Just Add Salt to the Road


It had finally turned cold. Just the way she liked it. Grey pounded on her windows, relentless and gasping, and tear tracks ran down the obscured glass.

She thought she heard a soft puttering down the driveway, like it was about to breathe its last. It reminded her of that car, the old Toyota that he was so proud of. She remembered how she used to sit in there next to him, bouncing along to some Joan Jett song, while he gripped his steering wheel tightly, as though holding his precious clunker together in case it fell apart from her bouncing. She remembered how she always had to squeeze into the passenger seat because of all the junk cluttering up the backseat: old televisions, transistor radios, and sometimes even heavy mahogany chests. And in front of her, the glove compartment was never able to be properly closed. It hung open, vomiting out its contents as a way of greeting her, even when he tried smacking it close several times for her sake.

She always thought his car embodied his soul. He had, unwittingly, infused every bit of himself into it. It was the only thing he really truly treasured, if only because it was the only thing his father gave him. He was proud of it, and took every complaint she made about it personally. So she learnt to live with its shortcomings – nothing could be perfect, after all. The air-conditioning spluttered and died every time he started the engine, and became a heater instead. That was why they always had the window down, and the radio cranked up, perhaps to compensate for the lack of that luxury. Plus, there was always a whining sound – apart from the puttering of the engine – coming from the hood, which he said was probably due to the fan belts. It grew to become their theme music, somehow.

Finally, she remembered the summer where she kept her ears peeled for that soft puttering everyday, when he fetched her to and from work, and then went off to the adventure park for work. It was the summer that she would always reach back to, whenever he was not around. It was also the summer they both would reach back to, when nothing was what it used to be anymore.

*

They went through everything like a phase: popsicles, gummy bears, pistachio ice-cream, sandcastles, seashells and other knickknacks on the beach, classical mythology, spiders for him and butterflies for her, and pop music. Each phase would have a peak, wherein they would indulge in it maximally – having potato chips for lunch and popcorn for dinner, spending the entire day at the beach, reading non-stop just so they could compare the sizes of their book-banks – and then finally, at the end of the phase, they would give up on it entirely and never revisit it again. It just got filed under Things Tried and Tested, like everything else before that.

Last year around this time, they were going through a history phase. He was more interested in the wars – World Wars and civil wars and forgotten wars – while she was more fascinated with civilisations, the rises and downfalls of every one of them.

They both agreed that it was depressing. History was nothing more than a record of the failings, cruelties and greed of men anyway, and there were better ways to die than by the petty demands and insatiable desires of those who gave themselves the right to control everyone.

“Just think,” he had said, “if Hitler had concentrated on healing Germany’s economy instead of building up an arsenal, would World War Two have even started?”

“But then if he did that,” she had pointed out, “he wouldn’t be Hitler.”

“True. Then what if he had, by chance, died in that Reichstag fire? He wouldn’t even have come to power, then.”

That was one of the things she remembered best about him, his tendency to leave things to chance, believing it had the power to alter the shape of things, to twist any plan and make everything pan out differently, that everyone were at the mercy of it. He was not one to believe things happened for a reason – he had been through enough to reject that notion – but that things happened and no amount of planning or whining could change that … until Chance struck again, of course.

Maybe that was why he was able to leave so easily. With him, it was always easy to start things over. The thing about that, however, was that it was just as easy for him to leave and never look back, accepting the new workings of chance just like he had accepted everything else.

*

Her gaze travelled to the spot of splintered glass before her. It was where the pebble he had flung had struck her bedroom window. Ragged hairline tributaries fed the explosive pool of fragile glass in the middle. A single prod and her window would shatter into a shower of old regret and words to take back.

Nothing had changed since then. At least, that was what she preferred to believe. On her part, she was still the same. He, on the other hand, had always been able to easily take the shape and shade of his surroundings. Maybe he would not remember what had taken place that night before he left anymore. He used to call her memory a steel trap. That might have sounded like a compliment, then. But now, she was beginning to think that it also hinted at a certain stubbornness, an exasperating reluctance to let go of stale memories.

But that was one memory she could not leave behind no matter how hard she tried. It stayed there, like an indelible taint on their hitherto unblemished relationship.

They were both what people would call pacifists; they had never been able to see the point in raising their voices and battling hard for what they want. So she supposed their behaviour that night was very much out of character for both of them.

