Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse.

It was the second thing he had seen that day which reminded him of her. First, there were those gorgeous eclairs nonchalantly left on the dining table. And now this.

It was odd that he found two things that reminded him of her in a spate of 24 hours.

He found the envelope, tucked inside the Virginia Woolf book. It was her favourite book, he remembered. But he had never noticed either the book or the envelope before. He saw it today as he was cleaning up and rearranging his book shelf. There were too many books and he knew he had to get rid of some of them. Ms Wolfe’s masterpiece was one such book. He never cared much for her writing. And it reminded him of her anyway.

He got off from the short stool he was perched up on cleaning the books. He put his glasses on as he gently opened the envelope. The paper was crusty with time so he had to be careful whilst opening it. There was a small note inside, in that familiar handwriting he recognised instantly.

You…someone who is at once the closest part of myself and yet miles apart from me despite being under the same roof. Our love has seen many springs and many winters but now it seems autumn is setting in. I can’t seem to enter into your heart anymore. There is a wall, a barrier that has developed. Little moments of silence, like bricks of non-communication and cement chunks of mistrust has crept in making this wall unbreakable. I have tried to remove it, prevent it from coming up but have failed. Did you even try? Or did you willingly allow this to come up between us? I don’t know. Maybe I will never know. Although at every point of my life I wish I did know. I remember the times when we…

He didn’t know when those tears found their way out of his eyes and dribbled past the thick glasses down his cheeks. He kept the note on the side of the sofa he was sitting on. He arched his head back and shut his eyes for some time. His entire life flashbacked in front of his closed eyes. His sophomore years when he first met her. The time when they fell in love. When they decided to start a life together. Their highs. And their lows. The love. The fights. The disagreements. The distance. And the eventual separation.

He got up from his sofa and stared out the French window. It was nearly three years since they had parted. And like most partings, it had not been a happy one. In their happier times they would even joke about these things. “If we ever get fed up of each other we must give each other at least 3 years before we move on with life. I think that much time is deserved, don’t you think so”, she laughed as she said this, burying her face in his chest. His usual response would be to hug her tighter and kiss her on her forehead. “Why on earth would we want to separate?” That was a question he had learnt not to ask. He knew he had to play along this “little joke” of hers.

He kept the Virginia Woolf back in the book shelf and began to think. “How did the book make an inexplicable appearance in his collection?” He knew almost all the books he had on shelf. And because it such a favourite book of hers he would’ve certainly noticed it earlier. Something about the whole thing intrigued him. Made him think. He called his maid and asked her if “memsaab” had come over to the house in his absence. She couldn’t seem to remember. And then she said that one day while coming to work she “thought” she saw memsaab “driving away in a terrible hurry from the building”.

He looked at his maid with eyes that twinkled happiness after ages. “Thank you thank you thank you” he kept on repeating as he held her shoulders and shook her repeatedly. She stared back at him in disbelief, surprised at his unusual behaviour.

He let go off his maid and frantically dialled her number from his mobile. The voice at the other end was a calm and composed one.

“You finally called. Glad you found it on time. It would have been over three years next week and then….” she smiled looking at a picture of the two of them in front of her desk. She looked upwards and mouthed a silent “thank you” as she kept the phone down, her face mirroring a happiness that was similar to his.

Copyright (c) Pratik Majumdar