Closing Time
The slam of the door, announcing that his maid had left for home, roused him from his siesta. Glancing at his clock, he judged it was enough to Asr, and shuffled to the washroom to perform his wadu. The swirl of cold water inside his mouth brought him to full wakefulness, rinsing his eyes removed the last bit of the grit of sleep. He mechanically blew out his nose and washed behind his ears, and it wasn't until he had finished washing his face, and was running wet fingers over his thick, matted hair that he had the startling realisation that he hadn't been surprised by the empty space next to him. He almost annulled his ablutions with a surprised laugh, but reigned himself in at the last moment. Clamping down on his thoughts, he hurried through the washing of his hands and feet, disabled the alarm on his clock and scurried towards the prayer mat just as the first call to prayer was sounded outside. Later, he would examine his feelings at length. Later, he would allow himself to look back, and feel. When his wife finally died, his first reaction had been relief. As much as he loved her, even till the last moment, when she fell into that final sleep still feebly clutching his fingertips, it was a release from the months of tortured waiting for the inevitable. The worst was over; no longer would he have to dread its coming, watching helplessly as she slipped further away from him with every laboured breath, the cancer hollowing out his emotions even as it poisoned her blood and gnawed on her bones. He spent the next forty days in a strange sort of numbness, unable to feel the grief that friends and relatives offered sympathy for. The funeral, the final payments to the hospital, the correspondence...there were a hundred little things that kept him distracted. The sadness came much, much later, and it struck at odd moments. Taking out the wastebasket from the bathroom, he'd remember those months of chemotherapy, when her hair was coming out in clumps, and he'd carefully pluck the strands from the shower stall and gather the small, wispy bundles, wrapping them in tissue paper before throwing them away, so that she wouldn't be distressed by the sight of them. The small white cabinet over the sink was still stocked with her medication, and prescription papers still cluttered his desk. "Ameen" He kissed the rosary beads and rose with a sigh, and folded up the mat. Now that his meditation was over, he would surely be plagued by the old memories, that same aching sense of loss. He forestalled it by shuffling out of his room. The maid had left his iftar covered with plates to keep warm. The sight of the table set for one depressed him anew, and he walked over to the telephone desk, racking his brains for someone who could make it over on short notice to join him. It wouldn't do to call someone from the family; talk would only turn to topics he wanted to avoid. His eyes alighted on the calendar, with its picture of Stonehenge over the dates. Stonehenge. Once he had wanted to go there, when he was with... Suddenly, an image flooded his brain: warm brown eyes full of mirth, a curtain of sleek black hair obscuring half of an elfin face, the proud arch of thick black brows. Other things, long buried, came floating up. The deep throaty chuckle that once sent shivers down his spine, her firm, warm handshake, that annoying habit she had of cracking her knuckles... *** Beads of perspiration formed a wet moustache on her upper lip as she raised the fistful of cherry-red silk to survey her handiwork. The pleats were uneven again. She would have to start all over again. Muttering a silent curse, watered down so as not to break her fast, she gathered the material in her hands and began to form the pleats anew. Thirty-five, with a successful career under her belt, and she still had to struggle every time she had to drape a sari. Not for the first time did she wonder why she came back. When her last relationship ended, she had packed her bags and moved to Singapore to start anew. Surrounded by the exciting new sights and sounds, she threw herself into her new life, taking delight in the many little things that would have been impossible for her back in Dhaka. The solitary midnight stroll by Clarke Quay. Setting out for an afternoon of window shopping at Bugis Junction in her flouncy knee-length dress that would have scandalised her aunts back at home, but was considered perfectly respectable here. The wealth of books on the racks in Kinokuniya, titles she would have scoured the stalls of Nilkhet for in vain. It was a good life, a fun life. Until she blew out the thirty-fifth candle on her cake, one that her married friends had brought for her, and she looked at their smiling faces, and those of their spouses, and she realised that it was also an empty life. She had only begun her spiral of self-doubt, loneliness, and depression when she received the summons from back home, asking after her to join some family reunion or the other. She took the next plane home. The clock showed an hour to iftar. The friend she had been expecting rang up to regret that she wouldn't be able to make it after all, leaving her stranded in a sari and a meal for two. She cracked her knuckles impatiently, a habit he had always found annoying. That thought stilled her frantic pacing. Why did he keep creeping unbidden into her mind now, after all these years? She shook her head, telling herself it was an effect of the hunger from fasting. She had heard from a mutual friend that he had recently been widowed, and at that time, the news had not made an impact on her. Now, though, other recollections, once faded, began to flare to life. The timbre of his voice. His crooked smile. The look on his face the day she told him she was leaving him. *** He stared at the caldendar. The floodgates, once opened, were impossible to close, and after a while, he stopped fighting and just lay back, set adrift on the wave of nostalgia. They had had a rather tumultuous relationship. She had been older by four years, and, for all her beauty and personal charm, prone to insecurities about the difference that would not have mattered so much had their situations been reversed. That was one thing that had always resulted in fights between them, how she complained about society's double standards, but was such a stickler for 'propriety'. There would be fights, tears, heated arguments, and then she would be sweetly contrite, and he couldn't find it in his heart to hold a grudge against her. At her best, she was lively and intelligent, and easy to talk to, and at first, it was worth all the fighting. And then one day, he walked into the classroom, and there was a new girl there, staring out of the window as her fingers idly toyed with the glass bangles on her delicate wrist. He knew right then, where his heart really belonged. His heart contracted as he pictured his wife. For the first time in months, he began to remember her, not as he'd seen her last, careworn, diminished by her pain, but as the beautiful girl who had stolen his heart the first time he met her. He expected the memories to hurt, but instead, he found himself smiling as he looked back. And just like that, he knew whom to call. *** She shook her head, smiling ruefully. It had not taken her very long to notice the change in him. Their meetings became rarer. He began to grow edgy and skittish in her presence, and would not meet her eyes unless he had to. At the same time, he became oddly solicitious, as though desperately trying to please her. A name began to crop up with increasing frequency in their stilted conversations. It was only a matter of time before the pieces clicked into place. She did the only thing she could think of, to salvage her wounded pride. She confronted him with what she knew, and then broke off the relationship, nobly declaring 'All I ever wanted was for you to be happy". During the lonely flight that took her away from everything familiar to her, she cried out all her humiliation and disappointment. By the time the plane touched down at Changi airport, she had accepted her fate. When she heard of his marriage six months later, she had no tears left to shed for him. She had moved on. If she ever met him again, she would tell him just that. The phone began to ring. |
posted by Sabrina F Ahmad @ 4:09 AM
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