Heartburn

There's always an image of the past that gathers itself in the mind and projects it through the eyes. An excessively long train whistle, an old movie, a dress. Or in Maya's case, a very old song. She had been sitting across from him for a whole hour, deftly hiding any signs of discomfort in little silent coughs and small smiles. She was trying desperately to forget, what her mind was conjouring for her, pushing through a haze of red wine and newly accquired confidence. The songs, one after the other, reminded her of four years ago, even three, when she had been next to him, her hand on his thigh and his on her waist. It was hard to forget and painful to remember how close they had been, and how spatially far apart they were now. For he was married, and lived in London. She was single and lived alone, quite alone, in Delhi.

Oh that song, he said, you remember that Maya, back from when we were in a band? Ofcourse, she said. What she actually wanted to say was far different, and much too indecent for a decent place, or decent company. She was the lead singer, he said gesturing towards Maya, as if everyone at the table didn't already know who Maya was. She was good, far far better than all the riff-raff going around then, far better. His voice lingered over the 'far' making it sound like an overt signal rather than a compliment. It sent a shiver down her spine and she looked away as she felt her cheeks flush. She needed another glass of red wine. Ofcourse, darling, said her date, drawing her close until she almost choked under his overpowering cologne. When she regained her composure, she caught Sandhya, the twenty-five year old London bride describe her wedding in upper crust Victorian tongue.

It was beautiful, just gorgeous, she said. Oh so gorgeous, Maya micmicked inside her brain, just gorgeous. And yet she couldn't help being jealous, insanely jealous of what Sandhya had, her perfect designer wedding, her perfect Indian groom, her perfect married, lovely, gorgeous life. She on the other hand was plain. No designer wear for her as her paltry schoolteacher salary couldn't afford any. She didn't live in huge mansions or shop in Paris, or have rich parents who could afford for her to do these things. She had a modest income, too modest, and far too ordinary a life to keep someone like Jai engrossed. Infact, she was surprised that it had lasted as long as it did, and was as glamourless and grey as it was. And here was Jai now, full of Hugo Boss and Gabbana, like a ramp model who'd walked his way from Paris to this non-descript Delhi pub. It is shabbier than I remember it to be Maya, he commented flippantly, as if things were supposed to have stood still for him. It has been four years, Jai. Four long years since you've been away, getting married and growing rich. She added the last part in her own mind, and went over it a dozen times, like the music they had once played together. And plus, Maya continued, you've also been spoilt for choice, what with living in London and Paris. And its the best, isn't it, asked Sandhya, slowly sliding her fingers along the nape of Jai's neck. Maya felt like she was going to burst a blood vessel.

Maya, the independent. No date Maya. No tears Maya. No whining Maya. Maya the strong, beautiful old girl. Atleast that's how she'd want her business card to read. But they don't give teachers cards now, do they? You just have to believe them. Maya would wake up sometimes, in the middle of the night, and preen into the bathroom mirror, under a flickering old tubelight, preen and preen till she could find traces of her old self under dark circles and greying flaky skin. She would smile coyly, laugh, make little facial gestures to imaginary friends, to Jai, to an enthralled, absent audience. As if behind the mirror lay her actual life and her current life was a specular inversion of what she was actually supposed to be doing. If everything was performance, a play, a pretence, then why not call it that? This 'lunch', this double date was life on the wrong side of the mirror. Maya's real world lay there, behind the glass, where she could smile without being seen and laugh without being heard. For real people never wanted to hear real laughter. So Maya tried her best to titter affectedly through the afternoon, glazed with good red wine, for Jai was a rich man now.

As was Sameer, or Sammy, as he insisted everyone call him. No one really called him anything else, for he looked like a Sammy, an overgrown, loud, spoilt lout. Why is Maya with him, Jai wondered out loud to Sandhya several times. The money or the sex, Jai couldn't decide which. It never struck him that Maya was capable of loving this man. Or that he could ever love Maya. He tried to ask her once, through an elaborate rise and fall of eyebrows, what she could possibly have seen in Sammy. Maya ignored the silent query and inched closer to him, for it was evident that Jai was trying to run him down, rub her nose in her failure to procure for herself a decent man, like Jai had salvaged a future with the gorgeous Sandhya. Fuck off, she said threateningly, through her own eyebrow monologue, and leave him alone. But later she would remember the look Jai gave her, practise it in front of her mirror friends and cry herself to sleep. Her performance would turn tragic. Her life would turn even more insignificant.

