Edith Noronha Melo Furtado

Mali had a dual personality. No, not the kind that psychology and psychiatry classify as dual, split or whatever. She was perfectly healthy but with an underlying sadness and an overt cheerfulness that could laugh irrepressibly and loved humour. A slender little girl, her sharp features stood out in her thin face. The whiteness of her skin, almost unhealthy, despite the scorching sun over us, made me wonder if she was a descendente (descending from the Portuguese) or a mestiça of mixed parentage. In contrast, my own complexion paled (or rather darkened) in comparison. Almost the same age, we saw each other at school, although we were assigned to different classrooms.  The students met at recess. The girl group met at the entrance of the old, emblematic Lyceum in Panjim and strolled about the school courtyard in twos or threes with arms around each other’s waists.  That is the way, young girls shared friendship, secrets, concerns. The boys stood under the large banyan tree and laughed aloud at jokes that were unintelligible to the passerby but evidently caused great mirth among themselves.

Mali and I walked home together. We lived in opposite directions and parted at crossroads after a rather long pause. We discussed our girl classmates, spewed our negativity towards some particularly unpopular one who we might dislike and maintained an unspoken allegiance to each other and to the ones we liked.  Similarly, about the guys. We considered all our classmates unintelligent and immature and looked furtively at the boys from the college that functioned in the same complex as did our school.  Every one of them was a good number of years older than us but that is what made them appealing.  Of course, hardly any of them noticed us and that only helped towards these secret infatuations. Mali wandered into a world of movies and vivid passionate imagery. I found writing cathartic. Little, silly and sentimental plots where I was the main character. I read romantic Spanish novellas stowed away from my mother’s watchful eyes. Deception and subterfuge, and yet, we were naïve and never understood or felt threatened by an evil world. We dealt with our own emotions and frustrations and maintained our mental balance. These were the early sixties in Goa. Without technology, we were protected from information. When the newspapers first published details about family planning methods, my mother hid the newspapers after a whispered consultation with my father. In doing so, she made it only too obvious that something forbidden was published in the papers so that when there was no one around, I pulled the newspaper from above the tall bookshelf and shared the contents with my older sister. We were self-educated. 

Our parents were confronted by a new and strange world. A change of polity, a culture shock in many ways, they struggled to keep sane and safe. We grew up amidst the struggle, left more to ourselves to make our own decisions about careers that were almost non-existent. Goa was a remote, quaint place, lost in a quagmire of self-doubt, annexed to a country it knew very little about, which held educational opportunities in its cities, alas, unaffordable to a father with a large family. Not everyone was happy, but they adjusted to the new situation. Friends, relatives left for European, African and American shores. Back then, girls and their careers were not major parental concerns, the boys’ professional trajectory was crucial.  I was among those who never crossed the borders of Goa, to broaden my horizons but stayed and dreamed of great things that finally never happened.  Yet, life was good, and I never thought of complaining. I had Mali to talk to and share with.

She had a strange family. She never mentioned her mother. But in Goa of the sixties and later too, there was no privacy. We did not require social media. That everybody was into everybody’s business was an undisputed fact of life. Some human behavior was taboo and quite unacceptable in Goan society. I overheard adult conversation spoken in hushed tones. It was about Mali’s family and evidently, something that was not meant for my ears. But that is what would often get my attention at that age. Mali was the only child and her mother had left her father for another man. In the romantic novels I read, it was quite the other way round. Man abandons wife, is how the plot unfolded. This was shocking and cruel. How could a mother leave her child, a daughter for amorous reasons? Half a century later, a section of the ‘liberal’ Goan society might find acceptable justifications and exonerating circumstances. The husband, I had overheard but not understood, was eccentric and an utter boor.

It was the day after Christmas and my parents, generally particular about the friends their children invited to a meal, which limited our choices to cousins and relatives of no great interest to me, agreed to my request to have Mali over. “She comes from a decent family background. She is not to blame for her mother’s misconduct,” opined one parent. The last sentence was lost in an undertone while the other parent expressed vague fears of where our conversations might lead us. Parental concerns were oftentimes about manners and morals and a ‘good family’ background.  Bright minds and imagination did not deserve much consideration in this unwritten code of ethics. The day following Christmas was always as much fun as Christmas day itself.  Everyone was less tired. The home-made sweets were still laid out for consumption, so the occasion was all the more festive. There was none of this tinned soropatel or neuris out of packets. How would two schoolgirls spend their time but in giddy banter, music and games. Mali was no longer the same dreamy, sad little girl who sat somewhere in the middle row of her classroom, often caught starring out of the window. The house resounded with laughter and nothing else mattered. It was a Christmas like no other. We promised each other to have our little Christmas party together every year.

