I returned to the counter and demanded more sauce of the teenager.  She was tightly wound and did as told.  She looked good.  She was at her peak.  I asked for napkins and she brought them straight out of her apron.  She gave all of them.  I loitered at the counter and she waited for me to say the next thing.

“Well, how ‘bout the salt,” I said.

Up from the apron came the salt.  It slammed down.  Never on earth had a person so vigorously delivered salt on command, not especially for a loaf like me.  There was everything before this young woman, and she would do some things to run the table.

“Do you break the speed limit?” I asked.

“When necessary.”

“Five over?  Ten over?”

“Ten.”

“Would you steal a dead woman’s wig?”

“If the interview required a perm.”

“My God, You’ll have disarmed all nukes by my 50th birthday.”

“Diplomatically.  And not ours,” she said, smirking.  “But actually my plan—”

She went on to tell of many things, including a campaign for tougher babies, as would be necessary given what’s in store for mankind.  Also a ban on certain less reliable forms of chemotherapy, so then reallocating those funds toward proven carbon-offsets.  So on.  And so on.

I set my burger mess on the counter and cut her off.

“It’s a good plan,” I said.

She looked to the burger.    

“There’s a lot left there.  Mind if I box it and snarf it up in my apartment later?  Eating costs, but I have to stay regular with it.  Or I’ll look like you someday.”

“Another good plan.  I’m going to walk home now.”

I walked a few blocks.  The day seemed good, even productive.  Though by now I’d figured this came of the burger mostly, and a bit too the sunshine and threat of war, and that once into the latter-PMs I’d see it all differently.  I’d see waste and suffering. 

Suddenly three young men crossed the street.  They came toward me and quickened.  They wore shirts and ties and slacks.  Down the walkway they joined arms and formed a wall.  I turned and ran. 

I’ll admit to calling this forth.  I’d stolen their tithe seven months running, deposit slips and all.  It was intuitive.  We whites crave struggle.  Not the real struggle, but the kind we can sell and wrap our beady heads around.  Those thefts were a momentary rise and foretold of consequences and near-term—yet manageable—complications.  Now the running felt good too.  I was slow and clumsy.  My hair matted over my eyes.  I was a dog and they were gaining on me.  I made bad turns.  I serpentined at random.  I jumped a very small crate in an alley.  Fly, Philip, fly.  

Beyond the crate they got me.  They must have stepped around, and were waiting on the other side.  A light beating ensued.  I kicked and cursed.  They shouted ultimatums and gave me a scratch on the cheek.  The blood smeared on the shoulder of one, the shortest one with a handsome, military look.  Solid.  With fatigues and a mandate he could do a few things.  Yet here he saw the smear and let off.  He became confused and looked about himself.  This was no battlefield, but there was my bit of blood.   

The two others abandoned the conflicted boy, who himself eventually wandered off alone.  He passed by saying, “Ooof!” and “Gad, Jonathon.  Gad!”

I lay there a while.  The way a sucker would.  Finally I rose from the pavement feeling a conqueror.  I’d survived.  Even worse, my dumb, emboldened brain told me now was the time.  So I went up to my apartment and got the loot from the sock door, $330, mixed bills, came down and hopped on a pay scooter and pedaled it to Bryn’s.

I knocked and knocked and knocked.  I sat on a ceramic pot and waited.  I stared at a clematis against the masonry, years overgrown from within.  Thatchy.  I’m no libertarian—you’ve got to help these things along.  If ever I could be of use, it was to thin the clematis.

I knocked and knocked.  Suddenly I was losing confidence.  I’d been watching my face turn to mash of late.  One shouldn’t be able to navigate this world with such a face.  Much less should he achieve reconciliation with a woman who’d known its better version.  I turned to leave but heard the door.  I regathered myself.  She spoke through the crack.

“Phil, what the hell is it.” 

“Babe I’ve got coin now,” I said.  “A whole lot of it.  I look damn terrible, but the coin will blunt the ugly.”  

“It was never about the coin.”

“But couldn’t it be?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, yes or no?”

“Yes, though it shames my gender to say it.  I’m upside down in this place.  I’ve overextended.  I dated this finance guy, Kevin.  Kevin helped me with the paperwork for loans.”   

“Don’t think about your gender.  Forget Kevin.  God dammit do you want my money and my love or what?”

She paused.

“Well— I do.  But Phil you became a Mormon.  You went deep.  You changed things.”

“Oh that.  It was all just boredom and fetish.  Research.  I never meant it and you know as much.  And in the first place I went and told them off just yesterday.”

“What did you say?”

“I said, ‘Look, people, it can’t be all good news.  There’s no way.’  I used the example of a dying pfitzer.  I said, ‘Look at it.  See how it leaves this world?  Some dead bits over here, some bigger chunks over there.  It’s got no legs.  It drags itself out the door this way.  And all the while it’s drawing the blood of children.  They toss each other in on their way to school.  They bully.  Sometimes it’s an accident, but all the same.  And it’ll go on this way for many years.  Pfitzers die the slow death.  At times they appear to recover, to green a little.  Then it’s back to the slow death.  That’s me.  That’s what I fucking feel like.  And it ain’t good news.’” 

“And then?”

“Well they insisted that in spite of everything, it was all still good news.  The best news, even.  And to be honest, if I look at it in a certain light, maybe a sort of dim but serviceable light, I see merit there.  Probably it’s the fetish talking, but I can still see it, and it’s going to be my lot in life to creep close to those big ticket items on occasion, to try and make them out.  And you’ve got to endure it and support me or else we’re all up the creek and alone.  Anyway, that’s most of what I said, Bryn.  I told them I was out and then I turned and showed my ass.”

“You did?”

“I did.  And they laughed.  One guy did a spit-take.  I’d forgotten how sad a butt it was.”

Bryn smiled, and there I saw it.  Reconciliation.  After these years.  And not by coin or swagger or conviction.  No.  It was that pitiful ass which we both knew well and regarded with fervor.  It was cultural.   

She took off the latch and I entered.  Inside was the familiar structure, though there was nothing really left of me now.  Here were new hardwoods, pristinely cut and finished.  LED lights and repainted, pastel walls, smartly schemed.  Apart from the occasional whiff of Kevin, it was everything bare, delicate, and fresh.  A total reboot.  I’d be starting from scratch.  And of course once you’ve built the thing from scratch there’s the pressure to keep it standing and whole and even pure.  

In the entrance way, all at once—and once again—I became irritable and strange.  $330 felt light.

I was petrified.

Raymond Deej lives in Idaho with his kids.  That’s everything.  The daughter makes the rules.

It was the most unusual place, and yet, it didn’t seem strange to be there. I felt like I had always belonged there — like I’d lived there all of my 34 years, like I’d suffered there my entire lifetime. It felt like it had always been as overcast in the barren fields that stretched as far as the eye could see. It felt like the dark clouds had always hung this low — like if I could just jump high enough, I could be among them. It had never rained though. There was always the threat, but it had never. I imagined that if it eventually rained, it would pour for a thousand days. It was like the sea ahead that always raged, that always threatened to run amok, but didn’t. It churned and agitated, but just wouldn’t break into the shore… almost like it were held back by invisible chains. 

An expansive cloud of grey near the sea’s horizon seemed to be growing by the minute—a mega cloud that seemed to merge with the sea, that seemed to emerge from within. It had always been just past twilight here. There was neither light, nor darkness. You saw only in greys. I’d always been chained to the lonely, old tree amid the fields — unable to move, lacking the will to set myself free, so resigned, so drained of energy that it must have been weeks since I exchanged a glance with the person chained next to me.

***

Something had been growing between us, something toxic, something ugly… something I think we were both equally guilty of feeding. It seemed to be thriving on our growing apathy, our quick temper. I sensed it gaining strength in the long periods of silence. And this Sunday evening was deafeningly silent. It seemed like the sort of day when a single word could detonate all the suppressed tension of years. It had seemed like that for many months. Not unlike many friends I knew, Nithya and I had started maintaining an unhealthy balance between bickering and apathy. On anniversaries and birthdays, we took a break from driving each other crazy. That’s when we remembered we were to love each other. I thought of them as the fuel days. A good fuel day got us going for weeks. An intimate night got us going for months without as much as a handshake. I assumed we would do this for life. I wanted to. I’m sure she did too. And wasn’t this just how it was supposed to be?

We both recognised the slow, sure descent, but pretended it wasn’t the case. We trusted the routine. Drinking Fridays, Netflix Saturdays, cooking Sundays… Drinking Fridays got quieter, Netflix Saturdays became WhatsApp Saturdays, and cooking Sundays, well, they had started turning into Swiggy Sundays. We persisted though, more out of habit than any real affinity. Every time the tension was threatening to turn unbearable, a fuel day came along, and the rickety vehicle hurtled along. But on this Sunday evening, I realised it had been a while since we had had a fuel day.

I realised, flopped on my bed, that I had been staring at the ceiling for far too long. I looked at her — in case she thought it weird that I had been staring at nothing for too long. With her hair tied into a bun — which she knew I hated — she looked transfixed too… by the charms of her mobile phone. Dully, disinterestedly scrolling. Her neatly manicured thumbs involved in a sort of dance battle on the mobile screen. Had this been another day, I’d have picked up my phone too—my new upgraded iPhone which I got because isn’t that what you are supposed to do when they come out with a new version? I too would have refreshed social media feed until the eyes shut down in part boredom and part fatigue. But something felt different today. I sensed my mind exploding with anger. It didn’t help that she was smiling as she was messaging someone—some guy at work. Who he was, I didn’t care. And it’s not like I didn’t trust her. I just didn’t understand why she wasn’t having that cheerful conversation with me, why I wasn’t worthy of that smile.

With my irritation threatening to form into unintended words, I turned away from her, searching for a distraction. I found it with the framed photo on the wall behind us. A photo from about seven years ago when we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. When I’d had less beard and more hair. When she’d… well, she still looked lovely. I realised that I had never told her how attracted I was to her physically, after all these years; I had not wanted her to think that’s all the love was about. Eventually, I figured she knew anyway.

We had been in a relationship for years before this photo had been taken—by the waiter of a seaside restaurant in Chennai suburbs. When we drank and smoked and ate at restaurants, we scowled at couples fiddling with their phones. We promised we would never become one of them—that we would show them. It was a time when our palms thrived in contact, our bodies capitalizing on every half-chance for an embrace. 

Something about how I was craning my neck, to get a good look at the photo, might have seemed strange, because she looked away from her phone—at me, at last—with a quizzical look. The edges of her thin eyebrows went up and down in a hurry. I shook my head to indicate everything was all right, thank you very much. Her eyes promptly made the expected trip back to her phone. And I turned again at the photo. 

She had gifted it for an anniversary—a gift not just to me, but to us. She was never one to forget the fuel days. I was the passive one, the sponge who soaked everything in. It was what she had originally liked about me: my quiet countenance. Most guys she had met before me had looked to charm her with incessant chatter. I remembered how hard she had to work to pry out information on our first date. Which composer do you like better, AR Rahman or Ilaiyaraaja? What’s your favourite film? What do you think about Ayn Rand? In hindsight, it was more an interview than a first date, and she had loved that she had to work to know me. I had loved that she did.

I wondered if she had outgrown her love for all my silence. Just a week ago, in a ridiculous squabble over an empty water bottle, I had shut down out of instinct, and she spent an entire evening coaxing, coercing, and eventually yelling for me to say something.

I noticed the dust coating the frame. This was my gift: Spotting damage. Dust on appliances, dirt on pillow covers, cobwebs in wall corners, ants around dustbins… I had the eyes for damage, and the hands to rectify them. This was our understanding. She would create; I would repair. She made more money, I was in charge of the banking. She did the cooking, I was in charge of the cleaning and refrigeration. She financed the purchase of clothes, I was in charge of the washing. She created, I protected. She was the Brahma, I was the Vishnu.

Over the last year. I’d stopped caring as much about maintenance. I wanted to see if she would once care to notice the dust, at least once take the responsibility of cleaning something as small as our photo frame. She didn’t. She wouldn’t. And while I had once made my peace with my judgment that she couldn’t, I was no longer able to. A couple of days back, on Friday, she glanced at our bedroom photo and spoke fondly about the day when it was taken—about our date. And yet, she hadn’t noticed that it needed cleaning, that it was no longer what it was. 

I felt the pressure rising. The taps on her phone seemed to be growing louder and louder until I could bear it all no more.

I caught myself saying, “What are we doing?”

***

It turned out that the distant cloud was not pregnant with rain, it was with dust. After what seemed like years of gathering, the cloud finally hit the shore, the impact of the storm a hundred times worse than its ominousness had suggested. The dust arrived in tidal waves, the all-consuming grey engulfing everything in its wake. Before I could think, before I could give up, I was within it, muted by its chaos, suffocated by its rage. I shut my eyes to stop the burning. It didn’t matter. The dust seemed to begin invading me. It was in my eyes. It was seeping into my nose. I was becoming it. I was becoming dust.

I knew that the only way out was to try and wrench myself free. I turned at the unrecognizable woman next to me for help, but I may as well have not. She was at the mercy of the storm, her body limp. I had to get out. And for the first time in years, I tried to break free off the chains. I didn’t understand why the thought hadn’t occurred to me before, why for so long I had let myself be tied. The chains were too tight, and the links had settled comfortably into my skin. I tugged in vain, I let out a scream of effort that even I couldn’t hear.

Perhaps in retaliation, a fresh gale of dust pushed me back into the tree trunk, tighter into the chains. My back burned, as if on fire. I dimly became aware of the growing blisters, and it dawned on me that those on my arms weren’t from being chained to the tree for a long time. They were from being in contact with it. This was no ordinary tree, this was a manchineel. It had been poisoning me, and had likely done the same to the strange woman next to me. She must have died. I hadn’t heard from her for weeks, hadn’t seen her move for days. I tried to sneak a glance at her, eyes screwed up in pain and dust. I saw a lifeless, grey shadow.

I shut my eyes, and felt the dust invading my body, my mind. I was going to be killed.

***

 “Aan?” she mustered, chained still by the light of her phone.

“What… are… we… doing?” I repeated. “Nithya, look at me. This is serious.”

She realised something was up, perhaps because I was hardly one to say much, let alone say something was serious. I saw her running the possibilities in her mind: “What did I forget? Did I leave the oven on? Perhaps I forgot to lock the door? What is it now?”

When you have lived with someone long enough, a glance is a sentence; a small stare, a paragraph. 

I considered her for a moment, unsure of what I wanted to say. The strong feeling was a sense of finality about how things were.

She dropped her precious phone, and looked at me, her eyes kind in a way she couldn’t change even if she wanted to. Everyone from waiters to call drivers to house helps to her team members to my friends, loved her. You couldn’t not. Her eyes looked at you in a way that made you feel a special connection with her. Her look softened me a bit.

But she could see that I was struggling to communicate—she always saw that and was the only person to. 

“What is it?” she said, her voice as soft as her eyes.

Perhaps due to her kindness, or perhaps out of sheer frustration, my eyes welled up.

Her eyes widened in response—the equivalent of an ‘Oh!’—and she pulled me in for a hug. Even while letting her pull me in, I tried to remember when we had last hugged. My head resting on her chest, her hand rummaging through my hair, everything seemed almost all right again. I almost succumbed, but the realisation that it had to take my tears for a gesture of intimacy, breathed life back into my anger. I pulled back from the pity embrace, and drew in a long breath, while she looked a bit taken aback. 

