Do not ask the river her.., p.12
Do Not Ask the River Her Name, page 12
The scenes at the Rockefeller Museum did not find a place in Nazareth. Asher had warned Ruth against posting such matters in her vlog. Instead, thousands watched Mount Olive which Ruth climbed as the sun was westering, the stone archway of the All Nations Church, the grave of King David and the Garden of Gethsemane. They would also catch a glimpse of the shut Golden Gate faraway, as Ruth stood on Mount Olive. Spectators saw the Kedron Valley and the by-lanes where olive and fig trees stood as sentinels. And the narrow alleys, forbidden even in dreams, to those dispossessed of their homeland.
After two days a ‘man missing’ news appeared in the Palestinian newspaper Al-Hayat al-Jadida.
Asher called Ruth frantically. ‘I need the videos you recorded that day at the museum. It is very urgent.’
The scenes caught on her mobile would appear on the Facebook page of ‘Warrior of Light’, leaving Ruth astounded. Al Jazeera channel would further transmit the news. Social media became a tumultuous space with the case of the missing artist.
The police interrogated Asher based on the updates provided by the museum security: that a woman, accompanied by a researcher working in the museum, had captured the events in her camera. Since the closed-circuit television showed images of Asher and Ruth entering the museum when the old man was being assaulted outside the gate, they could not point fingers at the duo. The follow-up investigations of the police focused on the vehicles that arrived in the museum parking lot. A few passersby and some car owners were summoned to Mount Zion police station. The video posted in the ‘Warrior of Light’ Facebook page was edited very efficiently. Nobody realized that it was taken from an elevated place.
That was just the beginning. After that, many scenes which lay in wait for Ruth in the vicinity of Jerusalem started appearing on the page of ‘Warrior of Light’. Sometimes, a procession through the Muslim Quarters. Else, an incident at Temple Mount, the football game between children of two rival—brother—nations, in the ground where two roads intersected, at the junction of the four quarters; and the dejected gait of a woman selling lucky charms and talismans.
A message reached the inbox of Nazareth vlog.
‘Write your sad times in sand; write your good times in stone.’
—Bhargavi Kutty Bernard Shaw
A bird, wounded by sand, started fluttering inside Ruth. Wrapped in a blanket, listening to Abba’s wracking cough, Ruth remembered an old version of herself, before she reached the city of stones. She was standing beyond the ‘Bridge of Return’, the King Hussein Bridge, which passes over the Jordan river, symbolizing the exile of the Palestinians. She remembered a group of kind-hearted human beings, who took along a helpless woman with them. The woman seemed to be staring ahead, at a burning island, indifference writ large on her face. The city of Dubai crouched alongside. Deira, perhaps, was remembering her.
20
HAKUNA MATATA
Valiyammachi used to tell Ruth that the Lord assigned our guardianship to unknown people, without our knowledge. In the excruciating days of trial she faced in Dubai, Ruth acknowledged this was true.
Ruth was drowsily lying on a bed, the saline drip’s coldness having a soporific effect. She was clueless about the duration of her sleep. As she slowly opened her eyes, someone gently caressed her forehead. She felt it was her daughter Kathu forcing her mother’s eyes open.
‘Hello, dear! Are you okay?’
No, it wasn’t Kathu’s voice.
‘Dead asleep? Frightened me a bit! I am Dr Shahana.’
The same voice again, as if reverberating from a deep well. Hospital smells around. Pitch darkness. Faraway, at the end of the earth, three hurricane lamps … sounds scattering across the world map …
‘Nothing to worry. Just a matter of dehydration. You will be all right soon.’
Somebody was stroking her cheeks. Ruth struggled to keep her eyes open. Now, she could see everything. The drops of perspiration on the doctor’s brow, the anxiety in her eyes and the green window curtains. On the stand nearby, drops of life were dripping into a transparent tube. There was an IV canula on her left hand and a hospital band around the wrist. ‘My God, what happened to me?’
‘Ah, she has opened her eyes at last! Nina, can I leave now? My husband and children would be waiting for me. They will not eat dinner until I serve it myself. As per the Indian Penal Code, it is a crime to make engineers wash dishes!’ The doctor was laughing and bidding goodbye.
