City

I love you as the plant that never blooms

But carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

Thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,

Risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

- Pablo Neruda

Prologue

“You see”, said the girl, “All cities have souls.”
“How?” asked the boy. He knew enough to not mock her flights of fancy by now.
“Well, Calcutta is a good natured slut, Delhi is a devious conman, and Bombay is a… a harried businessman.”
“And this city?” he asked.
“…is a princess on holiday”, she said.

Italics

He could see what she meant. As they walked along the shady road strewn with sampige flowers, he pondered on the graciousness of this city. “It isn’t loud”, he decided. “It’s quiet, and dignified, and clean, and wholesome, and laughing” and he did not know where along the winding course of his thoughts, he had stopped thinking about the city and started thinking about the girl.

She was wholesome; her eyes brimmed with laughter and health behind her thick rimmed spectacles, her wide lips curved in amusement that was frequent and not entirely innocent. She was always scrubbed clean and smelled of ayurvedic soap and old books.

The dull clean gleam of thick white ceramic cups was reflected in her glasses. “I loved Mansfield Park”, she said, her eyes screwed up in concentration. They always did that when she was looking for the right words. “It’s quieter somehow, and more moral than either Emma or Pride and Prejudice. It’s a stronger book.” He smiled. He never quite understood how she managed to speak in italics. She did it regularly and unstintingly.

Coffee House was full of the regulars. Old white haired man with cane. Straight backed Anglo Indian woman with books. Students with dreams.

Parting

He was at the railway station, waving goodbye. There was an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach, in his brain. Her wide lips were not smiling, this time. Her eyes were screwed up, and she was not looking for words, this time. She smelt of sweat and a sour railway smell, this time.
His parents found him quiet and unresponsive for the next few days, but as he had never been very talkative, they let him be. He had always been hard- working, but now he studied like one possessed.

Life, Letters

He thought, as he stared into the flames, that his wedding day was the wrong day on which to think of her. Snatches of her letter swam through his brain.

“…my marriage. It feels as if I am waiting behind a door that has so far been locked. I am uncertain, yet quietly happy. I feel, finally, irrevocably, adult…” That was three years ago. He had been immediately, horribly, murderously angry. And then slowly, almost unbelievably, it had stopped hurting. He had not thought it possible that the little gouging pain in his heart would ever cease. It had.

He had even smiled a year later at another one of her infrequent letters. “…like a wrinkled chilli. She looks nothing like a baby. People are already saying with obstinate certainty that she will look like me. All I can say is, if this is the miracle of birth…”

The flames were hot on his face. “Think of her now,” he thought. “The fire is cleansing you of her.” He snatched quick, furtive glances at his bride. The bride was unassuming and small. He was struck by her fragility, her translucent skin that shone in her bridal clothes and the light of the golden fire.

It all seemed so sacred. So sanctified. He was ludicrously teary. Ridiculously determined to protect the little woman sitting so quietly by his side. In later years, he often laughed over this particular memory. It seemed to him his last adolescent memory.

In later years he found no time and no necessity for protecting his wife. Their life was devoid of any situation that demanded heroics. They were quiet. They were happy. They were wise and left each other alone often. They had children, two boys, and were proud of them; he in a detached sort of way, and she with an all-consuming ferocity.

Memories

He did not have many regrets. Except the shared walks under the sampige trees. He had brought his wife once, being naïve enough to believe that the old magic could be recreated. It could not. So he took his walks alone. That solitude was his only luxury, the only token of his remembrance.

Then one day his elder son announced a pressing desire for tuitions. That was the day he cut his walk down by fifteen minutes, after picking his son up from school and dropping him in time for the tuition bus. The bus stop seemed uncommonly crowded that day. He decided he would see the sturdy little boy onto the bus. In that crowd, the sturdy little boy looked small and vulnerable and a little scared. The bus creaked ominously under its weight of hurrying humanity, narrowly missed the signal, and honked in frustrated fury. He shuddered a little at the sight, and then headed back home for his delayed coffee and walk.

Mostly life was routine after that. He made a few friends on his walks. He never spoke to them, true, but he missed them if they did not come, and that, after all, is a sure test of friendship. Among his friends were a dog, a squirrel, and a military looking old man with a wonderful moustache. He missed the squirrel one sunny, unusually hot day. He was not in general an observant man, but he noticed the cut-down trees. The squirrel never came again. The shade was replaced by a block of flats where the trees had been. It was a dustier, more hostile shade. But he was not in general an observant man, so he did not notice.

