The Silence which speaks…
by Nupur Khare
The walk to the station was pleasant. With him, all of them were. He was such an intent listener, always had been…I could always lose myself in my stories around him, trusting him to be my anchor. But somehow today I could see that he was the one who was really lost. The rumors were true then, I thought, there really was going to be a war. The medals on his chest shone in the setting sun, yet his eyes were dull today. My pace stuttered on its own making him stop too, as if shaken out of some reverie… he never looks into my eyes, or is it me, who avoids his gaze? We stood separated by the shadow of the tree, “what is it?” I heard myself ask. As the hoot of the distant train shrouded the silence, I saw him look at me as proud as the day they made him commander and ask “would you be mine then?”
They say there are moments in your life, which take your breath away; were there moments which took your thoughts away too? His question was met by silence; my mind went so blank that I couldn’t even frame an expression on my face, let alone an entire sentence. It was like that moment after an explosion when there is a distant hum but none of it, is coherent. Did he truly mean me? The questions started taking form. How could he have possibly meant me? The confusion finally found its voice. Our small village might have been where he came from but it was not his place in the world. Our, Eklavya, our army chief… he was not my Eklavya, he was meant for someone else.
“Eklavya, you are going to the capital. You should go without any strings or any burden of promises.” He looked at me, his head tilted slightly with a crinkle between his eyebrows and in a way which is so completely his, continued the walk towards the station, and I walked right beside him as if pulled by some invisible thread. “We might go to war anytime; you should not have anything on your mind.” I heard the shakiness in my own voice and prayed that he didn’t. I prayed that he would remain the stoic man I knew with clear headedness and unflinching courage, I prayed he remained impenetrable to the eddies of emotions we peasants dealt with everyday. He looked at me again as we approached the train, “I would come again before we go into the battle”, he said. Shaking my head as if to break the spell which was binding us, I told him clear eyed, how our worlds were too different, how our paths will never converge, how it was insipid of him to let a few pleasant conversations decide his future. And then as I turned to go back home, I told him not to come for me.
It was like the world had changed, the same trodden path and its familiarity was no longer a solace. Was it his question which had turned my world or was it my reply? My desperate need to keep things the way they were and to protect us both from the havoc of wrong choices had prompted me to turn away from him but I didn’t really escape him, he was everywhere. This place which was my home, my heart; he had become a part of it, slowly and steadily. He was in every picture I saved in my mental box of memories.
I walked around the village looking at the shadows of our past. It was like that irresistible urge to pick at the scab of the wound. My legs took me to the Baoli, our stepwell, of their own accord, I could hear the mystics singing from the mosque along the boundary of the well. We always make this pilgrimage of sorts, at least once when he visits. And there is always something in the air, when we do, I am not even sure if he understands the music but I know he respects it. With the cup of tea in my hand, I gazed into the waters of the Baoli. My knees curled up to support my downward chin. We had just shared smiles here that day in the rain. We always had only just shared smiles.
I know love, it’s like a storm; thunderous and passionate. Surely the sunshine in the rains and smiles alone cannot be love. The empty tea cup seemed to smirk at me. What would a coward know about love anyway? Sighing, I stood up, I had done the right thing, the thought swirled in my mind like a mantra as I walked back home. The songs from the monthly fair blared away… the memory of our straight-faced Eklavya whistling along with the performers came back with a punch and my own mental song spluttered with it. He would truly fall for someone in the city became my new mantra as I hurried back home. I avoided every known person on the way too raw to deal with searching glances and shut the door to my room just as I tried to shut the door he had cracked open in my mind.
The harvest would start soon, I could feel the chill receding from the air, yet it did nothing to soothe the chill I felt in my bones. The neighborhood elder had stopped by the house this morning, instead of the gaiety over tea, today, he and my father were engaged in a hushed worried conversation. It seemed that the war would start any day now, we had the right of it, and everyone was sure of it. I escaped the house and walked towards the field letting the cool morning air hit my face. I could smell the dew, almost taste it, as the sun somewhat tremulously tried to shine. This was the time I cheated, this was usually the time I allowed myself to think about him, to let the memory of his baritone wash over me, when the Sun was barely up my thoughts were not real… the what ifs were only just musings about an imaginary universe. A universe where we fit, where together, we made sense. But today all I could feel was a cold dread creeping inside. He wouldn’t come, I had told him not to; I didn’t want him to. But what if, he never came back. I could hear my mother calling me back. How long I just stood there, barefooted in the field, I didn’t know. I was in some sort of fugue, like a fever had overtaken my mind.
The idea of him being with someone else was not a problem for me, but the idea of never being able to talk to him again, I didn’t know if I could bear it. In him, I had found a person with whom I didn’t require any sieve of appropriateness, a person against whom I didn’t require any defense. The chores of the house kept my hands busy but my mind had turned into a monster. I could see the dusk falling outside my window; people went about their work, ingrained in their own life, in their own camaraderie. I had never been a part of the scene outside my window, never understood how expressions came so easily to everyone. I had always been on this side. But this side had never seemed so lonely before today. Suddenly the sirens started blaring. Those were warning sirens…the screeching bells before every battle. It meant tomorrow was the day we marched ahead. It notified any soldier if he were home to start packing his bags. It warned all the young men in the village, that soon they might be called upon in the name of the crown to fight for the land which gave us everything.
Everything was lost now I knew; the façade of my pretense was shattered. I wanted him happy, I wanted him smiling and I wanted him here. My eyes hurt from unshed tears. Time seemed to move slowly and somehow tonight everyone was silent. I thanked all the stars for it, because I didn’t think I could stop my voice from cracking. If somebody had warned me that love could be silent too, I would have been more prepared maybe. If I had known it could move stealthily, maybe I would have seen what the walks to the station meant. But the only thing I had felt was joy and it left no room for anything else.
I didn’t even try to sleep; I knew sleep would not come; I sat on my window seat waiting for the night to whisper some secrets into my ears, waited for the rustling wind to bring answers. Instead, I heard my name, so soft that it seemed like a dream but it was there again and I was sure I had not imagined it. I walked downstairs careful to avoid the steps which creaked and as I went on the porch I saw him. There he was, sitting on my porch steps. He turned back and looked up and was a little taken aback when he saw me. I realized only then that I had rushed downstairs in my night gown, it framed my body and flew around in the soft wind. I felt no embarrassment; no blush crept around my neck. There were no walls between my mind and his, my body seemed unimportant compared with it.
He continued to sit there in the night, the moment when he saw me already becoming history as the seconds passed by. I crouched down and sat next to him, our knees touching each other as we both probably searched for words to say. “I stopped on my way over to the barracks, would have to leave before dawn”, he said, still looking out towards the field. “I told you not to come” was the only thing my stupid mind could come up with in reply. There was so much I could say to him, so much I wanted to. Yet that is all that I could frame. And now he did look at me. There was no hardness in his eyes, but there was a slight coolness. I didn’t know if my words made any impact on him, now or then. “I didn’t come for you, I came for me.” His voice delivered the short succinct words with no weakness as he rose up to leave. Leave me and our little island of memories. Yet he didn’t leave, he just stood there looking at his forearm which was clenched in a death grip by my hand. My nails were probably digging into his skin but I couldn’t release him any more than he wanted me to release him. “Don’t you tell your men to not make any promises before the war?”, I said, shakily. He sighed then and sat down on the ground on his haunches facing me, leaving the hand which I gripped in my custody. “I tell them not to make promises they cannot keep.” I felt my grip loosening as we sat there, felt his head rest on my knees and my hand comb through his hair. I sat there on my porch steps, waiting like I often do, for the sun to rise. Only this time I was not alone.
