Rimjhim understood that this life in the hospital was the final chapter of her existence.
Each evening she would come out and sit. It was a lovely spot, the hospital grounds. Peaceful, secluded. The autumn wind, carrying hints of winter, stirred whispers in the crowns of the tall casuarinas and eucalyptus trees. She gazed at the wind-drunk foliage with eyes as white and cold as a corpse. The reddish particles of late afternoon sunlight trembled on the leaves of the casuarinas and palm trees.
Rimjhim's gaze touched the distant horizon and stopped beneath the clouds, then settled on the hospital's gleaming smooth floor. Suddenly she startled. Someone gently wrapped a shawl around her shoulders. Dr. Selim Ahmed. He spoke to his patient with mild reproach tempered by affection.
- Miss Rimjhim, you're not listening to me at all. What weighs so heavily on your mind, tell me?
- Where do I have any worries?
- Then why so silent, always avoiding conversation? Is this any way to be?
At Dr. Selim Ahmed's words, a melancholy silence descended over Rimjhim's eyes. Slowly, in a whisper, she said, Everything's finished for me.
- But I've told you, it's not finished!
Rimjhim looked at Dr. Ahmed with astonished eyes. What a strange man this Dr. Ahmed was. Just then she was seized by a fit of sharp, persistent coughing. As she pressed a handkerchief to her mouth, a clot of blood stained it. Exhausted, Rimjhim closed her eyes; she felt the gentle touch of Dr. Ahmed's hand on her forehead.
Taking the handkerchief from her hand, he himself wiped away the blood from the corner of her lips. With tender intimacy, Dr. Ahmed said, Rimjhim, come inside, it's getting cold. Are you feeling very uncomfortable, Rimjhim?
Rimjhim gazed back with wide eyes full of wonder and silence. Then she shuddered with fear, with anxiety.
No, no—I must never think such thoughts again. He... he ended everything for me. He stole from my life the very thing my life had yearned for. Whatever flesh and blood remains in this body belongs to tuberculosis now.
She had trembled with the complete passion of life, hoping deeply that someone would embrace it—this was all she had wanted, but she never found it. And that boy with the poet's soul, poet's heart, to whom she had surrendered her heart at the very first moment of understanding life—why couldn't that boy go on living with his beautiful mind?
The painful truth of Rimjhim's life was giving her heart to Mamun, the poet-soul. Indeed, a girl who worked to pay for her studies, an orphaned girl who continued her education despite living on the bitter charity of her uncle and aunt, should never have indulged in the luxury of love. But Mamun too, upon seeing this girl, had whispered, Your eyes are like the blue darkness of centuries!
Neither was prepared to acknowledge past or future. Their past was too sorrowful, too deprived. And over their future lay spread only despair, like white layers of fog.
Yet when Mamun dreamed. When he would look toward this vast world and say, "Rimjhim, won't you hear the life story of the poet Mamun? I'll tell it, you listen," then Rimjhim would place her hand in his and become absorbed. She realized she was just an ordinary girl. It was impossible for her to abandon the thirst for ordinary life.
Then in her heart she would call out, yearn for an utterly everyday little room. Only then would the barriers of past and future seem to retreat from around their lives for a moment. And Rimjhim, in that present, would look toward the sky with her azure heart. A rainbow spectrum would flash like lightning in her mind.
But that same Mamun one day closed his eyes for the last time, lacking money, lacking treatment. Before leaving, he said, Listen, Rimjhim, this imprisonment is good for me, I'll be at peace here.
Even in death Mamun gave Rimjhim no release; rather he continued to embrace and hold her constantly in all her thoughts and feelings. Still, she had to move forward, dragging life's burden. She had to arrange for her own sustenance. Working overtime after overtime, eventually the shadow of overtime figures began flickering on and off on her retinas. Dark circles formed around her eyes.
Those eyes! Seeing which the boy had been enchanted. Those same eyes lost all their beauty except for the black pupils. The black pupils still sparkle beautifully and mysteriously in the middle of those large eyes. Throughout her body, like a persistent fever, she had carried his thoughts, his words, his poetry; but finally her eyes earned the certificate of dark circles.
She truly did have fever in her body. Hiding her illness, she continued working. One day after work, her chest began pounding, the veins at her temples swelled like ropes. And when bright red clots of blood emerged with violent coughing fits, she lost her job. The doctor said, Tuberculosis—both lungs are infected.
Then this hospital. In a short time, Rimjhim surveyed her entire life once more.
- Rimjhim!
Dr. Ahmed's voice was gentle, but not shallow. Rimjhim looked toward Dr. Ahmed. She listened quietly.
- What good is there in tormenting yourself this way, Rimjhim? So many people get this disease these days. You know, don't you, that such despairing thoughts are this disease's greatest enemy! Rimjhim, my dear, won't you listen to even one thing I say?
- But are you... have you gone mad!
Rimjhim somehow managed to say this to Dr. Ahmed.
- Why do you say that, Rimjhim? I know all of that. And don't you know, the human heart is so chaotic! Many unbelievable truths happen because of this very heart.
Then clusters of tears descended step by step, keeping rhythm with Rimjhim's inner feelings. That disobedient, desperate weeping.
Dr. Ahmed placed his hand on Rimjhim's head in comfort. Rimjhim gently moved Dr. Ahmed's hand away—as if she erased with her own hand the last fragment of hope in her life. Mamun's memory had become a piece of cloud, constantly raining sorrow over all her feelings. That sorrow was not to be forgotten, not to be ignored.
Rimjhim remained silent with tear-filled eyes. The last light of evening had fallen on Rimjhim's face. Then gradually that soft light descended, disappeared at the horizon.
Dr. Ahmed remained gazing with sorrowful eyes at that vanishing of light.