First Love Letter | Koral Dasgupta

It was just two days before Christmas. Every face had a smile. People were busy decorating their Christmas trees.

A pearl white Renault stopped in front of the clumsy lane at Mashem village in southern coast of Goa. A tall, fair boy emerged. He looked confused. He stopped in front of the D’Costa House and checked the address again but couldn’t gather what’s happening. Some people were bringing down the bricks of a shabby little building. A short man stood there supervising them. The boy called out from behind.

“Hey. I am Vinay Swaminathan.” He introduced himself. “I am looking for Ms. Angela Rodrigues. Can you help?”

The man turned and looked at him from top to bottom. “David Gonsalves,” he said. “No Ms. Angela Rodrigues here, Sir.” He went back to work, but paused to face the bewildered boy once again. “There was one Mrs. Rodrigues though, whose first name was Angela. She sold off this house some two weeks ago and left Mashem. I am sure you aren’t looking for her!”

The boy turned pale. “No Ms. Rodrigues? Pretty girl, some twenty years old. A student of literature, lives in a three storied building in Mashem? No?” He asked desperately.

“No three storied building in Mashem, Sir.” David shrugged and laughed. “This is a small village and I am trying to build its first hotel! We need tourists to spend weekends enjoying the crystal clear water of the sea.”

Without a word further, the boy walked back to reach his car. As he drove off, his eyes welled up. A hundred thousand questions bombarded his brain. “How can that be all so false?” He looked outside the window. The village seemed familiar. He had read about it in her letters. Vividly she had described the nice roads, plenty of coconut trees, a beautiful river, tiles and thatch roof houses. Her words lay open right in front of him. Just that the girl had disappeared and that David Gonsalves claimed she never existed!

As they crossed a church, he asked for the car to be stopped.

“This small church stands in Mashem since 1933. The structure is fragile now and bricks are falling off. Yet the locales attend its services regularly. When anyone among them raises concern, others say, “Don’t worry. Jesus won’t come to this old church and the poor people attending it. He’d rather visit those lavish places in Panjim where they place his wine on silk.”

And they laugh at their own cynical joke.”

Angela. His Angela had written to him about this church!

He shed his hesitation and walked inside the premises, asking people again about Angela Rodrigues. No one knew Angela. But they told him about Mrs. Rodrigues. “Temperamental lady. Always irritated and forever complaining.” Quipped one.

Another one seemed amused. “Remember how she protested every time we said Jesus won’t ever visit the poor devotees here?”

Startled, Vinay looked up in disbelief as he continued. “Sharply she would advise us to focus on our selfish lives and not utter “Jesus” with our dirty mouth! Sometimes we said those only to irk her.”

“So what did she say?” Asked Vinay, trying to seek more information.

“What would she say?” Smiled another. “After fighting with the whole world, Mrs. Rodrigues probably had no energy left for God. Rather I think, God was the only being to whom she asked for endless favours and didn’t hear a straight NO on the face.” He winked.

An elderly person added, “A lady in mid-forties, thin and dark, with spectacles almost at the base of her nose, Mrs. Rodrigues looked older than her age. She would walk out of the prayer hall and take the damp stairs, still uttering her prayers touching the forehead with her hand frequently. Every time someone accidentally bumped into her while rushing out of the portico, she would be offended. “Can’t walk properly, blind dumb nitwits”, she cursed.”

“Show how she walked.” A guy in his mid-thirties asked a child to demonstrate. The child followed the instruction, bending his left knee to the side each time he took a step forward, entertaining everyone around and they clapped.

Only Vinay stood silent. The way the little boy enacted her suggested she had a feeble body and weak knees. He looked away.

All so much for Mrs. Rodrigues. But where was Angela. And why this mystery? He had come all the way from Bangalore to meet her and she had invited him too. He met Angela in the Youth Fest held at Bangalore, where he was representing his engineering college and she had dropped in with a friend. He had fallen for her right at the first sight. After much cajoling, she only agreed to exchange letters and had scribbled down her address for him. And he had written to her, the first love letter.

“Angela,

You know how beautiful I feel whenever I pronounce your name, don’t you? My heart beats faster and my eyes shine when I think of you. It had been like that, right from the moment I saw you for the first time. Your silky hair, the radiant smile, golden of the skin, elegance in your stride – they talk to me endlessly whenever I am alone.

