The bridge

Short Story by Jean ARASANAYAGAM

THE funeral took place with full military honours. I felt myself disembodied, detached from all the rituals of death. I wanted to imagine that it was not my son, Shantha. That it was somebody else's son to whom I need not give even a name. I imagined myself consoling the bereaved, the parents, the kith and kin. It was an act of betrayal. Even of cowardice.

The feeling was only momentary. Looking down at that calm and unlined face I stared into the mirror of my own self image. To deaden the pain, I imagined myself lying in that satin-covered coffin surrounded by mourners.

If only I could hear his voice again.... I wanted to cry out. "Puthe, wake up. How long will you be with us this time?" "Father, I have to think of my men. I have a responsibility towards them. They are in my mind from morning to night.

They look up to me as their leader, to give them strength - they are human, sometimes lonely, perhaps frightened especially the very young and untrained inexperienced in battle although they never speak of their fears.

I must get back to them as soon as possible. I must return to my regiment early tomorrow. I'll come back as soon as I can." We began to live from one leave to leave, those brief and transitory periods during which we wanted to stretch time beyond the limits of hours, days, nights.

Yes, he was a born leader. And duty conscious. Always was. Resembled the other members of my family too, the son in the air force, my daughter, a teacher.

They were so concerned, so responsible about their missions, their charges, completing their schedules of work always on time. Had I not been their model from the time they were born till the time they grew up?

No one could read my silent thoughts. Was he finally at peace? No, more waking up to the sound of mortar fire and shelling. Of being caught up in a land mine explosion or grenade attack. His medals, so many of them, awarded for singular acts of bravery on the battlefield together with the insignia of rank, lie lightly on his breast.

His uniform is impeccable, immaculate. Not crumpled and limp with blood and sweat. Uncreased khaki uniform. I contrast my own failure. My own false values. How do I measure courage? Equate it with patriotism? Compel my sons to do what I am no longer capable of?

I brought him into this world and signed his death warrant. I had to make a decision at this point. I could not have refused. It was what he wanted. I too perhaps wanted a son who would distinguish himself in the defence of the motherland.

As I looked upon that once smiling face, that once firm wiry body for the last time, I felt a sense of immense loss. The others could continue living.

My life was already nearing its end. I did not want to be a wretched, abject human being waking up in the chilling silence of dawn haunted by the spectre of my son on whose head I could no longer place the blessing of the Triple Gem.

For the rest of my life alms givings would be planned for his journey through samsara. I had already given the most precious alms I possessed. I decided that my samsaric journey would merge with his.

From what country was his body brought home? Crossing that bridge that linked the passage of our lives, our journeys and destinations. I would often imagine that landscape from what he described. From what he saw and experienced.

From the brief flashes on a flickering screen, that we glimpsed. That was the only reality for me. I felt I was watching a war being fought far away in some unknown terrain.

This landscape in the village on the banks of the river Mahaweli with its emerald green paddy fields, flowing streams and rivers, blue-green hills and mountain ranges, viharas and temples appeared so untouched, so tranquil. War had ravaged that landscape in the north.

You felt the emptiness of death and desolation in those deserted villages. The shells of ruined houses, bullet-pitted walls.

The huge palmyrah palms slung like casualties beneath the onslaught of armoured tanks that toppled them over, the crumpled fences of dried palmyrah fronds, the camouflaged men.... Strange one never saw the faces of the enemy, only their bodies sprawled in death, limbs outflung, weapons gathered together and placed in neat array.

How lonely the men must be from their villages and homes in the south. Trapped within that peninsula. Not knowing when death would descend on you. My son was an officer. I was so proud of him.

Yes, I would often boast of my son who served the motherland but I did not anticipate the sacrifice I would have to make. I cannot bear it. Everyone comments that I am taking it up well but within me, my heart is a leaden weight. I cannot live with my own guilt. I must begin to make my plans.... in secret. To prepare for my own death, the purpose of life over for me.

Shantha, my youngest son, I can never face the rest of this life, without his presence. Thoughts torment me. I sent him to his death. Of course he went willingly. I wanted him to show us all, his entire family, the glory of war. I wanted to be part of that reflected glory.

Now it is all over. With this very hand I signed those papers which gave him the sanctions to choose between life and death. I am now my own judge. I will be my own executioner. Yet even in the way I have chosen to die there is an element of selfishness.

Water was always my natural element. It is selfish that I wish to die in this river that flows past our house feeling the last vestiges of that challenge of the past.

My children had clung to my neck as I swam out in the full strength of my youth, into the deepest parts of the water whether it was the river or the ocean. Shantha would cling to my neck.