The holidays ended. I longed to be back in school. Studies were light and fun. No heavy homework ever and if there was, it was meant for me and not for my mother. Times have changed, surely.  Back in school, I couldn’t see Mali anywhere, no one could. December was cool, we called it a ‘cold winter’ at 22 degrees. People were affected by the flu or a stomach bug post the excesses of Christmas. I thought Mali might be ill. Days went by and I walked home, alone, sad with a sense of foreboding.  The cool December air I loved so much was oppressive. Today, children are diagnosed as depressed. In my day, no one noticed. It was a temporary bad mood or sulking. I walked home, under the weight of my emptiness and my mind crowded with the desolate thoughts and twisted plots I imagined. An ominous feeling overwhelmed me. I was no longer a child. I wondered, pondered and was left clueless. Not for long.

In the early sixties, many left Goa for Portugal and other far away shores, unable to connect with the political change brought about by the Liberation of Goa. Mali’s father left too and he took my friend away. I never heard from her again. Only on one occasion, did I hear that Mali’s father was not happy in his adopted country but no more than that. My own life took its course with a fair share of the good and the ugly. I made many friends along life’s journey. They have been my sturdy shelter, walked with me. But the innocent, lighthearted walk home with Mali was different. There, she was perhaps the adult in spite of her young age. A maimed soul, she already knew pain, rejection and loneliness. Her father, unable to cope with his own problems was hardly aware of the little girl growing up, coming back home from school to no one, leaving home with no great purpose ahead. No doubt, the hours in school were a happy respite from the dreariness of her life. A child’s mind and heart are selfish by virtue of their innocence. Never had these thoughts occurred to me earlier. I missed a friend and the joy we shared. I missed the talks, the walks. It was all about me.

My life’s course changed in many ways. It took different paths, unexpected ones, some tortuous, others straight.  I made a congenial group of friends, sharing a good coffee and banter together. On a more serious note, we would occasionally visit the old and the infirm in town. It gave us that good feeling that we could do a little more with our own lives. A little like everyone else, our altruism would awaken more at the time of the great festivals, Easter and Christmas or some other event. Old-age homes in Goa are rather sad. Not retirement homes. These are for the well to do. The rest live in houses donated to charity and the nuns do a wonderful job of keeping the homes clean as far as possible. But the number of inmates being thrice the number of the hardworking sisters, you can sometimes be met with a faint smell of decay. “Shall we visit the ‘Home’ yet again?”, suggested one of the ladies. That one was our favourite undertaking.

The day after Christmas, we visited the ‘Home’. Some of the women sat in the garden, staring blankly, out of habit or tired of waiting for visitors. “Do you like it here?” I asked the woman wearing a printed dress, gathered at the waist. One would say that she was wearing her teenage dress, picked up from her musty wardrobe and hurriedly packed, just before she was moved away from her own home. “Yes,” she replied with a shrug. Others starred at a meaningless TV programme. Once we started the music, playing songs and games that were familiar to them, they seemed to bounce back to life. One, particularly lively woman, obviously with rhythm in her blood, proudly announced, though wistfully: “My father played for the tiatr. There was a lot of dancing at home. ” As was the custom, once the entertainment was over, we dispersed into the dormitories to speak to the women on a one-to-one chat. That was the most significant time of bonding and companionship. Sister Dulce pointed me to Welma Figueiredo. Too ill and disturbed, she refused to see anyone. I approached her cautiously. She covered her face in a gesture of rejection. She did not want to be disturbed. I persisted and touched her bony elbow lightly. Welma pulled the sheet abruptly and stared at me, anger and despair writ large on her fading countenance. “Go away”, she said “Why are you here?” “It is Christmas, my dear. Aren’t you happy? Didn’t you enjoy the music and the games?” “Go away,” she insisted feebly. “We promised to spend all our Christmases together. I want to spend my last one like I’ve spent all the others since we parted. All by myself.”  

I staggered into the next room. I leaned against the wall. Sister Dulce came to my rescue. Welma had been moved to the home, a few years earlier.  I walked back alone, in the dusk, bewildered, beyond comprehension. It was a dark night in my soul.

 I returned to the ‘Home’, the day after Christmas. I had to know. I had to clear my mind of all the confusion of my vivid imagination. Had I heard right? I went to see Welma again. An empty bed. “Moved to the Chapel”, said someone. I looked at her where she was laid. A beautiful thin face. The one I had known in school.  It was Mali. My Mali. My friend, my childhood, my memory.

Edith Noronha Melo Furtado taught at the Department of French and Francophone Studies, Goa University. Her PhD thesis was on the Francophone Women Writers of Quebec (Canada). She has worked on Goan Writing in Portuguese and been a member of the academic project ‘Pensando Goa.’ Her publications include The Works of Manohar Rai Sardessai: A meeting Point between India and France, written both in French and English. She was honoured by the French Government with the Palmes Académiques for her contribution to the promotion of the French Language and culture in Goa.

Banner image is by Annie Spratt and downloaded from Unsplash.com