Xemai

                                                               Lino Leitão

“Bae! Bae!” I hear her calling me out from her bedroom.

            “Xemai? What is it?..”

            “Bae, it’s raining outside?”

            “No, Xemai. It’s snowing.  It looks like a snowstorm.”

            “No.” She says emphatically. “It’s raining outside. I can hear the wind howling as…”

            “As what, Xemai?”

            “As it howls in the rainy season and I can see the coconut-palms swinging in the howling wind. I can hear the raindrops drumming on the tiles. Can’t you Bae?”

            A radiant smile glows on her face and tears run down her wrinkled cheeks. I sit by her bedside and hold her hand into mine. She looks at me so lovingly that I feel like a newborn held in her arms.

            “At last… At last..” she goes on saying.

            “At last, what, Xemai?”

            “Can’t you smell it Bae? Can’t you?”

            “Smell what, Xemai?”

            “The scent,” she says. “How I longed for this scent! It comes wafting to my nostrils. At last, I’m blissfully happy, Bae”.

            “What scent, Xemai?”

            “ The scent of the dry earth made moist by the falling rain, comes wafting to my nostrils. Can’t you smell it, Bae?” She looks at me again, as she did before; but this time, I feel that she kissed me, pouring her soul into mine.

            Silence.

            Holding her hand, I wonder, “What’s going through her being? She suddenly shudders and says, “Oh! My God! That flash of lightning!”

            Instinctively, she snatches her hands away from mine, and wraps them around me, bringing my head to rest on her chest.  With a soothing voice, she says, “Do not be frightened my child.” And griping me tightly, as if to protect me, she says, “What a deafening clap of thunder!”

            “Thunder?”

            “Yes, thunder!”

            “Xemai?”

            “Yes, Bae?” She answers, and says, “We’ll roast those cashew-seeds tonight, and you’ll crack them open, won’t you?”

            What could I say?

            “Yes, Xemai,” I said.

            “Somebody is already roasting cashew-seeds. Don’t you smell it, Bae?  They must be José’s boys.”

            “Xemai?”

            She doesn’t answer.

            “Xemai?”

            She doesn’t answer.

            Her eyes are opened, staring at the ceiling, and tears are streaming down her cheeks. Aradiant smile flickers her face.

            “Xemai?” I call her once again.

            She doesn’t answer.

            My head on her chest, and her arms wrapped around me, I feel that she is in her dream world – the world that she had come from, and the world that she always wanted to be. I don’t want to disturb her anymore.

            And I, like a small child, held in her arms, drift off into my own world, too; a world barely recollected, of memories of Uganda, where I was born. According to my parents account, someone rubbed a magical lamp, and brought a loathsome tyrant out on the blessed soil of Uganda. That tyrant banished my parents and other Asians from Uganda, which according to them, was a Paradise. That’s how my parents and many other Asians came to live in Canada. I was about three, when we arrived in Canada and grew up in Lachine, Quebec. My mother had often told me that, though I came  into this world from her womb, it was my baby-sitter, Mukyala Mukasa, who really took care of me. She was my Maama wange and I was her muwala wange.

            And now, as I lie in my Xemai’s bed, her arms around me, I see myself as a baby secured on the back on the baby-sitter’s back, as if I’m in her back pouch. That’s how she carried me while doing her other chores.

A faint whiff of acrid smell of her sweat drifts to my nostrils; and I see her, and hear her sing lullabies to me in Luganda. It’s the  neseenene season. Under the lit lampposts, after sundown, swarms of green grasshoppers flutter. My Maama wange securing me like a knapsack on her back, runs all excited to join the crowed to trap the green grasshoppers. As she catches them, she yanks their heads, wings, and legs off, and puts them in a bag. Sometimes, she pops one in her mouth, crunching it with delight.

            I see my maama wange sitting on a stool in the kitchen. She’s eating matooke mash topped with peanut sauce from a green plantain leaf, her meal. I, who has grown a little bigger now, crawl to her and put my tiny fingers in her plate. Her eyes smile, and she scolds me lovelingly, “Genda eri! Genda eri!”  Then, she lifts me up and feeds me some morsels.

            Coming out from this world of mine, I reflect on that life. I wonder if maama wange is still alive. One day, I say to myself, I’ll go to Uganda and seek her out. Would she remember me if I were lucky enough to find her out? Would she…? And then, my eyes shift to my Xemai.

            I realize that my head is still resting on my Xemai’s chest, and her arms are around me. She looks blessedly peaceful. I’ve no courage to disturb her. When did Xemai come in my life?

            My parents, who often nostalgically bragged of their easy life in Uganda where had servants to cater for their needs, found it difficult to adjust to the Canadian way of life. They, who have landed in Canada without a penny in their pockets, and their lifesavings in Uganda embezzled, were frightened about their future in this new land. Though the Canadian Government assisted them in some ways, they couldn’t find employment according to their qualifications or experience. Cold and snow made them miserable, too. But my parents, who were determined to build their life anew in Canada, didn’t lose  hope. They worked at odd jobs here and there. But without upgrading their qualification, they saw no hope for a decent life. They made up their mind that they would work in the day and take night courses at the Concordia University. But who will take care of me? It’s then they sponsored my Xemai.

            Xemai is my grandmother,  my Dad’s mother. She is a widow who lived in her village in Goa. I remember when my parents and I went to Dorval Airport to collect her when she had arrived in Canada. When she had stepped out from the airport building after the immigration formalities, My Dad hugged her and then my Mum hugged her. She looked at me, though she knew very well, who I was, she asked Dad in Konkani, as if to tease me, “Who is this skimpy girl?”

