It was resignation that pushed him to visit the palmist. This mysterious science, he hoped, would tell him his story with a clarity he was trying hard to find. Not one to believe in the wonders of astrology and palmistry, merely walking into the slight, gentle-looking palmist’s room felt like a defeat. The litany of predictions and advice barely made it to his absent mind. He realized the futility of his visit even as the sagely-looking man started talking. Midway through his consultation, he abruptly walked out with a half-muttered apology. Once out, he hurried his steps as if he didn’t want to be spotted there. In a strange city with nobody but a crowd of tourists milling about, he felt an urgent need to hide.

He could see a ghastly picture in his mind. He was in the middle of a court in session and a hundred pairs of eyes looked at him, passing their sentence even before the court could pass its judgment. They kept a safe distance, careful not to be in the same space as him but the weight of those eyes was palpable, causing him to slouch a little as he walked. As he rushed away with his eyes pointed at his toes, he hoped to forget all about having visited the palmist. He hoped to forget that he had been so weak.

That evening, he had found himself on the cold and unwelcoming floor of his terrace, smoking the carefully preserved half of a cigarette. He had been off smoking in happier times but it was yet another promise he had reneged on to escape his temporary hell. He felt the revulsion of a man who had just visited a brothel to make his loveless life bearable. Except, the dormant misery always returned with a ruthless fury once his short-lived escape was over.

His heartbreaks were no ordinary ones. They always showed up with a viciousness he could neither foresee nor defeat. They were not the outcome of a mistake or the fall from a missed step, but the tempestuous revenge of the wronged. Here he was, far away from home trying to deal with rejection all over again. He couldn’t take comfort in the familiar sight of his neighbourhood park or the long drive out of the city or call one of his colleagues and get drunk till the only worry for him was a headache from hell, the next morning.

Instead, he was on that gelid terrace floor, replaying a few words in his head. It was a dangerous game to play, for every time he played them back, he discovered a new ominous meaning. A loosely thrown comma became an emphasized pause, an ellipsis turned into reluctance and innocuous words transformed into diabolical puns. Everything sounded caustic. He tried to piece everything sequentially, every word she had spoken and his reply to each of them. He tried to cut through the mist in his head and decode how she had gone from “you have no idea how invaluable you are to me” to “I think our little story has run its course,” within two days. He tried but he could not nail down that moment or that turn of phrase which changed everything.

After a while, he gave up. He decided that he would wait for the answers to present themselves when they chose to. That was probably the cue, for that is when he heard the little girl sing. She was on the terrace next door, picking up clothes from the line. She was probably singing to keep herself warm. Her voice flowed in like it didn’t quite belong there and had been planted for a reason. It was like the waft of a fragrance completely out of place in the mustiness of that small town. He wasn’t sure she even knew the meaning of the words she was singing.

And summer will soon arrive with fanfare;

And burn your skin with its deathly glare.

And the rain will batter down in a torrent

And pierce every pore; it won’t relent.

The promise of tomorrow will only make it worse

For what’s within you is your curse.

So make of this day, what you will

The evening won’t wait for your heart to heal.

It was a song he had never heard before but it was one he knew he would remember forever. In that little girl’s voice. In that velvet whisper of a cold evening in dusty Mirajpur.

It brought upon him a stillness he had missed. Perhaps, certainties were not for him. He would need to eke out his comfort from words thus carelessly hummed and gestures of kindness, completely unintended.