Monique sat in the car with a blanket wrapped around her by the paramedic team. The blanket was more for shock than warmth. The man who was supposed to escort her to the hospital was discussing some details with his superior. The paramedic had checked her and inferred that it was mostly shock. The blood that clinged to her hair was not hers. She had a small cut on her forehead, a bruised left hand and a dislocated wrist. Still she needed to go to the hospital for a thorough check up and a CT Scan.
With the fire still blazing nearby it was a smouldering ninety eight degrees she watched as the hoses tried hard to douse the flames that had turned her life to dust. "Ashes to ashes, Dust to dust" it seemed to whisper into her proud mind. This wasn't how it was supposed to end. This was all wrong. This was her punishment for tempting fate, for her desire to be happy. Monique rubbed her arms trying to ease away the numbness, trying to acknowledge that she was still living while he was not. Did it have to be on the eve of the day that she had waited for so long?
"Monique, I think it is time, don't you think?"
"Time for what sweetie?"
"Tie the knot of course. It has been so long that we are together. It is only expected that we should marry. Also that way you don't have to lie at church about you being married to an unbeliever because you actually will be."
Rishi's nonchalance about getting married shocked her. To her marriage had always been a big deal. It was the thing that had taken away her entire family from her and now as she was paving the path for herself that did not take into consideration any compromise was she ready to write away her identity to a man she knew wasn't half the man she deserved yet the only man she had ever had? It took her a few moments and few long drawn breaths to make the decision.
"Ok, let's get married".
They had been together for over ten years but not ten years was filled with togetherness. Rishi was her boss, the uptight egotistical CEO of a multinational fashion house and Monique was his secretary and the only woman who retaliated to the advances of his Casanova lifestyle. At first she ignored his advances. When she felt his hands on her behind she shrugged it off as an accident. She couldn't afford to be the sensitive middle class Indian girl if she wanted to be working in the fashion world. She never had the height to become a model but she always dreamt of the dresses that they wore and she was exceptional at designing. Was her modesty enough cause of throwing away her career?
When after one office party she found herself in a strange bed with bloodstains on it she cried for a whole day. But her leaves ended and she had to join back and realized that she had been promoted. She didn't bother about it. She wasn't proud of it. But she could still live with herself knowing that she didn't sell her body for a position but was the victim. She never mentioned that she was the victim. When Rishi looked at her next there was something in his eyes that told her that there was nothing to fear. He had been her first and had every intention to be her last.
Monique did want justice for what happened to her but who would believe her? Her protests never stood far and the charges were withdrawn with her moaning in his arms. No one knew Monique the way Rishi did. He knew that she hated the spotlight. He knew that she was conscious about the colour of her mahogany skin. He knew that her family was a topic she voided. He knew all her weaknesses and in turn had become a weakness in itself.
Monique struggled with her tears, with her composure. It was a friendly hand on her shoulders that told her that it was okay to let her go. Monique broke into sobs as arms were wrapped around her. She turned her head to find Henry wiping way the corners of her eyes and take her in his arms. Suddenly Monique realized that they were at the hospital.
"Weren't you in France?" Monique asked bewildered.
"I cancelled the show. I didn't wish to miss tomorrow. I am really sorry for what happened. I know you wanted marriage almost as much as you wanted designing and even though it was Rishi I know tomorrow's wedding meant a lot to you."
Henry was an old friend of hers. Their friendship began with a school project. He was her pen friend whom she was never to meet. But they did meet. When she decided to leave her parents and her family it was Henry who supplied her with the means to run away even while he was cooped up in a rehabilitation centre. It wasn't exactly him who helped her. It was his brother, a man she never met but whom she heard of a lot. The brother that never denied Henry anything, even helping a stranger on his insistence. It was him who paid for her college, though she paid back every cent of the money she owed. While Rishi was the weakness she learnt to live with Henry was her strength.
