The Newlyweds
Short story: ‘It was an exciting thought, at once devious and thrilling. In his thirty-nine years in the postal service, Bisht had not once opened someone else’s mail. But suddenly, the notion of taking this mysterious package home made him tingle.’
The package arrived when Sudhir Bisht was contemplating a post-lunch nap, leaning back comfortably in his chair with his head resting on the sill of the open window. He did not often allow himself such thoughts, but with a nice lunch in his belly and the rays of the sun casting slithering shadows as they went about their mid-afternoon jaunts, Bisht was in a lackadaisical sort of mood.
From the sliver of a half-shut window on the opposite side of the back office, he could see glimpses of the beautiful hillside beyond the cinema hall; how pleasant it was to see a sign of lush greenery dotting the dull orange-white horizon of the town square. Hydrangea and dahlias. The patch of hillside he could see was exploding with blue bulging bushes, and the dahlias were growing nearby in lovely clumps. Overhead, Himalayan cypresses kept watch.
Kharola, the assistant clerk, walked in and dumped a box of unsorted mail on the empty desk next to Bisht’s and grunted. “Bishtji, I have to go to the hospital. My sister has given birth to twins,” he said apologetically. “Chander is also busy handling the backlog of e-Post service, because the internet was down for nearly two hours. Sorry, Bishtji, but please if you could handle this pile.”
Bisht nodded. “Leave it there, I will handle it. Twins, eh? Congratulations.”
“Thank you, Bishtji,” smiled Kharola. “So, shall I go?”
“Yes, off you go,” said Bisht with a wave of the hand.
Kharola smiled again and left the room hurriedly.
Bisht took a few moments to sit back in his chair. What time was it? Two o’clock. Four hours to go. His chair, a companion for the last eighteen years, creaked as Bisht got up and walked over to the table to pick up the box of mail. Then he walked back to his desk and sat down. He flipped through the pile of envelopes, white and manila, mumbling to himself as he went over the names and address.
Most of the names were familiar to him; Mussoorie was a small town, and Bisht had been with the postal service here for thirty-nine years. He had started out as a letter carrier for six years, switched over to being a clerk for fifteen, and had graduated from Assistant Postmaster to Deputy Postmaster after that. He had under him three Assistant Postmasters and eleven postmen, and above him was the Head Postmaster, Rajinder Prakash, twelve years his junior. There was no acrimony on Bisht’s part; over the years he had seen much change, inevitably, and had come to accept the shift to a more business-oriented way of work.
He stopped rifling through the mail, for the next item caught him by surprise. It was a manila package, about six inches wide and four inches deep, addressed to Mr K. Townsend of Fern Estate. Bisht cocked his head and read it again. Kim Townsend had passed away seven years ago, in his sleep at his bungalow at the top of the hill.
The parcel was from the United Kingdom. Bisht read the address: 67 The Avenue, Sunbury on Thames, Middlesex TW16 5EX. But there was no sender’s name written. Bisht found that very odd. As he ran his fingers over the package he felt bubble wrap inside. The contents appeared to be a dome-like item, wrapped in another type of cloth. Bisht thought it to be some sort of ornament.
Surely, there had been a mistake. He checked the date stamped on the parcel. It was two weeks ago to the day. Maybe the sender did not know of Mr Townsend’s fate. Bisht recalled that no relatives had come from England for the funeral. The writer and historian had been a bachelor all his life.
Fern Estate, Townsend’s former residence, had since been bought over by a textile family from Rajasthan, and so there was no logic in having the package delivered there. Bisht looked at the parcel again for a few seconds and then set it aside. He could get to it later. First, he had to sort the rest of the mail.
Over the course of the next forty minutes, as Bisht logged every item in his ledger and divided the pile up by area of delivery, he found himself casting several looks at the manila package on the desk. Who would be sending mail to Mr Townsend? How did they not know of his demise? Bisht tried to focus on his task, but increasingly his thoughts drifted to the contents and origin of the package.
Bisht remembered Mr Townsend, a tall, long-limbed man with a narrow face and two large brown eyes under a corrugated brow. He had been a writer of crime fiction and murder mysteries, and was recognised as one of the country’s leading novelists. Many regarded the former civil engineer-turned-writer as a master of the crime genre. Bisht, never having studied English, had not read Mr. Townsend’s work, but knew of his reputation, and of the respect he commanded.
