The Hourglass

A Short Story by Chaitali Sengupta

---

……….The fitful autumn gusts shake the window panes all night. As if an angry beast in chains wants to break free. On nights like this, Sucharita cannot sleep. A strange discomfort hangs over her. It drains her of all energy, but the thoughts and the memories remain. Getting up from the bed, she walks to the small living room in her home. The sky is still overcast- grey, dull, hazy. A typical Dutch November morning with groaning winds pushing against the trees.

……….How she longs for the warm sunlit days! As she wipes the film of rain droplets from her wet kitchen window, her thoughts fly back to her husband Jan. On days like this, he would make her a cup of tea, with ginger and lemon, sprinkled with some honey – an upgraded Indian chai– he would call it. And, watch the smoke curl up from behind the chestnut tree in their sprawling back garden. Why do you always blame the moaning winds, Sue, he would shake his head and say, ‘It is November right, the year is dying. It’s a natural process, is it not?’

……….Yes, the year is indeed dying, thinks Sucharita. And with it, all hopes were dying, one by one. Picking up the thick bunch of advertisements delivered through her wooden letter hole, she flips through the pages, wondering how Marianna was doing. Could she sleep well last night? Or did she stay awake because of the muttering thunder?

……….Leafing through the colorful pages of the advertisements, she wonders if Marianna still felt fuzzy from all the medications they’re giving her at the hospital. She is going to remember asking, when she visits her today, she tells herself. Her eyes take in the advertisement from the flower shop ‘Arena Bloemen’. She decides to buy a bunch of water lilies, combined with traditional yellow roses and bright yellow chrysanthemums. Marianna loves yellow. And she loves water lilies. Nobody knows it better than Sucharita. “Deze zijn prachtig! Met deze zonnig boeket, haalt u de zon in huis, mevrouw,” (These are beautiful! With a sunny bouquet like this one, you’d be inviting sun inside home.) Sucharita remembers their first conversation years ago, in that same shop ‘Arena Bloemen’, where Marianna used to work as a florist at that time.

……….A smile appears on her face. How long ago was that, how many years exactly? Right after she and Jan had bought this house and moved here? No, that couldn’t be. Ruhaan was not yet born then and Margo was just a bubbly teenager, surpassing Marianna by a few inches and yet retaining all her charming features. Especially that quiet smile. It made Marianna’s daughter an exact replica of Marianna.

XXXXXX

……….Sucharita’s eyes always grow bleary against the white light of the hospital’s waiting room. Too bright lights, she thinks. The barren ambiance created by the sterile smell of antiseptic, the cold, plastic touch somehow permeates the silence of the patients, dying away every hour perhaps. It is a good hospital, one with a good reputation. Straight-spined doctors. Soft-voiced nurses, reassuring and pacifying. Good staffs, always smiling, as if they were all divorced from the anxieties of life. A complete medical machine spinning to the ticking of the clock. She comes here, thrice every year, to the department of Orthopedics. Her bones had started betraying her much earlier in her life; osteoporosis had crept upon her, like a silent thief, weakening not only her bones but also her spirit, as each year it decreased her bone density. Each day begins with a pain now, but it is not only the pain in her aged bones. Inside her, the heart is tumbling too; it is tearing, in acute loneliness.

……….The mobile in her palm shakes. On its blue screen, Margo’s name flashes. “Mommy”, says Sarah and looks at Sucharita’s face with innocent hope. Sucharita gets up, clutching Sarah’s hand, accepting the call. Outside the waiting lounge, the air is biting. It is an unusually severe November, she agrees.

……….“Ze doet goed” says she, in her still accented Dutch, assuring Margo that her mother is doing fine. “I’m waiting with Sarah here so that we can be with your mother, once they finish taking the ECG.”

……….Marianna had been in the nearby shopping center, spending time with Sarah when she was taken severely ill. Six-year-old Sarah had witnessed in horror, her Oma falling down in a heap, scattering all the nice things they had bought for celebrating Sinter Klaas (a traditional Dutch festival) coming up in the next month. “Will call you in another hour. Hier, praat met Sarah, Margo (Here, talk to Sarah, Margo).”

……….The child speaks to her mother in slow, monotonous tone, as Sucharita admires the quiet restraint in Sarah. The very opposite of Margo. Willful with an uncontrolled passion, a desire to run, wander away. To be free. Her headlong fling with Maurice, her turbulent emotions when she discovered her unwanted pregnancy, followed by an ugly, hostile break-up, that forever scarred Margo. Yes, Sucharita had seen it all, tried to provide all help she could to Marianna.

……….And to Margo too. Trying to tell her that although most marriages have a public face, they’re not merely a ‘romantic fulfillment’. Sucharita, with her Indian upbringing, strongly believed why a return to traditional family values prevalent in the Dutch society five decades ago could be an answer to many ills that modern society faced today. But we’re not a traditional society, Margo had retorted, and there’s absolutely no need for a marriage. Marianna gave her cautious agreement to Sucharita, but she could hardly give any perspectives to her daughter on desire and domesticity.

