Benyamin: Yellow Lights of Death

I didn’t feel like giving up. After a shower, feeling fresh, I set off for Port Louis. My plan was to meet Jesintha if possible, and ask her if she’d got more details about the incident. But she was not in any of the coffee shops. I examined the spot where the shooting had taken place. It had all been cleaned up, leaving no trace or hint of such an incident. At the spot where Senthil was shot, a port worker sat having his coffee. I went and sat next to the bench for a closer look. The bench with the blood stains had been taken away. There were no signs on the ground where Senthil had fallen. As if to place an order for a coffee, I went close to the owner and asked in a whisper if he knew anything more about the previous day’s incident. He stared at me suspiciously and turned to take someone’s order like he knew nothing. I asked a waiter the same thing. He, too, walked away. I realized it’d be futile to stay there and so I left for City Hospital. Hoping to get more details from there, I went and met Johnny. ‘Other than what you’ve told me, I haven’t heard anything more from anyone in the hospital,’ he said. ‘You have probably got it wrong.’ He was doubtful, yet he eagerly joined me in checking the documents at the ICU. It was clear that his heart was set more on my family’s recommendation for his promotion. I didn’t bother to heed it.

The ICU yielded a bigger surprise. No one in the name of Senthil had been admitted there. With the help of one of Johnny’s friends, I checked the documents again and again. Not only was Senthil’s name missing in their entries, but also no one with a bullet hit had been brought to the hospital the previous evening. Next, I went through the list of people who had died in the ICU. There were three causes: two cardiac arrests, and one of old age. No corpse identified as Senthil had been brought in. The mortuary had not taken in a single body the previous day. Where had Senthil been taken to? Where did his body go?

I had seen him getting shot with my own eyes. I had seen him being moved to the ambulance-boat. Then I’d seen the dead body being taken out of the ICU and sent to the mortuary. And the Public Security had even questioned me.

‘You must have hallucinated,’ Johnny said, to comfort me.

‘What are you saying, Johnny? Hallucinated! I told you about it yesterday, didn’t I?’

‘That’s true. But what can I say about something that is not in the records. Anyway, why do you bother? If someone has died, his family will take care of it. Come, let’s have tea.’

With all the doubts coiling up in my mind, I accompanied him to the canteen. As we had tea, Johnny kept rattling on about the advantages of getting a promotion. My mind was on Senthil. I only half heard what he said. That if he gets a promotion, he’ll be included in the committee that goes abroad to recruit doctors and nurses. I heard him doubting how much good just a salary can do these days. I heard him smacking his head and railing that for a common man to build a house in Diego, he would need to pay off a loan for forty years at least. I heard him raging that even a dog wouldn’t care for a normal and virtuous life.

He reminded me again while I was leaving that he wouldn’t get a promotion in the next ten years without a senate-level recommendation and that he was better qualified than many of the people there.

As I was walking out of the hospital, I suddenly ran into my erstwhile smart, pretty and energetic classmate, Anita.

It had become a habit for me to match every new face I met with those of my class. For some strange reason, I had failed to do that with Senthil. But in Anita’s case, I made no mistake at all. I recognized her within just three seconds of her passing by. At the same time, I registered one more thing. It was not in Class V that we two got separated, but after another seven years together, in Class XII. By then, everyone had grown much more. But I didn’t remember the mature faces of anyone. My memory was marooned in the photo that I found at home. It is with the faces in that photo that I compare every face I see. But when I saw Anita, I recollected her Class X face. Her face was now more identical to that.

She couldn’t identify me at all. It took a lot of effort. I realized it only then that though I could recognize myself, for someone who was meeting me after a long time, I had changed a lot.

She, too, had changed. Her vigour and smartness seemed to have withered away. The level of energy she had as a child had seemed as though it would last forever. She was exceptionally active. No event took place in school without her participation. She used to sing well, study well, elocute well. She was the school leader. There was no trace of that in the pale version of Anita standing before me. If I had seen her after another ten years, I probably wouldn’t have been so surprised.

When she finally figured out who I was, she grasped my hands. ‘Where have you been all this time?’

‘Where were you?’ I responded to her with a similar question.

‘I’ve been here, in this City Hospital, for the past five years.’

‘Are you a doctor?’

‘Me? No, no, I wanted to, but my father couldn’t afford it. So, after Class XII, I went to Mangalore to do pharmacy.’

‘It is really sad that education in our country so expensive that going abroad to study is cheaper. How bad is the state of our country!’ I sympathized with her.

‘What is your state?’ she asked.

‘College in Thiruvananthapuram. Now, with the excuse of writing a novel, I’m doing nothing and sitting at home, like the Keralites.’

Anita introduced me to the person with her. ‘This is my husband, Wilson. He works at the lab here. Did you recognize him?’ She turned to her husband.

‘Looks very familiar,’ Wilson said while shaking hands.

‘The one I talk about. the Andrapper kid who was in my class. this is him!’

‘Oh, he is the one? I’ve heard of you. Pleased to meet you. Okay, you guys talk, I have to rush.’

I asked Anita about our other classmates. I told her about the photo I’d found in my house after all these years. She knew only about Bilal who had been studying medicine in Mangalore when she was there. He was in Australia now. For some reason, I purposefully stayed tight-lipped about Senthil and Jesintha.

We kept on talking for the sake of talking. Her excitement lasted even until we were about to take leave. She grabbed my hands again. She panicked at having nothing to give me even though this encounter was sudden. Then she dug into her purse and gave me two photographs.

‘They are my kids. What else can I give you?’

Then she left. I stood there for a while holding those photos. I stood there as if I was puzzled as to what to do.

Other than meeting Jesintha a few days ago, since we had left school, I hadn’t met any of my classmates, even by chance. But after the desire struck me, how fast it was happening! One by one, I’m running into them. Is it because we don’t yearn for them strongly enough that we don’t get most things?

There was a reason for thinking so after meeting Anita. She was a girl whom I’d liked in school to the extent of wanting to go to her house and asking for permission to marry her after I had grown up and was capable of making a good living. That never worked out. Somehow, I never had enough confidence to consider myself good enough to lay claim to her. While in class, she never talked more than a word or two to me. On the few occasions I tried to express my love, she avoided me tactfully. Some friends who used to tease her about me were silenced with warnings. I did not get even a slight indication of friendship or love from Anita. We were two strangers in the same class. And now? What could have been the cause of such a show of affection?