A LOSER’S FIRST LOVE

It was autumn. But for Aksionov it was spring. It was always spring for him. Hope blossomed in his heart every time he saw a girl and the petals of the flower in bloom kept on falling until there were none left and by this time a new flower, of a new, different species would bloom in his heart. Despite so much hope and positive attitude he couldn’t manage to find a single girl for himself. Literally. Incidentally, one girl who managed to find Aksionov turned out to be married, not “single” and sadly enough very much disappointed by Aksionov as he would not offer his services to her.

And to view the above statement in a different light, despite these many countless failures he didn’t lose hope and always donned a positive attitude. Well, one day, one fine autumn day this happened. The clown turned into a dramatist. The farce turned into a play. He met this girl, Natasha Aporova, and fell in love for the first time in his life. The girl was different. The one whom he wanted to be with.

And the one whom she wanted to be with . . .That seemed to be altogether a different matter. It was not that she wanted to be with someone else, perhaps no one, but at least she didn’t seem to want to be with Aksionov. She was fed up of boys following her, peeping into her window. She shut the window so hard that the sound of it shattered Aksionov’s heart to pieces.

What happened was that things couldn’t settle for Aksionov and his condition went bad. And from bad to worse. Well, this man Aksionov, twenty-two, quite an aged man for a thing called first love, was in no mood to let his first love fade away. It had to be substantial. At least the memories had to be substantial. Moreover, he didn’t want to regret later that he didn’t give it a try. So he made the most common mistake. He made haste.

“Hi Natasha” he yelled at her one fine Sunday morning, his voice unusually loud with enthusiasm. It was only on Sundays he could see her. The other six days he didn’t get leave to get out of his academy. He was a cadet in the merchant marine academy of St. Petersburg.
“Hi” she returned, her voice unusually low, merely louder than a whisper. Yet he heard her loud and clear.
“So, how are you doing?”
“Just fine.”
“Could we talk over coffee for some time?” Aksionov blurted out.
“Uh, okay.” She shrugged and shook her head at the same time making a very strange gesture.
And so they started walking towards the café. It was about at a distance of a ten minutes walk. All the time during the seemingly never ending walk, he kept on thinking how he’ll do the whole week without brandy the money meant for which he was going to spend on the coffee with her. It was autumn but St. Petersburg was cold. ‘I’ll do something about it later’ he thought. At last the walk ended and so did his thinking. And once again he couldn’t explain to himself the reason to why he had stopped thinking as soon as he stopped walking. What was the connection?

He shook his head, composed himself and brushed aside such ideas to avoid acting weird in front of her. And then it happened.
“I, er . . . need to talk to you.”
‘Oh what a line. What an opening line to the conversation. What a genius! Poetry!!’ He cursed himself.
“Uh . . . yeah. I mean that’s why we are here, aren’t we?” She said with a tone of contempt in her voice. She further inquired, as though unknowingly, “By the way, what is it you need to talk about to me?”
“I think you know it.”
“I don’t think I do.”
“Yes you do”
“But I don’t”
“Yes you do”
“But I don’t.”
“I love you.”
“But I don’t.”
“I said I love you.”
“And I said I don’t.”

This had hurt him. Slaps from all directions on his face. Left. Right. Centre. It must have hurt him. Men are supposed to get hurt. They are supposed to have that ego. That masculinity.
“Very well then,” he said, “Pay for the coffee. I’ll rather have my week’s brandy.”
“What?”
“Nothing. I think I need to walk.” He stood up, turned back and walked away.

x x x

Captain Raze Aksionov, a fine officer on the cruise “Ocean’s Paradise” was on his maiden voyage as the vessel’s master. A young, promising marine officer. It was rare for an officer so young to be the master of the Ocean’s Paradise. But for his abilities and achievements rare for a mariner his age, he achieved the feat.

The ship, on a voyage from St. Petersburg, Russia to Sydney, Australia had rich businessmen, entrepreneurs, executives, landlords of various estates on board. The bourgeoisie class. These were the people who were self-made without any assistance from anyone, not even their predecessors. This was something he liked about them.

“Hey Raze”, shouted someone from behind as the master was standing on the bridge observing the ship’s proceeds. “Who allowed you up here?” he spat and realized the very next moment that he knew the voice as well as the face.
The face had accumulated a bit of bulk and the voice had an enhanced shrill of excitement as always had been.
“You know I can always make it.” He was Sally, his old school friend.
“As soon as I came to know you’re the master, I couldn’t resist coming up to the bridge. Although I know I’m unauthorized.”
“That you are. As always.” He grinned.
“So, what have you been doing?”
“Well, you can see.”
“Yeah. You quite made something out of yourself, huh?”
“I love this life.” He didn’t want to answer in the affirmative or the negative. His glance had a sense of pride and achievement. It was as if he didn’t want to tell anything about his hardships and struggles, he just wanted the world to acknowledge, not to compare his past and present.
“I too love this life. All your life you are on a cradle, just like a kid. And you are the one rocking the cradle just like a parent. You get to be the kid and the guardian at the same time. That’s fascinating.”
“You are good at putting a thought to anything. Everything rather.”

