Silence

‘She has Alzheimer’s, Mrs. Kapoor. It can just be kept in check, not cured. However, it has been deeply set in your mother’s case; I cannot do much about it. We all have to just hope for the best. I’m sorry.’

‘No! This can’t be true, doctor. Please try doing something. I am ready to pay for any kind of treatment.’

‘Mrs. Kapoor, the disease has been setting in since five years now and this is not the first stroke. Mrs. Pushpa had been a victim to a large amount of stress in her lifetime and all of that has led to this. No medication can help her now. Her grey cells are getting destroyed very rapidly, every second. We can curb it but we can’t create new cells.’

Mala Kapoor ran to her mother’s room at Jaslok hospital and slumped onto the bed. As she looked at her mother’s calm expression, a metal ball of grief pressed at her throat, slicing it to pieces.

She looked at her auburn curls, fair skin and rosy lips. They were replicas of each other. She admired her mother’s beauty as she lay there sleeping in the white sheets. She gave out a slight laugh when she thought of how her mother would hide her age; how for ages she had been only 45 years old. All that had passed.

What she had just heard, stung her heart, crippled it, tortured it. Her poor mother had been a child of God. She was her shield, her friend, her advisor and councilor. She bent to hug her and her insides throbbed with pain as she thought of her mother’s plight. Never would there be a day when she wouldn’t speak with her; but since her father left them, she knew there was pent up sadness behind the veil of her beautiful smile.

She continued crying when suddenly her mother opened her eyes.

‘Who are you?’ She said

‘I’m Mala, maa. Don’t you remember me? Your daughter?’

‘Mala? Oh ok… Why are you crying?’

‘Nothing Maa. Just… I had a bad dream.’

‘Where are we? Why are we in the hospital?’

‘We had to get your regular checkups done. You will get discharged in a few hours. Everything is fine.’

In an instant she had become a stranger, from the pampered daughter to a complete stranger. She looked down at her knees and saw how they shivered and this was only the beginning. Her moist red eyes welled up again.

***

She looked into her mother’s eyes. The light was diminishing as the days went. She sat there in their apartment at Malabar hill and looked through the window. The carrot coloured drapes hung heavily on the window as she looked on, over to the sunset. Mala always thought the sunset was beautiful. But today, she hated it. It reminded her of the offset of her mother’s life, of how the bright blue warm mornings were turning to ruddy cool skies.

Maa was sitting on the milk white couch in the middle of the hall looking blankly at the television set. She looked like she was straining to take in each and every word that was being spoken. Then suddenly she looked over at the coffee table standing in front of the French windows, ‘I have to go and pick up Aju from school. He will be waiting out for me. He’s too naughty. I don’t want him running behind…..’

A chill ran down her spine as she heard what Maa was saying. The shock of it made her mind zoom. She tried speaking but her voice was betraying her.

 ‘Maa? Aju lives in Spain now. He has a family of his own. He is not your little boy anymore. Just rest for some time, please?’

‘I’m not your Maa. Don’t you ever call me that. I know who my kids are. Who are you to tell me anything? Why am I here? I want to pick up my son.’

‘You are my Maa. I won’t let you forget me so soon.’

***

She looked at the clock. It was 2:30 am. The cool night breeze was knocking on her window gently. She was feeling lazy to wake up and check on Maa but she decided otherwise. ‘I hope she hasn’t wet the bed.’ She thought.

The white marble felt cool on her feet as she made her way towards Maa’s plush bedroom and opened the teakwood door. What she saw made her senses halt for a second.

Maa was sitting on the chocolaty brown dressing table, her reflection beaming back at her.

‘You look very pretty.’ She said. ‘I have never seen such beauty. Where are you from? You look like a very decent lady.’ Mala tiptoed into the room now. ‘My name is Pushpa. What is yours?’

The whole room was in a mess. There were cakes of feces pasted on the walls, ejecting volumes of pungent odour. There was muddy water running from the cakes and down the bright peach coloured walls. Mala felt the bile in her throat rise again and again. She couldn’t take this anymore. It was one thing to see your mother like that and another to watch your beautiful house turn into a dump.

She gathered up all her courage and shouted out, ‘Maa, who are you talking to? There is no one here.’

‘And who are you? Are you blind? Can’t you see this lady here?’ she said pointing at her own reflection in the mirror.

‘Yes you’re right.’ She sighed. ‘Now let’s freshen up and go to bed. Aren’t you sleepy?’

She turned back and screamed back at her, ‘He didn’t go missing.’

Nobody spoke for the next fifteen seconds. The silence cut through her every second. She knew exactly who her mother was talking about.

‘Wha wha…What happened to him then?’ She asked softly. ‘He didn’t go missing? Do you know what happened to him?’

‘Shhhhhh. It’s a secret.’

‘Tell me. I want to know.’

‘I’ve hidden him well. Nobody will find him. You won’t tell anyone no?’

‘No I won’t. Go on. I’m here.’

