By Reeti Jamil
The last thin strand of sunlight fades to reveal a murky gloom across the marshland. Nearby is the village enclosed by ponds, fens and the woods. Gardens of peonies and tulips are still prolific, though tinged with gray. The place I remember, but the people?
They are not there. The village I remember – an ancient vestige of my past: the crops I harvested, and the canines that accompanied me as I reaped the potatoes, tomatoes and the wheat that bore our appetite and supplied us with a little amount of wealth; there were the clouds that shielded me from the heat’s spite and poured down the sweet, saccharine rain (how I would lick my lips to feel the water wash over me) … and the people however, they seem lost to me. I had never been a wise man or an educated one either. But the Lord had blessed me with nature’s benevolence that nourished me through my life. I was a farmer, after all.
I was also a widowed father with a brood of five grown children whose mother passed away long ago from the onset of… no, not tuberculosis… not from a deadly flu… not pneumonia either… from the winter mornings when we had woken up together. She had died, in fact, in the hands of fate. I suppose it was my destiny to meet her and lose her. There she was buried uphill at the communal cemetery. I could see the tombstones elongating their heads and mocking at me amidst the dispersing plumes of fog. Albeit only a pauper’s wife, she showed aptitude for everything she cared for– cooking, farming, assisting her old husband and preparing clothes for her children. (She sewed them herself by working at midnights and would sleep little.) Moreover, she nursed our children to good health. When I called, she obeyed and came to me. There was, I think, love in her eyes. She was innocuously at my side. I could never reproach her. I reproached her for only leaving me. People asked, “Why did you reproach her when she was alive and servile to you?”
Later, I would lose my temper when someone uttered her name, “Alia… Alia was a darling to us all.” She was my darling! One day, my youngest child Anita inquired, “Can you describe what our mother looked like? I cannot recall her, and you have never owned a photograph of hers.” I responded to this innocent query with mere silence.
There was my failure. How could I describe Alia? I had delineated her characteristics in the mould of a farmer’s wife. We lived through three decades of marriage together. And yet, I failed to recall her appearance. How could I eulogise about my wife when her memory evades me! In my aching despair, I realised I could not remember how she died.
And what did she look like? I know she had no halo. Her mien, her physique, gait and grace must have had some impact on me. But they were all lost to me like a pristine scent thinning and dissipating! How can something as impalpable as a scent be captured for eternity? She was that scent for too brief a time to be fully appreciated.
I could proudly and yet painfully recollect she certainly cared for me and that was what I still needed in my old age. It was so cold. What could happen to poor old me? Did others think of me the same way? Was I of any worth in others’ eyes as I was in hers? What could have been more natural and soothing than her companionship?
But I had to come to my senses! I was ignorant. She was dead. I would be mad not to acknowledge it! I should find another outlet for my grief. Mother Nature had always consoled me. So, I could immerse myself in her with a light saunter to regain my composure.
My sight leant again on the wintry marshland where I stood. It was dull and dreary. Nonetheless, it drew me to it even more closely. Then, like a thick ponderous mist, the grievous black and green emanating from the marshland spread while the ponds, fens, the woods and the gardens turned monochromatic. Soon, every object of nature turned a deadly colour from sepia to grey and then finally to ebony black. Despondent and fearsome darkness shrouded me slowly, first in grainy spots. Then, a disorienting dread gripped me. I did not want to be alone.
As I tried to cry out “Alia”, the spots encompassed everything within my sight. Just before darkness wholly enclosed, I discerned another image vaguely: the open sky and showers of dirt falling on me.
That was my last recollection.
Now, I remember my purpose here – to meander every brittle winter – whilst life and death both co-exist. The sylvan entity may still nourish me whilst I believe I am underground. Worms may reach my body. Winter’s uncertain somber sun may strengthen me as it did all those years ago when I was a farmer. I am a spectral vagrant with a vessel that continues to dry and disappear until the world ceases to be. Only if I knew my destination!
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Reeti Jamil explores life’s different complexities and mysteries by espousing love and empathy.
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