memory, persistence

It is a hot day, the afternoon heat like a solid presence in the air that choked the senses, that pressed itself against the cold metal of the car. He is driving back to his office from a meeting somewhere else, his thoughts still fresh with new tasks and newer ideas. He is alone, save for a lonely voice singing on the radio.

So he is surprised when he sees her suddenly among the people on the sidewalks waiting for the bus. He could not be mistaken. The strange black hair that rippled almost violet in the sun, the frail white hand shielding her almond eyes from the angry glare of the noontime sky. Later, he would try in vain to remember if she was real. Or if she were only a vision, how a small part of his past could insist so suddenly on a present ripe with the future.

He stops the car and gets out to look for her among the crowd of pedestrians and hawkers and beggars. Is she wearing a yellow dress? He thinks he saw briefly a polished skin of a shoulder that her wayward hair tried to conceal in vain. He swims through the sea of people, in the direction of this glimpse of her, which disappears as soon as he takes a step forward. Shall he call out her name? Would she stop in her tracks and turn her head towards his voice. She would not.

He feels foolish suddenly at his assumption that she would want to see him again, that she would recognize him after all these years. Yet he could not stop from searching among faces for that singular blank look that hid a systematic history of emotions. He is someone who can pursue something, or someone, merely for the sake of knowing, even if there is really nothing, only a mistake or an empty promise.

He reaches the spot where he thinks he glimpsed her first. She is nowhere. In her place was a younger woman in a yellow dress, hugging a bundle of books. Her hair, loose on her naked shoulders, was a dyed brown. He hesitates for a while, then asks her, embarrassed at his own awkward shyness. Did you notice another woman wearing the same yellow dress standing around here earlier?

I'm sorry? An amused smile, waiting for the catch.

Another woman, older, about your height. Standing here, around this spot.

She frees her right arm from the weight of her books and combs her hair with her fingers. No, I don't think so. What does she look like?

And then he could not translate his memory of her into speech, his lack of words making this other girl laugh.

***

When the police came the night he discovered her slippers neatly placed beside the pond, he realized he might never see her again. Everything was an intricate game that led to this night. A feint that ended in a checkmate.

He answers the terse questions by the officer, the inquiry laced with condescension. Once, an anonymous voice on the emergency hotline had roused the same policemen about a corpse found in the attic of an abandoned house. The police rushed in to the scene to find nothing.

Now he had summoned the same policemen about a possible suicide. When he explained the slippers to them, he found himself considering the absurdity of his evidence. The only way to prove his suspicions is perhaps to dredge the water out of the pond to discover the body. Or that someone dive into the water to rescue it. No one of course wanted to the possibility of being fooled.

His parents would later apologize to them, hinting that they're responsible for everything, that they should not have allowed their young son to become too close to the woman who rented the house. Among his friends, he would be congratulated for his daring. The certainty of other people that everything was a joke confused him and would later make him wary of things until he had found proofs.

He began to forget the chronology of events that night. He only remembers a few things. Letting himself in the house through a gap in the hedges that separated his parents' lawn from the woman's unruly garden. Finding the pair of slippers at the lip of the pond. As if she were merely to take a dip to cool herself against the warm summer night. The blue and red of the police lights that lashed at everything, the ghostly trees, the walls of the house, the faces of neighbors and strangers.

Someone had called the owner of the house, who arrived promptly in a few minutes, irritated that he had to be awoken at an ungodly hour. He quickly dispelled the crowd and the police. She called me and left this morning with all her things, he said. Search the house. You will find nothing else she owns.

***

They are in a small cafe beside the highway, watching tumblers of iced coffee on the table. It is her idea, which he agreed to as a way of ending his futile search. He is now detained in the presence of a less enigmatic and younger woman. It lacks the comfort he expects now that they are facing each other. But it is better than going back to his car alone.

She piles her books on the table and tells him she is a graduate student at the state unversity. Biochemistry. She also works temporarily for a pharmaceuticals company. Antibiotics. What about you?

I should be back at the office right now.

I see, she says, her knowing smile returning to make shadows on her face. And then you thought you saw someone, but you were obviously wrong. You said you left your car somewhere? It might get towed.

I can't stay long. I have to get back. But he makes no gesture of leaving, decides to punish himself for his unending foolishness. Women, he believes, prey on his confusion. He wanted to miss work for the rest of the day to teach himself a lesson. He watches the girl sip her espresso, leaving a red stain on the drinking straw.

You haven't told me exactly what you do for a living. Although I have a few guesses. She waves a hand at his careful clothes. He had dressed impeccably for the meeting.

I sell houses. Condominium units. Apartments. Nothing interesting.

Why should people buy them then? She was obviously flirting with him, picking at his words to challenge him to talk more. She waits for his answer, lights up a cigarette without asking if he minds, places her green disposable lighter formally at the top of her books. A small lizard that breathes flames at her bidding.

