The Old Lady and her flowers

CHAPTER ONE

It was an odd place to be someone’s house. The structure was crooked and leaning slightly forward as if it was tired of standing erect for centuries. The window panes hung loosely like some ill fitting clothes. Also, not to mention the faded paint which bared the skeleton of the building revealing its ancient but sturdy wooden logs and rusty metal. It was in a state of disorder from whichever angle I looked.

But, to my surprise and to each one of the 20 or so residents in its vicinity, someone did live there. Not since some time but for a very long time, almost 35 years if you want to be specific. She was an old soul. And to be honest, she scared me a lot. I don’t know what it was about her that made me uncomfortable in her presence. Maybe, it were her deep eyes, sunk low in her now bony, skeletal face that possessed a penetrating gaze whenever she was scurrying around in her unkempt garden as fast as her legs could carry. Or maybe it was her talk that bothered me. She spoke with a disturbing familiarity to my entire life at those rare times when I had talked with her; no, not just the past or present but also the future. I remember the day when she told me that it was a strong possibility of me joining the Catholic missionaries who came around every year to the town. I had pondered upon her words that whole night.

She didn’t socialize with people anymore but the old residents tell me that she was once a cheerful soul with an eternal smile on her face and a twinkle in her eyes. To me, she seemed to have become less so with passing years. But of the many things that struck me peculiar about her, the one thing which amazed me was that she always collected flowers everyday; a lot of them. She carried them in baskets into her house at least four times in a day. No one knew what she used to do with them for she never was seen selling any garlands made out of them, nor was she seen at the temple offering the flowers to the deity.  The baskets of flowers just disappeared into that crooked little house everyday in amazing quantities. And, I was an incurably curious soul.

So, one fine day, when I was home for summer, I decided to investigate this local mystery. I shut myself in the small attic of my ancestral house with my elder brother who was just as curious. We sat there for hours, formulating ways to approach the Old Lady and gain entry in her house. We concluded that I should be the one to go. I cleverly suggested my brother that the Old Lady will be intimidated if a huge, burly boy who looks like a serious weight lifter suddenly visited her after many years. He agreed readily and I could sense that he was not so enthusiastic to meet her in person. I promised him that I’d tell him about my findings.

I set out on my mission that very evening, having bid best of luck by my brother and incessant mutterings by my disapproving mother. But, I took it as her way of wishing me luck. The house was not far from mine and I could clearly make out the silhouette of the distant house against the inky blue sky. I repeated the conversation that I had planned with her to myself on the way. My mind was filled with trepidation as her house neared and half way along the road I decided to turn back and try again tomorrow with more courage. But curiosity is an overpowering thing and so I kept moving.

I reached the house and paused at the gate observing the stripped down, unkempt garden in front of it. It looked all dried up and dead. Maybe she exhausted its potential long ago by excessively planting the flowers which she seemed to be so fond of. The gate creaked as I entered inside and approached her front door. My heart was doing a sort of frantic conga dance against my ribs.  

I gathered courage and softly knocked on the door and waited. However, there was no response from within. I was not surprised though. The Old Lady was hard of hearing; I had once heard the postman yelling out the contents of a letter to her. Moreover, people seldom paid visit to that small house anymore. So she might have fallen out of habit to attend the door. I knocked harder a few more times and realized that the door was not locked from within; it creaked open and I, forgetting all the manners, peeped inside. I was surprised by the décor of the room. The small living room was littered with cardboard boxes of varying sizes. The old, dusty sofa which was a solitary piece of furniture was pushed up to the front wall. As I gazed around I acknowledged that the Old Lady was nowhere to be seen. I stepped inside and called out, “Hello? Is anyone there?” I didn’t get any answer. Maybe, she had stepped out, I thought to myself. I made my way hesitantly further inside and the sight in the adjoining room bewildered me. There were mounds of crushed flower all over the floor and a small bed. Who was this woman really? But what struck me odd was that there were sheets of paper, stacked neatly in the centre. I inhaled in surprise and kneeled down out of interest and fascination to discover the next moment that on those many papers were paintings. Not only just, but in fact the prettiest paintings I had ever seen! They were marvelous; painted in so many varying colours and shades, directly laid on the paper as if with a divinely creative hand. The mastery and beauty of them fascinated me. I sat crossed legged on the floor examining as my lips stretched into a happy smile. They were all kind of pictures; landscapes depicting forests, rivers, mountains whose peaks were adorned with snowy crowns, the beautiful trees painted with so many shades of green. My eyes feasted upon those beautiful pieces of art. There were not just the landscapes, I observed as I fleeted through the stack; there were the wild animals too, painted with marvelous precision. The sprinting cheetah, the magnificent king of forest, the lazy monkey slumbering on a branch and so many more. I was lost in those pictures, so lost that I didn’t hear the door behind me open and a startled gasp from the person whom I wished to meet in the first place.

