Father's House (Short Story)

Father's House

By

Tipu Salman Makhdoom

(Translated from Punjabi)

Only the humble build homes: sparrows, ants, and the middle class. Have wild beasts ever built palaces?

I was nearly swallowed by walls, sprouting from the earth, and a scene from that time remains etched in my mind to this day. Perhaps it's a true memory, or maybe a film formed from countless retellings. My father, burdened by debt, would bring me every other day to witness the house taking shape. "This will be our home," he'd repeat, "This will be our home." He'd say it over and over, like street vendors flaunting a new trinket. He was overjoyed. For his economic class, building a home is like giving birth, a process that rattles one to the core from within. The rest of one's life is spent nurturing and raising it, only to eventually end up in a six-foot grave oneself.

The entire family, like chicks, would follow Father, stroking the small, forming rooms within the ten marlas of land. "This is my room," someone would declare, "This is mine!"

Usually, I'd tag along with them, but that one time, my attention was wholly captivated by water. The laborers had dug a small pond, about five feet long and wide, and three feet deep. I grabbed a stick, squatted at the edge of the pond, and began to float leaves on the water. As I pushed one leaf forward, I stumbled, and with a splash, I was in the pond. It was the month of Poh—the coldest time of year. My screams brought everyone running. Drown? In that three-foot pond? Of course not, but the fright I got was immense. I ran a fever for days afterward, whether from the cold or the sheer terror, I couldn't say.

The house wasn't built all at once. We moved in after the drawing room, kitchen, and two bedrooms were roofed. My grandmother, whenever she visited, would laugh and say that my father had moved us in without even bothering to install bathroom doors. That's why she didn't come to stay with us for three years!

What could Father do? The money had simply run out. To track the loan installments, Father would write his small government salary in large letters in a register, subtract the installment, and then draw thirty lines beneath it. Mother also drew thirty lines, but hers were on the ghee tin.

On the first Eid in our new home, no one got new clothes or shoes. Since we were all quite young, Mother knew a huge fuss was inevitable. She handled us very democratically. Gathering everyone, she explained that the extra money had gone into the house, and so something had to be done about Eid. Either Father would have to work until late for two months, or this time, no one would get new clothes or shoes. Everyone but me fell for it. I threw a huge fit, demanding that even if I didn't get clothes, I absolutely had to have new shoes. As the youngest and most pampered, an exception was made for me, and my shoes arrived two weeks early. The moment my shoes came, the whole family started to act a bit silly. They'd constantly make fun remarks, "Oh, how beautiful your shoes are! Brand new! You'll look like a prince on Eid!" I became like the Beast from "Beauty and the Beast," destined to transform into a prince on Eid day, simply by putting on my new shoes. Every day, I'd have someone take them out of the cupboard so I could look at them. Eid came, but I wouldn't wear my new shoes.

Mother would try to put them on me, and I'd throw a tantrum, insisting, "Not yet! I'll wear these on Eid!" At first, everyone just laughed and tried to get me to wear them. Then, one by one, they all started crying. Now, every Eid, we make sure to eat sweet vermicelli and boiled eggs, and we always talk about that particular Eid.

Seven years later, when we added two more rooms, another accident befell me. The roof had just been laid, and I, playing, ran into the room to catch a ball. At that very moment, two bricks, I don't know how, fell through the wooden planks from above. It was a miracle I survived. First, Mother quickly found seven whole red chilies, stems and all. She waved them over me and burned them in the stove. When she saw they were producing a lot of smoke as they burned, she started hitting her head, saying, "I always suspected that wretched Aashi!" Aashi was our neighbor. Then, she sent my elder brother to the market for a live, jet-black hen. She waved it over my head. That, too, was quite a story, as circling a desi hen seven times around my head was no laughing matter. Once that was done, my brother and I were sent to throw the hen before wild animals. This was another problem—where would one find wild animals in the city? But Mother insisted we throw the hen only to a wild animal. At that time, there were fields just a short distance from our house. We wandered around for a long time, but where would we find a wild animal in the fields? Finally, we spotted a stray dog.

My brother sighed in relief, but I protested, "That's a dog, not a wild animal!" My brother, being quite mischievous, started to play-act, "Look how dangerously it's staring at us with those eyes! It's definitely wild!" When he saw I was wavering, he added another trick to scare me, "It's very hungry. If we don't give it the hen, it will tear us apart and eat us!" For the first time, I saw its teeth, and I agreed. But when we untied the hen's feet and threw it towards the dog, it darted off and ran away. The foolish dog just stood there. I immediately declared that I would go home and tell Mother that the hen had escaped. My brother had a solution for this too. All the way home, he kept explaining that the dog hadn't caught the hen in front of us because it was a well-bred dog. Didn't Mother always tell us not to pounce on food like greedy guests in front of others? In the same way, the dog's mother had taught it manners, and it wasn't ill-mannered like me. It had, in fact, jumped and caught the hen after we left and was now tearing it apart and eating it. It had twisted its neck, pulled out its guts. My brother spun such a tale that by the time we reached home, the film of the dog eating the hen was firmly cemented in my mind. At home, I testified before Mother that a very wild, savage dog had torn apart and eaten the hen right in front of us. To this day, my brother teases me about that story.

