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My Great-uncle Norman, a pious crook (From my memoir, “A History of My World.”)

By Anita Mathias


  My grandmother’s house, Palm Grove, was dark and cavernous, its high ceilings and stone floors keeping it as cool as a morgue.  Its red tiles, like those of many old houses in town, were stamped Mssrs. Joseph Lobo and Son, the factory of my Granny’s father who left it to his naïve, sweet third wife and young widow, my great-grandmother Julianna.

Julianna, baffled, sold it to her nephew for “a song”—the factory and the goodwill, as her son Norbert discovered when he tried to establish a tile company with the family name.  “The goodwill?  Yes, I signed that.  He said that meant I had no bad feelings.” 
When Julianna’s debts to my grandfather Piedade grew beyond hope of repayment, she signed over Palm Grove to her son-in-law.  So Norbert did not even inherit the ancestral home. Sad, guilty about this, my grandmother, Josephine, Julianna’s daughter, invited Norbert, her younger brother to stay with her in his straitened old age, obviously deriving great comfort from her end being so close to her beginning.
Wiry, ectomorphic Norbert was nimble, spry, Old Father William, a familiar sight around Mangalore, as he hopped on and off buses almost until his death at 102.  A brusque old man with a savage wit.  “How obsequious they were; now, when we pass the paddy fields, they show us their bums,”—he rudely demonstrated—talking of land Granny had lost to her tenant farmers under India’s socialist land-to-the-tillers legislation intended to crush the power of the zamindars, feudal landowners, who kept peasants in generational virtual serfdom.
(In this excerpt, I tell how each Norbert said the whole rosary, aloud, kneeling, hands outstretched cruciform. When yet, he beat and brutalized his dog sheerly make him a savage watchdog. And while he prayed….)
In the gathering darkness of the compound, dhoti-clad men, respectful of Norbert’s communion with the Almighty, waited.  They watched the gaunt man kneel, cruciform, his El Greco face taut.  “Arre Baap.  He must be ninety.”  
How bland would pastures be without baa-baa black sheep, and how boring cupboards without their skeleton.   
 An in, an in; Norbert claimed he had an in.  Everyone’s secret fear: that this is exactly how the world works, always an inner circle inner-er than your own; the kingdom, the power and the glory transmitted through loops closed to you.
Norbert said knew someone who could swiftly get them passports, visas, jobs in the Gulf, quite literally Mecca to those who, though scornfully treated by arrogant Arabs, returned in airplanes uncomfortably overfull with food processors, color televisions and VCR’s, and having saved for neon houses, their children’s education, and their own old age.  “But hurry, hurry,” his friend had only twenty-one openings.
Being told to “Hurry,” should be a signal to “pause”–as the once-burned learn.  But with shimmering hope, they sign documents without reading them, embark on a frenzy of borrowing, and other no-nos as they glimpse this beautiful shore on which one will be rich, and one will be glorious.  Of course.
 He got his twenty-one.  Who daily, weekly, waited outside the columned porticoes of Palm Grove for news of their emigration.  His mind filled with holy harmonies—Father, forgive them, he goes out to meet them after evening prayers, radiant, reproachful, a Lord of the manor to recalcitrant serfs.  “O ye of little faith.”  Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.  They wait, clutching hope.
And who would suspect that octogenarian, validated by his lengthy prayers, his silver hair, and his “good family,” who in bank, boardroom, or monastery, serving God or mammon, rose to the top through nature and nurture–their dominant spiritual gene (a genetic trait, I suspect) and “the three I’s: intelligence, integrity and industry,” which the community told itself complacently were Mangalorean virtues.
I wouldn’t have suspected Norbert.  Neither did they, as they handed over borrowed money.  The days became months, interest inexorably compounding, compounding.  The would-be émigrés suspect; are smooth-talked, white-haired, blue-blooded out of their suspicions–furiously suspect–know.
They visited his niece Ethel, a well-known plantation-owner, weeping: “How can God let this happen to us?”  And, “What a disgrace,” my Aunt Ethel said with widened eyes.  “One of them committed suicide.” 
A clerk in the electricity board who had handed over the small dowry garnered during a quarter century of penny-saved-penny-gained, scrimping, shaving, saving, short-shrift thrift begun with the birth of his five daughters.  How replace the nest-egg he’d gathered, painful paise by paise?  How face beginning again?  His body swung metronomically from a ceiling fan.
 Then, a copycat suicide.  His nephews confront Norbert.  “What money?” he asks, the injured, sinned-against, his role played so long that he forgot it was a role.  (The bare-faced liar, the red-handed thief are as insulted by accusation as the lily-handed.)
Norbert warns against tormenting him because God has been for him, visiting strange calamities on past persecutors.  But ultimately: “I don’t have it.”  He didn’t–still the simple rainment, starched white cotton shirt and pants; he still skipped off and on buses; ate abstemiously at his sister’s table. 
But where was the money?  Good cop, bad cop, cajoling, threats.  Private detectives.  How exciting! I felt I was observing my very own Agatha Christie novel. I pumped, overheard, circuitously questioned, sat still as the proverbial owl: “The more he listened the more he knew, and oh, how wise that little owl grew.” 
He had donated the money to the local cloistered nuns whose prayers, behind high walls, rose like incense as they ceaselessly interceded for the sins of the world!! 
 My aunts and uncles visited the nuns. A fool and his money are soon parted,” my father lamented ruefully when he spotted money in my purse (just as he reflexively said when we saw graffiti, “The names of fools, like their faces, are often seen in public places.”) 
The nuns were not fools.  “But how do you know the money he gave us was that money?  And anyway, we have spent it.”  Good cop, bad cop, cajoling, threats, to retrieve blood-money from the treasury.  With no success.
When I left the country, Norbert, then ninety-two, was still, with variegated inventiveness, blood-sucking fresh suckers.
Goals
Start Date—August 27th, 2012
Completion Date—August 31st, 2013
Word Count Goal-120,000
Words per day Goal—470
Progress (Aiming to write 6 days a week, excluding Sundays)
  
