From my bookshelf: Our souls at night

The fire alarm goes off. I wake up bleary-eyed thinking it is an ambulance, and then realize otherwise. I try not to panic, and quickly grab a mask and my phone. I head outside my apartment, and immediately see that the lift is not working. I turn to the fire stairs, but they are locked. I look down from the balcony, and I see everyone rushing out. Oddly, there are no neighbors on my floor. I call out, but no one hears me. It is just me. Alone. Trapped. On the eleventh floor. In a fire.

This was one of my dreams last week. That morning, I had watched as BBMP officials clad in PPE suits sealed off our floor as our neighbors had tested positive.

Makes sense. This is protocol. I'm glad they're doing all this to prevent the spread. I told myself this, even as I felt a little shaken.

A little later that day, I heard voices on my floor again. I peeked from the peephole of my door. They were sealing off the lift and the stairway door with tape. I turned away quickly. A couple of minutes later, I heard the door to the stairs being shut. I silently wondered: Is it being locked? Wouldn't that be a fire hazard?

I didn't go out to check. I didn't want to know. If it was indeed locked, it would make me panic.

That evening, a news article talked about how an apartment had been sealed off with metal sheets. I was horrified. 

Since then, I have been trying to forget all of this. I have been telling myself that it is more or less the same: Earlier I used to go the gate to collect deliveries of groceries, now someone leaves it at my doorstep. Not much of a difference. I should be thankful that I am still getting supplies.

I did feel calmer, but on some level, these fears of being trapped refuse to go away. I inevitably end up having nightmares like this. 

Last night I lay in bed, restless, unable to sleep. That is when Our Souls at Night found me. This is a story that is bereft of drama and glamour in every form. The sentences are like that too--bereft of ornamentation, the simplest of words. A high school kid could understand every word in this story, such is its simplicity. The story starts this way:

“And then there was the day when Addie Moore made a call on Louis Waters.” So the story begins. Addie, a widow, has come to ask her widower neighbour if he’d consider coming over to her house sometimes to sleep with her.

“What?” says Louis, naturally a bit taken aback. “How do you mean?”

And she says: “I mean we’re both alone. We’ve been by ourselves for too long. For years. I’m lonely. I think you might be too. I wonder if you would come and sleep in the night with me. And talk.”

A few years ago, perhaps, I would have written this off as a sappy romantic story. I would have never read it to the end. But now, things have changed. I read through this story, feeling its serenity wash over me. I was also aware that this was Kent Haruf's last book, the one he wrote in his last years knowing that he was dying. The book has an ethereal kindness, a genuineness that oozes through the book. There is nothing extraordinary about the story, and perhaps that is what makes it extraordinary. It is easier to bewitch your reader with a stunning plot than with descriptions of the mundane. Kent does exactly the latter. Everything he describes is ordinary, but he portrays the quiet happiness in those moments, and it is impossible not to connect with it. This wasn't a typical romantic novel. The author hints at more-- a connection of the soul, companionship, conversation. I agree with him. 

I recall with particular fondness a scene where Addie's grand kid wakes up from a nightmare crying, and runs into her room and gets into bed with Addie and Louis on either side. Again, nothing groundbreaking about this. But the way it was written made me smile at the fragility of life. At how much of a difference love can make. It took me back to one of my earliest childhood memories.

I was around 3 or 4. I used to be a fairly early sleeper, and my bedtime was usually around 7pm. My mother would still be working. My father would come home, rush through his dinner and then come over to put me to sleep. He would be in a hurry, because he used to go back and study after I fell asleep--he was studying law at the time, I believe. I used to be petrified of the dark. Of sleeping alone. Of the silhouette of leaves moving on the window. I would insist that he stay with me after I slept, and he would agree, but I knew he would leave. I used to wrap my hand around his little finger, and clutch on tightly to it. In a few minutes I would be asleep, and he would loosen my fingers and walk away. Sometimes, I'd wake up in the dark, half asleep, bewildered and scared at being alone. Much later at night, my parents would come to bed, and lie on either side of me. I would wake up again, and this time, I would hold onto both of their hands and fall asleep comforted. The fear is a vague memory blurred by time now, but this I cannot forget: The feeling of security and warmth. The feeling that nothing bad could happen as long as my parents were on either side. The utter serenity and peace of that moment. Bliss.

The book felt like a warm blanket on a cold night. Amidst all that we currently live in, amidst all the tension and the stress, we need someone to show us that peace and happiness exist too, quite close at hand. This book was that for me. :)