A certain sinking feeling

Now when you look back at it, it all seems to make sense. Back then was a different story though. Back then Myna’s eyes were blinded by love. After all this, I am thinking maybe mine were too. I am thinking it was one of his tricks.

You are thinking I am giving it away, hinting too much and that everyone would know that this story ends sadly. But are you so sure? One woman’s misery is another’s joy sometimes. And as for me, I am still getting used to the newness of it all to bother thinking good or bad. After all this, I am starting to get convinced there is no good or bad. Maybe you would consider it to be a tragedy, but maybe she feels different. Maybe Myna really has become like him now. Or maybe she was like him all along. He says I will become like that very soon. Payal, I wait for you.

Myna was thirty edging on thirty one, and her parents were worried she wasn’t married yet. She didn’t care though. I know because she used to laugh at their silliness. She would always get light headed on mentholated cigarettes and talk about how she had narrowly escaped being the mother of two by now. She would talk about girls from her school who could cook and clean by the time they were thirteen and who were married off after tenth grade. She would blow out puffs of smoke and with a hard edge to her voice tell me about girls who were made to sleep on the floor when they were having their periods. Payal would always snort that she was making that shit up, but I think Payal was just jealous of her.

I never knew Amrish too well. She showed me his picture on her phone once. Tall and thin, with a devious look in his eyes. I told her so but she just laughed. It was clear she was deeply in love. I gave her the usual warning about meeting strangers off the net, but she told me he had already met her parents and they love him. He had cooked brinjal with sesame for them, sat with her mother and discussed embroidery. I concluded that mom and pop’s panic had infected her by then, perhaps she really had become desperate. But who am I to judge. Perhaps he had her hooked from the first day. They have their ways, even I have known that by now.

One day she comes to the office all smiles with a huge box of kaju katlis. Her hands are tattooed with mehndi and she is bursting with excitement. She takes me aside and shows me a glittering diamond on one of her fingers. I remember feeling slightly miffed that I came to know of this so late. Smoking all those cigarettes together, I had felt that I was privy to this sort of information before the man who granted her leaves and the man who emptied the dustbin under her desk. I told her all this, and by the end even I didn’t like the sound of my own whining. She didn’t make any fun of me though. Would she not even make us guys meet, I asked. She said he was too shy and not good with social things. I would call you once we are settled, he will really like you. He is very intelligent, oh the things he talks about, you will love him. Her voice was full of pity like she was talking to a one legged dog. Perhaps she imagined I was in love with her and jealous. Anyway, things cooled off between us after that. I noted how good friends she and Payal had become all of a sudden though.

Come to think of it, ever since her engagement announcement, I started liking Payal a lot better too. After pleading so many times, I had finally gone around and arranged for some pot for Payal and me. Payal told me she had met him. Dark and handsome, but he has this way of looking at you you know, that makes you imagine that you are standing in a very long and cold stone hall and he is sitting on a throne on the other end and that your life depends on him. I got chills hearing her describe but then it was Payal’s first time smoking pot.

Then one day, out of nowhere, she said that he had told her to stop smoking. I reminded her about all her long talks about no one knowing when they might die. That it may very well be the next moment. I asked her so what difference does it make if ten more minutes are shaved off our lifetime. But where I expected some arguing back, she just gave me patience and pity, and I told her to stuff it and went out on the street and walked it off with a cigarette.

A few days later, she told me she has put in her resignation. She was going away to the hills with him. She was just a secretary, so I had no grounds to say what about your career. Anyway I could sense her congratulating her own maturity for this gesture of goodbye, and this fresh dose of pity just pissed me more. But then I heard tears in her voice. I had grown up enough to not bother thinking they were for me, but I was still her friend, so I asked what was troubling her. She shook her head, said she was just scared of the exciting times ahead. Maybe some part of her subconscious knew all of it all along, sensed the finality of this farewell.

What will you do, I asked her. She shrugged and said vaguely that he had a few orchards and didn’t I know just how interested she has always been in gardening. I bit my tongue before I ended up reminding her that she has had a maid or two all her life. I wished her all the luck in the world instead, and even winked and lied that I wouldn’t be surprised if I heard about the coming of little ones one or two years down the line. She winked and hoped I would start paying attention to things around me as well. She meant Payal of course and that soured my mood a bit.

Her wedding was in the hot season. I caught myself a fever and avoided attending. She didn’t even notice that I have stopped messaging.

And then she was gone, and two months later I got a message from her complaining how poor the connection is in the hills and how she misses me. I read it and toss the phone under the pillow and go back to sleep. Anyway, I wanted to be fully refreshed before dinner with Payal.

