Apple by Nabanita Sengupta

Tara dreamt in gestures. Fast-moving hands, fingers, eyes, eyebrows, and lips – each contributed to the conversation as gestures flowed into one another, involuntarily, unhindered; and then they became jumbled up, like a long string of meaningless words, all incoherent, disordered. She woke up with a start and found herself sweating profusely. The loose top that she had changed into just before sleeping was dripping wet and the sheets lay crumpled at the foot of her bed. She knew she had to calm herself, soothe her nerves, strained and excited by the recent series of events. She tried to pray and lay down once again. But sleep completely eluded her this time. In its place, thoughts gathered. Wordless thoughts painted in images that her mind had picked up throughout her journey in this world.

In the morning ululating women, draped in their fineries surrounded her while her mother served her rice with an assortment of fries, vegetables, and fish in a round shining bronze dish. She felt special. It was her last day of maidenhood. She was supposed to feel special, and everyone tried their best to make her feel so before she ultimately left her familiar surroundings in a trade of love.

Yet looking at her weak and pale mother, struggling hard to support herself on her wobbly knees, she felt indignant. She did not let her mother do the strenuous tasks anymore, taking them upon her young shoulders. And who will support this frail woman now? Recently she had taken to accompanying her mother whenever the old lady had to leave the house. Her mother was incapable of negotiating the Kolkata traffic all by herself anymore and Tara had volunteered to be her chaperon. With both the other siblings engaged in full-time office jobs, Tara’s creative entrepreneurship gave her ample time for these chores. In fact, she looked forward to such evenings quite eagerly.

She thought of her own helpless and different childhood. She remembered how gently yet firmly her mother used to help her even with the simplest of conversations. Language of words had been a problem for her always. As a child, she could not understand how others got their message across by simply moving their lips while she could not. She communicated with her hands and facial expressions and her mother could understand her perfectly. But when it was a matter of conversing with the outsiders, she failed miserably. It left her frustrated as well as bewildered. With a complete hearing impairment, speech was an alien territory for her; a territory which left to herself, she found quite unnecessary. It was only when she had to step beyond her home, she felt a gap.

It was her mother who had taught her, painstakingly, to lip-read. It was she, who took little Tara to Rina Aunty, her private tutor, a special educator by profession. It was her mother again who discerned Tara’s love for sketches and nurtured her talent. In short, her mother had helped her to live and succeed. Now that strength was ebbing away from her mother in the autumn of her life, Tara felt a gush of affection towards that lady, replacing her earlier awe. As if, somewhere along the journey of life she had overtaken her mother, to mother her.

Now that she was almost successful, her venture of wall art raking in some plump money, she felt a more pressing need to be there for her mom. She was contented with her life; except for her professional goals which kept evolving the moment she arrived there, she felt she had not much to ask from life. But now she felt a tinge of unhappiness. With the solemnization of her wedding, she will perhaps not have the freedom like before to be there for this woman. Possibly, her mother too would start depending on her two elder sons, leaving this youngest child to concentrate on her new domesticity. Her heart wailed silently at such thoughts. Though she had made it very clear to Avik regarding her attachment and what she thought of her responsibilities towards her parents and Avik too had promised her his full support, doubt lingered in her mind, like a persistent afterthought. After all, this was an arranged marriage. Yes, true that it had been arranged by the two of them after they came across each other on an online dating site. Both of them were looking for partners to settle down and companionship with mutual understanding was their criteria, not love. Moreover, Avik was as stone-deaf as herself. Tara did not want anything more.

Of course, love had once been there. It had showered her young and supple body with many caresses. But that was a past, buried and sealed for good, though those touches still lingered in every fold of her flesh, the joints of her bones, and every nook of her body. Those touches still whispered to her in a language that she had once shared with a man with words. The man who was willing to forego the comforts of verbal language to take his place beside her. He was the one who led her by the hand as she took wobbly steps into the world of hearts and bodies. To her and him, both were important. Love meant absolute trust and complete sharing, or at least that was what she believed it to be.

Her thoughts went back to her dreams. With a half-eaten apple in her hand, she was desperately looking for someone and calling out loud. She was searching for a person with whom she could share it. The apple kept decaying in her clutch till it ultimately became a mass of fermented fruit pulp, oozing out of the closed fingers of her fist. She was trying to free her fingers off that thing and asking someone in the shadows for help. The sticky feeling along with rapid movements and her attempts to communicate had woken her up and she found herself soaked in perspiration.

The dream – why did it keep visiting her? She thought of it as her incomplete affair with the man of her dreams. Somewhere perhaps a trace of hope had lurked, slyly evading her self-scrutiny. That hope too must have turned stale by now, like that partially consumed apple. Just that she was not aware of it.

She knew that such thoughts were blasphemous now with her wedding just in a few hours. But she was happy she was going to marry another like her. The other that had come into her life as a burst of mango showers had proved seasonal. She had walked away from him. It helped her save her dignity and also spared her the looks of sympathy. What else could she do with a man who wanted to project his deaf and dumb fiancee as one with both ears and speech? He said he could handle everything post marriage and he promised to keep her happy. She knew he would, at least he would try in every conceivable way. But she felt uncomfortable, undignified. Her body demanded as much respect as any other. The subterfuges that he was trying to force upon her, pricked her like burning needles! She was at the crossroad of love and dignity. She knew if she compromised on this, she would lose her dignity and her self-respect. So, no compromise.

