A Date with the Dead
By Vincent D’Souza
I must have dozed off after midnight.
Mirzapur on Netflix had become too gory and tiring and I remember the clock on my MacBook said 12:07 AM. The Black Dog seemed to have lulled me a little later than usual. I had located what looked like an empty bottle in the now-desolate bar and when I had held it up to the reading lamp, there was a bit more than a decent peg.
I don’t have a night light in my room. But there are, like the stars in the clear Madras skies, a variety of other little lights, often feeding my imagination and stirring dreams of anxiety. The green of the UPS. The orange and red of the air-conditioner. Two glassy reds of the extension line pads. The dim tube light streaming in from the parking lot of the neighbouring apartment block. And years ago, a rosary gifted by a priest that hung from the bookstand near my bed emitting light in the dark. The crucifix, an extra green-yellow.
This was Lockdown Day 43. Or maybe, 44.
And all through, I had gone to bed towards midnight.
People begin to speak to you at that hour.
They are either the dead or the distant.
Mothers and classmates. Neighbours and friends.
They tap on window panes. The sound like the teleprinter that fascinated me at the Hindustan Times office on Floor 2 of this Mount Road building where we used to reside for some 24 odd years.
I let them tap. And lend my ears. That pleases them. They continue. Briefly though.
On rainy nights, I write verses.
But tonight, I was in a sweat. And my skin was turning cold.
I was at the Quibble Island Cemetery.
I did not have to fuel the dream. That morning, for no reason, I had scrolled down to a photograph of this quaint graveyard on the Cloud and posted it on my FaceBook page.
Beatrix D’ Souza told me it was a beautiful place alongside the Adyar Estuary. She would be buried in her husband’s grave. So she would be guaranteed to have the frangipani flowers drop on her stone in the summer months. The graves of her parents were for her brothers, already reserved.
They brought me here in a hearse van. The fake gold-plated creepers and purple-coloured flowers lining its pillars. I had seen these parked outside the crematorium in Besant Nagar. Surprisingly, it did not stink of death. Nor of the soot that climbs up from the tall chimneys and reminds Besant Nagarites that soot is all they come to in the end. Not dust.
The gates of Quibble were wide open. In the far corner, my eyes caught part of a naked bulb dangling inside a torn, red Christmas star hung in a tiled house. Here lived Thereisammal, along with her son, taking care of the Catholic section of the graveyard. When I used to take people on Heritage Walks, Thereisammal would be at the gate to receive us, still dressed in an ironed sari she had worn for the 6.30 Mass at Lazarus Church.
They dropped me under the arch and I took some deep breaths, gulping in the faint air that swept in the sickening smell of dying algae, roasted plastic and human excreta floating in the Adyar Estuary.
“Good night!”
It seemed like a voice had escaped from below, stony and soft.
“Sit down.”
My eyes got used to the darkness. And the shades of white. The raised graves of the nuns of the FMM congregation, all of the same size and design, all white-washed on All Souls Day last year.
“You can sit on a gravestone. They won’t trouble you.”
I seemed comfortable here. I threw back my hands and stretched my back. The fingers traced: ‘Sister Francisca. Born: 23 Jan.1955. Ordained: 25 June 1978. Died: 4 Nov. 2009.’
“Are you a real Catholic?”
“But who are you?”
“You will know…soon…are you Catholic?”
“I was born one.”
“You cannot be born a Catholic.”
“Okay, christened one.”
“Do you have a grave for yourself?”
“I won’t need one.”
“You aren’t dead already, are you?”
“When I do die, I’d like to be burnt and my ashes buried in a small hole here . . .”
“How can I help you in this?”
“You could plant a wild sunflower plant!”
“Why is that?”
“It just keeps reaching for the sun all the time!”
A funnel of warm breath hit my face then.
“By the way, who the hell are you and why am I here?”
“Your time is at hand . . .”
Sweat broke out all over me, pooling into the nun’s tombstone, a plaque of simple grey granite.
“Would it matter if your ashes were buried in the Catholic section or in the Protestant section, here?”
“No”
“Then why are they still fighting over my rotting body?”
“Who?”
“My wife, my family, the lawyers…..why are they concerned?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“My wife has now gone to court. She could have let things pass…”
The breeze from the Marina was a bit pleasant now. I had stopped sweating.
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“I was restless.”
“Are you dead or alive now?”
“Dead and alive…hold my hand and see for yourself.”
Something moved from across the next gravestone, of another FMM nun.
I took a deep breath and put my hand out. And touched wet mud.
My fingers had locked in. And what seemed like long worms slipped all over my fingers.
“How does it feel?”
“As if you have risen from a grave.”
“I rose many days ago. Will you go and tell my wife that?”
“Are you real?”
“Just tell her . . .”
“And if I don’t, are you going to kill me here?”
“Your time has come.”
“For what?”
“To leave, to go, to tell my wife.”
“Shit! This is turning into one big joke. Don’t tell me God has sent you to me!”
“You grow sunflowers in your garden. I just wanted you to have them after you die. But not before you carry out my wish… though, once a man is buried six feet under, does anything matter?”
“Would you have liked to be cremated?”
“That would have been easy.”
“And the ashes buried in Quibble?”
“That would have been nice too.”
“What sapling would you have preferred?”
“A cactus.”
I laughed, a bit at first, then loudly. There was an echo around the graveyard.
The hand that held mine had slipped away.
“You will do me this favour, Vincent. I am Doctor Simon Hercules. It was nice to meet you.”
Vincent D’ Souza is a Chennai-based journalist, editor, publisher and many things Madras. You can reach him at vincentsjottings@gmail.com