Suddenly, I knew what I should ask her.

“Are you happy?” I asked, relieved that I had finally been able to form words.

She straightened, and looked at me, like I’d asked a stupid question. Her perfectly waxed eyebrows curved in confusion. She waited a moment to see if I would explain myself, but she knew I wasn’t going to. So, she said, “Happy? About what?”

“I don’t know,” I said, and remembered how she had always laughed at how I used ‘I don’t know’ as a way to buy time to think. In Tamil, the language we spoke in, I began many sentences with, “Therla…”, the equivalent of ‘I don’t know’.

“Therla,” I repeated again. “About everything. About life. About you and me. About us.”

“Well, I don’t know what you want me to say.” 

I still didn’t know where I was going with this conversation; I didn’t care. I was just happy to have addressed something that had been gnawing at me for weeks, or was it months?

“Are you?” she asked, catching me by surprise.

I stared at the tube light, unable to meet her eye. The heat of her stare bored into me; I knew that if I met her eyes, my anger would begin melting. I refused the invitation. 

“Are you going to say something?” she asked, after each second seemed to feel longer and longer.

My head exploded with a thousand things to say. I wanted to talk about how she gave me nothing for my birthday this year. I wanted to point out that it had been months since we had had sex. And oh, when had she last said she loved me? Now she wanted to know if I was happy? I wanted to say, “No.” But as usual, I couldn’t form the word, that single, small word.

My eyes darted to see her sunk into the bed again, unlocking her phone. They caught her reading nothing on it, staring at her wallpaper—some photo of an erupting volcano. My anger rose.

“Yes, look at your phone,” I said. “That will make everything better.”

“I don’t understand. What do you want me to do now?” She sat up again, looking at me in mock earnest. “What do you want me to say? What are you trying to say anyway?”

I wanted her to see how her indifference was killing me, killing us.

Perhaps it was the fear that she would sink into the bed again, and get lost in the light of her phone, that made me scream.

“I WANT YOU TO GIVE A SHIT ABOUT ME!”

***

The storm grew worse. The grey seemed to be turning black—or was I going blind? Coughing, eyes shriveled, I knew I was going to die without help or rescue, like the woman next to me had. Who had tied me to this toxic tree? Who was this dead woman? But this was not the time to spend precious time thinking about such things.  

I howled in pain. The welts and blisters across my body were spreading. Some of them had even begun bleeding. I tried to pull myself away from the tree, eyes watering up in ever-increasing pain. I knew I had to try one last time before giving up. I drew in the deepest breath I could muster, coughing as dust particles accepted the invitation. I tried again, face held closer to my chest.

And then, I tugged at the chains, letting out a primal scream of effort. The dust choked me, but I tugged. My arms seemed like they would give way, but I tugged. My vocal chords threatened to tear, but I tugged. I tugged with the last breath I could muster from my reserves, and then some more. I screamed and screamed, dimly realising that I was out of breath and energy. It was over; I had failed… 

But then, it happened. The chains gave way. The momentum of my effort caused me to fall face first. Bleeding, surrounded by sheets of grey, drained of energy, I gathered myself up. Out of pure instinct, I turned away from the direction of the storm. As I cupped my face to try and get in some breaths, I caught a glimpse of the tree, its vast trunk, its flailing branches. It seemed alive, and possessed. It seemed to want me dead.

I shuffled to the right, past the dead woman, so I could look for some shelter, away from the tree, away from the vengeful sea. I tried to make sense of this place through the burning chaos. Who had done this to me? Was someone watching? What did they want? My palms still shielding my face, I was walking past the dead woman, when I caught a brief glimpse of her face—before another wave of dust masked her again. My knees buckled in shock. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be, I told myself, taking another step towards her. It didn’t make sense.

I fell forward, towards her. The fallen figure of this familiar woman closer than it ever had been, though I had been bound right next to her for months—or was it years? I knew what I had to do, as I sat kneeling, my face in front of hers, and yet, with a world of grey between us. I exposed my face to the storm, the fine dust rushing on to my face like a swarm of locusts towards crop. Eyes screwed up to try and get a look at her, I brushed the hair off her face. I collapsed in horror once more. It couldn’t be, but it was. It made no sense. 

It was Nithya. And she was dead.

***

“But I do! I do care about you!” she said.

Care? I didn’t want care. I wanted love. Why wouldn’t she say that word anyway?

She probably heard me.

“Dei,” she said, using a term of endearment she knew I always liked. “This is how all relationships evolve. The butterflies are fleeting, negligible. Listen to me. Why don’t you sleep this over? I swear you will feel better tomorrow. You always do.”

I hated the condescension, the implication that I didn’t understand how love worked, the refusal to own up to her mistake, the reluctance to promise to do better.

“You promise to sleep now?” she asked, looking at me like a mother would at her infant.

The patronising infuriated me.

“So, that’s it then?” I said, unleashing a volley of complaints. “There’s nothing wrong with how you are? How we are? Nothing wrong with the dusty photos? Nothing wrong with forgetting birthdays? Nothing wrong with not having sex? Nothing wrong with not saying ‘I love you’?”

“What dusty photos?” she said, more to herself, than to me.

I could see I had pushed her to a corner with the tirade. How was she going to defend herself?

She didn’t. She attacked.

“You think you are so perfect?” she fought back, trying hard to make her eyes look not so kind. “You barely talk to me.” It hurt that she would pick something that I already knew was bad about myself. 

She continued, “You walk around the house, doing chores. You boss over me with instructions. And it’s all about you anyway. We buy what you want. We throw away what you want. We maintain it like you want. Even when we watch TV or listen to music, it’s what you want. Ask yourself. Ask yourself truly when you last showed interest in something I wanted? Ask yourself if you cared to ask. Ask yourself when you last showed interest in me!”

She wasn’t done.

“Just last week…” she said, gathering her breath. “Just last week, I wanted to talk to you about a problem at work. You remember? You were stuffing the pillows, complaining about how quickly the foam seemed to be getting flattened…”

I remembered. She had been complaining for over a week about the flat pillows hurting her neck, and I had been annoyed by her refusal to do nothing about it.

“It’s a FUCKING PILLOW!” she yelled. “WHO CARES?” 

She went on, as though she were repeating lines she had been running in her head for days. “I needed to talk… about something at work. But you barely heard me. I started talking, and you cut in, asking me not to keep folding the pillow in half… It’s what you do always. It’s always, ‘Nithya, don’t do this; Nithya, don’t do that.’”

In my defence, in the case of this pillow, I had long noticed that she had the habit of folding it, so she could have something soft and puffy to lean on when watching bedroom television. But I couldn’t remember what work problem she was talking of. 

“I could see you were not paying attention. So, I lost interest. I saw you didn’t care…”

Suddenly, I noticed something.

“Do you know what you are resting on now?” I asked.

She didn’t understand for a fleeting second, and then, it dawned on her. She took the folded pillow from behind her and flung it away from the bed, towards the wall mounted television.

“HAPPY?” she yelled. “You are unbelievable!”

If she had listened to me about something as trivial as not folding a pillow, why would I have to keep repeating it? 

“This is just not working,” I caught myself saying, more out of frustration than out of any real intent.

It’s probably on account of how little I generally spoke that when I did say something, it often ended up sounding more serious than I meant.

She glared at me, a thousand knives of judgement. Her eyes forgot to blink. “What did you say?”

I didn’t know what to say.

“I heard you. What do you want then?” she asked.

Something heavy, something sinister seemed to be egging us on, manipulating our conversation. And we, who had barely spoken in weeks, couldn’t stop talking.

“Therla,” I said. “Some peace of mind. For both of us.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Therla. Nothing.”

“It’s okay, you can say it,” she taunted.

My voice quivering, my eyes threatening to well up, I heard myself saying, “Just leave me alone.”

The tears that fell on her angry face won the race against my own. 

The silence hung heavy.

“Okay,” she said, wiping her tears fast, as though hoping that if she did it fast enough, I would forget that I had seen them. “I will stay at Gayathri’s place for a few days.” 

Gayathri was her old friend, who was barely a friend anymore. But Nithya would stay rather stay there, than at her parents’ home, where she knew the questions would pile up.

I couldn’t believe that her response was to leave to her friend’s place. So, I offered to leave instead. But she would have none of it. 

“I’ll talk to her tomorrow. By evening tomorrow, I will figure something,” she said.

I couldn’t think of anything to say. I didn’t even understand what had happened. Just minutes ago, we were both lying on the bed, set to repeat the same evening for many thousands of evenings. I looked on—my face an embodiment of ‘therla’—as she got up from the bed to retrieve her flung pillow. She carefully folded it in half and leaned back on it, before unlocking her phone.

I got up, my pillow tucked under my arm… my pillow without creases, in need of no restuffing. 

“I’ll be sleeping in the hall,” I muttered to nobody in particular, and dragged myself out of the bedroom, hardly able to process that this was all really happening. 

I was angry. 

But I was also sad.

***

Nithya was dead.

I didn’t understand. How could this be? How had I not recognised her, even though she had been chained right next to me for months? Could I have saved her? Was it my fault? This face that had brought me so much comfort and joy and love, now lifeless. This woman I had promised to save from all danger, from all grief, dead. 

The sudden thought that I could never have another conversation with her, exchange another joke, another laugh, take another selfie, watch another movie… it came as a crushing realisation. My eyes stung not just with dust, but a flood of tears. I held her lifeless hands, and kissed them instinctively, not knowing what else to do. The thought that she would have felt so much pain from the blisters, broke me. Had she screamed out to me for help? Had I not cared to look, to listen? I wish I were dead too. She deserved someone better than me, someone unselfish who would have remembered to save her too. 

I hated myself.

I screamed in self-loathing, a scream so loud and shattering that I could hear myself for the first time.

***

I woke up from the dream… groggy, disoriented. As the fog cleared, I realised that the tears from the dream were real. I felt my wet cheeks, and relief coursed through me. The tears were real, but the events were not. Everything was all right. Nothing had happened to her.

And then, the bitter events of last night came as a depressing realisation—the events that pushed me out of the bedroom, and onto the sofa in the living room. 

Somewhere, the clock struck five. The neighbourhood mosque began its prayers. 

I pulled the bed sheet off me and made for the bedroom, noticing the gentle streams of sunlight coming in through the windows, aware that it always cast a beautiful shadow of the window on the opposite wall. After drunken nights stretched to dawn, this shadow was usually our cue that it was time to get some sleep. 

I opened the door as gently as I could, and saw her fast asleep—in the same posture she was in, when I had last seen her: Sitting up, leaning on the deformed pillow, head facing in my direction. My heart skipped a beat when I remembered how similar the posture was to the way I saw her in my dream. Perhaps that’s what made me not shut the door as softly as I wanted to. 

She awoke with a jolt. Soon as she saw me, she averted eye-contact. Relief rushed through me again. She was really well. I stood near the door, watching. Hair still in a bun, pillow misshapen, her eyes bloodshot… A wave of affection for her washed through me. I stood still, saying nothing, frightened of what I could end up saying, wary of how it could make matters worse. After what seemed like hours, she turned, facing me again. 

Our eyes were locked. I was worried I’d see anger, but couldn’t find it. It didn’t seem like she was trying to make her eyes look unkind either.

When you have lived with someone long enough, a glance is a sentence; a small stare, a paragraph.

We looked at each other, into each other. We spoke wordlessly. We admonished, we forgave. Or so it seemed to me. After many minutes, that seemed like seconds, my lips cracked into a tiny hint of a smile. Her eyes responded by turning kinder than they already were. 

Look at us, they seemed to be saying. Look at what we are doing with something so beautiful. 

The conversation we had had the previous night felt like a distant memory I could scarcely relate to, or believe happened. That ugly something in our midst that was manipulating our conversation, seemed to have left.

She flung her arms wide.

I needed no invitation. My face hidden in the pillow behind her, my body thriving in our embrace, everything seemed all right again.

“Did you get any sleep at all?” I asked, taking care to remain still, so as not to affect the hug.

“I didn’t want to. I didn’t think I was going to, but I guess I did at some point,” she said, her sleep-voice recognisable by how it broke between words.

The hug thrived. The silence was comfortable.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I’m sorry too,” she whispered. 

She hugged tighter.

“I love you,” I said. “And I’m an idiot.”

Suddenly, my words seemed just right.

In ever the lowest whisper, she said, “I know I don’t say this enough. But I love you too.”

In that embrace, with no intentions of stepping out of it soon, I couldn’t help myself. So, I ever so gently tried to straighten her pillow a bit. 

***

Sudhir is a writer and film critic from Chennai, and currently the Entertainment Editor of The New Indian Express newspaper.He has previously been employed by respectable publications including The Hindu and The Times of India.

Barney went to the park at the end of his estate to try to trap a buff-tailed bumble bee in a jam-jar. The bumbler buzzed away from him giving him the finger every time he got near, no matter how hard he chased or wielded his jam-jar. 

He felt hungry and said aloud to no-one in particular, ‘I wonder what time it is? My dinner will be ready soon, I think.’ 

He heard strange rustling from a nearby bush and a brown rat popped its head out the top and said, ‘It’s a quarter to four.’ 

It then ducked back into the bush again and continued with all that rustling. 

Barney rushed over to the talking rat.

‘How did you do that?’ 

The rat popped its head out and said, ‘Oh, it’s you. I used to live with a priest with red trousers. He taught me how to tell time with my nose. All I have to do is sniff the air and I know the exact time down to the split second. I’m the rat who can smell time. I should be famous really, and have my own talk show. But I’m not.’

Bad Barney said, ‘Where’s the priest now?’ 

The rat replied, ‘Oh I left him this morning because he never went anywhere. All he did was just hang around the house all day and say his prayers. He didn’t even fart. A holy Joe. He never wanted to know the time. Bloody boring. I’m off now to be with people who really really really need to know the time. Ordinary decent people. Are there any left in Ireland though?’

Barney scratched his head and said, ‘Hey, I’m always late for things like my dinner or school. Can I strap you to my wrist and use you as a watch in order to get me to all my appointments on time? What do you say?’ 

The rat folded his arms and scrunched his red lips together. ‘Do you think I’ve gone stark raving stupid in that my dream job is to be tied around your sweaty wrist all day, just so I can sniff you the time? You must think I’ve got a bowl of nuts for a brain.’ 

Barney shook his head three times and said, ‘Alright it was only a suggestion. No need to get sarky. I’m off home now for my dinner. Goodbye nuts-head, it’s been good to know ya. If I’m late it’s your fault.’

The rat then interrupted his progress by lifting his eyebrows, ‘Hold on there, Tonto. If you really want me to be your wristwatch, you’ll have to do me a favour first.’

Barney took a breath and had to stop mucus-bubbles from coming down his nostrils by pinching his nose. ‘What favour?’ 

The rat said, ‘Fingers. I want fingers.’

Barney cocked his head sideways like a bamboozled Jack Russell, ‘But you’ve already got four legs and five fingers on each one. That’s twenty fingers I reckon. Isn’t that enough for any talking rat?’ 

The rat’s eyes turned an even deeper red. ‘I need a finger a week. I eat fingers and need them to be able to sniff time. Human fingers. If you can source me one human finger a week, then I’ll be your wristwatch, and we have a deal. Fetch me a finger now Barney, go on, be bad.’