Now another young woman appeared at Ruth’s side. She had an enchanting smile. In the following days, she would get acquainted with the curly headed woman. The dusky face had a smattering of pimples. Ruth listened in a daze as the young woman told her about Noor Jehan finding her lying unconscious outside her home and calling an ambulance urgently. ‘You are lucky, because Noor Jehan ensured that you reached the hospital in time!’ That sentence alone imprinted itself lucidly in her mind.
Ruth recollected Noor Jehan’s tragic face, her sharp nose, and her callused hands. She was travelling with Noor Jehan in a crowded bus. Ruth saw Kanya and the condom man. The destitution she had endured beneath the two date palms and the four-wheeler which turned a corner, moving towards her … One by one, the memories became pellucid.
‘Noor Jehan called Aravind after you were hospitalized. He entrusted you to my care. Ruthie, you are Aravind’s responsibility now!’ Nina told Ruth.
Like Dr Shahana predicted, Ruth recovered quickly. After getting discharged, she was welcomed into a house with just two inhabitants. It was Nina’s villa in Silicon Oasis. Nina and her three-year-old daughter Riya were eager to keep their unexpected guest tranquil and happy. Ruth sat silently, despite a barrage of questions aimed at her. She resembled a tree denuded of leaves, lifeless and forlorn. In truth, Ruth wished to speak, but all the words seemed to have vanished somewhere.
‘A manager who leads a big team at the office. The brilliant officer who manages different sorts of people with such consummate ease … How vain I was about my own abilities! Ruthie, all my arrogance lies shattered in front of you.’ Nina conceded defeat. Noor Jehan had told her most of the stories, except that of one night. She wished to know about the night of Ruth’s disappearance.
‘The world’s tallest building is in Dubai. More than one hundred and sixty storeys! Do you know the price of a two-bedroom flat in that structure? Ten million dirhams,’ Nina informed her gently. ‘There are people who live in such flats. And there are those who cannot afford three hundred dirhams for bed space. Now, that is Dubai. Ruthie, every city is a small replica of our world. You are lucky, usually those who get trapped hardly escape. The boy helped you due to the Lord’s grace. Anyway, it is all over now. We will arrange a ticket for you to return home.’
Ruth was shocked. She felt her strength leaving her. Arrange a ticket? The three lakh which she got by selling off half an acre of prime property … The money handed over to the agent … The endless, insufferable mockery awaiting her from the relatives, the villagers …
‘Nina, I need a job. Please, I don’t want to return.’
Ruth looked as if she was staring at death, and Nina was taken aback by her look and tone.
‘Look, this city is not safe for you. We will think of a solution. Ruthie, you should open up about what happened to you.’
‘What happened to me? I don’t know, Nina!’ Ruth wished to yell. There was somebody who knew everything. A man who stood alone under the grey skies, in an isolated place. Where did he drive away to, from the gulley near the gold souk?
‘Hakuna matata … That means no worries!’
Riya was chasing after Simba, still in the thrall of Lion King. She was scampering around, laughing at the petrified Simba. Ruth’s heart wept. An inferno was consuming one end of the earth. ‘Lord, to which end of the universe shall I run?’
Nina was pondering too. She had helped a lot of victims in the past with the help of Indian associations and other organizations. Women who were ensnared in sex rackets after being promised jobs as sales girls and domestic workers. When they tried to escape, the net closed in surreptitiously. There would be responsibilities and burdens, of Himalayan proportions, confronting them. Consequently, suffocating, wounded, they would endure the sufferings. Some would risk their lives and flee. These were the courageous ones who brought the kingpins of the rackets before the long arm of the law. But Ruth’s recruitment had been for a hospital. How could it turn out this way? The whole matter was wrapped in mystery.
‘Cities are akin to wild forests. There are ferocious animals. The deer should not visit the lion’s den and naively hand over itself.’ Nina looked enquiringly at Ruth, as if expecting her to respond. After a while, she offered her phone to Ruth to call her family. When Ruth heard Alby’s voice, she struggled to hide her whimpering. Her husband and children were worried sick about her.
‘Dearest, how are you? Is the hospital good?’ Alby asked.
‘The job is yet to begin. Some formalities are left.’
When Ruth answered, her voice trembling, Teresa grabbed the phone from her father’s hands.
