The Silk Pajama
Amit Shankar Saha

 

It was still hanging there– a few arms-length away. I could see, through my bedroom window, into the room in the neighbouring building. It was hanging on the clothes hanger near the open window. Solitary. The silk pajama was hanging there. I was ready to descend from my sixth-floor flat and to that sixth-floor flat. I looked at the table clock, beside my bed, on the left side of the lampshade. It said, "3’O clock." 3 p.m., afternoon. The stairs were deserted. The streets were deserted. I looked out and saw the silk pajama hanging there. Hanging there for twentyfive years.

When I came out I locked the door of my flat and pocketed the key. The first time I saw that silk pajama I was five years old. For twentyfive years "my bedroom" had been mine. And for twentyfive years I have opened my bedroom window to see the silk pajama. Hanging. Hanging on the clothes hanger near the open window. In school whenever I drew the picture of my bedroom, I never forgot the silk pajama, though it was not in my bedroom. It was in the other room. In the other building. I could always see it. So I always drew. I saw it in the sunlight. I saw it in the moonlight. I saw it in my torchlight. I saw it in the dim light of the yellow night lamp that never faltered to light up that other room every night. I saw the cream coloured silk pajama. Now I was going to touch it.

I took the stairs instead of the lift. I don’t know why. The stairs were desertedexcept for me. Going down from the sixth floor to the ground floor. Un-noticed. The sight of the silk pajamahad always haunted me but never terrified me because I was always curious. But I kept my curiosity at bay for twentyfive years, though I had talked about it with many people without ever been taken seriously. Today my curiosity was at its height. I was in the ground floor. The guard was not there as I had presumed. I got out into the footpath and walked towards the neighbouring building. The street was quite deserted. No familiar face will sight me at this hour of the day. I was sure. Even the blinds of all the windows were closed. Except for the two that I know.

The guard of the old building was an old man. Twentyfive years ago he was young when I had asked him, "Who lives in the sixth floor flat whose one window faces our building?"

He had replied, "An old man and a woman."

A month ago I had asked him the same question and had received the same answer. From that day my curiosity was at its boiling point. Now it was steaming. Luckily he wasn’t at the gate when I entered. He was at the nearby tea-stall. He didn’t see me. I saw him. Here there was no liftman. There has never been one. I got in the lift and pressed the button for the third floor. I had already decided to use the stairs for the next three floors. The idea was from an old film. I had used this lift only once before when I was fourteen. That day also I was curious. That day I came up the lift upto the sixth floor but then somehow I was terrified and without venturing out into the sixth floor corridoor I had pushed the button G. That day was that day. Today I was in the third floor corridoor.

Now I took the stairs. Still un-noticed. And I once again became nostalgic. The silk pajama had always given a firm footing to my nostalgia. Had that silk pajama been displaced from the clothes hanger I would not have been so overtly nostalgic. The silk pajama was quite in my life. Somehow I had longed for it. I had longed for it when I first saw it; when I first got my silk pajama; when I first had an orgasm; when my girlfriend deserted me; when I went abroad and even now when I am so curious. But that old man and woman had that silk pajama and kept it hanging on the clothes hanger near the open window for twentyfive years. The thought stunned me and I steadied my steps. Recently often I have thought that in that flat of the old man and woman time had taken a halt. The silk pajama was never shifted from its place. Never shifted for twentyfive years. I had measured its position from my bedroom window. I used to stand on the mosaic block on my bedroom floor in front of the lampshade and close the left window-pane. Its edges used to allign with the left side of the silk pajama. Then I used to open the window again and skip to the adjacent block and close the right window-pane. I ts edges used to allign with the right side of the silk pajama. It was always the same. Today also it was the same.

I was now just a few steps away from the sixth floor corridoor. And I was determined. Determined to prove the saying "Curiosity killed the cat" wrong. I was now up. Up into that mysterious sixth floor corridoor. I saw three doors: no four- one was the lift door. But the three doors only were confusing. I should never know which door led to that mysterious room, where hung the silk pajama on the clothes hanger near the open window for twentyfive years, unless I enquire. That meant… Just then I found that two of the doors were locked from outside. So the door at the farthest corner I should knock at. I went. And then that dread gripped me. The dread that I had once experienced when I was fourteen years old. I heard the lift coming up. I had to do something. Either I rush down or get in. And I knocked. No one answered. And then it came to me. What will I ask the old man and woman?