His walks now lasted only half an hour. It seemed to take longer for him to get home.
One day he narrowly escaped an accident, almost falling into a large pit that had never been there in the last ten years. That day he had to take a slightly longer route to office and back. He refused to shorten his walk further, on principle.

The next day, he missed the dog. He was not in general an observant man, but under the now cheerless shade, on a road where now no flowers ever fell, he noticed a dull spot where blood had soaked into the hot road. When he asked around a bit, he found that the car responsible for the crime was brand new, and that he had never heard of the brand.

Meeting

“Coffee House?” he asked, eagerly.
“No, no, I’m sorry,” came her voice, her voice, smiling, and a little apologetic, on the phone. “You see, I have to meet a lot of people and then I have to be at the airport by…”

The memory of her voice was still warm, still reverberating in his ears. So long since the last letter. So much ever longer since the farewell at the railway station. He had dressed with meticulous care. His teenage sons were a little amused, a little astonished at this sudden change in their stolid father. Their mother was tending an invalid sister and did not have time to be amused.

The wind whistled in his ears. This was an unfamiliar road. A new road. Young boys whizzed past him. And he thought he was going fast! He smiled a little. Everything was tremulously funny today.

Suddenly he gaped. Teetered dangerously to a stop. It had been a long time since he came here last. Long time. L O N G.

The road had shot up. Literally. Vertically. Glass and concrete shone everywhere, neon blazed, burnt into his eyes, seemed etched on his eyelids even when he closed his eyes. A steady, slow stream of veritable monsters was everywhere. These couldn’t be called cars. They seemed half steel, half light monsters.

He climbed the stainless steel staircase, still a little dazed, still hopeful, and still expectant. His mind still seethed in a mad cacophony of all the yellow and blue signboards he had seen. Not signboards. Billboards. There was a solid mass of people at the head of the staircase. Impenetrable. So much scent. For the man who doesn’t have to try, too hard, his mind giggled foolishly. Immediately, many people grinned vapidly back at him.

A hand was on his shoulder, her voice, her voice was saying, “I’m sorry, isn’t it horribly crowded? I knew you the moment I saw you. You haven’t changed at all.” He was quiet for an instant, drinking it in. Then he turned quickly around.

Afterimages

He gazes straight ahead, past the milling throngs. His back is erect; his hair is grey at the temples. Raucous laughter fills the air. He smells alcohol on many unshaven young faces. He thinks something is wrong, that their faces should not be so close to his face. He realizes that they cannot help it. There is no other way to walk these days. He does not have the requisite skill. Many times he bangs unpleasantly into people. He turns around to apologize, only to find that they have gone.

His feet take him unthinkingly into coffee house. He sits down and orders coffee. The cups are still dull and white and clean and thick. The coffee isn’t exactly the same, but he is insensibly reassured.

Looking around, he finds this new assurance slipping away. No white haired old man. No Anglo Indian teacher. No students. No dreams. He is infected by some dreary horror. Sounds and sights recede into the distance. He is weary and surprised at the magnitude of his weariness. A girl and a boy are sitting at the next table. He stares in growing resentment at the girl, her clothes, and at the musky scent that wafts from her person. He stares at her unnatural hair, her expensive rimless glasses. Her lips are the colour of congealed blood, and as they move he shudders. His eyes close. He can still see the lights, the cars, her. Their afterimages are carved on his eyelids.

Déjà vu

“… distinct personalities. Every city has one. Delhi is a showy socialite. Calcutta is a misinformed intellectual. Bombay is a schoolboy without a sense of humour.”“And this city?” asked the old man at the next table.

The girl looked at him, not seeming to mind the strange intensity of his eyes. She was young, as young as he had been when they walked under sampige trees. But her eyes were tired; her skin had an unhealthy pallor under her brilliant makeup. Her brilliantly polished fingernails tapped cynically on her coffee cup.

“… is a tired queen”, she said.

Epilogue

… And he did not know where along the winding course of his thoughts, he had stopped thinking about the city and started thinking about the girl.