Day 24—10652 words written (388 behind)


More from my site

  • My Grandmother, Josephine, and my grandfather, Dr. Piedade Felician Mathias (From my memoir-in-progress: The History of My World in 101 Chapters)My Grandmother, Josephine, and my grandfather, Dr. Piedade Felician Mathias (From my memoir-in-progress: The History of My World in 101 Chapters)
  • My Uncle Eustace: The Maharaja (From my memoir, I Lift up my Eyes to the Hills)My Uncle Eustace: The Maharaja (From my memoir, I Lift up my Eyes to the Hills)
  • My Father’s Sisters: Ethel, “The Grand-duchess,” and Winnie, “The Duchess,” and Joyce (From My Memoir: I Lift up my Eyes to the Hills)My Father’s Sisters: Ethel, “The Grand-duchess,” and Winnie, “The Duchess,” and Joyce (From My Memoir: I Lift up my Eyes to the Hills)
  • Mandatory Christmas Visits to Everyone in Mangalore (From my memoir in progress: Up to the Hills)Mandatory Christmas Visits to Everyone in Mangalore (From my memoir in progress: Up to the Hills)
  • Sam Hailes at Christian.co.uk interviewed meSam Hailes at Christian.co.uk interviewed me
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Premier Digital Awards 2015 - Finalist - Blogger of the year
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anita.mathias

Writer, Blogger, Reader, Mum. Christian. Instaing Oxford, travel, gardens and healthy meals. Oxford English alum. Writing memoir. Lives in Oxford, UK

