Empty Nothings (Part 2)

(Continued from below)

Something changed. I could sense her presence; I could sense her absence; I could sense her presence in her absence. For no apparent reason, a whiff of her perfume—up until then just another scent in a city that was an assault on the olfactory senses—made fleeting, surreal appearances; when she did actually walk past, I felt a jolt in my insides, my limbs knotting in tension; when she smiled, I smiled too, but fractionally later than usual—I had to keep telling myself to act normal.

Stranger still, when she came in the nights, she behaved like nothing had transpired between us. We continued to speak as usual—she with her coffee mug, I with my chipped tea-cup— discussing our days, our lives and our ideas. Truth be told, nothing happened that night: nothing tangible, even remotely momentous.  

I never stared at her in the manner I did that night. Sometimes, however, I let my eyes linger on her for longer than usual, hoping to gather a reaction of some sort. I never got one, not once in all those following weeks. 

*

We once spoke about dreams. I spoke about the changing face of my nightmares. As a child and a young adult, they were full of ghastly images, gory fates for loved ones. More recently, my nightmares seemed to be less dream-like, less direct; they were non-linear and plot-less, but far more powerful; subtle and lethal, they never failed to hit me where it hurt the most.

For instance, I wanted to tell her, consider the dream I had last week. I didn’t say it, not because she was saying something in response to what I had said previously and it was rude to intervene, but because I couldn’t bring myself to talk of my dreams.

… What do you mean less direct?, she was asking me.

Previously, I said, I would have dreamt of getting run over by a bus—my stomach would lurch as I sensed the bus near; I would emerge from sleep, screaming and kicking like a baby.

And now?

And now?, I ask pausing to buy time,

Now, I want to say, I can only watch from a distance, watch me wither, but not die. Like the headmaster in the movie I watched repeatedly in my youth, I can only stare helplessly at a situation I can neither comprehend nor resolve.

“Now”, I lie instead, I dream of dying in pieces. For instance, I dream I die like my friend—Daood, the Dhobi— slowly, painfully, coughing his way to death, unable to get rid of the wretched beedi that’s his Rajdhani-ticket to heaven. He always slept with a half-burnt beedi in his mouth, he died with a half-burnt beedi in his mouth … One day, he slept and never awoke. But he is in heaven now, in God’s hands.         

I see a palette of images, seguing into each other.

Sometimes you walk past me—deliberately, slowly— you turn to face me briefly, but there’s no glimmer of recognition, no familiar smile.

Sometimes, as you look over my shoulder when I make my tea, my elbow brushes against your breast and I look at you, but nothing comes off it.

Sometimes, you pull me close by the scruff of my collar, so close I can smell the coffee in your breath, and as I stare into your eyes, I realize I am no longer the man next to you, but actually a few feet away, watching you lunge passionately at the pretty young thing who comes over every so often. Someone is laughing, I cannot tell who.

I have dreamt of wearing space-suits and walking in space for much of my life, she said, I don’t think it means anything.  

*

You may laugh when I say this, but I have never raised a finger on anyone in all my adult life: never beaten my wife, nor my children or even the shy robber who once asked permission to steal.

She came home very late one night, clinging to a pretty boy like a creeper. For a long while, they were in their car, he was at the wheel. In the dim light of an insipid moon, I caught fragments of his face: long, thick hair that tumbled over his forehead; big, black glasses that hid his eyes; a lit cigarette that he held lazily in his free hand, one that seemed to contain more than mere tobacco; with his other hand, he stroked her hair easily. He was what she would call an intellectual.           

They seemed to talk for what seemed like hours; ever so often, they would move closer and the darkness would envelope their silhouettes: my mind dared not think what transpired in those moments; the wind picked up, then went still; the moon disappeared behind the adjacent apartment, the skies grew darker.

Finally, I heard a series of horns and some laughing. I ambled out and opened the gate. She barely looked at me as they drove past to her empty parking spot. I closed the gate. Something within my ears grew chilly, my saliva tasted metallic, my stomach felt heavy. As they walked, his arm around her waist, I walked up to them. I could smell alcohol and perfume and deodorant—their body odours seemed to have merged.  

You cannot go up to her flat, I said in an even tone, looking at him.

For a second, they didn’t seem to notice, so lost were they in their own bubble. And then, he looked at me—in the faint light of the basement’s only zero-watt, his perfect jaw contorted in confusion, then broke into a warm half-smile. Her initial surprise gave way to anger.

What? she asked.

Your friend, I said flatly, cannot go up.

Have you gone mad?, she snapped in a manner I had never before seen her do. There was more than a hint of condescension in her tone.

In a fit of righteous delirium, I kicked him where it hurt the most. And, as he bent over, his hands over his balls, I punched him across his head. He was knocked out cold, lying flat on his back. I turned to find her mouth wide open – she was screeching soundlessly, tears streaming down her face.

I held her hand tightly and said, first softly, then, as she struggled to find her voice, increasingly loudly: What do you think you are doing? What do you think you are doing?