Because people need homes, spaces, places they can be busy in. I can close a deal with you right now if you have the money.

I don't have the money. But I'm curious to find out if you're right.

He does not wonder why the girl has stopped asking about the woman he had been looking for. The coincidence of the yellow dress made the idea impossible.

When she finally leaves, saying her cat would be waiting for her at home, she asked for his card. Just in case I need a space to busy in.

In the first moments of her absence, he let the waiter take away his drink. He stares blankly at the green lighter the girl had left. Purposefully. And then in the corner of his eye, he sees a flash of yellow. For a while he thinks the girl has returned to retrieve her lighter and mumble an excuse about her forgetfulness. But this time, he sees Leah instead of the young girl. As though the two could not exist in the same plane of time and space. Or as though, until now, Leah is still busy with her schemes.

He feels his heart racing towards the possible words he could call out to her.

***

Leah must have been twenty-five, twenty-six when they first met. She arrived quietly at the house she will be renting with only a single suitcase and a purse. From his bedroom window, he saw her get out of the nondescript cab and roll her suitcase towards the gate. She fumbled with the unfamiliar set of keys for a while and in the brief moment before she disappeared within the house, he had decided she was beautiful.

Though there was nothing extraordinary with her. Perhaps only her hair that seemed to trap midnight between the tresses even in broad daylight. She possessed a sensuality that she began to look for in women. He was twenty one and in that tentative stage between the end of university and the start of a lifetime career.

A couple of days later, he found out her name. 'Leah.' Biblical. The sound of a whisper within a well. Or was that supposed to be 'Rachel'?

Leah wanted to hire a laborer to work on a small pond at the back of her house. He was familiar with it from memory—when the house was occupied by a Chinese couple who often threw parties. The pond was only a little longer than the span of outstretched arms. It has the look of a forgotten fancy. Or an abandoned hobby.

Before someone else turned up, who was more skilled at the task at hand, he had signed up for the job. He was pleasantly surprised when she agreed and asked him to start on the same day.

Let me tell you what I want, she said, and he immediately liked her voice, the drawl and the confidence that cancelled the lazy huskiness. She showed him a contraption she had rented from somewhere, a machine that would dredge up the water from the pond through blue hoses as thick as big snakes. She wanted the pond to be dug deeper and wider.

You want a pool, he had guessed then. She merely repeated that she wants the pool to be dug deeper and wider. In the days that came after, she ordered no pool tiles or anything that might be needed to construct a pool.

He worked under the sun, shirtless, aware of his youth. The cords of muscles in his arms as he entered the earth with his shovel. He felt her eyes on him all the time, while she stayed in the shade of the porch sewing on something like a dress. He invented reasons to approach her now and then so she could feel the nearness of his nakedness.

Are you sure you want it to be this deep? It wouldn't hold much oxygen at the bottom for the fish.

Then they can stay on the surface. Are you thirsty? Let me get you a glass of water.

Their conversations would follow this pattern and they would always end with a glass of water she would get from her kitchen. It would take him time before he would one day boldly follow her to the kitchen. She would be filling a glass with cold water from a pitcher. He would kiss her nape, at the whorl of soft hair below her carefully pinned-up hair. She would face him, still holding the glass and pitcher, would reach his face to lick the sweat off the side of his face.

In her bed, he would try to ask her questions, but she would guide him only towards her lips, her neck, her breasts, or between her legs. They would fall asleep together the whole afternoon.

It would be dusk and she would still be asleep when he would wake up and leave. On his way out, he would notice the dress she had been mending everyday at the porch. He would pick it up from where it was lying on a chair. He would be surprised at the weight. He would discover pebbles sewed shut in the inside of the dress.

***

She recognizes him at once but she walks towards him without hurrying. Like a ghost. He waits patiently for her. Can I share your table?

Of course, I've been waiting. You forgot to give me my last envelope the day you committed suicide. He tries on a smile and then laughs instead.

She seats herself across him and finishes his failed smile for him. I'm sorry. I had a lot of things in my mind at the time. It was my mistake, she says. She does not clarify which mistake.

Quite a day, he replies, and does not clarify which day.

You have to admit it would make a good story, she says as she brings out a fan and airs herself slowly, her hair gathering volume as her locks move behind her shoulders. He watches this woman silently, this woman he had met six years ago. There is still sensuousness in the lips that he remembers. She barely looks older. Why was he lost for words when he needed to describe her? Water slipping through his fingers. He wants to hold her, keep her cupped in his hands. He wants to reach her free hand resting on the table beside the green lighter.

Are you thirsty? She asks him and she laughs, her eyes sparkling with tears in the afternoon light.

Yes, just a glass of water please.

***