Chapter -1:

Drifting clouds

By Sunil GOVINNAGE

Jayadeva looked at the Qantas plane disappearing, like a big bird into the sky over Perth International Airport. He attempted to visualise where his daughter, Sunitha, would be sitting in the aircraft which is now a fast fading image. Jayadeva sat motionless, his eyes transfixed on the large flying machine carrying his daughter away. Willing his old and feeble eyes to focus better, Jayadeva attempted to track the path of the plane as it ascended into drifting clouds over Perth skyline. He was shedding tears but did not attempt to dry his eyes. When his wife Malini offered him a Kleenex tissue, he motioned with his head ‘no.’ Jayadeva saw a suppressed laughter in her face. Indignant, he argued in his head:

- How can she take life so lightly? Especially when her own daughter is leaving the family, going to another part of this strange country, perhaps never to return?

By and large, Malini took life easily, adjusting to events as they came, particularly after they had moved to Perth twenty years ago. When Malini first learnt that Sunitha their twenty four year old daughter had plans to move to Sydney, her initial reaction was to worry, but she purged her emotions quickly. For Malini, seeing Jayadeva weeping seemed very silly. In fact, she had rarely seen him cry.

She called their son, Asela, who was playing a video game in the observation lounge:

“Sam, Putha, could you please come over for a minute?”

“Wait a minute Mum! I’m trying to get the highest score and to keep our name on this digital creature. Then, it will be there forever! What’s the rush?”

“Those are meant for kids, not for budding doctors!” Malini replied loudly calling Asela a budding doctor although he worked as a kitchen aide in a restaurant in Perth. A young woman with a fanciful hairstyle and thick make-up, overheard Malini calling Asela a ‘budding doctor ‘and she gazed at Asela admiringly.

“Come here to see old fellow shedding tears for his daughter who left home to enjoy her independence,” she said in Sinhala this time. Although Asela didn’t speak Sinhala, he understood the language other than the subtle nuances. She saw him mouthing ‘no.’ Asela turned his head and refocused his attention on his digital game.

Jayadeva moved slowly from the observation deck and walked towards the stairs, preferring to use them instead of taking the lift back to the ground floor. Malini felt sad for Jayadeva. She looked at his bald head which had once been full of healthy, black, curly hair. Malini decided to cheer him up and changed subjects.

“Perth International Airport hasn’t changed much over the last twenty years,” she said. “Everything in Perth is slow; nothing ever changes. Can you remember the day we came to this airport without knowing anyone in Perth? How long ago that was. It’s all like a dream now!” Malini pointed to a few seats in the arrival lounge. “That’s where we slept for hours in the morning, the day we arrived in Perth, twenty years ago!”

“That’s ages ago, Mum! Who worries about how you came or what you did back then? What is important is present. That’s all now matters. Ask Dad. That’s what he always says. What is that favourite poem he recites when he is in a jolly mood?

‘Twas only striking from the Calendar

Unborn To-morrow, and dead yesterday.

Asela recited from the Rubáiyát with an Aussie accent, without knowing of the poem’s Middle-Eastern origin.

“Isn’t that right, Dad?” Asela asked.

“Well, apparently today is not sweet for your Dad!” Malini replied drily. “Maybe it is true that he liked that poem, but I think he has always lived in ‘dead yesterday,’ at least ever since he came to Australia! Now he is worried about Sunitha. Maybe he is already missing the opportunity of protecting her,” she said, lowering her voice.

Malini saw Jayadeva’s feeble eyes filling with tears again. She had thought the recollection of their arrival in Perth would bring good memories and sooth Jayadeva’s mind, now clouded over with sadness. She was wrong.

Her training and the orientation as a doctor reminded her that men over sixty could become very emotional and tend to develop depression. She often drew on her knowledge, even though she had given up practising medicine for several years now.

They walked to the car park. The hot February sun was blazing in the sky, shooting its blistering rays down onto the earth. Jayadeva rushed into the car and started the air conditioner even before he got the car running. Perth’s February weather was still too hot for him.

He manoeuvred the car into a fast moving queue and found his way to the exit gate. He paid the parking fee by using his credit card, and then drove out of the airport towards the city.

