‘They lie when they say that it becomes easier’, I heard my father say to an older man. The other man kept nodding with what I assumed to be phoney empathy, then made a low hmm sound. How strange, the ‘hmm’. A consolation for a wound probably unknown to him. Hope it was, touch wood, bless his heart. Maya would say I am too quick to judge, quicker to curse. Think, she would implore with her furrowed eyebrows and taut face. Always so unimpressed with me. We had come to a mutual understanding a long time ago that we disliked each other - although, wait, that’s not right. One of us had decided this first and the other had obeyed for the sake of conformity. What am I even doing here, Jesus Christ. The performance of mourning a sister, what should I look like? Wear? Think? Maya, maya, mah-yah– always stressing her syllables weirdly. I look across the room and spot Lehr and reluctantly walk up to him.
‘Renee’, he says and stretches his arm to hug me. Hi. I hold my breath as he pulls me into his tall frame and pats my back two, three, four- Stop now that’s enough, I say, untangling his hands from my body. How have you been? ‘Stop fidgeting,’ he grasps my wrists, ‘I have been okay. Classes and back. The teenagers keep me busy.’ Can imagine. They taught in the same school, Lehr and Maya. Did you teach the same class too? ‘Huh?’ –The same set of teenagers– ‘Oh yes, yeah, sometimes, not always. Not the one’s now, no I don’t think she got to teach them.’ I nod. I regret coming over. The momentary affection I felt towards him– the fleeting belief that we lost something shared– drifts away the longer I watch him.‘I did not expect to see you here, didn’t know you were back,’ he says. I nod again. I did not expect it either. Kind of happened that way. Had work… ‘Oh right, yes. How is work?’ Good, really good. The new manager seems to like me, I get good performance reviews. ‘Is it so, that is great. Maya would be proud.’ Yeah, right. Yeah, haha. I am not sure about that. ‘No, no,’ he insists. His hand squeezes mine again and I realise he hasn’t let them go since, ‘she would. She really loved you, very much so. Worried sometimes, but c’mon she practically raised you. After your parents… Renee?’ Listen, I need to go right now. I will see you later. ‘Oh. Okay. Did you meet your dad?’
Father looks up from his food only after I let him know I am leaving, his fingers reaching to smoothen the back of his neck like he was caught in a wrongful act. ‘It has been a tiring day. Have dinner with me tomorrow,’ he says. I’ll see if I can fit it in. My schedule is kind of hectic. ‘Renee, for god’s sake, it's an oil company you work for. You’d do good to the world by being crappy at your job.’ I will see. I just said that I will. ‘Do you have plans today?’ Yes. ‘With that Bengali man?’ I stay quiet. ‘He is a good man, but you know it isn’t right.’ Uh. ‘He isn’t even divorced yet.’ Not today. Don’t start today. ‘You don’t seem to be particularly mourning anyway, might as well.’ Silence. ‘Don’t complicate things for yourself. Think of your future if not mine.’ You should stop now. ‘Hmm.’ Hm.
I walk out of the building and look up at the sky, devoid of life. Motionless and blue, not a single cloud in its stretch. I think of one of Keats’ poems and how he had described the colour– “in an Eye thou alive with fate”– then bend over on the side of the street and throw up. Drink water. Throw up again. Take out my phone and type ‘hey, feeling unwell, let’s meet tomorrow.’ Press send, stare at it for two seconds, long press- unsend message. He replies immediately, ‘Take care, we can meet tomorrow.’ I do not reply. Book an Uber. Look at the cab driver in the mirror and ask, Sir, do you happen to know of nice cafes around the area? ‘There are a few!’ So cheerful, I fall in love. Take me to the nearest one, please. Take out my phone again, camera this time. Flip the lens- my face floats in front of me. I fix my lipstick, make it a darker shade of red. Then press record. Hello, I say to the camera, Today feels like a solo date-kinda day! I smile. I look happy, genuinely. Thought I should record this. I narrate my day in excruciating detail, I am afraid of Lehr, I whisper after a while and look out of the window. We are near our primary school. His eagerness makes me anxious. His niceties are oppressive. I feel the cab driver’s eyes on me then and look at him. ‘We’re here,’ he says. I put my phone down without turning it off, Oh, then take out my purse. He hesitates before asking, ‘Are you okay, child?’ My hands stop. I am fine, just miss my sister, haha. ‘Oh dear,’ he sighs in a manner that feels so maternal that it fills me up with tears, ‘You children grow up and forget that you must speak to your siblings to keep them in your life. When was the last time you called her?’ I think.
Hey.
Hi.
What’s going on?
Oh nothing,
I need to talk to you, are you free?
Not really, correcting exams. Have a migraine.
Lehr isn’t at home?
—- incoherent
I can’t hear you.
Nevermind. What did you want to talk about?
I don’t remember anymore, anyway take care.
You too, yeah. Text me if it's urgent.
I enter the cafe and find a seat next to the window. The city municipality’s office is right outside, and the wall facing me is painted over with the colours of the ruling party– an ugly shade of blue and white. I take out my phone camera and point it at the wall. Click. Upload it on my instagram story for “close friends” and start typing a caption- ‘How does one romanticise a solo date if this is the view?’
Someone sits across from me and laughs.
‘What even is the point of this post? LOL.’ they say, pronouncing the last acronym as if it were its own word.
