“Of course…I’ll be there…Yes…”
The call was hung up with a nervous finger. Dang! Why the heck didn’t I listen what was going on? Of course it was too short a call…yet…
“Jacob, I have to be somewhere man. Er…It was…The old housekeeper of my home…Do you mind staying with Mr. Neil next door?”
I nearly gasped out loud. Dan…Faithful Dan leaving his friend behind to be somewhere? Of course I had to know where…
“Odd, isn’t it?” Goldy said. “Hey why don’t you stay here while I follow him?” “I could stay till you got back.” said Shiva. “If you are that late, I could leave Jacob at Mr. Neil’s and head home.”
Both Jacob and Dan looked stunned.
“Er…Are you sure?” Dan asked, his face very red. “I mean…I could be gone a long time.”
“I don’t usually suggest things I dislike…”
After Dan and Goldy were gone, Shiva sat on the sofa opposite Jacob’s wheelchair. Unspoken words hung suspended in the air like the scent of a perfume for a long time “Would thanks be an inappropriate for this situation?” Jacob asked slowly. “I don’t see why you are so fond of the word Jacob.” Shiva smiled as she leaned back on the sofa. “I’ve heard my Dad say it a thousand times…and half the time, he doesn’t mean it.”
“But I do mean it, Shiva. Every single time I say it.” More silence. Shiva kept looking at Jacob time and time again before sinking into her thoughts. Jacob on the other hand, looked like he was drowning in his thoughts without any hope of rescue. His eyes wandered around the room unseeing - soulless ghosts cursed to wander around forever and ever.
“Do you play chess, Shivani?”
“Chess!” I’m sure Shiva regretted the incredulous cry the moment it left her mouth. I don’t blame her though. I have read all about chess in one of Shiva’s books and it wasn’t the sort of thing that went hand in hand with a blind man.
“I play with Dan all the time…” Jacob said mischievously. “But he’s too good. I never beat him and that’s kind of depressing…”
“I don’t mean to offend you or anything.” Shiva said. “But…”
“You want to know how I play? Why don’t you get the chess board and let me show you…All you have to do is say your moves aloud.”
A bemused Shiva fetched the chessboard. She deftly set it up on the small table next to the sofa and sat down, one hand occasionally caressing a piece. “White or black?”
“Ladies first.” Jacob smiled.
Shiva looked at the chessboard carefully for sometime and said white. Well…white moves first in chess, so ladies first it was. “Pawn on E2 to E4.”
Her delicate hand picked up a pawn and moved it ahead two squares. “Your move.” Jacob’s blind eyes stared right at her. “Pawn on E7 to E5.”
Shiva looked intently at the chessboard and bit her lip. Then she looked up at Jacob. “Pawn on D2 to D4.”
Jacob’s lips curled up into a smile. “Is this some sort of opening technique or you trying to test me?”
Laughter bubbled out of Shiva’s lips. Her eyes twinkled. “Wherever it is…I’m not planning to take it back.”
“I hope you don’t regret it when the endgame comes around…Every pawn counts, you know. Or so Dan says.” The game went on. The concentration in the room was sharp and crackling. Like electricity the humans depend on so much. Shiva, according to my limited knowledge, was not a bad player at all. She was in fact, very good. But Jacob was brilliant. He may not have been able to see the chessboard but he knew exactly where each piece was. Seldom did he miss a good move. Try as she might, Shiva couldn’t keep up. She lost in one hour.
“And you say you are beaten by Dan every time…” Shiva laughed as she put away the chessboard. “I shudder to think how good he is.”
“He was the top player in a local chess club and He had won every single inter-club tournament that was held while he was a member.”
Wow! I pictured the bumbling Dan that I knew. Ace chess player indeed…But there was something about the way Jacob spoke that implied that it was over and done with. Shiva seemed to notice it too.
“What happened?”
“Dan never told me. All he told was…He didn’t want to play it that way again… Never…”
“I wonder what happened…” “When I first met Dan…That was at the hospital, after the accident…He had given up the game for good. Or so he told me after our first game a year later. He never told me why…I asked quite a few times but…”
“And you had given up singing too, hadn’t you?”
Jacob sighed. “Never in a million years will I give myself the reason to think myself special again.” He said bitterly. “That way…I would never…” “But you are special Jacob. Like it or not…you are…” Shiva said. “I think so.” “That’s so…so like something Dan would say.”
“He’s right, you know.”
Jacob smiled. “Good old Dan! He’s the kind of man who sees a broken glass and picks it up to fix it. It’ll be good as new…That’s what he would say. He never thinks of the cracks that would never go away…”
“Even if the cracks stay…” Shiva said. “There are always people like Dan who wouldn’t mind them. Nothing has to stay broken forever…” When afternoon rolled around, Shiva and Jacob talked about going for a walk. The place they wanted to visit(I should have seen that coming) was the same park they first met in. The cemetery of broken dreams as I would describe it to myself. It was even fouler than I remembered. There were a few more garbage bags lying around and a four or five crow families. The rusty gates cried in pain as Shiva pushed them open and wheeled Jacob in.
