The other side

The exact date or time when she moved next door I do not know. I never heard any of the noises that accompany the transportation of huge boxes and furniture. I did not hear the voices of excited neighbors welcoming a new tenant. I should have heard, the walls do not block out sound, especially human. She suddenly appeared one morning, by the door while I was spraying the garbage bags with a disinfectant and startled me. The door had been locked for over a year. I lowered my mask and smiled, said hello in a slightly surprised tone.

“I am in here”, I pointed to my door.

She nodded. She also had a garbage bag.

“Do we just leave this here? In front of the door?”, she asked. She did not lower her mask.

“Yes, the garbage chute is closed for now. Someone was throwing syringes, needles, IV lines, etc. It caused some problems. The housekeeping staff will pick it before nine, just leave it here.”

“Ok, Thanks”, and she went back in and shut the door.

I was disappointed by her lack of interest in me. She seemed to be arrogant. She can shove it up somewhere else, I muttered. I went back in, shaking my head to throw away the slight of being ignored.

Immediately house chores engulfed me. But a slow burn was taking over. In the evening when I met the others for our regular walk, I could not resist talking about the morning’s encounter. I had already vented on chats but voicing my irritation made me find some peace. She was dressed very well and I was in my worst. Since my old neighbors moved away, I was not much into appearances. What was the fun when there is no reference point or comparison? No one in my home ever saw me, anyway. Did she have to go out to work, I wondered out loud. Together we concluded that she was either a nurse or a doctor since they were the only ones who were permitted to go out for work. Then a dreadful thought cut through me, images of undercover police flitted about. She did not look tough, though. Mercifully, I also recalled that bank employees could also venture out.

From that day I kept my ears glued to the common wall, separating us. Not many noises were heard but I got clues that she had a small child. She was not going out anywhere for work every day either. I had kept my door open for one whole day trying to catch her stepping out. Her house-help was bringing out the garbage these days. All my morning circus aimed at enhancing my first impression on her was losing momentum. But the girls had some juicy information. She was single. She worked in someone’s friend’s office. She had just been transferred from another city. But I was sure there was a child on the other side of the wall. That was the only sound I could clearly decipher, filtered through the bricks and mortar. My own three distinct experiences had made me confident in this matter.

Few of the girls spotted her occasionally in the nearby shops and vegetable markets. They all univocally endorsed her taste in clothes and footwear and shopping bags. But she hardly threw a second glance at anyone. We pieced together that her name was Hima. We agreed that it suited her cold personality. Hima did mean snow in Hindi. We even considered raiding the apartment manager’s office to get a copy of the lease agreement. But what if he couldn’t be bribed? We hadn’t exactly bribed anyone in these premises so far. The traffic cops and other red tapes were a no-brainer but we hesitated a bit since we were all apartment owners and had long-term plans of living here.

We needed the circle of acceptance. The comfort of having someone to rant with. Husbands were there, of course, but it was a given. You had promised to love and cherish each other and even if you found each other gross, you just had to take it with a pinch of salt and ensure the flow of inheritance was well established. Girls made life exhilarating. Shopping and eating like there were no tomorrow, without the slightest fear. Yes, there was judgement, but you got to be a judge too. Everything under the sun went through your trial, sentenced to junkyard or esteem.

Hima was definitely a loner, and not much into smiling or chit-chat. Why did she need no tribe to belong to? Was the child kidnapped? Was I obsessed with her or did I fear her? It was most beneath me to ring her doorbell and invite myself in and engage in a neighborly house visit. And yet I found my finger doing the exact action, breaking my girl code, disobeying my proud heart.

It was another morning and I had stepped out as usual for the main event of these days, the garbage disposal. The others in my home were cycling before it got too warm. It was particularly windy and while I gently placed my carefully sealed garbage bags sorted in the different assigned colors, my door felt the push of the bullying breeze and gave way to shut with the loudest bang. I froze. I did not have the key or the phone. All I had was impeccable hair and clothes. So, I extended my finger to her doorbell.

Her house-help answered the door. She was not too sure about inviting me in but after a quick consultation with the boss, she admitted me inside. It was a barely furnished interior. Just the minimum required to function. I was seated on one of the three chairs on the dining table. The living room floor had just a few floor cushions and a television set with the accompanying paraphernalia.

I was given some water to drink and presently Hima appeared, full of grace even though tired and weary. She tried hard to smile but her face resisted, a thousand times harder. I sheepishly explained I was locked out and needed to call a friend who had the extra key, the failover. I needed to use the intercom for that, just to check if she was at home. She had texted me just ten minutes back and I was absolutely sure that in all our live commentary, she never mentioned any such plans of venturing out even to buy groceries. Nevertheless, I had to know if she was indeed home and whether she remembered where she had safely kept the extra key to my home.

Hima guided me to the intercom, it was in the kitchen. My eyes swept through the counter, closed cabinets looking for clues, signs. It wasn’t very different from mine in the general structure but it seemed organized and neat. The house-help, obviously, she lived-in with her! While my friend went over the possible safe locations of my key, in her care, I craned my neck towards the corridor next to the kitchen, leading to the other rooms. There on the dark walls, I caught a glimpse of frames but the picture was unclear. Finally, my friend decided to leave the phone and go hunt and I stood there wondering if I needed to join her, in the next building. I had to open the door before the husband found out, it would be an embarrassing ammunition in his storage.

