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MAIKLING
KWENTO
A Walk at Midnight
With Mohandas Gandhi
By Alberto
Florentino
"The past
is not dead. It is not even past."
William Faulkner
AT THE Birla Shrine in New Delhi where Gandhi died, I took off my
shoes
and socks and, as if playing hopscotch, or our native piko in my
childhood, traced his, Gandhi's, last footsteps.
Slowly, firmly,
precisely, I placed one foot after another on the red-stones that
Gandhi's followers had set on the garden lawn to mark the last footprints
of his last walk on Earth before an assassin's bullets struck him
down.
When I reached
the last footprint, my right foot up in the air, balanced like a
dancer's, right where he must have lost his balance and fell on
the grass like a ragdoll, I heard in my head three gunshots and
felt giddy from a vertigo or sunstroke and tottered like a marionette
suddenly released.
One of the shrine
keepers nearby caught me and led me to where my shoes
lay. He helped me put them back on.
I RETURNED to my hotel.
It was one of
the hottest days in summer.
Towards afternoon
I left the hotel again, to visit his memorial pantheon in another
part of the city.
There was nothing
much, or big or impressive, to mark the hallowed ground. I remember.
What? An obelisk? A plinth? A slab of marble carved with his name
and inclusive dates marking his time on Earth? I could hardly remember.
I recently read
somewhere that the plinth-with-a-dome in the Civic Center, from
where King George V's statue was removed in 1947 to give way to
a proposed Gandhi memorial, was still empty 50 years after Independence
Day because the powers-that-be could not agree on the kind of memorial
to put up.
I REACHED THE pantheon, sat down on a stone bench and contemplated
the setting sun. I felt like falling into a deep sleep and was trying
to fight it, but only half-succeeding.
Later, I noticed
him squatting on a straw mat a few feet from me, spinning cotton
with the primitive spinning wheel that he was always shown with
in old stereoscopic sepia photos, or in black-and-white, vintage
BBC newsreels.
"Here,
son, give me a hand."
I gripped his
strong bony right hand, felt the living veins on his hand and arm,
and pulled him up. Now face to face with him, I saw his large eyes
framed by wire-rimmed spectacles and his saucer-cup ears, reminding
me of a gentle tarsier.
He wore his
usual dhoti and shawl made from homespun Indian cotton that he wore
almost all of his latter adult life.
Unmistakably,
it was him. Yet, surprisingly, I was not a bit surprised. I wanted
to break the ice by greeting him lightheartedly, "Mr. Gandhi,
I presume?" but I was suddenly tongue-tied.
So, remembering
the traditional Indian namaskar (or namaste) which I've learned
but have rarely tried, I brought my palms together above the heart
in greeting.
"Come,
son, let's take a walk." And he strode ahead of me as I imagined
Ichabod Crane would have walked. This was the man who had walked
over much of India.
THE SUN HAD started to set behind the horizon, but a residual orange
glow stayed on in the west, and the air suddenly cooled, as if airconditioned.
I caught up
with him and we walked a few steps in silence until I regained my
composure.
"Sir, it's
been 50 years since that fateful midnight in 1947."
"Fifty
years to this day, yes," he said in a low, soft but firm
voice.
"The same
reason I chose this day to come," I said.
"So did
I. Where are you from?"
"Manila."
"Jose Rizal!"
he exclaimed. For a moment I thought he had mistaken me for him!
"You knew
him, didn't you? You and Tagore and Sun Yat-Sen were contemporaries."
"Well,
you may say so, yes, yet I never really met him, your national hero."
"A hundred
years later our people are still debating about him."
"About
him, about what?"
"About
his being designated...as a national hero. Like a designated driver."
He did not quite
catch on my attempt at wit.
"Tell your
people, you get the hero or heroine you deserve."
Then he continued.
"Your country and mine had almost the same problem. But Rizal,
he started started it all. We, Tagore and probably Sun Yat-Sen,
we all drew inspiration from him."
"You and
he, each one the child and the father of his own country."
I'd give the
credit to them, to the people, as I'm sure he would have to his
people. Wouldn't you? To your own people? One man can only teach
the first steps to a baby, lend a hand, point to a direction. Then
they take over. As your own people did, too. Aren't you also celebrating?"
"Our centennial."
"You got
your independence?"
"1946.
One year before India."
"Wait,
you'd have been free 50 years last year, 1996."
"We're
celebrating 100 years of independence."
"India's
celebrating only..."
"I know.
Rather, we're celebrating 100 years of the declaration of..."
"Oh, I
see. I remember, you had almost routed the Spaniards. But the Norteamericanos..."
"Stepped
into the breach and spoiled it for us. The American president, he
had to run to check the globe in his study, wanted to Christianize
us after 300 years of being Christian. We spent the next 50 years
under them, and three more under the boots of Hirohito's army, before
we truly became free."
