Coming, Going

When the door-bell rang, he was adjusting the volume control of the hi-fi. Without heeding the bell, he listened to the music for a while, comfortably numbed and also bemused by not being able to recollect the name of the composer. It matched well, he thought, with the bright blue sky peeping through lace curtains and the cool dewy early morning air.

He went to the door and opened. He smiled at her as she walked in without a word. He closed the door and leaned against it, watching her. She kept her hand-bag on a side-table and her wind-cheater folded on the back of a chair. Then, she went to him. They stood there, hand in hand, looking at each other, smiling.

‘Missed you…’ she said as he pulled her towards him. ‘So much…’ The ‘much’ lingered long, soft and thick in the air, till they kissed.

They held each other as they swayed with the music, languorous dancing with impromptu steps, instincts leading and following. She leaned against his broad chest, opened a few buttons on his shirt and lightly traced lines in the light hair. Her left hand curled under his arm and held onto his shoulder or caressed his back. His hand circled around her, held her close and tight, with his head resting against her forehead or lightly kissing her ears, her hair, her forehead, her cheeks, her lips. His right hand lingered on her naked skin beneath her blouse, teasing and caressing, moving gently with the music from her breasts to her waist, back and forth.

‘How I wish I could remain like this forever…’ she said later when they rested on the floor cushions. ‘I could sleep…I could dream…lying here, against your chest, I feel so…’ her voice trailed.

Around noon, they dressed, rustled up a quick lunch and shared the meal standing in the compact kitchen of his rented well-furnished studio apartment. Two sparrows came to the kitchen window, looked in, tilted their head sideways and chirped at them and at each other. She opened the window and sprinkled some bread crumbs saying, ‘Sparrow-kutta…here…’ The birds came warily, pecked and left. He watched her, smiled at her, and happy with himself feeling her life filling every nook and cranny of his existence.

Around mid-afternoon, she put on her wind-cheater, picked up her hand-bag and moved towards the door. They kissed long and deeply.

‘I wish I didn’t have to go…’ she said and left.

He stood by the doorway and watched her walk away. A strange afternoon breeze disturbed her hair and he wanted to comb it down with his fingers. He watched her swaying hips and straight back. He remembered that he had first noticed her while admiring her elegant walking style. He stood there till she vanished.

He went back inside. He collected his belongings and packed it all in two suitcases and a large cardboard box. He cleaned up the place thoroughly trying for its pristine condition. At dusk, he rested for a while, sipping water, lazily reading an old mid-day newspaper, a leftover of his packing.

One large headline screamed about a lover killing a straying partner. A smaller news item was about a suicide after a painful separation. Everywhere, everyone seems to be coming, going, never staying together for long, he thought.

He loaded his suitcases and the box in his car. Then, he gave the house-keys to his landlord and received the deposit money. ‘Where are you going? Do you have a forwarding address?’ the landlord asked. He shrugged.

With a friendly wave from the car and a melancholic smile, he bid goodbye. At the cross-road, he squinted at the dying rays in the cool dewy late evening air, and tried to choose north, east, west or south.