Love isn't ever easy, and even if something is going right, it always finds a way to become torturous, till it doesn't resemble love at all. But the feeling of love lies dormant in vacant hearts and re-ignites itself at the slightest touch, whisper or look. On that winter afternoon in a Delhi pub, a complication was going raise its lovely head and soothe the frayed nerves of a four year old headache.

Maya walked across the wooden floor of the pub to the bathroom. She felt she was sinking, sinking into the velvet of the red, stained seats. The red wine was swirling in her head and had unleashed a vortex of old aches. She had to get away, even if it was for a few minutes, and breathe heavily and decisively. The blanched lighting of the bathroom helped her recover and push away the memory of Jai sliding his palm under her thigh during a movie interval. He had drawn her close when the lights had been dimmed again and kissed her for what seemed like eternity. It's funny how memories are made of the most striking moments, never of ordinary,mundane life that make up most of our existence. Its almost as if, now looking back, Maya's life was only a string of these scattered, jarring, racy memory bits. She splashed her face with water furiously and wiped it clean of all tear stains.Outside, a few feet away from the bead-curtain partition, Jai was waiting for her.

He pushed her against the door of the bathroom and slid his hand up her back, just like in the movie hall, four years ago. He pressed her words down with his lips and stifled her meek protests with his hand. I missed you, I missed you so much Maya, he said, now crying softly into her badly permed hair. Maya felt like she was sinking, all over again. Why now, she cried angrily, why when you're a NRI bridegroom? She wanted to scream into her mirror, her loyal, faithful reflective friend, without the complication of a human body in between. Jai was messing up, again. Don't stand between Maya and mirror Maya. Not here, not here Maya. Can we go to your house? You still live there, right? We'll, I will, we can, yes, we should, was all Jai could say, a warbled mixture of commands and requests that Maya answered, shaking with nervous laughter. So they left, left the gorgeous spouse and swanky Sammy behind, and made their escape from this horrible, horrible mismatch of pairs.

Lying on a single mattress hours later, in Maya's two room apartment, surrounded by a mess of Fabindia kurtas and test copies they thought of four years ago, when things weren't this complicated, when loving was without condition. Jai confessed to cowardice, if not adultery. He told Maya that his internship with a London law firm had helped him glimpse at a life he would never achieve with his ordinary Delhi existence and an ordinary school teacher-girlfriend. Maya swallowed bitterly, but sank deeper into bed, and love, with him. I loathe her Maya, he said. She's foolish, far too young and lives in the constant illusion that I love her, he added. I'll never love her the way I loved you, the way I still love you. Maya watched Jai's heart shaped mouth word perfect words and leant over to kiss him, waiting to see what he did in return. He kissed her back, but with one eye on the clock behind Maya, his mouth turning dry. With a short, low whistle he jumped up, put his pants on and walked over casually to the sink built in the wall, washing her off him. Flashes of the past danced around the dimly lit room again, as Maya watched them whirl in a circular slide-show. Of her and him walking out of her apartment, smelling like each other, hand in hand, happy like children. Now he twitched nervously at the shabby apartment, turning only to advise Maya on her plumbing woes. Why doesn't he just leave, she thought angrily, knowing full well that she'd regret it terribly if he did. He crept back into bed with her, holding her close, him fully clothed and she wearing nothing but the bedsheet. Jai always has me, thought Maya, naked, embarrased, timid, vulnerbale. Inferior. He was kissing her again, very slowly, asking her if she would meet him everytime he flew into Delhi without Sandhya, for his 'business' trips. His hand sank deeper when he asked her to move into the company flat in Vasant Kunj and told her she didn't need to work anymore, not if she didn't want to.

It was years before Jai and Maya met again. As expected it was in Delhi and in a lowly-lit pub with plush red velvet seats. But quite unexpectedly, Jai looked away at once, got up from his half finished Corona and walked out of the pub, with a woman who wasn't Sandhya. Maya laughed out loud at his receeding figure in winter sunlight. It was still there, the mark she's made on his face, when she'd broken his nose with a ironing board the afternoon he'd almost had her again, when the line between love and lust had first and finally been drawn.