by Annie Zaidi
It took three days to find an apartment. By the time he moved in with one suitcase, one duffel bag and two computers, he was ready to collapse. He had barely moved a finger but winding up a marriage that had lasted a decade had knocked the wind out of him.
There was no furniture yet. There weren’t even any curtains or mattresses. Friends dropped in with bottles of wine and beanbags, and reminded him that they were there. Women sent texts.
One night, he considered sending a text message to the other woman, telling her he needed his doctor, urgently. He typed out the words, then deleted them, then tried to phrase it differently. But nothing he said sounded right. And what if he did send a message and she did come down to visit? He wasn’t sure he had anything to say to her. He just had a massive hole in his heart.
It took three months for them to meet. Even that meeting was coincidental. He saw her at a café, sitting by herself, pretending to read a photography magazine, not turning the pages. He said a brusque hello as he walked past her table. She looked up, grim-faced, but managed a quick, cover-up smile.
He asked if she was alright. She shrugged, said, yes. He asked where she’d been. She said, here, mostly. But I don’t know if I will stick around.
Why? There’s not much for me here, maybe somewhere abroad. Why? Just. What’s ‘just’? Just. What would you do? Anything. Anything? Join a visual arts course at some university or work at restaurants, wash dishes. Why would you do that? What’s wrong with doing that? Nothing wrong, but why. I just want to be somewhere pretty, somewhere restful. Doctor’s prescription? Yes. But self-medication is dangerous, even for doctors.
She didn’t manage the whole smile. She had to bite her lips to stop them from giving away the rising tide in her eyes.
Listen, he said, I’m been thinking of going away for a week, maybe to Lalmaati again.
He watched her face. She was holding herself very still. The doctor advised me to go with a friend, someone who understands me, doesn’t mind being quiet.
She just sat there, looking into his eyes, blinking back tears. His face grew flushed with embarrassment. He had read the signals all wrong. He’d ended up propositioning a young woman who had only been looking for work. He was about to apologize, but she bowed her head and said, let’s go, let’s just go.
And so they did go. They stayed at the same forest rest house for a week. Every day, he rang for tea in the morning and spent fifteen minutes alone, sitting outside the room by himself. She didn’t try to talk to him. They didn’t talk much at all. But if they saw each other after a few hours of being apart, they would hug as if they hadn’t met for years.
LOVE STORY # 4
(aka The one that badly wanted)
She has read a book recently that says: if you can dream as if the dream was already real, it will come into being. The universe conspires. You just have to want something badly enough.
She lets herself go limp on a green bench in the neighbourhood park. The park itself is only about fifty yards long, half of it serving as a rubbish dump and storehouse for construction materials for the next-to-next neighbours to her left. This park is where she goes if she needs to clear her head, which is frequently nowadays, what with the eternal phone arguments with her boyfriend.
He calls the landline when she stops taking calls on her cell phone. Then there’s the doorbell – ironing lady, delivery boy, bill collectors, courier, plumber, maids. Never any peace at home. So she goes to the park.
On this green bench, she sits down and makes a list of all the things she has wanted very badly. When she was seven years old, she had wanted a golden silk dress, which she promptly christened the ‘princess dress’. She saw it in a shop window, fell in love with it, and threw a royal tantrum when it was denied to her. She remembers, wincing, that she had rolled about on the pavement. It was distinctly un-princesslike behaviour.
Her parents decided that she was getting to be far too undisciplined, and firmly refused to buy her that dress, or any other. In the taxi, they had whispered to each other. Something to the effect that the ‘little princess’ business would have to stop; the kid was taking it too literally.
Nevertheless, she had not abandoned hope. She remembers standing in the front of the bathroom mirror, imagining herself in a gold dress with a fitted bodice, flared skirt, matching silk shoes. Her father had stopped calling her ‘princess’. Her mother had begun to buy storybooks about real children who went to boarding schools. She got toy cars instead of paper dolls. No more stories about fairies, castles, princes and dragons. Yet, she believed that the dress would be hers. Perhaps on Diwali. She always had a new dress for Diwali. But on that day she was told to put on a red lehenga-choli bought by her grandmother.
Still, her seven-year-old faith held. Surely, the dress would arrive on her birthday. Her parents always asked her what she wanted. But that year, they didn’t ask her, and on her eighth birthday, there was no golden princess dress. Her mother had bought her a pair of jeans instead, matched with a blue T-shirt with ‘SuperGirl’ embossed on the chest in gold lettering.
She remembers now that she had thrown another tantrum, refusing to wear jeans because that was boy-clothes, not girl-clothes. A party had been organized. Guests were starting to arrive. With a hostess’s panic, and a contempt for vanity that only mothers can summon up on little girls’ birthdays, her mother had stomped out of the room, saying, ‘Wear something you like, in that case, anything else. Just hurry up. I want you dressed and smiling in the drawing room in five minutes flat.’
She had cried herself stupid, she remembers, and then caught sight of herself in the mirror. Contorted features, mouth torn wide by a silent howl. She had stopped howling and then found a faded green silk frock, silver tinsels crisscrossing the bodice. It was a frock she had been given on her sixth birthday and all her friends were sure to remember it. But she decided to wear it anyway.