“What’s your problem?” Malini said impatiently. “Sue will be fine! I think she will do well on her own in Sydney. She has a few good friends there. Sue told me that she would stay with Jasmine for a few days until she finds a place on her own.”

“Jasmine Taylor!” Jayadeva sighed in relief.

Jasmine had studied with Sunitha at high school. She had moved to Sydney a few years ago to do her pre-medicine courses. Jayadeva knew her father well.

“But the point is Sunitha should have completed her law degree here, in Perth, instead of leaving us and going to another part of this strange country. We are all just foreigners here and bloody outsiders! Look at this newspaper headline!” He pointed to the newspaper sitting in between the front seats. The headline introduced its story boldly: ‘Another group of illegal Asian boat people!’

“I don’t know how she is going to find accommodation and cook her food and study at the same time.”

“She is no longer your baby. She is a grown-up woman! She is twenty-four, my dear old fellow! If you think that you are still not part of this great country, then it is still not too late to move out to another country. Maybe your Sri Lanka! There are no more wars in Sri Lanka! You still have your dual citizenship and Sri Lankan passport. It’s only me and the kids got Aussie passports. I have no other place to go!” Malini said angrily. “It was your great dream to come to this land of opportunities!” She looked out the car window and added,

“Asela will also leave very soon, maybe long before he finishes his apprentice course.” Turning to look into the back seat, she saw Asela sleeping. He always slept in a moving vehicle.

“What’s your problem Mr Gamage?” Malini continued after a while, calling him by his surname, as was her habit whenever she wanted to speak emphatically. “I think you are behaving like Sinhabahu. You want us to be in your imaginary cave. Have you realised that this is not ancient Sri Lanka, even if that story is true? You are not that lion-father who always should protect us. If you could, you would lock the doors and keep us inside your cave. You’d open doors only to give us food, and maybe to let us go out for a few minutes under your supervision. That is not a real life! That is Sinhabahu in your old dreamy mind and you can’t be living in a mythical world. You need to come down to the earth, even in your last few years! Where have you been living during the last twenty years?”

Jayadeva did not utter a word. He guided the car into the slow lane and allowed the vehicles behind him to overtake them. Turning off onto Mounts Bay Road, Jayadeva looked out the window and enjoyed the view of boats sailing on the Swan River, like butterflies sitting on blue velvet.

He drove carefully on the road bordered by the river on one side and a huge wall on the other. The wall held back the earth from Mt Eliza, where King’s Park had once flourished. Only recently, it had been converted into a green urban village for the rich.

As soon as they reached the house, Malini said, “Well, I have to go to a ‘Good-Way’ meeting. I think I’m already late. Diamond directors must be punctual.” Good Way was an international company that promoted a new life style and commodity program that Malini had embraced over ten years ago. She rushed to her Mercedes and backed out of the garage.

“Dad, I also have to go to Shanu’s place. I’ll see you around dinner time. Are you going to cook a good curry? I may come home with Shanu. See you Dad. Be happy! Don’t be sad. Sue will be okay.” Asela placed a kissed on his father’s cheek before disappearing for the evening.

Jayadeva felt the silence growing and feeding his loneliness. For over an hour he walked around the house as if he had lost something. Finally, he went to the kitchen, drank a glass of water and sat down in his study. He longed to listen to a few songs in Sinhala, but was too lazy to get up from his cosy chair. Instead, Jayadeva closed his eyes and replayed the vanished image of the plane disappearing with his daughter into the blue sky.

- When will I see her again? Will I see her again at all?

He remembered being very upset when she refused his offer to accompany her to Sydney.

- Yes, Malini is right. She is a big woman now, but she is still my little daughter.

His mind wondered, like a bird that had lost its way when the daylight suddenly disappeared due to an eclipse of the sun. His mind tried to find a place to settle, but memories appeared like images superimposed on a screen, one frame after another, blocking out the present.

- It is ironic that Sunitha took an international flight to Sydney today. It is just like the one we came into this country. It may be the beginning of another journey for her. Asela will also move out one day, sooner or later on another route, perhaps.

Jayadeva was scared. He closed his eyes against and tried to remember how it all began, some twenty-four years ago. He saw Perth for the first time again, from the air. He felt once again what it was like, as the plane descended to deposit them in a strange country.

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Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.