The job, you see, was twenty-five kilometres distant from the city's embrace, a daily commute that stole the weekdays. Sarita and I, once fellow travellers in the realm of chemistry, found our rendezvous reduced to weekends. Weekends became our sanctuary. The ritual was simple, almost a reflex: the escape from the city's clamour, the lakeside promenade, the sweet puncture of a coconut's husk, and the occasional, frugal restaurant. These were the coordinates of our shared time.
Sarita had entered the world of industrial alchemy. Her days were spent amidst the metallic entrails of machines, their purpose solely the transmutation of base elements into gold. She, unlike me, was not a solitary worker in this enterprise. She was enmeshed in the family business, a world of overseeing, of directives issued to engineers, of the relentless pursuit of "better output."
"These workers," she would declare, even within the neutral territory of a restaurant, "they are born with a certain...sluggishness."
"Perhaps," I'd counter, "it's the mindset that requires adjustment, not the workers themselves." My defence was, of course, self-serving. By her definition, I, too, was destined to be categorised as one of the slow-moving, the habitually late, the less-than-bright. I was, after all, also a worker, though in a different factory, under different masters.
The nature of our continued connection, post-graduation, remained a kind of enigma. We had followed divergent paths, hers leading to the helm of her family's enterprise, mine to the factory floor. Yet, Sarita's Sunday visitations to my small apartment became a recurring motif, a new chapter unfolding, page by unhurried page.
"You won't believe what your mother told me today," she announced one evening.
"Let me guess," I replied, "She thinks that I'm taking too long to find a homely wife."
"Close," Sarita said, a hint of something unreadable in her eyes. "She has found her. It's me." I treated this as another instalment in our ongoing exchange of gentle ironies. My capacity for self-deception, I believed, was limited. I was grounded, perhaps too much so, in the reality of my pay slip, my position. I was the snail to Sarita's celestial being, her trajectory that of a spacecraft, effortlessly traversing vast distances. My mother, in her brief encounters with Sarita, had seen only her radiant presence, her easy laughter on my birthday. She remained unaware of the hierarchy, the thirty souls like me who answered to Sarita's directives. She was, after all, the daughter of an industrialist, a fact that hung in the air between us, unspoken yet palpable.
"If that's the case," I ventured, "why these weekly pilgrimages to my humble abode?"
"We're friends, Mama," I would say, attempting to deflect her hopeful gaze. "Nothing more, nothing less." My words, however, were insufficient to dismantle the edifice of her expectations. That structure, that dream, would endure until her final, silent breath.
The week concluded, as they invariably do, with Sunday. For some, the day commences with the ritual of tea, a gentle awakening. For others, it's a more protracted affair, a slow peeling back of the layers of sleep. My own Sunday began with the force of a sudden squall, a tempest unleashed within the confines of my single room.
"Where have you been?" Sarita's voice, sharp and insistent, filled the small space. "Two weeks. I haven't seen you for a fortnight. What explanation could possibly suffice?"
"I... I was..." The words faltered on my tongue.
"Don't bother," she retorted, the edge of her anger honed to a fine point. "It's clear I'm the only one who cares."
"Sarita, please," I tried again, "I was at my village. There were... rites. My mother..."
But she was already in motion, a whirlwind of hurt and accusation. "Fine," she snapped. "Whatever. I'm not the one who's desperate for your company." Then, the abrupt shift, the change of course. "You're coming to my parents' house. Seven o'clock. This evening. Be punctual."
It wasn't a request. It was a summons from a legal court. I knew, with a certainty that settled like a stone in my stomach, the purpose of this meeting. A formalisation. A proposal.
"Sarita, I..."
"Silence," she commanded.
If my heart had ever belonged to any woman other than my mother, that woman was Sarita. This woman, who held the position of deputy director in one of the city's major industrial conglomerates. And yet, despite the undeniable truth that no woman of her standing would visit a man like me, in his meagre dwelling, every Sunday evening, remaining until the late hours, unless driven by something beyond mere friendship, I had never allowed myself the luxury of imagining a future with her. I was acutely aware of the boundaries, the unbridgeable chasm that separated our worlds.
