by Mandira Pattnaik

1

Sadly, height can’t mess with Aunt’s clocks and her unwavering obedience to precision, order and society. At her fifteenth-floor apartment, she’s planted bulbs, lilies, and hibiscus in multi-colored plastic containers purchased online, hung in the two-feet-by ten space that the previous owners passed off as a balcony. It’s nicely cozy, but instead of something prettier, it opens into a view of the neighbor’s apartment, so close you could reach out by hand, same floor on twin towers. She clocks her time to water the plants, like she clocks the rice cooker, the tea kettle, like she used to clock milking the cows back home when she was younger, and the bus to her university, and timed to perfection when she needed to look out proper, by standing in the proper balcony of her father’s house, so she could catch the next-door boy as he rolled out his scooter, checked his watch, and made sure to look up and glance at her just for a moment.

God, we were different castes, she often laments. How unlucky to be struck by love that society would never allow to culminate.

A generation and more have been bred in the interim, but she says it again, aloud in the empty apartment, as she sips her tea, and walks to the balcony where she can hear the neighbor flush the toilet, see the pattern that sunlight makes on the mosaic floor of his living room, see the books that line his walls. They make her think of the Historic Book Odor Wheel she once read about, how old books can be classified by eight strong smells: earthy, fragrant, chemical, grassy, rancid, medicinal, smoky and sweet-spicy, but then who reads books nowadays?

She turns away awkwardly when the man emerges in a towel and walks into his living room. She hovers to the window on another side to view the closed cotton mills dwarfed and far, far away, as old as herself, as lonely. She wishes she could touch them, but the glass is sealed to preserve the air-conditioning, like order and discipline preserves her, preserves the perfumes she uses and the fragrance of the flowers in the vases in every room of the apartment, preserves the aroma of a certain-uncertain longing where no man treads, no longer can tinker with her feelings, her virgin body.

2

Matthew watches the woman turn away. He catches her peep into his apartment many times a day. Every single time it reminds him of his mother telling him about the lonely rustic women who crush bones and cook those to eat when they’re hungry. She must have meant to warn him, keep him safe by instilling the fear of witches when he was a kid, and the fear of women in general, as he moved to the city for work.

Matthew dresses for work, but leaves his body behind. It’ll stay in bed.

Matthew’s alter-body catches the crammed public bus; jostles to find standing-space without crushing his moldable body smelling of tobacco, coffee and sweat, odors unbearable for most, but everyone needs to reach the office.

The bus from Kirikiri colony to CBD takes forty minutes. No one suspects Matthew’s alter-body, or his overly calm business-like demeanor. In fact, two college girls, carrying more lipsticks than books in their tote bags, ogle him. Matthew knows it’s the result of eighteen hours resistance training on the pseudo-bones each week, six on the multi-fiber synthetic muscles. They do these things in three-dimensional copy-mold these days. Costs a fortune, but Matthew is single, and can afford it.

3

When I call Aunt from the airport, she can’t recognize me at first.

Rhea, you say?

Yes, Aunt.

Rajinder’s daughter?

Yes, Aunt. Rhea, Rajinder’s eldest daughter.

I’d expect that. She has these memory blackouts. Besides, we’d be meeting after six months.

I take a cab and reach her place anticipating I’d need to share archived photos from my phone, share family history or call Mum, so she can help Aunt recognize me.

Aunt opens the door with a flourish.

Rhea!

Thankfully we hug and settle down.

I notice that it’s only nine but she has the lunch laid out on the table, each dish properly covered, spread on top with nicely embroidered hand-napkins.

When Aunt takes a nap later, I find she has hoarded mysterious things since I was here last time: amulets and Goan trinkets, oily and bearing the odors of previous owners. Jars of pickles labeled anti-oxidant and anti-aging. Fruits in a basket, looking fresh and delicious, but when I touch, they’re made of clay.

In the closet, clothes of a younger man (is she inviting someone over?) that are surprisingly smelly — tobacco, coffee and sweat.

Strolling to the balcony, I can’t help but watch the young man in the apartment across. He gets up from bed, stands in front of the dresser, and sheds the skin he had been wearing. Underneath is a much older man, perhaps my aunt’s age, who checks his watch, and glances just for a moment towards Aunt’s balcony.

He appears perplexed that it is me and not Aunt standing there.

Later when Aunt wakes up and I ask her about the smelly clothes, she has no recollection.

Photo by Div Manickam on Unsplash