Instagram post 2187417055488451246_1686032450 My day: admiring a Christmas cactus that my friend Judy gave me last year, photographing winter trees from the bedroom window, lunch with Danny, coffee and food with Irene at Brown’s. Some reading, some writing, some weights, a good day.
I am trying to get back into weight-lifting. It reminds me that life is probably designed to have hard, challenging and difficult stuff to keep us strong. Muscle not used simply disappears. The body reabsorbs it! Muscle used paradoxically gets stronger and makes the tasks of our days and lives so much easier. So here’s to a spot of weights, and breathing in and out through them and life’s seasons, challenges and joys... so help us, God
Instagram post 2186714755975443652_1686032450 A sunny day in Porto and Coimbra.
Now back home, back to Yoga classes and the like.
I find if I get a spot up front near the instructor and next to someone accomplished, and follow them as bravely and gaspingly as I can, I get a thorough workout, totally break a sweat, do things I was certain I could not do, and get so much stronger in the process.
A bit like following Christ. Read what he said, take a deep breath and do it as exactly as you can, and you will slowly find yourself becoming a little bit stronger, wiser and yes, happier! My thought for the day 🙂
#porto #portugal #ilovetravel #happiness
Instagram post 2185957583540871908_1686032450 Images from our week in Porto.
Both my grandmothers, for as long as I knew them, were homebodies, spending their days in just one or two rooms.
I love travel, and excitement, and living as big and expansive life as I can.
But I too spend several hours every day in a quiet room, reading, writing, thinking, praying... And in the quiet room, one can interact the best thoughts of men and women down the ages, and more with infinity.. God, The sweet Spirit, The Lord Christ. #porto #portugal #travel #novembersun #marriage #marriedlife #beaches #portoribeira #fun
Instagram post 2180132061531496763_1686032450 Images from the Ashmolean Museum’s exhibition in Pompeii, death suddenly arriving in the middle of hectic life. Leaving in its aftermath particularly fertile volcanic soil.
When we become stuck in bitterness, when we recount the same sad story, again and again, in our own minds and to others... we forget that EVERY death has the potential for resurrection.
Have you suffered financial loss, financial injustice, completely untrue slander, deep sadness, failure? I have. Many humans have.
Give it to God. Give it to God of resurrection. Ask him to bring beauty from those sad, dead things.
The soil in the aftermath of a volcanic explosion is particularly fertile.
God can bring new life and beauty from dead things.
He calls out to sad hearts, "Come alive. Come alive!" #pompeii # Ashmolean
Instagram post 2175440736861042753_1686032450 Thoughts on avoiding the holes we habitually fall into, and BELATED images from one of my favourite active holidays https://anitamathias.com/2019/11/11/an-autobiography-in-five-chapters-and-avoiding-habitual-holes/
Instagram post 2156925313647782363_1686032450 I am inspired and moved by the story of Dirk Willems, a hero of the Reformation who lost his life to save his enemy, and have written a little book about him. 
It's on http://Amazon.co.uk  https://amzn.to/2Bk9Shl  and on http://Amazon.com  https://amzn.to/2VQOSYN 
Please do consider reading it & reviewing it. I would be immensely grateful.  Thank you!
Instagram post 2156141167803371501_1686032450 Okay, an unabashed Latergram on our first day in Iceland in Thingvellir National Park. Isn’t it dramatic.  And a short blog  https://anitamathias.com/2019/10/16/on-checking-in-before-you-fly/ #thingvellirnationalpark #iceland #travel #beauty #joy #adventure #life
Instagram post 2148813562469383835_1686032450 Family walks in assorted parks and gardens.  On my new spiritual discipline of Bible-walking, listening to and engaging with Scripture on the hoof.  https://anitamathias.com/2019/10/06/the-spiritual-practice-of-bible-walking/ #walkingandpraying #walkingwiththeword #biblewalking #walkingwiththelord
Instagram post 2134504882437551900_1686032450 I am in New York for a couple of weeks, for my niece Kristina’s wedding. We are having an amazing time, and I have taken a zillion pictures, and it is hot. So here’s a #latergram album from our trip to cool Iceland last month.  I have also blogged on experiencing deep peace in times of political turmoil.
https://anitamathias.com/2019/09/17/deep-peace-in-times-of-political-turmoil/  #iceland  #ringroad #icebergs #glaciers #glaciallagoon #beauty
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