I See

  

I saw her enter the corridor, from the right, sashaying towards me, at fingers’ reach I took in that familiar perfume, watched her swaying hips and crisscrossing legs and straight back as she moved away, that twenty something. The antiseptic white walls, firm plastic seats, the dull much-washed green, the chrome of stainless-steel and the black around me could so easily be what others see, those beautiful colours with lovely names, amber, azure, crimson red, turquoise, jade, even your favourite amethyst.

I can see the light hair and I trace a path from the cheek to the jaw, up and behind the ear. I did that in our first French class. I sat behind you, to your right, stared at you like a dirty lecher. My friend and I were juvenile, I know, how we made a big deal of repeating ‘let’s eat at a brasserie’. For three days, you ignored me while you still talked to my friend. ‘I did not expect that from you,’ you said when I confronted you. ‘Grow up,’ was my defense. You and I expected a lot, didn’t we?

Where was I – behind the ear? I am standing right behind you. You entered my office, complaining of a stiff neck. ‘Massage lightly,’ I suggest. ‘How…?’ you ask. My thumbs at the centre, fingers reaching till the back of your ears, stroking your neck with adequate pressure and down till the upper back and shoulders. I repeated it five or six times while you kept your head tilted forward and eyes closed. I stopped on my own. You turned towards me. Your eyes looked sideways, outside those Venetian blinds and that door, checking if colleagues had seen us. You laughed nervously. ‘Where did you learn that?’ ‘Another girl…’ I boasted. With you, I could boast. Not once did you believe me.

How I wanted to hold you then. It took a few months for me to reach for your hand, to kiss the space between the third and fourth knuckle. Then, on a day not much later, I held your arms tightly, feeling your muscles straining against my grip, you were hysterical, you were mad with me. I can’t remember the reason. I felt like hitting you but you knew I wouldn’t. We just locked ourselves in, hungry, misunderstood, crazy. I can still see that rage in your eyes.

I prefer to see those eyes when you lie next to me. ‘These eyes…’ I study the softness, the trust, the creases, the laughter and the smile. Then, I see doubt and suspicion flicker within. Like a stranger at the door, disappearing into the night quickly but bringing the party to an end. You thought I saw another’s eyes, didn’t you? I didn’t, I am sure, I think.

Once, you refused to open your eyes and I really felt like hitting you. I could not speak but I was shouting a stupid I-love-you. Were you already deaf, then? I did not cry. I touched your creaseless twenty something forehead, your warm dry lips before the cold entered, when I switched off the ventilator and the doctor walked away. Damn it, woman, open your bloody eyes and look at me! I did not cry. I do not cry. I will not cry.

I see too much, you say. When you blow at your fingers, at my fingers, when you stand against the door with mischief in your eyes and when I let my hand move up from the toes or from the neck downwards, I see you, not too much, I say.

I see you sashaying towards me, playing hard-to-get, moving away, swaying, inviting.

I stood up and made my way to the nurses’ desk, my hand on the wall, with each step the blur shifting further. I ask the nurse at the counter, (is it the fat one or the old one?) ‘That girl…who walked by just now – who is she?’

‘Which girl?’ she asked. I stood there, leaning against the wall. I must have stood there for ten minutes. The nurse did not shoo me away to a hard seat.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around to face my granddaughter. She brought me to the hospital, I remember. ‘Achacha (paternal grandfather), the doctor is ready…he says that you will be able to see like a twenty year old after the cataract operation…’

‘I see…enough…’