I wish you were here with me at this moment, and I would have poured my heart out to you.

Write back, Angela. I am dying to hear it from you. And let me know if we can talk over phone.

Lots of love.

Vinay S.”

“Did she fool me with a wrong address and name? The girl must have wanted me off her back and pranked me asking to send the letters here. She guessed that the lady would howl at me and my heart would be settled.” He thought sadly. “But who wrote those letters? Mrs. Rodrigues! The ever-complaining ill-tempered lady who couldn’t walk properly! How could she write such lies to a boy almost half her age?” The descriptions that the locales gave were way disconnected from the letters where a beautiful mind spoke about nature and love, and had deep appreciation for finer tastes in life!

“I will see till the end of this,” Vinay promised himself.

Just a few steps away the kid who showed how Mrs. Rodrigues walked was playing with his little friends. He approached them and handed over the chocolates he was carrying for Angela.

“She was nice.” Smiled the kid.

“Nice? Really?” He asked.

Responded another one, “One of those evenings we knocked her door and ran away again and again. After a while, Mrs. Rodrigues opened the door, placed some cookies in a bowl on the ground and bolted the door from inside. We stopped knocking but finished the cookies and returned the bowl in the same place where she kept it.”

“She must have had to drink her tea without cookies that evening.” He said. “She never scolded us. She was affectionate. But we weren’t supposed to talk to her.”

“Why?” asked Vinay, surprised.

“Mom said she was dangerous and her brother did drugs.”

“What!” Shouted Vinay, absolutely shocked.

The child added, “I heard Mom telling dad, Mrs. Rodrigues was ever loving towards our naughty smiles, innocent crimes and the melodramatic tears when we got caught, because she found little Ronnie within us.”

Was she a split personality? Or a natural evil? Or she did drugs herself as well? Vinay wondered as he walked away from them.

With weird information from scattered sources, it felt his head would burst. He had come for romantic winter holidays, but at the moment life seemed like a suspense and he was not enjoying it. But he wouldn’t leave till he had his answers.

Vinay remembered the letter he received in response to his.

“Dear Vinay,

A dull evening suddenly turned pleasant with your lovely words. I am certainly not as beautiful as you make me feel. I was in the garden nursing those unruly lilies when the attendant handed over the letter to me. Thankfully no one was watching me to witness how I had blushed. The breeze since has followed me with the fragrance of red roses from my second floor balcony. Hope it reaches you too and thrills you as much as it fascinates me.

Yours,

Angela.”

Where were those lilies and roses? He let out a deep sigh and drove back to the house from where the mystery started.

“Hey!” He called out to David Gonsalves, his voice more friendly this time.

The man frowned in return. “Still there’s no twenty years old pretty girl, who’s a student of literature, and lives in a three storied building! Nothing changed in the last one hour.” David retorted.

Vinay ignored the sarcasm. “Didn’t you say you are an hotelier? Suggest me a good place to stay, somewhere nearby. Not expensive but decent.”

This worked. The pot-bellied man sensed business. In another half an hour they were sitting on the ground with cans of beer and David seemed more open to divulge information.

“Look man; I wanted this house for the hotel project. And she won’t give.” He squirmed. “That evening when I had come, the door was locked. I stayed around for a while and spotted her coming back from grocery shopping, literally dragging herself and the bag through the way. I waited for her to freshen up.” He paused and made a face. “This house? The moment you opened the door, a strange smell of stinking old clothes and unwashed linens would hit your senses. She bolted the door with a thud. The entire house almost shook, to prove that venting frustrations on it was too much of a luxury. From the kitchen window I found her blabbering curses endlessly as she washed a cup to prepare tea.”

One sip of beer again, and David continued. “Finally I knocked. I heard her say, why don’t they just leave me alone? She opened the door and shouted, what brings you here again bugger! Then blocked my way from entering the house.”

“This house was of no use to her; it was a garbage. One day it would have fallen on her and she would have died. Rather if she handed it over to me I would pay enough to settle her debts. I told her that,” Said David. “The lady clenched her teeth and started ranting the same nonsense as to why this house wasn’t for sale! Obviously I wasn’t interested. I needed this space. Memories and all her sad songs were driving her nuts anyway. Impractical woman won’t sell her past for a better present and secure future!”

