by Ram Sundaram
I asked where Peter was and his wife took me to see him.
Peter died the day he wrote me the letter asking me to come see him. His wife showed me his grave. She said he had been dying slowly for many months now and that he asked her just before he died to tell me he was sorry he never came to see me.
After she left, I stayed at Peter’s grave. I thought about how Peter had always been in my life, even when he wasn’t really there. He was the only friend I had all my life but he always reckoned we was never friends. I don’t think Peter wanted to be my friend, ‘cause maybe he didn’t like me. Even now when I came to see him, he had died and left me behind.
“I miss you, Peter,” I said to him, like he was right there, but I knew he wasn’t. “I never got to talk to you before you died, but I got something for you,” I reached into my pocket. “You were right, Peter, friendship does have a price, and I figured out what it is.” I put fifty cents on his grave. “But you were wrong about something,” I said, “It’s a price I can afford.”
III
At First Sight
Robert Duncan was about to turn to the financial section of the evening newspaper, when she first smiled at him. He wasn’t usually the attention of women like her: someone tall, slender, elegantly dressed, and obviously attractive. She reminded him of someone like Audrey Hepburn, or some other actress who was old enough to have lived in times when women chose to behave like a “lady.” Truth be told, Robert regretted the fact that both the times and the women had changed. In his thirty-seven years of drawing air, he had yet to come across a woman who wore one of those round hats with a rose pinned in the middle—not that he particularly liked those hats, mind you, for some of them were downright ridiculous. But the fact was that he had rarely ever met a woman who had the etiquette to use a simple expression like “pardon me.”
However, there was something about this particular woman that suggested she was different. She hadn’t said a word to him, nor he to her, but he knew that she was unlike any woman he had ever known. There was something about her posture and her cultured smile that made his hopes rise high (among other things). He wanted to make eye contact with her.
The evening train was predictably crowded and there were dozens of people crammed into the small carriage. Robert wondered how he could possibly initiate any kind of contact, without drawing everyone’s attention to him. So he chose the very basic and simplest of all gestures: he smiled back at her. “Good,” he thought to himself, as she looked up at the right time to catch his eye, “Give her your best smile, and then see what happens.”
She turned away.
Robert frowned, feeling deflated. Well, then why had she smiled at him in the first place? Had she perhaps aimed that beautiful gesture at someone else, maybe someone behind him? He cast a look at the men standing around him, and after a quick scan, he decided that unless she was the kind of woman who fancied tattooed men that wore more jewellery than she did (which, unfortunately, a lot of women did) that she couldn’t have been smiling at anyone else.
Or perhaps he had just imagined the whole blissful event? Maybe he had wanted her to smile at him so much that he had imagined it. Robert felt that that was the most plausible explanation. Annoyed and disgruntled, he bent down to the evening paper once more, hoping he would become invisible in the noisy crowded carriage.
“You play soccer?”
Robert looked up. The beautiful woman was now sitting across from him. She had perhaps purposely found herself a seat in his vicinity. “Er… yes, I do,” Robert replied, finding his mouth suddenly very dry. “Or that is I used to, back in the day,” he said. “Well, not that far back… I mean recently, but obviously not very recently. Not ‘obviously’ as in I don’t look like someone why plays soccer, but obviously in that I don’t look young enough to—well I am young I suppose, relatively speaking, depending on whom I’m compared with. I don’t mean you, of course,” he added hastily, stumbling through his words. “Because you look unbelievably young, like I… I can’t even believe you’re old enough to ride the train alone. Not that you look like a child, or even that I would talk to a child on a train. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with talking to a child of course, unless he’s unaccompanied… or she, that is, not just a ‘he.’ Not that—”
“It’s okay,” she said, putting a hand on his arm to calm him. “It’s all right, I’m sorry if I startled you by asking that. It’s just that I couldn’t help but notice your gym bag.”
Robert looked down at the bag he’d put between his feet: it bore the emblem of the Telford Soccer Club. “Oh,” he said, understanding dawning on him at last. “Oh yes, well like I said I … I used to play, back in the uh…”
“Day?” she grinned.
“Yes,” he nodded, grinning back nervously.
She smiled encouragingly. She was even more stunning up close, he thought. In addition to her beauty, there was also a very kind, comforting manner about her, as though she was someone who talked to people purely for the pleasure of the conversation.
“Do you still play now and then?” she asked him, in a brisk yet polite voice.
“Yes, occasionally,” he said. “Even if it’s a busy week, I try to make time for it. Once or twice, you know… keeps the blood pumping.”
“Does your wife approve of your hobby?” she asked, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.
He grinned. “I’m not married.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sure she would approve, if you did have a wife,” she said, a tad pointedly. “But we all need our hobbies though, don’t we? And soccer’s a sport worthy of commitment,” she told him. “I personally prefer cricket.”
