Many, many years ago, when she had approached a body eager for death, her guardian had instructed her to move away. ‘Get back,’ the guardian had said, ‘if you don’t want fear to possess you.’

After that, she had turned her back on so many deaths, fleeing in the opposite direction as instructed by some unseen figure. Running away was all she had ever done. This life was nothing but a constant flight from death, her pursuer. Survival was nothing more than keeping death at bay. She had seen death lurking somewhere near fear. It could not be discerned in isolation – as something separate, pure and complete. Although what happened every minute, every second, on earth was caused by ‘death’, death had no existence of its own. Fear was the key.

The next day, she went for a swim. The days were getting colder. The pool was deserted at that hour, which made it the best time to visit. It was late evening. The darkness was deeper in the dense greenery surrounding the pool. The bright lights were still on, turning the water nearest her a liquid gold. But the far end of the pool was dark.

She slipped into the water and swam to the far end, where she began to float on her stomach. She was looking down at twelve feet of water. ‘Think of this as death,’ she told herself. ‘Feel this twelve foot depth of death.’ No sight, no sound, penetrated her consciousness. She wasn’t even breathing – her mind detached itself and drifted down. She couldn’t believe that she’d already lived an entire life; her mind began to shed everything one by one – consciousness, memories, smells, sights, tastes, desires, all passed from her into the water. She passed beyond emptiness.

Even underwater she could sense the growing light, spreading from some secret sunrise. Thereafter! A little boy broke into peals of laughter as a poet rose from the water. She addressed him thus: ‘Baula!’ Her voice burst out of her with a stream of bubbles. She tried to accept all of this as death.

Back home, she stood before the wall of death, on this side of which lay her fear, her survival, her own death, everything – while on the other side nothing existed, and nothing ever had.

17

I wanted you to tell me about her, over and over again. As I listened, I experienced a certain sensation that I could not explain. It was a mixture of jealousy, anger, hatred, curiosity, and even pity. I felt anguish, too, and physical pain. Sometimes my heart brimmed over with sympathy; I seemed to become ‘her’. In my own way.

You couldn’t quite figure out what I wanted at such moments. You felt helpless to begin with. You looked deep into my eyes, hoping to discover my real intentions. Your eyes appeared slightly glazed. Then you began to tell me about her, both understanding and not, and your pupils gradually regained their blackness. The truth of your relationship with her seemed not to have altered. If anything, it had deepened. You drifted back to the old days, sinking into them gradually, until you were no longer seeing me.