……….And so, even after Sarah’s birth, Margo with her unbridled passion, moved on from one relationship to the next, which she later described as one scar after another.

……….Memories fly past, and flap their wings like those clamorous migratory birds, near the lake in her neighborhood. The birds leave after a while; the memories tend to come back. Again and again. Pursuing doggedly.

……….“Sue, will my Oma die?” Sarah questions, in that same monotonous tone, as they again settle down in the waiting lounge. Sucharita gulps down the knot in her throat, forces a smile to appear on her lips. And shakes her head, more to convince herself than Sarah. “Momma was crying. She tells me to say sorry to Oma for her.”

……….“What for?”

……….“Because she can’t be with her. She can’t come now.” Sarah’s words ring loud and clear to Sucharita. The child stares ahead into the white blankness ahead her. “I am scared, Sue. Ik ben bang.”

……….Me too, Sucharita’s jaw makes an involuntary movement. Thankfully, the words remain meshed in the depths of her throat. Instead, she holds Sarah’s hand, as the nurse indicates for them to come inside room 201.

XXX

……….Marianna looks fragile, but the flowers and Sarah draw a smile on her face. Her skin feels wet, as Sucharita bends to kiss her cheeks. Were those tears? Emotions swelling inside? Sue wants to look for the rainbows, while watching her friend’s face…

……….Marianna watches the splash of colors in the drawing made by her granddaughter. Sucharita watches them with some pleasure. Sucharita has no grandchildren of her own. Her son Ruhaan’s American wife is a doctor, with no time for babies. A couple of times, Sue has mildly suggested the need to have a family, but her daughter-in-law has simply brushed it away. With Sarah, Sucharita shares a special bond, cocooned in love, sewn with loving care.

……….A year to Jan’s accidental death, Sarah was born, on October 21. The day Jan died in that car accident on A2, on his way to Amsterdam on a foggy, dripping morning. A young, Belgian truck driver had not seen Jan’s small red suzuki while changing lane…. Jan had been on the blind spot…

……….Sucharita is left breathless, giddy from the remembrance. The pain is still there, she stays tied to it. Shivering, she goes out, as the nurse calls her out again.

……….The young doctor in the consultation room politely asks her how she is related to Marianna. Privacy laws, especially those about your health and illness, are confidential data, not to be shared with anyone, not even if they belonged to the same family. But since Margo was nowhere near, Marianna had accepted Sucharita to be treated as her near one. And that was the truth. Were they any less than family?

……….Sucharita has not forgotten those initial days in this land, far away from India, in the late 1995’s. She has not forgotten her struggle with the language, her utter incomprehension of the culture and her static loneliness. Marianna’s presence in her life back then was like the quiet lake where she could hear the sound of her own words. Her help with the language, with her first job at the local bakery, and then with the birth of Ruhaan was incredible. During those days, there was no systematic childcare available in Holland, as it is now. Marianna had offered to look after Ruhaan after his school, enabling Sucharita to continue with her job at the bank. Yes, Marianna had given a lot. Without remembering. A source of goodness- that is what Marianna has been all along in Sue’s life.

……….Of course, Jan had always been very supportive, had taken the trouble of helping her find her bearings, after their marriage. Their marriage had almost alienated her from her own people in Calcutta; but she had been adamant in making a life with Jan, and he had not given her any chance to regret it ever. Later on, her family too came to like Jan. How could they not? He was patient, a believer in Karma, a curious admirer of the Vedas, a fan of her mother’s Indian curries. A westerner with an Indian soul. But in a strange, new country, Sucharita had needed a friend. And with Marianna, her next-door neighbor, a single mother, she quickly forged a bond that had ‘forever’ stamped on it.

……….‘Mevrouw van Zitteren is in a critical stage.’ The young doctor’s measured voice cuts into her thoughts. ‘She has been lucky to survive her third heart attack. But she may not be so lucky next time. Tomorrow may bring a new seizure.’

……….Sucharita feels the tightening of the muscles near her heart. The twitching in her left eye begins, a sign of nervousness. For the next couple of minutes, she nods and listens to the doctor. ‘There is not much time. I would recommend you to inform her daughter.’

……….The doctor talks at a great length about the Hospice care, available to people with terminal illness. Sucharita winces in anguish. A decision needs to be made. They are lucky, says the doctor, happy to explain there is a place available in one of the good hospice cares in the city.

……….‘It is led by volunteers. Homely and informal.’

……….Yes, but it is not a home, says Sucharita in her mind.

……….In her room, Marianna remains strangely quiet, looking out at the bleak November scene outside, as Sarah plays in the child corner. With dark and troubling thoughts brimming in her mind, Sue decides to take her leave. Marianna stares at her with frozen eyes, and then speaks out the words, which neither time nor clime would ever change.

