He stepped
outside the door and looked on either side of the corridor, half expecting to
see her, maybe in conversation with a neighbor or maybe coming back from some
errand that she had suddenly remembered. The corridor was deserted, children
having gone to school by now and the adults getting ready to start their treks
to their workplace. There was a sound of someone sliding the latch on a door
and his heart leapt up as if this were the door from which she would emerge. A
door opened half way down the corridor and an old lady with her walker and the
girl attendant walked out, most likely on her daily walking routine. They
passed him on their way to elevator, the lady staring at him openly and not
bothering to look away when he stared back.
He came back
into the house, closing the door behind him. And then, as he sat down, he was
struck by a thought that the locked door might make her think that he had left.
So he went back and opened the door, leaving it ajar. He sat down on the sofa,
his thoughts wandering to the conversation that they had been having the
previous night, her sitting on his lap and brushing away his hair from his
forehead as she had grown used to doing. They had talked about what she would
do over the next few days, setting up the place, how she would like to do it
and how she wanted him to help. He had offered to take the next few days off
when he realized that she had been pulling his leg, her whole body shaking with
suppressed laughter at his gullibility. He had decided to take revenge then and
…
The door
bell rang loudly, breaking his reverie. He almost jumped out of the sofa and
ran to the door, not realizing in his haste that she wouldn't be ringing the
bell on an open door. The old lady in her walker stood outside, the girl
attendant in tow. She looked impatient, as if he was somehow late in coming to
the door, even though he had run to open it. He said, “Hello, can I help you?”
and the lady replied, “Tell your wife that I have got her the Tulsi plant.” It
was then that he noticed that the girl was holding a small pot containing a
Tulsi sapling. A wave of relief washed over him. Finally, someone had met her
and would now know where she was! He just stood there letting his relief wash
over him when the old lady dashed his hopes to the ground by saying, “So, call
her out, will you? I haven’t got all day.” He automatically muttered something
about giving it to her and took the pot from the girl. The old lady turned to
go and he suddenly asked her, “Where did you meet my wife?” She turned back and
stated as if it was the most obvious thing, “Why, on the roof terrace of
course!”
He ran back
into the house, leaving the old lady standing there, her jaw dropping at his
reaction. He ran outside to the terrace and then realizing that he was carrying
the pot, he kept it at the bottom of the stairs that led up to the roof. He
clambered up the iron ladder, taking two rungs at a time, his eagerness almost
giving him wings. As he raced up the stairs, he realized that he had missed her
so much the past couple of hours, he didn't actually want to go to office or
anywhere else that day. He made up his mind to call in sick and spend the day
with her. As his head cleared the roof, he saw a couple of ladies standing some
distance off, talking. He could instinctively see that she was not among them.
He almost ran towards them and then realized that he would look foolish running
up to them to ask about his wife. So, he slowed down to a walk and tried to
appear as cautious as he could, his heart racing inside at a pace that he was
sure would show on his face. Taking a couple of deep breaths, he approached
them, forcing a smile on his face that completely belied his anxiety.
One of the
ladies saw him coming and muttered something to the other, both ladies now snickering,
an obvious reference to him in some way. His resolve almost quaked away into
nothingness, the only thing still seeming to make him walk towards them was his
desire to know if they had met his wife. He stopped short some distance away
from the ladies who were openly enjoying his discomfiture and asked them if
they had met his wife. First he drew a teasing response about having brought in
a new wife and then when the ladies realized that he wasn't biting, they
responded that they had bumped into his wife in the morning, drinking her
coffee on the roof. She had struck up a conversation with them about the place
and nearby shopping haunts, the vegetable seller. Then, the old lady from the
same floor had come out onto her terrace and had called out to her. They had
been talking for a while and then his wife had gone back down to the house. All
this seemed to have happened about an hour ago.
Muttering a
hurried thank you, he went back down the ladder. He was none the wiser for this
episode but he at least knew that she had met three people all in the space of
the last hour or hour and a half. Where could she have gone, the question
resounded in his head and he almost missed his footing on the ladder. Luckily
he was on the last but one rung and he landed sharply on one foot, twisting it
a little and falling awkwardly down. Cursing, he picked himself up and tried to
walk, feeling a sharp twinge when his foot landed. He hop-walked it back
indoors and fell heavily on the sofa. Pulling up his pajama bottoms, he saw
that the ladder had torn a strip of skin from his ankle and it had now started
to bleed. He got up to wash the wound and disinfect it. In the bathroom, he
found the Dettol in the cabinet but nothing he could actually use to swab the
wound. His eyes fell on his favorite green and white checked shirt that he had
been wearing yesterday, the one that she hated and kept telling him to throw
away. She said it made him look older and a little outdated. With a wry smile,
he picked it up and blotted the antiseptic with it and proceeded to clean up
the scrape.