            “That’s your grandchild, Sofia,” said my Dad.

            “Granny, well come to Canada!” I said.

            “Don’t call me Granny,” she said. “In Konkani, we call Xemai for Granny. Call me Xemai. I’m your Xemai.” And she picked me up in her arms and kissed me.

            I turn slowly toward her. Emotions stir within me, my lips are drawn to her cheek. My eyes are misty. This, is the woman, my Xemai, who looked after me in Canada. Even though I’m a grown up woman now,  when someone hurts me emotionally or if someone bothers me, I come to her. She always knows how to console me. I wonder what kind of person would I be without her love.

            As I go on reflecting, I hear my Xemai ask, “Is it still raining outside, Bae?”

            It’s snowing outside heavily. But looking at her tenderly, I lie. “It’s drizzling, Xemai.”

            “Bae?”

            “Yes, Xemai?”

            She doesn’t answer.

            A contended smile lingers on her face, and her lips move as if she’s talking. But I can’t hear what she’s saying.

            Looking at her now, I recall all the frustration involved in communicating with her in the beginning. My Xemai never went to school and knew not to read and write. I don’t know how, but we somehow overcame those hurdles. I picked up  Konkani indirectly, Xemai’s mother tounge, and that made her proud. And she somehow picked up English. Not only that, she could say a few phrases in French, too. I taught her to write. Though it was difficult for her, she learnt to sign her name,and that made her very proud.

            The way she narrated the stories about her native land  are so vivid in my mind...

            “One day,” she had said, “You and I will go to Goa.”

            “We will?”

            “Of course, Bae,” she had said. “You’ll love it there. You’ll love the people of my village; they aren’t taciturn like here; they’re warm people. They’ll adore you. And …”

            “And what Xemai?”

            “I’ll show you our churches, they aren’t like here. Our churches are whitewashed, gleaming in the sun. And you’ll love our Hindu temples. You’ll come with me won’t you Bae?”

            “Of course, Xemai!”

            She had taken me in her arms and said, “In the compound of my house, there’s a mango-tree. It’s malcurad.”

            “We get mangoes here too, Xemai.”

            “Yes,” she had said, “but they aren’t delicious like malcurad; and the one in my compound is the best. I pray when you’re there my mango tree is in fruit. Then you’ll know, Bae, what real mango tastes like!”

            She had, in her compound and on her property, other exotic trees, yielding fruit of ambrosial taste, the like of which, she would say, you couldn’t ever get in Canada. And the fish from Goan waters were savoury, she would brag.

            “Do you call these prawns?” She would say. “They taste rubbery.”

            She always cooked for us and kept our house tidy and clean. Often times, my Mum returning from her work in the evening, entering into the house would shout,  “What a smell! The whole house stinks of fish! Did she fry that para again?”

            Xemai would never retort. She would just keep quiet,but I knew that she was hurt. And then Mum, raising her voice, would address Dad, “Can’t you tell your Mum not to cook her smelly food? Those food smells enter into our coats, you know? And I don’t work in a dump!”

            Latter, sitting at the table, my parents would wolf the food down, the food cooked by my Xemai; Dad with beer and Mum with her favourite wine. And sometimes, Dad would comment, “Mae, (he called her Mae) your prawn curry is super.”

“Let her go to Goa, Ben,” Mum had said to Dad. “We don’t need her now, Sofia will soon leave the nest.”

Dad didn’t want Xemai to live all alone in Goa at her age. After all, she was his Mae, and here she had medicare; and her old-age pension. What would she get in Goa? But Dad couldn’t understand how lonely she was!

“Even if she goes to Goa, Bella,” Dad had said to Mum. “She has no house to live in there. Her house is gone, taken by squatters. And we being here, who is going to evict those squatters?”

“Then…”

“You mean?”

“Yes,” said Mum. “We’ve to put her in a Home.”

“But..”

My Xemai isn’t decrepit yet. She knows what’s in my parents’ mind. One day she had said to me, “Bae, you and I will run away to Goa. Can you make my passport, can you?”

“Of course, Xemai,” I had said. But she never brought that subject up again.

Lying in her bed now, I recollect that she longed to go home to her home in Goa. She’s lonely. Canada was never her home.

“Bae,” she calls out softly.

“Yes, Xemai.”

“Please hold me, Bae.”

I hold my Xemai in my arms. She’s staring at the ceiling with a contented smile on her face.

“Bae,” she calls out lovingly.

“Yes, Xemai?”

“I’m going, Bae..”

“Going where Xemai?”

She doesn’t answer.

Her body falls limp..

Xemai is gone. Passed away in my arms.

  *******************

       DEDICATION

This work is dedicated to Professor Peter Nazareth

    Glossary

Xemai – Granny in Konkani

Bae - and endearing term in Koncani for a granddaughter.

Mae – mother

Malcurad - one of the species of Goan mangoes.

Para- Goan pickled fish

Mukyala – Mrs. in Luganda

Maama wange – Mother in Luganda

Matooke – green bananas in Luganda

Genda eri! Genda eri! – Go away in Luganda.                                       

This story appeared in canadian ethnic studies/ etudes ethnique au Canada                     (Vol. XXlll.2.2001)

submitted by the author to The Goan Forum on September 24, 2002