‘Amma, how is the stay? Air-conditioned room, am I right?’
‘Let your mother speak, please,’ Alby intervened. Ruth felt as if someone was weighing her heart down with a heavy stone. All of earth’s hurricane lamps were being snuffed out.
‘Children, please don’t create problems for your Chachan. Alby, I will call later.’
Ruth burst into tears after cutting the call. Riya, unaware of the happenings, curled up in her lap and hugged her. Ruth would replay all these scenes, countless times, during the silent nights at Nazareth. She would feel that she was Simba, running away into a deep wilderness.
‘At least you could have told Alby everything. If you suppress everything, one day it will explode out of you.’ Nina’s voice echoed her dismay.
‘No, Alby should not know about anything. He is very sensitive, like the touch-me-not plant. He won’t be able to handle it.’ Ruth sobbed. She would remember the sobs forever. Also, the strange life story that Nina narrated afterwards.
‘Ruthie, be strong! You are a nurse. There are many enviable jobs in the world. But I adore nurses. They are the joy, the anchor, the very life of many families! Once upon a time, there was a nurse working in Alexandra Hospital at Redditch.’ Nina became contemplative, cutting short what she was about to say.
‘Take a look at this diary. Just a single page.’
Ruth leaned in and glanced at the diary that Nina held out. Ink stains had spread from the alphabet written on the almost tattered page. Like the wailing of a river, forcibly stopped at her origin itself …
I am Nina’s mummy. That is the only description that would define me on this earth. In the eyes of society, my husband and I are a model couple. Salary in lakhs, owners of multiple houses. Nobody knows how the home is on fire, and how the body is caught up in flames. Getting a divorce is not possible since I cannot hurt my parents. Even when my mind weeps, I pretend to laugh in front of them and before my patients. Lord, I am tired of playing this drama.
The man who clung to my nursing job, to gain an entry into England, brought along a bundle with him. Inferiority complex. One day in the future, Nina might accuse me, ‘Mummy, why didn’t you escape from this dungeon?’ Shall I be able to walk into a free life, all of my own, ever? Humming a song, as in the past? If Shiny dies, Nina will be a motherless child. The world will remain the same, nonetheless.
A woman is always an occupied territory. A forbidden land, where somebody else’s flags flutter high. When she steps away from the home of her birth, she turns into a refugee.
‘Ruthie, this was my mummy’s last diary entry. I called the cops when I was ten, when the candlestick that Papa hurled hit mummy’s forehead. See, I became an orphan on that Christmas night. When I was sent off to a boarding school in Mysore, I took with me only three things. A pale blue nurse’s uniform, the red sari with white flowers, which Mummy had been wearing for the midnight mass, and this diary.’
A river lay dead within Nina’s eyes.
Wiping her tears, Nina continued. ‘I got my Riya from an orphanage. She asks me intermittently, “Where do I come from?” From Nina’s mind … I reply. I am reminding you that there are many lives, unfathomable stories, around. The moment we assume that our sufferings are the most intolerable, we will surely get defeated in life.’
Nina held Ruth’s hands close to her heart.
‘Ruthie, everybody praises me. Wow, what an inspiring woman, charismatic leader, motivating manager, courageous lady, compassionate buddy …! Nobody knows about the old Nina.’
Nina laughed mirthlessly.
Ruth gazed unblinkingly at her. It was unbelievable that such a vivacious, cheerful young woman had had such a desolate childhood!
‘If I speak about my life story, it will be alleged that I have cooked up something for my motivational classes. Tell me now, Ruthie, do you think your life is extremely complicated? Whatever that may be, running away from problems is never a solution. By the way, do you know anyone here?’
The roiling river was settling into serenity again.
‘I have a cousin, Agnes Chacko, who worked here as a nurse. But I have not been in touch for a long time.’
‘We’ll find out,’ Nina reassured her and started searching on Facebook. From across the wide world, twenty-four profiles of Agnes Chackos emerged on the screen. One of it had the face of the young girl who had traipsed by the farm ridge leading to the forests. The fragrance of wild champaka flowers enveloped Ruth. However, Agnes Chacko was no longer in Dubai. Facebook informed them that she was residing in Switzerland now. Nina sent a message to her, adding her phone number.
