Winner of Muse India – Satish Verma Young Writer Awards 2016

A New Chapter

Meera stood on the porch with her tea. The stimulating smell of cinnamon rose from it and wafted all over the place with the gentle morning breeze. As she leaned on the railing and placed her mug over it, her eyes took in the beauty that is the arrival of spring. The daisies had started to flaunt their dazzling yellow centres. The orchids and the haliconias were in full bloom already. The white Amazon lilies, occupying the pride of the place, were teeming with tiny butterflies. The grass too had changed its colour to a brighter green. It made the pristine white of the beach beyond it, seem even whiter in contrast. Everything was so fresh and alive. She inhaled deeply and blithely, the rejuvenating mélange of the fragrances from her garden and the salty sea breeze. 

This was her favourite time of the day. The sea was astir with euphoric waves. The morning breeze was perfect; neither too cold nor too warm with just a hint of mist. The rising sun, at the far end of her vista, touched its own oblong reflection stretched out on the water; looking like a bride walking away, with her long veil in tow. She wasn’t particularly fond of this similitude because it always made her think of brides . . . and marriage; sending a chill down her spine. She hated how this exact thought always spoiled this otherwise utopian moment every morning. She snorted with slight displeasure and tried to distract her mind by focusing on a small fleck floating on the horizon almost about to run into the sun. From this distance, she could not make out if it was a cruise ship or a cargo. She tried to squint, hoping it would help her see a little better.

“I will be the first one to get up and make tea one of these days . . . I promise.”

Meera spun around and saw Susan standing there, holding her tea in one hand and suppressing a yawn with the other.

“How is the tea?”

Susan took a sip. “Perfect . . . as always.”

“Well . . . then there is no reason for you to get up early, is there?” 

“Hmm . . . good point!” She agreed, with a smile. 

Meera felt like Susan’s smile spiffed up the morning even more. She had the most angelic smile Meera had ever seen. There was so much this smile had helped Meera get through, so much it had helped her forget and move on, so much it had healed. Far more than even Susan would ever know. 

Susan kissed Meera on her forehead and sat down on the first step of the stairs that led to the garden. 

“So is the world just the way we left it last night?” Susan asked with an incredulous stare directed towards Meera’s phone sitting on the railing. “A book somewhere dies, every time you read something on that silly thing of yours . . . You know that, right?” Susan scowled. 

Meera always read everything on her phone or her Kindle. A concept which an orthodox bibliophile like Susan couldn’t stomach. How could one possibly read a newspaper, magazine, or book without holding it in their hands? Without taking in the scent of its senescent paper, feeling the weight of the wisdom it dispenses on one’s palms, running the fingers across its words to let their meaning seep in through one’s skin? What was the fun in just swiping one’s fingers on some screen and seeing flashing images scroll across? What a banal and at the same time preposterous concept! 

“Hmm . . . and a tree somewhere dies; quite literally . . . every time you read things your way.” 

“Touché!” Susan frowned, but raised her mug to toast to Meera’s point. The sulking and the pout made Susan look really cute, Meera thought. 

Susan was fifty-two, yet she hardly looked a day over forty. Her taller-than-average height and a slender form added to that impression of youth. The year Princess Diana died, Susan got her long tresses chopped off as a tribute to her. Susan had been her ardent admirer. The style somehow stuck with her, and now with salt-and-pepper hair, it looked even more elegant. 

Meera chuckled. “Oh come on, Susan! You romanticise reading way too much. I mean . . . isn’t this far more convenient? I’m scanning three e-papers right now . . . Not such an easy task to do with actual newspapers is it?” 

“Hmm . . .” 

“Quod erat demonstrandum,” said Meera with a dramatic bow, quoting an old Greek phrase translating into ‘what was required to be proved’. 

“Hmm . . . sounded like Latin there, for a second . . . but . . . ummm . . . Greek, is it?” 

“Correct!” 

