The Spectre’s Recompense

by Saurav Ranjan Datta

part 1

The charabanc passed Neel’s office gate diurnally at 5:40 p.m., ambling but precise in its movements. The locomotive came not a single minute before or after, as if following a chronometer set by a strict disciplinarian. Neel’s office hours ended at 5:30 p.m., and no way could he extend them, because he had to board that bus.

When he took the transport for the first time in his working life, it was one of the decent commuting options, and he did it simply for the innocent reason of reaching home promptly. But things changed soon enough. Now he waited for it all day with bated breath. That was his one great moment of exultation for an otherwise lacklustre life. It had become his life’s cynosure in the last few months, because it carried ‘her’ like it carried all other passengers. And missing it meant waiting another excruciating twenty-four hours. That was too much to endure. Both the vehicle and the woman were strict in their routines.

Once inside the omnibus, he found her always sitting towards the back. To get an unobstructed view, Neel had to choose a spot close to her. Often, he positioned himself on a seat that gave him a sideways view. But that was all he could do: furtive glances now and then, without staring unabashedly.

His stop came before the woman’s, and he had to get down, leaving her behind with a longing that often accompanied unrequited love. His glee at accompanying her was short-lived. The pitfall of it was that he had no idea where she got on or off the bus. The only consolation was that the bus ran on the city’s southern streets, making him more or less sure of her presence in that part of town.

This pattern of partial accompaniment continued for some time. The question of marriage had yet to occur in Neel’s life. He was only twenty-six, a tender age by his society’s standards. Nobody married in his circle till they turned thirty.

He was also the single child of his parents. That made him elusive and moody; nobody dared bother him without a watertight reason. He had gotten his job a couple of years back. The office hours were smooth and, outside it, life was hassle-free. His evenings were spent either watching TV or participating in occasional drinking bouts with his closest buddies.

During Neel’s bus rides, he often planned to talk to the woman, to make a move. But planning was one thing and execution another. In spite of his carefree attitude, Neel was shy when it came to women. To gather the courage to talk to her seemed an enormous task. In addition, how could one approach in a crowded public vehicle? He had even planned to follow her till her journey’s end. When she would disembark and he, too, would descend. But he could not. What if she mistook him for a molester and started shouting?

His world reverberated with thoughts of her, and she continued to dwell there around the clock. The lady was short and dark, with large, brown eyes that seemed to be an endless ocean. Whether he imagined it or not, he found those eyes often looking towards him, and his heart stopped in those moments. If it was done inadvertently or not, one could never tell. Those melancholic apertures darted here and there, invariably lost in thoughts.

She seemed unmindful of her surroundings, brooding deeply over the entire journey. But her dour face remained always on the horizon of Neel’s thoughts, like a cocoon in the desert of a morose life. Without any headway, he remained always pensive with thoughts of her. His shyness was in reality a decoy to hide his low self-esteem.

This went on until one fine Monday, Neel missed the 5:40 trip. Although Mondays were hectic, he still finished work by 5:30. But that evening, an important regional meet went on till late. He could do nothing about it. When he appeared the next day, the lady was not there. It was odd, because she was always on the 5:40 bus. It became heavily odd when he could not find her ever inside that vehicle again. He kept waiting, but she never appeared.

The bus plied as before, routinely, without her. Neel kept boarding it in hope, but his hopes were dashed soon enough. She was simply gone, like an air bubble disappearing into the troposphere. Only the memories of her remained. When the realization of forever loss hit him, his world was crushed. He cursed himself for his cowardly self who could never approach her. The sense of an opportunity never taken hit him hard. This saga of frustration could not be narrated to anybody. People would simply laugh but, nevertheless, Neel felt a loss.

* * *

A few years passed without the woman’s ever appearing again. Neel’s disappointment had started to ebb by then, but he didn’t fall in love with anybody else in the meantime. Love came only sparingly, and his susceptibility to the charms of the other gender had its limitations. But then came a Monday when something happened. Something that would have a long-term impact.

After his office that evening, Neel went to his uncle’s house to meet some family obligations. His uncle lived on the other end of the city, towards the northern fringes. As he stepped onto the elevator to go to his uncle’s fifth-floor apartment, Neel’s attention went to the other elevator, which stood exactly opposite to the one he was embarking on. As his eyes fell there, his heart stopped. There was the lady! The one who had so much enamoured him, standing there so innocently. She was as pensive as before.

But at the same moment, Neel’s elevator closed its door in a flash and moved upwards. By the time he could stop and run to the ground floor to figure out things, the other one was gone. It became very difficult for him to gauge the exact floor she had travelled to. The building was a high-rise with multiple levels, and the elevator would stop on all the floors. That was the purpose of having an elevator. With a dejected heart, Neel went back home later in the evening.

The next morning, he woke up with a shudder as he found his father shaking him to get up quickly. With heavy eyelids, he looked up at the wall clock.

“What’s the matter, Papa? It’s only 5:00 a.m. now.” His usual time of getting up was 7:00 a.m.

“Your uncle has just called. A lady in their complex had jumped to her death from the roof above the 20th floor. It happened only an hour ago.”

“What? Who is the lady?”

“One of the residents, maybe. How would I know? But your uncle has become nervous. You know how he panics even at the slightest trouble, and this is obviously a big tragedy. Could you please go to him now? You can go to your office from there later.”

It took Neel a few moments to digest what he had heard. For a moment, he even thought he was dreaming. It was only last evening that he had been there, when he had spotted that woman again from his bus journey days. The sudden recollection of her face made him numb. An unknown fear seared his mind like a burning coal on a wound. “Oh, no, no, this cannot be true.” Neel jumped out of his bed to get ready.

When he reached his uncle’s complex, it was already crowded with police, media, and people from the neighbourhood. But he felt a bit relieved after knowing the identity of the deceased person. An elderly woman, a senior citizen who lived alone had committed suicide by jumping from the roof.

Suicide was seen as the most probable reason. It was assumed that she suffered from depression due to loneliness. The matter was, of course, sad, but it was beyond the control of Neel or anybody. He did not probe further into the identity of that woman, because when it came to matters of death or accidents, Neel was quite superstitious. Although the woman’s name did seem familiar, he didn’t dwell on it further.

After he spoke to his elderly uncle and assured him of his regular visits, Neel went back to his office. Although tired by then due to the exertion of this sudden morning adventure, he nevertheless felt glad. The news of a lady committing suicide earlier in the morning had scared him to the bone.

Notwithstanding the relief he felt after coming out of his uncle’s complex, a few days later a certain doubt started crossing Neel’s mind now and then. Wasn’t the entire thing a bit odd? He had not seen that bus woman for so long and, finally, when he came across her, a tragedy took place almost immediately. Of course, it was a coincidence, but the time and place of the entire matter made him ponder.

* * *

Proceed to part 2...