Her absence made him more solitary. He learned to step out for dinner alone; sometimes, he put on a dress shirt, ironed trousers. The lone, incongruous diner at a dive in the village. Because of the dignity of his clothes he did not appear as if he was eating alone; he was waiting for someone to join him. Yesterday, in the secondhand bookstore, dust from neglected novels left streaks on forearms. Under a red tile roof, a startled dog growling in the veranda, he thought of books they had shared, read out to each other, sent letters bearing quotes. He bought books – sullen with moisture - they had enjoyed, perhaps to encounter in the bend of familiar sentences the time she had paused, looked at him, her brow creased, like a woman darning a tear. Now monsoon broke through thunder; the bookstore owner put a kettle to fire. Her life, in a big bold city, was unalike his, blustery, dazzling. Foreign language, a tide of neon lights, the hysteria of bars around herself, she wrapped them all like armor against memory. Some evenings, on the subway, she fell asleep. Before her station, she woke, recalling a book they had exchanged, its intimacy a secret, upstanding, durable. She got down at the park, accepting anonymity in the crowd, losing herself, the fragile, vestigial self she had found in his afternoon light, a sacred touch. ~ Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 04:46:21 +0000
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