Ruptures into Silence

I could feel a change in her, but I did not know what it was. I was afraid and uncomfortable. I had to do something, so I got up to relieve the discomfort that pervaded my entire body. I walked over behind the bed in order to open one of the two windows on the other side of the room. The glass in the frames was dirty, some were broken, and I had to be careful not to cut myself. I pushed hard and both windows flew opened simultaneously. Black dust settled quickly on my hands. It seemed as though these windows, the glass grown opaque from age, had been left shut for a very long time. On opening, the old rusty hinges squeaked loudly. However, no air rushed in to alleviate that musty smell. No sun peeked in. It was still outside. It had been raining heavily for a few days after a short period of drought and the musky smell of the earth had been replaced with the soggy scent of stagnant mud. As a child, I used to like to play in the mud. It was so soft, so wet!!! Now, there weren’t many trees in the yard. The big old mango tree, its trunk gnarled with age and dark brown in places from the disease that infected its bark, stood bent, hovering over the roof of the house like an open-winged bat – out of place in the murky daylight. At its roots, the mud settled in small pools - as it had always done. Small dried out leaves circled in the dirty water, hitting against each other and then moving apart. Some were broken and full of holes, others just moved, going with the flow. I gazed at the small concentric whirls in the pool as the muddy water moved listlessly in the slight wind that passed through the mango tree. The leaves of the mango tree seemed to shiver in the same way as my body. In the years I had been away, this mango tree had grown really huge. Strange enough, it was mango season, but there was no fruit on this tree – although, despite its deformed trunk, the leaves were lush, the branches extending far outwards, providing shade for the old wooden house. I had loved to climb that tree as a child. I felt safe in its branches, for it allowed me the opportunity to escape from the discomforting silences in our house. From the top of the mango tree, you could almost see forever – a big wide world in which the large houses in the valley, with their gigantic overhanging roofs were made distinctive by the wide sheets of galvanize of diverse colours, of grey and red and green. In these houses, where I had presumed people talked and joked and laughed, large windows were left wide open – all day, all night, allowing their multi color, tropical coloured curtains the freedom to blow energetically in the breeze. As a child, on top of the world, in my leafy heaven, I imagined these giant houses filled with people, both large and small, who, talked and laughed loudly and incessantly with one another. I guess they could be happy; they did not have to keep big secrets - for their grandmother. It is really strange that, as a child, I perceived everything as being large – larger than life; the trees were huge, the houses were large, my parents were big and tall and my aunt, Tante Margaret, was a monstrous figure who everyone was afraid of and out of whose mouth flowed huge words – considerable, significant and most times, offensive. So for me, the mango tree was a haven that allowed me to get away from my childish anxieties and I regretted its aging. Representing a big, wide, magnificent world beyond the mundane, this mango tree had symbolized huge possibility to me who, small and insignificant, was able to hide in its folds and to see everything from above – like God I guess. In my family, God was the main player in our lives. At home, we were not really religious, meaning that we rarely ever went to church - except for Christmas, christenings or funerals. However, contradictorily enough, everything was left to God: “God knows best”. “It is God’s Will”. “God is good”. “Live in the fear of God”. My grandmother believed these sayings and most of the words she spoke related to Him in some way or other – except for what she told me about Tante Margaret. As a child, I always wondered why God controlled everything and everybody. What was it about Him that could keep everyone so quiet – except Tante Margaret? Wasn’t she afraid of Him? How could she be so brave? My mother was afraid of Him –so much so that she kept a picture of Him under her pillow and was always mumbling to Him at nights. She made me afraid of Him too – for a while, whilst I was very young – until I began to pay close attention to Tante Margaret. She was certainly more interesting. She did not appear to be afraid of anyone or anything. I wondered how she could be like that! How could she say those things she said to everyone about anything? I realized now that for me, the ‘fear’ my grandmother and my mother thought should be reserved for God, was transferred onto the living body of my transgressive aunt. Now, as an adult, gazing down at her still form I prayed that, that God who she decried and blasphemed, would have mercy on her soul. The words of prayer, mixed with sadness and I don’t know what, broke from my lips and in a torrent of fear, so much like that of my own mother’s, I mumbled her name in a whisper ………Tante Margaret. …Tante Margaret. The words fell off my lips. The grief overwhelmed me. Fear consumed my body and I wondered if what Granny said was true ….