She had blamed his parents. Sometimes, now, she still did. It was always easier to point fingers, after all, wasn’t it? But other times, she knew that it was him playing to the workings of Chance again. It was one of the reasons why she loved him, and why she hated him.

*

It still had not registered, the fact that he was leaving in a matter of hours. The night was still as balmy as any other night they had spent sitting on her front porch. Nothing felt changed or about to.

The only thing different was that neither of them could find anything to say. What had they always talked about before? Their usual conversation topics now seemed pointless and inane, a desperate stranglehold on normalcy and indifference to his looming departure. So they sat there, her knees drawn up close to her while his legs were stretched out before him, staring out at the pink light of dusk, together but alone. The air was still with what felt like desolation.

“It just so happened that both Mussolini and Hitler were against the Lefties,” he finally said, in a quailed voice. “If they weren’t, they wouldn’t have bonded over the Spanish Civil War. And Hitler wouldn’t have gotten away with Anschluss.”

She turned to fix a stony stare on him. “It’s your last night here, and that’s all you’re going to talk about? History?” The words sounded detached, not uttered by her, foreign words spoken through alien lips.

A silence elbowed its way between them, an unwelcome intruder that swelled shamelessly by the second. She knew he would let it balloon further; after all, what would he say? She did not even know what she wanted him to say. He did not view this as a choice, a conscious decision, but something that just came along – never mind if it got between them. That, she decided, was what she was angry with about. For once, she would like him to take control and decide, not use Chance as an excuse for his actions.

“You think I don’t know what this is about?” she ventured.

He did not answer.

“You’ve always wanted to be your dad’s son.” She was shaking, she realised, not because of her disappointed anger with him, but because neither of them had ever broached this topic before; to him, it was taboo, and she had quickly picked up on it. “And now that your dad’s gone, and your mom decides to uproot both of you and escape to someplace else where nobody knows either of you, you think she’s finally paying you some attention.”

“Shut up,” he said, shaking his head. His voice was as still as the twilight air. “You don’t know anything, so just don’t say anything.”

“Oh, you think you’re so difficult to read, don’t you?”

“I said, shut up, Ethel,” he snapped. “Please. Let’s not end it this way.”

“End what?”

“Nothing.”

She took a deep breath, deciding she had just about had it with this conversation. “Keep avoiding the truth, Kris,” she said, getting up. “Sooner or later, you’ll just realise nothing’s changed, and you’d have just made another futile attempt at repairing something that’s already broken.”

Later, when she was in her room, sitting on the window ledge, she flinched so hard she fell off it, for a dark object had come hurtling towards her face at a speed almost too quick for her to register. When she scrambled back to the window, careful not to exert any weight against it, she saw him backing out of her front yard. When their gazes met, she caught an atypical flicker of sadness in his disposition before he turned away and dashed back home, a boy trying to shake off his wounds, new and old.

It had never occurred to her, then, that the comment on Hitler and Mussolini wasn’t just about history. Sometimes, things just happened, and they just had to work their way around it to find the best way out. If she ever saw him again, that was what she would tell him. That she understood, now, what he had tried to tell her all those months ago.

*

She spent the subsequent hot months of June and July alone, sweating on her front porch, listless and restless. Something felt amiss, and she realised it was the space next to her, a gaping reminder of what was and would never be.

Words were the worst ever tools to have. With them, you were powerless. They inflicted invisible wounds, and stayed with you like red-eyed companions on your shoulders. So she resolved, from that summer on, not to say a word. One thing led to another, as they always say, and sometimes, things just happened. Sometimes, there was no way around it.

*

There was no way it could be true. But she was certain there was none other like it; no other car spluttered like that beaten-up Toyota. She heard the creak of the door as it opened and shut, and scrambled to open her window. Ignoring the reproving pelt of cold rain, she stuck her head out and squinted out into the grey oblivion. The figure was hunched in a navy blue windbreaker, the hem of his jeans soaked, as he scurried towards the house.

She was there before he could ring the doorbell. His finger was poised over it, and a look of unguarded surprise came upon his face when he saw her. He seemed more defined than the last time she saw him. She did not know why. Perhaps it was because of the deeper tan he had gotten, or the planes of his face having angled more firmly into place, or the way his held his stature as he straightened up and pulled off the hood of his windbreaker.

“I meant to surprise you,” he said. His voice had gotten slightly deeper, rougher.

