Forever A Mystery

Some memories are best forgotten.

Satish wished he hadn't thought of cleaning out the attic. If he hadn't thought of cleaning out the attic, he wouldn't have come across the little black trunk If he hadn't come across it, he wouldn't have thought of opening it. He should've realised the universe was trying to give him a message, when he couldn't find the key and had to break the lock open. That trunk wasn't meant to be opened. The memories it contained weren't meant to be unleashed.

He sighed as he hugged the bundle of letters to his chest. Those were all he had now, to remind him of her.

He pictured her, sitting at her desk by the window, writing to him. Her blonde hair would've fallen over her eyes -- it always did when she wrote. She would've pushed it back with her slender fingers, with their nails, always painted bright purple. He hadn't thought of that purple nail-polish for decades now.

The purple nail-polish was something they had disapproved of, his brother and sister-in-law. They had also disapproved of her low cut dresses and short skirts. "Revealing so much skin!" his sister-in-law had exclaimed.

They didn't know it, his brother and sister-in-law, but Patricia had revealed a lot more skin to him than that. The time they had gone on their vacation and he had had the house to himself, Patricia had come over and spent a couple of blissful nights. Both of them had revealed all their skin to each other. Satish breathed deeply, recalling her sweet embrace, and thought he caught a wisp of her perfume, still preserved in those letters.

It had been a shock when they told him she was married. Apparently, his brother, thinking Satish was getting serious about the girl, had done some investigating. They had shown him a letter from her boss, saying she was in fact, Mrs. Someone-or-the other. He could not recall that name. He had allowed himself to be packed off to a remote rural branch of his brother's business without saying goodbye to her. He had plunged himself heart and soul into the business, it had prospered, he had married a girl his sister-in-law had chosen and their elder son was now grown up enough to be engaged. He, Satish, was going to be a father-in-law. There was no room in his life for memories of Patricia or her nail-polish or her perfume or her hair or her eyes or her smooth skin or her embrace.

Sighing, he closed the trunk and descended the stairs.

"What you got there, Dad?"

Satish hadn't realised he was still holding the letters. Before he could say anything, his son had yanked the bundle from his hands and was unfolding them, his curiousity getting the better of his manners.

"They're signed Patricia," Nehal said. "That's the girl you liked, isn't it, Dad?"

"How on earth ..."

"Oh, Uncle told me all about your romance when I told him I wanted to marry Sally. He said in my generation it's allowed, but in yours, it wasn't ... to marry a foreigner. That's why he made that guy -- her boss -- write that she was married though she wasn't. "

"What?"

"Yeah, Dad. Uncle told me they had to do it. You didn't know? I thought it was an old story by now. That boss guy was known to Aunty's brother and they hatched the plot together to make you forget Patricia and marry Mom. She had nice writing, this Patricia of yours. Writing to you when you lived two streets away, cute! Where is she now?"

Where, indeed, was she now?

Where was the girl he had betrayed, having thought that she had betrayed him?

"Dad? Dad?"

Satish had skidded over to the desk, perched awkwardly in the chair, and was at his son's computer, frantically keying in something.

"Dad?"

He didn't respond. He typed, he peered at the screen, he sat back with a sigh. Then, he grit his teeth and typed something again, and the process was repeated. He grabbed the letters from his son, flicked through them with frantic haste, and typed something again.

It was half an hour before he looked up at his son, who was now holding his shoulder in a painful grip.

"I can't find her, son, I can't find her anywhere. I must find her and aploogise for what I did."

"Dad, it's been ..." Nehal took a letter and peered at the date., " ... thirty-two years. She won't expect an apology now."

"But don't you understand? I behaved horribly to her. You don't know how horribly. I must find her, son. I must beg her forgiveness."

The father's desperation conveyed itself to the son. "We'll find her, Dad," he said. "I'll help you."

So they searched.

And they searched.

Father and son, following every lead they could from the letters. Satish tried to recall every conversation -- about hobbies, career, possible places to live. They emailed, they phoned, the even went personally if a lead looked likely. Once, they met another Patricia who met the bill in every other way -- except for not being her.

"It's a complete mystery," Nehal said, when they'd been searching six months. "In this day of information technology, we can't find a person. She has disappeared,"

She had vanished -- the way he had vanished, years ago. Had she tried to solve the mystery of his disappearance, then? Had she cried? Had she understood that he hadn't meant it? Did she know he still loved her?

Most importantly, had she, in her heart, forgiven him? He'd never know. It was a mystery.

"Dad? Dad?"

Satish gathered up the letters they had spread on the table. His wife -- Nehal's Mom -- was visiting her parents that weekend, so they didn't have to be furtive about the letters. Now, he gathered them up tenderly, gave them a last lingering look, breathed in their fragrance ... and dropped them, resolutely, into the trash can.


Some memories are best forgotten.