New beginnings

The clouds gathered into each other squeezing darkness into the late morning sky. Nilima stood on the balcony of her apartment egging them on like an overzealous fan would from the stands. She picked up her coffee mug, which still spilled smoke from its smouldering contents, with one hand and checked the SMS, which had just plunked on her iPhone screen: Ticket rdy pickup Paragon- Samy.

Nilima could not be hurried yet. If there was one thing she would most certainly miss at Christchurch, it would be the Singapore rain clouds. Through the 12 years she had buried in this rainforest country-state, they had been there for her. Darker than her darkest hours, they cheered her on. She always paused to wait and watch the moment when the firmament would give in and raindrops spill out like a frenzy of prisoners for whom the walls had finally cracked open.

She watched the drops wet the tennis courts below as the players looked up to decide if they should keep playing. The children prancing around the newly renovated pool dived in to escape the raindrops. Suri and Shashi, long before they were off to college in the States, had practically grown gills and pectorals in that very pool, or at least in the water body that occupied that space. While they moved from one apartment to the other in the condo, the pool and tennis courts had been renovated 3 or 4 times!

It was Nikhil’s idea to keep moving.

“Nilu, everyone does this. I know you love this place but we got to take advantage of rentals as they go down. And we are in the same condo. Still close to the train station; MRT is just a trot away. Also.... did you not want an extra room for the kids’ hobbies and yours? Now you can have that as well. I am doing this for you Nilu.” Nikhil had explained the first time.

Nilima had protested the third move. “But Nikhil. I cannot keep doing this you know. It gets to me. It’s not what I pictured myself spending my productive years doing. All that plumbing to be rechecked, the electricals redone, picture placements decided”.

She remembered Nikhil turning back to her, his hands still engaged in knotting his tie, locking his eyes firmly onto hers, eyebrows flaring up. “I don’t understand Nilu. You wanted to do interior decoration. I cannot get why you cannot look at this positively as an opportunity to re-decorate your house. For heaven’s sake! A lot of women make a good life at Singapore. Go out! Do something and you won’t feel these trivial changes.”

She had wanted to say. “I wanted to be an architect, Nikhil. I could have been an architect, Nikhil.” The words were spoken to herself. No one else had heard it.

“Ma’am, I go to NTUC okay. You want prawns? Can get la”. Mini, her helper asked in unmistakable Singlish.

Nilima nodded and handed over her emptied coffee mug. Now she must complete her last day of the Singapore farewell tour. Mini rushed to get the lift button for her as Nilima tailored her phone into her carefully arranged bag and swung it on her right shoulder leaving the left free for the umbrella.

Nilima had finally decided that she would not be a miserable twit. She knew she had a blessed life. She had easily settled into the creature comforts that dropped into her platter as Nikhil’s success continued relentlessly. It was just that the plate was too full now, too heavy; she could not hold on to it anymore and her appetite for it had died down leaving just a gaping hole in time where her life had passed her by.

She needed to feel alive again. There was nothing more she would have wanted than to have Nikhil with her, acknowledging that her turn was way past overdue but she was done waiting for him to pause, to get off the treadmill, to allow her to want something for herself and still to need her. She had the divorce papers ready and signed. She would leave them for him on his dinner table. Back from Seoul, the last leg of this month’s marathon business trip, he shall find her signature where she had been.

Nilima smiled at the beauty ladies behind the SK-II desk at the extravagant cosmetics floor of the department store.

“Good morning Mrs Das. Scheduled for the treatment nex’ We’n’sday righ’? See you then.”

“Of course Sally”, she lied and rushed on. When the rain poured she sometimes walked through Isetan to get to the underground crossing. She would miss this underpass. It ran all under the Orchard area; miraculously connecting travellers to destinations, intended and unintended. That is what she loved. To be on foot this way.

Every one of the last 6 days she had been on foot or trains or buses most of the time. To feel the real city. She could not recall the last time, she had gone to the Bird Park and the Zoo without the kids. But she had spent a bulk of her farewell tour there. She had held the nectar filled gooey cup while colored feathered friends, greedily licked them off. She had never realized birds had tongues before she had been there a few times on various science project trips for Suri and Shashi. Shashi’s face lighting up on reaching and Suri’s drooping, his body suddenly feeling a ton heavier. Watching animals was not what he had really liked.

The night races were another thing. She had watched Suri delight at the show and secretly hoped he would get over the races one day. Or at least that Nikhil would be present for the races and not she.

“Nilu, this is what boys do and it does not mean he will die on the tracks one day so just chill.” That is what he would have said always stating things as they were even when he knew words prick more when heard than when left unsaid.

The buildings were packed compactly along Orchard Road like fronds of a palm tree, water dripping from all sides. The top floors encroached onto the pavement providing an awning. Nilima lifted her umbrella up so it wouldn’t bounce off ill-placed raindrops while running into others. It always gets cramped with the narrowing of the pavements when it rains, every one rushing under the awning. A daily everyday type of challenge, negotiating a smooth path forward, that did not bother her.

The traffic controller’s whistle brought everyone onto a screeching halt. Nilima stopped with the throng and waited while cars were being ushered into underground parking lots. She glanced at Mt Elizabeth hospital through the tree growth and memories of her marriage counselling sessions rushed at her violently. She had really wanted the marriage to work though she never got over Nikhil’s little rendezvous with his long lost ex-colleague. She had re-appeared, bought gifts for the kids, come over for drink and dinner. And Nilima had not realized that when she had opened the door to her, malice, bad times and mistrust walked in unnoticed. The malice and mistrust tip-toed into a comfortable corner, huddled and stayed on since then; like a smiling fat bellied China-man made of stone, that could not be budged, that only she could see, that laughed and sneered at her ever so often through her lonely nights and days.

He moved in five years ago. She would bid farewell to the China-man tomorrow. With that relieving thought, she stepped out of the Paragon office elevator.

“Good morning Mrs Das. I could have dropped these tickets off you know.”

“That’s alright Samy. I only need an excuse to get out on such a beautiful day. You know how much I love it when it rains. Much needed respite from the heat don’t you think?”

“For sure. But rain is trouble too….. here you go...Christchurch! I need to get myself one of these tickets and just run away!”

Nilima felt a chill run down her spine as if she had been seen through. She shifted her weight, recovering her balance, adjusted her sunglasses on her hair to veil the change in her eyes and smiled as she received her freedom from Samy. “The cash is in the envelope Samy. I did not want Mr. Das to know; I am preparing some surprises from him you know. He watches credit card bills like a hawk.”

Resolute. Unwavering. The ticket powering her swagger, Nilima proceeded to the elevator.

If she had not been swaddled in wrapping up her memories, in uncompromisingly weeding out hurtful ones and embalming the good ones for life; if she had not been dreaming of all the green energy houses she was going to design in Christchurch; if she had not been obsessing over the research program she had got into that would push that sense of uselessness, that had stayed on and grown mightier with each passing day, out forever, releasing her from bondage; if she was not balancing her umbrella and sunglasses while slotting the ticket in place; she might have noticed It was following her and gathering power like a storm. Powerful the way only bad news can be.

It stepped into the elevator with her as the doors closed. That is when she was slowly awoken from her trance.

“It is the first Singapore Airline crash in a long time you know.”

“San Francisco to Korea right?”

Please say no.

“Yes. Seoul”.

Nilima watched the last of the mourners leave. Only Suri and Shashi remained with her in the house. And the China-man, heavier in his invisibility than she could budge. He had grown a little bigger. His belly now even more prosperous with unresolved anger and revenge impossible.