Robert grinned like a cheeky schoolboy. Like most red-blooded Englishmen, his love for the game of cricket was in-born. To hear this beautiful creature compliment what was to him more of a religion than a sport, was a truly gratifying feeling. “I’m so pleased to hear you say that. Not many American women would share your views on that, though,” he told her.
“American? Am I that transparent?” she laughed.
“Your accent’s almost undetectable.”
“But I couldn’t fool you.”
“Not everyone is such a neurotic observer of speech patterns like I am,” he commented, eliciting a short laugh from her. “What part of the States are you from?”
“New York.”
Robert put down his paper while marvelling at how almost every American he ran into claimed to always be from New York—considering that the U.S. was the fourth largest country in the world, one would imagine that there would be other places in the nation where an American tourist could be from. “I had a feeling you might be from New York,” he said.
“And you’re from Wales, I reckon?”
He was impressed. “Born and raised. How’d you know?”
“My neurotic observation of speech patterns is fairly strong as well,” she said, easing into yet another effortless smile. “Does that make us even then?”
“You sound like you’ve been in England a long time.”
“Fourteen years,” she nodded. “I feel like I’m one of you ‘blokes’ now.”
“Ah well, if you watch the Ashes instead of the Super Bowl and spell colour with a ‘u’ then you might be,” he said, amazed at the fact that he even knew of the Super Bowl. About as many Englishmen followed the NFL as the number of Americans that knew of the Ashes.
In fact, there were probably more British people that cared about American football than the number of Americans that might have even heard of cricket. Robert had once been stunned when he’d mentioned the sport to an American colleague, who had quite promptly said (and that too in an unabashed voice), “Oh, cricket! Is that the game you play on horseback?”
Robert of course bore a small knowledge of the NFL thanks to the three years of his youth that he had spent living in Denver, Col
orado. It was there, incidentally, that one of his University professors, a historian too at that, had commented, “Ah yes, cricket. I tell you, I’ve looked in all the sporting goods stores here, but I just can’t find a cricket paddle anywhere.” Those who aren’t well versed in the game might be tempted to wonder what the learned professor had said wrong; others would realise that cricket is played with bats, not paddles.
“I don’t follow sports, but I do like cricket more than football,” Emma agreed, even while Robert’s thoughts momentarily meandered away from her. “But I’m afraid my spelling hasn’t quite made the transition to England that the rest of me has.”
“It takes some getting used to, no doubt,” he remarked, politely.
Both paused and stared at one another, almost as though they were searching for even the slightest flaw in the other that would prompt them to end this conversation immediately. They found none. Robert gazed down at her hand to see if a wedding ring lurked anywhere on those long, slender fingers. When his eyes produced no sign of one, he lifted his gaze to meet hers once more, and they smiled together.
“Do you take the train every day?” he asked. No sooner had he said the words that he inwardly admonished himself for having asked such a pointless question.
She nodded. “It’s a miracle I haven’t lost my senses yet.”
“You probably have, or else you wouldn’t take the train every day,” he remarked, and enjoyed hearing her laugh once more. “I’m afraid I’m in the same boat as well—almost literally. I’m a daily commuter, too.”
She shook her head sympathetically. “You know, I haven’t come across a good transit system yet, not in all the places I’ve travelled to.”
“Germany isn’t half bad,” he said.
“No it isn’t. You know, I think their airports might have been the first—”
“—to install the little train that connects the terminals?” he broke in. She stared at him, her expression unfathomable, and then nodded.
“It’s a very sophisticated airport,” he said.
“I haven’t seen a better one,” she agreed. “Although I am a bit partial towards the airport in Birmingham, but only because it has some of the best cafés and restaurants.”
“I like the drinks they serve there,” he nodded. “There’s one café in particular that serves the best Suada over ice. You don’t get that at many airports.”
“You like that as well?” she asked, looking incredulous. “That’s my favourite drink!”
He nodded, equally amused. “I know it’s just basically an espresso with condensed milk, but you’d be surprise how many coffee shops make a mess of it.”
“I know!” she said. “I usually just make it at home, but then you miss out on the café experience, know what I mean? You can’t seem to get the best of both worlds.”
“Isn’t that true?” he agreed.
The train disappeared headlong into a dark tunnel and the carriage became brighter as the indoor lights kicked on—but they flickered poorly and often left the passengers on board stranded in a few moments of darkness. “One thing you Brits haven’t conquered yet is the workings of a proper electrical system,” she commented.
“‘You Brits?’” he laughed. “I thought you said you were one of us.”
“Only when it’s favourable to be so,” she winked. Robert noticed that her eyes were a captivating shade of brown, almost hazel but a touch darker.
“What part of the city do you live in?” he asked her.
“South side.”
“Could you be more specific?” he grinned.
