Not a true story II

For a moment he looked at the frail body of his wife. There she lay, breathing heavily - asleep. He had sent everyone out of the room. He wanted to suffer alone with her by looking at her slip away...

He took her hand in his and stroked it gently. There was a lump building in his throat but he held back with all his might. Everytime she heaved and made that deep, throaty, gurgling sound, his heart skipped a beat and his grip tightened on her weak hand.

He looked at her transfixed. The drops of sweat on her brow. Her pale, parched lips. Her slender neck. "Why her?" He kept asking himself. He had gone from disbelief to indignation to desperation to resignation. And all the while, she kept slipping away, ever so slowly.

It was close to evening. There was a window opposite, through which he could see a line of Eucalyptus trees, standing all in a row and swaying in the gentle breeze as if shaking their heads at the inevitable. The little rays of light that slipped past their branches playing on the walls of the room. One ray of light hit a cannister on the table next to the window and sent out a sparkle.

Just as the sun set, she opened her eyes. The rays had reached her and had disturbed her already disturbed sleep. Her hair and face shone in the light. She felt the hand she knew so well and squeezed it without looking at him. She kept looking out of the window, at the eucalyptus trees and the skylarks; at the red sky from behind the hills in the distant horizon.

"There is something I must tell you", she said.

He drew closer to her. She still did not look in his direction but continued.

"I always wanted to visit Shillong. The place where you were born. I always wanted to take the walk with you, you know, the one you keep telling me about. And most of all, I want a boy just like you, to hold and take on that walk and answer all his inquisitive questions. He'd chuck stones into the streams and rush up and down the steps and I'd tell him not to do so....he'd look up at me, his face flushed red and beaming. And we'd be so proud of him".

She paused for a moment. All the while, she kept looking out of the window. It was almost dark and the breeze fluttered the curtains drawn aside.

"Promise me that you will fulfill my wish. When I am well again, I shall have all those things I ask for. Promise me".

He could not utter a word. He could not breathe. There was so much pain in his heart that he wanted to die.

She now turned towards him. He was so brave. She was very happy. She beckoned him for a kiss and he leaned forward to give her a peck on her cheek. That is when she held him for the last time, very tight. As he gave away and broke down, she gave him a few gentle pats on his back. There they lay till late into the night when he got up to close the window and pull the sheet over his love, his life.