The distemper on the opposite wall was telling of neglect. She touched it as if it were a lover’s body, revisited. Next, she took in the smell. As she moved about, the layers exposed themselves further. Abandonment, dirt and rodent extracts gave it a very haunted essence. Yet, as Nalini moved into the colonial styled house and pulled apart the heavy curtains to open the window, a flush of air and soft dusk sunrays hit the floor of the living room with the warmth of life, of a time belonging to the past. On the flight, as she eased out of her seat-belt, she longed to get back to her past. She used up all her leaves for the year to come to Candolim. The call had said rather pointedly that her sister was found dead.
Tarini. She was two years younger to her, and the more flighty, wilder one. Having chosen to remain in their hometown in Candolim to pursue bartending, Tarini bagged the offer at the Taj and was doing really well. Ma and Baba could never understand her flair, and distance from intoxication. If anything, you were all about consciousness, Tarin. What, then, went wrong? Pieces of school memories, cycle rides, first love letters and disco dances returned to throw her in a slumber. The incessant in-flight announcements woke her up. Their parents were long dead, and Tarini had decided to live single. ‘No one understands a woman at a bar, Null, forget being behind it’ she would say. True. Wouldn’t have anyone call me Null anymore.
Lingering relatives have the reputation of being a pain, but at the time of death, they rise to power. They impose, they suppose. Nalini thanked the lord that she would not have to face any of these. Yet, there were the neighbours. Unwanted, self-appointed guardians. They would expect her to breakdown and breakaway and be dramatic. None of which she was capable of. All of the last night, after the phone call, she immersed in the depth of the red wine and did not know when she almost finished it. She drank herself to sleep. Her little sister was no more alive. How happy she was the first time when Ma-Baba brought her home. She woke up, packed her bags and left for her office. From there she went straight into the airport after that and took the first available flight out from Delhi to Goa. Once in Candolim, she had to settle the last legal rites of Tarini at the Police Station, and signed her body which was already assigned for donation. She refused to have a look. From the staff-quarter in which Tarini lived, Nalini picked up her things and the key to their house and headed towards Elgin Street.
This was the house they grew up in. The rooms only housed memories now. Tomorrow I would visit the graveyard. The Mariam Paul parents lay there, aloof from the lasting pain they left behind. When Nalini had decided to go to Florence to gain her degree in Architecture, the parents concluded that she was being a rebel in her libertine ways. She then settled with an excellent job as the Chief Architect at Synchromats & Co., and when she told them of her living in with Saeed in New Delhi, her parents cut off all ties with her. She did not cry. Only Tarini remained with her as the living link with Candolim. After Baba, Ma died too. Yet again, she did not cry. Not once. Not even last night, when the news of Tarini’s death reached her. This morning as she was packing her bags, she did not cry.
She was now in the kitchen and had to use a lot of strength to open the back door. Rusts aside, it needed a lot of attention. The distraction was because of what lay ahead. She finally stepped out to the veranda opening to the backwaters. Memories flooded in. Little Nalini, and even tinier Tarini were playfully swimming. Ma-Baba sat watching them from the verandah. They would race till the DeCulpa’s bungalow stairs. Robert would time himself by the first floor window of their palatial house to see the girls. Where are you, Robert? Why didn’t you follow me to Florence? Even with your limp, you could have, you know. And just like that, she felt a lump in her throat.
Nalini Mariam Paul finally teared apart. She could not understand whether it was Robert, Ma, Baba or Tarini who brought it about. Maybe it is just the backwaters.
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