There are photographs from that eighth birthday party: standing over a square chocolate cake, unsmiling, the green frock uncomfortably tight and far too short. To this day, her mother laughs. Her mother jokes, with a wasn’t-she-a-funny-kid wink, that one can’t tell her sixth birthday photos from the ones taken on her eighth birthday; the only clue is the giveaway scowl on her baby’s face. To this day, she herself cannot laugh at those photos.
When she thinks about that birthday party, she feels a tightness in her chest, like a bone was pushing its way out through her heart, through her clothes. It makes her draw a long breath, as if she was still wearing a dress she has outgrown long ago.
There was another thing she wanted badly when she was a little girl: to become a class prefect. Her school was democratic enough to drive any child to wickedness. All class prefects were chosen through elections. Each year, the popular, prettier children won over the hard-working, quiet ones. The teachers complained that the prefects told lies and helped other students bunk classes, but the principal stuck to his guns. ‘It is a lesson in democracy; they have to be prepared for life outside.’
She was not a popular thirteen-year-old and had only two real friends. Still, she hoped that once she became a prefect, the problem would be rectified. So she stood for elections, firm in her belief that after she won the election, she would be surrounded by an admiring crowd. Her parents would be boasting – an elected representative already! Maybe she would grow up to become prime minister, her father would say, and he would not laugh.
Her two friends nominated and seconded her candidature. For a whole week, she smiled hesitantly at her classmates, not daring to throw herself into a more direct canvassing style that required sharing of tiffins, slipping arms around classmates’ waists, promises of gifts whenever she went to Baroda for the summer vacations. On voting day, she sat in a corner, quietly thinking up a little speech she would make at the post-election assembly.
When the results were announced, she discovered that she had received only two votes. One of these was her own, of course. And that is how she realized that at l
east one of her two real friends had betrayed her. Since she didn’t know which one had and which one hadn’t, she stopped talking to both. In a few weeks, she got used to not talking very much at all.
During college, there was only one thing she had wanted very badly: a first love. She had wanted desperately the first boy she fell for on campus.
He was everything she disliked. He was seen with a new girl every week, some older than himself and some barely out of high school. He smoked and drank up his pocket money quickly and when he ran out, his friends would ply him with more. He was surrounded by good-for-nothing boys who had money and liked drinking. They enjoyed listening to him talk about his travels in Europe, his multiple affairs, his lethargic support of anarchy.
She saw him hanging around at the paan stall outside university, buying cigarettes, laughing with girls, and she fell – with an almost audible plop – in love.
It devastated her. She spent hours trying to find lost hairpins and lecture notes although she had never been the sort of girl who misplaced things. She couldn’t make a cup of coffee right and sometimes, she woke up sobbing, running from nightmares in which she was alone in hostile territory, and all those who were supposed to love her just watched her crying for help without blinking an eye. She found excuses for staying awake.
She was behaving, she realized, like the victim of a natural disaster. She knew because she had been to disaster relief camps as a student, volunteering to teach little children their A-B-C-D and 1-2-3. They too had bad dreams. They too were afraid to fall asleep.
It seemed as if her heart was a refugee camp, full of unbelonging, lacerated with the pain of having lost the thing one wanted but never had. She found out more about the boy by questioning his girlfriends. Opening conversations with an irritated tone, she would say: ‘Don’t you think some of the students are just here to pass time? Like, that guy who is always hanging around, near the paan shop. Is he even a bonafide student?’
She found out where he lived, what subjects he studied. Family details were sketchy, but inside her own head, she filled in the gaps. An old house, wooden staircases, a lucid dream of stepping into that house for the first time, dressed in a pale, rosy red sari. His mother, his sisters, posters of Che in his room, a reading lamp – she saw it inside her head, and she saw herself amidst that household, making their lives even more beautiful. She took to praying regularly, accompanying her grandmother to the temple on Mondays.
But she could not get up the courage to talk to the boy. Nor could she bear to dream endlessly. She began to fill each spare minute with tasks. She learnt to cook. She learnt another language. She taught kids at the refugee camp.
With the kids, she proved to be more popular than she had ever been. Not as wildly popular as other volunteers perhaps – those who could perform stunts, or magical tricks, or make the kids howl with laughter – but whenever the kids were feeling low, or when they got hurt, they would seek her out. She had a way of looking into their confused eyes and knowing what they wanted: a hug, a chat, a game of seven stones, a toffee. She would go to the camp with a load inside her chest, but the kids would come running up and she would open her arms to draw them in.
Although she was only twenty, she knew what was happening – she was taking her love for the boy who hung around at the paan shop, and giving it away to refugee kids. They, innocent hearts, thought it was them she loves. And so they were shocked when she announced that she wouldn’t be visiting them any more.
Their faces had grown still, she remembers. She had hastened to add: ‘I will come to see you on and off, but I have to go away to study some more.’ She knew and they knew. Two years was a long time. She wouldn’t really come back, not as herself, and if she did, the kids would not be the same kids.