“It’s just not worth seeing anymore, is it?” He asked, a wistful look in his blind eyes. “Unless you like garbage bags crows, and rotten park benches.” Shiva laughed. “Yet I like this place…There is something…that makes me want to come and simply stand here…stand and look at the clouds…smell the wind, as unpleasant as it is…” “Even though the road’s quite nearby…The noises never get in here…I’ve often felt it myself. But Dan tells me I’m joking and he can hear the cars and buses loud and clear.”
“I can’t hear them either.” Shiva said softly as she pushed the wheelchair gently. “Its so quiet in here. Peaceful.”
“You know…There’s something odd I’ve noticed. When humans lose interest and leave behind things…Those things attain a strange sort of peace.”
“Like abandoned houses?” Shiva laughed. “People don’t call that peace…They call it creepy or haunted…” “That’s because they don’t like peace. They like to shatter it by adding their own grotesque imaginations…Human thrive on trouble. In noise…In rush. In stillness, in peace, they are lost.”
I shivered despite the warm weather. There was something eerie about the way Jacob said it. I could see a house, decaying and dying in peace. An unfortunate human inside, shivering in a corner. There are sounds ringing in her ears - footsteps, chains. But was not the house. The house was silent, standing alone, staring at the moon and stars. Not wanting to scare anyone.
“You should be a writer.” Shiva smiled. “I think of and write about these kind of things all the time and do you know what my Dad calls them?”
Jacob turned his head so that his face faced Shiva. “Will you let me have a guess…I haven’t showed off at all since that game of chess so…” Shiva’s smile grew wider. “Well…Since you’ve been all good and modest…” “Nonsense.”
The word came out abruptly from Jacob’s mouth in the exact same manner Shiva’s Dad would have said it. Shiva clamped her hand to her mouth. Her eyes widened as though she was suppressing a scream.
“I would have sworn my Dad was here.” She said with a shaky laugh. “It’s the easiest thing for people to say when they don’t understand something.” Jacob chuckled. “When my Mom read me books when I was a kid and tried to explain I used to say the same thing. In my literature classes when we were discussing poems, I used to say the same thing.
”
“I say the same thing when my Dad starts talking about his business. Honestly…It’s because I don’t like it and hence don’t care enough to understand it.”
Shiva stopped the wheelchair under a large tree. She sank down beside it and leaned Shiva stopped the wheelchair under a large tree. She sank down beside it and leaned
VIBGYOR back against the tree trunk.
“We are under the same tree you said.”
“I know.”
The conversation halted there for quite a while. Shiva’s eyes were fixed on the sky, watching the wispy clouds float in the pristine blue sky Wind rustled her long hair. Her lips twisted into a serene smile. She hummed something softly to herself. Well…I did keep my ears alert but I couldn’t hear it.
“Do you mind telling me something?”
Shiva started, peeling her eyes off from whatever pleasant daydream they were fixed on. “What?” “How exactly do you plan to end your work?”
Shiva shifted a little on the ground, her face thoughtful.
“I haven’t exactly decided…”
“I’ll tell you one thing though.” Jacob said slowly. “I don’t think your story would have a happy ending.”
Shiva smiled a little. “I think I’ve felt so too. For quite sometime…”
“You know…Your work made me think of a song. Before you ask…yes…I will sing it for you.” If Shiva was astonished she didn’t show it. Her eyes scanned Jacob’s face eagerly as he cleared his throat importantly. His eyes flickered to Shiva for a moment before he began to sing.
I’ve broken free…I’ve broken free
from all the things I hate
I’m roaming free…I’m roaming free
With nothing to ever hold me back
Yet…yet…I feel sad
Yet…yet…I feel trapped
The broken chains still dangle from my legs
The broken chains…The broken chains…
The broken chains still bind me
The broken chains…The broken chains…
They won’t ever let me free
To say I was mesmerized was an understatement. All the uncertainty I sensed when he first sang was gone. This was the voice of a professional. Clear, pure and true. It rippled with emotion as sincere as the tears that poured down his cheeks after the song was over.
“Beautiful…”
That was the only word Shiva said. Her eyes brimmed with tears as she took Jacob’s hand.
Jacob went red with pleasure. His lips started to smile but suddenly it was gone. Uncertainty came back with a vengeance.
“I don’t know what came over me…I’ve been making this song up ever since I heard your novel…But…What in the word compelled me to sing it out loud?” “I thank whatever it was.” Shiva squeezed his hand. “I loved it.” She said earnestly. “Maybe I was being a bit of a showoff.” Jacob grinned mischievously. “It is kind of a disease with me.”
“As long as you don’t go into that mode too often….I guess I don’t mind.” Shiva’s eyes twinkled. A horrible gust of wind blew, amplifying the smell of rotten things. The crows fluttered up in a huge grows crying out in an unsynchronized chorus. Yet Jacob and Shivani did not flinch or even take notice. They seemed lost, somewhere far away.
Click!
