I looked at Charles. The little guy, though as yet unaware of the need for self-definition and self-determination in the adult world of contradictions and strife was quietly busy folding up the sheet of brown-paper in which he had wrapped up that precious image. I did not know how to relate with the two of them who, it was quite clear to me now, were in need of me. Though I sat there facing them at that moment, a chasm of continents and culture separated me from them. I did not know if Emma was aware of this.
“How was your day at school today? Do you get to practice your choir lessons or piano lessons?” I asked to keep her mind away from the past. She looked at me despondently. Then brushing off the gloom, she said with a smile, “I haven’t been able to make much progress with piano. I have neither the money nor the time for that.”
I had not been watching her carefully after she said this. I was lost in the memory of my own home and family for a while. But when I looked up I found her looking at me with a sort of adult curiosity. I wondered secretly if she knew I was getting a bit drawn to her. I was quickly on my guard lest I betray any such sign of slightest involvement on my part. I folded my hands across my chest and bore an expression of detachment. She asked rather abruptly, “Do you write?” I said, pretending not to have understood her meaning, “Write? Write what?” She said, “Oh, I mean…Are you a poet or a writer—of some sort?” I tried to look properly offended somewhat at that and said, “Some sort? Oh, do I look ‘some sort’ whatever?”
She gathered herself defensively and said, “Well I just thought so.” I said, “What gave you that impression?” That was a difficult question for her to answer. She reflected for a moment and said, “Perhaps there was something…well, something that appealed to my…” At that point I saw her almost swallow the word ‘heart’ as she paused there in embarrassment. She continued and said in completion, “To my…imagination.”
I said, “I am not a practiced writer. Well I mean that’s not my field really”. I was actually staring at the coffee-mug in her hand. The coffee-shop where we were sitting was decent but not so well looked after it seemed. There was a small crack showing on the otherwise beautifully crafted mug and in that despondent moment it seemed to open up a lane of memories leading me down to the boyhood days. I remembered the day when it was raining in torrents back in India on the day I was to embark on my career as a navy- cadet, my journey from home to the railway-station, my parents accompanying me, my mother silent, and my father looking after the details of my journey in a cool, business-like manner, hiding behind his stony exterior those days of admonishment, acerbic criticism and his constant effort to instill a stoic fortitude into my irresponsible adolescent days. But on that day he had hugged me tightly and in that embrace he seemed to pass on all the sorrow of his life’s wisdom to me. My mother had hugged me ever so lightly because she was engaged in fighting off her tears.
All that seemed so long ago as we were sitting there in the coffee-shop. Did I ever write? Did I write about all this to anyone ever? Well, what was there to write about it anyway?
I found Emma staring at me and watching patiently. I realized that I had not answered her question yet. She was a bit scared, looking at my grim silence. I smiled in an attempt not to look as grim as that.
She said, “Oh, Perhaps I should not be so curious. I really don’t realize when I start intruding on people’s privacy. But that happens only when I begin to like a person, you know!’ Then she immediately went on, “But I feel you must write; I don’t know why I feel so; but you will write wonderfully well.” I laughed. I said, “What do you think I am? A music maestro or a song-writer? I wish I was one. Then I would have written lots and lots of lyrics and set them to music for you.”
“And then we would have made lots and lots of money too!” She completed the fantasy. Then she looked at me with her peculiar penetrating gaze and said, “You seem to be dreaming a lot. I saw that while we were sitting opposite you in the coffee-shop. Of course, Charles and I didn’t know you then.” I found it interesting how she would include Charles in all her fantastic thoughts about me. The phase of childhood which linked her closely with Charles was not yet over. She seemed to be eager however, to probe the secrets of the life of the mind and heart; she was certainly poised at that curious stage. Anyway, so long as she was not curious about my profession I was not inclined to tell her that it was far from a poetic one and as marine engineer on a naval ship my job was to handle machinery and not imagination. Besides, I could not forget that a moment ago I had hurt her by completely misapprehending the situation when they were eager to share the most precious thing in their possession and that too in the complete innocence of childhood and there she was: this young girl, responding to and encouraging a stranger to express what she perceived to be a creative imagination.
I said, “Dreaming is something everyone can do, but not everyone can write stuff out of dreams”. As soon as I said this I remembered that she had said something about her father being a dreamer or some such thing. I asked her, “Was your father a dreamer?” She broke into a smile that was lovely to watch. She looked at me and said, “That’s funny. You know, I feel that it was my mother who should have joined the military. The way she used to rule over the household and over him. But she would break down easily under stress. And yes; he used to dream a lot though he would never share his dreams. But don’t you think that a soldier’s profession is incompatible with dreaming?”
On a spur of the moment I said spontaneously, “No, it isn’t.” She looked surprised at my unguarded revelation, and looked at me, as if in need of a clarification. Then she uttered her words slowly, “Are you…a soldier?” Charles was looking at me with dilated pupils now. The mention of his father and his father being a soldier had sent waves of alertness and curiosity in him. His was suddenly out of his mood for pranks. I kept looking at the crack in the mug.
I said, “Soldiers are in need of dreaming more than anyone else.”
That meeting ended on that inconclusive note. For Charles it was a vague understanding of something that teased him and waited to be found out in the image of his father which stared at him tantalizingly always; something which his sensitivity, hovering between childhood loss and the tenacious demands of life, was unable to explain to him. Emma had looked at the watch on her hand and made herself ready to go. Charles had followed her reluctantly, turning around to look at me a couple of times as they moved out of the coffee-shop. I expected Emma to turn around and say good-bye to me; but she didn’t.
When I reached my lodging it was dark and as I switched on the light I saw the three letters which I had left there on my writing –table. They were still lying there unopened.
Posted by Sushama Karnik
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