Chapter 2: Paul.
Tales of Treselda Cottage (Part 2).
The solid, long rosewood table at Treselda Cottage would be buzzing with activity on school days, as the children would gather around for breakfast. Mama would have mixed Puttu into even-sized balls with bananas, butter and sugar. The children would help themselves to it, four balls each for the bigger ones and two or three each for the small ones. Breakfast was never Ava's best meal, but that was the one she remembered most from the old days. The taste of butter, coming through the steamed rice flour with every chew, the crunch of grainy sugar that spiked the gooey banana bits. To wash it down, there would be hot milky tea for the bigger ones and milk for the smaller ones. On most days, she would eat her share up in a flash.
She remembered the day when it wouldn't go down and she had to keep sipping her tea to swallow her food. Her mind had hurried out of Treselda Cottage already, and was on its way to school, down the lane, past the road to the main junction, to the bridge across the canal. A group of boys would be waiting there, from the neighbouring boys' school.
Paul, the younger Bastian boy had a way of slouching against the bridge rails, chewing gum. He made it a point to carefully arrange himself into casually attractive poses. Much skinnier and smaller than the other boys in the group, he stood apart with his choppy hair falling across his forehead and his careful, neat dressing. That Sunday at church, it struck Ava that he might actually like her. He had this way of appearing in her path, to and from school and in church too, always managing to arrange himself leaning against something in all nonchanlance. On Sunday, he had given her a shy smile, from his vantage point next to the grotto. That was the first time in the whole silent movie of poses that their eyes had actually met. It was the thought of passing him by the bridge that Monday morning that made the Puttu stick in Ava's throat. Gulping down the last of her tea, she picked up her bag and rushed out, calling out a goodbye to Mama without looking her in the eye. Buttery puttu paled in comparison to the anticipation of a shy bubble gum smile from Paul Bastian.
She spotted him from a distance. His elbows were resting on the bridge rails, legs crossed at the ankles. She noticed him stiffen slightly. He'd seen her approaching, though he wasn't looking her way. Her heart skipped a beat, and she caught his eye just as her foot hit the bridge. Crossing that bridge had a whole new meaning for Ava since. And the walk up to it was always fraught with a frission of anticipation.
They exchanged many a surreptitious glance and a few smiles over the days, and he gave her a bubble-gum once, walking across the road to greet her. "Hi, would you like a bubble-gum? It's the new one". But when the summer holidays came that year, Paul was gone. She heard from Uncle Anto, who was a railway officer at the Station, that his family had taken the train to Bangalore, and Paul would be enrolled in a boarding school there.
Ava briefly considered writing to him, or sending him a postcard. "Hi Paul, Hope you like your new school. The weather is fine here. Do write sometime. Yours Sincerely, Ava", but she couldn't get her mind around to it. For Ava, Paul Bastian was defined by those poses he struck by the bridge. She wasn't sure about a pose-less Paul possibility. The bridge always held a Paul Bastian - shaped hole for her thereafter, though a lot of water had flowed under it since.
(To be continued...)
The solid, long rosewood table at Treselda Cottage would be buzzing with activity on school days, as the children would gather around for breakfast. Mama would have mixed Puttu into even-sized balls with bananas, butter and sugar. The children would help themselves to it, four balls each for the bigger ones and two or three each for the small ones. Breakfast was never Ava's best meal, but that was the one she remembered most from the old days. The taste of butter, coming through the steamed rice flour with every chew, the crunch of grainy sugar that spiked the gooey banana bits. To wash it down, there would be hot milky tea for the bigger ones and milk for the smaller ones. On most days, she would eat her share up in a flash.
She remembered the day when it wouldn't go down and she had to keep sipping her tea to swallow her food. Her mind had hurried out of Treselda Cottage already, and was on its way to school, down the lane, past the road to the main junction, to the bridge across the canal. A group of boys would be waiting there, from the neighbouring boys' school.
Paul, the younger Bastian boy had a way of slouching against the bridge rails, chewing gum. He made it a point to carefully arrange himself into casually attractive poses. Much skinnier and smaller than the other boys in the group, he stood apart with his choppy hair falling across his forehead and his careful, neat dressing. That Sunday at church, it struck Ava that he might actually like her. He had this way of appearing in her path, to and from school and in church too, always managing to arrange himself leaning against something in all nonchanlance. On Sunday, he had given her a shy smile, from his vantage point next to the grotto. That was the first time in the whole silent movie of poses that their eyes had actually met. It was the thought of passing him by the bridge that Monday morning that made the Puttu stick in Ava's throat. Gulping down the last of her tea, she picked up her bag and rushed out, calling out a goodbye to Mama without looking her in the eye. Buttery puttu paled in comparison to the anticipation of a shy bubble gum smile from Paul Bastian.
She spotted him from a distance. His elbows were resting on the bridge rails, legs crossed at the ankles. She noticed him stiffen slightly. He'd seen her approaching, though he wasn't looking her way. Her heart skipped a beat, and she caught his eye just as her foot hit the bridge. Crossing that bridge had a whole new meaning for Ava since. And the walk up to it was always fraught with a frission of anticipation.
They exchanged many a surreptitious glance and a few smiles over the days, and he gave her a bubble-gum once, walking across the road to greet her. "Hi, would you like a bubble-gum? It's the new one". But when the summer holidays came that year, Paul was gone. She heard from Uncle Anto, who was a railway officer at the Station, that his family had taken the train to Bangalore, and Paul would be enrolled in a boarding school there.
Ava briefly considered writing to him, or sending him a postcard. "Hi Paul, Hope you like your new school. The weather is fine here. Do write sometime. Yours Sincerely, Ava", but she couldn't get her mind around to it. For Ava, Paul Bastian was defined by those poses he struck by the bridge. She wasn't sure about a pose-less Paul possibility. The bridge always held a Paul Bastian - shaped hole for her thereafter, though a lot of water had flowed under it since.
(To be continued...)
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