The door next to ours

Every day when I would come back from school, I would reach our floor and try not to look at any other direction but our door. Invariably I would cast a sideway glance. There she would be sitting there on her chair with her door open. She would smile …a toothless grin and I would return it with a shy smile of my own.

I do not know why I could never get used to this regular afternoon exchange. Perhaps I hoped that one day she would not be sitting there -that the door would be closed. It was a dreadful eerie ten seconds that I put myself through everyday for no reason.

She was our ‘next door’. neighbour in the apartment building we lived in. Literally next door as the entrances to the four flats on the floor were abosulutely next to each other. She lived all alone. Her son lived in Canada and her daughter lived in the same city and came to check on her once a week. A woman would come twice a day to cook and clean for her.

Her door remained opened through out the day and she sat there watching whoever came and went. I am sure she waited for me to come back from school and knew exactly what time the man in the opposite flat came home from office – we only saw him on weekends.

Her evenings were spent watching children play in the playground downstairs. We would see her seating and peering through the railings of the balcony as we sped on our cycles around the building. Sometimes another elderly woman from the adjacent apartment building would come over in the late evenings to chat with her. I would have just got back home a swimming session – and there would be the two of them staring at me.

I rarely spoke to her. My mother occasionally would send me across with some vegetarian fare – she would receive it with the widest of toothless grin and pet my head with a shaky hand. I would smile politely but never volunteered a conversation. She would ask me a thing or two and my replies would be as monosyllabic as possible. She would sometimes ask me if I was feeling shy and I would nod my head – desperate to run.

She used to like my grandmother. Whenever my grandmother visited us she would come to our house to talk to her. I would open the door to let her in, ask her to sit and then run away to my room. My mom would make tea for her, which she would pour on the saucer and drink. Her toothless mouth would make a loud slurping sound as she sipped the tea. ‘Shuuruuuuuuth’. This I would delightfully witness from a distance.

Our gang of friends named her Juju – a sort of code word for a scary person. We would talk about her and giggle. We would imagine bizarre situations with Juju in it. I would be teased about Juju visiting our house. We would mimic Juju’s broken quivering voice and the way she drank tea. One of us would pretend to be Juju and chase the others as they shrieked and ran away.

One day I came home as usual casting my covert glance at the door next to ours only to find it shut. I rang our doorbell. My mom opened the door and I saw Juju’s daughter sitting on the sofa – red eyed. Mom asked me to go to my room – where else. I tip toed towards the drawing room to hear what was on.

‘She is very fond of your daughter – used to wait for her to be back form school. Used to remind her of my brother’s daughter – she is also 9 years old. I am so grateful to you for checking on her. I really could not do much for her – you know how joint families are.’
‘Hope she does not suffer too much’, said my mom.

They spoke in low tone and I could not strain myself anymore to hear them. So I waited. I hear her leaving shortly and rush to my mom. Ma told me that she suffered a stroke and was taken to the hospital in the morning. Luckily, the woman who cleans was there and she called the neighbours.

‘Will she be okay ma?’
‘Well she is in coma- it is better if she passes away – she won’t suffer that way’

I rushed off to the terrace where my friends were and breathlessly told them the news. There was a silence and then one of them said, ‘Now she will really come as a ghost and scare us at night.’ ‘Shut up**’ we shouted said unanimously.

Could not sleep that night. Cried a bit. Wished that I had spoken to her – spent time with her. Promised to make it up to her when she was back. Prayed hard that she comes back.

But she never did. The door next to ours remained shut. Each day I dreaded to come back from school to be waiting for our door to open. I could almost feel her eyes on me…beckoning me but never demanding.

Standing in front of our door with that door on the side was eerie and suffocating. I could not tell this to my mom – she would have shut me up and I did not tell this to my friends for I was not sure of their reaction…So I suffered in silence – ridiculously avoiding eye contact with the closed door as I did when it used to be open.

The ordeal finally ended when some months later we shifted to another house. The distance did me good. I could finally sleep – I was finally at peace with her.