Sally grinned and the conversation paused for a moment.
“The weather is calm and its open sea. You can stay easy. Eh?” Sally tried to rekindle the conversation.
“Rather, got to be more alert. The calm is unusual. An indication of an approaching storm.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It can’t be ruled out. I’d say it’s very much probable.”
“The voyage is going to be exciting my friend.”
“Yeah, for some.”

More often than not it happened with him that he couldn’t hit upon the precise words for starting or carrying on a conversation. And he hated this. This time he didn’t want the conversation to cease, so without further wasting time on thinking what to say and what not, he took liberty, rather liberated himself, in asking him, “What have you been doing all these years. Uh . . . I know this had to be a bit earlier but you know that’s the way it is with me. My timing is always so incorrect.”
“Uh . . . not too much, just handling my father’s business you see, it’s awfully boring.”
“Got any girl?”
“Yeah, you can say. I’d rather say she’s got me.”
“What, you’ve not proposed to her yet?”
“No, not yet.”
“Well, take your time, and more importantly, give her the time. Don’t, under any circumstances, try to make haste. This is important.”
“Whoa man!! What’s going on? I never thought you would give suggestions to anyone on such a subject.” Sally gave him a look that suggested that he and all others thought of him as a geek. But Sally’s look was innocent. Absolute truth. He was a geek. Desperate. Sincere. Rich.
“Life is strange” he murmured.
“Anyways, why not join us at dinner tonight?”
“Sure.”

The calm infused in him a turbulence of a degree equal to that of the calm. His mind rose and fell against the memories like waves breaking on the vessel’s hull, as he went back to those days, thinking about Natasha. He looked at the horizon. It was copper red. Suddenly out of nowhere black clouds emerged. The vessel started rolling as if in synchronism with his mind. The sky went black. And gradually the wind turned gale. The storm seemed to him to be a manifestation of his own thoughts. The ship started to roll heavily. He called his mate and told him to make arrangements and take precautions against heavy weather.
“Ensure no crew or passengers are on deck, and take a headcount.”
“Yes sir.” Replied the mate and walked out of the bridge.

Aksionov looked at the hazy horizon. He fancied a different world on the other side of the haze. He tried to approach the hazy wall but couldn’t come close to it. No matter how fast the ship would move towards the wall but the distance seemed to be constant. He couldn’t understand why so desperately he wanted to reach the horizon.

“Master, a passenger is missing.” Cried the mate as Aksionov came out of the trance.
“What?”
“A lady. Russian. Miss Natasha Aporova.”
Thunder struck. His jaw dropped. He went numb. And dumb.
“Search on the deck. All the accommodation. Everywhere.” He somehow managed to babble out this much.

He couldn’t stop himself going on the deck. Holding on to the railings and donning a life-jacket, he went ahead towards the forecastle. At the forward end he saw a feminine figure lying unconscious. He ran, still holding on to the railings. Just then the vessel rolled. To a greater degree. The hawsers coiled and stowed near the bulwark, acted as an incline, from the deck to the gunwale, and she rolled over the incline and fell into the water. Aksionov jumped after her. He had hoped that the seamen would have slung the scrambling nets on ship’s sides. And so they had. His luck was unusually favorable that day.

He caught hold of her by the hair, took her by her waist and laboriously brought her up, ascending on to the scrambling nets on the ship’s side. He took her to his cabin and warmed her. Then he saw her face. Calm and serene. Clear forehead. Sharp nose. Transparent lips. Black hair. She appeared not to have changed much since he had last met her. And then he saw his own face. His eyes. Love? Hate? No, love. His eyes sparkled and lips widened. He couldn’t hate her. He had never stopped loving her. His life had been banal despite his adventurous and exciting profession. He needed to re-originate that dimension. He needed to find someone. He had lost and found this girl. Was this a sign?

Somebody rang the telephone in his cabin. “Hey captain, my girl’s missing.” It was Sally’s panic-struck voice. ‘What, another passenger missing? But the mate said there was only one.’ Then he stammered, “h-her name’s Natasha or what?”
“Yeah.”
“Come up. I got her.”
“You got her?”
“I lost her.” He whispered to himself.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just come up.”

He entered the cabin and the vessel rolled. Or it can be said that the vessel rolled and he entered. Her body rolled and she started to fall from her bed. Aksionov stooped and caught hold of her and their breaths fused. And diffused in the atmosphere. Her cold face exuding warmth. And a fragment of time which was to measure a fraction of a second started ticking. And as the ticking started she opened her eyes.
“Why do you keep haunting me in my dreams?”
“Well, this isn’t a dream.”
‘Or is it?’ he thought.
The ticking continued. Sally pretended not to have seen anything. Aksionov actually couldn’t see anything beyond her face. And Natasha had once again closed her eyes. So, Aksionov was all set to fall into the trap, once again.