Why do you even care? Just mind your own busine–. I look up. Oh, you.
‘Oh me! Hurray!’ Maya scoffs, and my stomach turns in on itself.
‘What even is a solo date? Why can’t you just call this having food in a cafe?’
After your sister’s death anniversary.
‘Needed a pick-me-up, so what? We did it all the time.’ Did what? ‘Go eat at cafes after being apart for too long. A perfectly acceptable thing to do.’ What are you even talking about? ‘Don’t you remember? During university– when I would be back home in the summers– we would go to marches together and eat food.’
We did that once.
‘No, I am sure more than that.’ Maya, once. And you called me what, a fad. A liberal masquerading as the oppressed class. ‘I did not call you that, when did I-’ I do not want to fight.
‘How is father?’
Go visit him supernaturally if you care so much.
‘He isn’t deluded enough to believe this is real.’
I laugh at that.
She laughs too.
‘Choosing a cafe this posh to mourn your sister–’ Solo date — ‘do you work now or what?’ The pay is brilliant. ‘I can imagine.’ My heart beats faster. Maya, I whisper, Am I dead? She rolls her eyes, ‘No you aren’t. Morally maybe, physically no.’ I flinch. I didn’t choose this because I enjoy environmental degradation and ruining people’s marriages. ‘Choose what?’
Oh, you do not know?
‘Not the things you haven’t told me, no.’
Let’s get some coffee.
I notice she is wearing the same clothes I last saw her in. Warm cardigan over a crochet dress patterned like a sunflower. ‘I realise it is not the most season appropriate clothes,’ she says with an air of self aware awkwardness when she catches me staring, ‘But you must admit, it is incredibly hot for September.’ Probably my fault, with the work I do. ‘You exploit coal miners for a living?’ Similar, oil company. ‘Do they follow ESG protocols?’ Does it even matter? ‘Might.’ Were you not in a hospital gown when you died? ‘Uh huh. Thanks for the reminder.’ Where did you get this outfit from then? She looks down at her clothes again and mutters something. What? ‘Why would I wear a hospital gown to a cafe, Renee?’ This is not real. I am imagining this- you- am I not? I have officially gone mad. I am hallucinating my dead sister I did not even like.
‘Did you not like me? Not at all?’ Don’t overreact now. ‘Renee.’ Not like you didn’t know. ‘I liked you.’ No, you told yourself that to feel better.
We sit together in silence. People and things blur into each other in the background and I am not sure anymore if I am hallucinating her or myself, or if this is one of those dreams I used to have as a child, one where my father was always a loch ness monster, and poisonous mushrooms were my best friends, and my mother and I, fluttering leaves plucked by different hands. I never dreamt of you, I tell her, and she looks at me tenderly, like she knew that already.
‘I did not want to replace Mother in your life,’ she says, ‘I wanted you to be independent. Not be reliant on things and people and… and not lock away all the potential you could have realised. I wanted you to be unlike me.’ Maya. My voice comes out higher than I expected it to. I cannot keep living like this, thinking of ways to outrun a prophecy you have imagined for me. You accuse me of disliking you, but how can I not, when all you have taught me is ways to outgrow you? When I try to think of the time we spent together, all I can think of is your sweat and your frown. Your repressed giggles from the veranda when you used to be on call with Lehr. You know, I used to be so jealous of him. Making you laugh so naturally, like it is easy. You never laughed with me like that, at least not until you got sick. Lehr wants me to mourn you, make peace with Father as a way of mourning you. Do I tell him of all the wounds Father would inflict on you, and you inflicting those same wounds on me? Do I let him know that you called that love?
‘I wanted to raise you to be strong enough to leave him.’
But why could we not leave together?
‘Don’t be ridiculous. You know why.’
I think of the night Mother left. Shards of broken glass. Bloody feet. My father howling. Later, quick images of purple bruises scattered on soft, young skin. Maya’s stone face.
I remember feeling very sleepy that night. ‘I remember putting you to bed.’ I do not hate you for our lives, Maya. It is what it is, I know. I know. But your death… I do not know how to cope. Teach me. Free me from grieving you. You cannot expect me to love you when you have conditioned me to outgrow love. I reject companionship as a principle now, treating it as an essential burden to the human spirit. And some nights, I blame you for this, I think I have earned the right to. But to hate you– my sister, how could I ever hate you? I cannot, so I grieve my loss. I grieve the independence you have left me to inherit, so here I am, hallucinating the creases in your forehead, the texture of your hair, the pleats of your dress, the youth in your laughter.
I realise there are tears streaming down my face.
‘I had forgotten about this dress, you know? Thank you for remembering me so radiantly.’ She smiles, and I realise that this is a goodbye.
Will you visit me again? I ask. She shakes her head, ‘Only if you want to,’ and for a moment, I see fear in her eyes. It unnerves me. If I want to? ‘I did not come of my own volition, Renee. You called me today. You were crying for me.’
I do not ask any further questions, I feel sleepy again. I take out my phone and let him know that I have changed my mind, that I will come over tonight. Ask if he can pick me up? He replies, ‘otw.’ Get up and walk to the door. Face the ugly coloured walls of the municipality office, the barren tree next to it. It is dark now. Breathe in the cold autumn air. It stabs at my chest. A voice calls my name. I do not turn back. Despite, despite.
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