Barney looked around to see where he’d source the rat a finger, when suddenly he saw Toasty Dickens jump up from out of a big dark hole in the ground she’d dug with her own shovel. She was in his class at school but he didn’t like her that much. She was always digging dark lunatic holes for herself. 

She came running towards the two of them with her shovel in her hands and shouted, ‘Hey Barney, I want your money and your trousers in my hands right away! If you don’t give them to me now I’m going to whack you over the head with this shovel, and bury you alive in my nice deep dark hole over there. Do it now arse-breath. You know what I did to Seamus Brady last week, so look lively. Chop! Chop!’

Barney got flustered when he thought of Seamus Brady’s discomfort, so nearly fell into the thorny bush on top of the talking rat, but caught his balance just in the nick of time. He started to unbutton his trousers and tried to do as she ordered. She was going to laugh at his Batman underpants, he knew it.

An idea dazzled his head, and he looked at the rat. It seemed that the rat had thought the same thing. It was as if they were both reading the same sentence at the same time in his big book of zombie stories from his bedroom, page one, chapter one. 

They winked at each other and sang, ‘Finger time!’

The rat jumped and landed on Toasty’s hand. She started to scream. She watched the rat opening his big mouth and baring his teeth to the sunshine of the day. He bit into her little finger and detached it easily with three gnawing motions. Left, right and left again. Like a ratty chainsaw. Blood went everywhere. 

A big clicking sound was heard when the finger snapped right off her hand. The rat had it between his teeth and scurried off to the bush he was in earlier, and started all that rustling once again. 

Toasty fainted in shock and fell back into the big hole she’d dug for herself earlier, where she went out for the count of Monte Cristo, all black and a little bit French. 

Toasty woke up later in a hospital bed minus a finger saying, ‘Ooh la la Monsieur!,’ but couldn’t remember a damn thing about what had happened to her. All she could do was scratch her head and eat her hair. 

‘Where’s my shovel?’ she said, ‘Where’s my fucking shovel?’

By this time, Barney and the rat were in his house relaxing and gobbing dinner. 

‘Give me the finger Barney! Give me the finger!’

Barney was eating stew and the rat was under the table in a box, eating portion one of Toasty’s little finger. He would cut the finger up into seven deadly slices and eat one a day until the time came to find another. So he could continue to sniff the time.

Barney reckoned that there were enough evil victims in the world that could afford to lose a finger without any real harm being done. Well, he hoped. All he had to do was find evil people. It couldn’t be too hard these days. Surely.

‘I’m not bad, I’m just fighting injustice. Not bad at all.’

He thought about how his big brother would react. ‘That’s what Hitler would say Barney, Hitler!’ and gulped.

But his brother was an eejit.

After dinner the rat told Barney that his name was E. Coli O’Reilly. Barney was having none of it. 

‘You must be joking – your name is Fingers. Yes, Fingers Fungleton, after the biggest and most infamous thief in Ireland, the criminal banker. You don’t have to wear the thuggish two-piece suit though. I’ll give you that.’ 

With that, using his prehensile tail for attaching himself around Barney’s wrist, Fingers said that it was time to wash the dishes and that this was probably the beginning of a beautiful friendship. 

‘Don’t worry,’ said Fingers, ‘It’s only evil people we’re stealing fingers from. If these evil people repent and turn into good people doing good deeds, then the finger will grow back in no time. Put it out of your mind mate.’ 

He threw him the cloth and winked, ‘And you’re drying!’

Later, Barney noticed that Fingers had lifted his tail up into the air and was getting ready to do something strange. Barney shouted, ‘Fingers stop! What are you doing?’ 

Fingers said that when rats like each other, they urinate on each other to show their appreciation. He was just about to urinate into Barneys face. 

Barney nearly screamed the house down, ‘Fingers! Humans don’t do that. That’s a rat thing. If you did that I could catch the bubonic plague or cholera or typhus or Weil’s disease or E. Coli or Crypto Sporidiosis or even foot and mouth disease!’

He continued, ‘Did the priest with red trousers who trained you not tell you about that? He must have when he wasn’t saying his prayers or looking holy?’

Fingers scratched his head and said – 

‘The priest actually liked it when I urinated on his face. Practically encouraged it. But ok, go on out of that, I won’t do it ever again. And that’s a promise.’ 

The next day Barney walked into school with a rat for a wristwatch and instantly became famous. 

Camillus John was bored and braised in Dublin, Ireland. He has had work published in The Stinging Fly, RTÉ Ten, The Lonely Crowd and other such organs. He would also like to mention that Pats won the FAI cup in 2014 after 62 miserable years of not winning it. Twitter: @camillusjohn1.  Blog: janeymackenstreet.wordpress.com

There are certain things a man cannot do. Like bleed every month; even in June. Ma wanted me to stay home on such days. She would try to convince my ten-year-old brother to take lunch to Papa at his Aggrawal Sari Shop after school. He would ask why I did not want to go. Ma would tell I was ill. Brother would stare at me with doubt and irritation. I would smile back, hiding my own irritation at mother for forcing me to stay home. This time he was watching WWE, under a fan groaning in full speed. In the lemonade advertisement on television, the sun was using a red and white striped straw to suck children’s heads. Brother shook his head and said that it was too hot for any sensible person to go out now. He pointed at the sun on the screen for proof.

“I will go.” I said. “He is right. It is too hot for him. I will go and come back in no time.”

The shop was fifteen minutes away on foot. Ma often insisted that I walk because a young girl riding a bicycle across town might draw unwanted attention. She looked cute when she was worried like that for me. I have not been able to explain to her that riding the bicycle gave me a sense of control. On some days if I wanted to avoid the lingering eyes of men at the tea stall behind our home, I took the longer route. I would accelerate in full speed if men on the road waited to pass comments. Sometimes I raced with the dogs too. If I told Ma about these little adventures, the bicycle would be taken away.

“Be careful. You might leak.” Ma told me as I took out the bicycle once again.

Ma was right. If I painted my trousers red, and the town saw, there would be whispers about my shamelessness. I was careful around the potholes that day, wondering what other things a man cannot do.

Men cannot have a kitty party of their own. I had learned this from Ma’s TV serials where women sat together once a month to discuss families. I told Ma one day that Dadi was very lucky to have her own little kitty party almost every week at our veranda. Ma had laughed a lot and told the same to the ladies who had sat on the veranda that evening for a cup of tea. The neighbours loved my Dadi, who had spent most of her married life in Hazaribagh. Every evening, as she sat on the veranda, her eyes glinted with the memories. The days that the ladies did not visit, Dadi read scriptures. Sometimes, on our request, she told us again about her first airplane travel when she married our, now dead, grandfather. The air hostess grinned a lot more then. They offered full glasses of water and one whole bottle of mineral water at times. They distributed toffees like it was their birthdays. Every time we discovered something new. This time I discovered that these are other things a man cannot do. Become an air hostess. And outlive Daadi. 

When my grandfather was alive, the Aggrawal business earned enough money for air travels to different countries. After his death, his three sons divided the five shops amongst themselves. My father was the youngest. With sad eyes and folded hands, as Ma told me, he adjusted for the shop that earned the least. His two elder brothers told Papa that he could take care of the house and the old woman. 

The old woman said nothing when the extended family members, neighbours and friends ridiculed her two elder sons. They came in numbers, some visiting every evening, telling her that they have stopped visiting Papa’s elder brothers. Ma wished they would stop visiting us too. She was tired of saving milk for so many cups of tea. It did not bother me much till one day they raised the question of my bicycle adventures.

“The men stare”, they said. “A young girl of such respected house should not ride around in knee length frocks. She is growing up now. She should spend more time in the household activities. Why do you let her do the outside work? Ask the brother.”

At first, the suggestion seemed harmless, like other discussions that brought no significant change either in a person or the community. Ma, who was happy to serve tea to the women for the first time, discussed with Papa that night about what the neighbours think. Papa nodded. His fellow shopkeepers had suggested the same. He had also noticed how the staff at his office looked at me when I entered everyday with lunch. This needed to stop.

“But you had no problem till now!” I cried.

“This had to happen someday, betu. Look at your friends. How many of them still ride bicycles?”

“But I like to!”

“You cannot do everything that you like.” Ma said.

However, my brother did not like riding bicycles in the afternoons. It was then arranged that Papa would send one of the staff boys to get lunch for him. I went to Dadi’s room and cried on her lap. She placed her hand on my head.

“It is not their fault. They did it for your own safety. If you want a better life, study hard. Get on that aeroplane with your own money. That way you will get to fly as long as you live.”

I had always thought that the Dadi in the veranda was a woman absorbed in happy memories of her past. Her hand on my head suddenly felt heavier with this seemingly new revelation. We did not speak more that night. Next day I decided to get back at my neighbours by refusing to serve them tea or snacks. Ma did it anyway.

 In winters, Ma smelled of the blue-bottled Nivea and knitted woollen clothes. She bought cheap wool from street vendors till her brother refused to wear sweaters made out of wool that pricked his skin. Ma saved the best wool for him and told me that women adjust more. Brother often teased me by pressing his soft woollen sleeves on my cheeks. As a revenge, I reminded myself of the growing list in my head. Men cannot adjust as much as women can. One shivering December, Ma surprised me with a brown scarf that was made out of the left-over wool from my brother’s pullover. Out of happiness I rolled extra soft rotis that day as part of my kitchen training. The rotis were the colour Ma wanted my skin to be – creamy white. Brother did not leave the sides of the rotis in half-moons. Ma was pleased and declared that I was finally trained in cooking. Unknowingly my brother had already started influencing  decisions meant for me. The idea clenched my throat. I skipped dinner and went to my room to study.

When my tenth grade results were announced, a reporter came to our house for the first time. I still have the newspaper cut-out in my purse. Under the heading ‘Humaare Hazaribagh ki topper’, Papa is grinning like a child. He had called his brothers. 

“Betu has made us proud today.” The black cord of our landline had danced in waves around his ears. “Of course, this wouldn’t have been possible without your blessings.” He had continued. I wished he had meant it sarcastically.

Next morning, Papa read the interview in the papers. The reporter had stated correctly that I wanted to go to Kota to prepare for my engineering exams. In the evening, Papa sat in my room, near Daadi’s feet and cried. 

“I do not have money to send you to Kota.”

“That’s okay.” I said after a long silence. “I will study here.”

Papa did not even try. He touched my head. “Mera Raja Beta.”

Daadi had been very quiet in the room, as still as the June air.  Later, she made the phone call to my Bade Papa, father’s elder brother. My Bade Papa, father’s brother arrived in the evening and offered us money, four lakh rupees. Papa was taken aback, and folding his hands, he said, “It is not necessary. She has applied here to Women’s College.”

“But she wants to study engineering. This is the least we can do as a family.” Bade Papa said.

“Will it be safe to let her stay alone in a hostel in an unknown city?”

“Give her a chance.” Dadi said.

Next evening, people visited again. They wanted to confirm if it was true that Dadi’s elder son had finally come around. Ma was furious, for the milk that would now be needed for tea. She was less furious, but enough to show it, for the hypocrisy of Bade Papa. How dare he go around advertising his money! 

“We will return it to him when the time is right”, Papa said. 

In Kota, at the front desk, the warden did not lose patience. She answered all of Ma’s queries and showed her around. She assured Ma four times that women are always safe anywhere in Kota. Ma, still not convinced completely, left me at the hostel gate with tears in her eyes. 

There were two ways that people dealt with the pressure of clearing the IIT JEE exams in Kota. They either studied a lot, or not at all. I was a star performer. My tests ranked me among the top 10 percent of students. Professors predicted my rank in the JEE exams around 1500-2000. My roommate, on the other hand, was always out, watching a movie with the boys, or visiting the fast food stalls, and sometimes bringing me the famous Kota Kachoris. She never took money for the Kachoris. She knew I had wanted a non-AC room in this desert heat, that I listened to radio on my tiny Nokia phone whenever I wanted a break from science, and that I worried a lot about doing justice to those four lakh Rupees. There was a time when I was running a high temperature, and she had brought me food in bed, warmed the milk in the mess kitchen downstairs, and got me the notes of each lecture. She had a rather childish handwriting, the e’s and a’s, the l’s and the t’s hard to distinguish. On most evenings, when the hostel gates closed at 7, we had dinner together in the mess downstairs. That’s when she told me about the latest gossip in the coaching classes. During one of those dinners, from across the table she whispered to me that sex hurts, quite bad. My first instinct was repulsion. How could she? And when! But then I heard myself ask her questions.

“Always?”

“Yes. Always!”

“Worse than a cramp?”

“Yes!”

“Does it hurt a man too?”

She laughed hysterically, turning a few eyes. I immediately looked at my plate of cold rotis and a very bland potato gravy. Men cannot feel that pain, I noted. 

One evening, she did not return. There were no messages or calls. The warden raised the alarm. When she asked me if I knew where she could have gone after the classes, I shook my head. Later that night, they were found in a hotel room that did not care about identification cards. The two lovers were shoved into police custody; the parents were called and my roommate was expelled from the city where women were always safe, everywhere. I did not get to meet her. When I called, the number disconnected. I felt like I had lost an elder sister and could not do anything about it. My mother was disgusted. 

“Thank God, betu! You are safe. That woman! Chee! How will her parents live with this shame? So much for sending a daughter to study!”

I felt my body shiver with rage. 

“Ma, would you say the same for brother?” 

“What do you mean?”

I disconnected the call before it got worse, not realising that it had already happened.

Later that day, I couldn’t concentrate in the classroom. My head was clouded with guilt. Dadi was home-schooled till ninth grade after which she boarded the flight of toffees. Ma got as far as eleventh. I was counting my privileges when Papa called. I cut the call seven times before the professor asked me to go outside and take it.

“We are coming to take you home. You can finish the rest of the study here.”

I tried forming words. I tried asking why. I tried to scream. Instead I shivered and waited for Papa to hang up. My tiny harmless Nokia phone started slipping from my hand, like my future.

Papa and Ma stayed at a hotel in Kota for two days to clear the formalities. I had only paid first year’s fees which summed up to around two lakh rupees so it was easier to pull me out of the coaching classes before it was too late. The professors repeatedly requested them to reconsider the decision. Ma repeatedly told Papa that she had warned him. A girl should not stay alone in a foreign city at such a young age. According to her, this was the exact age when they ran the risk of bad influence.

“It is not your fault.” She told me. “You have never talked back like this. It is because of that roommate of yours. I shall have a word with that warden before we leave.”

“I want to study. Please. I am sorry.”

“You can study there too beta. God forbid if something happens, everyone will blame you. The men will get away easy.”

I was suddenly too tired of keeping tabs of things that men cannot do. I was tired of begging or hoping or talking to my parents. I was tired of myself too, tired of trying too hard to do justice to things that did not exist. The journey back home was burdened with silence. At one point, I hoped that the train would derail from the bridge and fall into the river below.

Dadi was sleeping in her room when we arrived. Brother was busy packing his own bags.

“Where is he going?” I asked Papa accusingly.

He had decided to study in a famous coaching class in Ranchi that made promises of a bright future for kids if enrolled at the right age. I stared at the pamphlet in disbelief, wanting to strike out ‘kids’ and write ‘boys’ instead. He was in ninth grade, the exact age when Dadi left home and school.

