Am I the Assassin or the Undertaker

Am I the Assassin

        or the Undertaker

 

                   For Palani

 

                                I

 

He stopped coming our way again

He was no where in sight at school

Then, after a long absence

In the pit of the Chan Ah Tong padang

He came and stood at one corner of the field

 

He looked resigned grave

A stoic smile hovering over his lips

Over his virgin gossamer moustache

 

His voice a calm breeze

Of vowels constrained by crisp consonants

We saw less of his teeth

He was dressed in silk shirts

Well-ironed without creases

Trouser pleats showing strictness

Shoes shiny and sleek

The sheen of his hair obedient under cream

His gait measured strained

As though grim hands clawed at him

Through gaps in the ground

 

At first, we didn’t know

What to make of him

His new tutored appearance

And detached forbearing looks

 

He watched us play

Close on hours

Aloof far away

He never so much as waved

We turned to look

He was gone

Leaving the dusk to fall behind him

 

 

I called to see anyway at his place

His father frowned at me

Gruff undertones accompanied him inside

I saw a curtain ever so slightly tremble

After a while his mother

Came out to say

He had gone for good

 

I wasn’t sure what she meant

I stood there looking dazed

Then tears licked her cheeks

Her drained and stricken face

 

She went in dabbing her eyes

With her sari's loose end 

 

I never called on them again

I just couldn’t understand

The father’s anger and pain

At this world on which we stand

 

I was just a playing pal of his son’s

He was older than I was then

Yet he came just once

Out of who knows what inner command

Just to talk or stroll around

 

Now I am older and his elder

 

But is it I who laid him low

 

 

                       II

 

A date with fate

He came one morning to my place

All decked in his glad rags

Fingering a shiny white billiard ball

Twirling it between bony fingers

Like the natural leg-spinner he was

Just for fun he would let it lick the dust

And it swished near ninety-degree turns

 

I said: What about some quick nets

The day aged in labour and with forceps

He hesitated but on the spur

Said: Yes, why not

 

The rest of the morning I batted

Saw the wickets tumble uprooted

 

His spirits surged

Sweat sweet and sour

Sprinkled his shirt

And ran down his collar and spine

 

We laughed at every googly

Which missed the stumps by inches

We were back in olden Ali Baba times

Truants lost in a cave of our own

Diamonds refracted from his eyes

 

He said: We should do this more often

 

His heart must have caved in that very night

Or was it when he barely made it home

 

 

© T. Wignesan – Paris,   February 3-4, 2013