The next day the weather in London changed suddenly. Golden sunlight covered everything. I was sitting outside Paul Cafe at Gloucester Road, trying to put the darkness of the past into words. To sit in this beautiful sunlight and write about the darkness of the last few days was making the sunlight that much more beautiful. But after I had written it all down and read it in the sunlight, it all rang hollow. Again and again, I’d type, read and delete the same sentences. My life lay in front of me like a tangled mess of wet thread and I was trying to find one of the ends—then there’d at least be an opportunity to untangle it all.
My coffee had gone cold. I was just thinking about ordering another when the waitress came by to take the cup away. I asked her for another. She acknowledged the request and was picking up the cold cup when she saw the laptop screen. ‘What the hell is this?’ she blurted out. I couldn’t help but laugh at her surprise. I told her that it’s Hindi, and that I’m a Hindi writer. She sat down next to me, staring at the words on the screen. She then asked me to type something. I asked her name. Katherine, I typed it out.
कैैथरिन
She looked at it and laughed. She pulled out her phone, took a photo of my screen and said, ‘Your next coffee’s on me.’ I thanked her and she went back inside. I kept staring at her name for a long time, कैैथरिन, her laughter now embedded in it.
I started writing a story. I once knew a girl called Katherine . . . The minute I typed it, I was ashamed of my own superficiality. For a long time now I’ve been struggling with the question as to which parts of my life are real and which are the stories I make up? I mean, there has to be a difference between my real life and the stories I create; else I’ll never be able to experience anything real. The minute anything beautiful happens around me, I start looking at it as a potential story. But how do I remain in the present? Like, where am I right now? What am I doing here in London? Why do I want to run from my lonely life towards more loneliness? I hate my writing when such questions surround me. I instantly deleted the name and closed my laptop.
Katherine was back with my coffee. She put the cup down and asked, ‘Are you okay?’ An anxious person looks the same in all the languages of the world. I just smiled, which meant both ‘yes’ and ‘no’. I’m not in my country, or I would’ve instantly said, I’m alright. You have to hide everything there. You have to constantly toil to hide the weakness that comes with not being okay. But here, here I felt I should live my reality how it was. Katherine was gone. Soon I was irritated at myself for smiling. I should’ve just said I’m fine.
It had been a long time since I had quit smoking. But the last two days had been so stark that I had bought a packet. I know I’m weak. After just two sips of coffee, my hands were on the packet. I pulled one out and put it on the table. I had to scramble a bit in my bag before I could find the lighter. I sniffed the cigarette for a bit before putting it between my lips. I kept waiting for something to stop me, a thought, a call or a message but nothing did. After some time, I lit the cigarette. With the first drag, the tension in my body started to loosen up. But soon I felt dizzy and couldn’t smoke the entire cigarette.
Katherine brought a chocolate cake and put it on my table. ‘This is from my boyfriend. He asked me to give it to you,’ she said and smiled. I thanked her but refused to accept the cake, to which she replied that her boyfriend will feel bad. After some back and forth, I accepted the cake. I was hungry. The only thing I had consumed since morning was coffee. Soon, I had demolished the entire thing. I thought Katherine had gone back in, but she was just standing there at the door, watching me eat. She had golden hair, like the sun’s sheen on London’s buildings. She was tall and well-built like an athlete. Her genial smile seemed like an anomaly. I had to leave. I pulled some money out of my wallet and gestured at her to accept it. But she kept looking at me, she didn’t accept the money or deny it, she just smiled at me. I was getting uncomfortable. She was still smiling when she went back inside but there was something different to this smile. It felt as though she was saying, ‘I see you, I know you.’
I left the money for the two coffees and the cake on the table and got out of there like a thief.
***
