Ghost words

Her nose touched his; he could barely see the colour of her autumn-leaf eyes, their faces were that close. What he could see was the tide of tears in those eyes, a gentle swell, rose-veined from no sleep, from some more crying, and then a rolling leap off the cliff of her lashes; tears finally struggling for space between his fingers where he held her face and her skin, in an effort to seek the maze of her ear. Their bodies were weightless as they lay there, clothed, one on top of the other, touching head to toe, weighed down by love and unbearable heaviness of an impending end. "I am not leaving you. I am just going away. No?" he asked in a tone so tender, so full of love that there was nothing left in the world but this, nothing but them and their love.

The lie brought a smile to her and opened up the stream of her tears, where earlier they were a mere trickle. You see, then she believed it was the absolute truth. She knew he would ever lie to her. Maybe he never did. Maybe he just changed his mind. But isn't that a lie too? Changing your mind?

They kissed then forgetting the difference between hunger, spit and tears. They all tasted the same in her mouth, and his too. Probably. Everything that usually followed their kiss followed; they made love, they cooked, he fed her, she dangled her feet off the kitchen counter watching him move around the kitchen, she telling little stories. What did they talk about, she wondered. What did they talk about before they argued, she corrected. Everything and nothing. As much of a cliche that was, it was true. That's what love does to you, she said. It gives you the capacity to endlessly talk about everything; suddenly you have stories you've never told. Suddenly, just as the conversation started ("You mean to say apple juice has no sugar?") it also ends and then there are only kisses and sighs; moans and screams, depending on whether you're a screamer in bed, whether you're a screamer when you argue.  Silence is rare, because even when you're asleep, your breath is getting in each other's way. Your long hair tickles and you are far too polite to pull away that stuck, numb, pins-and-needles hand from between two resting bodies.

But sleep was always beautiful, she remembered. He'd twitch -- toes, fingers, elbow, knee -- before his body would finally settle down to satiated, protective sleep, an arm around her. She'd rock gently between sleep and wakefulness, waiting for the arm that held her to fall aside as he slept deeper. A completely futile exercise because not once did his arm go slack, releasing her from the warm enclosure of their bodies. But sleep came to her rarely. She willed it away because she didn't want to miss him when she fell asleep.

She smiled at that thought. Some times, sleep had gently rested on her and she had woken up by his waking. And yet, she'd pretend to be asleep just so that they wouldn't have to end this. So they didn't have to go their own way when this was done because going away meant debilitating. Like that cheesy song, every time she left him, she left bits of herself with him. Sometimes her kisses, sometimes her breath. Sometimes all the love she could carry in her heart. Other times her energy, her excitement, her wetness. Yet other times, her wallet, her keys, her earrings. He took as much as he gave. Or maybe just a little less.

As she lay in the dark a thousand times more, on the same sofa, after that tearful afternoon, imagining their weightlessness, their heaviness of parting, she willed herself to hear that voice again. "I am not leaving you." Most days she heard the voice, she heard the strength it took for him to say that to her, knowing he was wrong, not knowing he was lying. But as time passed, just like with the noise of the world around her, the voice began fading. Until it became a ghost of the words that were said, until, like ghosts, she doubted they'd been said at all.

My attempt at the short story. Part 1

Sharada

When it rains heavily I always think of an evening that glows like a bright lamp in my memory. An evening of paddy whispers and a ripe-mango sunset, an evening where, I like to think, the birds called my name and that was all the sound that you could hear, apart from the restlessness of the breeze and the incessant prayer of a river, a little away.

Before dusk stole onto the mud patio of my little shack, I heard the far-away sound of the edakka steadily beating out a divine rhythm, accompanying an off-key voice in praise of some god who gave children to the devout and brought famine upon the evil. Soft and rhythmic, the noisy prayer was not something Else; carried on the somber wind as it was, it became part of the warm, moist air I was breathing.

Soon, the sun would dip its fiery toes somewhere beyond the swaying tops of the coconut trees and I would get melancholic. The swaying, the golden light that I wanted to cut a patch of to make a blouse, the settling down of all things but mosquitoes would all make me yearn. For what, I did not know. All I knew was that there was a room in me, and it was almost empty. Waiting: clean, fragrant and riotous with sample-swatches I wouldn't show anybody. And when the light stole away from that room at sunset, melancholy would be mine. There were no reasons; except that timelessness and purity are excruciating in their essence. Purity undid me like nothing else. And this song of the devout in the temple, the edakka offering its lonely, stoic dance drew tears from me every evening. Each day less than the day before. Each day more intense than yesterday.

