by Ashok Banker
So this is what it comes to, finally? This is the price? And what is he supposed to do with this money? With this and the rest of the forty lakhs? What will he buy with it this time? Books which he has no time to read? A suit for a marriage which never takes place? A set of bedroom furniture for a wife who never will be his wife? A set of Elvis Presley movies on video for a mother who can't see them any more? He thinks of his desk at Synergetics. He is free of that desk now. He is free of the whole damn rat race. He can be free of this city if he likes. He can go anywhere, do anything, by anyone. Suddenly he has been elevated atop a skyscraper of money by a woman whom he neglected, could not help and who is now dead. This woman has suddenly thrust him up to the top of this paper mountain and here he stands now, alone, looking down at the city, at the puny people toiling mindlessly, at the hordes trudging homewards every evening, hanging out of Churchgate locals, signing attendance rosters every morning, waiting impatiently for salary cheques every month-end, buying crackers for Diwali, silver bells for Christmas, mutton for Id, incense for Passover, theatre tickets for Pateti, celebrating, marrying, working, sweating, bleeding, dying. Living?
Outside the window, twilight suffuses the world with pale-yellow luminescene. The shouts of children rise from the garden below.
The doorbell rings. He jerks, startled, on edge.
He goes slowly through the empty flat, dragging his feet.
He starts to twist the latch, then hesitates. He peers through the eyehole.
Meera!
God, Meera.
Why Meera?
Why here?
Why now?
She thumbs the doorbell again as he watches, the proximity of the BING BONG startling him again. Her face is distorted by the warped glass of the peephole, but he feels she looks more beautiful than ever, riper with the passage of time, more desirable than ever.
She glances at the peephole and stops. He jerks back quickly. Too late. She has seen him.
‘Jay?’ she calls from outside. ‘Jay, it’s me.’
He doesn’t reply.
‘Jay, for god’s sake open.’
He stands trembling, precarious on his skyscraper of misery, shaking, sweating, cold, so cold, so scared. But of what?
‘Jay, I have to talk to you. Please.’
Then, after a pause: ‘Jay, I know you’re there.’
He feels the nausea creep up on him, like a scorpion on the back of a buffalo. He grits his teeth and wishes she’d go away, leave him alone, let him be, let him sink, drown, wallow...
‘Jay,’ she says again. She is crying. Meera. Crying. ‘Oh, Jay. I know how you feel. But you’ve got to fight it, you’ve got to fight it. You must live.’
That word again. How can she know anything about that? About his thoughts. What I do is me, for that I came. Damnit, who does she think she's talking to? Chris? One of her one-night stands? Some bastard like Conrad who only knows how to fuck and invest in the stock market? Who?
‘Jay,' she says again.
He looks through the peephole again. She has stopped crying. But she is still standing outside. Still waiting. For me? Waiting quietly, patiently, with no sign of restlessness, as if she's quite willing to stay out there—
‘All night if l have to,’ she says softly.
He looks down at the latch. His hand has moved to touch it. He is grasping it. What would happen if he were to open this door now?
What would she say? What would he say in reply? He wasn't really in love with her, was he? It was Tuli he really loved, wasn't it? She was just a sleep-around bitch, wasn't she? What would happen between them? What?
They wait on opposite sides of the same door, he with his hand on the latch. Behind him, a strange twilight luminiscence fills the room, a wondrous yellow glow. It glows visibly on his fingertips and hair-ends. He grips the door latch tighter.
Slowly, as if of its own volition, it begins to turn, to open.
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Table of Contents
chapter one
chapter two
chapter three
chapter four
chapter five
chapter six
chapter seven
chapter eight
chapter nine
chapter ten
chapter eleven
chapter twelve
chapter thirteen
chapter fourteen
chapter fifteen
chapter sixteen
chapter seventeen
chapter eighteen
chapter nineteen
chapter twenty
chapter twenty-one
chapter twenty-two
chapter twenty-three
chapter twenty-four
chapter twenty-five
chapter twenty-six
chapter twenty-seven
chapter twenty-eight
chapter twenty-nine
chapter thirty
chapter thirty-one
chapter thirty-two
chapter thirty-three
chapter thirty-four
chapter thirty-five
chapter thirty-six
chapter thirty-seven
chapter thirty-eight
chapter thirty-nine
chapter forty
chapter forty-one
chapter forty-three
chapter forty-four
chapter forty-five
chapter forty-six
chapter forty-seven
chapter forty-eight
chapter forty-nine
chapter fifty