay clad in a simple tunic and dhoti. Three white lines daubed on his forehead signified that he belonged to the priestly clan. How ironical that a man of his lineage should have brought nothing but grief upon so many! I suppressed the uncharitable thought and carefully positioned a marigold on the top of the picture frame. “Remember, keep your eyes on the flower,” whispered Aunt Kamala, Appa’s youngest sister.

  The officiating pundit began chanting his mantras. This was the final opportunity for the family to express grief in private, and then the casket would be taken out into the courtyard where the other mourners had gathered. The tinkling of a brass bell punctuated the weeping. The odour of smouldering joss sticks and camphor permeated the air. I felt a gentle tug at my elbow. Aunt Kamala, with a nod of her head, pointed to what seemed to be tears collecting in the corners of Appa’s eyes. “He’s crying, Vinoo,” she said. I knew it was just moisture, the dead body sweating after removal from a mortuary environment. But then why wasn’t there any sweat on the rest of his face? “He’s sad to be leaving us, Vinoo. But it’s a sign that he’s happy because we have given him full honour and respect.” Aunty wiped the tears from Appa’s eyes. A few minutes later the tears were there again, but maybe it was just my imagination. I watched absently as relatives took turns to pay their last respects. Aunty Kamala nudged my arm again. “Vinoo, it’s your turn. Go to your Appa now.” Then she pointed. “The flower! See where it is.”

I looked at the marigold I had put on Appa’s photo. I had taken great care to wedge the stem of the marigold quite firmly behind the heavy picture frame, yet somehow it had sprung out and was now lying at the base of Appa’s portrait. I didn’t want to believe it. The stem of the flower had just popped out. It couldn’t stay up there indefinitely. It had to fall some time. And so there it was. “It’s a message from your Appa,” Aunty whispered. “He wants you to know that he is pleased with you.” Impossible. If it was a sign, then it was the first time that Appa had ever expressed his approval. Why, Appa, why? Why were you so stubborn? All my life I tried to please you. My academic and sporting achievements passed without praise, but every lapse, every failure received your stinging sarcasm. If you were ever pleased with me, why didn’t you tell me when you were alive, when it would have meant so much to me? What use is your message now? Can we embrace each other now, Appa? You have left it too late! Choking sobs convulsed my body. I knelt down for the first, the last and only time in my life to kiss my father’s feet.  *    *    *    *    *    *    A cold wind brushed our faces as we stood beside the ashes, the elongated pile a stark statement of the impermanence of things. “The body has burnt very well. Hardly any bone left,” said Uncle Kanda. He seemed inordinately pleased, but for me the sight of the ashes only served to rekindle the trauma. I recalled the shock of seeing Appa’s body lifted on to the pyre, the efficient arranging of wood around the body, the ritual sprinkling with cans of ghee, and then, most unbearable of all, as the first born son, lighting a block of camphor to ignite the funeral fire. It had been too much to bear. I was to have walked three times around the pyre, but the second time round a darkness swept over me and I stumbled and fell, vaguely aware of kind hands that held me erect. They led me off to the shade of a nearby tree, and I heard behind me the brutal sound of axe upon wood. They were smashing up the casket and feeding it to the flames. Now, the morning after, the concrete pad was still warm under my feet. The ‘pouring of milk’ would extinguish the last of the heat.

“Milk symbolises nutrition and sustenance,” said Uncle Kanda. “Pouring milk over the ashes and bones means you are releasing the body into the spirit world, and it also means you are commuting the debts that you owe your father who provided for you since your birth. It’s like a closing of accounts. Once that has been done, what is left of his mortal body, his ashes and bones, can be consigned to the sea to become united with the elements.”

I couldn’t face the grisly business of collecting my father’s bones. Fortunately Uncle Kanda took charge, using a shovel to scrape the ashes and slag into polythene bags, while Shiva gathered up the bone fragments into a bundle of cloth. We drove out of the cemetery and headed for the beach about a mile away.

I sat on a rock and shaved off my beard, a symbolic restoration of life’s humdrum normality.  Then Shiva and I waded out into a tidal channel until we were waist-deep in the water. We began emptying out the bags that held Appa’s ashes. “I’ll do the last bit, Shiva,” I said. “I want to do it alone.” I bore no malice towards Shiva, my half-brother who had supplanted me and become Appa’s favourite. Shiva nodded in acknowledgment, and I pushed on towards the twin beacons that marked the passage to Nukulau Island. It was fitting that the last of Appa’s remains should be scattered here, facing Nukulau – the very place where his girmitiya forbears had first set foot on Fiji soil a century ago.

As I neared the first beacon, I felt sharp objects digging into my feet. Were they shells, or coral, or fragments of human bones? This was, after all, a favoured spot for Hindus to scatter the ashes of their dead. Forgive me, you departed ones, if I trample upon you. The water was now up to my chest. I tried not to think about the sharks that were known to swim into the estuary with the incoming tide. If a shark did attack me, at least I would die honourably, performing the last duties of a son for his father.

A lone black heron was perched on the beacon, waiting silently as though it were a guide for departing spirits. A good omen. I untied the bundle, letting the contents sink to the bottom, and dipped my head below the water. It was unnerving to think that I was now sharing this space with my father’s ashes and bones. “You must immerse your body completely an odd number of times,” Uncle Kanda had said. But how many times? One? Three? Five? Seven? I settled on three. Any less would be niggardly; any more would be an extravagant gesture. I said a final prayer and made my way back to the sand. *    *    *    *    *    *    “No, it’s all right, thanks,” I said to the attendant who came around with the headphones. The last thing I wanted was in-flight entertainment. And then I remembered that things were not all right. I had lost my father, an absentee father who had loved me but had neglected to tell me until it was too late. But perhaps not too late to make a difference. I reached into my briefcase. “Your father wanted you to have this,” my step-mother, had told me after the funeral, handing me a large envelope containing something I had never expected. Even now I could only marvel as I leafed through the pages yet again. Yes, there he was, my Appa, in the Sacred Heart College yearbook of 1946 – R. Reddy, captain of Coolahan House, senior athletics champion, winner of the Casey Cup, Vangioni Cup, Bradbury Cup and O’Connor Cup. Not only had he won all the sprints, the hurdles, high jump, broad jump and triple jump, but he also played in the school’s 1st Eleven cricket team. A veritable Jim Thorpe! Yet Appa had never once boasted about his athletic feats. “He never talked about anything to anyone,” Uncle Kanda had said to me. What grievances had soured Appa into such bitterness? No one would ever know. But it was time to lay the past to rest. Appa, we despised each other because we didn’t understand each other. And we didn’t understand each other because we didn’t know each other. But now I think I do. Appa, finally the accounts are closed.

Raymond Pillai was one of the pioneering writers from Fiji to come out of USP in the early seventies. He is well known for his short stories that be began writing in high school from 1960. He gained fame for at that early phase and was regarded as the premier writer of prose from Fiji. He finished his second collection of short stories as writer-in-residence at the Pacific Writing Forum earlier in 2007. Raymond passed away after a short illness in Auckland New Zealand in October 2007.