But that day as the song died out and the tolling of the bell signaled the close of the temple so that the black gods could rest, a pink ribbon came into view from across the fields. A fluttering, garish ribbon that always caught my eye in the "ladies' store" that sold the soap, cheepu, kannadi. And obviously hers too, because she was old enough to leave her hair free of ribbons, I realize now. But then I didn't know. Her swaying form told me nothing about her age except that she was ripe for all the things young girls are ripe for.

Her face, always wearing a hint of oil, shifted ages. The first time I saw her, she looked a lovely 22, but then the sun was dying on us and the walk to my shack had given her cheeks a healthy glow of exertion. A few mornings later, when she came to me again, I thought she was still younger, hair in braids, no kohl in her eyes and clothes that young girls in the village wore. And when she finally ran away with Rajan, her mother told me she would have turned 27 that Onam. Old for a girl in those parts.

The ribbon came closer. I felt a sense of pleasure in watching a young girl walk like I'd seen them walk in so many films that show village belles. A full skirt swaying, hips that were completely unaware of their own rhythm, a waist that wasn't really small but not big either. Her neck with the sheen of sweat and oil, dissolving into small shoulders disproportionate to her hips, was made more beautiful with the black thread she wore her cylindrical amulet on. Her breasts were unfettered by the cheap, pointy cotton bras that the village girls wore. Instead she had her blouse tailored so fittingly around her chest so that her breasts remained high, unmoving and rather distracting.

She walked with a steady pace, looking around appraisingly as she neared where I was standing. When she came within talking distance of me, she stopped, looked at me and asked, "Why haven't you lit the lamp?" A little abrupt, I thought mildly surprised, but couldn't help but smile and tell her that I didn't believe in silliness like that. If I needed light I'd light a candle or use my torch. For now, this darkness was my treasure. "Silliness? Since when does a symbol of knowledge be called silliness," she asked me coolly, no hint of judgment or displeasure in her voice, just a shadow of a challenge.

I told her I thought we were talking about lighting the evening lamp to honour the gods, where did knowledge figure in that. "You really think the devanmaaru care about a vilaku," she mocked me mildly, a perfectly symmetrical smile appearing for the first time. A smile devoid of anything but beauty. "Don't they?" I shot back. She cocked her head to one side, looked at me intently as if to see if I was just humouring her or if I was really as daft as I sounded. "We light the lamp so that we dispel the darkness that comes with this sandhya. It is not because god will be happy and grant your wishes," she said. I felt a little foolish for having forgotten the conclusions I had drawn when I was growing up and questioning the Hindu rituals of evening worship.

I decided to let that go without praise or argument, though both sprang to my mind. I asked her who she was and what she wanted. "I am Sharada from across the river. My mother told me a lady from the city had come because she had just lost her husband and wanted to spend time alone. I got curious and came to see you," she said, as matter of fact as the setting sun. "But isn't it late for you to be out," I asked and she replied it was but she didn't care. There would be a little noise at home when she went back but that would be it.

I then asked Sharada in but she refused saying she didn’t like the darkness inside my shack. She sat down on the mud-floored cool patio and looked around to see if I had made any changes to the place in the two weeks I had been here. "You haven't brought anything with you? No clocks, no photos?" Sharada was either insensitive that I was grieving or her curiosity was irrepressible. I gave her the benefit of doubt.  "I brought some things, but I honestly didn't think of bringing a clock. I should have though. I use my mobile phone to check time," I told her.

"I have a mobile phone also. Rajan got it for me. I think he stole it but he could have bought it too. I know he loves me enough to buy one," she said. Who Rajan? "The man my family will do anything to chase away. The man I am going to marry," she told me, her eyes looking straight into mine as if to convince me that this was going to indeed happen. No "The man I love", no hint of a shy smile that a lot of the village girls have when they talk of their boyfriends, or their fiancés. Surprisingly, not even the usual "aetta" that the girls call their other halves. She had used his name.

"Why don't they want you to marry him," I asked in the same vein of directness she had used. "This isn't the time to talk about all that. I just came to see what you are like. I think you are okay and I'll come back later. Now I have to get back before Amma finishes laying the dinner out," she said and quickly got to her feet. I  

now realized why she had asked for clocks.

To be continued.  

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