Hima offered me tea, which I gratefully declined. I was about to announce my impending departure when a small figure stumbled out into the corridor. A cute little toddler curled himself on Hima’s legs. She promptly lifted him up and kissed him Good Morning.

“My son”, Hima told me, a smile overtaking her face.

“You don’t look old enough to be a mother”, I said in my mind but decided against giving it voice.

I didn’t want to be intrusive but crucial questions regarding her marital status were at the tip of my tongue. Hima excused herself and went in with her child. The house-help walked up to me quickly and said in the lowest voice, “Please do not ask her anything Ma’am, she has gone through so much. Let her be, give her peace”. In her earnest eyes I could see the concern she had for Hima. I found myself aligning with these two women and nodding my head. There was plain sorrow in her eyes that was admirable and yet alien. The women who worked in our homes as cooks or who did general cleaning were made of a different fabric. They held absolute power over us. We dared not upset them. We ensured the house was suitable to their workplace demands. This woman had travelled along with Hima to a new place, proving it was not just the wages alone that kept her by Hima’s side.

But my curiosity would not be suppressed by the fine example of human bonding.

“Divorce?”, I whispered.

She shook her head and said soundlessly,” Widow”. She went on in an agonized tone, “She has suffered much. She is not like you women, laughing and walking so freely. Don’t trouble her.”

I quietly walked out the door, drifting towards my key, sitting in a safe place, probably hidden in plain sight at my friend’s place.

That day we put an end to conspiracy theories and researches on Hima. None of us wanted to talk about it. She was too young to be a widow, too beautiful to have closed doors to life’s many possibilities. She had fenced herself behind thorns. She was avoiding uncomfortable questions by not acknowledging the presence of the people who could ask them.

 A few weeks later, one evening, Hima’s house-help rang my doorbell. She was quite frightened and unable to speak clearly but I understood that someone was in the flat and threatening them. My primary basic instinct at any conflict is flight. I bailout. But seeing this woman almost in tears, I ventured out and walked into Hima’s living room where a longish man was sitting and Hima was standing, clutching some papers. The help went right inside, to the little boy. Hima looked at me, wordlessly appealing for help. The man had an aggressive aura and he seemed taken aback at my sudden manifestation.

Hima introduced me as her neighbour and him as her dead husband’s brother. She also went on to tell him that I was a lawyer and she would sit with me and read the documents before signing. I quickly tried to recall the lawyer lines from all the movies I ever saw.

He seemed irritated but did not question the action plan and left soon after telling her some putrid stuff about how she should never set foot in their house or land and all she ever wanted was heaps of money which she would never get from them.

Hima fell on the cushions after closing the door behind him.

I was still standing, unsure of what was expected of me next, when she started talking.

“He jumped from the terrace, twelve floors down. After a fight.”, her words cut through me with an icy chill. “That’s his brother. They all blame me. Even my own parents.”, she added.

She flipped the pages in her hands and caressed them gently. Was she remembering something or someone? She looked towards me but her eyes were on an image from another time, another life.

“These are the papers of an ancestral property belonging to him. It’s a beautiful place. We were going to spend retirement there. Should I sign it over to his brother? Shouldn’t his son be the rightful heir? I have nothing. I have not been able to track anything. Maybe one or two life insurances. That is also stuck.”

I sat beside her. “I am sure you will earn enough for your son. “

I am not very wise or a deep thinker. But at that time, I wanted to call the brother back and throw those papers at him.  

Hima looked at me, a hint of a smile appearing for a second.

“You are going to do so well. When he comes again, we will be prepared. “, I tried to sound positive.

“Doing well with such a wound inside? It never goes away.”

Her eyes welled up and her voice trailed off. I did not know what the circumstances were when he jumped off from their life together but I could see her quiet, delicate resilience. I wanted her to live, live well.

“If he wants that so bad, why don’t you sell it to him? Why should you just sign it off?”, I thought my idea was good. “You are already so bad in their eyes, just play the part. “

She looked at me with probably what is disbelief. “I can be a lawyer. Anytime. You have come to the right place. We never give up.”, I added. She shook her head and asked, “Are you an actress or something?”  

“I can act.”, I reassured her.

“I am acting. Every single day. When I want to scream, I am standing still. When I want to just weep, I am explaining the sales figures. It will never stop, will it? My life is a gossip, to be analyzed, condemned. I moved cities to avoid those accusing eyes. But here I am, all exposed again. The woman whose husband jumped.”, she paused, choking on her tears.

“No, I am not going to tell anyone.”, I didn’t know what else to say.

“Just a matter of time. Someone will hear of it from somewhere else.”, she continued. “I only want the pain to stop. Their eyes make it more unforgettable.”

“We will figure something out. I am good at planning.”, I really wanted to help.

“You are not as bad as I thought.”, her statement irked me a bit.

“You thought I was bad? I thought you were a kidnapper!!”, I almost shouted.

“Why would I be a kidnapper?”, she asked, bewildered.

“I don’t know, why else would someone so pretty have a kid in the house?”, I answered.

“Are you flirting with me now?”, she teased.

“In your dreams!”