Love and the Dark Night

FOUR

“Let’s keep our evening off,” she said. “We’ll go to Oly Pub and then to Roxy. Hermen, Alex, Simran, Ranee and Shasht will be coming too.”  She was trying to ease off my situation.

Even though the wail had turned to a sigh, I looked into her eyes.

“Okay,” I said, my mind still on the sigh and the sound in my ear.

*

It was evening and Anais appeared from the other room in a sleeveless tee and jeans shorts. But something, the way she inclined her head to a rakish angle to the left and looked at me with her sad yet mysterious eyes, I doubted if she was Anais or someone I had known. She wore a light-brown matt finish lipstick and looked simple yet attractive.

We took a cab to Park Street. Oly Pub was moderately full at 9.00 pm and a babble of voices greeted us. But Anais could easily spot our gang at the table on the left corner. Four bottles of beer stood half empty and five glasses half full. We said hi and hello to our friends and sat down. Seated at another table was Pablo. He was in the local news as a theatre actor. I did a Hi to him and to the members of his group – Saket, Saurav and Maneesh.  

Pablo came up to our table. “Here are complimentary tickets,” and he handed me two of them. “We were supposed to give you the tickets today but Maneesh met Ranee and she said you two were coming here tonight, and so we thought of giving you a surprise.”

“Great,” I said. “That’s why I like you so much, Pablo,” and I winked at him.

Anais showed him a thumbs-up.  

The evening is going to be good, Rudi, I told myself.

We left for Roxy around 10.30 pm, slightly tipsy with the beers. The wail had subsided. Perhaps gone. Vamoosh. And Damasque had become a speck in the horizon of my weekend, and very soon she would desaparecer!

*

At Roxy, the lights were blue and they were dim. And our mood was dimly bright. The music was loud, though, but loud music was part of drinks. And weekends. And enjoyment.

And then it happened. When I drained the lees till the last drop of the first peg; when the music was a lilt; when Anais was giving me her cutest smile, sitting close to me; when she lay her head on my shoulder as we sat sharing the same single sofa; when Ranee looked into her glass with the honey-coloured drink at the bottom and Shasht was dancing with Simran, Alex and Hermen, I fished out my cell phone to unmindfully check my mail. And there was Damasque’s name sitting comfortably in my inbox. Sitting so comfortably that I lost my balance.

I really need to meet you, Rudi.

Anais lifted her head and looked at me and my gaze fell on her at the same time. She gave me a smile.

“Please keep the phone away, Rudi,” she whispered in my ear. “Let’s forget the world outside and just think of ourselves for a while. Remember it’s a weekend!”

I gave half a smile, pressed the back button and came out of Vodafone Live.

Resting my head on Anais’ head, I held her hand. I tried to be as calm as possible. I planted a gentle kiss on her head and she snuggled closer, putting her right arm across my stomach. In normal circumstances, a guy will feel nice to be around a girl he knows since several years. Not that I wasn’t enjoying the feel of Anais close to me, but the mail buzzed in my mind like a stubborn mosquito. I somehow pushed it to the corner-most corner of my mind and surrendered to the surrounding ambience.

*

The opposite wall had a painting of a man half asleep and above it was written, As you sow, so shall I reap. I shook my head, looked again but the writing was the same. How can I do this? it has to be you?  While I pondered over this statement, a door opened and I walked on quick feet. The last suburban train, Foxtrot Local, was due to leave at eleven fifty-nine. Descending the flight of stairs, the crowded platform with scatters of people was surrounded in a mist. A country folk, with a flat-bottomed basket which smelt of fish looked through me, scratching his beard. A light wind began to blow, the wind from the river. Yes, it’s my favourite wind, the whisper said. Jostling through the influx of passengers and moving towards the platform in a maddening rush, it was my luck to get a window seat. The night sky was cloudy to an extent, and my eyes closed when the expert fingers of the breeze, the masseur, began massaging my scalp and temporarily helped me forget the passenger crowd. 

Passengers were leaning over each other, against each other. Chock-a-block, you can say. How many of the youths will return home I wondered. And how many have decided to end up their lives either today or in a few days from now. I would like to stand up and tell this present gathering something on this topic, but a train is a sensitive vehicle; and I never knew how my words would be taken, because some may support the suicides. My words might lead to a spark to light up prairie fire in the train. I stood up and said the first word addressed to the youths. My words were audible but none of the passengers turned their heads, nor did they shift themselves giving some indication of my presence. One of them turned his head and looked at the ceiling but looking at his aquiline features, he turned out to be Shasht. He was nodding at an imaginary person, and when I turned my head, they all were my friends – Simran, Ranee, Hermen. 

The rattle-rattle of the train’s wheels was a lullaby, the quiet-hurry of the suburbians’ lives. Stations rushed by, but the train stopped in most of them, bringing passengers in and out of the vehicle. A blind singer with an ektara, the one-stringed guitar, boarded. He began singing about renouncing life and living like a hermit in the forest. This elderly singer was lead by a little girl, perhaps his granddaughter. He came closer to me. He peered down at me. Through intuition, his blind eyes pierced through his dark shades. Suddenly the song changed its words: Call it suicide/Don’t fabricate/Just tell them babe/It was suicide/Don’t sugarcoat it/Just let them know. This blind singer’s voice wavered like a suicide victim’s when he is up on the chair; and he has put the noose around his neck; and he has tightened it; and he has kicked the chair; his body hangs loose; the voice in a coughing fit but he cannot cough; his breath is caught in a vice-like grip of Suicide God’s gnarled fingers but he cannot breathe..

The train rattled on in galloping speed cutting through unending fields piled with murdered victims rotting in the rice fields under the sun, victims young and old.

Suddenly a pair of quiet eyes with a smooth forehead came closer. It was about to touch my face when I woke up with a shivering shock. The train stopped with a squeal of metal wheels and chains. The compartment was empty save me, the sole passenger. And the little girl, Damaasque, looking at me yet not looking.

Yes, Foxtrot, the last station, and my destination. The quiet and sleepy station invaded into my system as I walked out of the building. Outside the station, the first cabbie rolled his vehicle forward and asked, “Ancient City?”

I looked at his face, confusion marked on my face like a question mark. He understood my silence.

“The Ancient City.” He said. “Built a hundred years ago. By the royal Jashwant Singh. Everyone who comes here visits this city covering four square kilometers.”

Jashwant Singh. A bell pealed true and clear. Going through the old tin trunkof my paternal grandfather in the attic, I had come across a a bundle of papers tied with a thin cord. Yes, the handwriting, long and flashy, grandiose style almost peeping out through th hand writing. it mentioned five hundred acres of land. Shuffling through the sheaf, another piece of paper, with a different handwriting, peeped out from the corner of the  sheets. Small handwriting, neat, it mentioned about “Our women had been r***d and murdered. First made into concubines to serve you, but later, when desire was fulfilled, you threw them into pits offire. The prettier and younger women forced into prostitution. I, Motidhar, the wner of several lands, throw a curse on you. Our spirits will invade your mind and not allow you to live in peace. The sins of the father will be laid upon the children and grandchildren…” The pages spoke of the countless money the Singh family had robbed and snatched…

“Hello good sir.” The cabbie’s voice came from far away. “Please come in.”

I opened the door, but when I had comfortably sunk into the seat, I felt some hot breath on my shoulder.