The job
done, he dumped the shirt back into the wash tub and then shaking his head,
finally decided to consign it to the dustbin. But that couldn't happen without
a celebration now could it? So he picked it up and carried it through to the
living room where he draped it like a flag of surrender on one arm of the sofa.
He sank back onto the sofa, laying his head back and closing his eyes, wishing
that this was just a bad dream and that he would wake up from it any moment
now. Unwittingly, his mind flowed back to the previous evening and how they
spent it. Lying next to her, watching her eyes look back at him from behind the
curtain of her hair, mischievously darting about, crinkling with laughter that
she was trying to suppress, the dimples in her cheeks deepening and inviting. The
whispered words, disappearing into long stretches of silence and then
resurfacing as if they did not want to lose the night to Morpheus. Her fingers
intertwined in his, never for a moment letting go, cherishing their
togetherness. The thoughts and words said aloud again and again, marking the
start of their life together, alone by themselves.
At that
thought, he woke, alone by himself, in the harsh light of reality. A sudden
feeling of loss swept through him inexplicably. He almost groaned out aloud at
the coldness of it. Feeling a shiver like someone had just walked over his
grave, he hugged himself, wishing she was there to envelope him in her warmth. He
remembered feeling like this when she had left for a week on a trip abroad to
visit one of her cousins. She had not activated the international roaming on
her phone and so could not call or message. Three days into her visit, he was
badly sick, a case of shivers and fever that foxed the doctor at the nearby
clinic. The next day an email came from her and immediately he recovered. He
mailed back asking her for a number at which he could call her. And the very
next night, spent three hours nearly on the phone with her. He was right as
rain the next morning, even though he hadn't slept. And when the telephone bill
for that month came, he fell off his chair on seeing an amount that was ten
times his normal bill. But then, that conversation had been worth it. Talking
to her had brought his temporarily lopsided life upright again.
After that,
he would call, no matter how much money it cost and they spent hours talking,
telling each other about the things that happened around them, to them, their
dreams, their disappointments. Each day had been incomplete without them first
talking their hearts out. They could talk for hours or so it seemed. He
remembered watching her speak about the police atrocities in the aftermath of
the Delhi rape incident, her eyes flashing and voice quivering with
indignation. He also remembered her eyes, soft and moist when she recounted the
incident of her school friend who had suffered an accident. She always did get
caught up in her emotions. Suddenly she would stop, to find him watching her
intently, drinking in her expressions, her words and would smile sheepishly and
say, “I've been going on and on about it, haven’t I?” And he would always deny
it, the sheer pleasure of listening to her and watching her, sometimes
overwhelming him with the sheer intensity of it.
Suddenly,
the thought struck him that his entire life in the past few months had been
defined by her. Each moment, each memory, framed with her in it. In fact, he realized
that he could not recall any specific thing that she wasn't a part of. Even the
office party that had happened had been made more special by her calling him in
the middle of it and him screaming responses to her to be heard over the noise.
It seemed like his life had now become a series of memories that had been
stitched together by her, each one sharply etched in his brain. The coldness
that surrounded him seemed to get worse. He shivered, despite the sunny morning
all around him. How he wished he could hold her in his arms again, letting her
warmth drive away his chill, tell her how much he had missed her and that she
should never ever go away like this again without telling him where she was
going. His longing was like a physical
pain, a blow to the gut that made him double up as he sat, hugging himself.
Suddenly,
out of the blue, like the child that can hear his mother’s voice amongst a
babble and turn unerringly, he heard her laugh, that lilting, floating laugh
that always brought a smile to his face. It seemed to be coming from somewhere
down below, the sound floating in through the balcony door. He stood up, almost
thinking it was his imagination playing tricks on him. But no, her voice
followed next, laughingly asking a question or so it seemed. His feet moved towards
the balcony, his mind barely registering the action. He quickened his pace and
reached the balcony, stopping at the railing. He could see her, or someone that
looked incredibly like her and also sounded amazingly like her. She was talking
to a heavy set old man who was sitting on a scooter and she was holding a bag
of what appeared to be groceries. She looked up suddenly, as if sensing his
eyes on him and smiled. That smile was enough to drive away all his worries and
anxiety. She shouted up, as usual, uncaring about protocol and public
posturing, “Mamaji” And he recalled that she had mentioned something about a mama
in this town who had been estranged from the family. And the pieces of the
puzzle fell into place and the clouds finally cleared up, the worms went into
their wormholes and the sun came out again. He raised his hand and waved, his
heart drumming a crazy three step tango, which he was sure, could be heard all
the way down. Mamaji waved back and then waved goodbye as he started off on his
scooter. She turned back, her step quickening at the thought of being with him
again. The grocery bag that was precariously loaded to the brim suddenly seemed
to give up on itself and decided to split open. And she reached out for the
falling groceries mid step.