“You have the money to send him to a four year course! You have the confidence to send him to a foreign city?”

“My god. What black magic has that roommate done on you!” Ma gasped. “How can you talk like that with your own father!”

“My father! Really? Is he my father?” I reeled towards him. “Are you my father? What have you ever done for me!”

Ma slapped me hard. Once. Twice. Thrice. Brother ran to stop her. I screamed. I screamed till I could not hear my own voice. I screamed till my brother shook me. Then I pushed him away and ran outside to the garage. The neighbours had gathered at their portico. I wiped my eyes, pulled out my bicycle and opened the gate without looking at them. If they wanted a show, I would give them one. My hands were steady again. I climbed on the bicycle, took one deep breath and accelerated at full speed, ringing a bell at the alarmed men on the road, wiping off the list of things that only they could do, leaving my audience behind.

Legend of Non-English words:

• Daadi – Paternal Grandmother
• Roti – Chapatti 
• Humaare Hazaribagh ki topper – Our Hazaribagh’s topper
• Betu/Beta – a form of addressing a child
• Mera Raja Beta – My lovely son
• Marwari – People from a community originally belonging to Marwar region in Indian subcontinent 

Medha Dwivedi, originally from Ranchi, Jharkhand, is currently based out of Bangalore. She divides most of her time between Computer Algorithms and Literature, and often treats herself to Bollywood Drama and Jalebis. She is part of the Bangalore Writer’s Workshop community, and her work has been published in The Bangalore Review, eFiction India, blogs and college magazines. 

Indrani is surprised that her breasts are still alert to the possibility of love, even now, when her love is permanently gone.

She stands in the centre of the room, clutching the laundry tight against her chest, feeling the hardening of her nipples against the cotton blouse while her eyes scan the skies beyond the French windows for the turquoise flash.

A pigeon with bright red eyes and a white spot at the base of its beak flies past the balcony, startling her. Almost immediately after, a cream coloured butterfly bobs past the lime tree. Just one more second to be sure, Indrani tells herself…one last second…okay, one final last second…one last ultimate second…

Has it, after all, just been a trick of light? The time is right, though. Winter is on its way out, giving way to the early buds of spring. Her husband’s words float up from somewhere deep inside her: ‘With so many species you can be sure, Indu, that an orgasm is happening on this planet at all times. Just imagine, millions of years of uninterrupted orgasm. I think the Universe might itself be one big orgasm. I mean, what else could a big bang be?’

There!

The turquoise butterfly appears over the ledge of the balcony and dips below, as if inviting Indrani for a game of hide-and-seek. Indrani rushes through the French windows into the balcony and watches the butterfly bounce up to the taller branches of a guava tree. She tracks the butterfly as it hops from one flower to another, going back to a flower it has already visited, feeling it all over, poking it softly with its proboscis.

‘Look at it, just look at it,’ Indrani whispers her husband’s favourite phrase as she traces the flight of the butterfly. The butterfly has ridden the powerful easterly wind, arriving at its destination, it seems to Indrani, almost by accident. She knows, thanks to her husband that it is a Common Banded Peacock.

How do you do it, blue one? How do you, with your paper-thin wings, take on such a mighty wind? How do you reach exactly where you want to? Or do you just pretend that that is where you’ve always wanted to go? Is that your secret? What do I do with my secret? Who do I share it with?

The butterfly floats upwards towards the Neem tree near the wall of the housing society. A flock of ten (could even be twenty) dragonflies dart around the tips of a branch. Indrani wonders what attracts them to it. Two bumblebees circle each other noisily near the hollyhocks. A smile forms at the corner of her lips. Then her expression changes and she says aloud to them, knowing that they’ll understand, ‘I’ve lost my bumblebee,’ and collapses on the balcony floor, her head resting against the sun-warmed railing.

***

It didn’t make any sense. No, it didn’t it didn’t make any…of all things, a sailboat? She had never been, nor had ever wanted to be on a sailboat. They were miles out in the sea on a dinghy with a sail. Blue dinghy, white sail. Then the dolphins had appeared, smooth, wet and purple, mystifying the waters. He must have wheezed. Or he might have tried to reach out for her in his sleep while she dreamt the crazy dream. It still bothers her. What was she doing on a sailboat? Did the dolphins mean something? It didn’t make any sense. You aren’t allowed to die in your sleep, suddenly, without warning, while your partner is dreaming of a sailboat beside you. How could he be so selfish? How could he slip away so peacefully, leaving her so unprepared? He could have at least given her some advance notice.

***

His absence is like the round muddy stain on the floor of the balcony where a flowerpot used to be. Everyone can see the outline of the missing flowerpot, but only she sees the flower that grew in it. Only she remembers the shape of the petals, the texture of the leaves, the curve of the stamens. Only she remembers the fragrance of the flower. That’s what she misses the most. The smell of his sweat in the lonely hours of the night.

***

‘But, it’s all out of focus!’ her daughter protests.

‘What is this focus-shocus? I don’t care about focus. I don’t need any focus. He’s got a nice smile in it and that’s all I care about. You take your focus and live your life with it,’ Indrani shoots back.

‘You’re not the only one who’s lost someone special,’ her daughter says under her breath.

What do you know? You’ll be going back to your man tonight, Indrani thinks, but she can’t bring herself to say it.

Mother and daughter sit looking at the photograph. It’s a special photograph, taken the day she was sworn to secrecy, but Indrani can’t tell her daughter that. In the photograph, her husband has the trademark sandal-paste tilak on his forehead and a cup of coffee in his hand. The steam from the cup curls upwards, giving his face a slightly ghostly appearance. Still, his mischievous smile sparkles through like a diamond. Over the photograph it says in capital letters: ‘C. RAGHAVIAN CHAUDHARY’, and below it, in bold type: ‘Date of Expiry – 12 October 2019.’

‘You don’t have to visit me everyday,’ Indrani breaks the silence, trying to keep it casual. ‘I’ll be re-joining office tomorrow.’

Her daughter picks up her bag and walks out of the room. ‘I will come whenever I want to, hear me?’ she shouts from the door of the flat. ‘And how many times do I have to tell you, don’t put cardamom in my tea, it tastes like payasam! If you have to put something, put ginger…I like ginger in my tea, or is that too much to remember?’ and bangs the door shut.

Indrani sits holding the picture of her husband.  She thinks of the time before the secret had entered her life. Their life. She is standing in the driveway, next to the tulsi shrub, drying her hair with sharp strokes of the towel when the movement catches her eye. She had initially thought that it was a tiny seed rolling with the breeze, but the thing had moved in a straight line at a regular pace. She had sat down to take a closer look but even while sitting down she couldn’t make out any body parts. She had bent closer to the ground, her nose directly above the insect, and followed its journey. Soon, she had lost all sensation of herself: of her eyes, of her nose, of her wet hair sticking to her waist and of her knees that shuffled on the driveway above the insect. When the insect burrowed under a guava leaf in its path, she, too, engrossed and inseparable with the tiny life, ducked her head. As the insect emerged from the other side of the leaf, Indrani had reached for it gingerly. ‘Don’t,’ her husband had called out from behind her, but it was too late. The moment her finger touched the insect, it burst with a tiny pop. All that remained was half-a-drop of something that looked like dew.

‘Tch, you’ve ended a long story,’ her husband had said.

‘What story?’

‘A story that stretches to the beginning of time! That little thing was part of a long, unbroken narrative. Its parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and their parents to the power of ten, had successfully added a paragraph with each generation, and now you’ve ended the story.’

‘What about our story?’ Indrani asks the photograph in her hands. ‘Why must I bear the secret alone now? Couldn’t you have just listened?’

***

‘It’s easy, Indu. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Trust me, we’ll be like bumblebees,’ he had said, sipping the coffee.

‘No, I won’t agree to this. What’s wrong with you?’ she protested.

‘But, no one will ever know. It’ll be our secret, I promise.’

‘You don’t know how the world works. Word spreads. I’m not agreeing to this. It’s a small place, people will get to know. Are you unhappy about something?’

‘Come on, Indu, I wish you gave it some serious thought. It’s a purer way of living…imagine being a bumblebee,’ he insisted.

‘No! We’ve been married only four months. Are you unhappy with something? Is there something that I do not do which you’d like me to?’

‘Why should I be unhappy?

‘Then why do we have to do this?’

‘Because…’ he said holding her hand.

‘No don’t! I forbid you to bring it up again. What wild thoughts, and we’ve been married only four months! If you love me, you won’t bring it up again. Do you understand?’

***

He had had his way. On the way back from the Registrar’s office, immediately after they had got the divorce, he had pointed out a group of turquoise butterflies in the small park outside the office complex.

‘Look, look, look at them, Indu, just look at them! Common Banded Peacocks!’

They had stood and watched.

‘Can you see how they’re mud-puddling? Look! You’ll see them releasing jets of water from their behinds. They’re actually gathering nutrition from the mud. The males will pass on the nutrients – sodium and amino acids – to the females for healthy children. Now we are free like these butterflies.’

‘Are we like butterflies or bumblebees? Make up your mind.’

‘Like both, actually, but if you like these butterflies better, we’re like them!’

‘God help us… I hope we don’t land up in the mud,’ she said walking ahead.

‘Don’t worry, He will help us, but we’ll keep it a secret from Him, too!’ he had said with that sparkle in his eyes that she misses so much.

Sitting in the sun-soaked balcony, she clearly remembers that afternoon so many years ago. The sun had emerged after a week of constant rain. The light was pouring into a tree, lighting it up from the inside like a lantern. It was quiet and they had sat on a bench in the park and she had felt, and it was the only time in her life that she’d had that feeling, that quiet, light and soft feeling that everything always was everything else and was always so and was forever and always absolutely right.

***

Indrani reaches for the balcony railing and pulls herself up. She searches the Neem tree but can’t spot the butterfly anywhere. She leans her torso over the black metal railing, enjoying its warmth on her stomach. She closes her eyes and spreads her arms. Her saree’s pallu catches in the breeze and floats up towards the flat on the third floor. She feels the tug of the pallu, which has ballooned out in the breeze like a sail. Oh, okay, she thinks as she leans far out over the balcony, eyes closed and smiling, so that’s what the white sail was for.

Glossary:
Payasam: a type of pudding made by boiling milk and sugar with rice, and flaoured with cardamom.

Salil Chaturvedi writes short fiction and poetry. He lives on the island of Chorao in Goa. He is the author of In The Sanctuary of a Poem, and Ya Ra La Va Sha Sa Ha, an award-winning Hindi poetry collection.

‘Where is the purifier?’ asked the assistant commissioner.

‘The purifier?’ the junior officer responded.

‘Yes, what else?’

‘Oh, the air purifier…’

‘I told you, a week ago.’

‘Yes, sir. I didn’t forget. By tomorrow–?’

‘No, not tomorrow. By evening, in the conference room.’

‘I thought he wasn’t serious,’ said the junior officer, returning to his desk.

‘Air purifier?’ the typist responded.

‘Yes.’

‘Is there such a thing?’

‘Yes, a purifier, an air purifier, and there exists such a thing.’

Glancing towards the main door, the junior officer spotted the peon sweeping the floor as if he was aiming a fast paced ball with his broom. ‘Kanu, come with me.’ Halfway down the stairs, the assistant stopped by the office of the scientist who was calculating some numbers on a brand new computer, almost the size of a window. He tapped the scientists’ shoulder.

‘Emergency.’

‘Where to find that air purifier?’

‘You told me only last week. I thought we had some time.’

‘No, no. Need to get it by this eve-’

‘The scientist is in Chandigarh.’

‘So we go there, check the instrument and get the damn thing by evening. Okay?’

‘But I need to come up with some figures. For the meeting tomorrow.’

‘Do it in the evening. Without that purifier, both of us won’t be here tomorrow. Still on probation, remember.’

The scientist joined reluctantly but didn’t seem to care about this unplanned trip to Chandigarh. He continued to scribble something, some numbers, in his diary even when they were in an auto rickshaw going through a bumpy road. Kanu sat with the driver in the front, two of them on separate ends in the back seat.

‘Sir, why are we going to Chandigarh?’

‘To get the air purifier, Kanu.’

‘Sir, is it so big that all three of us need to go?

‘Any problem? Do you have to present a budget in the parliament?’

‘No, no, sir. I was just asking, sir.’

‘Let’s look for the Delhi-Chandigarh bus at the station.’

The station was a mile away.

‘I have to derive numbers by tonight. Mr. Aurangabadkar need them for tomorrow,’ said the scientist, scribbling something in his diary.

‘This air purifier is also for Mr. Aurangabadkar and it’s also for tomorrow,’ said the junior officer.

‘Yes, yes. I know.’

They continued their journey, the assistant looking at the giant buses, one of them read Delhi-Chandigarh. They got out of the auto rickshaw and hopped on the bus, paid for their tickets and sat in the first row. The scientist occupied the window seat. He periodically stared outside at the gray sky and as and when a giant bus passed by their bus, covered his nose with a muffler. Twice, when the junior officer had looked his way, not for any reason other than to understand the reason behind the scientist’s heightened sensitivity for pollution.

Almost an hour later, despite witnessing its many manifestations – air pollution by trucks and buses, agriculture activities and mining activities, huge factories and little chulhas – the junior assistant remained unperturbed. They saw a group of farmers gathered on their farm to sprinkle pesticides – again air pollution. The scientist pointed his finger in that direction but didn’t waste words.

‘We work in the environment department but don’t be so sensitive,’ said the junior officer. ‘At least this pollution will kill people years later. If they don’t earn with whatever means available, they’ll die now. A dog’s death, you see. I am with Mr. Aurangabadkar on this.’

‘My cousin died of cancer five years ago and he was only forty-eight and when we asked the cause, the doctor said that constant exposure to pollution was possibly the culprit. And this is only going to get worse in Delhi.’

‘Which year was this?’

‘Almost five years ago, in 1985.’

‘I’d still say,’ said the junior officer who had taken upon himself the duty of justifying development at the expense of pollution, ‘It’s lesser of the evil.’

‘What?’

‘It’s all about the short run, my brother. In the long run, we are going to be dead anyway. Then, why worry? Think about now. This worked out for the west. Hopefully, it would for us too.’

‘But this is not a sustainable model. And, why do we need to imitate?’

‘No, we don’t. But, this is how the world works. This is how the business lobby thinks. And this is how the politicians think. And this is how Mr. Aurangabadkar thinks.’

At that moment the bus stopped for a break. All three, went outside to relieve themselves.

‘Now, don’t tell me we can’t piss next to the tree. That must also add to some kind of pollution, right?’

‘No, it’s actually good for the soil, for the tree. Kanu, don’t you people use urine in the biogas plant in your village?”

‘Yes, sir. They add cow dung, and urine and all kinds of things.’

At that moment the bus conductor called everyone. All three, stepped up and sat on their respective places one by one.

‘There, I see that fellow in green sweater, still drinking tea,’ the conductor shouted, pointing to an obese man drinking tea and chatting away with the tea-stall owner. He finally heard the conductor, paid money to the tea-stall guy and almost ran to catch the moving bus.

In exactly, four hours and thirty minutes, they reached Chandigarh. The greenery in the city pleased their senses. The junior officer ordered both of them to walk faster to the manufacturer’s shop.

‘Are you sure it was in sector 25?’

‘Yes. Two-minute walk from here.’

‘We have to be back to Delhi by evening.’