Bisht felt as if his dreary existence had been spiced with mystery. It was not an ominous mystery, but it was mystifying enough to make him feel as if he were a part of a small adventure, perhaps like in one of the late Mr Townsend’s crime novels. As his thoughts churned, he hardly noticed the people he passed by, weaving between people and animals and vehicles.
Mr Townsend had most always worn brown, and on his head a soft grey hat. Bisht remembered crossing him several times in the evening on his walk home, the old Briton’s oak walking-stick tapping on the sides of the pushta as he strolled with an air of purpose. Bisht had thought the walking-stick lent Mr Townsend a rather rustic easy-going air.
After he sorted the mail, he rang the bell that summoned Pradeep, one of the Assistant Postmasters. In came Pradeep, and Bisht handed him three neat piles of mail and instructed him to leave them on the shelf in the hall so that one of the postmen could attend to them first thing in the morning.
The next couple of hours passed by sipping cups of tea, reading the newspaper, and sharing the town gossip with Inder Bameta - who worked at Coleridge’s Hotel - when he dropped by to deliver a parcel. As the clock above the entry to his office neared six, Bisht got up from his desk to fetch a glass of water from the cooler outside his office before he locked up. As he made to leave the room the package again caught his attention. The words Mr K. Townsend, written neatly in black felt pen, almost jumped out at Bisht.
Surely news of his death had reached England? How did the sender not know?
Bisht poured himself a glass of water. Sipping it slowly in the public hallway, standing next to the three acrylic boards showing the citizen charter, hours of business, and other information for the benefit of customers, he was struck with a thought.
Why not take the package home and open it?
It was an exciting thought, at once devious and thrilling. In his thirty-nine years in the postal service, Bisht had not once opened someone else’s mail. But suddenly, the notion of taking this mysterious package home made him tingle. Surely, Kharola had not noticed the address and recipient, or else he would have notified Bisht. And it had passed everyone else’s attention, too. So, what would happen if he took it home? Mr Townsend was not going to miss it, and if it appeared an article of extreme importance, then Bisht could re-seal it and post it back to England.
Come on, Sudhir: go for it!
Bisht walked back to his chair, removed from it his navy blue coat, and pushed in the chair close to the desk. Then he picked up the package and put it inside his coat, shut off the lights, and locked the door. On his way out he said goodbye to the rest of the staff and left the post office.
Bisht made his way out of the centre of town, up the slope past the bakeries and video game parlours, and then down the other side. The little brown package remained under an arm. The sun was setting, and its last rays gave a golden tint to the roofs of the small town. In the distance Bisht heard the call to prayer from the mosque below the clock tower. He made his way down a narrow side street that allowed pedestrians to bypass the busy Mall Road and cut across the empty football and hockey field, coming up behind the Methodist church.
As he walked farther away from the town, the honking of traffic and hum of voices from the town faded. Underneath his arm, the package felt warm and light. Bisht put a hand inside his coat and touched the parcel, his curiosity growing. What could it be?
Bisht felt as if his dreary existence had been spiced with mystery. It was not an ominous mystery, but it was mystifying enough to make him feel as if he were a part of a small adventure, perhaps like in one of the late Mr Townsend’s crime novels. As his thoughts churned, he hardly noticed the people he passed by, weaving between people and animals and vehicles. He could only pick out Vinod, the electrician, on his scooter, and Balli, the contractor, who folded his hands to greet him. Everyone else was a shadow.
It was dark by the time Bisht began walking the stretch from the edge of town up the winding road to the far end of the hill side, the area housed mainly government employees and Army personnel. Bisht’s house was a kilometre up the road, and now, his pace quickened. He saw ahead the lights of the community hospital twinkling in the dark, and beyond that an opaque fog threatened to engulf the side of the hill. He was finding it difficult to stop himself from breaking into a run.
Excited as any schoolboy after his final exam, Bisht finally reached home. The front light was on, courtesy the neighbour, Vipin Negi, and Bisht fumbled to open the lock. Once inside, he set the parcel down on the small dining table and placed his coat on the nail behind the door. The main sitting room was still and orderly, just as he had left it.
Forgetting to remove his shoes, Bisht went into the kitchen and came back with a cutting knife. In haste reminiscent of childhood, he slashed the top of the manila parcel and stuck in a hand, removing from inside a round object wrapped in a thick wad of satin. Bisht unwound the material, and when it had come undone, he found in his palm a wedding snow globe. In its centre was a miniature young couple in waltz position.
Bisht peered closely into the glass and saw that the couple’s faces were lit up in smiles. They seemed lost in each other's eyes. He blinked twice and then lifted the snow globe up to the light. As he did so, tiny delicate flakes of white glitter flittered up and magically showered the couple. To Bisht, it appeared as if they were dancing together for the first time.