Henry had to be here to attend her wedding the next day and now he was to be there for the funeral. A police officer came over to ask some questions to the grieving girlfriend. It was hard but Monique was putting back together pieces of her shattered heart, a loss she would have to live with. Henry helped her through by holding her hand throughout the ordeal. Inane questions came up like if they were drunk or not, if they had seen an obstacle or not. An accident was what it was. An accident caused by the hands of fate which they had tempted by being together for so long and being happy.
Happiness they say only transverses one tenth of our lives and the rest we spend struggling against sorrow. Monique did not have trouble in turning off her emotions. It was as simple as turning her head to the side. She could look away from her bleeding heart as if it did not belong to her. With every moment that passed by Monique's heart was shutting down. Henry knew what was happening to her. It had happened before. Monique had told him how she was scared of losing her humanity sometimes simply because she could stop feeling whenever it hurt her too much to feel. Slowly Henry retrieved the hand that supported her. There lay a huge difference between what he wanted to do for her and what he could do. Henry offered her a ride home.
Home was a misnomer for the place where Monique lived. To an outsider it would appear a studio or a museum. In the centre of the scantily furnished top floor apartment laid a grand piano. The little other furniture that remained was functional. The walls of the rooms were adorned with fashion palettes each signed with her own signature.
It was Rishi who had supported her dreams and brought them to the world to see. He had made her his head designer despite her lack of experience. His confidence in her ability allowed her to succeed in a world where she was a novice. It was a matter of time before Monique established her own fashion line and no longer worked for Rishi but with him.
Now his absence resonated in the empty study adjoining the bedroom, and then there was the bed, grand in its own way, not ornate or heavily crafted but placed right under the starlight it assumed an ethereal presence. Monique could not sleep on the same bed she had shared with her husband to be for the many years that they had migrated to the States. What was then her refuge was now her prison and what was then her prison now seemed like a refuge. There was one thing she wanted to do, on person she wanted to see. The one person who had foretold her loneliness in the adamancy of her youth.
Monique picked up her phone and searched for the number to call. Perhaps she would have been assumed dead by her family were it not for the monthly money transfer she undertook to ensure that her sister was allowed to live her dreams. She was glad to hear the phone ring. The loneliness was eating through her very being. The gentle voice on the other end startled her though. It belonged to her mother, a woman who had chosen loyalty to her family over her daughter.
Monique had almost forgotten how she sounded. She did not know how to respond, what would be appropriate for her to say. She staggered with emotions till a sob finally escaped and her mother, recognized the voice she had engendered with the recognition that allows a mother to identify her child's cry among the dozens of cribs in the maternity ward. A few more sobs later Monique was all decided to visit her old home, a life she had shunned by will and a life that was willing to entrap her once more.
Her mother had explained how she procured her contact number of her childhood friend, the only relation she had not severed in her endeavour to be Monique. Perhaps the lady on the other end did not expect to find a sobbing vulnerable daughter on this end but her instincts to protect took over as she urged her to return home to some happy news she wouldn't divulge otherwise. Monique saw in this the orders of Fate who had suddenly tuned into a strict mistress disciplining her for her fault of happiness.
A few hours later Monique found herself boarding the flight that represented her giving up. Henry went with her a part of the distance but the rest was her journey which she herself had to make. She was giving up on the dreams she had carved out for herself. She was giving up on the ambitions she had almost achieved. But most importantly she was giving up on Monique. As the departure of the flight was announced the death knell to her alter ego saw its final moments before retreating to the depths of her heart. Her fame, her success she was willing to bury with Rishi's ashes.
The person who alighted from the aircraft was a different woman, different from the sophisticated and delicate Monique, not just in her name but in her confidence as well. Though the Bard has immortalised the words "What is in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet", a name to our own selves continue to signify an identity so much so that in answer to the question, "who we are", the foremost answer that comes to our lips, is our very name. If only the Creator could see how his complex architecture in the form of man was dissected by society into elementary geometry to suit its juvenile understanding.
In one of those medieval resurrections that witch doctors practiced citing God as their tool, Shimonthini was soon to be resurrected.