Now, however, I was compelled to attend. Her insistence left no room for evasion. Her parents, of course, knew of my existence. Her father had once extended an offer of employment, a position within his factory. Sarita, however, had intervened, vetoing the idea of my subordination to her. And so, I had found my place elsewhere.
"You must understand, Vishal," her father, the industrialist, said, his tone measured, pragmatic, "my daughter is, in some ways, still...unformed. Immature, perhaps, is a kinder word. She is determined to marry you. But she is accustomed to a life, a level of comfort, that your circumstances...well, they simply cannot provide. You grasp my meaning, I trust." I did. The familiar arguments, the well-worn tropes: her extravagant expenditures on cosmetics, a sum equivalent to my monthly earnings; her ignorance of the simplest domestic tasks, like brewing tea; her reliance on expensive automobiles, driven by others.
As if this were not enough, he added the final, decisive clause. "I would be most grateful, Vishal, if you would speak with her. Persuade her to consider the proposal she has received from a highly successful industrialist, currently residing abroad. I believe you are the only one who can make her see reason. You will help us, won't you?"
"Yes, Uncle," I replied, the word a hollow echo in the opulent room. "I will."
And so, I found myself navigating the labyrinthine corridors of Sarita's home, following the silent directives of the portraits on the walls. I harboured no resentment towards her father. He had merely adhered to the established protocol, the logic of his world. He was, as I had always known, a shrewd and calculating businessman. He was even attempting to transmute a potential disruption, a "virus" in his system of established comforts, into a kind of inoculation, a defence against future uncertainties. I, it seemed, was the virus in question.
The days that followed stretched into weeks, the weeks coalescing into a pair of months. I attempted to erase her image from my mind: the way her hair fell across her face, the unfathomable depths of her eyes, the eloquence of her questioning brows, the silent language of her lips. I even tried to forget the particular way I admired the delicate structure of her knuckles.
The February sun, usually a source of solace, remained elusive, obscured behind a veil of persistent clouds. It was the cusp of dawn, perhaps. And then, the sound. A sound I knew as intimately as my heartbeat. A knock. A summons that could rouse me from the deepest slumber. I pulled the woollen shawl tighter around me, my eyes struggling to focus. And there she was. The very personification of the image that had been seared into my consciousness.
In a rush, light flooded my small apartment, banishing the lingering shadows of the night. The cold that had clung to the air vanished as if it had never been. Her hair, meticulously arranged, no longer a cascade but a composed statement; a simple, traditional dress, devoid of ornamentation, and a modest suitcase at her feet. These details, in any other context, would have been unremarkable, quotidian. But in this setting, in the presence of this woman, they spoke volumes.
She moved with a purpose that belied the early hour, heading directly for the cramped kitchen. My kitchen, a space that, if one overlooked the general disarray characteristic of a bachelor's existence, was fundamentally uncomplicated.
"Let me make tea," she announced, her voice calm, resolute.
The deputy director of a company, a woman of considerable authority and influence, had adopted the guise of an ordinary woman. I, meanwhile, had managed to extract myself from the bed and now stood, observing her movements, maintaining a respectful distance, the very embodiment of hesitant chivalry. I nodded, my head moving in silent counterpoint to the movements of her hands as she reached for the tea, the sugar, the milk, the familiar articles on the shelf.
"You know, Vishal," she said, without turning, "I've stopped wearing makeup. It seemed... unnecessary. And I've also... I've learned to cook. A little, at least. And I think," she paused, her gaze finally meeting mine, a tentative smile playing on her lips, "I think this house is quite... ample. For us. Don't you?"
"Sarita," I began, my voice thick with emotion, "my dear, please... don't say any more."
"Oh..." she breathed, and then, there was no more need for words. There was only the embrace, the joining, the promise of a lifetime of shared mornings and quiet evenings.
It was, as it happened, Valentine's Day.
And the most precious of gifts, a gift beyond any earthly measure, stood before me, under my humble roof.
THE END
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