Bisht felt disappointed. He had not known what to expect, but this glass ball with a dancing couple and snowflakes was not it.
Setting the snow globe down on the table, he went back into the kitchen to prepare dinner. Dinner for one, as usual. The neighbour’s daughter, Kamla, would come and make food in the morning for Bisht, and when he returned from work in the evenings all he had to do was heat it. It was a routine that Bisht had grown into without as much as a second thought.
Bisht was a widower; his wife Hemwati had passed away several years ago and their only son, Vikram, worked for the telephone exchange in the plains. Vikram and his family only visited Bisht twice a year.
When he returned to the small living room with a plate of daal, eggplant and rice, Bisht noticed that the miniature couple encased in the snow globe were no longer dancing. He froze, not out of any fear, but amazement. He put the plate down next to the snow globe and reached out to lift it up.
To his shock, the man in the tuxedo spoke, and Bisht nearly let the snow globe fall from his hands and onto the stone floor.
“Hello, sir,” the man said in a thick British accent.
“How…?” mumbled Bisht to himself.
“Don’t be alarmed, sir,” said the little man reassuringly. “We mean no harm.”
Bisht put the snow globe down on the table and sat back on the sofa, his back stiff and his shoulders arched. His fingers clutched the fabric of the sofa and every muscle in his body was clenched.
“Well, I can imagine you’re a bit taken aback by us,” continued the little man. “I dare say, I’d be a bit frightened, too, if I saw a tiny man speaking to me from inside a snow globe.” Here he chuckled and looked at the lady in his arms, who looked up at Bisht with sparkling eyes. Bisht peered forward at the miniature people in the snow globe, not sure whether he was imagining it.
“We’re quite real, sir,” said the little lady as if reading Bisht’s mind, “as real as you are.”
Bisht now spoke, his words clear and unshaken, and he was surprised at how composed he actually was and more so by the fact that he was suddenly able to communicate in quite decent English.
“This is incredible,” he said. “You are actually speaking and moving like real people.”
“Well, I can imagine you’re a bit taken aback by us,” continued the little man. “I dare say, I’d be a bit frightened, too, if I saw a tiny man speaking to me from inside a snow globe.”
The little man broke into laughter. “We are real, sir. We get this reaction a lot.”
“So you’ve been packaged and sent to other strangers?”
The man shook his head, still chuckling. “Well, not quite. This is the first time we’ve left England, actually. Normally we make house calls.”
“House calls? I don’t understand.” Bisht brought a hand to his mouth.
“Our aim is to bring joy to total strangers,” said the little woman, beaming a bright smile. “We’ve only recently been married, and now we’re going to spread the joy of romance to as many people as we can.”
“Well, congratulations on your wedding,” Bisht found himself saying to the little man and woman in the snow globe in front of him.
The minuscule couple thanked Bisht with a bow and curtsy, which made him smile.
“So… where did you meet?” Bisht asked them.
The little lady replied. “I had been widowed for many years when Robert came along. To tell the truth, there had been other men in those years. Good men, worthy of loving, but none I wished to spend my life with.”
The little man smiled lovingly at his wife beside him. Bisht felt suddenly relaxed.
“I had enjoyable romances, and my career, and friends, and I suppose I could have continued like that and been happy. But isn’t love so much more than that?”
Bisht could only move his head in agreement, his mouth not quite agape but still half-open.
Then the little man spoke. “Tell him how we met, my dear.”
“One evening I went to a friend’s house for dinner,” continued the lady. “It was a casual affair, nothing fancy. This friend had invited me and two other common friends, as well as a cousin, who she had said was bringing a friend. Well, when the cousin and her friend walked in, I was immediately taken aback by this tall, handsome stranger – long-legged, cute, somewhat sombre.”
Here she paused to touch her husband’s cheek, and he returned the gesture by taking her hand and kissing it.
“This cousin of my friend’s was not romantically involved with this fellow, I soon found out, and my interest grew. This man too was a widower, another friend whispered as he handed me a drink.”
The little man smiled and then spoke. “During dinner, someone asked me how long ago my wife had died. I told them a bit over two years.”
“Upon hearing that,” said the little lady, “I thought right back to when I had been two years widowed, to exactly how I had felt, and I was overcome with grief. I started to cry. Immediately, Robert was out of his seat and comforting me, one arm over my shoulder, and with the other, offered me a napkin. Here he was, a man still grieving, comforting me. Right then and there, a connection to Robert was established. We didn’t have to engage in friendly banter and polite exchanges common to first-time acquaintances. No, none of that.”