He was so confident in my prowess as a swimmer. He knew that it was my responsibility to bring him back to the safe shore so he held on, his grip tight however deep I ventured out. He was so confident in me. It was I who let him down. I wanted him to feel that war was something glorious. Courage in the field, bravery, heroic acts, fighting to defend the motherland...

Others were making the supreme sacrifice almost daily yet did I imagine that my son would have a charmed life, that all the vows made for his protection, the pirith thread bound round his wrist would save him?

We were part of this new band of nameless and anonymous parents, who had to look upon the empty bed, the empty chair, the vacant spaces in our own lives. And to face the bitter truth that all who expressed so much grief and sympathy had to eventually turn away and go back to their own lives. Even my own family. Even Shantha's wife. Whom would his son call 'Father' again.

In my mind I am haunted by the figures of men in uniform weighed down by their body armour falling dead in that dreadful heat, of exhaustion in that dreadful battle at Elephant Pass ending in a debacle for the Forces from the South.

There is no end to the pity and waste of this war. Of any war. Anywhere for that matter. Cut off from the well of fresh water. Death was so sudden. Yet there were those who would return and who would listen to their tales?

Shantha grew up to be like me. As fathers do we all want to see our self image in our sons, that heroic image we imagine ourselves to possess with those inherent qualities of courage, bravery, leadership.

We want our sons to wear the medals which signal them out as heroes and leaders of men. I could never wear those medals. I was born at the wrong time.

There were no wars in my youth, no battlefield where I could show my prowess by bearing arms for the defence of that noble cause, patriotism, love for my motherland. History has given us a tradition of heroes, not of cowards and this was the strength that I saw in my son. Command.

He was the officer in charge of his regiment of men who looked up to him, obeyed him implicitly in their fight against the enemy.

In our days we had a different concept of the word 'enemy'. Moreover he himself had respect for the oneness of purpose that the militants possessed. There was a total commitment to the cause he would often tell me. And the women too.

There was no distinction between men and women when they bore arms. It was difficult for my generation to understand all that my son Shantha said.

His fearlessness, his disregard for his own safety counted most together with the ability to command his men, to be responsible for their safety, to uphold them in those moments when their defences would be down.

He would never desert his men even for a moment. Did I see him as some Titan battling against lesser beings?

Yes, Shantha had a regiment under his command. He made decisions of life and death. He was not only looked up to by his men but also by the officers of the High Command. He was reputed to be fair and just at all times, never to kill for the sake of killing.

Sometimes he could not bear to fire that final shot. To deliver that coup-de-grace. Did he lack a kind of moral courage? Did he see himself in that man who lay mortally wounded before him, looking at him with death in his eyes? "Finish him off," he would tell one of his men and walk away.

Those were his words of command but at that moment did he not shift the burden onto someone else's shoulders? Ironically when he received that fatal sniper bullet no one knew, no one could name that person.

He went back into the shadows, was seen and heard no more. They tell me that Shantha's presence among his men was morale raising. There were no deserters from his ranks.

On the day of his death which was unpredicted and unforeseen he had been issued orders to move to another operational area where fierce fighting had suddenly erupted. He had to obey orders. That's where he went to his death.

They tell me death was instant. He hadn't a chance of escape. He died a heroe's death, they tell me. My other son, Saman, who is a Squadron Leader piloting those Antonovs, Sia Marchettas and Kfir jets, in their conversations together would always say "The soldier who dies on the battlefield will be remembered to have died a heroe's death." "No," Shantha argued back. "No, he will be remembered forever as a fallen hero."

I looked at my son-in-law, Asoka. He is a man of peace. He will never fight for the same cause that my sons were ready to sacrifice their lives for. He will survive all the mundane vicissitudes of life. He will live to see his children grown up.

He's the kind of man all of us will rely on. The comfort-giver. He will sit by me, persuade me to swallow my pills, to eat, to drink, to keep me going. He will talk to me, listen to me. Nothing will shock him.

I cannot expect the others to suspend their lives and be by my side but there are things I cannot tell him, thoughts that begin to rise in my mind.

They take me to hospital hoping that I will recover from the physical ailments I suffer from. I cannot eat. Food chokes me when I think of Shantha. He did not have time to have his breakfast before he left for that battlefront. How can I eat when I think of him.

I can't blame the stars for cutting short his life. He and his young wife were always conscious of the uncertainty, the unpredictability of events. Once she made an inexpressible statement. She referred to 'my first husband' after they had visited an astrologer.

The first husband would be Shantha. It could only mean one thing. I feel a great sense of anger surge within me when I recalled those words.

So matter of fact that utterance, so down to earth. But then she was young, she would have to look out for herself, not spend the rest of her life in mourning. She had already lost a brother in the war. She knows the realities of war.

There was no place in their lives for the woman who had been the wife, the bereaved one. They would not want any reminders of grief and mourning.

