Guilt

The ground was muddled. Pipes were leaking water into the walls, making them look diseased, like pus was bubbling in them. The sky was pallid. This town should be placed under quarantine.

I looked at the piece of paper in my hand. Old and worn out, in an eerie harmony with the surroundings. Vacillating between my thumb and my forefinger, it was the only proof of life in this small town. Chandnagari, it read. Chandnagari, read the peeling letters on the lopsided board. I was here.

This was something I never did. I was a doctor. This was the most diminutive part of my duty. I had to save lives, and in the circumstances that I couldn’t, I was to break the news to my patient’s family. Yes, that was the most diminutive part of my duty. But I would only do it in the hospital premises. Never did I travel 25 kilometers to a remote area to break this news to a family member who was not even there at the moribund bedside. ‘But he was her only child’- I consoled myself. Arrogance.

What was I to say? I had done this a dozen times, almost to the extent of dexterity. And yet, I couldn’t decide the right gesticulations this once. Sympathy seemed too condescending, and empathy too ostentatious.

‘I’m sorry.’

But I wasn’t. It was his fault. If only he hadn’t drunk this much, his liver would’ve supported him through a long, healthy life. I felt like a reprobate. Arrogance and narcissism.

I started looking around, at the numbers in red on top of the doors. Lamb’s blood? But then the houses should’ve escaped the plague. I finally located the house I was supposed to go to. This town was haunted by a deathly silence, and the house was no different. Maybe that would make my job easier. Maybe the lugubrious existence makes them resistant to pain. I had the benefit of the doubt. A strange relief swept over me.

There was no door to knock on. Just a carpet that was hung to separate the otherwise coalesced worlds. I was confused again. Trivial perplexities. I banged on the wall next to the door. The silence was beginning to scare me. What if I had come to report of death to death itself? Thankfully though, a woman coughed. “Hello?” I called. No reply. I peeped inside. An old lady was sitting on the floor wearing a sari, her pallu on her head, counting beads. “Hello?”

She looked up. Her penetrating stare augmented the discomfort. “Mrs. Gokhle?” I heard a hissing sound. More like a ‘yes’ than a ‘no’, I concluded. So I continued.

“I’m sorry.”

The lie just escaped me. The hours spent thinking of the right way to say it suddenly seemed so futile. She looked on. That’s when I realized she didn’t know what I was sorry for. The task was still incomplete.

I gulped. Why was I so scared?

“I’m sorry. Your son passed away this morning.”

Silence.

I waited for a reaction. I felt like a child waiting for his answer sheet. I could hear my breath. It was the only sound. Her breath wasn’t even minutely audible. It worked well with the apparition that was her.

The demon in me slowly began to rise. The trepidation usurped by indignation. This was the woman who was not even there when her son was dying. She knew it, I know. Her motherly instincts would’ve admonished her. But more than that, I had seen the son call her and tell her he was dying. Why then, did she not come?

I had traveled 25 kilometers not merely out of deference, but also out of curiosity. Arrogance and narcissism and shamelessness.

“He’s dead,” I repeated, almost brusquely.

“What is wrong with you? I just told you your son’s dead! How in the world can you be so nonchalant? He was your son for God’s sake! He’s gone!”

She stared. She moaned. And then, she whispered-“Son?”

I was shocked. Her tone wasn’t mournful. It was confused. It was not the bewilderment of a how, it was that of a who.

Which is when it happened. A twitch in her leg.

In that twitch, a realization struck. The indignation vanished. The curiosity seemed audacious. And now, I felt guilty. I felt guilty of doubting a mother’s love.

How could a mother remember to love when she had forgotten she was a mother?

How could a mother suffering from Parkinson’s be there for a son suffering from liver damage? It all made sense now.

“I’m sorry.” And this time I wasn’t lying.

Arrogance and narcissism and shamelessness and naiveté. I was everything that was wrong with this world.

But guilt was a beginning.