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Short Story If you see a
falling star... Nilu's heart
skipped a beat. Her worst fears had come true. Asitha would have
to leave Honeycomb and settle down in Brook's Estate - an old isolated
bungalow three hours from Badulla town. Nilu looked at the beautiful
surroundings facing her and sighed. She loved this house. She had
lived in it for three years as Asitha's wife. But now things were
going to change. "This is the life of a planter," Asitha
had told her when the rumours about "transfers" had begun.
"You have to be ready to move whenever the management decides
it's time for a change." And now, the dreaded change had come. Nilu tried
not to cry when she saw her new home - a square, two storied building,
built by a British planter called Robert Brook, 102 years ago (she
had calculated the age from the date carved on the central fireplace).
Robert Brook had chosen a spot far from the factory to build his
house, but built it in such a way that the factory filled the view
from the sitting room and the master bedroom. Nilu could almost
imagine the burly planter, smoking a pipe and reclining in an easy
chair in the sitting room gazing with pride at the smoke coming
from the chimney of his factory. He had ensured that the first thing
he would see in the morning from his bed would also be the factory.
The sun refused
to come out on the day Asitha and Nilu moved into their new house.
This was July; the monsoons had come in maximum force. The howling
wind, the non-stop drizzle and the mist created a dark, brooding,
atmosphere in the house. Depression seemed to reign in every nook
and corner. Nilu's mind
filled with fear. She recollected what her friends had said about
the bungalow when they had heard of Asitha's transfer. The house
had a reputation for bad luck. "A moosala place," was
how one friend had described it. Everybody believed
there was a ghost in the bungalow. The last of the descendants of
Robert Brook called Dryson Brook had committed suicide when his
wife had eloped with a planter in Badulla. He had shot himself in
the cloakroom. The bullet, which pierced his skull, had gone through
the staircase and through the ceiling. The marks of the bullet hole
were constant reminders of his tragic death. It seemed as though
the sense of sorrow, dejection and depression that had driven him
to take his life, still pervaded the bungalow. Lying awake
at night in their still unfamiliar bedroom, Nilu had wondered what
bad luck would befall them. So far her life with Asitha had been
marvellous. Even though they had totally different interests, she,
a lawyer, he, a burly ex-ruggerite, they got on unusually well together.
Now, Nilu wondered if things would change. Would Asitha run away
with one of the sophisticated female auditors who came from Colombo
to visit the factory? Then she began
to worry about her parents, her brother and sister-in-law, her favourite
teachers... about everybody she loved. Would something happen to
them? What ill-fate did the house hold for all of them? As the night
stretched on, Nilu fell into the deepest depths of depression. She curled
herself into a ball and went to sleep wishing she would never wake
up. But she did,
wake up, wake up from a dream in which the house had looked different.
In her dream, the gloomy, dilapidated rooms had been filled with
sunshine. There were flowers on the tables, lovely cheerful pictures
on the walls, and soft music. Everywhere there prevailed a sense
of love and joy. In her dream
she saw her parents-in-law seated in the sitting room. Nilu hardly
knew them for, two months after she had married Asitha, they had
migrated to the States to live with Asitha's sister. In her dream
she found herself loving them as much as she loved her father and
mother. She wished
her dream would be real when she woke up. But nothing had changed.
The house remained as awful as it had been yesterday, when they
had moved in. Then, at 6.30 in the morning came the telephone call
for Asitha. Asitha's father was at the other end of the line. He
was telling Asitha, that he and Asitha's mother would be flying
home for a month's vacation when they got the summer holidays. Nilu's eyes
popped out when Asitha conveyed the news to her. The last part of
her dream was going to come true. Then it struck her that if she
tried, she could make the first part come true as well. With clenched
fists she vowed to prove to everybody who had spoken ill of the
house that they were wrong, that her house would bring nothing but
good luck. From then on,
Nilu worked hard, harder than she had ever worked in all her life.
She cleaned and scrubbed and polished and tried to change the gloomy
atmosphere. She nagged Asitha about paint and bathroom fittings
and plumbers and carpenters. She hung a painting of the Buddha at
the entrance of the house. She wanted the calm serenity on the face
of the Buddha to prevail all over the house. Her mother and brother
gifted her two beautiful paintings. Her father bought her a radio.
One of her best friends stitched a wall hanging, especially for
the sitting room. Gradually,
the house began to look like what it had been in her dream. As she
worked, listening to the music on the radio, Nilu realised she was
enjoying herself. She even liked the strange sounds she heard as
she worked. Footsteps on
the stairs, the sense of somebody moving in the next room. "That's
Dryson Brook," Nilu told herself. And as the
days passed, she began to feel he was her friend. She called him
Mr. Brooke or Brooky according to the mood she was in, and had imaginary
conversations with him. As Asitha was away during the daytime, she
found her residential ghost a lovely companion. After days
and days of rain, the sun decided to make an appearance on the day
Asitha's parents arrived at the bungalow. Nilu realised she need
not have feared her in-laws. They took Nilu into their midst as
if Nilu was one of their own daughters. As Nilu sat in the sitting
room listening to their tales about life in New York, she realised
she was living her dream. That night
she stood with Asitha on the balcony gazing into the mountains. The lights
of the factory glittered in the distance. Nilu turned her head towards
the sky and asked Asitha, "What would you do if you saw a falling
star right now?" Asitha did not reply immediately. He remained
silent for almost a minute. Then he turned towards Nilu, gathered
her into his arms and said in a low, gentle voice "Nothing.
I don't have anything to wish for." |
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