Vinay cringed at his ruthlessness while David continued, oblivious of the boy’s reactions.

“Go away, she said furiously, and shut the door on my face. I knew she stood there shivering, her tired back supported by the door. I spoke from outside, advising her to think over my proposition. I promised I would return soon to hear from her.”

“She was waiting to hear my footsteps leave her premises, but I went back a moment later. Avoiding me wasn’t that easy!” David laughed.

Vinay scowled at his devilish face. But his next few words made him sit up

“There was an envelope lying in the letter-box which hung half-way down her broken fence. A bright, beautiful, yellow envelope. Too expensive to reach a lady like her. I pushed it in from the bottom of the door and warned her to make sure it was not a proposal from some other builder.”

Vinay’s eyes had grown big. Expensive bright yellow envelope! The letter he wrote. Anxiously he asked, “What happened to the envelope then?”

David frowned and waved in dismissal. “I don’t know man! What’s my business with an unsolicited envelope? Must have been delivered by mistake. You ask too many questions! Come, I will show you the hotel.”

Discouraged, Vinay looked up at the house in front. The front door had already been taken out but a blackened dirty nameplate at the entrance still read “Victor D’Costa!”

“Angela!

Is that really you? I never thought you could write this! Why were you so distanced then, when we met in Bangalore? Is your family too strict? Or were you scared and shy?

I have lost the sleep of my night thinking of you, Angela. You appear in my dreams; and when I am awake you appear everywhere. You smile, and I lose my concentration. All my work left incomplete, I look around for you. I talk to you in my mind. But I don’t hear anything back and get restless.

I couldn’t find you in facebook, Angela! Can’t we talk over phone or skype? This distance between us is killing me. Should I come to Goa some time during my holidays? Would you meet me then?

I want to know so much more about you. The house that you live, the room that you go back to every night, your interests, your passion, things that you do when you are not busy with your studies, and everything else possible on earth.

Much love,

Vinay.”

These words, those emotions, that excitement – they still haunted Vinay. He could not sleep all night, this time for completely different reasons. Why? O Lord, why did she do this? Early in the morning he left his bed and reached the D’costa House. The ceiling has already been broken. Somehow it felt like a destruction of more than bricks and tiles; many memories and sentiments were gone too, some of them being his own. And those all lay there, uncared deserted and orphaned!

Driven by a strange quest, he didn’t think twice before knocking the doors of neighbours. Most sent him away; some were still sleeping.

Finally he got hold of an old man, Abraham, sitting idle in front of his house doing nothing. He seemed as forsaken as Vinay was at the moment! He looked up at the boy and gestured him to sit.

“Mrs. Rodrigues was once Angela D’Costa. Life was not like this till a few decades back. The house was a beautiful cottage where her mother, Grace, baked delicious cakes and croissants, which her father, Victor, gorged upon when he returned after a day’s work. Her little brother played around messing up everything that the family put together with all their energies. There used to be lacy curtains on the windows and hand-woven carpets on the floor. Glass and porcelain crockeries that served milk and coffee all through the day were washed well and stacked up on the cupboard every night. They celebrated Christmas and anniversaries and birthdays! And then some curse fell upon the family that just refused to grant mercy.”

The old man took a deep breath inside. He searched for his smoke. Vinay was getting impatient, but he waited.

“It all started when her brother was in his teens and was behaving very weird. He would stay withdrawn, irritated and would shy away from talking to anyone. She was married off to Rodrigues by then. Soon after an Easter supper when both families had met and celebrated, some expensive jewellery went missing from the Rodrigues house! The police soon discovered that the box was stolen by none other but Ronnie D’Costa, the brother. Much to their shock, further investigations revealed that Ronnie had been in bad company for a while and was doing drugs.”

Abraham coughed and cursed the smoke. Then spoke again. “The Rodrigues’ were reputed people from Panjim, well known for their cashew business. Soon a lot of people knew everything and tongues started wagging. Her in-laws didn’t take much time to disconnect themselves from her and her family, saying that they were apprehensive to have her mother their heir. Who knows that the sister didn’t share the same evil interests of the brother? Requests, threats, tears, nothing worked.”

“They divorced? What happened then?” Asked Vinay, growing increasingly absorbed into a life that was a few light years away from his.

The old man smiled. “I don’t know. They never told us much.”