Falling in love is easy, just like a trap, you go in and there’s no way out. The poacher is cruel, never lets you go and yet you are gone. Where to? No one knows. He hurts you, may be unintentionally, but he doesn’t care too if you are hurt. He carries you to the fire and slaughters you there, if he’s merciful. Otherwise he just roasts you alive. And before doing that he never forgets to get himself snapped standing over you (or your corpse, whatever the case may be).
This has been happening for millennia. Cupid shoots, the prey falls (in love), and the poacher tramples it and devours the flesh. Can’t he be content eating vegetables?

The fragment of time was nearing its end and to mark it, Sally broke in. “How’s she?”
“I’m okay.” She said in a frail voice, Aksionov still bent over her.
“Well Captain, I think she’s alright and doesn’t now need resuscitation, so I think you can now relax and straighten yourself.”
“Oh yeah, here she is, all yours.” Then he turned to her, “And ma’am please change your clothes, otherwise you’ll get a cold. And that’s not one of the better things to experience while on board”
“Thank you, uh, Raze” she said.
“I need to walk . . . er . . . think. I got work to see to. Take care.”
“You know him?” sally turned to her. By the time she had already closed her eyes. “Okay, good way to say yes. Wake up. You got to change clothes.”

The storm was over.

x x x

The next morning was a bit cold but the sun was showing. People were enjoying the weather on deck. Aksionov spotted Natasha amidst a gathering and went up to her.
“So, uh, how are you feeling now?” She turned towards him. Her face had a tinge of pink. A streak of her black hair all the way from her forehead over her eye pointing towards her slightly parted lips, suggested a sharp smooth contrast.
“I’m fine. How are you? I had never thought we’d meet again”
“Neither had I. Where’s Sally by the way?”
“He’s gone to sleep.”
“On such a nice morning?”
“Yeah. He sat beside me all the night to keep a watch on my fever.”
“It was very considerate of him.”
“He’s a nice friend to have.”
“Friend . . .yeah.”
“Let’s move to the café.”
“The weather’s nice here on the deck. I can arrange coffee here if you like.”
“I’d insist we go to the café.”
“Let’s go then.”
They occupied the corner table permanently reserved for the master. Once again Aksionov started. “So how’ve you been?”
“I’ve been fine. Tell me about your life.”
“Nothing much to tell. I did nothing but sailed and sailed. To the Bahamas, India, Africa, America, Australia. I didn’t go to Antarctica though.” He chuckled dryly.
“Quite exciting” She said with a wry smile.
“What will you have?”
“Anything will do.”
“Espresso will be fine?”
“Perfect. You remember that?”
“What?”
“That I had ordered espresso that day.”
“Which day?”
“The last time we met.”
“Oh. No I don’t. I just guessed you’ll like it.”
“I’m sorry about that day. I shouldn’t have been so rude.”

This had once again hurt him. It was like removing a bullet from his bosom which had been fired ten years ago. Today the pain caused by excavating the scar had been far greater than when it was fired. He had got used to the bullet embedded in his heart. Now, performing a surgery to remove the bullet, without administering any anesthetic, was certain to hurt.

She continued to hurt.

“I thought you were just one of those boys running after me, just because I seemed pretty to them. They knew nothing about me. They just wanted to walk around with me. In the same manner as one takes a victory lap after winning an Olympic medal. I didn’t want to be a trophy of anyone’s victory over my existence and be showcased in his drawing room. I was being very judgmental.” Her eyes were pleading. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were really in . . .” She couldn’t complete her sentence.

He had interrupted. As if unable to bear the pain he had to cry out ‘It does hurt me.’ Only the words were a bit different.
“Well, now it doesn’t matter”
“It does. You were mad after me. Weren’t you?”
“It’s not that I was mad after you. I was just mad.”
“Is it really so?”
“It was really so”
She remained silent. And it was then that the venom found its way out.
“And by the way how do you now know that I was not–just–one–of–those–boys? Is it my money? My status? Is that why you are ready to dump Sally and be with me? Poor, poor Sally, eh?”
There was no answer. She took some time to recover from her state of shock. “I can’t believe you just said that.” This was all she could say.
“Oh come on Natasha, tell me the truth. Show up your mean side.” The bullet was out. Out of his heart.
She stood up and started to leave. At the door, she turned, came back and looked into his eyes. Her red eyes fumed as she said, “That day I misjudged you. Today, I did that again. I’m sorry for you.”
“Don’t be. Not for me.”
She left.

He shouted “You’re doing Sally or what?”

She left forever.

x x x