The two little people held hands and looked into each other’s eyes. Bisht, amazed and touched by what he was witnessing, raised a hand automatically to his eye and wiped away a tear.
“Yes, we connected,” said the little man. “It was special, intimate, and familiar.”
“In a way that those who have never mourned could ever understand,” said the little lady.
So I took Catherine’s number and called her the next week, asking her if she wanted to have dinner with me. Wasn’t it an awkward call, my dear?”
The little lady laughed. “Well, I had been expecting a call. I had been totally comfortable around Robert during that first meeting.”
“We had dinner a second time, at a nice restaurant in Kensington, and talked over the phone regularly for some time. As we kept meeting, our love grew. I was very happy, happy after a long time.”
“And our friends and relatives were happy for us,” said the little lady.
“Then, when the time felt right, I proposed to Catherine. Our closest friends threw us a lovely engagement party, and it was lovely.”
“Yes, it really was. And within a month, we were married.”
“So, Mr Townsend,” said the little man. “It is with pleasure that we come to you to share our love story and capture your imagination. Elise was the one who arranged for us to be sent out here. She said this was a great way for you to pen your next novel.”
Bisht frowned, raised an eyebrow. “I’m not Mr Townsend.”
The little couple almost froze. “What? You’re not Mr Kim Townsend?” The little man’s voice was serious.
“No, I’m not. My name is Sudhir Bisht. I work at the post office in town.”
The little man let go of his little wife’s hand and raised a finger at Bisht. “So why did you open this parcel? How dare you do so?” His tone was almost threatening, and the sudden hostility made Bisht edgy.
“I ... I saw the parcel this morning, and I knew that Mr Townsend had been deceased seven years, and as the day progressed my inquisitiveness as to what was inside a parcel to his name grew and then ... and then I just had to take it home and open it to see what was inside.”
The little man’s expression turned from happiness to grave concern. “Mr Townsend is dead? How did Elise not know? I’m afraid you’ve made a big mistake, sir. You’ll have to package us up again and send us back to England immediately.”
“But why?”
“No questions,” growled the little man as he again took his wife’s hand. “Just pack us up and send us back. This is not good, Catherine. If Elise finds out ...”
Bisht’s anxiety at the situation grew as he looked down at the little man, whose face had darkened. “Now wait a minute, mister,” he said. “Who are you to tell me what to do?”
“You, sir, have made a mistake by opening something that is not meant for you. Just pack us up and you’ll be spared trouble.”
Bisht was taken aback by the little man’s threat. “I hardly think you’re in any position to tell me what to do,” he scoffed. “You’re nothing but a miniature doll in a glass snow globe, whereas I’m a giant outside able of doing what I please with you.”
Putting a firm hand on her husband’s shoulder, the little lady raised her voice. “Mr Bisht, do as Robert says, or the consequences won’t be pleasant.” Her tone, too, was threatening, and this made Bisht angry.
“I’m sorry, but you are staying right where you are,” he said. His voice rose. The little man responded by raising a clenched fist, at which time Bisht reached down and picked up the snow globe.
“I demand you put us back into that package and seal it up!” growled the little man.
“I will do nothing of the sort,” replied Bisht with a glare into the snow globe. He had barely finished his daunting sentence when the snow globe abruptly and unexpectedly turned molten hot in his palms. Yelping, he dropped it out, down on his sofa. He looked at his palms, and saw carved into them two red lines, stinging his skin and causing his eyes to water.
Below him, the snow globe began to shimmer, and the little man and woman inside convulsed. The snowflakes frenzied into a hurricane. Bisht moved away from the storm brewing before him, stunned and hurt from the burning sensation in his hands. Then, to his horror, the little couple began to shriek, a wailing sound that made the snow globe shudder even more and move closer to Bisht at the edge of the sofa. They tapped on the insides of the glass, as if seeking an opening.
Aghast, Bisht rose from the sofa and stumbled backwards. He collided with the kitchen table and the plate of food clattered to the floor, splattering a stream of daal across the floor and leaving blobs of warm, oily eggplant on the carpet.
