Between the Showers

Between the Showers
by
Akash Chatterjee


Rajah glanced over the grandpa clock and started undressing. First the tie, then the suit and the rest of his clothes.

And then, he preferred to remain in his birthday suit.

It was now 12-25 p.m. of May 17 and summer was very much on. But that was not the reason why he decided to wear nothing. Meemie was to arrive in minutes and he chose to receive her that way.

Few days back, while in a lighter mood, Meemie had agreed to sponge him under the shower, and he took today as the deal-day for it. The prospect of that event was now minutes away and he felt all excited at that.

However, there were some jobs required to be done before Meemie’s arrival and he got engaged to all that immediately.

First, the clothes. He started collecting them from the floor to fold them up neatly. Not an everyday habit, yet he concentrated hard on that only for Meemie’s appreciation. Meemie liked to see everything neat and tidy.

And so decked up was the room. The water-filled jug and the drinking glass perfectly placed at the bedside table, the fresh-from-laundry violet bed-spread, multicolored sofa-cushion properly placed, a well arranged CD rack... Everything was in its place to make Meemie happy.

Excitement once again ran through him, as he imagined the impending fun and frolics that would fill up the big, oval-shaped milky-white bathtub.

Smiling on his own, he now reached his CD rack to pick up one of his favorite CDs and set that into the music system, whose thumping beats at thousand watts reassured its readiness to the incoming occasion.

Happily he switched off the sound and went for the last of the preparatory jobs by spraying out a room freshener all around the apartment. Oh! Stage is all set to receive Meemie!

Ding-dong! 12-30 dot! The Grandpa clock announced.

A little impatient, he now paced around the room for a while before settling down at one of the heavily curtained windows to peep outside.

The busy street outside looked like a thin, gray tape which divided the row of tall pink apartments. People looked ants there and the cars seemed as insects of various colors.

Rajah now looked at the sun-baked horizon from this 20th floor. The glistening pieces of motionless white clouds made him bored enough. He turned back and looked at the hexagonal antique grandpa clock. It was then talking, "Tick-tock, tick-tock- it's now quarter to be one 'o clock..."

Dejected, he went for the telephone receiver and started pressing the buttons-- three, three, five, one, but stopped midway.

Meemie once pleaded him not to bother her at the office. "You know Rajahh, incoming calls except business are always unwelcome at Stock Exchange. And you know the bad temper of my boss!"

"Damn it! The Idiot Exchange!" He banged down the receiver in its cradle.

Now what to do? What to do really?

His casual wares lay folded at the bedside rack. He sighed and picked up a pair of shorts to put on but suddenly kicked it away and settled down at the computer instead .

Switching it on, he pulled out his special file on the screen 'Rajah the King' and started browsing through its contents. Most of them were little pieces of comments, much like a diary. He stopped at a juncture where the lines read, 'I'll never forgive Pupai. He's such a liar.'

He then inserted a line after that -- 'Meemie is no less a liar than Pupai.'

A little thud at the main door was heard just then, to which he responded immediately by rushing towards there.

No. It wasn't Meemie. It was Billoo, the pet cat of the Evans family who stayed at the floor below.

Hopes dashed, he returned to his chair and added another line on the screen, 'Yes, it's Meemie who's making life hell for me.'

He then scrolled down to reach the end of the file where the tailpiece read, 'So Rajah, you are going to be jailed on 18th May! Do you want that really?'

Staring vacantly at that line for a while he slowly keyed up a new para below:

'My darling Meemie, I know you'll never write to a prisoner. Still, I love you forever.'

Rewriting the sentence again and again he suddenly covered his face with his palms and broke into tears.

Minutes after he went to the toilet and threaded open all the water taps to the full. The streams of water started falling in torrents while their sound reverberated throughout the apartment.

Fifteen minutes later a thin, tired-looking lady in her mid-thirties entered the flat and tiptoed into Rajah’s room. She knew it very well that her eight-year-old son would be very much upset at her being late.

Once in the room, the blue tie, a white shirt and a blue pant, all parts of Rajah’s new school uniform taunted her in unison from the rack and again hammered a fact in her mind, that this was the last day of their togetherness of the year, as Rajah was to be sent to a distant boarding school only tomorrow.

The fragrance hovering in the room air carried the essence of a little boy’s innocent whim; and suddenly her eyes became moist as she remembered about what she promised to her son some days ago.

Now Rajah’s Meemie knelt down beside her already asleep son. His naked state, the parallel stains of tears down on his cheeks, the sounds of the running water… All jacked up the story of the day while she was struck down with her own shower of tears. Absently caressing Rajah’s hair, she lamented with a sigh: “Only if your Dad, your great Pupai were amid us…”

Ends