‘Shouldn’t be a problem, a bus is at two another one at three.’

‘Let’s aim for the first one. Leaves us an hour to close the deal.’

‘No more than thousand rupees.’

The shop owner cum scientist was cleaning some machine parts. When he saw the buyers, he left the instruments on the table and came up to the front desk to welcome them.

‘So where is the purifier?’ said the scientist.

‘Sir, here it is. The only piece I have,’ responded the shop owner. ‘It’s a futuristic invention, sir.’

‘What’s the price?’ said the scientist.

‘Only twenty five hundred rupees, sir,’ said the scientist, his back supported by the thick cushion on his chair. Everybody knew that these shops quoted double the price to begin with. But this was more than double.

‘Please quote the final price. At this price, no one will buy,’ said the junior officer.

‘Two thousand rupees for you, sir.’

‘We have no budget to go beyond nine hundred rupees.’

‘I can’t afford to sell at that price, sir. No, no. Not possible.’

‘Look, nobody knows about this damn thing. It will only rot in your shop.  It’s too early to be commercialised. You understand, right? We might be able to find ways to sell it in the future and at that time you will have an edge over others. First mover’s advantage, you know.’

‘Nine hundred and fifty, the final price.’

‘Okay, let’s see the instrument.’

‘Sir, you switch it on and it purifies the air in the room. Nothing else to do. Leave it on like you leave a cooler on in the summers.’

‘Here, take nine hundred and fifty rupees.’

The junior assistant and the scientist helped Kanu to carry the box with a shining blue ribbon around it. Kanu kept the box next to his seat in the bus. When they were getting off to Adhchini, a little girl came close to the scientist and asked if it contained a present for someone. The scientist smiled and shook his head before waving the girl goodbye.

It was close to seven in the evening. They rushed back to the office. The assistant commissioner’s office was quiet. The peons outside were moving chairs and tables to the conference room.

*

 The assistant commissioner was drawing some figures on the black board.

‘Sir, we’ve got the air purifier. It’s in the conference room.’

‘What’s the price? One thousand rupees?’ He turned around.

‘Yes, sir, one thousand rupees. We negotiated hard but it’s a rare machine so we had to pay what we had to pay.’

‘Don’t worry. Will get it reimbursed.’

‘Yes, sir. This thing will be useful to convince the NGO people. They can be stubborn.’

‘Never quite liked them. Bullshit arguments. Bring CNG, save environment, disrupt the economy. Stupid they are. You understand, stupid people.’

‘You are absolutely right, sir.’

‘Even if the boss tries to pass this bill, will he get the funding from businesses in the next election? Will he get votes from people who’d bear the inconvenience initially? People are interested to solve a problem only when it comes to their own backyard.’

‘Yes, sir, right sir.’

‘If they don’t want to pay the price, why should we?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Show that thing and finish the demo quickly.’

‘Yes, sir. I have it set up in the conference room.’ The junior assistant leads the assistant commissioner to the conference room on the top floor.

‘Sir, I will start the machine and talk about how it purifies polluted air. We can say if the situation deteriorate in the future, say in two decades from now, we can even subsidise the air purifiers for the poor.’

‘And-’

‘And that intervention will be better than disrupting the system now.’

‘What intervention and all, huh?’

‘Sir-’

‘Don’t use jargons and all.’

‘Sir, I thought it would impress the audience.’

‘Most ministers present tomorrow aren’t even matric pass, you understand.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Think of your audience first.’

‘Right, sir.’

‘You can’t hit six on every ball, you see?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘But, don’t worry about the presentation. Let Ashok handle everything. You keep your focus on the air purifier. It should work. That’s all.’

‘Sure sir. I have understood it properly.’

 ‘Good. Good. Now send that Ashok in my cabin.’

‘Sir, he had also come with me. He might still be working on the numbers as he was on the way.’

‘He could have prepared the whole thing before a day, at least. Send him right away.’

*

‘Ha ha, so Ashok you went to Chandigarh as well?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Where are the numbers?’

‘Sir, I am done calculating most figures. Pollution deaths per year, cost of implementing CNG, benefits of using the diesel vehicles–everything is ready.’

‘Do what you have to do. Get me numbers that can convince people. In fact, put up only those numbers which can help us maintain the status quo.’

‘Yes, sir. But I have a small objection.’

‘What?’

‘Sir, if we put up all the numbers. The decision is likely to be in favour of the CNG buses. We will save lives. We will save the environment. And, in the long run, everybody will be better off.’

‘Yes, we will save the environment. Sure. We will also save lives. But what about those lives which will be affected by this decision now?’

‘Sir, I know. CNG, unlike diesel, cannot be adulterated, cannot be siphoned off, and there is no money in its spot purchases.’

‘That’s why I got you on this job, Ashok. You are sharp. Sharp is what you are. Good. Very good. But what’s the point in backing the option which won’t get implemented?’

‘Sir, Environment Protection Act passed two years back. And it empowers the government of India to take all measures necessary for the purpose of protecting and improving the quality of the environment.’

‘Ha ha, you’ve become a textbook parrot. Academic knowledge is good but doesn’t work in the real world.’ Mr. Aurangabadkar walked upto the blackboard, scribbled something. ‘Now, read this out loud.’

‘Laws are symbols of intention and not of action,’ Ashok read without a pause.

‘See health, disease, and polluted air are not part of the public discourse right now. Convenience of commuters and transporters matter. The poor will suffer, but they’ll also have cheaper option to commute.’

‘Sir, unfortunately they are the ones who’d most adversely be affected in the long run.’

‘See, it’s not going to be that bad. The positives and the negatives cancel each other out.’

‘Sir, but what about their well-being?’

‘Look, you want your job, don’t you? Let this be somebody else’s problem twenty years from now,’ said Mr. Aurangabadkar, taking his seat. ‘It’s a shame, I have to explain this to you at this level. It’s not the world of Gandhi and Vivekananda we live in. A big animal eats the smaller one, it’s a law of the jungle. Period. Do you get it?’

‘Sir, I am only suggesting that we could get all the data to the decision makers. That way at least we will have shouldered our moral responsibility.’

‘You are single, right?’

‘What, sir, yes, sir.’

‘That’s why so much idealism.’

‘Sir, I do have a family of six to support.’

‘In that case, Mr. Bhatnagar, it’s sorted. We have only one responsibility. To save our damn jobs. Do you get it? I don’t have any more time for this.’

‘Sir, I was only suggesting.’

‘Good. That’s good. Discussion is always good. But now focus on the data to present tomorrow. These NGO people should be on board. Do you get it?’ the assistant commissioner tapped his fingers on the table.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘If you can’t explain, what do you do?’ Mr. Aurangabadkar takes off his glasses and rubs them with a white handkerchief. ‘Tell me, what would you do?’

‘I will try to simplify things, sir.’

‘No, no. Wrong answer. If you can’t explain, what you do is you confuse people. Throw more confusing options. So the indecision remains. Status quo remains. Anyway, what’s your argument?’

‘Sir, we must carry on with the diesel buses. If the air quality deteriorates in a couple of decades, we can fix the problem through masks, air purifiers and even oxygen bars. That’s going to be cheaper than disrupting the transport business at this stage. Also, will highlight the difficulties in implementation.

‘But what’s the slogan? What will you put in the posters?’

‘Garibi hatao, desh bachao.’

‘Excellent.’ The assistant commissioner stood on his place and began packing his bag. ‘I see you are a bright young man. You have a very promising future. Keep it up.’

‘Thank you, sir. Whatever I have learnt, I have learnt only from you.’

*

When the assistant commissioner reached home that evening and stood at his door he saw two giant boxes by the shoe rack.

‘Any idea when did these arrive?’ he asked his wife when she opened the door.

‘No. Nobody rang the bell. Who sent them?’

‘Long story.’

‘Let’s take them inside first.’

‘Tell me, is it a surprise gift for me?’

‘No.’

‘You are always busy on the phone, be aware of these things.  Such huge boxes they are. They were lying outside god knows for how long.’

‘But who sent them?’

‘They must be from Mr. Agarwal or Mr. Rana or maybe the Patel brothers.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I know. Must be for tomorrow.’

Both of them uncovered the gift boxes and found a TV set and a music system. Mr. Aurangabadkar saw a card inside and it was from Mr. Agarwal and it said the gift was for their wedding anniversary next week.

‘How do they know these things?’

‘They know. They always do.’

‘What do they want from you?’

‘I know what they want.’ Mr. Aurangabadkar busied himself in setting up the music system in the drawing room. ‘I know very well what they want. Good, I like smart people.’

‘They were the ones who sent twenty boxes of Soan Papdi on Diwali last year. Didn’t they?’

‘Yes. Prepare an envelope with your calendar tomorrow. Those handmade ones made by the orphans in your organization. It would look good. Will give it when I see him tomorrow.’

Before Mr. Aurangabadkar could open the box of TV fully, their daughter scuttled down the stairs. The blue ribbons, extricated stapled pins and thermacol pieces scattered in the entire drawing room. When his daughter came running towards him, she got hurt by the stapled pins on the way. Mr. Aurangabadkar immediately got the first aid kit and put a Dettol on her toe. Before she let out a cry, he showed her the new TV set and the music system. The child forgot about the wound and began experimenting with the remote control buttons.

*

The scientist, was looking out of the window and saw a ragpicker collecting plastic bags, plastic bottles and other junk on the road side. He walked at a leisurely pace with his oversized jute bag, picking things on the way. After a few minutes, two beggar kids appeared out of nowhere and asked him for something. Before asking them to wait under a banyan tree, he placed his bag by their side and kept walking in an opposite direction, towards a shop. He came out with a packet of Parle G biscuits and distributed between them. The scientist kept staring the ragpicker until he disappeared with his jute bag. Somebody knocked at the time.

The peon asked if posters were ready to be put up. The scientists said that they’d be ready early morning tomorrow. He picked up posters, began filling them up with data and charts, compelling pictures and quotes.

‘Ashok sir, do you need tea before I leave?’ asked a peon.

‘No, you go.’

‘Sir, I have closed all doors. The watchman will close the building after you leave.’

The peon was certain that the scientist would not complain to the assistant director if he left the office before he did. He could not imagine leaving the premise when the assistant commissioner sat in the office working till late sometimes.

 ‘Ashok sir.’

‘Huh…What is it?’

‘Nothing…Sir, is it a very important meeting tomorrow?

‘Who said?’

‘I was just asking. I saw other peons running around with tables and chairs so I thought–’

‘Some people are coming, yes.’

‘I have been asked to serve fresh orange juice tomorrow along with tea, coffee and biscuits. That’s why I wondered if–.’

‘You’ll know tomorrow, if that’s the case,’ Ashok continued writing on the poster with a marker.

*

The junior officer was at the office early morning. The scientist came upto him and made a request to help him putting up the posters on the conference walls which he did, but his focus was on rehearsing dialogues he’d exchange with the assistant commissioner in the evening while talking about his permanent employment.

When the peon saw the pot-bellied man coming out of a white ambassador, he did not even wait for him to climb all the stairs. He alerted the scientist and the junior officer first and then went straight to the office kitchen to bring refreshments.

‘Mr. Aurangabadkar is not in,’ the scientist said, though he had entered the building and he could be seen heading towards the fourth floor. The junior officer and the scientist sat with the minister in the guest room. First came water, then tea, followed by crème rolls and wafer biscuits. The peon had standing instructions. More ministers, NGO heads and transport business tycoons joined in, and at last when the media representatives joined in, Mr. Aurangabadkar requested everybody to shift to the conference room.

The agriculture minister walked at a slower pace, left hand on his round belly, chewing tobacco on the way. Dressed in white kurta and pyjama, his gold rings shone in the sun light. The transport minister, dressed in a crisp white shirt and black trousers, caught up with him.

‘What is happening in this country? It’s unimaginable.’

‘Sad, truly sad.’

‘These foreigners have no respect for our values. And we are talking about liberalization, privatization, globalization. Don’t know how far it can help.’

‘We need policies that can help our farmers. Look at the number of farmers’ suicides?’

‘But the economy. You see the economy. It’s in distress.’

‘What were we doing till now? Sleeping, snoring away?’

‘Ha ha, I hope you are not referring to my nap during the parliament session. Are you?’

‘No, no, what are you saying?’

 ‘These media people are after me. You see, I had a high fever, was on medication that day. So-’

‘No, no. I was saying in general.’

‘But you can’t also ignore the deplorable state of our foreign reserves.’

‘Yes, yes. That’s also an important issue.’

Mr. Aurangabadkar requested the group of ministers to sit in the middle of the conference room, the NGO people on the left side, businessmen on the right side, the media officials all the way in the back.

After wasting few minutes on the introduction of guests and their achievements, Mr. Aurangabadkar said that his team had worked day and night to bring the most pertinent data for them. He carried on with his rehearsed speech until he was reading out facts and points from the posters. His tone changed when he read out points he hadn’t approved.

Mr. Aurangabadkar looked in Ashok’s direction, he wore a mischievous half smile. There were no words exchanged the whole day between the two men. That day Mr. Aurangabadkar tried to turn around the situation and played a card of being an unbiased presenter who genuinely thought status quo was the best possible option.

At the end of the meeting, neither did he acknowledge the scientist’s contribution, nor presence. He shook hands with the entire team, including the peons and watchmen on special duty but not with the scientist.

By the evening, when the scientists had packed his bag, he had also stuffed his parents’ photo stuck on his desk, the Bhagawad Gita and a box of pencils he had brought on the first day of the job. A day later, when a newspaper headline read, ‘Whose interest CNG is stepping on?’ the scientist chuckled sitting in a reclining chair at home, at that moment he knew that in the tussle between the positives and the negatives, at least now they won’t cancel each other out.

Kruti Brahmbhatt is educated in the U.S. and India and currently lives in Ahmedabad. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Forge Literary Magazine, the Stockholm Review of Literature, North Dakota Quarterly, Canyon Voices, the Pangolin Review and others. She has also received an honorable mention in Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers. She is a 2014 Young India Fellow.

Allison stared at the screen of her cell phone, black letters on gray background. Buddy Faber dead? But she’d seen him only a few months ago. A reading from the new novel, Tock, at the Barnes & Noble in Holyoke. Then dinner along with the Chair of the English Department, her dissertation director and women from the bookstore. After that, just the two of them back to his hotel for a nightcap, sex and catching up.

He’d looked and sounded the same. Slight, sixty-ish, Southern. Still pounding back the Irish pretty good. And the sex was pretty good, too, a pleasant surprise after all the whiskey he’d put away. He’d said to her after their second time, stroking her inner thigh: “You know, when I was an undergraduate, gentlemen of a certain age weren’t allowed to entertain young women in their hotel rooms.” Not that she was, technically, a young woman any more. Not at 32.

Despite his hand’s promise she knew he was only a two shot man. So she slid his hand up to the warm place where she wanted it, guiding his fingers where she wanted them to go, do what she wanted them to do. “Then I’d say this is a real improvement,” she’d said.

Remembered: face flushed, pulse pounded.

In the morning he was up early packing, limo coming to drive him to Logan for an early flight to Atlanta. The next stop on his book tour. Still, he’d taken the time to make them both coffee from the in-suite machine. They’d sat on the edge of the bed together. “Come back to Richmond, stay with me this summer,” he’d said.

“Maybe I will,” she’d said.

