MEMORY OF THAT SWEET OLD MAN - short story

By Tilak S. Fernando - LONDON MAIL.

Anne bid good-bye to her father, at the end of a long ten-month's stay in Colombo with somewhat mixed feelings this time. She could feel her father's drawn, emaciated frame trembling. Her eyes filled with tears, but then, leaving her family and returning to London has always been painful even after a glorious holiday in Sri Lanka. However, this time it was quite different and her prolonged stay was quite unexpected too.

Every year, Anne made it a point to make Sri Lanka as her holiday venue. Although she had fulfilled everything in England, from a higher education, a happy marriage and social status, money, expensive motor cars, detached houses, a loving family and all the imaginable material comforts in London, she always felt that inexplicable vacuum within herself whenever she thought of her childhood spent in Sri Lanka. True, it was a basic, simple, and an unsophisticated life, yet the nostalgia was too strong and it always hit her back like a boomerang.

This time Anne's stay in Sri Lanka was different. She was not worried about the restrictions on travel with so many security check points - checking her 'ID' only. In the ten month period she had been together with her parents, her father's mental and physical status had deteriorated before her very own eyes, but she never felt her leave taking was to be her last!

A fortnight after Anne returned to her London base, her bedside telephone screamed one early morning to warn her that her father had been rushed to a private hospital with a massive heart attack - to be operated on. Anne was once again flying SriLankan airways, home bound, desperately hoping to reach her father's bedside, before he passed away. It was, however, not to be.

Anne felt a sense of hopelessness overcoming her. ' Those of us who have lost our parents invariably say that we regret for not having said all the things that needed to be said. If only we could have those last few days or weeks all over again - or a few hours', she thought.

Anne's brothers and sisters were all living abroad. The term," Abroad", still had a social prestige in Sri Lanka, she thought, after nearly 53 years of independence on the Island. " We need years all over again to reconcile ourselves to the lives we lead and the people we have become," thought Anne Jayasekera.

Going abroad to study in the 1970's was the goal of every ambitious student, or more to the point, the driving force behind every anxious parent. Anne's father was more keen than most. Inevitably, Anne left Sri Lanka in pursuit of higher education at a London University to read a PhD in Philosophy. According to Anne's family astrologer, Ronald, she would not have been kept in Sri Lanka "even bound with metal chains"! Her path, therefore, had to lead to England - the " Mother Country" & the source of education!

Anne was soon able to quote Keats and Milton effortlessly, but how little of Gurulugome or Maurapada! The English history, the Tudors, the wars of the Roses, The Spanish Armada, any such detail was crystal clear in Anne's photographic mind, but those of Gira Sandesaya, Guttila Kawaya, Hansa Sandesaya or Ummagga Jathakaya, apart from the Sri Lankan history, were very hazy.

Anne's brothers and sisters had left home, in turn, to various parts of the world, and her parents remained in a large, empty house, with their ambition fulfilled and their pride in their off-springs demonstrated by the family photographs that filled heaps of photo-albums, some of which were now becoming discoloured & defaced.

The ageing parents could feel a sort of family togetherness on the days when airmail envelopes dropped into the red letterbox on the front gate. In time, the family photographs were augmented by those of grandchildren and, Anne's parents continued to glory in their extended family that included sons and daughters-in-law of various nationalities -a mini United Nations!

The reality of all these did not strike Anne until those last few weeks with her parents. Her father had been in good health since he retired. Both her parents had visited their children several times, who were living abroad. They loved every trip that took them to different parts of the world - London, Los Angeles, New Zealand, Australia etc.

Two years after her father's retirement, he showed an ambition to immigrate to the UK. Naturally, Anne's parents loved to be with their favourite daughter and in the company of grand children. Anne, however, discouraged such thoughts of her father because she always was afraid for both of them. Her father, a man of immense dignity, respected, revered by those who knew him at home as a ' cultured, educated and an imaginative man' would be another " Coloured man " derided by England's yobs and, perhaps, hated and resented in some quarters, thought Anne. She would, therefore, never permit her father to endure that; her father would never have understood how much emotions could be generated in the " mother country," thought Anne. Her father accepted her advice. He continued to become frail while her mother began to sink under anxiety.

During the last few weeks together with her father, Anne noticed how her father's mind wandered from time to time. However, there was a certain amount of truth, in those wanderings, that was mainly too painful to bear. She noticed how blurred details of her father's life emerged when his mind wandered - the generations over-lapped so that Anne's mother and her father's mother merged occasionally. During such wanderings in his mind, one theme became crystal clear. He saw himself always as the head of the family. In his fantasy, he spoke of his family settled in a large single compound with acres of land, a stone's throw from Pita Kotte junction, with sons and daughters and dozens of grand children close at hand. It was vividly real to him as he "saw" his grandchildren grow up, their future shaping according to their interests and characteristics. In his imaginary family compound he offered Anne and her brothers and sisters money to help them buy adjoining land, and even took charge of building and supervising each family house himself.

During Anne's long stay this time, she had been talking to her father gently for many hours in those months. She let him become part of her father's waking dream, his family together, and close at hand. One day when his mind was clear and he was in the painful world of the present, Anne asked her father if he would encourage his children to leave home and go abroad in search of education, if he had his time over again. His answer unhesitatingly was " YES"!

Anne's parents were lonely and had spent many sad hours remembering their family gatherings, but they thought it was worth their while to see their children settled " abroad", where Anne and her other brothers and sisters had so many opportunities.

Anne was once again returning to London, after her father's funeral, engulfed in a wave of deep sadness. During the long flight from Colombo to London, her mind turned into a mini cinema screen. For, she could visualise detailed pictures of the realities and past circumstances - especially the last ten months she spent with her dear father, devoting her full attention and spending her entire stay by his bedside.

Providence is quite unpredictable. Anne was not destined to be with her most respected and loved man on this earth at the very crucial moment when she would have liked to sit beside him, hold his hands and to whisper: " Father, thank you very much for everything you have done for all of us".

Anne Jayasekera was lost in a wave of deep thought for many months after her father's demise. Whenever her last trip to Colombo comes to her mind, Anne still becomes a confused woman, and she is yet to find an answer to a vital question that entered her mind, at the loss of her beloved father.

Is the regret, Anne now feels, self indulgent ..? Is the multi-cultulturalism she proudly accepted in England adequate to compensate for the memory of that " lovely old man" seeking comfort in the wandering of a senile mind.........?

Tilak S. Fernando