The matter wasn't quite closed yet. The antidote for Aashi's evil eye was still needed. From the chili smoke, Mother had become convinced that Aashi had cast an evil eye on me. She was just so jealous. Mother was also certain that Aashi practiced black magic. Now, I was given the task of collecting dirt from under Aashi's feet. The dirt had to be fresh, and it didn't necessarily have to be from directly under her foot; dirt from under her shoe would also suffice. I completed this task too, but it took me two days. Was it easy to pick up dirt from someone's foot? If anyone saw me, there'd be an uproar that we were performing black magic on her. One day, I was just too scared, but on the second day, I mustered my courage. Where Aashi auntie had walked, I dropped my twenty-five paisa coin, and as I picked it up, I also pinched a bit of dirt. The moment I grabbed the pinch, it felt as if the whole neighborhood was watching me. My heart began to pound like a wild frog. I darted from there, straight to Mother. Mother praised me, and quickly lit the stove, putting the dirt inside. Seeing the smoke from the burning dirt, she became certain that Aashi auntie had indeed cast the evil eye on me. But now, with the burning of the dirt from her feet, the remedy had been performed, and Mother was at ease.

When my sister got married, holding weddings in hotels and halls wasn't customary then. All the wedding functions took place at home, by blocking off the neighborhood street. There was a commotion for two months. Every weekend, drums would beat. For the wedding, we had also put in a new carpet and new curtains in the TV room. Dark brown was very much in fashion those days, so that's what we got. Wall-to-wall carpets were also just starting to become popular, and we had our first wall-to-wall carpet installed in the TV room. Our TV room looked so beautiful. After the drum sessions, old sheets would be spread over the new carpet for meals.

We were forbidden from going to the roof; there were no railings, after all. But when were we ever stopped? Secretly, we'd climb onto the roof every other day. I loved the view of the surroundings from our roof. With sparsely spaced houses, one could see far into the distance. Even the fields were visible. After the singing and music, when the girls would join Mother in preparing food, all the boys would climb onto the roof to smoke cigarettes. Next to the back room was a quarter, whose roof was made of beams and was three or four feet lower than the house. We'd first put a chair against the wall, climb onto the quarter's roof using its support, and from there, onto the main house roof.

The groom's procession stayed in a tent set up on the street, but the mehndi ceremony took place inside the house. The entire house was decorated with lights—small, kulfi-like bulbs, green and red, from the roof down to the floor. Chairs were set up in the lawn for guests. They were set up again three years later, for Father's funeral.

Putting up the tents and canopies for the mehndi was a real struggle. We had to go up to the roof repeatedly, without a ladder. The funeral tents, however, were put up with great ease. By then, a round iron staircase had been installed. Father himself had it put in. The dead body arrived from the hospital and was placed on Father's bed. The bed remained there for thirty-three years. Mother never moved it. The funeral procession left from the TV room. Even then, everything was the same: the dark brown wall-to-wall carpet and the dark brown curtains.

When my brother left for Canada, I went to see him off at the airport. Those were days of strange chaos. The grieving went on for weeks. Sometimes a document would be missing, sometimes a problem with his stay there would emerge. I wanted to hug him and cry, but in all that commotion, I never found the chance. On the way to the airport, when we hugged for the last time in Mother's room, the whole family was standing there, the flight time was approaching, and his friends and in-laws were also present. I felt like a stranger. Then, when we met at the airport, half the family was there again, surrounded by a throng of people, and a bag couldn't be found. When I returned home, I sat on the dark brown wall-to-wall carpet in the TV room and cried for a long time.

In the early days of my marriage, when my wife would secretly cook something for me, she'd close the kitchen door. I'd sit with Mother, chatting about this and that, just to ensure Mother wouldn't head towards the kitchen.

The guava tree in the backyard has been cut down; it had gotten termites. At the time of my wedding, it stood exactly where Father had planted it. Because of it, you couldn't see into the neighbors' house, so my wife would wash clothes there. Sometimes, I'd help her. We'd laugh, splash water on each other, and talk.

One day, there was a panic. Both older children were missing. The older one was just starting to walk slowly, and the younger one was still crawling. Finally, they were found. They were trying to climb the round iron staircase. Luckily, the older one was trying to help the younger brother climb along, which is why they hadn't gotten far. If the girl had been alone, she would have been on the roof long ago. After that, I brought wire from the market and tied it across the stairs.

When my son mentioned his friends going abroad for studies four times in a single week, I decided that he had grown up. Now, I had to break the illusion of "Father-Superman" for him. I couldn't sleep all night. I tried to remember when my own "Father-Superman" illusion had shattered and how it had felt. It just wouldn't come to mind. Whenever I tried to think about Father, all I could recall was him circling the house as it was being built. The call to prayer sounded. Frustrated, I went out into the open air.

Returning, the moment I opened the TV room door, I gasped. Inside, around Father's funeral bed, Mother and Sister were sitting on the drum, Brother stood holding a bag, the children were standing near the stairs, and my wife sat under the shade of the guava tree, holding a bucket of clothes. Everyone was looking at me.