‘Hello, I am Nina. Do you remember Ruth, your cousin? She has reached Dubai. Can you call as soon as possible?’
Later, during the solitary times in Nazareth, Ruth would often hear the sobs of a young girl. She was calling out for her mother, inside a boarding school surrounded by enormous walls. Ruth would realize that her own sorrows paled in comparison to the sufferings endured by others.
While they were waiting for Agnes to respond, Dr Shahana dropped in to visit Ruth. Dressed in a light yellow kurti, she radiated energy. ‘Wah, my patient looks very fresh!’ Shahana embraced Ruth warmly. Nina felt relieved at her arrival. It was time that they planned Ruth’s future course of action.
‘You know what? I love watching horror movies. Thrilling, aren’t they? You apparently acted in one. I want to listen to the story. That’s why I gave up on sleep and came running to you after my night duty.’ Shahana grinned.
‘Ruthie, the doctor is a scaredy-cat in reality! Loves horror movies indeed! She has a nickname—Amygdala,’ Nina chortled in glee. ‘She turns nervous at the slightest turn of events. So her medical college classmates gave her that name.’
‘Haven’t changed much even now. Yesterday, I became dizzy in the accident care unit.’ Shahana laughed embarrassedly. ‘They brought in a young accident victim from Al Ain road. He passed away in front of my eyes …’ Shahana’s eyes expressed her inner turmoil. In a jiffy, she changed the topic and seized control of her emotions. Nestling close to Ruth, Shahana queried, ‘Where did you disappear that night from Noor Jehan Manzil?’
Ruth sat impassively like a child staring at someone else’s ruined artwork. That night … it was equivalent to a thousand days and nights. What should a woman, abandoned amidst sand dunes in the moonlight, speak about? About the bone-chilling terror? The soul numbing cold? The deathlike loneliness? The hands that pulled her back to life?
She played that memory, familiar like a constantly rewatched movie scene, yet again in her mind. How Kanya went away with a young man in his car, and how the four-wheeler decreed to decide Ruth’s future, sped through the road towards her.
21
THE ‘WARRIOR OF LIGHT’
The news that arrived from Jerusalem was disheartening. Sahal went searching for the old artist. He knocked at many doors in vain. There was no cooperation from either the military or the police. Instead, they started suspecting him, based on the visitor details of the museum on that day. They trapped Sahal when he went looking for the old man the third time.
Asher was waiting for him outside the police station. Hours went by. Even after the favourite songs stopped playing on 87.6 FM Hebrew Radio and Radio Mevasar Tov broadcast the News Week updates, there was no sign of Sahal. Asher smelled something fishy. A news anchor shouted herself hoarse that the ‘Warrior of Light’ Facebook page was suspended and that cyber police was tracking the administrators who aimed at instigating terrorism in the land. It was evident that Sahal was in danger!
Asher anxiously went searching for him. An unpleasant-looking officer hollered that nobody should be waiting around for Sahal since he was in custody and was undergoing questioning. Asher panicked and wondered about the way forward. A face rushed into his memory. Dr Mazar was on her regular evening walk when Asher called, requesting for help. Silence loomed for a while, and after that poignant pause, Dr Mazar consoled him, ‘Don’t worry, Asher. If Sahal is innocent, they will not harm him. They are already in a defensive mood after “Warrior of Light” transmitted those pictures. Guess they won’t provoke human rights activists by undertaking harsher steps at this juncture. You should be cautious. Do keep an eye on Sahal too. He has a bright future. Sahal’s talent shouldn’t get gutted due to display of unnecessary audacity. Let me do what I can. Remember, I won’t support any action against the law.’
The professor who excavated David’s City and Solomon’s Palace from amidst the ancient ruins also had good contacts in both academic and social circles. Once she took up an assignment, Dr Mazar would complete it assiduously. She kept her word. Since she convinced an officer, a kind-hearted one, that Sahal was a bright student waiting to go abroad for research and that his future should not be spoiled merely on suspicion, Sahal was allowed to go free. He was given strict instructions to respond to the summons at the police station whenever these were issued. However, before the professor’s call came, they had shown much love to that slender body. The horrifying memory of the night in custody haunted Sahal for the rest of his life.
