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| A. Muttulingam (Author) |
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| R. Shanmuga Sundaram (Translator) |
Today is the cash
reconciliation day. We will combine my income and what Dad gets from his
gardening work and count them. Then, Dad will go to the bank and pay the due
for the loan. At that time, he will look at me oddly. It will disturb me and do
something to my heart.
I have not accomplished
anything substantial in life. There is no point in knowing my name. I have not
achieved any milestone in my studies, intelligence, or beauty. I should talk
only about my sisters. What they would become was already inside their bodies
even then. I only did not know. The eldest of my sisters is Samantha. Her job
required a special kind of expertise. It is doubtful whether there would be
even a hundred like her on this earth.
The second sister’s name is
Pamela. If you line up the lazy persons of the world, she will be the third one
in the second row of the first file. As to her beauty, it was ordinary. She
will touch her books hesitatingly as if touching a worm. She is married to an
ultra-rich person in Chicago, where you have to bend your body backwards to
look at the tall buildings. She does not have to do anything. She will change
her dress four times a day. To please her husband in a variety of new dresses
is her only duty.
The last sister is Rebecca.
She is a beauty who will seduce anyone in a second. Her smile will blossom like
blood slowly draining. Eyelashes that extend beyond her face. Her neck size and
the waist size are almost the same. Like a good swordsman wielding his sword in
all directions, she will deploy her charm all around. No matter how one
exaggerates her beauty, it would be an understatement. She got married only
recently. She really struggled to choose one among her four determined suitors.
Our home has two rooms. Since
the right wall of the house is common with the house of the neighbour, there is
no window on that wall. The cherry tree stood in front of the car park. An old
tree, Dad says it is at least 100 years old. The neighbour does not like the
tree at all. He keeps complaining to the municipality that it is going to fall
any time on his house and will kill him and is waiting for their decision. I am
waiting for the month of March. Only then will the cherry tree blossom.
I have a lot to say about my
first sister. She married her assistant and lives in a thirty-storey building
in New York. Her apartment is on the upper floor. Her office is on the lower
floor. The husband and wife work at least 18 hours with multiple assistants.
You can’t catch Samantha in an emergency. Words will wear out her mouth, is her
belief. You can reach her only by SMS.
To restore very old but
valuable books with skill and artistry without compromising their integrity is
her job. She would get mostly books in English. Since her husband knows Hebrew,
she would get Hebrew books too. If the British Museum gets an ancient book,
immediately Samantha would fly down there. If the head of the Israel National
Library announces that an antique book has been found, she will be there the
next day. She will never visit Dad or me, who are just two hours away.
Dad and I are the only ones in
the house. Even from a young age, I desired to fill my head with knowledge. It
never worked out. I prepared for the CPA and passed the examination. Clients
came looking for me. Initially, I did their income tax returns for free as a
practice for me. Now, I have made it my profession by converting one of the
rooms into an office.
There was a single large
picture that was hung in the parlour of our home. In that, all four of us are
on display. When Dad took the picture with his camera, I was 14 years old. My
eldest sister was 13. The next one was 12, and the last one was 11. We, the
four sisters, have already come to the decision by then. Even if we have
separate Facebook accounts, this was the profile picture. We cannot remove it
for any reason whatsoever. I would receive questions every day. Who are you?
Are you this one or that one? I will never answer. Most questions would be
about who was the one on the leftmost. It was Rebecca.
She has quite a few friends on
Facebook. They fell in love without meeting her face to face. Maybe she would
have hinted something to them, can’t say. She likes the attention from the men.
She used to say that there are many poets in her admirers. All of them
plagiarised poems. ‘If I exhale my breath, his lungs fill; it seems!’ Another
one will say, ‘Your arrival is as beautiful as 100 cranes landing.’ ‘Like an
army encircling a town, he will enfold and suffocate me. He describes me as a
filled wine glass. But he drinks the wine like a desert camel in a single
gulp’.
Rebecca was not married then.
She brought her latest boyfriend home once. She will keep the cell phone in her
palm and speak, holding it near her nose as if sniffing it. When she winked, I
understood that she was going to do something naughty. I looked at her
boyfriend. Hair grown long and cut sharply. A jacket of soft leather. Shiny
shoes. Charming face. If he scrubbed his face a couple of times, he would
become more handsome. With his mouth like a split oyster shell, he was taking
in Rebecca. When he was about to move the teacup to his lips, she suddenly
lifted one leg and put it over the other. That movement was as if she was
gripping something strongly with her thighs. He shuddered and split the tea on
the floor. For the next half hour, he was on his knees wiping the floor.
When Dad is around, I would be
irritated as to why he still has not gone to work. Once he is gone, my heart
would long for his return. A tension will grip me. That morning, an egg was
spoilt. Dad sank into an inconsolable sadness. I said, ‘It is just an egg.’
‘Just an egg? An egg white. A yolk’. It looked as if he was about to cry. He
used to get angry over even little things. Now, he converts even a simple thing
into a sad event.
Dad, who used to come home
tired in the evening, was visibly excited that day. The ID card of his
erstwhile company was around his neck. The front of his thick gardening clock
will show what soup he had for lunch. ‘I saw a trillium flower today,’ he said.
‘What is that?’ I asked. ‘It is a white flower with three petals. The plant
will die if you pluck the flower. It is illegal to pluck in some countries. The
exception of a flower, but it is beautiful, he explained. Suddenly, he fell
silent as his thoughts went elsewhere and his enthusiasm drained. Without
looking me in the eye, he asked, ‘Am I a good father to you?’ ‘Why do you doubt
that, Dad?’ ‘All your younger sisters are married. Don’t you feel sad about
that?’ ‘What sadness, Dad? The world is full of exceptions is something you
have told us. The planet Venus near the earth rotates in the opposite
direction, unlike other planets’.