“What are you doing here?” her surprised voice rang out as I spun around dropping the paintings in my lap. She stood in the door way, a surprised expression on the aged face. I just stared at her with loss of words. The idea of a hasty apology and instantaneous escape from this mysterious house seemed an appealing idea at that moment but instead I said, “You painted these? You paint these with colours from these flowers?” My eyes were round with surprise as I questioned her. She didn’t look pleased and the lines of her face set into an angry, irritated expression. “Where are your manners, girl?” she said in a raised voice, “You come in my house unannounced and question me back?” I ignored her displeasure and asked again, “You painted these didn’t you? You get all those flowers to make paint out of them. Where did you learn this from?” She gave me a loathsome look and stalked out saying, “Get going before you mother comes searching for you.” I got up and stubbornly followed her. “But I want to know about these painting. They are so beautiful. Please,” I requested her. She walked around the house with a broom sweeping the floor littered with flowers and scraps of papers. And I repeated the same question to her again and again. I was aware that I was pestering her. Finally, exasperated, she said, “Why don’t you mind your business?” I looked at her dejectedly. She paused for a moment and then asked in a quiet voice, “Do you really think they are beautiful?” I looked up at her, startled. Her face bore an almost child-like enquiry. “Yes, absolutely. They are the most wonderful paintings that I have ever seen!” I impulsively replied. She puckered her eyebrows, displeased, “You can’t judge that; you have hardly seen any.” “Well, you can show me some more then.” I replied quickly and smiled at her.

She almost smiled and stared out of the window that opened to the street as if lost in thoughts somewhere far away. I waited patiently for her to say something. And, surely, after a long moment she gazed at me with excitement in her eyes and said hesitantly as if surprised at herself somehow, “Do you really want to see more?” I nodded willingly. She smiled wider and ushered me inside the house again. She sat on the sofa with one of the cardboard boxes that dotted the floor, her hostility towards me evaporating suddenly and I sat beside her eager and waiting.

She carefully extracted some drawing papers from the box and handed them to me. “I drew portraits too,” she said in a surprisingly cheerful voice. I had never seen her so friendly. I smiled to myself as I observed the various portraits. Their beauty was devastating. The faces were so life like as if they possessed a soul of their own. The eyes were so expressive that I thought they spoke. They were not all beautiful faces as most of them were mightily plain as any passerby. One of them was of a child laughing carelessly, one was of a young girl with tear streaked face and as I observed the painting I could make out minute details that were involved. It made me want to cry and laugh at the same time. She had painted all possible expressions and emotions that anyone could feel; it seemed so from the mere size of the box that contained it.

I was absorbed in those beautiful pictures while she chatted away about the people that she had painted and how she knew them. She told me that she didn’t get to paint portraits now as there are not many people who’d like to meet her; she felt so very open, as if she wanted to talk about all the things of so many years that she was storing in her mind and heart. Her words flew briskly as if a long restrained river had broken all the shackles that bound it. I looked at her smiling an encouraging smile and nodding whenever she asked me if I like them over and over again. So, after what seemed like an eternity, we both jumped up when we heard a knock on the door, hard and demanding. She turned to me bewildered as if being pulled back in the present time from a dream. We both went to the door to discover my brother standing on the porch with a worried expression on his face and slightly out of breath. “Mom’s worried.” That was all he said as he caught my arm and tugged me to come with him. He carefully avoided the Old Lady’s surprised gaze. I hastily asked her, “Can I come again tomorrow? Please?”  She looked at me bemused as if I had just happened to materialize before her eyes; I think she must be remembering if she was really dreaming until now. A short moment later, she nodded hesitantly, “You can if you’d like to,” she said with an awkward smile. “I’d love too!” I replied and bade her goodbye as I set out towards my house with my brother by my side.

As soon as we were away from the hearing distance from Old Lady’s house, he pounced, “What the hell were you doing all this time?! Mom’s out of her mind. She’s thinking things like kidnap and abduction.” He didn’t give me a slight chance to answer but said again, “Let’s go home quickly.” I turned around to look at that strange crooked house one last time and smiled at the memory of the beautiful paintings and the odd woman who drew them.