Next day was Sunday. I remember because I had just woken up and sat propped up half sleepy smelling the waft of luchi and aloo subzi that came from the kitchen of Mrs Mukherjee downstairs. My own breakfast prospects were dim. I sat meditating on the advantages of a family with the freedoms of my bachelor life, trying to make myself feel better when the phone rang. I knew even before seeing that it would be Myna and not Payal.

It was Myna. She sounded happy. I didn’t know then how exactly, but her happiness infected me. I felt grand and forgiving. Suddenly I didn’t clench her so tightly anymore. I congratulated her again, and this time I meant it. She said she wished I could come see how beautiful the orchards were now in April. I felt like I had smoked an entire long OCB rolled fat in under a minute. I boasted gallantly that her wish could be my command. She asked really, what about leave from office. I told her to hell with Saraogi and his spreadsheets. He could stuff them where the sun doesn’t shine. I cut the call and booked my tickets on Redbus. Now when I think about that morning, I wonder where he was at the time of the call. Was he standing outside my door, or is he really so strong that he can do it all the way from the hills over the airwaves. Maybe I would know soon. Already as I type this, I am thinking about the things I will say to Payal. Amrish promises to help me too.

Two days later, six thirty a.m in the morning. Almost four kilometers above sea level, the wind here is still chilly in April. My mouth was still a bit sour from all the vomiting and my back ached from the thirteen hour bus journey. The conductor yelled out last stop. Me, two mufflered old men and a young boy and his five goats got off. The conductor dropped a cackling basket full of live chickens from the carrier overhead and the bus belched a smoky goodbye on our faces and headed down the hill.

He was standing there with his hands in his coat and back resting against an old Jeep. He raised a hand in hi. I remember feeling that he was taller than he looked in the photographs. My Sunday enthusiasm was still strong and there was no awkwardness between us. I told him that he looked like he swam regularly, and he told me that I looked like I needed to, and we both laughed.

While he drove, I sank back and got hypnotized by the hills. My back didn’t ache anymore, and my stomach growled for a hearty breakfast. Sunlight filtered through the tall sals overhead, speckling the asphalt ahead with gold. I noted that he had dark shades but still squinted as if even the weak winter sunlight hurt his eyes. He drove slowly and I was soon lost looking at the hillside full of wildflowers. In between, I caught flashes of brilliant yellow or red feathers as birds tooted tree to tree, too fast for my eyes. I asked him who all lived in the house, and he said it was just him, her and his mother. We passed through miles and miles of winding forest, and I noted we are so far out that their aren’t even any electric poles. We have our own diesel generator, he explained. The sun was high and hot by the time we reached the house.  

The house was an old wood slats and tile roofed thing that had seen better days. She stood in the small patch of garden and beamed at me just like old times. She looked thinner, and I wondered if she had become taller too. She told me that she was very happy and that there were so many places she couldn’t wait to show me and so many stories to tell. He excused himself saying that he would go check on mother. She explained that she was a bit down. I asked what was wrong with her but she wove my question off and said just too much sun.

A servant who had learnt a long time ago that the best servants are neither seen nor heard served us breakfast. While I dipped my paratha in raita and slurped the thick malai tea, she told me how his orchards were doing well. So well in fact that he was on the lookout for trustworthy men to expand his business. I didn’t tell her that I felt the roof could use some new tiles, or that the transmission of the car he drove me in was touch and go.

She said he needed people to help with setting up the irrigation. Was I a really good mechanical engineer or what, she asked. What does he grow, I asked to avoid giving an answer. Blood oranges, she said. Cut them open and they are the color of beet inside, sweeter too than the normal ones. She sounded like an ad, I told her. She laughed and asked again would I help him or not. Some of my enthusiasm had ebbed at this news that I was invited because I would be of some use, but the cool breeze and the chirping and the way the sunlight reflected off the little pond in the distance still had its hold on me. Or that is what I thought had a hold on me. I managed a smile and told her that I will make up my mind after she gives me a tour of the place first. That cheered her up.

After breakfast, she arranged for a couple of bicycles and we were off. It was easy going for the first half an hour, mostly just braking and letting gravity do the pedalling. When it got uphill, I started panting. After ten minutes, the back of her swinging ponytail was thumbnail size in the distance. I had never imagined her to be such an athlete and her stamina was a surprise. By the time I had reached the top of the hill, she had already unlocked the orchard gate. She looked down at me as I huffed the last few steps. I couldn’t tell her expression behind those large shades that she had on, but I tried to breath slower and hide the fact that I was out of breath. She suggested that I should give up smoking just like her.