It was a tiny sound and there was no way Jacob or Shiva could have heard it. I heard it though and quickly caught the malevolence in it.
Click!
I turned around quickly to see a familiar car. There was a glint at the window which looked suspiciously like a camera lens.
“Mr. Vaishnav Sachidanand.” I muttered darkly as I stamped my foot. “What in the world is he up to?”
CHAPTER 19
I was worried without knowing why. As I followed Shiva and Jacob back to the apartment without hearing anything except the pesky camera click which continued to ring persistently in my ears. The car followed close behind, hidden expertly in the traffic. Even from the distance I could feel the man’s twisted smile and the sadistic glare. Ok…maybe I was even felt a little afraid. Thankfully there was no more clicking…But of course it was an interval. The show would resume and go on and on…on and on…What! I gasped. Why would I be thinking that?
Shiva and Jacob disappeared into the apartment building just as the car stopped in front of it. Mr. Vaishnav Sachidanad got out. He leaned against his car and lazily surveyed the apartment building, the smile that scared me so much playing on his lips. A minute or so later, he got back into the car and drove away.
It felt good to be inside Jacob’s apartment. Inside sanity. Shiva and Jacob were talking rapidly. I wished I could listen. But my gaze shifted towards the windows at all the wrong times and each time I expected to see Mr. Vaishnav Sachidanand, leaning against his so-very posh car.
“I’d like it if you’d read me something…” Jacob said as I shifted my gaze from a Vaishnav-less street. “You know Wuthering Heights?” “Of course…”
“Can you read me Catherine’s famous speech?”
Shiva frowned as if to ask why. But Jacob got the words in first.
“Don’t be so surprised. It’s just that you have a good voice.” Jacob smiled. “The book is on the shelf.”
“I don’t need the book.” Shiva paused. A smile lit up her face as her voice switched into full dramatic mode. “'It is not. It is the best! The others were the satisfaction of my whims: and for Edgar's sake, too, to satisfy him. This is for the sake of one who comprehends in his person my feelings to Edgar and myself. I cannot express it; but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is or should be an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation, if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it.—My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a
source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. So don't talk of our separation again: it is impracticable; and—”
I thought Shiva cried in the end. She may have been quick to wipe away those tears but there were no denying they were there, glowing softly in the evening sun. “I always pitied her - selfish as she was. And him too - cruel as he was…heartless as he was.” Jacob said, leaning back in her wheelchair. “It is sad..to lose yourself completely in someone else to have nothing left of life other than that person. When that happens and that someone goes away from you…Your life just vanishes. Suddenly, you are staring into a blackhole…completely ready to jump into it because the universe, for you, has become dark.”
“Is that how you felt about losing Anasuya?” For a moment Jacob was completely still. Then he smiled. It was not a happy smile more like a peaceful smile. The smile of someone who had accepted something although it was pretty painful.
“Yes…I was enchanted. Smitten if I may put it bluntly. A day wouldn’t have been complete for me without seeing her. Without hearing her voice. And…this idiot sitting before you actually believed she felt the same way.”
“You shouldn’t call yourself an idiot.” Shiva said. “Because it is easy to be charmed by Anasuya. I’ve seen it a thousand times.”
“Guess there are loads of blind people in the world, huh?”
“There will be…” Shiva smiled. “ As long as no one invents a mindreading machine in the near future.”
Both of them chuckled. “But I don’t think anybody would.” Jacob said, thoughtfully. “Even if they could. They would be scared to. A
nd even if someone found the courage and made something of the sort…They smash it within minutes.”
“What?” Shiva frowned. “Why would they do that?” “People are scared of their own thoughts. So scared that they’d rather run away from them than face them. Once…long ago when my mother sat all day long with my baby brother - he had a fever - and ignored me, I was so angry. I wanted…I actually prayed for the fever to take him away…” He paused. “You’ve had such moments too, haven’t you? Long beyond childhood when you’ve thought horrible things and felt so ashamed of thinking them? When you’ve had to fake smiles when inside you’ve been horribly jealous or angry?”
“You remind me of the time I wrote about Mr. Mask.” Shiva grinned mischievously. “Dad found the page at the back of my English notebook…and…he called it too disturbing to be the work of a ten year old.”
“What on earth did you write to make him say that?” Shiva laughed. “It was about a man who had no face. I mean…like a mannequin. He always faked things…he smiled when he was angry. He tried to keep a straight face when he was sad…He faked so much that one day his entire face faded away. He had to make whole lot of masks - you know, like the smiley things? - so that he could go continue to exhibit some kind of emotion.”
“And you say your creativity or whatever came to the fore when you came out of highschool?” Jacob laughed. “I didn’t think that you are the type to lie, you know.” “It’s hard to maintain enthusiasm when everything you write gets torn into bits. You kind of start believing the word that you hear so very often…Nonsense…” “I heard brilliant far too often. That pumped air into my head and blew it up. Hence…” Jacob paused. “The totally obnoxious show-off you know today was born.”
VIBGYOR Page 23