by Annie Zaidi
She decided that her beloved voice must belong to a man with a moustache and a small appetite. She didn’t care much for food herself and it pleased her to think that he was the same – eating just enough to live. Such a man would prefer to read books or listen to music, or just watch people.
The snack stall man didn’t go away, of course, since he had the stall to run. But within a year, she grew bored of his piffy moustache and his thin frame. Her eye began to rove. Next, she chose a clean-shaven man with salt-and-pepper hair. He was about forty, not very good-looking. But there was something about his eyes, light brown and deep-set, that she found compelling. There were dark circles around his eyes, too, like he was an insomniac. The odd thing was that he carried a corduroy jacket every day of the sweltering summer. Perhaps he worked in an air-conditioned office. She too kept a shawl locked inside her desk. The little similarity pleased her and she began to watch him.
This man was sensitive. He noticed that she was watching him. Sometimes he would stare back until she had to avert her gaze. He never tried to speak to her, though. Most days, he threw a glance in her direction, as if to let her know that he knew. Then he would go back to staring at the railway tracks.
She imagined that the voice sounded tired these days. She paid close attention. It was tired, yes. Or maybe just older. It seemed grainier; more even in its tenor, less nervous. Older, definitely. After all, it had been four years since she found him.
The thought of growing old brought a pang. There was little joy in shrivelling skin and falling hair. To think of him growing old, his hair turning white, his breath short as he trudged up and down railway bridges, his stomach growing weak, less able to handle greasy snacks and over-boiled tea – just the thought of it broke her heart a little. She cried that night, thinking of how he must grieve for his youth, for a lifetime spent making announcements, repeating train timings, station names. What did he have to show for the last four years?
He must be suffering, she thought. It must hurt him to face the mirror. Facing the sound system every day, he must feel weary. It bothered her to think that this was all he might do for the rest of his life. Was he to get no promotions? Nothing but a list of trains and minute-by-minute updates on which signal had broken down, which overhead wire had killed a commuter, which bunch of irate passengers must be soothed with periodic announcements and apologies for inconveniences caused? It enraged her to think that he could be shrivelling up on the inside because of the sameness of his work.
That week, she visited the chief of the Western Railways and asked for information about the employees. The officer looked offended at first, then perturbed. He asked if she was from a government agency, or from the press, or from some independent agency. She refused to tell him. She kept saying: ‘I am a citizen. A commuter. Don’t I have rights?’
The officer decided she was one of these Right to Information nutjobs. The information wasn’t confidential and no specific names or events had been brought up, so he decided to cooperate. There was no booklet readily available, so he drew a rough flowchart. She seemed interested in designations rather than names, and kept asking: what position could an announcer hope to get promoted to? How many years did it take to get promoted?
After an hour, she deduced that her beloved could be a rail traffic controller. This pleased her. She didn’t like to think of him as just an ‘announcer’. Like an air traffic controller, a rail traffic controller sounded important. His work kept major tragedies from happening. She felt good. He was like engine drivers. Like pilots, almost. She began to imagine that he pored over indecipherable graphs, frowning over them, glaring at the blinding monster eye of oncoming trains, ordering them to stop, sit, move, stop, as if they were giant pet dogs.
She chose a new face. A strong jaw; small, upward-tilting black eyes. He wouldn’t be very tall. A squat torso, but very strong shoulders. He could move fast when he wanted to. And his chest would be broad, his head full of iron hair.
She spotted such a man once, when she was running to catch a train late one evening. This time, she was going in the opposite direction – to a club, near the sea. There had been a farewell party for her boss, who was retiring. But after the official party, there was to be a second, unofficial one. The boss asked just five people from the office to join him for drinks at the club.
It was a great honour, of course, to be amongst the chosen five. Only to be expected, perhaps, for she had served the boss longest. Besides, most of the older staff had retired and the boss was weary of new faces, new loyalties, conversations about new things that had never existed in his time. She understood this, and talked about the old days – her interview, her first pay hike, and how little it seems now, but how respectable it made her feel. The boss was glad for these conversations in the last few days of his working life, and she liked her old boss enough to go to the club and pretend to enjoy the party. The boss’s wife had arranged small farewell presents too. She was given a porcelain puppy with a yellow flower in its mouth.
It was a gentle, teary sort of evening and dinner wound up past eleven. The boss and his wife had been very concerned about her – asking if she would be alright going home alone at this time. And she had shrugged and laughed a thin, high laugh, and told them it was alright. The city never sleeps, does it?
They wouldn’t know. In their part of town, there was peace after dark, and they never took public transport. The boss’s wife called her a ‘girl’ and asked if they should send someone for a taxi. She shook her head vigorously and said she felt safer on the train. Someone was always looking out for her on the train.
She reached the station just as a train was about to pull out, and she ran towards it. She couldn’t run fast enough to get into the ladies’ coach, so she jumped into the next one. The gents’ first class.
He stood at the door even though several seats were empty. More men got on, occupied seats, pushed past others. Not this man. She liked him for the way he glared at the other men when they roughly pushed past other commuters, including a woman like herself. Two stops later, he got off.
