Lighthouse

Susanna Correya

19/PELA/008

I shuffled in the steel-blue leather berth and distracted myself by focusing on the sound of wheels grinding on the tracks. It was relieving to see women in georgette sarees dab their glazed foreheads with their pallus which darkened several shades while men in untucked shirts soaked to transparency sighed exasperatedly.

My eyes were peeled for bright yellow sign boards that spelled out the names of each station. English was sandwiched between the loopy scripts of Tamil and Hindi.

LIGHTHOUSE was my cue to climb down. It was a bone-colored, cavernous station that opened onto a grainy concrete platform. Cockerels and hens bustled about while a solitary tethered goat nibbled at a rogue tuft of grass.

I dodged a smattering of pellets and stepped onto the street. Most of the lanes were so narrow that two people couldn’t walk abreast of each other. If you whispered at one end, you’d probably wake your neighbor at the other end.

It was with a great deal of excitement and a dash of apprehension that I navigated this locality whose little boys played cricket on the principal street—thankfully with a plastic ball; whose men seemed slightly affected at the presence of a young woman in a filigreed top and palazzos.

I felt like a chicken in a broiler. I rummaged in my coral backpack for my Bisleri which, to my disappointment, was empty. Just then, a woman dispatched a quick-footed little girl to the annachi kadai with a wicker basket. I followed her, as though mesmerized by the tinkling of her anklets.

“Two bottles of water, please?” I asked, holding up the empty Bisleri. The shopkeeper, whom the girl called “uncle”, nodded and opened a cooler. He was wearing a skullcap, a banian and a lungi.

The little girl was looking at me. I smiled.

“Akka!”

I picked up a nasal and a retroflex but couldn’t make out what she had said.

“She is very much liking your jewel,” the shopkeeper said, placing two chilled Aquafinas on the scarred wooden counter.

I didn’t realize I’d been thumbing my stellar pendant all that while.

“Oh, thank you,” I said to the girl. She was expertly assessing the ripeness of tomatoes with a few light squeezes. “What’s your name?”

“Harini,” she said. I mouthed the syllables. “I’m Rachel.”

I paid the shopkeeper, patted the girl’s oiled head and moved on.

I pulled out my phone to check my coordinates. I attacked the home button but the screen remained blank. Panic gripped me. How on earth was I supposed to find what I was looking for? I cussed under my breath when someone crept up behind me and hollered.

“Akka!”

It was Harini. She spoke rapidly in Tamil, pointing to my pendant and in the direction of the perpendicular lane.

“You know where it is?” I asked her.

She gestured for me to come.

The combined odor of joss sticks, Indian spices in oil and raw fish hit my nose when we stopped before a corrugated roof sheltering a Star of David that had seen better days. Beit Ha Haim—the House of Life—was spelled out in iron.

“Vanakkam, madam!”

If my memory served me right, this was Kumari, the lone groundskeeper. I had read about her in a bite-sized article she probably never knew existed. She put aside her coir broom and joined her palms in greeting. I reciprocated likewise.

Harini, Kumari and I entered the tiny blue-walled plot. I walked among the graves, some ornate, some unpretentious, some vaguely sepulchral, all splattered with ancient and recent bird droppings.

I was inspecting the details on the grave of 23-year-old Victoria M. Sofaer—a tragic story for another day—when the temple bell dinged. Harine touched her fingertips to her forehead and her mouth. No less than five seconds later, a church bell pealed the Angelus. Kumari crossed herself. Then, the afternoon call to namaz sounded loud and clear. I imagined the shopkeeper going down on his knees in the direction of Mecca. All the faiths of the area seemed to have conspired with one another.

On top of this melodious cacophony, I chanted the Kaddish.