The Buddha In Me Part Two
Having come back to New York, he insisted on having a separate apartment, away from his father's luxurious villa. But he decided to enter his father's business. John's father had many showrooms all over the country. It provided John many opportunities of travelling around. The father was not less pleased to have his son beside. The Jaguars, Ferraries, Datsuns, Toyotas, etc. had always enchanted John.
In the third year, John met a girl named Florence, a tall blonde, with dreamy blue eyes. She was a waitress in a nearby restaurant at Park Avenue. John often visited the place whenever he used to be in his New York office. It was a comfortable small restaurant near ABN bank. Born of an Italian mother and an American father, Florence was beautiful enough to turn many heads when she walked along the street.
Introduction to offering of a drink led to a date one evening, to be followed by many repetitions, to ultimately culminate in the bed, in John's apartment, which stood witness to the promises made between John and Florence, on the seventh occasion of the dating. His father, though having cherished a desire to see a pure American girl as his daughter-in-law, and not a common half American girl, perhaps subdued by the fact that the boy had spent most of his childhood without his mother, concealed his dislike and arranged a grand party on the occasion of their marriage. John was twenty three and Florence nineteen at the time of their marriage.
The happy married life lasted for two years, and in the second year, Florence gave birth to a boy. For John it was a very proud feeling to be a father. When their son, Jimmy, was about one year old, John convinced his father to establish a manufacturing unit of their own to produce automobile parts. So the plan was approved and a factory was set up in Detroit. Now, owing to the expansion of the business, John was obliged to spend fair amount of time away from home.
One morning, at the breakfast table, Florence said, " I think, your son needs you at this stage. He is almost one year old."
"I am well aware of all that, my sweetie," smiled John, munching the last piece of the toast.
"As you wish, Dad," said Florence and moved onto the adjacent room.
"I will be late tonight".
"Nothing surprising, dear," Florence gave a faint smile.
Her smile rather irritated him, for he was well aware of her sarcastic ways of putting forward her annoyance and anger, typical Italian.
"Bye, darling, "said he, and kissing her on her lips, quickly strode out of the room.
The woman inside Florence very patiently resisted the emotion of shouting at once. During last six months, John had spent many days out of station. She did try to convince and console herself about the loyalty of her husband, but the grudge against the unseen hypothetical female rival, which is often there in the mind of a wife whose husband spends nights away from his own nest, troubled her time and again.
Loneliness and a kind of neglect she did feel at home, for John was so busy that he hardly had time to revive the glorious moments of lovers of the past. This led to a unwanted habit of drinking. And sometimes, she would start drinking as early as 10 o'clock. The solitude, brought to her in John's absence was killing her. With the progression of time, her new pastime, drinks, transformed into a habit, and she didn't even realize that she had become an alcoholic. Jimmy, her son, used to be under the care of his baby-sitter, most of the time.
It was about a year and a half after the new unit had been started. One night, drunk and angry, she shouted at John. John, however he tried to convince her, could not make her realize that the new business demanded his presence at many places. He was compelled to visit different towns to promote the products of their company.
John decided to cancel all his business assignments for one week so that he could be with his wife and son. But no sooner had he resumed his work than the abuses began to be hurled at him by Florence in the evenings. This often happened when he returned from an out of station trip. But for the patience in John, their marriage would have ended in the fifth year. Up to the best of his endurance, he strived to keep himself dispassionate and , very patiently, he sustained the insulting remarks of his wife.
One night, the quarrel exceeded all limits and crossed the boundary of all the civility. He was in the living room, with a newspaper in his hand. Florence was in the bathroom. He had just come back from a long journey to Nevada. Suddenly, the bathroom door opened and belligerent voice of his wife was heard.
"Got fed up with all those whores you have been seeping with?" She was stone drunk.
"I have come back from a business trip," he remonstrated.
"Business! You call it a business, leaving your wife and son behind for weeks and months, without ever thinking that we are humans too!"she screamed, with her vibrant body trembling behind the pink nightgown she had on.
"That's enough, Florence!" shouted John, trying to control the pitch of his tone.
"Why do you come back? Go! Get out!" she was not herself, and before John could realize what was going to happen, she hurled the glass tumbler, which she had in her hand, at John. He had no chance to avoid that throw, and it struck him on his forehead. The glass dropped onto the floor and shattered. The hit was quite powerful enough to make a wide gaping cut on his forehead. Before long his shirt was drenched in his own blood.
Florence stood there, almost speechless, with her eyes wide open with amazement. She tried to take a step toward John, but, without looking at her, he began to pace toward the outer door leading to the passage. Once outside the house, he got in his car and accelerated it, leaving behind a loud screech and dark marks of the burnt rubber on the cemented porch. He was unable to consign his misery to anybody except his father. How much he yearned to revive that comely ambience of the family life which had prevailed everywhere in his house before he had started the manufacturing unit.
Next morning, when he opened his eyes in his father's bedroom, in his father's house, he had a bandage around his head. He could feel the swollen portion on his forehead, under the medicated cotton pad. Florence had rung up several times but the maid, as instructed by John, didn't tell Florence anything about John. He stayed in his father's house for two days, and on the third morning, he was aboard an airbus flying to Kathmandu. He had realized that he needed a few days away from home and office. He had simply walked into the office of a travel agency and asked for a month long tour to any Asian country, beginning that week. He wanted peace and the surroundings which could, for a few days, keep him alien to the New York life.
..........to be continued.......... Rajasir.
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