Boats on Land: A Collection of Short Stories (19 page)

There were traces of you littered all over the bungalow as though you were a visiting ghost. Occasionally, I’d catch the lingering smell of cigarette smoke even though you were nowhere around. Once, I found your slippers on the veranda, discarded under a chair. Your T-shirt slipped by mistake into my pile of washed and ironed laundry. At times, I had a feeling you watched us from afar, sullen and undecided.

One afternoon, we all went to the planters’ club. Even you, though you sat by the window in the car, next to my mother who was in the middle, and stared out without saying a word. When we got there, we headed to the tennis courts, where matches were in progress. You, I noticed, were not with us any more. My parents were introduced to everyone by your father as ‘old friends’, visitors from his hometown, Shillong. The afternoon was filled with chatter, the monosyllabic thud of tennis balls, and shouts of support and laughter.

At some point, a chubby girl in shorts, clutching a racquet, dropped herself into the white wicker chair next to mine.

‘Hi. I’m Radhika,’ she said. ‘You’re staying at Chandbari?’

I introduced myself and said yes, I was.

‘How’s the depressed damsel?’

I asked if she meant you.

‘Who else?’ she laughed. ‘She has a soul too tormented to play tennis.’

I wanted to defend you but didn’t know how.

Radhika looked about twenty-five, and had the friendly, bossy air of some of my seniors at school. Her black eyes were set within a round, plump-cheeked face that reminded me of an owl I’d seen outside my window the past few nights.

‘Be careful of that one,’ she said.

Again, I asked if she meant you.

She nodded. ‘People say she’s…’

Someone beckoned from the courts. ‘Coming,’ she replied. ‘I’ll catch you later.’

Yet that didn’t happen. I didn’t see Radhika again because, after a while, I wandered off for a walk.

‘I won’t be long,’ I whispered to my mother and made off in the direction of the golf course, the only open space I could find. I soon discovered why no one else was on the grounds—the place was littered with pats of dried and fresh cow dung—yet I trampled on, aiming for a distant hillock which had a trickling stream curled around its base. To my far left, bordering the course, stood a row of thatch shacks hazily covered in light rising mist. A few children, almost naked, ran after each other laughing and screaming. Further away, a boy was herding cows and their lowing, along with the chirrup of roosting birds, filled the air. On winter evenings, Assam dissolved into a careful watercolour of flat shimmering horizons and low, languorous clouds. So different from Shillong where the skyline loomed with pine-shielded hills.

You were standing by the water, smoking, watching a pair of dragonflies dance on the surface. You’d rolled up your trouser ends and, despite the winter chill, you wore only a light half-sleeved T-shirt. You looked up in alarm.

‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’

‘Do you always begin every conversation with an apology?’ You laughed at the look on my face. ‘No one usually takes the trouble to walk across this golf course—immaculately maintained as it is.’

I scraped off bits of dung from my shoe against a stone. You sat on a spot of dry grassy bank. When I finished, I stood awkward and unsure, undecided whether I should stay or leave. Perhaps you preferred to be alone.

‘Do you know,’ you said, ‘that dragonflies sometimes live only for a day?’ The ones you were watching now hovered over a clump of fluff-tipped reeds.

‘That’s sad.’

‘Why?’

I flushed. You made me nervous. More nervous than even being around boys or Jason.

‘Why is that sad?’ you repeated.

‘B-because that’s such a short time…to be alive.’

‘But the dragonfly doesn’t know that.’

I said that was probably a good thing. I remember how you looked at me then, sharp and searching.

You stubbed out the cigarette. ‘Come.’

We walked along the stream until it meandered into a marshy pond choked with blooming water hyacinth; we’d left the golf course far behind.

‘Why aren’t you playing tennis?’ you asked suddenly.

I too have a tormented soul, I wanted to joke, but instead admitted that I didn’t know how to; I mentioned my brother was the one fond of sports. That he’d wanted to be a football player.

‘What does he do?’

I told you.

‘And you? What will you do after school?’ You stopped, and stood face to face with me. I could smell the cigarette on your breath, and something sweet like cloves.

Again, I told you.

‘Is that your greatest dream? To be a nurse?’ You picked up a stone and tried to skim it on the water, but it hit a lavender blossom instead.

I said I’d never really thought about it…that it seemed alright.