He cleared his throat and grew serious. “On the other hand, Ronnie was drowning deeper. Everyday a tough struggle. They put him to counselling; it failed. They enrolled him into a rehabilitation centre. He fled from there. His lifeless body returned after some days. By then the D’Costa’s were deep into debts, having borrowed money to fund his medical bills. Not even a year had passed when Victor suffered a massive heart attack. The shock was too severe for him and he didn’t fight for life for too long. The mother did drag herself for twelve more years, but then the beautiful lady had reduced into ruins of her earlier self. As long as she lived, she did nothing more than finding flaws with her daughter, blaming her for bringing ill fortune and lamenting over the lost son.”

The old man looked up blankly at the sky. “Barely in her late twenties, Mrs. Rodrigues, as she was still called, was left all alone. She had since been pulling along with life, fulfilling all responsibilities and trying her best to repay the debts by stitching gowns and dresses for ladies in her vicinity. The money she made though, failed to bring any more luxury than fulfilling basic needs and she would endlessly beg time from all of us to whom she still owed. Being from the same village, and having known her for long, we empathised with her. But we too advised her to sell off the house to some builder so the debts could finally be settled.”

“Was she a tailor?” Asked Vinay.

“Kind of. In fact, yes.” The old man said. “She stitched women’s wear and trousseau for the villagers. Wedding gowns fetched her a little more money, but how many weddings do you have in one small village? Often she would abuse those stand-alone boutiques growing like brats. They were taking away her customers.”

“But wasn’t she educated?” Vinay cut him short.

The old man nodded his head. “Yes, she once went to school too. She even completed her 12^th, as far as I can remember, and then they married her off. But she didn’t use her mark sheet to get a job here. In Mashem everyone knows everyone. And they love asking all sorts of questions. Soon after she was sent away from her matrimonial home, people gossiped about all they could. The curiosity rose to some kind of violence when the world knew about Ronnie. As much as she kept quiet, questions were replaced by assumptions. No one ever sheltered her from those claws. Her parents were battling other demons. The merciless village still banters about her. Seventeen years hadn’t been long enough!”

Few minutes went by in silence. The old man looked sad. And Vinay, in his mind, was busy drawing the portrait of a frail impolite Mrs. Rodrigues, lonely but strong.

May be she had grown up way too early and hadn’t yet finished remaining a girl, he thought. Some corner of his heart had started forgiving her. He was engrossed somewhere deep within his mind, when the old man spoke again and startled him.

“Finally she sold it off. This house, which made her and destroyed her too! No one bothered to ask where she was headed.”

From the local market Vinay purchased some snacks for breakfast. He was about to leave after paying them off, but stopped abruptly. He approached the middle aged man seated in the counter. “Did Mrs. Rodrigues visit this store too?”

The man looked at him from above his round glasses. “Someone did tell me yesterday that a young chap was enquiring about Mrs. Rodrigues. So that’s you! Why do you need to know about her?”

Vinay sighed. This was what that Abraham called curiosity! Politely he lied, “I am a writer; writing a book with a character almost like her. Just trying to understand better.”

“Writing a character like Mrs. Rodrigues!” The man laughed aloud. “Don’t waste your time, boy. What would you write about a whining lady bargaining and fighting with her life for half a rupee? She was cranky and disgusting. With her kind of customers, making one rupee of profit costed one drop of blood. And what language she spoke! Always cursing and abusing around as if she was drunk on venom.”

“Really?” Vinay quipped, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief.

“Of late though,” the shopkeeper asserted, “She had grown sober. Some are saying she got some money by selling her house and did not want to open her mouth, lest she divulges too much!”

Leaving the shop with its owner’s gossips, Vinay walked leisurely looking around the market place. And he stopped again in front of a stationary shop. Even from outside he could trace a letter pad and envelopes hung up on the wall for display. The same paper on which Angela wrote to him. The envelopes on which she inked his name. The boy here was friendly.

“We knew Mrs. Rodrigues as the lady, tampering with whom might get you a snake-bite. But two months ago when she walked in to this shop, she looked different. The clumsy woman had acquired some kind of lustre, not sure what. Her hair was neatly done into a bun, the usual clothes were wrinkle-less, the glasses of her spectacles clean, shoes dust-free, and the irritation synonymous with her being was missing. She even muttered a thanks when we handed over the green gel pen, envelopes and letter pad she had shopped!”

