Flaming lilies.

Standing at the threshold of our house, I trace the old rusted gate that you and I would swing on as children.  The feel of its metal handles seems disturbingly familiar to my touch. The hinges scream, voicing my inner anguish, as I tug it open to our familial home, the place we grew up in; the place where we last existed as a family. A place I haven’t visited; neither in person nor in my mind, in the past thirteen years.  At first, I gave our home a wary glance. I see the nameplate on the wall. It says ‘Zena Hadid’, in bold italics, instead of- ‘The Hadids’, like it once did. That’s fair I guess considering how you are, -you were, the sole occupant of this house for the last nine years. All of a sudden, I feel worn down, unable to grasp the profundity of my emotions. It takes me a moment before I can find my bearings once again. This place though seems to have eluded the wear of time.  Against the late evening sky, it would look like any other in the district, red bricked with a peaked roof of slate, glass windows tinged with hues of tangerine, adorned by creepers. A wooden fence encompassing our property- a palisade built by Mom when she wasn’t in one of her delusional spells.  Even the old swing on the porch is intact. I am certain that if I ran my hand under its seat, I’d find our names carved in the wooden frame- ‘Zena and Nimah forever’, it would say with a deluded certainty that our five-year-old selves possessed. I’m certain that if I went to the back yard, I’d see her garden, and her flaming lilies. Some would call this place beautiful. To me, it stinks of illness and misery. 

  I got the call at 6.36am in the morning. I’d spent the past thirteen years preparing myself for that phone call. So, the news of your death shouldn’t have come as a surprise at all. You’d be pleased to know that it knocked the wind out of my lungs all the same. The manner of your death on the other hand, wrenched my insides till I felt bile at the back of my throat. A million questions flooded my head. We had spent our entire childhood running away from Mom’s illness. Why then, had you chosen to follow in her footsteps, all these years later? You could have tied a noose around your neck, guzzled a bottle of poison, slit open your wrists and bled to death, jumped in front of the train tracks for heaven’s sake! But no. You chose the ocean instead. Was it to get back at me? Or was it something more insidious? 

The police handed me your belongings yesterday, the things found on you, when they discovered your body on the shore. You were wearing your silver pendant, the alphabet Z glistening on it. I had gifted it to you on our thirteenth birthday, emptying all of my pocket money on one gift. It now lay wrapped up in a sealed plastic bag, a tiny spec of our childhood. 

Not surprisingly, I wasn’t the first person to be contacted when they found you. Anna, your house maid was. She’d alerted the cops when you went missing for over a day. She said she knew of your unquenchable affinity towards the ocean, so that’s where the search began first. She was the one who notified the authorities of your ‘estranged’ twin sister. I met her at the morgue, a brutish looking, short woman in her mid-fifties with hollowed, empty eyes. She did a double take when she saw me, as if she’d seen a ghost. At one time, I was so used to people mistaking me for you, that I’d have gone along with it. Played a prank, even. In the current circumstance, however, that seemed abhorrent. I was warm, and healthy, while you lay on a cold slab of metal; spine dislocated; your face grotesquely swollen- disfigured and blue. I started laughing a mirthless, feverish laughter. That seemed to jolt the poor thing even more. I apologised quickly, using fatigue from my long journey, as an excuse for my brief bout of insanity. When I told her, I was Nimah, your twin sister, she recovered immediately, embracing me with a ferocity, just like you once did. She spoke to me for a while, filling me in on your life in the most animated way possible. She told me of your flourishing art gallery and how much this town revered your talent. She spoke of your bouts of depression. She said you were lonely. She said you missed me and spoke of me often. She said thirty-one was no age to die. I wanted to scream. I wanted to tell her that you didn’t die. You walked into the ocean in the middle of the night, like a silhouette of our mother, and killed yourself. “Take care of the flaming lilies. They’re the only things she truly cared about in that house.”, she murmured before leaving. 

 Standing on the balcony, I let out a shudder. The air has turned icy, and thunderous clouds have darkened the horizon. My skin is salty, and hair matted with the humidity. I see the shoreline from up here. I’ve left my scantily packed luggage in the guest room downstairs. I plan on sleeping there tonight. I couldn’t bear to go through our room, though I’m sure you would have cleared out any vestige of me from there long ago.  As kids we would fight tooth and nail for dominance over that room. I’d blatantly declare my right over the top bunk, as I was the older one. “By only seven minutes!”, you’d retort smartly, your brown eyes twinkling as I chased you down the stairs. As teenagers, we argued over everything from the colour of the curtains, to the paint on the walls. You wanted everything in a shade of pink, while I had developed an ardour for black.  You were always the first one to cave in, slinking under my sheets in the middle of the night after every fight, however petty. We would sit for hours under my blanket; concealed from the world, and the turmoil downstairs-the cacophony of voices and the rage unleashed by Dad- masking the deafening cry of Mom’s silent screams. We’d tell each other our deepest secrets and most vivid dreams. You wanted to be an artist, and I would be a writer. We’d take on the world together.  

