Take Me to Your Heart (28/02/25)

(I wrote the following story for Story aday Writing Contest, May, 2024.)

Take Me to Your Heart 

School over, Madam Lhemo, the VP, intercepted me on the way.

“Mr. Bhattacharjee, I’ve been thinking about your request. Each of our Staff Quarters, you know, has four units. You can occupy the ground floor unit of the first building. You’ll have to share it with another teacher though. Staff accommodation is tight here. Come in the evening. I’ll take you there. Deki, the other occupant, has already left for Thimphu for the weekend.”

I loved the look and the feel of the place. Ms. Deki had done a fantastic job of decorating and maintaining it. The walls of the Living Room were adorned with some superlative wallpapers and posters of Hollywood divas. Upfront, there was a shining, oval-shaped dining table with four matching chairs, facing the glass window. On the opposite side, there was a sofa set with a tea tool in the middle. After Madam Lhemo had led me to the common kitchen and was done with showing me around, I stood stupefied at the door. It was such a picturesque room with all those shining Chinese dishes.

As I was coming out, I noticed a lady’s black overcoat made of animal fur, having fallen off a hook at the back of the entrance door and smelt a foreign perfume. I had an insatiable urge to pick it up and put it back on its place. I don’t know why the black far coat had such a hypnotic effect on me!

I told Madam Lhemo of my intention of occupying one room of the unit at the earliest on the way.

I was introduced to Deki the following Monday.

She was a stunner. Slim, smart and stylish for a teacher, she had straight, black hair reaching down to her shoulders.

“Hi, I’m Rathin,” I exclaimed as we shook hands and I found myself looking into a pair of dark, deep brown eyes. Her smile dispelled all my fears instantaneously.

“Hello, I heard we’re gonna be roommates, I mean, we’re gonna share the same unit. Nice to have you here….”

The friendship had to happen sooner or later and within no time I found myself captivated by her charm.

Next Saturday after school, she stayed back. She had called some students for cleaning the area around the Staff Quarters. I was lazing in my bed, feeling lonely, lost with the curtain drawn when a student sought permission to enter from outside. Deki had sent me a steaming cup of coffee. I don’t remember for how long the cup lay there as the light outside faded. I was still in bed without bothering to turn the lights on when the loud music playing on a stereo from her room, hit me :

Take me to your heart, take me to your soul/ Give me your hand and hold me;

I broke into a smile and sat up on bed.

I was busy washing during the weekend, humming “Hmn..” all through when I saw a shining, black Jaguar slowly heading its way up to our quarters. The car stopped right in front of me. I saw her getting out of the door from the seat next to the driver’s. She was returning from the weekly shopping as she had her hands full of parcels and plastic packets. She walked past with her goggles moved back to her head before smiling at me. The hefty man, with a French beard, in the meantime, had come out from the driver’s seat and banged the car door shut.

“Sir, meet Karma. He’s here for the weekend.” Deki told me without any preamble.

As we shook hands, I found myself looking at a pair of probing eyes of the man. He had a clean-shaven face, white-complexioned, in light blue jeans and a black half-sleeved shirt open at the neck.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said, looking genuinely pleased.

At 5, Deki tapped on my door. On peeking out from behind the curtain, I found her beau behind her.

“Sir, we’re throwing a party tonight. Just close friends, you know. Lhemo’ll be there. We’re just wondering if you’ll be interested in joining?”

I nodded. At some point in the party, I found Deki dancing with Karma. 

“They make such a handsome couple,” I heard Ms.Tshomo, our

Librarian, a close friend of Deki, remarking. I don’t know if it was due to the influence of the drinks, I didn’t find them such a handsome pair at all! Deki looked ravishing, no doubt, but Karma, despite his dashing looks, looked like a jerk. A complete mismatch!

So lost they were in one another that Sunday that they didn’t come out of their room before midday!

On Monday as Karma was leaving, he called out to me from outside my door.

“Sir, I’ve a Music Shop in Thimphu. I heard you’re going to Kolkata soon. This is a parting gift from us for Madam (my wife). Please accept it.” He spoke haughtily while stretching forward his hand with a CD of All Time Favourites.

I couldn’t refuse it.

When my wife was leaving, after having spent the Puja holidays with me, I handed her the CD.

I saw Karma coming and spending a few more weekenders with Deki. One late night after I had retired to bed at around 11, there was a tap on the glass window from outside. On removing the curtain, I found Deki tightening her black coat around her, pointing sheepishly to the main door.

She was boozed that night while I opened the door. That familiar scent hit me as she stepped in and walked past me, wiping away the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.

I spent that night sitting on the sofa, listening to her with that strong perfume emitting from her black overcoat and my hand around her shoulder, occasionally getting up for making black coffee – learning about the devastating betrayal!

Post retirement, I was sitting in a leather chair out on the porch in the fading sunlight one wintry afternoon in Kolkata when I heard those lines playing on my daughter’s stereo :

They say nothing lasts forever

We’re only here today;

Love is now or never,

Bring me far away

Take me to your heart ….

An unbearable pain-filled pleasure shot through me as memories came flooding like the scenes of a video in fast forward motion.

There was Deki playing the song in her room; the party; the bleak night when she told me how helpless she felt in the grip of a married man, who loved her for her body alone, and finally,

Take me to your heart…..

The end