Companions

Mr. and Mrs. Aiyer had been married for more than thirty years. Mr. Aiyer had worked for several publishing companies in the editorial department. After his retirement, when Mr. Aiyer told his wife of his desire to move back to his hometown, Mrs. Aiyer took voluntary retirement from her banking job and they moved to the house where Mr. Aiyer was born and raised. After that Mr. Aiyer spent most of his time reading books, sitting in an old rattan chair in the patio with his feet perched on a coffee table. He would sometimes smoke a cigarette and sometimes enjoy a couple of pegs of his favourite whiskey. He would write reviews of the books that he read, for a blog that he maintained. Most of the times he would work on the blog till late night, long after Mrs. Aiyer had gone to bed.

Mrs. Aiyer now sat on the rattan chair. The evening sunlight fell on her frail body, her grey hair was tied loosely in a bun, her brown eyes looked into vacuum from behind gold framed spectacles. The wrinkles on her face had not appeared until Mr. Aiyer had his first heart attack six months ago. Even after many warnings from the doctor he did not give up on his whiskey and cigarettes. More than a month ago in the dead of the night after Mrs. Aiyer had gone to bed, he suffered his second and final heart attack while he was writing a blog on his computer. 

The mobile phone rang somewhere inside the house. Sumati, the maid brought the phone and gave it to Mrs. Aiyer. The screen showed her daughter’s name, Ira.

“Good evening Amma!”, Ira said in her morning voice.  

“Good morning! Why are you still in bed? Don’t you have to be in office?”, Mrs. Aiyer said, imagining her daughter stretching in the bed. Mr. and Mrs. Aiyer had saved enough to send their daughter to a university in the US and now she was working for a company whose name Mrs. Aiyer kept forgetting.

“No Amma, I am working from home today. Listen Amma, have you thought about moving to San Francisco? How long will you live alone?”

“I am not alone. Sumati is here. Mr. and Mrs. Banerjee visit every now and then, besides your Aththai (father’s sister) is also moving here very soon. I am not alone.” 

“Listen Amma, I know they are there but I am worried, if you would have been here I would have….”

“Don’t worry, I am absolutely fine. I miss you, but I am fine.” Mrs. Aiyer cut her daughter in mid-sentence. 

“I still want you to move here Amma. Promise me you will think about it again.”

“Yes I will.”, replied Mrs. Aiyer.

“I have a call to attend Amma, I have to go now. I love you.” Ira said.

“I love you too.” Mrs. Aiyer replied and disconnected the call.

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She sat there for some time with the phone in her hand. She had the whole evening in front of her and more importantly the rest of her life and she didn’t know what to do. Yes Mr. and Mrs. Banerjee did visit every now and then but she could hardly bear Mrs. Banerjee’s constant chattering. Mr. Banerjee however, she thought, only visited so that he could devour homemade savories with cups of instant coffee. Rameshwari akka, Mr. Aiyer’s elder sister had lost her husband a year back and was planning to purchase a flat nearby. This thought had sent chills down Mrs. Aiyer’s spine. Even at this age Rameshwari akka would not let go of a single opportunity to chide her Kolunthiya (younger brother’s wife). She might as well go to the US. Even the thought of living and dying in an unknown land scared her. 

The sun had set. The evening breeze had started to become colder as the year neared its end. Mrs. Aiyer got up from the chair and went inside the house. She could hear Sumati somewhere in the kitchen preparing the evening coffee or the night’s meal whichever she first deemed fit, for both of them.

She went into Mr. Aiyer’s study room. His laptop was on the study table. She now used it to Skype with Ira once in a while. All the walls were lined with bookshelves covering the full height and width of the walls. Mr. Aiyer was never very organized so most of the books were put randomly suiting their height and width.

Mrs. Aiyer had never been a reader, though Mr. Aiyer had many times tried in vain to instill some interest for books in her. Mrs. Aiyer could never find the time or the intent to read a book.

All the books now sat on their shelves staring blankly at her. She starred back and had no idea what to do with them. She could give them away to a library or charity before she moved to the US, but Mr. Aiyer hated giving away or even lending his books.

She gave a sigh and turned to the laptop. She switched it on, opened the internet browser and clicked on the favorites link to Mr. Aiyer’s blog. The logo RK’s Book Reviews appeared on the top left hand corner of the window. RK, is how Mr. Aiyer had always been known by his close allies. The first post that she saw was the last one that he had published. In the comments section of the blog she saw several messages from his regular readers grieving his death. She couldn’t read the first message as her eyes filled with tears and she closed the window. She wiped her eyes with the loose end of her saree and sat starring at the laptop screen.

She opened the folder where Mr. Aiyer had saved all his published and unpublished blogs. She found the one he was working on, the night he died. The title was “The Book I would Read Again Before I Died”. The review talked about the book by an award winning Indian author who did not live in India. Mrs. Aiyer knew which book and author it was. Mr. Aiyer had told her that it had a reference to his hometown. He had tried to make her read the book many a times without much success. She had once, in their early years of marriage, pre-ordered a book by that author as a birthday gift for him. She didn’t have many memories of him except for a few from their early years of marriage when they were still trying to romance each other. Her heart now felt warm. 

She opened the blog link again and began reading the messages that his readers had left. One of the messages caught her eyes. It was from a female reader. She knew he had been in touch with her, they would discuss books on chats and on social media. The message was just one line.

“You will continue to live in the pages of the books that you read.”

Mrs. Aiyer read the line again and again. She looked out of the window, it was dark outside now. Her heart was warm and aglow with fuzzy light, like the yellow light, which Sumati had turned on at some point in time and, which now filled the room.

She got up from the chair and went up to the bookshelves. She searched for the book about which the unpublished blog was. She found it finally, on one of the bookshelves, layered with dust. She wiped it with the loose end of her saree and sat down in the chair under the lamp to read.