Agni Chakra

Circles of Fire

Chapter 10

by Kathleen JAYAWARDENE

Translated by Ranga Chandrarathne and Edited by Indeewara Thilakarathne

The fierce face of a big white teddy bear lurked in the darkness. The teddy bear sitting on the cradle that smelt of varnish frowned at me. Lying on the lonely bed, I could hardly sleep. I was overwhelmed with strange feelings. It couldn't have been because of the heat that my throat and mouth had dried up.

Some strange transformation had taken place within me. I felt that something which could not happen had happened. Yet I did not think that it should not have happened. I did not experience the pleasant bewilderment that is said to be brought about by fatherhood. Was it because these emotions were often alien to me?

I repeatedly recalled the tiny human form through the gaps in the light blue mosquito net. The feelings inside me at that moment were too complex to put into words. It was a mixture of contradictory emotions; craving, desire, curiosity, fear and anxiety. Could it be so? Is that my child?

Is that my child…? Are they my children…?
For twenty years or more, had the children not been a reality …?
Had the children evaporated into thin air..?
Is it because of that I feel as it if were a miracle?

When Shantha's pregnancy was confirmed following a test, I felt like Freud's symbolic father. My mind drifted between 'symbolic father' and 'father' and suggested that the pregnancy could never have been real.

But….? Now it has happened.

I pressed my face to the pillow and pushed it down. Now I could not see the Teddy bear's round eyes.

The fetus which grew floating in a liquid like sea water inside the womb, had come into the world as 'a reality '. My thoughts circled around Lacan's psychoanalytical concepts of 'child', 'imagination' and 'symbolism'. Hadn't I seen the struggle of the fetus to free itself from that environment and to come into a world of symbols? The fetus was being covered with clothing of language and culture in the world of symbolism. Now it had to breathe and feel hunger.

I went back to the Oedipus Triangle and Oedipus complex:
Relationship between the mother, father and child…?
Oedipus Triangle…?
The child's confusion is over why it being separated from the mother…
Oedipus complex….
With closed eyes, I thought of the Oedipus complex.
The child….? Deprive the child of its mother…? What is the obstacle…?

My thoughts were drifting into the past, into the future and once again into the past. Mother..? Loss of her..? being deprived of her? Was it father or uncle who deprived me of my mother? How could this be analysed according to Freudian Psychology?

Though I could not recall my mother's face, I could recall her warmth. That was because the floor of the house was very cold. Since I crawled on the rag which absorbed dampness of the floor, mother's warmth was equal to a thousand bed-sheets.

Sometimes in the midnight hour, someone's rough hands would deprive me of this comfortable warmth. I gazed into the darkness as if watching a match making shadows on the wall. On full-moon days, I could see those shadowy forms clearly.

Though mother had covered me with a wall of bedclothes against the pillow, I propped myself up to watch the performance. Voyeurism arose in my subconscious and strangely it sprang up together with fury and disgust towards the man who deprived me of my mother's warmth.

What was this? Is the French word "juissance" sufficient to describe it? I heard in Lacan Psychology that the term "juissance" has sexual connotations. The English word 'enjoyment' does not sum it up sufficiently. Whatever it was, I longed for that moment.

"Now, please be off quickly; if the man appears, there will be trouble". I heard this usual whisper in dreamy state. I woke up from that dream and the moment that 'man' or 'my father' appeared. Why did father, who went to perform in Sanniyakuma without dinner, return at midnight? Why did he come in the middle of the night or at dawn?

The moment that mother got up after lying down for half a day following the attack with the club, used to fasten up the door and the way she warmed her ribs with a bag of hot ash , was indelibly inscribed in my memory. Mother went to the well to have a wash in the evening following the incident never returned again.

"Boy...Mahasona attacked your mother….and left five finger marks! "

I went to the bathing area of the river with aunty who was crying loudly. There was a bundle covered in a sheet but no mother. I saw the bathing area packed with people including a kaki-clad policeman. I looked for a long time at the policeman's shorts, shoes and stockings.

The strongeset memory following mother' burial, was the police jeep crashing to a halt in front of the house, father getting onto it and someone taking me away.

I heard aunty saying that my mother's time of puberty was bad and she had been possessed by a demon from her teens. She said that mother would fall into a trance as soon as she heard drums beating at a place where black magic was performed. She had been possessed by Kalu Kumaraya.

"When she is in a trance, even ten men cannot calm her down. She had such mighty strength! Only Piyadasa could control her…"

She told how father who was an exorcist, calmed mother down at a black magic performance.

When father went for a Sanni Yakuma, I would sometimes accompany him. I would closely examine flowers, beetle leaves, fish and meat put on a basket made of banana trunks and tender coconut leaves. Later I learned that Sanni Yakuma was a term used for eighteen devils i.e bhootha, abhootha, maru, amukku, vedi, vaatha, pith, ginijal, gulma, jala, bihiri,Kana, golu, seethla, deva, murthu, demala and kola.

Anthropologists say that ailments can be cured by the patient suffering from the disease being possessed by devils.

Yet this is the systematic argument employed to justify all sciences. Could there be sociological explanations for these sciences? Alhough facts can be derived from genes or historical incidents, can they be considered to be real criteria?

After that day, I never saw father. That Mahasona did not kill mother was a secret and the police did not come to arrest Mahasona. Thereafter, I referred to the uncle as 'father'.

I got up and covered the teddy bear devil with Shantha's nighty. I smelled a maiden fragrance of baby cologne. I heard the usual drum beat like a melody. A scene from Sinhabahu was unfolding before my eyes.

Lion's eyes were beaming with full of love for the sun ….? Filial love …

'filial love penetrates through the flesh

And to the bones

Resting on the bone marrow causes pain…."

The lion disappeared and the son appeared; he scurried fro and to with a worried face. What was written over that face?

Doubt…? Anxiety …?

"Father I have no happiness

Forgive me if I made mistakes Thoughts drift in all directions When we live in this desolate den…."

The lion looked at the son with love …?

Son's bow…?

The moment, when fatherly love was turned to anger...?

The bow…dreams….

Illusion… reality…

I heard that dreams were often based on the fundamentals of culture. Most of the time, our needs were manifested in dreams through traditional symbols. For a moment, I walked back to the mirror. A vast landscape was being drawn on the canvas of my mind. The iron image of a weak, thin woman appeared on the screen of mind. I gazed with awe. The image of the woman which gradually developed was that of my mother's with an actress' bust.

I traced mother's image as though exhuming a body. I could not easily identify her because the body was distorted by sand and soil. The decomposed body was like a skeleton. Was the seed of hysteria hidden in the melted bone marrow? Was it that dissatisfaction that manifested from time to time, stirred up by the drum beat?

I could hardly tell whether Shantha's world and mine were shrunken or expanded by the arrival of our son Prabuddha. Gradually I began to love our son. Was that because of the bloodline? I really did not know whether it was because of his sportiness that I loved him.

I observed with interest Shantha's cuddling postures as she breast-fed our son. I did so without her knowledge. Her downcast eyes showed a pleasant surprise. I could recall her facial expression at a moment of divine bliss with no sense of time. I looked at the child.

He looked at Shantha with sparkling eyes as if he was looking at his own image. He was passing the reflective phase of life. The time when he picked up language would be considered as his next birth. One born with a body could be reincarnated as another being through language.

Was it not because of the miracle of language that people were distinguished by cast?