She never saw the man again, but she kept his face and body vivid in her head. She decided he was perfect for her beloved voice, and so she adopted his body and face. She didn’t feel the need to change it for many years.
However, she did make additions or subtractions from his personality. She took away a little hair after five years. At one point, she added a scraggly beard, giving him an unwashed look. Then she imagined that his new boss had ordered him to shave it off. She removed the beard but allowed him to acquire a sulky, angry layer of fat around his chin. When a viral flu epidemic struck the city and every third person she knew seemed to be struck down by a fever, she knocked a few kilos off his heavy frame. His voice, all along, stayed constant, growing in confidence with each passing year.
After six years, she was struck down by jaundice. Ten bedridden days, and she imagined that he was sitting at her bedside, that he was squeezing sweet limes for her to drink, and bringing warm wet towels for her to sponge herself with. One evening, she thought she saw him leaning towards her and whispering in her ear: ‘Do you know why I keep making those announcements? I don’t need to. But I do it. You know why, don’t you?’
She knew. For her, of course.
So far, she hadn’t been discontented. Now she left office as late as possible, and then walked a long, long time beside the grey sea. She didn’t want to return to an empty house. So far, she had truly not minded being alone. But now she suffered. The bed, the chair, the mixer, juicer, towels, all seemed stained by his hands, as if he had been there all along and had only just walked out of her house, and forgotten to return.
The loneliness was intense. She grew frightened of the silence. Sounds filtering in from the neighbours’ flat – children, music, television, pressure cooker whistles – made her own silent house a blunt thing of menace. The last straw was her neighbours’ new dog.
A big, live hulk of a dog who whined and
barked and scratched at the door if it was left alone. The dog would even howl some nights. A gentle, impossibly sad howl that made the hair on the back of her neck stand. She contemplated stomping across the landing, jabbing at their doorbell, screaming at the dog and its owners, making them pay for her disturbed sleep, threatening legal action. But she didn’t. Instead, she lay awake at night, and picked up more and more sounds.
After a month of listening to that creature howling, breathing noisily, thumping his tail on the floor, whining for attention, she decided that she too needed a dog. She had a few bits of jewellery in the house and you heard all sorts of things these days. Nobody was safe even in their own home. Besides, she was determined to let her dog scratch and howl outside the neighbour’s door as soon as she could teach him how to.
Her old boss used to have a pet, she remembered. So she called up his home number and asked where she might find a dog. She was told to wait a few days. Then, on her fifty-seventh birthday, the old boss invited her to visit him and his wife at home.
They fed her tuna sandwiches, got her to cut a carrot cake and sang happy birthday for her. While saying goodbye, the retired couple handed over a basket lined with old cotton rags, a bottle of milk, and a golden, furry pup.
She knew this one was worth ten, even fifteen thousand, in the market. She had never had a gift so precious. She decided to bake at least a hundred cookies as an exchange gift during the Christmas weekend. In the meantime, there was somebody new in her life.
Naming the puppy was hard. She wanted to name it after her beloved voice, but she didn’t know his name either. She tried to pick a similar-sounding name, something which connected her to him. There was nothing, really, except the train. So she named the puppy ‘Chuk-Chuk’.
Caring for Chuk-Chuk was hard. Leaving him alone while she went to work was heartbreaking. She took two days off from work at first, then she began to wonder if she should volunteer for early retirement. After all, it was just a few more months and the office would be glad to let her go. It wouldn’t affect her benefits.
And then it struck her – there were only a few months left. Only a few months to travel with her beloved.
Despair laid her low for the rest of the evening. She cried into her pillow that night, and when Chuk-Chuk came over, curious, she let him sleep in her bed.
The next morning, she tied up the puppy, left milk in a saucer, water in another bowl, mashed rice and potatoes on a folded newspaper, and she went to work. In office, she kept sniffling and wiping her eyes. Some concern was expressed at her health. Her new boss told her quite sternly that she shouldn’t come in with a cold; sick people in the office made everyone else sick. Younger colleagues murmured behind her back that things were hard at her age, why didn’t she just quit and relax, because she was just a lone old woman, and what would she do with so much money anyway, seeing that she had nobody to spend on and nobody to leave it to?
It hardened her resolve to stay on as long as she could. After a week, the puppy got used to being alone for ten hours a day. The house stank of dog piss when she returned, but at least Chuk-Chuk didn’t do anything foolish, like try to swallow plastic or strangle himself with the rope around his neck.
Chuk-Chuk was a timid type, and when she took him out in the evenings to the park, he neither barked nor wagged his tail. Other dogs, mostly strays, would bark madly. She would get frightened then, and wonder if she hadn’t made a mistake. She wondered about all those other mistakes – supporting her sisters, opposing her youngest sister’s marriage, saying no to that fellow from the south who said he would take her away to live on a pepper farm.
But then, she had her beloved still, didn’t she? He still rode the wind, his voice still crackled in the air. She felt the warm arms, the polyester sleeves, the neat oiled hair. She only had to close her eyes and listen to his voice. But for how long?