Her silence provoked me, her helplessness made me want to hurt her more. She tried to walk away, but I followed her, never letting go of her hand, mouthing the same words. I wanted an answer, a response. Her words, however, seemed to inhabit another universe, failing to respond to her summons.

Stop, she finally managed to shriek. Her lips pouted and quivered, her tears had wiped her cheek clean.

I turned and sprinted. I scaled the gate and ran into the lane that led to main-road. My footsteps echoed, a cat’s brilliant eyes streaked across the darkness. As I reached the empty main-road and sped into dark patches interspersed with neon-islands, I raised my arms out wide and was awash in the pleasant chill of the pre-dawn air.

Under a setting moon, my madness evaporated.

*

When I had returned from my run, they had both gone. The car was still there, however. I packed my belongings and left before dawn crept.

*

Nothing matters. In the beginning, with her, nothing mattered. Then, after the strange night, nothing mattered. With time, even the pains of nothingness dissolve, leaving behind nothing: no traces, just an inertial numbness.

I moved across the city, to watch over another apartment: it is quieter and smaller. I avoid people’s eyes and make conversation only if forced to. I go into the main town once every six months, to catch the bus back to my village. Otherwise, I stick to one lane: the one that borders my new apartment.  

Every now and then, down my lane, a man maybe twenty years older than I, makes an appearance. In some ways, we are the same age: time ceased to exist for him some decades ago. He is thin and tall, much like a lamp-post with gangly limbs. He slings a sloth-bag around his shoulder, wears a long, faded kurta. He always looks clean and the little hair he has—all white-- possesses a sense of order that would make Nature proud.

Standing at the corner of my lane, he makes speeches to families of pigs that waltz by, passers peeing on the wall, their backs turned to him, and gossiping auto-drivers; the sole person who notices him is Shiva, the gudangadi owner, who turns on his mobile speakers to full volume every time the man begins to talk.

The old man is a captivating speaker, his style fluent, his voice modulations precise, arguments crisp. He speaks of everything, but almost always returns to the Chief Minister and his sycophantic ways—he accuses him of constantly pandering to the “mad woman” in Delhi. Like a dog, he would bark, this Devraj Urs follows Nehru’s daughter.

He speaks of everything and yet conveys nothing.   

I listen in often, sitting on my hunches by my gate and paying close attention to his lips for otherwise he would be lost in the din caused by the blaring music. When he’s done, he pauses to soak in the non-existent applause, smiling triumphantly at nothing in particular.

He’s made his peace with nothing.  

I dream of space-walking a lot nowadays. I don’t think it means anything though.    

*

Concludes

Empty Nothings (Part 1)

I sleep with my mouth open. It was a running joke in my family. My father would tell my mother in the morning, as he left to work in our Yajamana’s farms: ‘don’t feed the little one— he had two ants and a fly during his mid-night snack!’

As a child, I slept soundly. Outside, the clouds would rage—lightning streaking across starlit skies— and it would pour. I, however, would sleep through it all. Rain and gunfire, death and celebrations— nothing ever disturbed my sleep. After dinner, I would swagger like a drunk towards my mother and, before she could raise a word of protest, plonk my head on her lap and shut my eyes. She had vessels to wash, a house to wind-up and a husband to tend to. And yet, uncomplainingly, she would stroke my head, until sleep drifted in from wherever it is that sleep does.

Ironically, here, in the city, a thousand miles from where I was born and three lifetimes away from the life I had lived as a child, I work as a night-watchman. I still sleep, but sleep lightly. Even the footsteps of a cat, suffused with the quietness of their species and the magic of the night, would make me take notice.

However, curious flies are still unconsciously consumed— perhaps the only link to a childhood from another world.  

*

My wife and children are still in the village, though I am trying to get my eldest to come to the city. I have just about enough money to send him to a private school here. If I had spent less on frivolous things when I first came to the city thirteen years ago, perhaps I could have brought them all here. But, when you are young and new, everything is light, lovely and joyous; everything is about the today and the now.

Once, I went to the same film six times straight, not because the hero was a superstar or the heroine, an import from the north, ravishing; nor was it for the predictably comforting underdog tale. I went because (as I came to discover on my third viewing) one of the characters—an old headmaster of a dying school—reminded me of my father.

I gambled, but never drank. Some while ago, a friend of mine calculated and discovered, much to our alarm, that had I saved up all the money I had spent on beedis, I’d be thrice as rich.

*

This friend was special: she is not like me at all.

‘But we are like each other’, I can hear her insist in my head.

Okay, here are the facts and I’ll let you decide: she is half-English (or American or Australian), I can barely speak English (half-English?); she is tall, with long, sexy legs which she lets the moonlight lovingly caress, I am short and fat— my hairy legs are barely contained by my bulging khakis; she is white as milk, glowing in mere starlight, sometimes I am invisible at twilight; she rents an apartment and lives by herself, I sleep under the skies.

You are an intellectual, she would always say, cupping her coffee-mug, her head resting on her knees. Had you been born in my world, you would have been wearing big, round glasses, smoked a pipe and spoken about the Big Things: God, Life, Religion, Cultures.

