Author's Note: While writing the Call Girl and the Businessman, I find myself drifting away to the weather outside. I had always been fascinated by weather. Taking a short respite from the Call Girl, I write this short story where, instead of the musky saturation before rain, I write about romance in the rain itself. There are parallels in this story with The Call Girl. I note that some readers do not like reading about the same themes, so be forewarned here.
Basically I am writing what I feel like writing about. I have realized how precious life is, and how everyday little things can bring joy.
I welcome feedback and comments. I hope that this story can stay in your heart a little longer. Then my aim as a writer is done *.*
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Umbrella in the Rain
Dedicated to those searching and have found; most importantly dedicated to my husband
By she who possesses a beautiful name, or so says him
This would be a short story of part of my life personified. I have lived of course, and am still living the brilliant life. Many people have vouched for me, saying that I am a brilliant person. Why am I brilliant, I do not know. I think it is because I appear brilliant but in reality I am not.
It is raining heavily now. I look outside the windows of our flat. It is six in the evening. He would be home at exactly seven. Just like the first time we met, he had set the time at seven. Always at seven, never later or earlier. Boy, how I love the fact that he is so precise!
The atmosphere is dark outside. These winter months are long. Now I have known better having lived here for two years. And how often it rains during these months. We have sunless skies during winter, its clouds; more than gloomy. It was always the rain clouds or the storm clouds. They say the Eskimos have names for fifty different types of snow. Here we say we have names for fifty different types of rain. This rain falling now, it is either the needle rain or the sword rain. The locals call it that. When it falls, it falls hard. It taps to your skin like injections from the doctor.
Life is harsh sometimes, and it is more than bearable. The two of us complement each other. We just do. Looking outside the window, I await for his return. He has been busy lately at the restaurant. He had just opened up a restaurant and he manages it well. I still kept to my old job of interpreting and have managed to stay put here in Augusta without travelling.
The streets are lonely as usual. This part of town is the hideout of gangs and sub-gangs of inferiority. I have contact with them. By now, I know who are up the ranks and who not. Yet I treat everyone the same. They have gotten used to me. They do not bother me. In fact their presence keeps me safe because I have become part of them.
I do not fear walking down the streets alone. I do not fear the rain. I know, under those metal awnings now, they negotiate their business. It is too big a burden I will carry if I informed the authorities. I shall not and will not do so. I am no angel but I try to be a good person. I am just someone who lives here by choice and have accepted the shady part of life.
I am in its periphery of activities. They know I have their trust as I do theirs. I am silent. I let the rain do all its talking. Its noise; the loud thunder and crisp-quick lightning heightened my senses.
Did he bring the umbrella today? He had rushed to work. He might have forgotten. There was an emergency at the restaurant today which turned out to be a false alarm. The fire alarm had gone off; triggered by a lizard which somehow got in its wiring.
Just maybe through writing I get to see a clearer picture of the situation long gone. Most of my childhood, I had been a traveller. My parents were always travelling around the world. It was not that they had globe-trotting careers. It was just that they loved to see new cultures and they wanted to explore new dimensions in life they never knew existed. This was what my mother told me.
My parents would take any jobs available to them in each city we travelled to. Among them, they had been waiter and waitress, labourer and labouress (if ever there was such a word), taxi drivers, teachers and even pretend beggars on the road at one point when we really needed the money.
As a result of our frequent travelling, I had the opportunity to know many people. I grew attached to some of them. I would send them cards until today. Yet I knew I would never see them in a long, long time. Strange as it may sound, we never travel the same place twice.
I remember one day in a small town in a remote African country, I was crying. I was twelve years old, and yes, that is probably an old age to be crying on the streets. I was hot, I was tired and I just wanted to get out of all the barren landscape and people with long thick braids which frightened me.
I remember my mother patting me on my head, as if I were a dog. She told me, "Now there...we are only staying here for six months. After six months, we will go somewhere new. Would you like that?" She asked, looking at me; consoling me and finally when it did not work, she hugged me tight on the streets.
"You are brilliant. You are a smart girl. You have been everywhere that your friends have not been." She said, whispering into my ears.
"Is it so?" I asked.
I liked this new word. It sounded posh and very adult-like.
She nodded and kissed me on my forehead.
Then I took to the streets in big strides. I rolled the heavy luggage down the desert road. My parents lagged behind me. I was in front of them throughout the walk to our rented house.
We normally travelled two places in a year. We became good at adapting and good at languages. We knew how to pack light and we were street-smart. The three of us bonded well and we were close.
I believed I was brilliant. The word was kept in my memory till this day. Yet I did not tell anyone that I was brilliant or anything like that. It was like my secret alone. Such were the irrationalities of childhood.
When I was eighteen, I opted to stay put. I just grew tired of all the travelling. I was world-weary. I did not find travelling satisfying. I felt my life lacked meaning.
Why couldn't we stay a little longer if we liked the place?
Why must we always leave?
These two questions popped into my head often now. My parents said they liked to see more and more. They were naturally curious people.
Yet, I felt sorry for them. I felt that they were afraid to be rooted somewhere. They feared commitment. Their life did not have a purpose. Why, after eighteen years of travelling, have they not found solace somewhere?
I told them one day that I wanted to stay put somewhere. So happened that we were in a town called Solav. I said I wanted to stay here. Not that I knew the place well, not that I had any friends. I just did not want to live like a nomad anymore.
I told my parents that it would be so much better for my education. I wanted to go to university and if I did, I would have to stay put. It would be better now than later.
After much deliberation, my parents rationalized that it would be good for me to stay while they left me on my own. At first it was scary but exciting. I was finding new meaning in life; in independence at least. I was happy to stay here, in a small town.
I made friends. I attended university and five years later, I graduated with an honours degree in linguistics. I started on a new job, but it seemed the curse of travelling came to me again. Due to economic recession, I was unable to land a desk job. I could only find this interpreting job which required me to travel as and when needed. And it was often needed.
Yet, ironically, travelling again after five years made me realize how much I missed the sense of trepidation of going to a new place. I wondered why I was never at home in one place. I felt a kind of solidarity everywhere and anywhere. Perhaps due to my upbringing, I had learnt to create this vision of inner peace in my heart no matter where I was.
In one of these travels, I landed in the town of Augusta. My day-time job required me to interpret from their native language into English. I was interpreting friendly closed-door discussions with senior government officials there with those who represented my company in an oil deal. By night I was free to explore the city.
I was not very adventurous by nature. My whole life seemed to be dictated by a litany of events and the consequences which I were taking were a result of the events. The café which I wanted to go to was closed, so I ended up in the bar next door.
I guess the bar was a small-time bar where everyone knew everyone. People, mostly men were talking to each other while I was alone with a margarita.
The atmosphere was dark and noisy and I did not like it at all. Once in a while was okay, but I still felt it was too much.
I left with hardly a sip of the margarita.
"Waste not, want not, eh?" A smooth voice sounded into my ear like a gong. Whoever he was, he spoke right into my ear, causing me to jump out of my skin.
It was so loud, and I was a softie when it came to noise.
I turned upwards to the voice and at the same time, my cheeks brushed into his rough stubble. Again, causing me to jump.
I looked at this man, mesmerized for a while.