‘I confronted him and told him that I knew what he was up to. I told him. He needed to know.’ She said with a heart wrenching wail.

She had never seen her mother so helpless. Never had she broken down like that. She ran to her mother and squeezed herself against her.

‘And all he said was… I don’t give a damn. Do what you want to.’

Her voice grew deeper with the pain surging through it relentlessly; the anguish creeping into her very soul.

How was she to help her? She thought.

‘I don’t give a damn? That’s what he had to say. How was I supposed to react to that? How dare he treat me like that? I had given my life to him.’

‘What did he do? What have you been hiding?’

Mala noticed the unusually fat sweat beads on her mother’s forehead. Her hands shivered like she was being electrocuted as she reached out to the water jug. She grabbed it and fell to the floor with a loud clang.

‘Maaa. NO!’

***

That night Mala didn’t sleep. In fact, every night after that frightful night, she went to her mother’s room in the quest of getting more clues of her long kept secret.

She knew the man she was talking about. She had heard of him but had never known him. What could have happened all those years ago? He had gone missing in the year 1980. Nobody knew what happened to him. They had searched for him persistently but never found him. Now, she had to search for him. She had to find him because with him went a secret, the secret that had built her mother’s silence.

***

‘God! This room is in such a mess.’ said Mala entering her mother’s room. There were clothes strewn all over the room. The curtains had food stains on them and it smelt of decay. Maa had wet the bed again. She went over to the bed and turned her over. The smell of decay was coming from her.

In the past few months Maa had never mentioned him again. She had tried to ask her but poor Maa’s memory was lost. She turned her over to the other side of the bed.

‘My name is Pushpa.’ She said. That was all she said lately. She had forgotten everything, everything except her identity.

The smell of decay was getting stronger. Maa had a bed sore on her back side. The flesh was hanging lose but she didn’t give out a slight whelp of pain. She had lost all senses. This was her last leg, Mala realized.

She carefully cleaned her sore and put a cool antiseptic powder on it to make her feel better. She then removed the sheets and placed fresh clean ones. Maa barely stayed awake nowadays; she would just eat and sleep.

She now went to clean the cupboard. There was so much work to do. Her hand touched the handle of the cupboard and an unusual thought struck her right in between her eyes.

Her mother kept a diary in her better days. She pored her heart into it. It had always been her way of venting out. She had often advised Mala to do the same. How could she have forgotten it? ‘Maybe that has the answers to all my questions.’ she thought.

She swung the wooden doors open and started searching frantically. Piles of clothes along with her fears came tumbling out of the wardrobe.

There was nothing. The diary was lost.

‘There’s no point thinking about this anymore. It’s all in the past.’ She thought. She started folding her mother’s clothes with dejection and piled them on top of each other. Suddenly, her hands felt something hard. She pulled the clothes apart and there it was. The olive green four-hundred pager lay in the midst of the clothes.

She grabbed it and opened to the first page.

Don’t read it if not yours.

These are my thoughts.

If I catch you,

I’ll make you run on all fours.

She gave out a hearty laugh. She felt like she hadn’t laughed in years. Her fingers took her to page 57 and she read.

The day I found him

Date: 30 April 1974

I had never thought I would get this feeling. I’m so excited. I want to laugh and cry at the same time. When he kissed me, I thought I’m going to faint and the view, Oh God! The view was panoramic. It was just the place to propose marriage; the lofty mountains and just the two of us. I felt like I had broken free. He’s an extension to myself, my body, my mind and spirit.

 Thank you, God. I love you. I’m sure I want this.

‘She was so excited.’ She thought. ‘I wonder how it would feel to be with the man of your dreams.’ She read her mother’s diary entry once again. ‘I would be such a wonderful feeling. Being with him made her feel as though her soul had escaped from the narrow confines of her island country into the vast, extravagant spaces of his. She had found the answer to the questions that plagued every woman’s mind. She had found her future.’ She thought with a smile.

She was flipping through the pages thinking of all the men that she had dated. The smile never seemed to ebb away. She was mindlessly looking at the yellowing pages when suddenly her heart skipped a beat as she registered what was written there.

The day he went missing.

Date: 17 October 1980

I overheard his conversation. The man disgusts me. I’m seething in pain and hate. I don’t know if my vengeance is still paid for. He wanted us to leave for that girlfriend of his, the bitch. He brought her here so many times. What was I to do? Look at them and be happy for the way they made love in my bed? The bastard doesn’t deserve anything better. Let his bones rot there. Nobody will ever know where they’re hidden. I want to bring him back to life and kill him again. He told me he didn’t care a damn. Well, neither did I. I’m going to have a nervous breakdown. My hands are itching with frustration. My head is pounding so hard. I want to cut his body to pieces and feed them to dogs. That’s what I want to do.

She read the lines and looked at the lifeless form of Maa. She lay there, with a bed sore oozing with blood and puss, her mouth open and her eyes empty.