Studying some more wasn’t what she wanted. What she wanted was to just marry the boy, but he had stopped attending college. It took six weeks for her to discover that he had applied to a foreign university, had been accepted and granted a full scholarship. For several weeks, she wandered about on campus, unable to think beyond the fact that her dream was smashed. Even if she did manage to find his phone number, or an email address, what was she going to do with it?
She wept in the privacy of her room, making no attempt to think clearly after her final exams were done. It wasn’t until her parents began to talk of prospective husbands that she shook off her torpor and applied for an MA. In a new city.
The MA led to a PhD. It led to freedom, libraries and research. Research was a quiet, lonely affair. It took her two years to find a boyfriend. Her first man, and even that was possible only because he was a researcher at the university library, and he made the first move.
They saw each other often at the library. One day, he followed her into the canteen. She had allowed herself to be drawn into conversation over a cup of very bad coffee. He lived two hours out of the city, and one day, he asked her to come with him to watch a movie. It was a late night show and he missed the last bus back. She let him spend the night in her little rented flat. Before she knew it, she was sucked into a relationship.
It isn’t a bad relationship, she reminds herself now. At least, it wasn’t at first. For two years, she was content. He brought her books to read, DVDs to watch. He introduced her to white wine and Hindustani classical music. She hasn’t been unhappy.
But now there are frequent fights. He wants to move in with her. He wants them to move out into newer, larger rooms. He wants to meet her family. She has been refusing, cooking up excuses. Discreetly at first and then angrily, resentful at having to think of a way to put off the furthering of the relationship. Now, she regrets letting him have a spare set of keys to the house. It makes her feel vulnerable, out of control. She doesn’t know how to ask him back for the keys without ending things.
Perhaps she needs to end things. She doesn’t know. She tries to stay long hours at the library. She tries not to talk too much, but he keeps calling her. They have phone fights.
Sitting now on the green park bench, her cell phone switched off, she is hoping her boyfriend will not be in the house when she returns. She hopes he is too busy. Or even that he is too angry.
This is not a sign of love, she thinks. You have to be in love to be able to create love. How is she going to create love when she doesn’t even want to see her boyfriend?
Once again, she thinks of the book. The things she wanted very badly have not happened to her. The universe has not conspired. On the other hand, things she did not particularly want fell into her lap, and are now hard to dislodge. Like this boyfriend. Like the gold medal for her Masters. Like her parents’ inordinate pride in their daughter’s intellect.
No. She should not believe the book. She ought to trust in age-old wisdom instead. There is a proverb her grandmother often quoted: don’t ask and you get pearls; ask and nobody tosses you a coin.
She resolves not to ask the universe. No more prayers for love. ‘Let it throw at me what it will. I will do my best to duck.’ With that cheerless thought, she walks back to her apartment, up to the third floor. It is as she feared: her boyfriend is there.
After eighteen calls on her landline, he panicked and rushed down to her house. To see if she was okay, he says. She shrugs. He sounds apologetic. ‘I am not going to stay. Just wanted to make sure that things were . . . You didn’t take my calls, so I . . . I was wondering if you were okay.’
He waits for her to say something. She doesn’t. He stands there, rubbing the back of his neck, taking deep breaths. He seems ready to dive into a conclusive sentence, but fails. She decides to offer him coffee. Why, though? She doesn’t know. Perhaps, she is too well trained not to. It is her house, and he is a guest.
‘Coffee? Or whatever you prefer. Look in the fridge.’
‘Coffee sounds good,’ he says.
She is pleasantly surprised. This was one of the points of friction – he always wants alcohol, just when she wants to sit down with a hot cup of coffee and cookies. Today, he h
as chosen coffee. She is relieved that he will not stay. He is telling her why he must go. Something has happened. He is needed at office.
‘Office’ is his reason for living so far out of the city. He works for a human rights’ organization, which sponsors his research. It has already taken four years and he has become more and more involved with the organization. There is always some new outrage, some unspeakable act which needs him to document it. Out of civility, for the sake of some token conversation, she asks, ‘What is it this time?’
There has been a riot in the neighbouring block. Men with guns. Homes set ablaze. The police was called in and, for a change, they actually showed up. A newly transferred, conscientious police officer was in charge. He ordered the police to open fire when the crowd would not be heed his warnings. Some of the rioters fired back. Within moments the mob dispersed. The riot was contained, but when the dust settled, they found that the police inspector was hit by a bullet. By the time they got him to a hospital, it was all over.
This had happened the night before. There is a curfew now in three of the four blocks in the district. She has probably read about it in the papers, the boyfriend says.
She shakes her head. She hasn’t been reading newspapers. The boyfriend smiles sadly, as if he is disappointed in her. As if she is a child who has failed to do her homework.
‘It is going to become a big issue,’ he says. ‘The MLA’s mixed up. They are saying at the office that the police officer had had the MLA’s brother locked up, around a week ago. Speeding, drunk driving, threatening a constable. So MLA saab made some phone calls, but this officer wouldn’t budge. Over-honest, it is said. So now there is an extra complication, because the riot was being led by this same fellow – MLA’s brother – whom he had arrested. The guns, firing . . .’