My daughter-in-law from the very outset knew that life must go on. She had a young son. She would want other children. I can't have harsh feelings towards her. She and my son married with that monstrous fear looming up before them as a grey horizon.

They were already preparing for the inevitable. It's what war does to people. To those who are left behind. They have to grapple with their newly discovered strengths or weaknesses. Strength for the conduct and control for their daily affairs.

People will shake you off after the first emotional words of consolation. You will wipe your tears in a silent room, alone, and press your hand against your mouth to stifle the cries and moans of loneliness and grief.

"You are not the only one who is suffering," I read their silent thoughts. "He didn't break down." But my wound is one that will never heal. I put on a brave face. People whisper among themselves, "He has taken it up very well."

There's that huge yawning chasm of self. I'm that minute object struggling to reach out of the pit where I've missed my step fallen in..... I am waiting for that lifeline to pull me up. One part of me wants to reach the open space above, breathe fresh air, look around at the greenness of leaf and foliage but... then your eyes alight on the grieving mourners, tears wet cheeks and the weight of guilt pressed you down, down, earthwards.

The hard pendulum strikes against your ribs. How can you live with measured time again.... I finally begin to visualize that distant terrain in the north. It's always that part of the map with the thickest blackest arrows indicating the route of attack, converging on the battle zones.... names tumble through my mind, they are not all blank spaces. Where are the people? Where are they?

A haze crosses my eyes. I can only see the gigantic war machines, the spurts of fire reaching beyond a land destroyed and devastated, trampled down vegetation, the men running, falling flat on their stomachs, firing, then getting up again and running....

The din, the thunder of that artillery fire deafening the ears. The names of the battle zones change but each one of them has gone down in history. My son's body fallen, other nameless bodies fallen. The map of the embattled regions grows larger and larger. It covers the whole wall. Spreads and spreads.

The news reporters watch impersonally at the routes of attack as the military targets are pointed at by the Commander-in-chief. I hear that voice, I do not know whom it belongs to, go on and on. The facts so cut and dried. It's like a video game on the screen being manipulated by unseen hands.

Planes fly over the peninsula, bombs all on their targets, there are numerous conflagrations. No one sees the void, the desolation, the ruins, the broken crushed palmyrah fences. I hold the palms of my hands together and bow my head acknowledging the presence of the living but I am already a dead soul, yes, a dead soul.....

He paused only for an instant and then he leaped off the bridge into the water that flowed in such swift currents beneath it. He felt the chill sharp shock of the water slice like knife blades against his weakened body.

The water parted like a fissure to receive him and in a swift revelatory flash he thought of his childhood on the banks of the Huluganga, the days of diving and swimming hour after hour, lying on the rocks, basking in the sun, feeling its heat seeping into the skin against the chilled flesh. He had never thought then of death.

The river was the source of life. He could try out his strength against its currents. He could feel his body flowing with the river as the blood coursed through his veins.

He allowed the first delight of plunging into the water of that brief flash of joy overtake him. He began to float then he gathered whatever strength he had in his limbs and began very slowly, to swim. If he looked back, the bridge still stood there, a bulwark against time.

Soon he would lose sight of the bridge. On either side of the river were the steep, tree covered banks. There was still time to swim towards the bank while his strength held out. He was going to give up everything. He was cutting short his life's journey. He did not want to continue living this life in death.

"I am beginning to swallow water, my limbs feel leaden, I don't know for how long I can keep up my strength.... there is a last chance... I am beginning to lose consciousness. I catch a glimpse of a boat. A boat which appears with foreigners from the tourist hotel on the banks of the Mahaweli. The oars almost touch me... I can reach out... grasp one of them.... But I am now too weak....

The boatmen can see me now but to drag a water sodden half drowned body into the boat would shock the pleasure trip of the tourists.... He ignores me.... I choke... I am going under.... The bridge is a fast vanishing sketch in my mind. Once it marked the passage leading from one life to another. I feel the water covering me like a second skin.

It grows tauter, tighter over my body. The decrepitude of age and weakness seem to leave me. A the current grows stronger I feel the powerful urge and thrust that threatens to overpower me.

I try weakly to resist it, to challenge the river to prove my old prowess as a swimmer, but gradually give in. It is not the strength of the currents but that throbbing compulsion of a great force, death. Shantha no longer clings to my neck, his body holding close to my shoulders, my body carrying his.

My body the bridge and he the traveller. So easy to give in now. I have no will, no volition to surface. So tired, so weary ... it's a coward's way out... not like my son's death ... but it is the only way out. I myself had placed that noose round my neck, it tightens, stifles my breath.

My limbs bound by ropes of water from which there is no escape sinks into the oblivion I crave so much for, that mindless sleep of death.