The Nine-Chambered Heart. Janice Pariat

look down at my hands, hold them up in front of me. ‘I wanted to be a pianist.’

      ‘Did you go to a music school?’

      I nod. I did, for many years. I even began performing recitals here and there. Not much scope in this small town that we live in, so I would also give lessons at people’s homes, trying to save up to move to a big city.

      ‘Then what happened?’ Or in other words, get to the point, why was I here.

      ‘I was in an accident … I hurt my hands.’

      With the cold pragmatism of a child, you look at me and say, ‘But you still paint.’

      I tell you it is all I can do.

      ‘Oh,’ you say, and leave. Maybe there was no reason for me to have been honest. You’re a child. With limited understanding. What had I been hoping for? Sympathy? Concern?

      I am left alone in the room, feeling, for some reason, decidedly silly.

      In the next class, you are missing. And the next.

      And even though I try and feign indifference, I’m concerned. What’s happened, I ask the others. What’s happened to you? A bronchial infection, apparently. One accompanied by a cough and high fever. I wrestle with myself, wanting to send you ‘get well’ wishes, yet wishing to keep a distance. I know your classmates have made cards for you, but I don’t jointly sign any of them. I don’t send enquiries from my side. In ten days you return, paler, wan, still coughing. You’ve lost weight. I make you a little clay flower, paint it red, and leave it at your corner. I do it for all my students who’ve been ill. You thank me at the end of class, and don’t linger like you usually do. It leaves me, uncomfortably, wondering why.

      I find you quieter than usual.

      You have stopped with the paper animals and clay figures, and instead are painting sheet after sheet of paper in deep, unvarying blue. Then orange. Then green. I joke that you’re an abstractionist, but you do not laugh.

      One day, I catch you in the corridor and ask how you are.

      You don’t look at me when you say you are fine.

      ‘I heard you’ve been unwell …’

      ‘Better now, thank you.’

      ‘Is anything the matter?’ I can’t help asking.

      You shake your head, your eyes still fixed to the floor.

      I want to say that you can tell me, that you have someone you can talk to. That I know you live in a house with two old people, that you might feel alone. But I don’t. I give you a perfunctory pat on the shoulder, and you’re on your way.

      It’s odd, but I miss you staying back in class, chatting in your sharp, inquisitive way. I miss your singing, your flowers, your incessant questions, your attentiveness to everything I say, even the merest, most mundane instruction. I hope it might revive at the end of term. Especially when I make the announcement that we’re to hold an exhibition of all we’ve made over the past year. Most of the students are excited, whispering to each other, debating which of their works they’d like to display. Some have much to choose from. You look as though you haven’t even heard me.

      I allow a few classes to pass before I ask you. That afternoon, you’ve lingered, unintentionally, because a sheaf of your painted papers fell to the floor, scattering like leaves.

      ‘Have you thought about it …?’

      You stare up at me. Startled.

      ‘What you’d like to display … for the end-of-year exhibition …’

      You still look blank. It’s exasperating.

      ‘Yes …’

      ‘Oh good. And …?’

      ‘I’m still thinking … I don’t know …’

      I begin to make a few suggestions, and then stop. What am I doing? This is undoubtedly the best way to get you to not participate. ‘Well … let me know if you need any help …’

      You nod, and shuffle out of the room.

      One day, when I’ve given up on any hope of you returning to your old self, you stay back in class. I’m at my desk examining some paintings for our show.

      ‘What happened?’

      I look at you, puzzled.

      You come closer, clutching your books to your chest. You’ve never really recovered your weight since your illness, and your cheeks remain pale and hollow.

      ‘What do you mean?’

      You gesture at the paintings.

      ‘I’m trying to choose frames …’ I begin.

      ‘No,’ you interrupt. ‘I mean your hands. What happened?’

      I think I understand, but I don’t want to answer. You persist.

      ‘You told me you had an accident … and you couldn’t play the piano any more …’

      ‘I can still play,’ I say, and add, ‘But only a little.’

      You stay silent, waiting for me to explain.

      I push the paintings aside. ‘I got a job with a choir … wonderful bunch of young kids … voices like angels and all that. It wasn’t …’ I laugh. ‘We played mostly hymns, but it paid well and helped supplement my music lessons …’

      You haven’t taken your eyes off me. I don’t know where to look, at you, at my hands. I settle for the window, where the late afternoon sun is streaming through and falling in patterns on the floor.

      ‘We were travelling … for a concert in a nearby town. All of us in a bus … it was raining … I must have dozed off … but I remember waking up to a lurch … a terrible crash … the bus crumpling like tin … and the seat in front of us suddenly pinning us back. If I hadn’t put my … put my arms between the boy next to me and the metal, I think he would’ve been crushed …’

      ‘You saved his life?’

      ‘That’s the thing … I’d like to think I did … but I don’t know.’

      ‘Your bones were broken?’

      I nod. Grateful in a way for your stoic lack of emotion. By now most adults would be voicing profuse commiseration, and I would never know what to say to their ‘I’m sorry … I’m so sorry … that’s just terrible … what a tragedy …’ I’d usually end up awkwardly saying ‘thank you’ and resigning myself to silence.

      ‘Broken in several places …’ I hold up my left arm. ‘There’s a steel rod running through this one.’

      ‘Do you beep at airport security?’

      I laugh, you laugh, and suddenly the room fills with light.

      ‘Does it hurt?’

      ‘Sometimes.’

      Then you ask me something else no one has asked me before.

      ‘If you were in that bus, would you do it again? What you did.’

      It takes me a moment to reply. ‘I’d like to say yes … but in truth, I’m not sure.’

      You don’t seem disappointed. In fact, you nod briskly, as though this is a business conversation. I want to ask you several questions in turn, about you, your home. But this is akin to having a bird finally sit on your hands and peck at crumbs. Now is not the time to make sudden movements or loud noises and frighten it away.

      As you walk out of the classroom, you turn back. ‘You know,’ you say, ‘I think you would.’

      Soon enough it’s end of term, and we’re setting up the exhibition hall. You haven’t submitted anything. I’m disappointed, yes, but not immensely