But, what is your world? I would wonder out aloud, What is this world to which we have no keys?

See?, she would say, that is precisely the kind of thing an intellectual would say.

*

She came nearly every night. She was remarkably unselfconscious, but the night was also kind: no surreptitious eyes ogled at her lovely legs, no jealous women made comments on the sly. She brought a mug of black coffee: dark, steaming, mysterious. She would talk and watch me make my tea, a necessary indulgence to wade through the night.

We often traded histories. After all, most conversations flow through memories’ windows.

I came to the city because I grew tired of singing at weddings. We were descendants of the Nagas. Like the snakes, I would tell her, we virtually lived underground, in darkness, in a hamlet away from the rest of the village. And just like the snakes, we briefly emerged from the darkness every now and then, to be faux-revered, but quickly banished. We were invited for all religious ceremonies—weddings, festivals— because music was in our blood, our voices could scale notes that none else could imagine.

My father rebelled against his mother by choosing to work in the Yajamaana’s fields—at least, he argued, we don’t have to wait for people to get married to fill our stomachs. I rebelled against my father by leaving the village altogether.

It was remarkable how differently she and I viewed the city: for me, it symbolized progress and freedom. For her, it was regressive and constraining; but, equally remarkably, for both of us, it was a land of opportunities.

In my line of work, she would say, this is a gold-mine. There is so much to do, so much to develop!

What if these people don’t need your development?, I would argue.

Why wouldn’t anyone want more schools, better schools?

My father never went to school. I think, on the whole, he was happier than I was. But that is beside the point. What I really want to say is this: why can’t schools teach what we want to learn? Why should my son learn what someone in the capital—thousands of kilometres away—deems fit? I have so much I could teach children: my music, our way of life. Why should everything be so complicated?     

I know you have a point there, she would counter, but what you are saying is impractical.       

I could sense the mild exasperation in her tone. I would stay quiet, watching my tea-leaves swirl in the yellow light of my lantern; the glorious violet fire below evoked the feathers of a peacock. The gas connection was a gift from her; the cart was the dhobi’s who had died last year, leaving behind all his savings for his only son. He gave me the cart because we had been old friends and he wanted someone to ‘treat it with the love it deserved’.

We’ve become so complicated, I would soldier on, an eye still on the tea. We can’t even tell people what we do without resorting to an explanation. You work with—what do you call it—policy advocacy? How does that tell anyone you work for children? Tomorrow, we’ll have fifteen words for walking, twenty words for the kind of hunger we feel. Actually, maybe that’s not true: only you rich people have such lush vocabularies and hunger is not something you feel as intensely as we do. Come to think of it, you don’t even walk as much!

What do you want us to do?, she would ask, turning her head towards me, become milkmen and night-watchmen?

It was a rhetorical question, meant only as a counter-barb. I poured my freshly made tea into my chipped tea-cup, one I got twenty-five years ago as part of my dowry. I sat across her, my head against the compound wall of her apartment and asked, quietly:

How was your day?

*

She never brought anyone. On the days she had friends over for the night— posh girls, good-looking men—she’d usually not turn up; sometimes she would come, later than usual, with a sheepish grin and explain: he’s asleep; clearly I am not good company!

She once asked me about sex. It was a windy night—the kind when you could taste the dust on your upper-lip; the world was hazy, beautifully so, especially in the bright headlights of the odd truck that cantered by. The tea had been made, my head rested against her apartment wall and her thick, dark hair swayed sensually with the wind. I was telling her about my last visit to my village, when she interjected:

You haven’t seen your wife in ages! Don’t you feel like sleeping with someone?

It was a question like any other: gently curious, but casual and easy.

I stiffened. It is odd—I talk sex to myself constantly; during the day, the topic is a favourite amongst my best friends, the sex-starved Manja, who runs a liquor shop and the promiscuous, boastful Kalla, who owns a gudangadi down the road. And yet, those conversations are mechanical, illusory: the tone is light, the banter good-natured, the humour detached. I—we—talk of sex like we talk of cinema stars, like it is somebody else’s problem.

I stood up abruptly and walked to my cart. I picked up the lantern by its side and placed it between us: her bright eyes shone in the soft, orange light; her nose-ring—a speck on the bridge of her sharp, impeccable nose—glistened softly; the wind made her tee-shirt cling to her breasts, accentuating her curves; and the shadows of her slender legs were thrown across my own.

I stared at her, my mind stunned into calm silence. She looked back, her delightful eyes questioning me playfully. I could sense my imagination leaping out of my self, scampering wildly along the dusty, dirty lanes of the city. She was toying with me, fully conscious of the impact she was having on my senses and revelling in it.

In minutes, she finished her tea, her eyes never quite leaving me.  She stood up and left quietly, her windswept hair bouncing gracefully.   

Our conversation wound up in the absence of words; the electric silence, however, was anything but empty.

I had not felt more alive in a very long while.

(To conclude, in three days)