“You did.” That was all she could manage. She wondered if he could even hear her, for the winds whistled past that moment and stole her words.

“I want to tell you,” he said, after she offered nothing, “You were right.”

“About what?” Something familiar was returning. Words flowed more smoothly out of her throat.

“My mom, me, everything. I still remember, you see. I haven’t forgotten. Not one word of it. And I just thought you should know. You were right – nothing’s changed. It never will.”

“Come inside first.”

He apologised for bringing the rain in, but she ignored that and pulled him to the couch. She waited.

“My mom killed herself.”

She hated herself for simply staring. Say something, she urged herself, but words failed you the more you rejected them – it was a simple equation.

“They said it was depression,” he said. “She had been talking to herself and all. But she’d left a will, left everything to me.”

“Can I get you something to drink?” Her voice was flat, almost cold. She thought then this must be the result of months without human contact. It dulled your senses and empathy. She imagined herself, slowly sucked dry of her essence, until nothing was left but a walking figure, mute and heartless.

“You were right.”

Maybe it was the same for him.

*

In her dream, she was trapped, as usual. But this time she could see what it was that was holding her down, anchoring her legs to the bottom of the viewless lake, green with years of algae growth. She could hear the distant murmur amidst scratchy white noise, persistent and dizzying. It drove a scream from her. There was no chance of blocking it out. She was aware of a throbbing pain in her legs, and found that they were bleeding, the skin torn by the unforgiving grip of metal around her ankles. Red swirls melted into the murky green.

And then she heard it: words, each distinct and slowly taking form, gaining strength and blocking out the white noise.

It’s been a long time. Do I still know you?

I’m sorry it was too late between you and your mother.

What are you doing back here?

What happens now?

You said I was right – I was not.

And slowly, the noise became a rope around her neck. It tightened, inching into a smaller circle, and soon, she found herself choking, her face on the verge of exploding. She tried to scream, but no sound came out.
She only hoped that after she took hold of the string of words around her neck, she could make it in time to the surface.

*

There was nothing written on his face; it was just a smooth, blank slate, illuminated by the weak glow of dawn. That was the face of loss, of helplessness. It was the face worn when you had nothing else to lose, when you had become too tired of hiding.

“Did you know that in Mayan cultures, suicide is believed to lead you to heaven?”

There was nothing else she knew to offer. Knowledge was her crutch, always had been. Ever since he left, it was the only way she knew to brick herself in, and everyone else out.

“Egyptians believe that how you die is as important as how you live, because both will affect your eternal existence,” he said. It came like autopilot from him.

It was easy to reach back to that summer, when everything was lit up in Techni-coloured hues, and the smell of chlorine, salt and the fizzle of soda were the things you brought into your dreams during those long hot nights. That summer was not a phase; it was a lifetime on its own. Maybe that was why she was trying so hard to reach for it now, when she felt the steel grey walls close in on her.

“It wasn’t your fault, Kris.” It is nobody’s fault when Time makes us fools for hope.

“I don’t miss her,” he said. “Is that even normal? I actually want dad back more than I want her.”

She waited.

“Truth is, I never thought there was anything inside her anymore. After dad died, her insides were scrapped clean. So you were right, Ethel. She was gone the day dad was.” A light blink set loose a heavy tear. “What do you suppose makes this day different from last summer – apart from the fact that it’s a lot wetter now and that there are two less people in this world?”

“Last summer, we practically lived on the front porch, Kris. And last year around this time, you were a lot madder at me than you are now.”

“I notice the crack is still there.”

“I don’t even dare to open my window now.”

He shrugged. “So smash it and fix up another one.”

“I’m waiting for it to come around, the day it shatters.”

“That day will take you by surprise, and you’ll be left wondering what just happened.”

She blinked, registering this. “No more Chance?”

He stared at her, and finally, slowly, broke into a smile. “Guess that’s another difference between last summer and now.”

She was starting to see it as a give-and-take situation, a barter system. You traded the sandcastles and popsicles for the stranger sitting before you, the gold-framed photos for loneliness. You also traded the attempts to peel off a stubborn scab, for the lingering ghosts in the backseat that you never had to miss. Loss always gave something back; losing led to gaining. Maybe that was just how people got by.

She slipped her hand into his, and they went out onto the porch, waited for the rain to stop. The air gasped, cool and dripping, and the scent of rebirth settled into the waking world.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 28.09.2009

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