And now this. Allison re-read the email from Buddy’s lawyer. He’d left her his house. The one on Strawberry Street next to the flower shop and across the street from Joe and Savannah’s bar. The lawyers could mail her the papers or meet with her after the funeral. Which was Tuesday. Of course she had to attend.

Why would he do that? What the hell did she need with his house?

It was almost summer and now she was going back to Richmond. But not to stay with Buddy. To bury him. It was cloudy and cold. The last of the dogwood blossoms blew in the air like reluctant snow. Allison looked at the mug in her hand and remembered the bitter K-pod coffee he’d made for her.

Buddy was gone. A spasm of grief filled her chest and overflowed in her eyes.

Her cell buzzed in her hand and she almost dropped it. It was her dissertation director. She answered.

“Allison, did you hear? Bud Faber—“

“Yes, I heard. It’s on—.”

“All the morning news shows,” he said. “Terrible. Only 63. He was just here flogging his latest. Got to read it. Soon as I finish the semester.”

The novel he was struggling to finish while they were together, summer before last. She said, “Listen. I’m going down to Richmond for his funeral now. I’ll be gone for a few days.”

After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “Not a problem. I know you two were, ah, friends. One of the TAs can cover your class if you need.”

“Thanks.” She tapped him off. His hesitations said it all. She could be flattered by his interest in her but she knew better. Her ex had been like that in the beginning.

Allison turned her attention to the practicalities. She called Savannah.

“Oh, it’s terrible, honey, it truly is.” Savannah sniffed.

“How did he die?” Allison said. “Where?”

“A cerebral aneurism. In the middle of giving a talk. In front of a roomful of people. Oh, awful. Just awful.” Savannah was crying.

“Oh. Oh, no,” Allison said. Savannah was right. Awful.

Savannah said, “I’m so glad you’re coming down. You’ll stay with us, of course.”

As always, her first impulse was wariness. Joe and Savannah had been like family to Buddy and she didn’t feel like part of that family. And yet, there was the house.

Savannah said, “Oh please, Ali. Stay with us. It’d be a comfort to me.”

Whether she thought of herself as part of Buddy’s family or not, Joe and Savannah and Buddy thought otherwise. “Sure,” she said. “I’ll be there before midnight.”

Within an hour she was packed, out of her condo and on her way south to Richmond. By the time her red Miata hit I-91 in Northampton she was already cruising at 90. About the time she picked up the Connecticut Turnpike the useless tears were dribbling out of her eyes again and snot leaking onto her upper lip.

Approaching Port Chester she thought about the weekend in New York she’d spent with him when he was there to give a talk at the 92nd Street Y. About Obituaries and Other Lies? What she remembered was the omakase at the sushi bar, just the two of them sitting hip to hip. Breakfast in bed at the Carlyle reading the Sunday New York Times, him the Opinion section, her the Arts. Only the sound of broadsheets rustling as they turned pages disturbed the quiet of their room.

She stopped for gas at the Walt Whitman service area on the New Jersey Turnpike. It reminded her of the panel at MLA where the professor from Tulane insisted on comparing Buddy unfavorably to Walker Percy. As a writer and as a Southerner. She’d held her temper in check during the session but afterwards she practically screamed her anger to Buddy in the speakers’ room.
He talked her down, hands on her shoulders, eye to eye. “His kind don’t bother me,” he’d said. “Us Virginians ain’t Southern enough for some. And we Episcopalians ain’t haunted enough, either.” She thought that was pretty funny.

On I-95 below the Washington Beltway, she remembered the last thing he’d ever said to her, trailing the words over his shoulder as he walked out of the hotel room in Holyoke: “In a way, Tock turned out to be a love song to you, Allison.”

The book’s dedication was to her: “For Auburn hair everywhere, with love.” Damn. Her eyes were wet again. What did she owe him for that? The speedo of her Miata read 95.“Fuuuucccckkk!” she screamed into the windshield.

Should she have stayed with him instead of coming back to Amherst? And what if she had stayed? What would she have done? Settle into a domestic routine, learn to knit and cook, subscribe to Southern Living? Join him at Joe and Savannah’s place across the street for morning whiskey and eggs, go to the farmers’ markets with his sisters, maybe even bear a brace of little Fabers?

She’d liked Buddy. Really liked him. Admired and respected him. Maybe loved him. But making a home for a man wasn’t what she’d planned for her life. That’s what it always came down to for a woman, wasn’t it? Mother taught her that. And yet, without being aware it was happening, Buddy had burrowed a place into her heart though she wasn’t aware of missing him between their occasional get-togethers.

More than anything she didn’t want to feel torn between resentment and sadness. But she was.
Allison cruised into the Fan District in darkness and parked her car under the familiar maple trees in front of Buddy’s white colonial. The windows were dark. No porch light glowed. It looked frozen in anticipation. Like a dog waiting at the door for its dead master.

She shook her head. Merely a symptom of low blood sugar. A house is a house, empty or full. The rest is just chemistry.

Joe and Savannah’s place across the street was closed on account of Buddy’s death. She called to say she was out front and was instructed to come around the side. Allison pulled her rollaway out of the Miata’s tiny trunk, dragged it across the street and down the narrow walkway on the side of the bar.
Savannah was waiting for her with the old wooden screen door open. They hugged for a long minute, both of then sniffing back tears. “C’mon in honey,” Savannah said. The door banged shut behind them and they climbed the stairs.

Joe and Savannah owned the building that housed their tavern on Strawberry Street and lived upstairs. “Buddy bought the building with proceeds from ICUCMe,” Joe told her two summers ago, “And gave it to us outright. Gave it to Savannah, really, when he saw how we were together.”

She surrendered herself to their hospitality. A vat of Joe’s chili simmered on the range. A cooler under the table was filled with bottles of local lager. Savannah filled their bowls. Joe popped the caps off bottles and passed them out. They sat around the Formica kitchen table long into the night reciting well-worn Buddy stories. That’s what Allison called them, Buddy stories, many new to her. It was the best kind of wake. The wake he deserved.

Savannah put her feet up on Joe’s thigh and wiggled her toes. “Did he ever tell you about the time Aunt Elizabeth kidnapped him from his crib and had him baptized in the creek before his mother could rescue him?”

“No!” Allison said. “Really?”

Joe laughed, massaging Savannah’s feet. “Yup. His Aunt Elizabeth was dunking him in the water like a donut in coffee. He came down with pneumonia and almost died.”

Laughing, Allison said, “If it were my kid I’d’ve killed the woman.”

“Buddy’s Ma did throw her out of the house,” Savannah said. “And to this day Aunt Elizabeth lives in the same shack by the river at the edge of the family estate. An eyesore the Country Club next door hates.”

“’Cause of the outdoor privies,” Joe said. Savannah laughed.

“No!” Allison said.

“Course not. It’s just a ramshackle cottage,” Joe said. “You know why the U awarded him an honorary doctorate but refused to grant him his bachelor’s degree, don’t you?”

“No. I’ve seen the fancy proclamation in his office,” Allison said. “How could he not graduate?”

“Failed to complete a no-credit phys ed requirement,” Joe said. “Tennis, wasn’t it?” he asked Savannah. She nodded.

“Why didn’t he finish?”

Joe said, “Because he had to go to Vanderbilt to accept a short story award. Five hundred bucks. The coach was a douche and wouldn’t excuse him or let him make up the classes. So he said fuck it and went anyway.”

Allison raised her bottle. “That was Buddy,” she said. They clinked bottles and emptied them.

Savannah put her feet on the floor. Joe collected empties and dropped them in a paper sack beside his chair. He said, “Honey, grab the bottle of Irish.” When they all had full shot glasses they raised them. Joe said, “Here’s to Buddy.”

Allison and Savannah echoed him. “Here’s to Buddy.”

Allison downed the whiskey, hardly tasting it. Her throat clamped shut and her face turned red. She coughed and gasped. They waited patiently for her to catch her breath, then Joe handed out refills of beer and whiskey.

“He told you why he never cooked at home, didn’t he?” Savannah said.

Allison nodded her head, “Oh, yes. He was kind of, I don’t know, proud of it.” Though she knew that they knew the story better than she did, it was her turn to tell a Buddy story so she continued, “He said he was frying bacon in a skillet for breakfast and stepped away, got distracted by something. Next thing he knew flames were erupting from the skillet. So he grabbed it and threw it in the sink and turned on the water. Exactly the wrong thing to do, because greasy black smoke filled the whole apartment. Turned the walls black and gray. Billowed out the open windows. The fire department came. He had to pay ServiceMaster to clean it all up, then the landlord kicked him out.”

“Supposed to use a dry chemical extinguisher on grease fires, not water,” Joe said.

Savannah said, “You’re a cook. You know that. Bet he didn’t even have a fire extinguisher in the apartment.” After a heartbeat she said, “’Course he didn’t. How would he know? His mama didn’t cook.”

“Mine didn’t, either,” Allison said. “So I never learned.”

“Really? You don’t cook? Some of my best memories are being in a warm kitchen with my mama,” Savannah said.

Allison looked down. “I don’t have any best memories of my mother. She left when I was eight.” Savannah reached out and touched Allison’s shoulder. Allison smiled at her. “But we did make tea in the mornings, Buddy and me. Then he’d come over to your place. He insisted on eating whatever you made.”

“And you’d wander over eventually to drag him back to work,” Savannah said.

“Men expect that of us, don’t they?” Allison said. They laughed. It was a joke. But it wasn’t, really. Not to her.

There were more stories. Buddy’s life was a collection of stories. But then, everyone’s life was a collection of stories. This was one of her good ones, now.

In the morning Allison woke on the living room sofa with a crushing headache and a case of corpse mouth. Standing in front of the bathroom mirror with sunlight glinting off her auburn hair she said, “What do I need his house for?” She didn’t have an answer.

She dressed and went downstairs to the bar for coffee. Joe and Savannah opened every morning at six for the breakfast trade. When he was in town Buddy was almost always their only early morning customer and of course that was reason enough to open. After 10 things got busy with kids from VCU and locals on morning beer break.

Allison stopped in the open doorway. From behind her, perfect golden-yellow morning light flowed in, adding an oiled glow to every color, mahogany paneling, oak floor, shiny brass fittings, gleaming glassware, maroon booths. She was transported back to the summer she’d lived with Buddy.

His absence was an empty hole in the room. Behind the bar, Joe looked up. Their eyes met. He gestured to a stool in front of him and turned to pour a mug of coffee for her. He took down a bottle of Jameson’s and poured a generous shot into the coffee.

“In honor of Buddy,” he said. Buddy had started every day with Irish in his coffee.

“Of course.” Despite her hangover she smiled and drank.

Savannah came out around the end of the bar carrying two plates of toast and eggs in her hands and a copy of the morning’s Times-Dispatch stuck tucked beneath one armpit. When she saw Allison she said to Joe, “I’ll make you a plate in a bit.” He nodded. The women sat at the bar shoulder to shoulder and ate.

“You had no idea he was giving you his house?” Savannah said.

Allison shook her head. “It was only really that one summer. That and a few weekends here and there.”

“That’s all it takes sometimes,” Savannah said.

Savannah and Joe she could see. But her and Buddy? “God damn,” she said. And then, “God damn! What did he have to go and do that for? Did he expect me to drop my whole life and come down here to live and take care of his house for him? What the fuck?”

She pushed herself away from the bar and stormed out. Morning sun was heating up the cracked asphalt on Strawberry Street. Allison stood on the sidewalk just beyond the doorway and looked at Buddy’s house. “God damn,” she whispered. Tears filled her eyes. Something had been there. With him. With Buddy.

Savannah came up and put her arm around Allison’s shoulders. “Sucks he’s gone,” she said.
Allison leaned her head against Savannah’s. “I don’t know what to do.” They stood that way for a few moments.

“Want to go over and check it out?” Savannah said. “I got a key.”

Of course they had a key. She sniffed and wiped her wet cheeks with her palms. “Sure, why not.”

The air in the house was still, dust motes floating weightless in thick shafts of sunlight. The faintest hint of mildew rising from the basement, mixing with disinfectant from the powder room. Piles of books and papers covering every horizontal surface in the dining room and the parlor, even on chairs and sofa cushions. Bookcases on either side of the picture window were crammed with books and papers. His National Book Award lay on its side, abandoned atop one of the bookcases.

The silence pressed against Allison’s eardrums, a physical discomfort. She was listening for Buddy: his tread on the floor upstairs, the creak of the old wooden chair in his front bedroom office.

They walked through the house room by room. Evidence of Buddy’s unexpected death was everywhere, from the half-finished Times-Dispatch crossword puzzle on the kitchen counter to the towel on the floor in his bathroom to the unmade bed that Allison knew so well. And that Savannah knew well, too, before Joe. That made Allison smile. Ah, Buddy.

The doorbell chimed. Allison hurried down the stairs and opened the door. An old woman stood there ramrod straight, rail-thin, bony shouldered and white-haired, with a sharp nose and prominent cheekbones under reddened skin. She wore a shapeless ankle-length brown cotton dress that hung like a sack on her. Her eye sockets were deep and dark. Her lips were thin and cracked. There was something of Buddy in her face.

“Come in, Aunt Elizabeth,” Allison said, standing back. Savannah watched from the bottom of the stairs.

Aunt Elizabeth shook her head. She handed a set of keys to Allison. Through tightened lips she said, “It’s your house now.” Then she turned and walked away, stiff little bird steps, dress barely shifting.

“Whoa, she’s not happy with you,” Savannah said.

“I didn’t ask him for this goddamn house.”

“If I was you, I’d change the locks.”

Allison shook her head. “Nah. She’s a Christian woman. She wouldn’t break a commandment if her life depended on it.”

Buddy’s funeral was scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday. Joe and Savannah closed the bar and walked with Allison to St. Paul’s Church in the center of town. The street in front of it was crowded with all kinds of people, Allison recognized a coming-together of Buddy’s disparate families, the blood relatives, the literati, the press, the locals who knew him, the neighbors who lived around him, the friends he made family. Reporters crowded the concrete steps of the church trolling for celebrities both artistic and political, making it difficult for them to pass inside. Joe pushed his way through the mob, Savannah and Allison trailing in his wake. The vestibule was even more crowded.

Feeling awkward about Buddy’s bequest, Allison hoped to avoid his family altogether. But there they were, a receiving line, standing in front of the bronze double doors that opened to the sanctuary. There was no avoiding them. She walked the line, shaking hands and murmuring condolences: Buddy’s sisters Fern and Lily, who smelled a little of bourbon; Fern’s husband Mike and their two sons.

Allison smiled, seeing Aunt Elizabeth looking uncomfortable inside an Episcopal church with polished oak pews and plush red cushions, a massive pipe organ and gorgeous stained glass windows that spewed bright colors across the room. A church that could easily be mistaken for Catholic but for the absence of Jesus tortured and dying on the cross. Aunt Elizabeth offered a limp hand. Allison took it cautiously.

Once inside they settled themselves in a pew near the back. Hands waved to each other across the sanctuary. Many locals were there. Allison recognized two women wearing black whose flower shop was next door to Buddy’s house. She overheard a woman in the pew behind them whispering to her neighbor the details of Buddy’s death. Hearing it this time she could see it as if she’d been there, see Buddy standing at the podium talking, see the instant of surprise in his eyes, seeing him crumple, dead before his body hit the floor. The image drew a rush of grief that rose from her chest up her throat and splashed into her face. Tears traced lines down her cheeks.