……….‘I know there is not much time, Sue. I can’t go without telling you the truth. Perhaps you had known it all along, perhaps Jan already told you, I don’t know…’ She pauses before speaking, the words crashing over, fracturing her balance. ‘In that summer of 2003, when you visited India, and stayed there for your father’s surgery, I had been involved with Jan. It was a brief affair….for a few months…I don’t know the why and the how anymore. I only know, it was my fault. Will you be able to forgive me?’

---

……….‘On that night, when the storm broke open my door…’ the last strains of the profound song by Tagore dies down, leaving an incomprehensible stillness. Sucharita’s throat is rubbed raw by the unspoken clump of emotions knotted there. Grief. Disbelief. Betrayal. Anger. Marianna’s words are lodged in her heart like quills; in the silence of midnight, they ring loud in her mind, and through the twisting corridors of her nerves, reaches her heart. A deep, dull ache begins there; the mind jumps from thought to thought, shifting something there.

……….Like that frozen surface of the lake in Como, they all had visited together- Marianna, Jan, Margo, Ruhaan, all of them together. Her mind now struggles with the happy images of those times. Was it before 2003 or after? Her mind refuses to process the memory. It feels like it has reached the end of all things.

……….Who else knew about this affair? She is surprised at the thought. Does it matter now? Restless, she sits up on her bed, switches off the CD player. Does Ruhaan know? Was that the reason why he had so abruptly turned aggressive in his behaviour towards Marianna? Jan and Ruhaan, the sun and the moon of her life. Always stationed precisely at the opposite ends, just as they were in the sky. Jan, quiet with a mild humour, a believer till the end. Ruhaan, a rebel, sarcastic, a complete anti-thesis of his father.

……….What makes him loathe his father so much, even after his death? It has always been a riddle to her, quite unclear, and she wonders if she has now found the final bitter piece to that puzzle. She feels the faint tremor in her chest. No, she has to ask him. Someone needs to answer her. For this. What was this? A betrayal? Yes, it was.

……….But who will answer? Jan was dead, Marianna soon to go too. She remembers the struggle in Marianna’s eyes, as she spoke those words. A spear you do not always see, comes from behind, the words hiss and stir in her heart, like in a pot. Greased with pain. With anger.

……….In the room that had been Ruhaan’s, she finds Sarah deep in sleep. Her face looks pinched, even in sleep, her thumb stuck between her teeth. The game of Bingo stands open on the floor. She had waited for Sucharita to join her before retiring to sleep. Pulling the thumb gently out of Sarah’s mouth, as she takes in the smell of her freshly washed hair, Sucharita’s mind dissects pictures frozen in time…how many nights had she tucked this little girl into bed, when Margo had gone away with her friend’s and Marianna, too, was on her work? And those moments, when she’d laughed at her silly songs? How often has she prayed for Sarah, to be safe in school, asking her Gods to protect Sarah from her bullying friends?

……….Sucharita feels the anger melting in her. A warmth rises around her heart. And an ache…ah, this deep avalanche of aching, where do you store that?

……….A shaken silence welcomes her in the hospital room next day. In the throbbing quiet, Marianna appears sad, her face ashen, haggard and clearly stricken under the onslaught of memories, perhaps. Sucharita knows that the end is near, but she cannot imagine Marianna dying within the four walls of this sterile room, alone, or breathing her last, away from her loved ones, in an informal hospice.

……….She fights the anger welling up inside her; words of censure balloons inside her, pressing to call out, demand an explanation for the wrong Marianna had committed and had multiplied it by keeping silent for so many years.

……….Sucharita breathes hard. She lets the moment absorb her and then leave. She forces the mind to peel away the anger, pushes past its shadow, bearing her down and finds her voice.

……….“I’ve talked with Margo yesterday, Marianna and just now, I’ve informed the doctors. When they discharge you, I’ll be taking you to my home. Margo will come within a month. Until then, you can stay with me. No need to go to the Hospice. Not now.”

……….“Waarom doe je dit, Sue?” Marianna’s voice is raspy, like a wind sobbing through the bare trees. She wants to understand the reason why Sue would be doing this.

……….“I still need company in my aching days, Marianna. Besides, I cannot leave you behind, like guilt, to die alone.”

……….Amidst the confusing silence in the room, Sucharita’s words act as an analgesic. Marianna’s eyes turn glossy. But she doesn’t bother to blink away her tears.

---

Chaitali Sengupta is a writer and a poet by passion, a financial analyst and a language teacher by profession. She’s a translator and volunteer journalist, based in the Netherlands. Her works have appeared in both Dutch and Indian media. She published her first collection of prose-poems ‘Cross Stitched Words’ (Setu Publications, 2021, USA). Her two translated works include ‘Quiet Whispers of our Heart’ and ‘A thousand words of heart’ (Orange Publishers, 2020 & 2021.) She has co-authored for numerous anthologies, and her works can be read in various journals and e-zines.

Hourglass Image: Antonio Ntoumas

---