by Sreemanti Sengupta
Choose a Beginning:
- I stroke Baba’s head and he tells me he will die without my liver.
- Baba stands with me at the seashore and tells me how to look for the perfect conchshell.
- Baba makes a muddling sound in his sleep. Ma gets up reluctantly and removes his folded hands from the chest.
Choose the Middle.
1. I promise him that I will donate my liver and save him. But I don’t. I am a coward. I rationalize when I look at him and say to myself he is a dead man, why should I be forced into endangering my own life?”. I have long talks with the therapist who tells me to “buy my independence with the liver.” I run away with my new boyfriend, stay over at his place and make love to drag in the happiness by force. I laugh and play dress up with him, building the Wall of Happiness, that no sorrow can invade. I don’t think about Baba. I don’t think about Baba.
2. Baba is shocked to see my new hair and my new accent. When I speak to the waiter in English, he takes offense and says, “Everyone understands Hindi or Bengali here, you are not in a foreign country!” When the four of us go to Lonavala, Baba is shocked at how jolly, positive and energetic I have become. I waltz with him, give him a kiss, try to learn bits of table tennis from him. I grab my sister by the scruff of the neck and shake the swing violently. I breathe and breathe and push my secret down.
3. When Baba has jaundice, he talks in his fever. Sometimes he jokes about his own death. “Yamraj is coming for me, he is just searching for the right flat number!” My mother shuts him up with a yell. My deaf grandmother comes and sits by his side. He is happy, and his fever flushed face broadens into a smile. Years later, we would stay awake in the night, as he gagged and threw up blood onto the white basin. For now, let’s just see him smile.
The Ending
When I stood outside the glass chamber, where Baba lay in a coma looking like a cubist painting, I thought about what my liver could have done. What it could have brought back, what it could have sacrificed.
What if.
Sreemanti Sengupta writes poetry, short prose and is an occasional collagist. She was nominated for Best Small Fictions (2021) and longlisted for the embarcce press poetry prize 2021. She has a book of poems ‘Losing Friends’ to her name. Her haikus have been translated into French and some works read at the City Lights Bookstore NY. She edits The Odd Magazine. Read her at https://senguptasreemanti.wixsite.com/sree. She tweets at @sreemantisen.