Aunt Maria's love story.

"There comes a time in every person's life when she believes she must have been in love."

An excited wave of murmers ripples through the small audience punctuated by a few giggles arising from the younger ones. I feel as I always do at the beginning of Aunt Maria's story telling sessions - eager, curious and impatient to hear the rest of the story already.

"Aunt Maria has quite an imagination, can't wait for what she cooks up this time!", Nancy whispers excitedly and winks at me.

"Nancy, Latha, stop that giggling or you are doing the dishes tonight!", Aunt Maria warns, waggling her finger at us, in mock anger. I smile back at her. She has always been Aunt Maria to all of us. Aunt Maria who baked delicious, warm cookies for us, the quintessential apron tied around her, her chubby hands working deftly to feed several eager mouths. Her silvery bun was always tied high above her head and her eyes did not betray her age - young and twinkling, those of a child about to eat a candy.

Her stories were always reserved for Saturday nights or when there was a powercut, which was every other week. We light candles in the patio and cuddle around Aunt Maria. She sits in the hammock and surveys her audience shrewdly. A gentle breeze disturbs the candle flame and we huddle closer.

"I was a pretty little thing of about eighteen when I met him at the University library. I worked weekends at the library from nine to five. He came every Saturday and lingered behind until it was closing time. He never checked out a book once."

"How did he look Aunt Maria? Tall, dark and handsome? Maybe a stubble?"

"You imp, shush!"

Aunt Maria adjusts her glasses and continues, "He was lanky and tall, tall enough to reach the last but one shelf of the book shelf in the library. I remember because that is the reason why I talked to him the very first time. He was trying to reach a book in the uppermost shelf and I said,

"Sir, would you like me to help you with that?"

He looked amused. Perhaps he thought it was funny that someone as short as I wanted to help him.

"Yes and No, Maria."

The fact that he knew my name irritated me a bit.

"It's almost closing time, Sir. If you need further help, I will be at the front desk."

He said nothing and I walked back to the front desk, annoyed at his impertinence. He left without saying goodbye.

The next morning, he came to the library at noon. I ignored him. He browsed through the different aisles as he always does - fiction, autobiographies, romance, horror - he did not seem to have any preference. Afternoons usually see just a couple of regulars at out library. An old man sat there leafing through a small book, punctuating the silence in the library with his tiny coughs.

Unconsciously, I followed the young man who seemed to be in no hurry to pick a book. He walked casually from book to book, sometimes he would pick a book and smell it, sometimes, he would run his fingers around it, sometimes he would just walk around.

He puzzled me. After what seemed like hours, he picked a thin book and settled down with it, his back facing me.

Inspite of myself, I really wanted to know which book he had picked. So, I held my head high, walked nonchalantly towards him and pretended to arrange the books on the table.

He smiled at me but said nothing. He was reading 'Love Story'. I was happy with his choice. Satisfied, I was about to move back when he said,

"Do you also like Erich Seagal, Maria?"

I did not want to answer him, but it seemed an innocent question and I longed for any conversation that day to get me through the day.

"Yes, I see you took your time to pick the book."

"Oh, I have read it before, many times."

He offered no further explanation. Sitting across him, he looked a lot older than I had thought he was - maybe in his late twenties. He seldom blinked and I found it disconcerting to look into his eyes and talk.

"So, are you a student at the University?", I decided to ask him a few mundane questions so as to not appear rude and then get back to my desk.

"Professor. I teach English."

Again, an awkward silence that he seemed to be entirely comfortable with.

"OK, I better get back to work...", I got up to leave when he said,

"You look remarkably like her."

I don't know why but I sat down again.

"You have her eyes - small but expressive, taking in more than it reveals. Green."

"Look, I don't have time for this kind of..."

"She loved books...this was her favourite book..."

and then suddenly,

"I am David, nice meeting you Maria", he held his hand out to me.

"And that was our first meeting. Now, let me get some goodies out for you kids before it gets too late...", Aunt Maria ambles towards the kitchen and an excited chatter breaks out among us.

"Do you think he will propose to Aunt Maria?"

"Whom does she resemble? his wife? sister?"

"Am sure Aunt Maria can make something up to finish the story. That's probably why she went to the kitchen!"

And we laugh, but a small part of me believes and wants to believe that the story is true...maybe that's why aunt Maria never married, maybe he was the one...

Aunt Maria returns with a large round plate full of chocolate sprinkled brownies. We bite into the warm soft brownies as she continues,

"Our first meeting was anything but normal but his words echoed in my head the following week and I wondered what he had meant and why he had been so cryptic."

The next Saturday, I searched for a copy of "Love Story" and settled down with it, my feet propped on a chair nearby. I was so engrossed in the book, I did not hear the tinkle of the bells tied to our library front door that announced a visitor.

"You have read it before too, haven't you?"

I jumped in my chair and the book fell down.

"David! You startled me!", I said, holding a hand to my chest.

He smiled - the same mysterious smile, always a touch of sadness in it.

"Yes, I have read it before. I can read it again any number of times and I am sure I will cry each time I read it!"

"You are blessed - a book can make you cry. I try and yet I cannot."

Here I was talking to this stranger about things that I little understood. Yet, as he stood there looking into my eyes, this time I did not draw my eyes away. I felt something powerful in the silence that surrounded us. It showed me shades of his past and I felt sad for him.

"When did you meet her?", I asked, about the woman who I knew nothing about except that she looked like me.

"We took the same classes here. I knew I would marry her the day I met her."

"She took a long time to say yes, didn't she?", I ask, smiling at him.

"Yes, she said she knew it had to be me but decided to sleep over it", he chuckles softly and I am happy to see him happy.

We talk about his wife, her life and now his life without her. I don't feel weird anymore, I want to stand there and talk to him for as long as I can, I want to know about this woman that I could not be, whose eyes I had...I don't feel bad reminding him of her, I want to remind him of her.

And a few months later, he just stopped coming to the library, just like that. I always wondered if there could have been something more between us but life is like that, isn't it? Always leaves you asking for more..."

With that aunt Maria gets up and softly blows out the candles one by one. Everyone talks in low voices about her story, a more subdued gathering than before.

I wait for everyone to leave and stand next to aunt Maria as she cleans the dishes.

"Aunt Maria?"

She appears not to hear.

"He did not just stop coming, did he?"

She looks up at me and shakes her head ever so slightly.

"He asked you to marry him, didn't he?"

Again the almost imperceptible shake of the head.

I gently take the dish-cloth she holds in her hands and hold her hands in mine,
"Tell me, Aunt Maria..."

"Oh, I did fall in love with him."

"I knew it! And then, what happened?!", I ask excitedly.


"I asked him to marry me..."

Her voice grows soft, so soft that the wind almost does not carry it towards me,

"He refused. He said he couldn't bear losing her again."