I didn't know
how to explain it any better. Sensing my embarrassment, he went
on: "Well, son, who am I to question your leaders or meddle
in your country's affairs? I don't want to start an international
incident," He chuckled. "Let's keep this between us, okay?"
"Fair enough."
We walked on
in silence.
"How's
your country coming along?"
"Not too
badly, but not too well, either."
"Just like
India. Our two nations, like twins born within minutes of each other,
now finally after many centuries and now well past turning over
and crawling and standing up, only now learning to walk steadily
and taking all the falls and bruises in stride," he rambled
on and on.
"I see
you've kept up to date."
"As much
as I could."
"What did
you think of the Partition?"
"I pleaded
'No,' I cried out, 'cut me in half, but spare the nation. I would
not know what I would have done if the it happened on my watch.'"
"By that
time..."
"I'd gone.
Thanks to Godse. It would have literally broken
my heart."
He paused for
a while.
"Seeing
now what I never wanted and had tried my best to avoid, I sometimes
feel that Godse, by dispatching me that day, actually did me a favor."
"But things
have finally healed, haven't they?"
"I don't
know. I'm still too close to pass judgment. Maybe my reach exceeded
my grasp."
"But isn't
that what a heaven is for?"
"I only
know I tried my best. I proposed, but the people disposed; they
took over."
The day was
darkening. We paused in a corner of the field.
"Sir, the
day's going; would you mind signing your name on this?"
I handed him
a 500-rupee banknote which I just got from the bank when I changed
my money. I had specifically asked for legal tender with an engraving
of his portrait. I was told only this large bill had it.
I handed him
a Bic pen.
He hesitated
for a second and stared at the ballpen as if seeing one for the
first time. Quickly, I gave him the book under my armpit to sign
it on.
He glanced at
the book and flipped through it. It was the latest American university
press title on his life and times, released to commemorate the half-century
mark as a free nation.
As he signed
the note: "I wonder what they write about me now."
I wanted to
gift him with the book, but I was too excited about his autograph
on the banknote. I realized I could never spend that note. Ever.
I'd have it framed and up on my wall. No, maybe buy a safe.
"They put
my face on this, but the masses never get to see, much less touch
it, a note this big. They should have put me on a 10-rupee note."
"Maybe
they thought it was a higher honor to have it on the highest denomination."
"Do you
know I never read or saw a copy of your hero's novel?" He was
still holding my book.
"Noli Me
Tangere?"
"Yes. Great
title." He continued: "For which the Spaniards blundered
into killing him."
I wanted to
offer to FedEx him the latest translation of the Noli, but I thought
it was going to be...problematic. I quickly dropped the idea.
"Sir, you...drop
in...quite often?"
"Only on
a round-figure anniversary. Like today."
"Would
you come on the 100th?"
"I might,
yet I might not."
"Why not,
sir?"
"Because
it's so frustrating."
"In what
way, sir?"
"You move
freely about and see and hear and know everything, yet cannot lift
a finger to help. I was around during Indira's term. I thought the
lady needed...some help. I tried to get to her, but I couldn't.
Maybe she refused to be helped. In 1984 I was standing between her
and her assassin when it happened. I could not lift a finger or
raise my voice to save her life!"
I was engrossed
with the 500-rupee note, trying to make sure he signed on it. He
did.
When I looked
up again, he was gone.
I looked around
and saw something in the distance. A disembodied dhoti and shawl
disappearing in the unseasonable fog, in slow motion, like an ectoplasm,
as in a dream, being blown by a gentle breeze on an unseen
clothesline.
I was left alone
in the dark. I sought the nearest bench and sat down to
compose myself.
I didn't know
what to think or feel. A daydream? A daytime ghost? But I touched
him! Talked with him! And the note! I reached into my pocket and
felt
it inside and never let it go.
Suddenly, someone
was standing in front of me. I looked up, ready to faint. It was
the honor guard of the shrine. He held out a book. The book!
"I believe
this is yours, sir."
"Where'd
you..."
"You left
it at the gate."
IN THE DARKNESS I hurried back to my hotel, to my wife, my hand
still in my pocket.
When I saw her
at the hotel lobby, I pulled out the note and held it out to
her, almost in her face.
She was furious.
"Where have you been all this time?"
"Look!"
I said, waving the note. "He signed it!"
"Who signed
what?"
"Can't
you see his signature?"
She snatched
the note from me.
"Can't
you see his signature?"
She waved the
note at me. "You forgot," she said, "break it, I
need small bills and quarters, for the laundromat."
"No, dear,
he signed it."
She brought
it up and glanced at it under the glare of the chandelier.
"Every
500-rupee has Gandhi's signature printed on it. See?" She thrust
it to my face.
I looked...and
saw...she was right...the only signature...printed...she was right..she
should know...she's an Indian.
I NEVER TOLD her about the evening's strange encounter for fear
she'd think I was seeing things again.
©1997;
2002 by Alberto Florentino
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