THE DAY OF THE FUNERAL Sharmila Jayasinghe
I
feel my insides jump up and down and up and down as the man pulls the rickshaw and speeds along Main Street. Grandfather is angry. On a day he should be sad, he is angry. Nothing had gone right that morning. He didn’t know which applet to wear for funerals. He clipped on the blue, then the red one with the silver lining and decided it was too festive. He ironed his shirt twice. Then, wetting his large hands, he sprinkled water to better iron it a third time. The wrinkles refused to disappear. They stayed on the fabric like the creases on his skin. Grandfather cursed—words that should not have come out of a clergyman’s mouth—then wiped his face to erase the misdeed.
It had been dark inside the house, like the sun had forgotten to rise. Grandfather hadn’t opened the windows for four days. The house smelt of nothing. With the stove put to sleep, the familiar spicy aromas had stopped circling the air. I stood quiet and still and watched Grandfather struggle. I had dressed and was ready to leave long before Grandfather found the right shirt to wear.
Amidst his dilemma, he scanned me from top to toe and shook his head from side to side. His tongue hit the roof of his mouth, drumming that sound of disapproval. ‘Tsk tsk,’ he went, deep in thought. ‘Too joyous,’ he presented at last, ‘like a sunflower.’ He then rocked up and down on his heels. The bounce always gave him clarity. ‘Don’t you have anything lighter in colour? Black?’ he asked, clearly frazzled, tapping his chin with his index finger, like John Wayne in a movie. Grandfather was a tall man. Too tall for a brown man. He said it was because he grew up with white people. I smoothed the sides of my yellow dress, peeped into the floor length mirror and watched Grandfather stomp around the room behind me, pulling this and that, like a giant dinosaur rummaging for food. I did not understand how I should appear at a funeral, but there was no one to ask. It had always been Grandfather, Grandma and me, but now it was just the two of us.
‘This? Or this?’ Grandfather asked, pulling two identical black ties from deep within a drawer. I stared, baffled. ‘Grandma would have dressed us both proper,’ he sighed, defeated and deflated. Stuffing the ties in the drawer, he turned his attention back to the applets. ‘Go and change,’ he commanded. With a wave of his hand, he shooed me out of his room. ***
It was almost an hour before both of us emerged out of our spaces again. Grandfather, in his white cotton tunic, had decided against the applets and the tie—instead, he wore a long silver chain. A crucifix with a skeletal Jesus weighed the chain down. Jesus on the cross laid on Grandfather’s perturbed belly for rest. I too had changed into less joyous clothes, to a black pleated skirt and a white blouse with a lace trimmed collar. I had no jewellery on. I felt like I was ready for school, but Grandfather had approved.
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