But that room is yours now. Even though you’ve gone, I’m still an intruder.

I look down from the balcony towards the back yard, and notice for the first time since I arrived, Mom’s flower garden. She’d work hours on end on that little patch of dirt. Her bustling, gloved hands nurturing her prized chrysanthemums and roses. Towards the end however, her flowers had begun to insidiously wilt; as if her sickness had infiltrated their roots as well. Only the Gloriosa Lilies survived. Flame lilies they are called, owing to their magnificent colour-sometimes orange, and sometimes red, reminding you of a sun wavering into the horizon. Mom had gotten them from one of her expeditions in Zimbabwe. Her botanist friends warned her that this variety wouldn’t grow in the tropics. Mom as always thought otherwise. “They survive the harshest conditions. They aren’t just pretty, but also resilient. Like fire.”, she’d say unblinkingly. She was meticulous in her ways, whether it was in her garden, or in life. There isn’t much left of the garden now except the flame lilies, which like Anna said, you clearly cared about since they seem to be as ferociously blazing and flourishing as they once did. No doubt, everything that Mom knew, she passed on to you. 

As I breathe in the cold night air from the balcony, I’m distinctly aware of my surroundings-I taste the salt on my tongue; I feel the cold of the bannister below my fingers; the wind whips through my hair; and your ghost stares up at me from behind the flaming lilies. 

I am awakened by another nightmare. I check the clock. It says 1.05am. Every time I close my eyes, I hear wailing and the rattling of chains.  Anna had suggested that I find alternate accommodation while I cleared out your stuff and put the house on sale. I refused. “I’m here Zena. I’m finally back. So, if there’s anything you want to tell me, you can.” In response, an owl hoots outside the window. I feel stupid. What am I even trying to do?  You refused to speak to me all these years, why would your spirit be any less forgiving?

Sunlight streams through the windows in the morning. Dad always emphasized on the importance of sunlight. He believed that a lighted room would keep away sadness. I always wondered if that was the reason he drank after sunset. Maybe the darkness swallowed him, just like he swallowed his poison when he poured it into his glass day after day.

 The house looks different in the daytime. Several of your paintings adorn the wall, and the subtle interiors are no doubt your doing. There are no photographs though. Just paintings, with your signature at the bottom. One painting in particular catches my attention. It’s the one we’d hung in the dining room. The canvas is old and the primer is wearing off.  I run my hand on your name, imagining you in your overalls, the red on your cheeks and paint on your hands, making swift, yet skilled strokes; creating a permanent mark out of a transient memory. I stare at that painting for hours, until my vision of the two sets of footprints walking into the ocean goes bleary. You’d painted it in winter, a month after Mom died. We were only eighteen. Denial had paid us a visit that year. We’d try searching for her in all of her favourite places. We’d see her face in the morning coffee’s steam, see her shadow on dimly lit streets, and every now and then, we’d see her standing near her lilies; silently gazing up at the balcony where we stood. Most of all, we felt her presence in the sunlight that streamed through the windows. So, Dad began to bolt all the windows shut, even in the day. You were too scared to lock horns with him. I wasn’t. I tried reasoning with him, even though I was aware of the spanking I’d receive. Dad wouldn’t budge. Any argument would lead to threats of us being chained too, just like Mom was. So, I yielded. You resorted to painting, while I spilled words onto pages. The windows remained shut, and darkness became a constant. Dad began drinking in the day as well.

My rummaging through the house has finally led me to the attic. My earliest memory of you, is of us cooped up here. Our four-year-old hands delved into Mom’s ancient boxes of old antiques; vases, glass teacups and gold rimmed pots, all of which had perhaps seen better places than this grubby room. I’d tell you made up stories of pirates of a distant land, hiding their treasures here. You would drink in every word thirstily, leaving trails of dusty footprints behind me. Mom would warn us of the perils of breaking even a single of her artefacts. In reply, I would entice her with the money we’d earn on selling the pirate’s treasures.

None of the ‘treasure’ is left in here. I remember the day Dad sold it all, to an art collector from Spain, who’d been visiting our little town. He had to find a way to deal with our financial impediment, especially if he were to sustain his drinking. It was probably the only time I was glad that Mom was dead.     