“Dear Vinay,

Mashem is a small village in South Goa. Very few here are rich enough to afford mobiles and computers. And those who possess those are under constant surveillance, by family, friends, relatives, house helps and everyone. May I please prefer to keep our communication restricted to this very romantic but old fashioned way for a while?

This part of Goa is quieter. We are a pretty closed village, with very less tourists flocking in. Our house is the only three storied building here. My grand-dad built it as his getaway whenever he got bored of Panjim. I and my parents preferred to shift here because we love the landscape, our marble floors and paintings and bronze sculptures, the wide garden with colourful lilies and sunflowers and chrysanthemums in front and the birds that flock in there.

My room? The walls, the furniture, the curtains and the sheets are done up in ivory white. That’s my taste. Pearl and ivory white, my favourite colour.

My passion and interests are mostly books and music and ballet. Mainly classics I read, and some poetry. I buy some, or borrow from the central library in Panjim. Every kind of music appeals to me, as long as I can get up and shake a leg with it. And ballet. That’s my life. I love floating across the room and create art with my body.

May be some day we can do it together. Do you dance?

Angela.”

Vinay used to revel at the luxuries she illustrated with her carefully woven language. He asked for more, and explained how he visualised her within the images she created in her letters. And the lady was more than willing to indulge him.

She wrote about her fashion sense and how relatives flocked in to get their clothes designed by her every time there was a ceremony approaching. She told him about lavish Christmas parties at her home, when expensive wines poured endlessly and cakes in different flavours entertained the best reputed people of Goa. And she told him about those lonely mornings when she wanted to be held and loved. She described the beach on moon lit nights when it felt awkward without a partner!

“She was trying to settle the complaints of her life by painting a reverse picture in her notes. She described the tailoring work as her interests in designing”, thought Vinay, both amused and disturbed at the same time. “But wait! Where did this ballet come from? Some opera she may have watched at some time?”

Unmindfully Vinay walked back through the pebbled path, and stood in front of D’Costa House. David’s people had resumed their work by now.

The moment that shrewd builder spotted Vinay, he grimaced. “Now please don’t chew my veins again today.”

“Searching for some answers badly, David!” Vinay was almost pleading.

God knows what transpired into David. He stared at him for long. Then quietly gestured Vinay to follow him and they sat in a shade nearby.

“Then there was one sudden bright morning when she did not shut the door on my face. She welcomed me inside.” Recollected David. “As I entered, I was pleasantly surprised. Her house looked clean and that weird smell had disappeared. There was a table in the corner piled up with books and papers which last, her father would have touched when he was alive! It was cleared and strangely had a lot of space that day. The yellow envelope I once shoved down the door was placed in the centre. All unnecessary papers were disposed off, old books neatly placed in the racks, base of the table wiped, a pen-stand reassumed its place, and a family portrait where everyone smiled back was erect again. The cloth of the bed was straightened, some porcelain dishes and cups washed and hung on the hooks they were meant to grace, and the left over furniture didn’t show filthy insects feasting on them. The house seemed to have a makeover! And something probably had changed in her mind too!” Smiled David. “From somewhere she had sourced back her interest in life!”

“You look different, Mrs. Rodrigues. What’s up? I had asked. She had smiled and philosophised – I have raised some questions, David, and I am answerable to the one I violated; please don’t ask me more!”

David turned to look at Vinay in the eye. “Have you come searching for answers to the same questions?”

The young lad’s eyes were moist again. He looked away and quietly nodded a “yes”.

“My dear Angela,

Christmas holidays would begin within a month and a half. All these days I had been waiting for this. I want to come to Goa and hold you close to me. Wouldn’t you be excited?

With love,

Vinay.”

Angela had written back an invitation to him, offering him to come over to her house. A house that was to be dismantled before he arrived!

David watched him keenly. Then he broke the silence that made the air heavy. “She left back almost everything she possessed. Some of them are still there inside. You want to take a look?” Without a word Vinay got up. David showed him inside.

They halted frequently, as Vinay picked up things and inspected them. So many items that may have once been very dear to the family, lying in the ruins now. A silver bowl black with time, a small ivory casket which seemed like an inheritance, a pair of men’s shoes – probably Ronnie’s, a steel cup which had “Grace” engraved in front, a brass key ring, empty bottle of special hair oil that claimed to regenerate hair on balding scalp, a tattered Oxford Dictionary and more.

