The Phone call - 15 November 2008

     It was an unusual Saturday morning. Siddharth had just disconnected the phone and was trying to face a new reality. He stood at the window staring outside, wondering who the caller was. Why did he avoid disclosing his name? Why had he called from a phone booth? How did he know of a past that was buried in the graveyard of time? Amidst the flood of questions bothering him, parts of the conversation kept ringing in his ears.

“They’re trying their best,” said the man on the phone.

“How did it happen?” asked Siddharth with a slight shiver in his voice.

“It was a car… near her workplace…it was so sudden…”

“Where’s she now?”

“Main hospital. Jamshedpur. In her old hometown. She’s there for two days. Actually I’m unsure how to break this news to you,” said the man with deep anguish in his voice.

Siddharth didn’t know what to expect. His breathing had slowed down already and he was trying hard to suppress his alarm. “Go ahead…I hope…I hope…”

“Her condition is serious. The accident was severe. By the grace of God she’s still breathing. But, but…” the man paused.

“But what?” Lines of worry appeared on his forehead.

“She’s in coma.”

Siddharth felt the sudden pounding of his heartbeats. “I hope …I hope… everything is going to be okay? What are the doctors saying?”

“Nothing encouraging at the moment. They are trying their best. I don’t know how to say it…or should I say it at all…” The caller paused for a while and then said, “Maybe you’d want to come down here to see her once. We have to be prepared to hear the worst.”

There was a dead silence. It was unusually long for a normal phone call to be considered active. But this call was anything but normal. It was odd, unforeseen and upsetting. Yet it was the uneasy silence that bound the two men at each end. There was a disturbing quality about it, a tension that indicated that in spite of the long hush the call wasn’t over, that something was incomplete. Something important.

Finally, the caller said, “There is one more thing I need to say. Years back she had meant to share important letters with you. But they never reached you. You must get them now. I have something that would lead you to them. If you come over I’d give it to you.”

“Important letters? Like what?”

“I don’t know. They were for you. But could you come over?” asked the man eagerly.

“I…I don’t know…I’ll try.” He was neither able to commit nor refuse to the stranger.

“Actually, if you can collect it yourself, I’ll feel better. It will ease my sense of guilt.”

Sense of guilt? What was this man talking about wondered Siddharth? Who was he? And what letters was he talking about? But he stopped himself from asking anything more about the letters. Instead, he said, “I’ll see what I can do. Who else is there with her?”

“Her mom. Their friends and relatives.”

“How is her mom?”

“By the grace of God she was doing fine. But the accident has torn her.”

“And her dad?”

“I didn’t see him. I heard he had left the town ages back. But I’m not sure.”

“And how are you related to her?”

“As I said I am a well-wisher of their family.”

“Can I know your name?”

After a brief pause the man replied, “By the grace of God, you will come to know it eventually. But you must come down. It’s important. At least for her.”

     The conversation ended by 9 a.m. It was time to head for office. But Siddharth didn’t feel like going. He wanted to talk to the caller some more. So he dialed the number that showed up on his cell-phone and found that the call was made from a PCO in Jamshedpur.

     It was a cold winter morning. The Bhubaneshwar sky was ashen. There were no birds to show signs of life. One could not tell if a cyclone had ended or was about to start. And as he kept staring outside the window the sluice gates of his suppressed memory burst open.

     Seventeen years had gone by since he had seen her last. He had learnt to live without her, without her voice, her touch, her little demands, her secrets and stories, her athletic victories, her fears, until she had become a shadow in his life before fading away completely.

      It was for her that he had made elaborate paintings, written poems, spent nights watching the moon and even jumped out of a terrace of a three storied building onto a eucalyptus tree, sliding down to the base to escape her father. It was because of her that he understood what sensations a simple touch from a girl evoked in a virgin body and what falling in love meant. She was his first crush, his first love, his dream girl. Hazel.

     But that was seventeen years back. And now the sudden news that her survival was uncertain. That she may cease to be. The realization jolted him. Although he had learnt to live without her, the painful thought of living when she was no more had escaped him.

     Little later, as his childhood days came drifting back, another incident came unbidden. It was her last letter to him. Was that letter related to the ones the man was talking about, he thought? For he was reminded that the last letter was a little absurd and incomplete. That something was missing. He vaguely recalled a line from it. “It contains the key to my soul.”

     In all the years that passed he had forgotten about it. However, at that moment he was unable to ignore it anymore. It left him restless the whole morning and he paced the rooms hoping to figure out the identity of the caller and locate the last letter from Hazel.