As retirement approached, she grew more and more desperate. She tried to think of a way to go on commuting. The train pass wasn’t so expensive. She could just take a ride across town and back, on the same route. Maybe she could take Chuk-Chuk with her. They could go together, listening to the announcements. Yes, that would be nice. She could take the puppy to a bigger park, or to the beach. Once he grew into a bigger dog, he might need bigger spaces to run about in. Maybe even swim in the sea. It would have to be after the morning rush hour, of course. As it is, it was impossible to board the 8.22 these days.
But once she retired, she would have time to learn new routes, new announcement patterns. She must prepare a lined basket for Chuk-Chuk and take him along. Perhaps she could only go twice or thrice a week. Or on weekends, when the trains were empty.
One Saturday morning, she decided to do a test round. She put Chuk-Chuk in a covered basket and boarded the 10.40. The announcements were made by a woman. She got off at the next station, waited for the next train, boarded it. Once again, it was a woman’s voice making the announcements. She tried a third train. This time it was a male voice, but it was not her beloved.
Her heart sank. She got off at the last stop and took a bus to the beach. While the pup thrilled to the waves, she sat down on an old bedsheet and brooded.
At night, she lay on her bed and told herself to calm down. There was an explanation. Perhaps he wasn’t at work on Saturdays. Or worked a different shift. She would have to work harder to understand the new pattern, that’s all.
Next Thursday, she took the day off from work. Once again she put Chuk-Chuk in a basket. She took the 10.34. But his voice was missing. She took a train back, and then another train to the opposite end of town. Announcement followed announcement. He was heard nowhere.
How could he disappear so early in the day? Surely, railway employees didn’t work only between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m.?
And what if he did? She began to wonder if he actually worked only on the morning rush hours. The first trains began to run around four. Perhaps, he worked on the 4 –10 shift. It was possible. Yes, that made sense.
The next day, she went to the station much earlier than usual. At seven in the morning, she was seated comfortably in a window seat, ears straining to hear the announcement. But it was another man, a much younger voice.
The panic rose within her like a surfacing whale. Something thrashed about in her belly. She could barely swallow breakfast. Now, every morning, she scrambled off to catch a different train, anxious to find her beloved. She took early trains, late trains, much later trains. And on weekends, she rode up and down the same route all day long, hoping to catch his voice somewhere. But, except for the 8.22 fast, she couldn’t find him.
How could a railway employee go missing after just one daily announcement? Surely, they made him do more work than that. Surely, he couldn’t be watching just one train. At the office, she sat very still, shaking her head in bewilderment.
‘Don’t think about it now,’ she would tell herself. ‘There’s work. Do your work.’ She didn’t know that she was saying it aloud. She didn’t know that she sounded angry, that she was mumbling under her breath almost all day long.
Colleagues were starting to speak kindly. They offered her little bits of chocolate, touched her on the arm or the back, and even patted her head sometimes, as if she was a new girl at kindergarten. Or as if they were nurses, and she was one of those ancient, eternally sick people in hospices. Suddenly, everyone assumed they could touch her. Like the strangers who bent down to pat Chuk-Chuk when they went out for a walk.
She shrank from her colleagues, but could not summon the courage to tell them to leave her alone. She could hear them clicking their tongues. She knew her presence at work was a liability now that she had begun to turn up erratically, taking days off without permission. It was so close to the end, and she was so petrified.
The new boss was irritated, but even he let her stay until the end. On the designated day, everything was as expected – a bouquet of blue orchids, a party with pizza and pastries and Fanta and over-salted potato chips. The menu never v
aried. Nobody had bothered to remember that the lady who was being bid farewell did not like chips or fizzy drinks. Somebody had remembered, however, to bring coconut water for the new boss, who was supposed to be on an organic diet.
She blinked through the farewell ceremony. She didn’t have to tear open the wrapping paper to know what her gift would be. It was what it always was for female employees – a semi-silk shawl in pastel shades.
It was a relief that nobody did anything unexpected. She had been afraid that she might cry and others would crowd around. Then she might feel angry. She wanted to be dignified this evening. But she felt old and nervous. Her back and feet hurt from standing, and she knew her bones were fragile. When she caught sight of herself in one of the revolving glass doors, it startled her to see how grey and stooped she was. How would she board the 8.22? How much longer could she manage?
She repaired household fixtures that had been crying for repair. For a few days, she let herself go, slowing down in each muscle. Chuk-Chuk was getting used to having her around all day and was learning to bark when she talked to him. Because his dinner had to be fixed, she cooked. She used the same chicken she boiled for the dog as a filling for two bread-rolls. These she ate, dipped in ketchup, one for breakfast and one for lunch.
In the evenings, she took the puppy for a walk, often going up to the highway, where even the strays fell back, tired of chasing. Chuk-Chuk seemed fascinated by the fast cars and the blinding globes of approaching traffic. He barked madly and it gave her pleasure to see the dog excited. It would be Christmas soon and she reminded herself to bake a hundred cookies for the old boss and is wife. A week passed.
On Saturday morning, she stepped out of her house. She took the 8.22 fast, crowded as it was, and waited for that voice. Reassuringly, it was still there – older still, more gravelly, no longer making mistakes.