From his
balcony high up, he saw her missing her step and going down on her knees. He
reached out involuntarily, as if to support her and stop her fall. And suddenly
found his feet slipping out from underneath him. He had leaned out too far
across the railing and now he found himself tipping over. It seemed an eternity
while he slowly toppled over the railing, screaming out her name and hearing
her screaming out his. It seemed a long way down and he could see the sun
shining out brightly from behind one of the buildings. He turned to look down
at her and saw her stricken face, blanched white and wanted to tell her not to
worry. It would be alright now that he had found her, they would be together
and he would tell her how she had become the seamstress of his memories.
He was rushed
to the hospital, bleeding profusely. The doctors took him into the OT
immediately and came out seven hours later declaring that he seemed to be OK
except for the multiple fractures of his hands, legs and shoulder. There was
only a small note about his possible concussion and the fact that they had to
keep him under observation. She was completely distraught and in the arms of
her parents and his, not willing to listen to anyone or anything. The doctors’
words gave her the first signs of hope.
It was thus
that he woke up, bandaged hand and foot, his body a mass of bruises and one
continuous channel of pain that seemed to build up and run down in cycles. He
saw all the equipment around and the place and realized he was in a hospital. He
saw his parents there at the bedside, their faces tear lined and weary, as if
life had shaken the will out of them. He wanted to raise his hand to wipe their
tears away, to tell them that he was OK or will be OK soon. His mother held his
hand, a fierce grip that seemed to give strength to him and solace to her, her
fingers almost crushing his in relief. His father seemed to have grown a lot
older than he had last seen him, head bent as if with the load of the burden that
life had placed on him. He wanted to hug both of them, telling them it was
alright, he was there and that everything would be OK now.
Then another
set of old people came into view, their kindly faces as tear lined as his
parents. They were younger than his parents but had the same time worn quality
about them. He couldn't quite place them. His parents seemed to be telling
something to them and they seemed to be telling his parents that he would be
OK. He guessed that they must be parents of someone else like him.
His parents
then left his bedside and a young lady came in. At first he thought she was the
doctor. But then, her face and her voice betrayed her. She seemed somehow
related to him though he could not place his finger on how. She was really
pretty even in her distraught condition. He noticed her eyes, large and
expressive and the dimple spots that creased her cheeks. He had a feeling that
this was a woman who could light up with her laughter. Her voice sounded husky,
a strange quality about it, like something he could keep listening to. He
racked his brains for some idea of who she was and why she was sobbing
uncontrollably at his bedside. She lay her head down on the bed beside his hand
and he almost reached out to lay his hand on her head, the crow black hair
hiding her face completely from view. And then, not realizing why he felt that
way, he dropped his hand back, choosing to remain silent.
After a
length of time, the nurse came in announcing that visiting hours were over and she
stood up and walked away, dropping a kiss on his forehead, her lips warm and moist,
wetted with tears. As she walked away, he lifted his hand up, wincing at the
sudden intense wave of pain at that and touched the spot where her lips had
been. The warmth was familiar and yet distant. As she had leaned over him, he
had smelt a curiously musky smell that he was sure had come out of a high
priced bottle off a department store shelf. And yet in spite of this, he could
not place her. It was almost as if he were throwing each of these hints at a
blank white wall that was absorbing them and giving nothing in return. That
curious sense of knowing and yet not knowing, something at the edge of his
memory, almost peeking from around the edge of that white blank wall but
quickly retreating as soon as he turned to catch sight of it.
At the door,
she turned back and smiled at him, a smile that lit up her eyes and creased her
dimples just as he had somehow known it would. And her lips curved up in a
smile as she mouthed “I love you” and then the door slid closed behind her. Seeing
her go, he felt a pang, a sense of loss that he simply could not explain. The
pang seemed to break open something in his head, almost like a crack in the cover
of ice that seemed to hide a whole lot of secrets in the lake underneath it. He
wished for someone who could help him completely break down this layer of ice
and uncover the secrets that lay beneath. It was only a momentary lapse, for, seconds
later, the ice had completely closed up and the lake lay silent and dark
beneath.