Even now, she could feel the void. The raw wound of separation was yet to heal. Those pleading eyes, the hurtful looks – Samrat had told her – “Why can’t you trust me just once? Let the wedding pass without any hassle, after that, we shall have a full life to carve out as we want to!”

He had missed the point. She kept mumbling, “It’s not about trust, it’s not about us too, it’s about me. Let me survive myself!”. Still, when he went ahead with his plan, thinking he was acting on both of their behalfs, she did the only thing that she could think of.

Before posting the letter to Samrat’s parents, she read it again –

“ I have known your son for the past three years. We were classmates in Art College. Now that we have decided to tie the knot, we thought I must introduce myself properly. Since I am both deaf and mute since birth, this is the only mode by which I could properly correspond with you. I am sure we shall evolve a language of our own too, just as Samrat and I have, when and if we get to know each other better. We have no intention of carrying out the wedding without your blessings…”

And to Samrat, she had written, “Perhaps we are yet to craft a mutual language where we both shall easily understand each other’s mind. It’s not the lack of trust but a huge dent in my dignity that I am yet unwilling to undergo. For a girl without speech or hearing, her dignity is all that she has to cling to. What else will she live for? Hope you understand some day…”

She knew she had killed all her chances of getting Samrat with the strokes of her pen. Yet she waited for the reply which never arrived. In her heart she knew that his parents would never respond; still, a small part of her kept waiting till the wait itself became a part of her. She did not even realize that it was there, the ache was there till she started getting those weird dreams.

The last time she met Samrat, he was devastated; he lashed out at her with all the bitterness in his heart, born out of an unbearable pain of thwarted desire yet he understood her need to be honest. She had held him close to herself, cradling his head upon her breasts, crooning softly in his ears. In those few moments, she had given him her lifetime of love. When he left, she felt strangely hollow, as if a part of herself was gone from her forever.

Even her ever-supporting parents were not too happy with her choice. After all, Samrat was the Mr. Perfect in their daughter’s life and probably their solace in their old age. Who would otherwise take care of this physically challenged girl after them?

“I cannot even die in peace! Why did you refuse Samrat? He loved you so much and was so heartbroken!”

“ But Mama he wanted me to pose as someone I was not! Wouldn’t his parents have felt cheated? Wouldn’t they have held me responsible for the rest of their life?”

Of course, there was no answer to her logic. They could not argue anymore and kept their silence but somewhere a thin line of sulk remained like that hairline crack on a piece of porcelain. Tara knew she had lost her chances of giving her parents a lifetime of happiness.

Dating Avik was partly her way of consoling her parents who were still reeling under the shock of the broken engagement. But partly it was also to find a companion for herself. She did not feel the need to love anymore, but like many other human beings, she too desired a family of her own – a man, perhaps even a child! Samrat was her past. A beautiful past, but one without closure. She wanted to keep it like that. Avik was present. The difference between the men was the difference between the self and the other. With Samrat perhaps she could have traveled in the exotic realms of existence but she knew Avik would be her home, the anchor that she needed to remain rooted. The flamboyance of romance had faded away with the aging youth. She cherished the common sense companionship and light-hearted camaraderie that Avik offered much more than the rush of adrenaline she used to feel each time she saw Samrat. She had promised herself that she won’t compare the two men but somehow, comparisons rose in her mind without any of her conscious promptings. But she was not unhappy with the resulting analysis. In fact, she had agreed to marry quite happily. Lightheadedness accompanied her since the wedding rituals began a week back. She was happy, but somehow those dreams with their faithful recurrence each night for the past few days had cast a shadow over her happiness.

She shook herself out of all morose thoughts and tried to think of happy things. Yet she failed again. Frustrated, she logged into Messenger and pinged Avik.

• Not asleep?

She felt comforted by his promptitude.  

•  You too! Why?
• Because we both are on the verge of a new beginning
• Yes.

She could not say more. But she was smiling. Avik continued the chat, steering it toward their dream project of expanding Tara’s wall art venture in various ways. His training in accounts and finance and his present job role as one of the auditors in a middling law firm had given him insights into the pragmatics of running a business.

With every message exchanged, Tara felt lighter until finally the dead weight of gloom completely fell off her shoulders. It was dawn when they finally signed out. The red sun, the ancient witness to so many beginnings since ages, saw another. And Tara felt love slowly embracing her heart in its fluffy, warm arms. The festered apple had completely disappeared from her clutch.

About the Author:
A translator, creative writer and academician, Nabanita Sengupta holds a PhD in English. She has 2 works of translation to her credit, one volume of edited anthology of critical essays and an edited anthology of poetry. Her latest publication is an anthology of poems Three Witches’ Songs, composed with two other poets. Her research articles, poems and creative writings have been published in various journals and anthologies, both print and online. She also has an e-book of short stories to her name.