Short story

Coming home

by Jeannette Cabraal

The two tall candles flickered in the sombre atmosphere of the funeral parlour where the man lay in his last repose, arrayed in a simple white trouser and shirt and tie ready for his final departure. Crimson curtains formed the backdrop and a crimson posy of carnations lay at his feet with the simple tag 'From Clara son and daughter.'

A lone woman clad in grey in the traditional style, hair combed back and tied up in a simple knot stood pensively by the coffin. One could not detect any sign of tears or anguish or misery written on that face but a marked pensiveness even a tinge of compassion or sympathy as she tried to scan every feature of that immobile form.

And as she gazed, a vista of the past seemed to open up before her, as the Red Sea opened a passage for Moses to pass through in the Old Testament. She walked slowly, lingering along that open pathway as she had walked alone the past 31 years of her life.

She saw herself as a bride of 18 walking up the isle promising 'to love and obey till death to us part'.

The glamour and fascination of her grand wedding had worn off pretty fast and had left her three years and a son and daughter later, a divorcee-a term she found utterly repulsive.

Life with him had been intolerable. He had left the house; she had waited for him for two years and had found shelter in her parental home.

She considered it a dishonour to her parents to have a divorced daughter, and the quizzical inquiries of neighbours, friends, relations were simply intolerable.

Pittance

The maintenance he paid her was a mere pittance which dwindled off as the years went by. She had tried her hand at various jobs but for the most part she was dependent on her father.

Her mother had not got over the slur of this wrecked marriage-for so it was considered in the days gone by-and had gone to an early grave. All too soon the children had grown up, married and had children of their own.

Her needs had been met by them. Yes it was with their consent and cooperation that he was getting these final rites now.

But he? What of him? Wandering from one chummery to another forsaken by his own kith and kin slatternly dressed he had walked through the world, a lone figure.

The attempts of the children to see him in chance places had been rebuffed. He had turned out to be rather eccentric.

Locked up one day in the room of the chummery he lodged in, he was seized with a violent grip of the heart causing him to fall off the bed and there he lay writing and struggling, when the owner of the chummery having missed him at meals forced open the door to find him in this deplorable condition.

He was quickly despatched to hospital where he succumbled. His relations and whereabouts being unknown police messages were sent out which turned out to be futile. A few hours more and a pauper's burial awaited him.

In the room of the chummery the owner was making a frantic search for some clue of his relatives or whereabouts.

He came upon nothing and had given up hope when he chanced upon a feeble scrap of paper dated years back bearing an address.

It was a quirk of fate or destiny that the address should be that of his former wife. The chummery owner was dueless as to whose it was but traced it and conveyed the news of the death.

The wife who had been estranged for 31 years heard the news with mixed feelings and having contacted the children decided on a decent burial for him.

Mortuary

His relatives when contacted backed out anticipating expenses to be borne. "After all," they said, "We haven't been in contact with him for years. We have never known his whereabout. We had ceased all dealings with him." In the mortuary the man had looked a sorry sight, clothed in a much soiled and discoloured sarong, bare-bodied.

He had seemed every inch a pauper. Here lying in the coffin he looked quite presentable, not a vestige of his former condition. 'For somewhere in his youth or childhood he must have done something good.'

Were those the hands that 31 years ago had ever so often been lifted to assault her and would never lift again?

Were those the lips that had ever so often given utterance to bitter, angry, insulting words and would never open again?

Were those the feet that had ever so often strayed away from the home and would stray no more? She mused bitterly.

Final rites

Her reverie was broken by the footsteps of people arriving for the final rites. The priest, the choristers, her children and their families, her siblings, their families and neighbours. After all he was not getting a pauper's burial.

The priest spoke of the duties of a husband and father. She could hardly repress a smile! He had come home at last! After 31 years of waiting when all was said and done when all the responsibilities were over he had come.

He had not done his duty but destiny had decreed that she should perform hers. She had shown mercy as she expected mercy to be shown to her." Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers that you do unto me."

"Coming Home! Coming Home"!

Never more to roam,

Open are thy arms of love,

I am coming home",

The plaintive strains of the hymn rose and fell as he was laid to rest.