This will vanish when the world cleanses itself every second of every day, for eons to come.
The tea arrives, the snacks arrive. The young waiters hover. It’s the middle of the day, the café is not crowded.
We run out of topics.
“There’s one thing I always wanted to ask,” he says reluctantly after a long, uneasy pause.
There it is. What I dread. What I expect. What I anticipate. What I desire. What I want to avoid at all cost. What I want to get over with. What I want to confess. What I want to dodge.
The memory I had been weeding for years, and which grows back as quickly.
He leans forward.
“What happened between us?” He asks seriously, but there is a hint of a smile as though the choice is mine whether to take it seriously or not.
The ball is in my court. I could reply, I could deflect, I could laugh.
“We....drifted,” I say, as though the word had just occurred to me and not that I had it at the tip of my tongue for years, ready to appear whenever summoned.
He ponders for a moment and observes the traffic (or something).
“No... Not exactly. I’ve been through this so many times. You left. You did. I mean, you were there physically but seemed uninterested. Withdrawn.”
“I wasn’t uninterested.” God, I wasn’t.
“Yes, that’s the wrong word. You were there, like a shell with nothing inside.”
I find myself speechless. He does not sound bitter, more like, confused.
“Are you blaming me?” I let out a small laugh to allay any misapprehensions.
“I don’t know. I did, for a long time. I wanted to understand. I want to understand.”
“You have thought of this a lot,” I say in awe.
“A thousand times.”
“And then?” Hope rekindles, as poets would say, and the wind blows my door wide open.
“Then I gave up wondering.” The door remains open but no one appears, not even the ghost of a promising past.
But the eyes, Chico. They never lie.
I have to break the spell. “We were young,” I say light-heartedly, “foolish and arrogant.” My turn to look away towards the teeming traffic. One or two of our neighbours pass by on their way back from the shop, packets of dosa batter in hand, with a knowing smile at us. I pretend not to have seen them. Tomorrow one of them is going to say, I saw you yesterday at the Café. I’m already irritated, just imagining it. Oh, really? I would ask. Was I at the Café? I didn’t know.
You were with Sandeep, they would say with an accusing, gossipy smile.
Oh yes! I would reply. We’re planning to get married. Didn’t you overhear us planning to elope?
I feel so good just picturing it. Their reaction.
But they would counter with: well, we did expect you to elope then.
That would subdue me. Even in my own fantasies, I am defeated. I cannot construct imaginary scenarios where I win.