Susan and Meera had this little game they loved to play, where one would quiz the other playfully by slipping in a foreign language word or a phrase in their conversation; and the other one would have to guess which language it comes from. 

“Now what is Greek for gloating, I wonder?” Susan retorted. 

“Hey, that just happened to be the phrase of the day, here . . . I swear! I was just looking at it when you walked in!” Meera hugged Susan like one would mollify a gruff child, showing her the phone screen as a proof. 

This quizzing and teasing was just one of their many morning rituals; like the cinnamon tea, the smiles, the kisses on the forehead, the misty breeze and the view of the sea. Someone who probably didn’t know their story, might have been fooled into thinking that these two women had known each other all their lives. Their relationship had the kind of effortless bonhomie, which takes decades of co-existence to develop; if at all most relationships live to see that day. 

As Meera continued to read, Susan rested her head on the pillar next to her and leisurely sipped her tea. This was her favourite place in the house. She always sat there and rested her head on that very spot, which had over the years, left a small brownish patch on that white pillar. Sitting here, she could see every little corner of the garden which she had so ardently built. Beyond the garden, was the imposing blue iron gate, bearing its rusty patches like a war veteran wears his battle wounds, with pride. The gate opened onto the sandy white beach which seamlessly blended into the sea. Susan had made some of the biggest decisions of her life, sitting in this very spot. 

Susan Pereira had lived here, in Pereira Mansion, all her life. It was one of the last few mansions which still stood in its original form; as they were built on the east coast of this small island called Bydore, in the south-west waters of the Bay of Bengal. When they were built in the 1920s, there were twelve of them. This particular part of the coast had a unique geographical feature—of small coves, with hills on one side and rocky arms running all the way to the sea. It made each cove look like a secluded little haven with its own private beach. This distinctive feature was what inspired the British to have these mansions built here, to serve as their winter homes. Susan’s great grandfather David Pereira was a part of the team of engineers and architects commissioned by the British to design and build these houses. When the British left a few decades later, they decided to sell them off; for a hefty sum, of course. With all his savings and a loan that he would be paying off for the rest of his life, David Pereira bought Mansion No. 4, as it was then called. Because he was certain, it was totally worth every penny. 

“God isn’t making any more of these you know, the beaches and the coastlines. So I bought a little slice of it and we must never let it go.” That was the only thing David ordered Susan’s father, Robert, while breathing his last. “Don’t you ever sell this house! And don’t ever desert it. It breathes only as long as a Pereira breathes inside it. Left alone, it will wilt away and die.” 

Years later, when pancreatic cancer decided to cut short Robert’s life, he knew it was time for him to repeat the same words to his daughter, Susan. But he couldn’t just order her like David had ordered him. Those were different times, back then. Bydore was where Robert had lived all his life and had never even thought of getting away. But was it fair to expect the same from Susan, the ambitious and brilliant student that she was? Just because he was going to die so prematurely; should her plans for her life meet the same fate? And all for what; a piece of property? Besides, wouldn’t she get married some day and then the decision of where to settle down would not only be hers to make? Flummoxed by these thoughts, Robert never had the courage to ask Susan the question he had always wanted to. 

But, the day the doctors told him he may not have much time left, he realised he had no other option but to finally pose it. 

Susan froze when she heard the news. The prognosis of her father’s illness had not been very promising, but she hadn’t given up hope completely. Until now. There were good doctors and treatment available in Pondicherry, the city closest to their island. Even better ones, if they’d go further north to Chennai. She had, however, had that discussion with Robert enough times to know well enough, where he stood on the subject. He was never going to leave Bydore, and more specifically Pereira Mansion even if it was his only chance at prolonging his life. Susan found his stand to be ridiculously obdurate. But after exhausting all her options on the emotional spectrum, from angry arguments to tearful pleading, she just had to accept his decision. 