Memory is a strange concept. It is neither truth, nor illusion. They exist like a motion picture in the brain and reminds how far it is from reality. It’s beautiful, and yet it hurts. You can’t hold it back, neither can you let go!

Dumped in the most remote corner of the house was also an album. Photographs, some thirty years old, stared back at him. Clicked during happier times, they showed a girl in her teens posing by the window, playing with a little boy, preparing for Christmas, helping the mother to bake cakes, ready to go to school. Behind one of the photographs where the girl beautifully smiled at the camera, Vinay found that first love letter he wrote to her praising her silky hair, radiant smile, golden of the skin, elegance in stride!

Quietly he placed that photograph inside his pocket, as a memory of the woman who was almost his Angela.

As they came out, David and Vinay standing face to face to bid a formal goodbye, the builder remembered something. “Strangely, before vacating this place she had made one last request to me. She made me promise that the outer fence which hangs her letter box would be the last thing to be demolished.”

Vinay looked up at him; slowly his eyes grew large. Next moment he was rushing towards the letter box while David smiled silently from behind.

Inside the box there was a sealed envelope.

“Dear Vinay,

The world said I am a witch. I too had started believing that I am one. Unlucky and inauspicious. Fearsome. Then one day, a beautiful young voice called me Beloved! I knew I wasn’t the beloved he meant. But neither was the girl, who directed his voice to wrong ears!

The voice had a tenderness that I wasn’t accustomed to. For the first time someone had asked about my interests, the things I love and value. It felt so special, I couldn’t return it unattended. I wanted to transform into that beautiful woman with nice family and riches to flaunt; someone who is desired and loved, for whom the voice sang ballads. My attention shifted from the deficiencies of life and before I could stop myself, I had started longing, dreaming, possessing. It was liberating!

A new door had opened for me. Not for once I felt guilty. I was not deceiving anyone; I was just being Angela! Perhaps not the Angela that the voice echoed. But the Angela that I was by my own rights. The girl who ceased to exist years ago. The one with silky hair and golden skin – yes. Not radiant may be, but a nice shy smile. She didn’t complain; never raised her voice. Not sure how elegant was the way she walked way back then. But every time she danced during Christmas, her father affectionately said that she had rhythm – the rhythm of the sea. Is the sea elegant?

After years the voice reminded, I too was Angela once! For a while I was tempted to disown my realities and drown into the endless trench of illusions. The mention of those sandalwood perfumes, pearl necklaces, silk dresses in my letters adorned my soul much more than they may have attempted to impress. I wept, thinking of the days that took my happiness with them. Otherwise giving in to such weakness seemed like a lavish wastage, which I couldn’t afford.

The voice granted me peace. I could finally let go of everything that was pulling me down. I could disown all those stuff that tore me apart from Angela and restricted my being into a bitter lady burdened with memories.

You must be wondering, Vinay, why I left before confessing to you in person! Something, somehow was mine, in those letters we exchanged. Delicate, pure and secret, whatever it was. It threatened to disappear, had our eyes met. Because in your eyes I would find a remorse for the time you unfairly wasted; and in mine, you would then find guilt! Hence I behold that possession of a lifetime with lots of care and leave with you only an apology.

God bless.

Angela.”

*****

Far away in the hilly terrains of Simla, Mrs. Rodrigues looked outside the small window of an old age home adjacent to the church. She looked up at the sky clutching a wooden cross, the only possession she carried with her when she left Goa. No prayers came out of her soul this evening; but it was a source that always gave her strength! David had given her enough money to settle her debts and re-establish herself in Simla. He had also ensured that she was comforted with a job of servicing the old ladies here, most of whom were abandoned by their families. The church authorities had been kind. She remembered the last words she had exchanged with David.

“Are you sure you want this all so early, Mrs. Rodrigues? I am fine if you want to take a little more time!”

“Take the keys and disappear, shameless bugger!” She had said. “Leave before I change my mind.”

And they had laughed.

 

Indian Review | Literature and Poetry | Koral Dasgupta is an author, columnist and academic and founder of #TellMeYourStory. Visit Indian Review for more literature and poetry