‘Alright.’ You turned the word over in your mouth slowly like something precious.

Encouraged by your rare, sudden verbosity, I asked, ‘What do you want to do?’

You dusted your hands and stood up. ‘I want to follow rivers.’

That night you shook me awake.

‘Come with me,’ you whispered.

‘Where?’ In reply you took my hand and led me outside. The lawn was bathed in shadows from tall edging trees, and even the flower beds disappeared into inky darkness. It was chilly and I shivered in my nightdress; you didn’t give me time to grab a sweater. You were in the same clothes as earlier, but slippers, a few sizes too large, slapped against your feet. We headed to the far right of the garden, behind the annex, through a gated gap in the bamboo hedge, where the path opened onto a wide overgrown airfield. Years before, your father had explained, when the Chinese attacked in ’62, it was used to drop off food and weapons. Now it lay there benignly as a venue for evening walks, remarkable for its early morning views of the Himalayas. At night, the field could have been a shimmering body of water, the way the grass rippled silver in the pale moonlight. The countryside silence was pierced only by the steady chirrup of crickets. We lay in the field, undiscovered in our kingdom of weeds.

You asked me to look at the sky. The stars were numberless.

‘Don’t ask me about constellations,’ you added. ‘I only know that’s Orion’s Belt.’

I said I had Orion’s Belt on my neck.

You pushed yourself up on your elbow; for the first time since we’d arrived there was a look on your face I hadn’t seen before—interest.

‘Show me.’

I turned my face away from you, and pointed to a mole just below my left earlobe. ‘That’s one.’

Another lower, near the centre of my throat.

‘That’s two.’

I undid the buttons of my nightdress. The last one was far below the hollow of my neck. ‘That’s three.’

You traced a line over them all. You were smiling.

The next day, you were thoroughly charming. Not just to me, but even to my parents whom until now you’d largely ignored. You accompanied my mother and yours on their walk around the large backyard vegetable garden; offered to show my father, since he was a professor of history, a collection of old journals your grandfather had written, and at lunch, which we ate at a table laid out in the lawn under a garden umbrella, you were an impeccable little hostess. You talked about where the cook acquired the freshest fish; how the nearest town Bishwanath Chariali was merely a small cluster of shops—‘Blink and you’ll miss it’; you queried my mother about the bakery and asked if she could make us some lemon tarts. Your parents, I noticed, looked delighted.

‘What are you girls up to today?’ your father asked.

You looked at me and smiled. ‘I was thinking we could go for a walk…’

Everyone said it was a good idea…the plantation was dotted with historical landmarks from the days of the Ahom kings. We could go see the Vishnu temple, your father added, or the water tank that apparently dated back to the fourteenth century.

I waited, impatient and excited, as everyone retired for their customary afternoon nap—even my parents had given in to this rare indulgence. When you emerged from your room, sulky with sleep, I was sitting on the wooden swing on the veranda, swaying over the cool sea-green floor. I jumped off it quickly feeling as though you’d caught me doing something childish.

A little while later we set off. By then though, your energy had waned, and you’d retreated back into your brooding, reclusive self. As we walked, rather than making conversation, you rolled cigarettes. On both sides of the dirt road were miles of low-lying tea bushes, interspersed by tall silver oak, grown for protective shade.

I asked where we were going.

‘Nearby.’

We didn’t go far; in fact we didn’t even leave the borders of Chandbari. You took me to a pukhuri, a large pond bordered on all sides by raised red-soil ground and rows of birch. In one corner stood a gnarled old banyan under which we sat, brushing away stinging red ants and fat black beetles. You lit a cigarette and let it smoulder between your fingers. Your hair clung to your neck in dark, sweaty streaks. Again, I wasn’t sure whether you’d prefer to be alone.

‘Are you alright?’

You looked at me as though no one had asked you that in a long time.

‘Someone I know,’ you said, ‘tried to kill herself.’

‘Oh.’ I wasn’t sure whether to ask if she’d succeeded. ‘It was one in a long line of unfinished projects. The end of life.’