She remembered the last words she’d said to him: “Maybe I will.” How cold that sounded. Allison sniffed and wiped her face with a handkerchief. She could be so unthinking.

The urn with Buddy’s ashes stood on a white and gold granite pedestal in front of the first row. So much gold: on the urn enclosing Buddy’s ashes; adorning the priest’s robes; the altar railing; the twin candlesticks that were lit during the service. Which was long. And hot. They stood. They sat. They sang together. They chanted responsively. Many around her lined up in the aisles waiting to take communion.

After the offering of the Host came the eulogy. The priest went on about Buddy’s contributions to American literature, his love of family and Virginia. No word about his drinking, a family trait, or his women—Allison and Savannah among them. The Mayor spoke of Buddy’s contribution to Richmond’s storied history. The President of the University thanked Buddy for the gift of his letters and the stipend he donated to fund a fellowship in his name.

Though Allison knew what to expect, she was still depressed by it all. It was so not-Buddy. But the funeral was for Fern and Lily and Aunt Elizabeth. For his readers and admirers and friends. For the reporters outside on the steps of the church. For his future biographers.

When the service was over they joined the line of people shuffling out. As they were about to exit the sanctuary there was a tap on Allison’s shoulder. It was Fern, standing behind her.

“Ms. Stone,” Fern said.

She felt Joe moved closer to her for protection. Allison smiled him away. “Mrs. Marshall?”

“Yes.” Fern smiled. “Do you have a few minutes to spare for us now? The family would like to discuss the estate.”

Savannah said, “We’ve already heard from the family, Mrs. Marshall.”

Fern sighed. “I’m sorry about Aunt Eliza. But please, over here. Just a few minutes of your time.”

Family business. Allison had put family business behind her years ago. But these people had just lost their brother. She should take time for them. “Of course.”

“We’ll wait for you right here,” Joe said. Savannah nodded agreement. They slid into the rear pew and sat, watching.

At the front of the sanctuary the priest shook hands with the family. Then he put a hand on the urn holding Buddy’s ashes, his priestly farewell. He turned and left through a side door. Fern led Allison to the family. Aunt Elizabeth and the boys stood apart. Handshakes again with Lily and Mike.

“It’s nice to meet you properly,” Lily said.

“You meant a lot to Bud,” Fern said. “He told us.”

A moment too slow Allison said, “He meant a lot to me, too.”

“He mentioned he’d seen you recently,” Lily said. “A few months ago?”

Allison nodded. “March. In Amherst. It was good to see him again. I had no idea.”

Lily said, “None of us did.” She shook her head. “Our big brother. Only 63. Would have been 64 next month.”

“Never even made it to Medicare, not that he needed government money,” Mike said. The women looked at him.

Lily turned to Allison. “So. We don’t want to keep you.”

“Yes,” Fern said. “We know Bud left you his house. The lawyers have been in touch. And, well, we’re sorry about the other day with Aunt Eliza.”

Fern said. “You see, before he’d changed his will in your favor he’d promised the house to Aunt Eliza.” Aunt Elizabeth glared at Allison from ten feet away.

“Oh. I see,” Allison said.

“Not a problem,” Lily said. “After all, it was Bud’s home and he had every right to do with it what he wanted.”

“But we’d like to know—,” Mike said.

Lily silenced him with a slash of her hand. “We were wondering if you’ve thought about what you want to do with it.”

“Do you plan on living in the house? Moving here?” Fern said.

Allison shook her head. How could she know? “I only just found out about the house,” she said, “and it’s come as a shock. So. I’m not sure. Maybe after? I don’t know.”

Mike spoke up again. “Bud left his literary stuff to the University library.”

Fern said, “Yes, there is that. All his papers, documents, awards, all that.”

Suppressing an impulse to resist, Allison instead said, “Of course. And heirlooms, too, they should go to the family.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Lily said. “We should agree on a time for us to go through the house with you.”

“So you don’t think we’re stealing anything,” Mike said.

“Mike,” Lily said sharply.

“I just mean–”

“Mike. Please.”

He frowned.

Misunderstood again. Allison imagined being married to a Faber woman could be difficult. Was she like them? A difficult woman? Was that why Buddy had loved her? Brandon-the-ex had said as much about her. But Brandon was an asshole.

Lily said, “How long will you be staying? When would be convenient for us to come over?”

She’d been hoping to return home after the funeral but the business with the house complicated things. She could set up her laptop in the kitchen and get work done. She had a bunch of essays to read.

“Well, I’ve got—okay, how about tomorrow morning at 9?”

Fern said, “That would suit me just fine.”

Lily nodded. “Thank you so much, Ms. Stone.”

“Allison.”

“Allison. Thank you.”

“And you,” Allison said. “My condolences.”

“Thank you.”

Another round of hand shaking, this time with the sisters only, and Allison escaped to Savannah and Joe waiting for her at the back of the church. They put their heads together.

“Well?” said Savannah.

“Could have gone worse,” Allison said. “Turns out Buddy promised the house to Aunt Elizabeth before he changed his will.”

Savannah giggled. “That explains it.”

Outside on the top step of the church they paused to look around. It was summer-warm and Virginia-humid in the heart of Richmond. The reporters were gone. The last of the funeral attendees were crossing the street to the Capitol’s park. Unheeding traffic crawled past.

Allison took a deep breath, blew it out, and said, “I need a drink.”

Joe said, “Amen, sister.”

Next morning at nine sharp Allison unlocked the front door of the house. She went through it, upstairs and down, opening shades and windows to let in morning light and morning air, then started water for tea.

She made a mental note to buy a Nespresso machine for the kitchen. Maybe replace the pine cabinets with cherry, put in a granite countertop, stainless steel refrigerator and oven. Allison stopped her racing thoughts. What was she thinking? There was a knock on the front door. She’d have to put in a video doorbell, one with Internet connectivity. Allison shook her head, frustrated with herself.

It was the estate lawyer. “Thanks so much for coming,” Allison said.

“After you explained what was happening this morning I felt it was necessary to supervise,” the lawyer said. “I also let the University know. They’ll probably show up, too.”

“Good. Thanks.” The kettle whistled from the kitchen. She led the lawyer into the kitchen. There was a knock at the back door. The Faber women.

“Come in, come in,” Allison said, unlocking the back door and standing back to let them in.

Fern, Lily and Aunt Elizabeth entered carrying canvas bags and cardboard boxes. Shifting them around, Fern and Lily shook hands, murmured morning pleasantries. Aunt Elizabeth sidled in and avoided looking at Allison. “See you got the lawyer here,” she said.

Allison ignored her and poured boiling water into two mugs. She dropped two tea bags into the mugs and gave one to the lawyer. Taking family heirlooms was fine, but she wasn’t going to let anyone claim the living room sofa was a family heirloom. Not that she wanted it, exactly.

When the university librarians showed up the lawyer went off with them. They sorted papers into careful piles, boxing them in labeled plastic bins, toting them out to a van waiting in the alley behind the house. The family gathered ceramic tchotchkes, photos in silver frames, paintings and prints off the walls. All day long people tromped through the house, their shoes clomping overhead and under foot, people shuffling in and out of rooms, climbing and descending stairs, doors banging as people went out carrying boxes and bags of Buddy’s things.

Allison sat at the kitchen table with her laptop open, unable to concentrate. Her hands rested unmoving on the pine tabletop. Seeing Buddy’s things carried away disturbed her but she couldn’t quite understand why. After all, she didn’t need what they were taking and God knew Buddy was beyond caring. But it was disquieting.

Around seven silence descended as everyone left. Allison went around the house closing windows and locking up. In every room there was evidence of pillage. The shelves in Buddy’s office were bereft of papers. His laptop was gone. His awards and trophies were gone. In his bedroom the walls were empty. The dresser top was bare. Even the open tube of toothpaste was gone from the bathroom sink: Aunt Elizabeth making a statement. Downstairs the parlor walls were empty. The papers that had been everywhere were gone. It was as if Buddy had been vacuumed out of his house, leaving merely a—house.

Trying to be considerate she’d offered the family Buddy’s things, not realizing the effect it would have on her. She wandered back to the kitchen and sat at the table in the chair where she’d spent many mornings drinking tea with him. Reading the paper with him. He’d do the crossword. She’d eat her yogurt and granola. And as he’d leave for Joe and Savannah’s he’d kiss the part on the top of her head.

Finally, in the emptiness he’d left she saw what she’d overlooked. An easy man to live with who asked nothing more of her than to be who she was. Men like that were myths, her mother had said, like unicorns. Only he had been real. A man who’d asked nothing of her, until he did, at the end.

Too late. Ah. What good was the house to her if Buddy wasn’t there? Maybe she’d just sell it. Take the money. Add it to the piles in her bank accounts.

There was a knock at the back door and Savannah came in. “Are you okay?”

Allison’s eyes were red and wet but she said, “Yes, of course. They took almost everything that was Buddy. Like a plague of locusts. So Biblical.” She sniffed. “God, I’m beginning to talk like Aunt Elizabeth.”

Savannah put a hand on Allison’s arm. She said, “With or without his stuff in it, this house will always be The Faber House.”

Allison laughed. “Sounds like a B&B”

Savannah said, “Hey! My mama runs a B&B in Charleston.”

Of course.

Of course.

Forget selling it. She said, “So how about turning this one into a B&B?”

“A great idea! And I’d love to,” Savannah said. “I worked in them growing up.” Her voice drooped. “We can’t afford it. We barely break even on the bar and that’s with owning the building.”

But Allison wasn’t going to overlook this opportunity as she’d overlooked Buddy. “I own the place free and clear,” she said, “And there’s something like ten thousand a year for maintenance and taxes. So what if I took out a mortgage and paid you and Joe to turn it into a B&B and run it? We can be partners. Fifty-fifty. I put in the money, you put in the labor.”

“If you’re serious,” Savannah said, “I’ll do it. We’ll do it.” She hugged Allison. “But I gotta talk to Joe.”

If Savannah wanted it, Joe would want it. They were that kind of couple. In the morning she’d call the lawyers. Family business.

Peter Alterman is a member of The Writer’s Center (Bethesda, MD) and has published science fiction literary fiction, popular fiction and literary criticism. Recent fiction publications include “They’re Playing Our Song” and “Perfect Time for Morning Coffee” in Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine #12, Spring/Summer 2020

Maryam

A dry loo blew over Maryam’s desolate courtyard, plucking a handful of pink bougainvillea hanging lazily over the wall of the verandah. She heard the soft clink of the bangles she had left out to dry, but the loo vanished as quickly as it had come, and for several moments, the buzzing of her grandmother’s table fan was the only sound that accompanied the hotness of the May afternoon. Maryam went back to her book, the English one. The words on the page were painstakingly difficult to read, but she tried hard to mouth them correctly. Hopes of a future when she could breezily read English, were not rare in her heart, and she was comfortably lost when her thoughts were interrupted again.

‘Mehr? Mehr?’

Maryam turned to face a man, probably in his late forties, with a yellow leather bag in his hand.

‘It’s me Mamu,’ she clarified.

‘Wallah! Sometimes it is almost impossible to tell you two apart.’

Her Mamu seated himself down on the chatai in front of her, crossing his legs with a moan, the first sign of his ageing, Maryam felt. On most days, one would believe him when he said he was thirty-five, as he often did. There was hardly any grey in his hair, and he wore crisp, straight pants with ironed yellowed white shirts. He looked like the gentleman he was, at least he was closest to one Maryam had ever known.

‘Ahh! Reading English again?’

Maryam nodded.

‘At this speed, you will surpass me I swear to God! Ask me what news I have?’ He did not wait for an answer, and continued. ‘Shabana’s older daughter is engaged. About time if you ask me. The girl has been sitting at home for three years… and doing what tell me?’

‘Aye, doing the work of men, as women in this house are doing.’

Her grandmother’s voice was muffled by the paan in her mouth, and Maryam wondered if she would risk ruining its flavour for another one of her soliloquies. The paan must have been exceptionally sweet, for she turned in her charpoy to face her table fan and went back to sleep. Maryam looked at her Uncle to see if he had a reaction, but from his expression, she gathered him to be disdainful, or maybe, indifferent. He sat there for what seemed like a long time, possibly searching for an excuse to leave, as Maryam thought, with the little self-esteem he had intact. When he finally left, the excuse was only slightly convincing, but Maryam had always known that her Uncle was not as intelligent as he wanted everyone to believe. Her mother often told her that he had been smarter, though never as smart as her, but time and poverty had done their work. She turned back to her book as another dry loo took over the verandah, rocking another bunch of pink bougainvillea to death.

***

Evening settled lazily in her small town. There were occasions when Maryam wondered if time even bothered to pass by them, or it did simply because it was made to by God. She woke up from her slumber, her head heavy with the reading and the heat. Folding the chatai, she went outside to her grandmother, who was sitting on a corner of the takht.

‘Where is Mamu?’ Maryam asked as she filled a lota from a bucket, cupping her hands under its snout and sprinkling the water it gathered all over the verandah.

‘Aye, why don’t you stop worrying about your precious Mamu? He is not made of glass, is he?’

‘I will when you stop with your hourly taunts. It gets too much sometimes, Nani.’

‘Aye, what else can I do? I will be dead before he listens. Who has ever listened to their old mothers… sons be damned… my feet can almost touch my grave now… soon…’ 

‘O-B-S-E-S-S-I-O-N…’ Maryam mouthed. That’s what her grandmother felt for death. Maryam had adopted this technique a while ago; learning difficult English words through the things she saw and heard around her, and since then, she had been able to memorise even extremely hard words with ease. She sprinkled the last drops of water across the verandah, filled the lota again, and climbed the stairs to her Uncle’s room.

‘Aye, that old man cannot even do a chidkao now… how difficult is throwing water on the floor… sons be damned one day I will be dead…’

The climb to her Uncle’s room was hardly a climb, a couple of steps haphazardly carved into the stone. The room itself was a work of haste and cheap labour, built up by gluing bricks together along the edge of the roof. If she searched for it, Maryam could still see the demarcation where the terrace boundary had been stretched to raise a wall. She had spent many fond days in the room as a child, when her Mumani lived there as a new bride, and even when she had left the house as a new bride. She remembered her red heels and red purse that she played with. Those were the only things she was left with, after her Mamu sold every piece of gold and silver from her trousseau to buy books. Maryam still remembered the clink of those heels and the flash of that purse, as her Mumani threw slurs at Mamu, and stormed out of the house, never to be seen again.

‘Oh Maryam, what would I do without you? It is so hot, a chidkao is necessary it seems. Do you know the science behind this routine?’

Maryam knew he wouldn’t wait for an answer.

‘I will tell you. It’s evaporation. The water absorbs the heat of the ground and evaporates, cooling the cemented floor. Much like the perspiration of our bodies. You have studied this in school?’

Maryam nodded.

‘I will see if I can give you a book on this. Must be on one of the taaqs. Hahaha, what a use of taaq! We used to light oil lamps in them when I was your age, but who uses lamps these days.’ He said.

Maryam knew he would fall quiet now, as he always did after talking about his youth. Her mother said that it must remind him of his glory days, when he was the most intelligent man in all of town, if you did not count the women. Now he was just any man, even worse, he was a man living on a woman’s, his sister’s, money. She felt sorry for him at times, but her grandmother always told her she shouldn’t.