He tried to speak, but found his cries of fear trapped in his throat. All that emerged was a rasping gurgle. The snow globe fell off the table and onto the carpet, and, powered by the clawing of the little couple, began to roll itself toward Bisht. Finding himself backed against the wall near the entrance of his tiny kitchen, Bisht then fled into the kitchen, and reached for the second drawer near the stove. His hands clasped at the handle of the drawer and his force pulled it clear out of its holding. Nails, bolts, nuts, wires, string, screwdrivers, a large hammer and a pair of pliers flew out of the drawer and smashed and clanged against the wall. Bisht dropped to his knees and grabbed the hammer. Turning back, he saw the snow globe rolling towards him. The shrieks of the miniature people had grown to an unbearable level, and rising to his feet Bisht rushed forward. Standing over the hissing, trembling snow globe, Bisht raised the hammer high above his head and brought it down in a swift, fierce movement.
At once the snow globe shattered to countless fragments of coloured glass and plastic shards. Bisht surveyed the wreckage, panting, relieved. He brought his hands to his knees as he bent forward. There, amid the mess of glass and plastic, he saw clearly the little man and woman. The man was twitching, but the lady was lying motionless. Examining the figures closely, Bisht noticed there was a small pool of blood forming under her head. The house had gone silent.
Bisht watched as the little man got up on one knee, and turned to his wife, dead. He saw him hold her close, his frame shaking as he held his limp wife in his arms. Bisht heard the man weep, and himself got down on one knee. After a few moments of silence, the little man laid down his wife’s body amid the mess and stood up as tall as he could be, to face Bisht. He was crying, and there was a gash on his forehead.
“I told you to put us back in the package, or else the consequences would be grave,” he hissed.
Bisht, still on bended knee, tightened his grasp on the hammer.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “You were coming at me, and I panicked.”
The man charged at Bisht’s shoe, kicking and punching it. Bisht felt nothing, yet pulled away. The man continued to scream and flail his arms at Bisht’s shoe, and the more unsuccessful his attempts at causing any damage the more agitated he got. Bisht watched the little man on the floor below, hopeless and hurt and angry, and felt sorry for him. The fear that had gripped him when little man and his wife had been churning into what Bisht had thought was an oncoming ball of fire now disappeared. Bisht laid down the hammer on the floor.
After a few moments, exhausted and defeated, the little man stopped and slumped to his knees. Bisht watched him for some more time and then reached down and tried to touch the little man. He did not make any attempt to resist as Bisht’s giant finger lowered itself to his shoulder level, and then picked him by his collar and raised him up, feet dangling.
When the little man was eye-level with him, Bisht placed him in one palm. The man sat himself down and looked at Bisht. His eyes had dried and his face was grimy and scarred. Gone was the smile and twinkling look he had welcomed Bisht with from inside the snow globe.
“I’m nothing without Catherine,” he said. “For the second time in my life, I am a widower.”
Bisht felt the need to console the little man, but could not find the words. He just looked at the sad creature in the palm of his hand.
“Do you know what it’s like to lose the love of your life?”
Bisht did not reply immediately, but when he did it was with regret with moisture in his eyes. “I do, in fact,” he said, trying to look into the little man’s eyes. “My wife died some years ago.”
“So you are like me, like how ... like how my Catherine was.”
“Yes, I suppose,” said Bisht. “I had my wife snatched from me, and now I have snatched yours from you. I am very sorry.”
The man did not reply, instead sat down in a heap of tears. He wept uncontrollably, and with the sound of the man’s weeping Bisht felt sadness well up inside. He was at a loss for words. He could only look at the little man in his palms with sorrow.
After what seemed like ages, Bisht turned to look at the clock hanging on the wall and as he did so, he noticed through the window that it had begun to snow outside. He could not believe it, for this was late October and the snow generally did not start until early January. Slowly, Bisht got to his feet, and, stepping softly as to ensure that the little sobbing man did not tumble out of his palm, walked to the window. Snow covered the slope that led down to his house, and Bisht’s breath made little tracings on the cold windowpane.
As he looked out, standing with his shoulders hunched and his resilience melted, Bisht thought of his own deceased wife, and of how she loved the snow. The little man was still sobbing in his left palm.
Bisht remembered the time, late into a winter night, that he and his wife had danced in the front garden while music played from a radio inside. Bisht’s mind strayed away, away into the cold, starry night.
***
Jamie Alter is a sports writer and journalist in the digital world, having covered cricket around the world including three World Cups. After nearly five years working for ESPNcricinfo, Jamie served as Sports Editor of the Times of India Digital, Cricbuzz, Cricketnext and most recently as Group Sports Editor (Digital) at Zee Media. He also also authored two cricket-related books and dabbled in acting. You can find him on Twitter: @alter_jamie.