A playful smile came upon her face; it was different from the others she had shared with him that evening, but no less enticing. “I don’t know you well enough.”
His hand jerked forward in almost an instinctive reaction; “Robert Duncan,” he declared proudly. “Investment banker by day, poet and playwright by night.”
“Duncan? Duncan…” her eyes danced playfully as her mind worked swiftly. “I know that name… ah yes, Midsummer and Henry meets Harietta, not to mention the collection of three-line poems entitled Apathy to Zen, hmm?”
“I’m flattered,” said Robert, amazed to find that one of his readers was actually a smart, beautiful, interesting woman. His publisher’s marketing reports had suggested that his typical reader fell into the “lonely, depressed and suicidal” demographic.
She now took his hand and shook it affably. “Emma,” she told him. “I’m afraid my job’s not nearly as exciting as yours, but it is related to your line of work.”
“Oh?”
“I’m the chairman—chairwoman rather, of New Line Publishing House.”
“No wonder you knew of my works,” he smiled.
The train rumbled out of the bridge and sailed through the heart of the city’s core; the first downtown station pulled up and at once a visibly large portion of the passengers stood to their feet and filed to the door. “I hope your stop doesn’t come up soon,” she said, looking out through the tinted windows. “We were just getting to know each other.”
“My thoughts exactly, Emma.”
Maybe it was because she hadn’t expected him to say her name, or maybe it was because of the way he had said it, but it seemed to Robert that he had caught her off guard. She looked away shyly and nervously fiddled with the straps of her purse. He broke into his warmest smile, and then kept the conversation going in a soft, soothing voice. As they talked, her every word felt electric to him, and she in turn gushed at everything he said, like one of the young girls at the college where he taught a literature class once a week.
“And what part of the city do you live in?” she soon asked him.
“South side.”
They smiled together. “Do you live alone?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Married with three children.”
Again, they both laughed.
“And you?” he asked.
“The same,” she replied. She then crossed her legs, folded her arms and frowned at him in a scrutinising manner. “Do you smoke?”
He shook his head.
“Drink copiously and crash your car into lampposts?”
“Only on the weekends.”
“How do I know you’re not just some kind of psychotic rapist?” she asked.
“Oh, I’m not psychotic.”
“And what are your views on politics?”
“Er…that guy had it coming?”
“Views on global warming?”
“I like wearing shorts.”
“Endangered species?”
“They aren’t going fast enough.”
“Inflation?”
“Without it, I’d never have a date.”
She fought back a smile. “Same-sex marriages?”
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that? The word ‘sex’ distracted me.”
“Rise in teen pregnancy rates?”
“I’m glad someone’s getting laid.”
“The candy company Jambles going bankrupt?”
“Finally, a topic that’s close to my heart.”
Emma laughed.
“My turn to ask you,” he said, sitting up straight.
“Yes, I am a psychotic rapist,” she declared.
“Good, next question: thoughts on the Mid-East crisis?”
“Where is the Mid-East?”
“Effectiveness of the U.N?”
“They look good in their uniforms.”
“Favourite basketball player?”
“Er…the tall guy?”
“Favourite movie?”
“The one with… the woman and the tall guy?”
“Romance?”
“I’ll take it to go, please.”
“D
o you own a TV?”
“What do you think all my furniture points at?”
“Do you believe in love?”
Emma stopped for the first time, and then slowly grinned. “Trick question,” she said, after a pause. “Just when things were going so well.”
“It’s a fair question,” said Robert.
“Like I said before, I don’t know you.”
“You know me well enough now,” he said, piercing her with his eyes alone and hoping it would be enough to overpower her defences. Robert suspected that like most women, she secretly enjoyed being challenged by a man.
“Why don’t you give me your answer first?”
“You mean do I believe in love?” he asked and then promptly shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever been in love before, to be quite honest.”
“No?” she looked sternly at him, almost disapprovingly.
He shook his head. “I thought I was in love once, but it was just an ear infection.”
She laughed. “Well okay then, I’ve never been in love either.”
“It’s not a contest,” he laughed. “There’s nothing wrong with being in love.”
There was a pause, and then she said, “It is high up on my “to-do” list.”
“What, falling in love?” he asked, and she nodded. “Well, it’s not like grocery shopping or picking up the laundry. I believe in fate more than I do in love, so I believe if there is such a thing as love, then it must be dependent on fate. So you can’t fall in love, unless fate helps you.”
She rolled her eyes at him, “Kismet and all that nonsense?”
“You don’t really think that it’s nonsense, Emma.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know you.”
She shook her head. “But you don’t.”
He paused and leaned forward, “Then give me a chance to know you.”
She stared at him, unwaveringly. “Robert, do you believe in love at first sight?”
“No, I’m short-sighted.”
“Be serious and tell me the truth, Robert, for I expect nothing but the truth from you: do you really believe that love at first sight exists?”