"What the hell do you’ll think you’ll are doing by letting hang that silk pajama on the clothes hanger near the window for twentyfive years?"

What the hell I was doing? No! But I had no time. The lift was almost up. I knocked again. Still no one answered. I held my panic-stricken hand on the door latch and twisted it. It opened. I entered and shut the door behind.

Curiosity overcame my dread. I was in the mysterious flat of the old man and woman. I was in the forbidden flat. Behind the closed door. Alone! The room was dark and stinking. Everything was stagnant there for twentyfive years and so was stinking.

So I went in. Into the room from where a little light was streaming out. It was the room of the clothes hanger. The silk pajama- hanging. Nothing else was there except the yellow night bulb faintly glowing in the sunlight. I went and touched the silk pajama. Suddenly something flashed. Someone took a snap of me. Took a snap of me from my bedroom window. I looked out there but couldn’t see anyone. I rushed out of the room. I rushed out of the flat. I almost ran down through the stairs without faltering. I ran down from the sixth floor to the ground floor. I ran out of the building and went into my building. Still no one noticed me.

And I went to the lift. And the liftman saluted me. And I went in and up to the sixth floor. Sweating profusely in front of the liftman. My heart was beating fast. G 1 2 3 4 5 6. I got out. Found my key in my pocketand opened the door of my flat. Went in. Shut the door behind me. There was no sign of anyone entering my flat after I left it. I went to the bedroom. It was just as I had left it. I was going to look at the window when I noticed it. The table clock was now on the right side of the lampshade and it wasn’t ticking. It showed 3:15 p.m. I now looked out of the window and expected to see the silk pajama still hanging on the clothes hanger near the open window. What I saw I still don’t know. But after seeing I fainted on the bed.

I lay there. Alone! I had been alone for the last five years. Alone, for some left me for their ethereal abode and some left me for their infernal abode and some deserted me. I could have looked forward for some bright prospects. My boss was a woman. I could have proposed to her. But who knows, she might think it to be a lewd act and… I dared not. She paid me a visit yesterday and still I am uncertain. Before I again opened my eyes I dreamt. I dreamt of a cat walking on a tightrope and slipping and falling down dead. At the far end of the tightrope was the silk pajama. I woke up hearing the ringing of the siren and the doorbell in unison. It was morning. 9 a.m. The next day. And as I opened the door I found the sergeant standing.

The cat was dead. And the old waman was also dead. The trial went on for four months. I was accused and convicted. I couldn’t do anything because emy lawyer couldn’t do anything; because I had a non-bailable warrant; because my lawyer never believed me fully. The first day I rattled the whole story to the judge a number do times and after that I was rarely taken to court to witness my trial. I most probably told everyone whom I met that it was not me but the old man who killed his wife. But no one gave me a look of belief. It was after the trial was over, someone told me that he could not have done so as he was a paralysed man. That was the death-blow. So now I imagine. I imagine that the old man juggled with time. He killed his wife twentyfive years ago and made time stagnate in his flat. He surely wasn’t paralysed twentyfive years ago. And when I entered that mysterious room he time-travelled into my room and got a snap of me. I fell in the trap. Curiosity killed the cat. While he was leaving my bedroom, my table clock must have fallen down and stopped and he misplaced it. That is my evidence. Whoever doesn’t believe me may open my flat, my bedroom, and see it misplaced. It will show 3:15 (p.m.). Time has halted in my bedroom and very soon it will stink.

I have already been six months behind bars. My lawyers are thinking (I don’t know who pays them now) of getting me out of jail on medical grounds. But what medical grounds! The mental asylum is waiting for me? But before going anywhere I wish to open my bedroom window once more and see on the clothes hanger, near the open window, the silk pajama. Hanging.

 

 

Copyright © 1996 Amit Shankar Saha
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"