In the stillness of the evening, your words skimmed over the water and sank without a trace. You told me how she didn’t want a decisive relinquishment—a once-and-for-all hanging, or fatal leap or bullet through the brain. She only had an inexplicable urge to extinguish herself and flicker back like a trick candle. She wanted, for instance, to throw herself in the path of oncoming buses, or fall down a steep flight of stairs, or constantly push the number of sleeping tablets she could take. Just enough to sink into a deep and dreamless sleep, where she didn’t have to be rushed to hospital and stomach-pumped and forced to open her eyes in a nasty little room blindingly white and sanitized.

‘That’s what it was,’ you finished, ‘this duality she wrestled with for months.’

‘And how is she now?’

‘Still gathering courage.’

‘To live or die?’

‘Both.’

You stubbed out your cigarette and stood up, extending your hand. ‘Let’s go for a swim.’ Then you pulled me down the slope, rough and strong, running faster and faster. I could see the edge of the lake, oozing mulch, and the water deep and dark, littered with leaves.

‘Stop,’ I shouted. ‘Stop.’

You gripped my hand tighter, and carried on, your shoes crunching grass and stone.

‘Let me go,’ I screamed and yanked myself away. ‘I don’t know how to swim. If you push me in, I’ll drown.’

The water lapped at our feet. It seeped into the edges of my sandals. I didn’t realize it then but my eyes were wet with tears. Of fright mainly, and anger. We walked back to the bungalow in silence.

That night you offered a wordless apology.

I was in bed when you walked in and went straight through to the bathroom. I could hear the sound of running water. I thought you’d come to smoke. I didn’t ask because I was still angry with you. Then you called me over.

‘Why?’

‘Please.’

The bathtub was almost full, and steam rose thickly clouding the mirror, the windows. You stood behind me and started unbuttoning my nightdress. I began to protest but caught a glimpse of our image in the mirror, and in there I was someone else. Held by a stare, by your hands, quick and cold through the fabric. When it dropped to the ground you asked me to step into the tub.

I did. The water was scathing. In a moment you were out of your T-shirt and jeans. We fit snugly, like twins. Then you soaped my back, my shoulders, my hair.

I did the same for you.

And despite the steam I saw how you looked nothing like the woman I thought was your mother. That you came from elsewhere, a life cut unnaturally short, and that even though you were only nineteen you were filled with an old sadness. I noticed the delicate slope of your shoulders, the plane of your back like a smooth river stone, the tiny red beauty spots speckled on your skin, your neck thin and long, swerving up in a tense line, your fingers pale and white. When you turned around and faced me, your eyes were closed, and drops of water glistened on your cheeks, hollow like emptied lakes. We lay there, perfectly still, until the water cooled.

The next day, the world was washed anew.

The flick of a page, a sip from a glass, one leg crossing over the other. Sometimes your hand trailed over mine, your shoulder grazed my arm, or you’d stand close behind me, your breath on my neck. Every gesture, I thought, was significant, and added something unforgettable to our lives.

You never took me back to the pukhuri; instead we walked to the river that bordered Chandbari, that lay beyond a line of railroad tracks, at the end of a dusty, lonely road. We strolled down to the water, which spilled endlessly before us mirroring a vast, empty sky. All along the bank burned small lanterns, and in their golden glow fishermen sat and untangled their nets. Their boats were moored on land, long, narrow vessels that looked like elegant paper cut-outs.

‘During the monsoon,’ you said, ‘the river is as wide as the sea.’

Before I left, we walked there every afternoon; sitting on the bank for hours, doodling on the sand. You told me your mother used to write in journals, filling them out year after year, and that after she died you looked for them. They became the most important thing in the world, except you couldn’t find them and you thought perhaps she had walked here one day and drowned them in the river. Sometimes, we clambered around the bank like lost children, climbing large, rough boulders and dipping our feet into the pools that formed between them, crystal-clear mirrors that reflected our faces and the sky. Once, we went much further than usual and came across a temple on a cliff, filling up for the evening puja. The worshippers were mostly women from the nearby villages, with solemn, earnest faces framed by their cotton saris. We stayed a while and listened to the chanting, watched the offering of lights. Nearby stood a large slab of rock, marked with strange lines, squares and squiggles. A woman from the village, who happened to pass by, told us, ‘It’s the place where the gods play dice.’ Another time, we found a stretch of stones that looked like pale, bleached bones. We tread on them gently; it could have been the graveyard of a herd of prehistoric animals. Close to where the fishermen sat, we climbed a hill from where we could see the dry sandy stretch of an old river.