Short fiction: A man’s search for his mother leads him to a well where he hears her voice

I woke up after a bad dream that night: dead sparrows rained down from the sky; my mother walked on, pushing them aside with a pole; she carried an infant at her waist, and the baby had my face. Unable to bear the dream, my sleep was disturbed.

I step out of the house and see clouds swallowing the moon. I shake the neem tree in the hopes of enjoying a shower of dew drops, but snakes fall from it and slither across the floor. The howl of a dog in the distance, echoing like the cry of an old man in a trance. The air is still and dense as if someone had bundled and taken away all the breeze around me. When I stare at the stars, they start collapsing on me. I run into the house for shelter. There is no one inside to stop me and enquire why I am running so hard.

Staring at an empty room fills me with melancholy – like looking into an empty fish tank. I try to gather and give shape to whatever remains of human presence I can find in the room. The little bloodstains on the wall were once mosquitoes. My eyes look for a scratch made with a pencil or a small scribble on the wall. No luck. There is not even the usual stain on walls left by oil-smeared heads. The room is bare without the slightest scent or sign of human occupation. It feels so clean as if it has been freshly whitewashed so that the space could be rented out. But people had been here recently. There is no one now. Why am I still here? Have I chased everyone away or have they abandoned me? Positive that I can’t sleep anymore, I pull out the memories of the past day like a roll of film.

It was a pleasant morning. I woke up early, when the air still carried the moisture of the dawn. Although the house was my friend’s and not my own, it was a familiar place. In the past week, I had befriended even the squirrels that frequented the drumstick tree in the backyard. There was a dilapidated well in the backyard. Plastic articles and rubber balls lost during games floated on the frothing tar-black water. A stench that could turn the stomach guarded the well. When I enquired why the well was not in use, they recounted the story of a woman – a previous resident of the house – who had jumped into it and ended her life. They had even made it a habit to shut the door to the backyard every day at dusk. I had spoken to no one in the first two or three days. My friend’s little daughter was the one who broke my silence. It is impossible for anyone to stay quiet when there is such a child around. Soon, I became her toy, her horse, and her friend. Since both of them were employed, they were happy to have found someone to take care of the child at home.

My friend’s family was travelling, and they had left me alone at home that evening. Only a while ago that day, they had received the news of a distant relative’s death, and had set off in a hurry, taking their child with them. My friend explained that they were taking the child because they could not be certain about returning before nightfall. “Come back soon, whatever time of the night it may be,” I had called to them, my words dissolving before they reached my friend’s ears.

I could not bear the idea of spending the night alone. Before they left, they had locked up all the rooms except the one I occupied. I knew they trusted me, but some sense of security must have made them do it. I felt restless from the moment they left. I walked up and down the room. I stood outside the front door, feeling the eyes of passersby on me. “Who is he?” I could sense the question in their gazes. Unable to endure those glances, I came back to the deserted room.

I hadn’t come to this house with any hope of staying here. He was my friend. Even calling him a friend was a stretch. We had studied in the same class four years ago. I studied up to tenth grade in a different school, and joined the eleventh grade in this new school. He had been in that class too. We studied together for two years, but we were never close. I had always been comfortable with my own company. The jokes that my classmates shared never reached me. Even teachers ignored me during class hours. It is true that I was strange for someone that age, but I was not deliberately so. When I set off for school from home, I carried reclusion along with me. It was in my personality.

As a child, I did not see much of my father. I never knew when he came or left. Sometimes, he would not appear for several months, and even if he did, he would seldom stay with us. He said that was the nature of his business. However, my mother said he had no job and that he was just a drifter. I have also heard her say that he had another family. On those rare occasions that my father came, my mother would start yelling. It always went like “Bring back my jewels if you are a real man,’ or ‘Return the documents of the land that my father gave me.” My father never got angry. Instead, smiling patiently, he always replied in a mollifying tone: “You are crazy about jewels and property.” My mother’s voice would only rise in response. Speaking in his usual, calm tone, my father would leave casually. No one could guess when he might return next. The frequency of his visits dwindled and ceased altogether. When I think of my father now, all I remember is his voice. I cannot recollect his face no matter how hard I try.

There were only the two of us at home – my mother and I. Amma was happy at times, and at other times, she became dull like a very sick invalid. However she was, I could never venture into her world by myself. She had to let me in. As soon as I was back from school, I used to open my schoolbag and immerse myself in my homework. Amma would be sitting a few feet away, staring at me. I felt amma was spinning silence around me like a spider weaving its web. I could never escape that cocoon. My mother could control me with her eyes like a magician. I translated the different ways in which she looked at me to mean different things – “come for dinner,” “run to the provision store,” or “it’s bedtime!” Amma did not speak much to me. I never saw her speak much to anyone, for that matter. I followed the same at school. My classmates learnt to read my eyes. I often wondered if I was becoming my mother.

When I saw my friend at the bus stop, it was he who recognised me and initiated the conversation. Initially, I found it difficult to recollect who he was. Gathering all the information he gave, my mind put together the image of that classmate from school and I smiled. He sighed in relief once he realised I recognised him too. I had not imagined such a meeting could have been possible until then. The evening I met him could very well have been my last. I had gone to that bus stop after having made the final decision. He appeared there as if someone had guessed my thoughts and sent him to me. I don’t believe in god. My mother was the only godlike figure I had. So, it was perhaps she who sent him. Why else would a person I had not seen in all these years appear exactly at that moment? Why would he strike up a conversation with me? Why would he have insisted that I accompany him to his home? This was the only way I could explain that bewildering occurrence.

When it was time to pursue college education after high school, I had planned to join a college in the same town. But amma was determined to send me to Chennai. It was a 12-hour journey to Chennai from our town. I was also worried about how amma might manage alone without me. But I could see amma was stubborn about not letting me live with her anymore. I had no choice. I did not have the courage to go against her words. My good marks in high school had earned me a place in one of the reputed colleges in Chennai. An Engineering course in that college pretty much assured me a job by the end of the fourth year of studies. My mother must have known that when she decided to send me away.

Excerpted with permission from the title story in An Ocean in a Well: Stories, D Ravikumar, translated from the Tamil by V Ramakrishnan, Speaking Tiger Books.