Maryam glanced over the wall to see if her mother had come back from work. It was almost time, and she always wanted to see Maryam first when she entered the house. Maryam placed the lota on top of the cement water tank and leaned over the terrace boundary, painted blue for some reason. Her Uncle’s room was plastered in naked cement and the rest of the house—the room downstairs, the kitchen, and the latrine—was simply brick and mortar. Her mother had promised she would get their room, shared by all the women, plastered this year, but Maryam doubted if she would be able to save the money. Looking back at that moment now, she would realise that God had answered her question then; a muezzin broke into the azaan and a pair of black eyes greeted Maryam from the door downstairs.

***

The moon rose in all its glory by the time the family settled for dinner. It was a humble spread for the intricately embroidered dastarkhan on which it had been laid out—sabzi, chapatis, and curry with hardly any chunks of meat. Mehr was humming a tune under her breath as she served her daughter a piece of meat, the biggest in the pot, and spread ghee on her chapatis.

‘If only you would tell me the hiding place of that ghee bhinno… these old bones need some care too,’ Mehr only smiled at her brother’s jest, but knew her mother would be prepared with a reply. After all these years, the exchanges had become synonymous with dinner time. By now, she had lost count of the number of times she had made her mother promise to stop with the casual nitpicking and insults, of the countless explanations she had presented to save her brother, urging her mother that it was after all, not his fault.

‘Aye, so do bones that grind all day at the office and school, and I see only two people here who do that… no, no just sabzi and adhi roti for me… what does this old body need food for… rotting in the grave? Bas, bas…’ 

Mehr

The family ate quietly after that, except for Mehr’s interrogation of Maryam’s day at school, to which her brother added uninvited snippets here and there. She had grown to love him somehow over the years, as the resentment in her gave way to pity and acceptance. On many nights, as they all sat down for dinner, her thoughts would travel to their dinner time as children, when their father was alive and their mother’s taunts were reserved for her. Then, she would eat ghee-less, dry chapatis as the one she was eating now, with the smallest piece of meat, while everything of worth went over to her brother. Sometimes she wondered if her mother’s sneers, now for her brother, were a way of apologising, or if the apology was heartfelt. But she never bothered asking her. That is what peace does to you, it enters quietly from the backdoor and leaves no room for complaints. And if anything, Mehr knew that she was at last, peaceful.

The electricity went out as usual after dinner, and the women of the house sat outside on the takht in the verandah, hoping for a breeze that wouldn’t come. Mehr and Maryam took turns with the pankha, a device of intricate craftsmanship. In the early days after her divorce, any object that was once in the set of her wedding belongings, would bring back memories of her marriage. A marriage, if one could call it that. For Mehr, it had been nights and days, one after the other. Nights of alcohol reeked beatings and rape, and days of cleaning the previous night’s mess.

It had been a long time now, since the day she picked up her newborn daughter as her husband slept reeking of liquor and piss, stole money from his wallet, took a rickshaw to the railway station and got on a train to Firozabad. It wasn’t a calm sail. 

As she directed the pankha towards her mother, she remembered the protest that had ensued at home that day. She and her father had called her husband almost intuitively, within minutes. Mehr had gone into the kitchen, clambering, and tied the bottle of rat poison lying below behind the gas cylinder, to her dupatta. Her eyes blazed when she threatened to gulp it down her throat, and her daughter’s. She would do that before she ever set foot in that man’s house again.

Her husband came with a tin box filled with some of her things, drunk out of his senses. He stood outside the house, while she stood inside, with her baby in one arm and the bottle of rat poison in another, its mouth inches away from her daughter’s lips. 

He only said one word, thrice, ‘talaaq, talaaq, talaaq’ and left.

That night still flashed in her nightmares, what mother would have come so close to killing her daughter. She did not know what it had been—bottled frustration, a moment of weakness, or madness, but she knew she would never be able to do it now, not in a million years, not until she was alive. 

Maryam was sitting in front of her and smiled warmly, almost as if she was aware of everything that was going on inside her mother’s mind. Maryam leaned in to place her head on Mehr’s lap, holding on to her pale dupatta. Mehr caressed her daughter’s hair for a long time, as the moon shifted its place in the sky, humming the lullaby that she had sung to her as a child.

‘She looks so much like you.’ 

Her mother’s words made Mehr smile again, as she looked down upon her daughter’s face, peaceful in sleep. She had heard this all the time over the years, and as Maryam grew older, even she could see the uncanny resemblance, the shabbahat that people often talked about. She was Mehr, the moon, and Maryam was her aks, a reflection of her light, they say. As they had said for her as a girl, Mehr, the moon, the light of the bangle town. Mehr, with the grace, the softness, and the beauty of her namesake. 

But Mehr was sure she had lost the beauty somewhere. In all these years, of escaping violence to fall into poverty, of days spent collecting, saving, and calculating every paisa, of lonely nights without a man’s warm arms around her; somewhere she had lost her beauty. But where would she go,  who could she talk to. She had vowed never to say a word, when her father had died leaving behind a divorced daughter and a son too proud to work for sheeshgars, and her mother had asked her how she would bring up a child without a husband. 

“Ek gareeb zindagi ek zaleel zindagi se behtar hai,” she answered. A life of destitution is better than a life of humiliation.

Never had the question arisen again, and never had anyone asked Mehr how she felt. She would tell them though, if they ever asked, that she had been right.

She shielded her daughter’s eyes from the dim light of the verandah bulb and said, “Isse mera aks hi mile naseeb nahi,” I wish she has only my face, not my fate.

Glossary:
1. Mat
2. The practice of washing the outdoors with water intended to cool down a place
3. An element of hyperlocal architecture, a taaq is an arched shelf that was previously used to light earthen lamps
4. Urdu for table mat
5. Endearment for sister
6. A hand fan
7. Glass workers or makers; while the term is occupational, it is often used to indicate Muslims belonging to a lower caste

Sobia Abdin identifies as a Muslim woman. This identity has been defined by her experiences of growing up in a patriarchal and Islamophobic society. While together her identity and experiences often find a voice in her writing, she also consciously makes an effort to ensure that her stories are informed by a universal feeling of humanness. Her writings, which include poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, have appeared in The Lookout Journal, Literary Yard, Hans India, Indian Cultural Forum, Muse India, Woman’s Era, and in an anthology published by Impish Lass Publishing House.  

Pritha had never seen a feather as beautiful as the one in her hand. It was light, delicate and white. Ten-year-old Pritha had seen many feathers in her life. Her best friend, Mukul, had shown her one of his most valuable possessions – a peacock feather. 

It was more vibrant and way bigger than the white feather in Pritha’s hand right now but she loved the way it danced with the wind.  Its tip was pointed; Pritha fancied that one day when her feather’s body would get stiff and it won’t dance anymore, she would use it as a pen-like she had seen in some of the movies about writers.

Pritha hurried to tell Mukul all about this white feather that she had discovered. She wanted him to see its beautiful dance. She ran to his house and rapped the door like a mad man. Her incessant knocks woke everybody in the house. It was the weekend afternoon, after all. Everyone in their house took a good nap after lunch but not today. 

Pritha’s knocks and her loud calls of “Mukul! Mukul! Open the door, Mukul!” even had Zoozoo, the house dog who spent almost all his afternoons in deep sleep, wide-eyed.

The door opened and a visibly frustrated Mukul looked at Pritha. “Are you mad? Maa and baba are angry. Why are you shouting at the top of your voice? They were sleeping! What’s got into your head?” He thundered in a single breath.

Pritha pulled him outside and said, “I know. I know. But I have something to show you and I could not wait.”

Mukul threw a glance at her and saw that Pritha was hiding something behind her back. “What is it?” he asked.

Pritha slowly moved her left arm and revealed, “It’s a feather. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” She said with what, Mukul thought, was the biggest smile she was capable of. 

“Woah! That’s great! Now both of us have feathers. This is good news, Pritha!” said Mukul and the two of them jumped with glee.

“Wait! Let me show you something,” said Pritha and then threw her beautiful feather up in the air.

“What are you doing?” said Mukul looking up.

“Just shut up and watch,” said Pritha.

The feather went up in the air and then began descending slowly. It quivered, once to the left, and then to the right. Left and right, left and right, it went until it settled on the ground with the softest landing possible.

“Did you see? Did you see?” said Pritha, catching hold of Mukul and shaking him.

“What! What did I see?” said Mukul rather afraid.

“The dance of the feather, stupid! What else?”

“Oh, yes! It was beautiful! It’s your feather after all. ”        

***

Sometimes, things and people lose their space as easily and abruptly as they earned it in the first place. The reasons are as chequered as those that had drawn us towards them. But nothing happens in one day. When Mukul fell out of love with his peacock feather later, it was because he came to know how the majestic creatures, whose feathers are a regular product in the market – a cheap and easy gift item for everybody, are tortured and how his feather could be a by-product of this big and bad illegal trade that happens pretty regularly in the country almost matter-of-factly.           

“What can be done? Nobody can catch the big fish,” Mukul’s father said when he shared his worries about this big, bad world. As easily as he had fallen in love with the feather, Mukul had also fallen out of it, but he continued to love the bird, of course.     

Yes, he had shared all of this with his best friend as well and Pritha said, “To get and lose is all in the nature of things…”

She loved the feather alright, but the truth was, sometimes she didn’t as well. Like all things in the world, the feather was unpredictable. It was both sturdy and fragile! Sturdy because God knows what conditions it had survived — rain, storms, heat, humans too. Fragile because one snap, or one twist, and it would stop dancing.

Five years passed and lately, the feather was not dancing. It had also started losing its hair. One after the other, its strand would go bone dry and fall off. The leaner it became the less it could dance but Pritha still loved it enough. Enough to know that the feather had earned its way to her heart. And all she knew was that she needed to take good care of it so that they stayed together, however long that was. She did not know everything in the beginning but she got better with each day. First, she wrapped the feather in a cellophane sheet, then placed it between two paper sheets. 

This was kept inside the pages of a Famous Five book, which she carried to school every day. Pritha guarded the feather like a hawk. There were unavoidable circumstances though. A visit to the staffroom was rare but inevitable in the long run. Every two weeks, a new class monitor would be selected. Mostly, it meant catching hold of a different student to carry copies back and forth. The monitor’s face remained hidden behind a pile of some 40 notebooks while he walked behind a teacher. Staffroom visits came along with it. When Pritha took the role of the class monitor, she asked Mukul to keep a close eye on the book. 

Sometimes, during the lunch break, she took it out. A simple glance at it was enough to conjure the ghosts of William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. Quills in hand, they would hold the promise of lucid writing. “Will I ever be a writer?” she wondered.

She took it to her uncle’s house, which was just two blocks away from theirs. Uncle John, which was not his actual name but just what the children in the colony called him, said that the feather may have ticks. She would have to get rid of them if she wanted to preserve the feather. Pritha looked worried but uncle John placed his hand on her shoulders and said, “Don’t you worry, my child. I will take care of it.”

Uncle John went inside and came back with a zipped plastic pouch in one hand and a closed fist. He opened the fist in front of Pritha to reveal some kind of powder. Next, he asked Pritha to hand him the feather which she did rather reluctantly. “Come on, now. Put the feather in the pouch,” he said. 

Once Pritha had placed the feather in the pouch, uncle John emptied the powder inside it.

“What are you doing, uncle John? What if the feather gets destroyed?” she asked anxiously.

“Just wait, Putu Pritha. Have faith in me. Don’t you want the feather to be free of ticks?” he said. Pritha calmed down, still unsure. Uncle John shook the pouch. After a couple of shakes, he gave it back to Pritha and said, “Now, take this home and keep it someplace where no one will touch it for three full days. Keep it in your study table, in your room. And do not open or touch it for three days, okay?”

Pritha nodded.

“After three days, you come back to me and I will tell you what to do next. Okay?” He smiled at her with a raised brow.     

Pritha nodded again and went back to her home.

***

Soon enough, Pritha was back at uncle John’s, three days had passed.     

He opened the door and beamed.

“I see you remembered what I said to you. Can I also believe that you did not touch or open it in between?” he inquired. 

“Yes, uncle John. I did not open or touch it as you said,” she replied.

“Okay, then. Come on inside and we can take care of the remaining things,” he said. He took the pouch and sat down at the dining table. Taking the feather out, he flicked it lightly. Placing his left hand at the bottom of the feather, he used his right hand to stroke it between his index finger and thumb. He started from the bottom and moved upwards, doing this 6-7 times. And? The feather changed! It looked beautiful again. White, light and sporting a slight curve.

“See, doesn’t this look better?” said Uncle John.

“Yes!” said Pritha with a big smile pasted on her face.

“But there is one last thing we need to do,” he said. He went inside and this time he came back with a cellophane sheet and two sheets of paper. He wrapped the feather in the cellophane sheet first and then placed it between two sheets, just like Pritha had brought it to him.

“Now, this will last. You can keep this in an airtight jar to make it last longer but eventually, it will wear out. And if you intend to use it like you want to as famous writers of the past did, it will wear out faster,” he said while patting Pritha’s head.

“If it will wear out eventually, was all this for nothing?” said Pritha.

“Now, we did extend the time you get to spend with your feather, didn’t we? So, not for nothing but one day, my dear, it will. To get and lose is all in the nature of things…” said uncle John and Pritha nodded.

The feather did disintegrate with time and Pritha lost her feather, despite doing everything she could to preserve it. She did not even use it for writing. Not even once! She just couldn’t. It was too precious. There was the added issue of a fifteen-year-old writing with a feather, but Pritha didn’t delve too deep into that.        

***

This feather, her encounter with it that morning years ago, became something substantial in her life. Years later, when others asked why she loved the feather, she said many things. Sometimes it was the colour; white, sometimes it was the dance, which was a major pull. But deep in her heart, she knew that even if it did not dance, she would have still loved it. The feather and her feelings about it are a relic of the past today, but they had a transformative power over her back in the day. The feelings had become something else. They had acquired delicate power and become something larger than life. 

It amazed Pritha, in her twenties now, how the memory of a love, long lost, had endured the onslaught of time. She could still feel its warmth like the blood running in her veins. “Just get another one,” her friends would say.  

And it was difficult to explain something that hadn’t stabilized yet, it was growing with her every day. She tried explaining to people but most of the time, it was next to impossible. It was never about the characteristics or the body value, she said to them. She could easily get another feather–as white and as groovy as hers. There was something else to it, a pull — a strange pull towards an object she had genuinely considered to be beautiful, felt it to its bones and lived its beauty. It was unbelievable for most, intense and fantastical for others. 

Her love for the feather wasn’t one that might be considered otherworldly, it was just like any other love, for say, cars, jets, lovers or gods.

The idea of the feather brought peace to her, in an otherwise chaotic life. And to think,  she had lost the feather a long time ago! The fondness, the everyday leap of faith inspired by the one feather was to put it simply because she loved it the way it was. 

Aware of its flaws, subtle in its being, and bound by time; Pritha, loved her white feather. 

Pallavi was born in Siliguri, West Bengal and spent 10 years in Gangtok, Sikkim. Currently, she is based in New Delhi. A journalist for nearly 5 years now, writing for her is a reflective process. It’s a place where thoughts are churned and perspectives are born. More importantly, a writer must write – be it news articles, short stories or poetry.