I’m amazed at how much of our childhood you’ve still preserved here. There are boxes over boxes with different labelling. My writings, diaries, our polaroids, Mom’s trinkets, Dad’s ukulele. I’d have almost missed the box labelled ‘Mom’ if I hadn’t stumbled onto the broken floor board and landed head first, on the floor. From under the cupboard, I heave the box out. My hands are trembling even though I already know what this box contains. I rip open the tape and peer inside. Staring back at me, are rusted, ugly silver chains with handcuffs on either end. The kind one would tie an animal with. Only these chains never touched an animal. They only contained our Mom. 

It was fall, when Mom was diagnosed with Schizophrenia. The doctors only confirmed what we already knew. Mom had lived in an abusive relationship for twenty-five years. We often wondered why a woman as strong and determined as her put up with our father. Was it because she still believed in the man she met as a young girl, or was believing in delusive realities always her trait?  As the seasons changed, her delusions started increasing. She’d call us nasty names, sure that we were plotting on killing her. On some days, she’d imagine the house caught fire, and on others, she’d hear the ocean call out to her.     Dad refused to let her out of the house. He was too scared of what the town might think. No matter how much we pleaded, he wouldn’t get her the help she deserved. No visitors ever came, and we kept to ourselves.  Over the years, when Mom’s hallucinations grew even worse, he’d begun chaining her. Sometimes, she’d scream all night long, but Dad never relented. The night she died, her chains had been opened, and the front door was left unbolted. 

  It has been six days since you died. The townsfolk have become accustomed to seeing me hang around the beach. I’ve begun bargaining with the ocean, like I did all those years back for Mom. One Hadid for another. I hear them whispering; wondering if I’m planning on meeting a similar fate as you did. Some look at me with sympathy. Most just keep safe distance, as if my shadow would bring ill luck on their happy façade. Anna visits once in a while on the pretext of bringing me food or to check up on me. The house isn’t getting a buyer. That’s fine by me. I don’t plan on selling it anymore anyway. Every day that I spend here is a new discovery for me. I still see glimpses of you near the flaming lilies, but at least the nightmares have stopped. 

Tonight, I finally muster the courage to let myself into your room.  The walls are painted white. Everything else, from the cupboards, shelves, to the curtains is painted in black. Just the way I’d like it. For the first time since I’ve arrived, I let myself cry. I cry till I can’t breathe, till my voice is hoarse, till I’m transported back in time to when we sat in this very room, painted in hues of pink, for the last time. You’re crying, pleading with me to stay. I’m packing my bags in a fury. In that moment I’m determined to do anything it takes. I’ll work two jobs, work night shifts, anything. But I wouldn’t live under the same roof as him. “Enough is enough!”, I yell. The storm outside drowns my voice. “He’s a murderer. He killed Mom and he’ll kill us too. Don’t you see Zena? You need to make a choice, either come with me to Sydney, or forget I exist. Because once I leave, I’m not looking behind. Ever.” You made your choice that day, you wouldn’t leave this house. So, I escaped. You didn’t. 

I’m awakened at 1.05am, yet again. This time, to a deafening silence. I had a dream again today. You were standing near the lilies; looking up at the balcony. You were smiling, and your brown eyes were twinkling in childlike innocence. I run outside to the backyard, all the way to the flower garden. I’m barefooted, and the cold air bites into my skin. But it doesn’t matter. I know what I must do. I take a shovel and dig under the lily shrubs. I keep digging with an uninterrupted fervour, my body shaking; hands trembling. I don’t stop till I hear a metallic clink. I uncover a small metal box, wiping dirt off it. When I open it, I see a neatly folded letter inside. As I read your familiar handwriting, tears sting my eyes. You wrote this when we were eighteen. You weren’t hiding this letter. You had written it to Mom, so you placed it in the only place you knew her to exist.

I’ve read your letter a thousand times. Each time, wondering what you must have gone through for all those years. I wish I could tell you how sorry I am. I wish I could tell you that I’ve found acceptance. I know now, that it was you who opened her chains that night, not Dad.

I know that you blame yourself for everything that followed. I know you stayed back for him, and after he died, you stayed back for her. It’s ironic really, the way you unchained her, but took her place instead. In the end, I’ll never know what led you to the ocean. Was it guilt? Was it too much to handle after all? Or was following her easier than living with her ghost?

I open all the windows in the morning, till the entire house is bathed in the warm morning light. After thirteen long years, I finally let my eyes get accustomed to this new brightness. I am distinctly aware of my surroundings. I still taste the salt on my tongue. I feel your warmth stream through the windows. The wind rustles through the leaves. The flames dance in the breeze.