...And the candle melted down

Bubbles of froth rose to the top of the glass. The hiss of carbonated fluid mixing with whiskey permeated the comfortable silence between them. His spry fingers twirled the glass, his gaze fixed upon the golden hue of vanishing turbidity. She looked at him, imbibing his protective presence, his silence and the mild scent of cologne that lingered in the air. It was a summer evening - warm, lethargic and windy. The breeze twisted along the road spirally, gathering dust and dried leaves and spewing them into the crevices of the uneven pavement. There were few people to be seen strolling up and down the road, not seeming in a hurry to get anywhere. She moved to the window, resting her forehead on the bars, looking at the events of the fading evening. Her long gaze settled on the deserted house, as it had done many times in the past.

The windows were flung open and shut by the dry summer winds, which were offered no resistance by the dilapidated building to which they belonged. In the balcony overlooking the road hung empty cages, their rusting hinges creaking with exhaustion as they swayed with the winds. Clay flowerpots lay strewn on the mosaic floor, the mud within no longer contained by their entirety. The plants had dried and died of thirst, disappearing with the warm currents of summer. The walls were invaded by branches of neem, which were swallowing the house in their want for space. Pigeons seemed to find solace in what was discarded by humans as uninhabitable, their flight echoing through the deserted corridors and the flapping of their wings reverberating in the forlorn air. A shrill call of crickets pierced the air. Then she saw her. She saw a wrinkled and drawn face, partly veiled by a woollen wrap, peering back at her from the window of the deserted house.

The sky had darkened to a bluish grey. The winds were cooler, rushing through the streets with a whirl and a gasp. Lightening struck in a frequent rumble, each bolt illuminating the solitary, hunched figure by the window of the deserted house, holding a sole candle.

‘It’s going to rain’, she said softly, her eyes following the candle as it moved past windows into the house where she could no longer see it.

‘That’s good. It hasn’t rained for months now’, he murmured into her neck, pulling her close, his chest gently pressing against her back.

‘There’s someone in that house. I saw a woman. She… Not by the window!’, she tore herself from his grasp as he gently slipped the straps off her shoulders, finding them to be an obstacle in his trail of soft kisses along her shoulders.

He whisked the curtains shut with a short movement of his hand and wrapped his arms around her, his fingers pursuing the contours of her spine down her skin.

‘She can wait…’, he smiled, bending down in an engrossing kiss. The old woman was soon forgotten.

******

It was raining heavily, the unexpected showers that dot the month of summer with relief. Days of warm winds and summer heat culminated in a heavy downpour punctuated by thunder and lightening. Raindrops trailed down the stone walls, drawing patterns through accumulated dust and fell into the parched earth, filling every fissure till the brim. The paint was peeling from the rotting wooden window panes. A lone candle flickered in the room, casting huge shadows on the cracked walls. She grasped the candle holder with a gnarled hand and pulled it closer, adjusting the light to render legible the fading words of the yellowing letters in front of her.

‘Dear…’, they all began, bringing with them a reassurance that years later still made her feel loved. She edged closer eagerly as she had done for many, many years now, and touched the crumbling bundle of parchments, resting on the table in the order in which they were received. Her eyes glistened as she read his words. Her ageing mind, presumed by others to be incapable of perception, still remembered every palpitation of the heart as she had opened the letters for the first time with shivering, young hands and drunk his words to her yearning heart. He had promised, as he always did, to come back soon. His letters that had portrayed a shy longing initially, had begun to convey a growing sense of need, of the urgency to touch, to feel the warmth of her person, a want that her letters could not satiate. His mounting frustration at being unable to go home to her manifested itself on paper where his increasingly incoherent thoughts flowed into paragraphs expressing his love for her and his abhorrence for the war going on alternately. But, it finally happened. He was allowed to utilise his rest leaves, though only for a fortnight. She received him joyfully, catering to his every need and desire.

She stopped reading, unable to go on. Those fifteen days had been the most beautiful days of her life. She remembered the summer evenings they had spent in a rapturous daze, watching birds roost as the sun climbed down from its throne. She remembered the meaningful silences, the way words were braided with pauses in soft knots. She remembered his tender touch and unspoken trust. She blushed as she remembered his hungry kisses, the ripple of his sinewy back under her fingertips and his rapacious need. She remembered everything.

There was a crack of thunder that shook the fragile building. She opened her eyes, pulling her wrap closer around her shoulders, wishing it was him. She started reading again and continued reading his letters until there were left to read just two. She opened the first one with a heavy heart; it was the grim and apathetic hand of an official expressing his regret at having to inform her of her husband’s demise and of course, his condolences for the same. She let out a sob, her lower lip trembling with pain.

Her life had been but a memoir of dreams, broken and hushed, unclaimed on the waves of the high tide; some were washed ashore, bringing gladness to her heart, many stayed afloat unbearably reminding her of their presence, floating on the horizon as the waves deposited themselves at her feet when she sat down on the moist shore of the sea. ‘Why did you have to go?’, she asked out loud in helpless despair. ‘It still hurts.’

When age ripens and love withers away, few things keep one warm on a rainy night – the blanket of memories and the cushion of conscience to fall back on. She had both. She had spent a lifetime living, reliving that fortnight. But, she was tired now; tired of being lonely and disappointed, tired of her heart aching with want and pain. She wanted to go home, to the place where she was told no one hurts, where it was not hard to fall asleep.

With a resigned sigh she picked up the last letter, to read it one last time. It was a letter she had started writing to him just before the letter announcing his death had arrived. It was a letter whose contents he’d never come to know as it remained unsent, one that she had written with an eager heart, telling him that she was pregnant.

******

A few weeks later, she woke up to the faint yet distinctive clink of a mason’s hammer working ceaselessly beneath her window.

She looked at him sprawled beside her on the bed. He was still asleep, his face buried in the pillow, an arm and a leg loosely resting around her. She disentangled from him, wrapped a sheet around herself and went to the window.

It was early morning. The sun was still in slumber. Men were gathered around the deserted house, bringing it down one chip of brick at a time. She strained against the bars on the window to look into the house for the presence of the old woman, but, she had gone and the candle had melted down.

She waited for sunrise, got dressed and rushed down to the house no longer deserted, to enquire after the old woman.

‘She passed away’, replied the man overseeing the demolition work, in a coarse, local dialect.

‘When?’

‘A few weeks ago. I think, on the night it rained.’

******

She snuggled up to him in bed, curling under his arm, her eyes lit up with a beautiful smile.

‘What is it?’, he asked, kissing her cold nose as he wrapped his blanket around her.

‘I’m pregnant.’