“Mum, mum. Mother. Maa-”
“What- Who?”
“Mum, it's me. I need to ask you something. Are you awake?”
“It’s late. Can’t it wait? I was- Is it urgent? Did something happen?”
“Mum, what happened to that portrait on our kitchen wall?”
“What? The woman with no age?”
“Yes, that one. I keep having visions about it. I didn’t see it the last time I visited home.”
“What are you saying? She was there, and has always been there. What I can’t recall is the time you came home to me?”
“I- I got busy with my writing and then, this and that. You know. There’s a lot to do around here. I visited pretty recently though.”
“Not since your father. His death took you to the mountains.”
“No, It's not like that. I needed solitude, mum. Peace. To finish my book.”
“And you did finish it.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t call it finished. There are a lot of things left to be done- the editing, the tying of the plot and-”
“Your sister read the manuscript on her last sojourn here. She said it’s done.”
“No, it’s not. I haven’t even decided upon a name yet.”
“Then decide, kid.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Well, I think it’s just a name-”
“Well, you are not the author, I am!” I immediately regretted it.
There was a long, unbearable silence hanging between us like an opaque layer of smoke and fog. Her breathing was obnoxious, every so often interrupted by violent fits of coughing. Her body was rotting, just like her teeth and the moss-covered bread piece on the side table, like the fleeting memories of her younger days. Soon enough she would be gone, with the art gallery that felt her standing in the corner, the book that was left on her nightstand, the pair of silver earrings that she left in my father’s pocket.
“Is it always like this here?” Her voice was scratched and bruised with all the coughing.
“Like what? Cold? Most of the time. But in mid-March, the-”
“No. Lonely.”
“Well, I guess. People don’t always find the company they are looking for, even in the cities.” I could feel her gaze stuck on me.
“Especially in the cities. The overburdened ambitions, the inevitable hollowness. Apparently, Covid isn’t the only fatal disease that the city people have offered each other.”
“And you still live there.”
“And I still live there. It becomes easier for you not to cry when you see a crying stranger in the metro. As if they are mourning for you.”
“That’s saddening.”
“You know what’s saddening? Being incapable of love.”
“Incapable of being loved or falling in love.”
“Staying in love.” I never knew why she said that. Staying in love. Staying in love.
The days were getting colder, the winter blues seductively washing away the leftover clumsiness of the autumn, marking the end of an epoch. Her body was hardly functioning now and she slept all day with the injections that were given to her by the nurse. She was a small statured woman in her mid-forties, kind enough to say that she was sorry for my inevitable loss. Her stay here was cut short to one day due to the rising demand of hospital staff in the city.
The next night was disheartening. Her thunderous wheezing could be mistaken for the violent splashes of a sea storm, like giant waves crashing against the rocks.
“Hey, how are you feeling?” I asked, handing her the medicines.
“Stop it. These are not going to work. I am not to fill my body up with rubbish!” Her breathlessness was more evident in the night’s silence.
“Please. Take these. For the fever.” My heart was breaking, my voice was cracking. I couldn’t shake off the feeling that she wouldn't survive the night. She did what I said, none of us had the ability to argue.
“You can’t hide in these mountains anymore, you know.” I refused to open my mouth. “You left the city behind because you couldn’t grieve for your father there and I am so-” She gurgled like her mouth was full of filth and soot. “I am so sorry that my death, my death is going to take these away from you as well. Don’t let me take this away from you. Please.” She was caught by a frenzy of long suppressed sentiments and I couldn’t even hold her in my embrace.
“Mum-”
“You don’t deserve to mourn the loss of every life that you’ve touched.”
“What do I do, Maa? Where do I go? I feel, I feel-”
“You feel much more than anyone has ever felt. I know.”
“What if I can’t do this? Can’t do anything?”
“Can’t do what kid? The only thing you have to do in this lifetime is take care of that woman in the portrait that I left hanging on the wall.”
The night vanished like a ghost and took her without leaving much of a trace. The rooms were cleaned and sanitized, her body burnt, her smell gone. But our city house was still our city house. There was nothing left of the two people who built that home, but our table was still our table and our walls were ours only, and the woman on the kitchen wall still had no age. And here I was, claiming the life ahead of me, whispering the new title of my now finished book, as the sunlight poured to make that woman’s hair look auburn. I felt more hopeful than I’ve ever been in my entire life.
Ayushi Sikka
Shivaji College
University of Delhi
Comments