And therefore, to give him the peace of mind he deserved in his final days, she made him the promise he so desperately sought. In that split moment, as she sat in this very spot on these stairs, and heard of her father’s imminent death, she decided to never ever part with Pereira Mansion. And what a price she had had to pay for that promise, all her life. Not that she regretted making that promise to her father, still; but she did wish that one decision wouldn’t have taken her life on the course that it did. 

“Damn! I’m late. I needed to leave a little early today. Have to pick up Deena Auntie too. Something’s wrong with her car.” Meera’s comment brought Susan back to the present. 

“Oh! Let me quickly fix up some breakfast for you, then.” 

“Nope. No time!” 

As Susan watched Meera rush to her room, she couldn’t help smiling. Life had been so much better ever since she had come along. Meera had given Susan’s parched motherhood a new lease of life. Susan’s pain about her past that constantly suffocated her present, had become a lot bearable. And her future, the one she constantly dreamed of, had become a little easier to wait for. 

Gosh! Could that be right? Would it be ten years this December, since she first met Meera? 

Time sure flies.

Susan and Meera ran a bookstore-cum-souvenir shop called A New Chapter in Port Antonio’s market, in southwest Bydore. Susan loved books. She had wanted to do a Masters in English Literature and teach someday; something, which would have needed her to move out of Bydore because there was no college offering that specialisation on the island. After Robert’s untimely death, she never even got to finish her Masters, let alone get a teaching job. Cancer did not just eat through Robert’s pancreas, it ate away Susan future too. So she had to find something else to do with her life on this little island. Opening a bookstore was the only idea she could come up with. 

With Bydore gradually becoming a retirees’ paradise and a buzzing tourist hotspot, books were always in demand. From a small 10 x 10 shop, the bookstore soon moved into a huge double-storied place. And after Meera joined in, it started to do even better. Meera convinced Susan to add another dimension to the plain old bookstore, by adding the handicrafts of the indigenous Ingli tribe of Bydore. It soon became a huge hit with the tourists. 

Then Meera suggested they should start an in-house cafeteria and that Deena would be the perfect person to run it. 

Deena and Susan had grown up together. Their families had been neighbours for a long time. Then Deena married Suhas and moved to the other side of the island. But that did not compromise their weekly Sunday feasts at Deena’s place. Deena had always been somewhat of a magician with ladles and woks. Give her ten minutes in the kitchen and bam . . . there would be magic on the dining table. Suhas always joked that the secret to their happily married life was that his mouth was always too stuffed with scrumptious food, to argue with Deena over anything. 

After Suhas died of a cardiac arrest six years ago, for a while, it seemed like Deena decided to give up on life too. It took Susan and Meera weeks to get her to even talk or eat properly. Deena and Suhas’s daughter Suhana was studying medicine in Chennai and wanted to specialise as a surgeon. There was no way she could do that in Bydore. Susan could not stand the thought of another child losing out on her dream, just because they lost a parent. Therefore, she finally decided to act on Meera’s café idea, in an effort to give her friend the crutches her life needed, to start walking again. 

But convincing Deena for it was nowhere as easy as coming up with the plan. It took Suhana’s whole charade of dropping her studies and coming to Bydore, to convince Deena to pull herself together and promise to get involved with the café. 

Then one morning, Susan and Meera got a call from Suhana asking them to come over quickly. Clueless, they rushed to Deena’s house and the moment they entered, they saw the dining table lined up with all kinds of savouries, with Suhana standing at the head of the table, smiling smugly. 

“Ladies, please feast your eyes and well, tummies, on the menu for Deena’s Café. Opening shortly!” 

Deena walked out of the kitchen adorning the apron she hadn’t touched in months; looking dead beat, yet for the first time since Suhas died, a little at peace. She had been cooking since five that morning. Susan looked into Deena’s eyes and after months of tears, sorrow and vacuity, finally saw acceptance. She wouldn’t be the same Deena for a long time or perhaps ever, but her broken heart was on the road to recovery. That’s all Susan needed, for now. 

That day, over cupcakes and sandwiches and coffee and laughter, Pereira Book Store became A New Chapter.