Benyamin - Yellow Lights of Death

‘ Ennada , kanna, why are you in such a hurry? Anpu, go and get him coffee.’ Senthil’s father did not want me to leave. I sat again, humbled by the affection.

Anpu went inside.

We returned to silence.

‘Can someone have a cardiac arrest at his age?’ he asked me suddenly.

I was shocked. ‘Any age. ’ My hands were shaking as I said that.

‘When a cardiac arrest happens, won’t the person feel something, anything, before that? No pain, nothing?’ he asked.

‘Yes, there will be pain.’

‘When?’ He would not let go.

‘Don’t know for sure. But I’ve heard that for some the pain could start a few hours before the actual event.’ I was squirming in my chair by then.

‘He must have kept quiet, right? Stupid guy.’

I almost got up to rush to him and scream, ‘No, no! He did not die of a cardiac arrest!’ But Anpu was already at the door with coffee. I reached out and drank it greedily.

Later, I realized it must have been weird. What would Anpu have thought of me? The first time I had come, I snatched the glass of water. The second time, the coffee. Would she think of me as a glutton? By the time I finished the coffee, it was pouring cats and dogs. I stepped out to the verandah. I couldn’t have run to the jetty without an umbrella. I just needed to get to the boat, where there was a raincoat.

‘Anpu, please do me a favour. Give me an umbrella. I need it to get to the jetty.’

‘Let the rain stop, kanna. You wait,’ said Senthil’s father.

‘No, Appa, I’m in a hurry.’

‘Okay, Anpu, drop him at the jetty.’

Anpu came with two umbrellas. We walked into the rain. She repeated what her father had said. ‘Anna had lots of friends, but none of them comes here now. Only you two come.’ It seemed as though she was crying.

‘Appa said the same. Who’s the other visitor?’ I asked.

‘Akka. Jesintha.’

‘Who?’

‘Don’t you know Jesintha? She was in your class. Earlier, we lived on the same street. Now Akka’s family stays at Cornish.’

‘You mean Jesintha came here to see you?’ I found it hard to believe.

‘Yes, she was here even a few days ago. After Anna’s death, she’s been coming quite often. When she sees me, she starts crying. The two of them were friends since childhood.’

‘Yeah, yeah. ’ I began to shiver in the rain. ‘You have her number?’

‘Yes.’ She knew it by heart. ‘9876543210.’

I saved it on my phone and told her, ‘I need to meet you alone someday. When you come to Seleucia, call me for sure. Wherever I am, I’ll come and meet you. This is my phone number.’ I gave back the umbrella after stepping into the boat.

‘Sure, I’ll call. Please come this way again. Appa likes you a lot.’

‘I’ll come.’

She waved at me.

After the boat was on its way, I took out my phone and called Jesintha’s number. Instead of a normal ringtone, I heard a new Tamil song.

Deceit

JESINTHA TALKED AS if we had met just the previous day. I thought she might panic on getting a call from me, and that she’d disconnect it. But she made small talk, told me some of the gossip going around the port, and asked about my writing.

‘I need to meet you urgently,’ I said in a heavy tone.

‘Why not? Tomorrow morning, if it’s not raining, shall we meet at the same place? Or any other coffee shop of your preference. Or do you want to meet today?

‘No, tomorrow is fine.’ I hung up. I had been hoping that she would try to evade me and I could trap her, but she disappointed me. Where is the thrill for an investigating officer if the suspect comes to his office and surrenders! Still, I dreamt all night about grilling Jesintha.

It didn’t rain the next day. I went early to Port Louis and sat at my favourite table.

For a moment, I got it wrong, with the thought that it was my first visit since the shooting, till I remembered that I’d come again the next day. On seeing me, the coffee shop owner came to chat. ‘It’s been a long time. You’ve not been around?’

‘I’d gone to the mainland.’

‘Oh, did you?’ He was curious. ‘You go there often?’

‘Yeah, I went to college on the mainland.’

‘What’s this mainland like? Is it bigger than our Diego? How’s the weather? Does it have more water than Diego? Is it true that there are lots of trees there?’ A barrage of questions.

‘One has to experience the mainland, one can’t describe it.’

‘Oh, is that so? I’ve never been anywhere other than this island,’ he said a little sadly. ‘My fate is to see nothing, know nothing, and die in this coffee shop.’

Jesintha arrived.

‘Hello, why did you want to meet me all of a sudden?’ She pulled up a chair and sat facing me.

‘That’s easy to figure out.’

‘When I got some free time yesterday, I guessed a lot of possibilities — from a crush you suddenly felt on me to a financial emergency. Now tell me which one it is.’

The shop owner served us the coffee. ‘The next time you go to the mainland, please let me know. I’ll also come. I want to see the world,’ he said to me.

‘Did you go to Senthil’s house a few days ago?’ I asked Jesintha.

‘So, that’s the matter. I was wondering where you got my number from. Anpu gave it to you, didn’t she?’

‘Why? Shouldn’t she have given it to me?’

‘Why are you like this? All your negative questions! It’s boring, okay. You are like a girl sulking!’

I sat quietly for a while.

‘How can you fool those nice people?’ I asked.

‘Fool them? I don’t understand.’ Her face had turned dark.

‘How can you pretend in front of them when you know what had actually happened?’

‘Oh, I see. Let me ask the same question to you. You’ve also been to that house a couple of times. Why didn’t you tell them everything?’

I was silent.

‘They’re yet to come to terms with the shock of the death. They console themselves, calling it fate. In the midst of all that, should I go and tell them that their son was murdered?’ Her voice got louder.

‘Shh. Shh. Softly. Keep it between us.’

‘Why softly? Everyone in this area knows that someone was shot dead here. But the Public Security has another story. What can we do?’

‘Don’t you know how it happened?’ I asked in a sceptical tone.

‘I know as much as you know. Probably less. That day, you were in a better position to see it happening. I was facing the opposite side.’

‘I can’t believe it! You just stood there watching a classmate and a neighbour dying in front of you. When the Public Security came to question us, you stopped me from giving an account of what had happened. You’re lying to me. You know everything.’

‘Who am I to know everything? God? Yes, it’s true, Senthil was my classmate and my neighbour. But when he got shot that day, do you know how many years it had been since I’d seen him last? After seventh standard at St. Joseph’s, I left for Sri Lanka. You know that. I hadn’t seen him since. You calculate how many years it has been! I grew up. He also grew up. I don’t know what he had become in those years we didn’t meet. I don’t know what excellence he had achieved to get shot dead on the street. Though I recognized him when I saw him, my intuition told me to be cautious. It’s an ability only women have. A protection that saves us from landing in trouble. We are cautious about everything. You guys don’t understand it. It’s thanks to that same intuition I stopped you from being a witness. I was right, wasn’t I? Look at the Public Security’s reaction! They have destroyed the entire case. For whose sake? I don’t know. But they have done it for someone. If you had given a witness statement, I’m not sure you’d have been sitting here in front of me now.’