In the months when income tax
returns are prepared, I will have a flood of clients reaching out to me. I will
complete their work promptly. They will also pay for the services. A new client
came to visit one day. His lower lip and upper lip were of the same thickness.
It was kind of attractive. His voice was deep as if there were ten persons in
the room. I reconciled his income tax account. I also taught him techniques of
how best to reduce tax in the coming years. When paying me, he gave me an
enchanting look. And smiled kindly. He also promised to call. I waited. He did
not turn up to do the next year’s income tax filing.
It was cash reconciliation
day. Unexpectedly, my second sister Pamela came to see me. She would not come
without a reason. Last time, she came to announce that the finance minister had
invited them for dinner. Dad had taken substantial loans for her education. She
never took her studies seriously. She went around with boys. She will come home
and shout at Dad if he delays sending her money. That day, she came in silently
in a brick red car. Even as she entered, she wrinkled her nose as if there was
a bad smell in the house. She looked around the house she had lived in for 16
years as if it were something new. She was wearing a long, ash-coloured dress
as if she was going for a dinner party, which was continuously slipping from
her shoulder. She is an expert in selecting dresses in colors that highlight her
eyes. A hairdo that would have set back a hairdresser at least two hours. Grey
colored sandals with heels that gripped her feet tightly. She did not sit down.
Like a revolving door, she neither came in nor went out but stood bobbing. Then
she left as abruptly as she came.
Only after she went towards
her car did I have a thought. Why did she come? She is not the kind who would
visit me or Dad because of an outpouring of compassion. While going, she stood
on the driveway and clicked on the cell phone. The car automatically moved and
stopped near her gently. Without turning, she got into the car and drove away.
Only after she had gone did it occur to me that she had come to show off her
new Tesla car. When Dad returned, I did not tell him about Pamela’s visit. I
gave him the cash from my earnings. He counted it quietly and went to the bank
to deposit it.
When there is no gardening
work, Dad will scrutinize the old wedding invitations of all and sundry. He has
a collection of more than a hundred. Because of the hard gardening work he
does, his wrists will always be swollen. He will tie ice bags on both hands and
will play chess with himself. That day, he moved to the black king to B6 and
looked as if looking at his opponent. The hair at the front part of his head
receded, and his wide brow shone. A vision that will invoke pity. How did Mum
elope with someone, leaving behind him and four daughters? How deep should that
love have been? I have seen one day Dad kissing Mum on her nape. ‘Did not mum
love you, dad?’ I asked. ‘Love will come to nothing in the end, like soap that
wears out gradually.’ He turned the board and played for the white king. Once
the game was over, I asked him who won. He replied that he won. I asked who
lost. He replied to that too that it was he who lost. Almost like his life.
I think that was the last game
of chess he played. He was slowly disappearing into his body. Some days, he
forgot to go to work. When asked something, he stared on without answering. His
gaze extended beyond me. One day, I asked him, ‘Dad, what is your name?’ He was
startled and looked as if I asked him to recite the multiplication table of
sevens in the reverse order. Then he lifted up the ID card hanging around his
neck and read out his name to me. I was stunned.
The Facebook friend who had
promised to meet me today was handsome in the picture. I have never given first
priority to beauty. He talked to me over the phone, which was attractive to me.
He begged me many times to tell him where I was in the picture. I did not disclose
the information, but he said he had guessed it. I asked him how. He said it is
the similarity between my voice and the picture. I asked him whether he can
guess how my face will be now based on a picture that was taken ten years ago.
He said yes.
He beseeched me many times
that he would come to meet me. I kept delaying. But he never stopped troubling
me. About a week ago, he left a message on the telephone. The telephone asked
to me to press 11. I pressed. He wants to see me. He asked for a date. He asked
me to imagine that he was an income tax client. The telephone asked to press 8
if I wanted to answer. To save the message, it asked me to press 9. To delete
the message, it asked me to press 7. I pressed 7.
After a couple of days, there
was an SMS from him. ‘The cherry tree in your house has bloomed beautifully.’ I
was astounded. ‘How did you know?’ ‘I checked it on Google.’ Was he a nature
lover? He must be a good person. He has not seen my face. He knows me just as
the one who does income tax assessments. Can I trust him? I gave my consent to
meet on the 27th of March. I do not know whether he realized the importance of
the date.
Today is the day he is
supposed to come.
He said he would come at 10:30
in the morning. I have engineered it such that no other clients were expected
on that day. There were income tax files organized on the table. I straightened
them. I hid the long stockings drying on the chair. I have told him almost all
the details about me. I might have missed one or two details. After all, that
is what makes it interesting. I was ready. Only official dress. No makeup. A
bit of eyeliner and a little extra lipstick. He should never realize that I
have decked myself up for him.
The time was exactly 10:28.
The sound of a car arriving and stopping was heard. I opened the window curtain
slowly and looked out. He closed the car door. The light inside the car lit up.
He waited until it switched off. He looked up. My heart started pumping. The
winter was over, and leaves started coming out on the trees. The cherry tree
alone was full of light blue blossoms. There was not a single leaf. March 27
was the peak day for cherry trees. An abundance of flowers will bloom, hiding
the tree. The leaves would come out only after now. A tree, which is an exception.
He looked up and for a full minute stood there enjoying the flowers.
The sound of climbing stairs.
After a few seconds, the calling bell sounded. I quickly adjusted my dress. I
straightened the breathing tube so as not to stumble. I moved towards the door.
The oxygen cylinder equipped with a chip followed me like a devoted dog. I
collected myself, paused, and thought about what was going to happen in the
next minute. I put my left hand on the door handle and opened the door.
***Ended***