The fence was in bad repair. Something thorny and stubborn had overwhelmed it, and had squeezed turn after patient turn all along the cement posts till it was a bent and sagging mess. I was no expert but the trees looked lush and untrimmed for years. This would be where he plans to build a juice plant, she said, and this is where we can build a bed and breakfast place. I remember thinking about  asking her when he plans to do all this building but something told me that would destroy this dream. What was I doing here with her? We left our cycles and walked on foot between the rows of trees. Little blue wildflowers bloomed dense around knee high, and their burrs stuck to our clothes.

The trees ended where the hill sloped down steeply into a mess of rocks some hundred feet deep into a jagged V. Skeletons of tree trunks told that the stream had gone dry long ago. I wondered where we would source the water from, and felt a grim satisfaction telling Amrish in the evening that his choice of factory site was poorly judged.

She was already down the slope, and as I looked at her, I spotted a little stone cottage just above what used to be the stream bed.

The scene, the breeze, the sunlight, everything had a very dreamlike quality. One of the walls had crumbled, but the roof still hung overhead, leaving a large shaded square of floor. The other room lay dark. We clambered onto the upraised floor and sat with swinging legs facing the stream bed. Behind us were the stone walls streaked with the soot of someone’s lamp. The dead trees had made me believe there was no water here but this close, the sand glittered with moisture. There was a stream under the sand! Maybe he really was so intelligent as she said, I thought.

Now I know. He is.

I asked if this hut was part of the orchard. She told yes its the most important bit. I asked what she meant but she was rummaging in her bag and didn’t appear to hear me. She pulled out a large glittering box that must have been for her sunglasses. Her eyes looked immensely old, and I had remembered them to be a soft brown and not this bottom of the well black that I saw now. Let me tell you what happened a month back, laying a hand on mine. You will know why this place is so important. Looking into her eyes then, it seemed like the most natural thing to be said.

It was about a month ago. We had just had dinner and when we come out onto the garden, the full moon leaves me spellbound. It was so bright I could make out the bats hanging under the huge tree in our garden. The hills just called to me and I urged him can’t we go for just a small cycle ride. He told me if I would like to see the most important place, and I said yes. So we take out these cycles and head down the road. Mother waved us goodbye at us from the gatepost. Her hair waved beautifully in the breeze and the moonshine. It was so bright the silica in the road glittered and the air was thick with the smell of crushed eucalyptus pods.

What she said didn’t make sense. Are you telling me what happened or are you telling me a dream, I ask.

Can you really always tell the difference, she asks and silences me. Then she tells her story again.

So we come up here and he unlocks the gate and down the hill we go till we are at the edge of the orchard. The stone hut shone in the moonlight. We came by and sat here swinging our legs. She looked at me and smiled.

I was beginning to get a little scared by then, and I asked her again what was she talking about.

She pointed at the walls behind us and said that it was time I met myself. She said that when she came down here with him her rattled with fear. She said that she had felt cold and trapped, kind of just like how I was beginnig to feel.

But don’t be scared like I was. It will be a relief once you meet yourself, trust me.  And how relieved he was. I was his first, he told me afterwards. Mother had told him how to. I was his first, and he said soon I would have mine too. He was right you know, now I never even feel the itch to smoke anymore. Then next morning I was messaging you to come down here. I told you already right he needs people he can trust.

Her grip on my hand was tight. It didn’t hurt but I knew she wouldn’t let go no matter how much I pull.

You know that game where you stack up a pile of flat stone and one team tries to rebuild it while the other tries to out them by hitting them with a ball. I was always the assembler in those games. I got so good at it that a split second before the ball would come smack against my face, I would know. There was this certain sinking feeling, a stopping of time as if the entire world hushed for my demise.

A faint shuffle of footsteps made me turn.

I froze as I saw him come towards me. I could tell he was taller, but the rest was all the same. The same tan shirt, the same loose jeans. Even his right shoe had the same dent at the maw where a nail had gone through.

Don’t be scared, he said. I didn’t like the voice, but then, everyone hates their own voice on recordings too.

Time to meet yourself, I said to me.

---

I wake up early next morning and call up Payal and tell her what an amazing place this is. I tell her all about the blue wildflowers that stick to your legs, and describe the hard time I have pulling them out of my socks in the evening time sitting by a crackling fire. He is sitting in his room deep in concentration, an extension receiver to his ears. He smiles approvingly, for I seem to be a natural at this. Payal is won over easy. I suspect even without his influence, she would have agreed to come here. I can see how right he was. The address made it all so clear. I can just see the bed and breakfast in the hill up there. Everyday we could open the briefcase then, everyday we would be having more trustworthy people. I am getting ahead of myself though. For now, I wait for the morning when I will drive down to the bus stand and drive Payal over. I wait for my first one. He says my itch to smoke would completely Go once we have Payal 2.0.