[nukkad] TRYST

["HOMI KAIKOBAD" <>]

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TRYST

She was of royal lineage which extended to haughty lairds for better part of
a half century. She was the only child, and therefor self willed and
sometimes self centered but without a clue as to what this meant. She had
flowing silken hair the hue of the night sky on which stars play. She would
be termed vain but there were none who would so inform her, as her position
ensured she passed her days in company of no one her equal and all her
servants.

She had an august forehead, the mark of her wise forebears. This was offset
by the darkest eyes this side of Eve. Tall for her tribe, she had the ease
of movement those possess who have wandered in the royal forests since she
was a child. She always wore turquoise robes fastened carelessly at the
waist by a belt of woven gold. She moved with ease and ran at will and
thought nothing of spending half the night at the banks of dark deep lakes
which broke the green sweep of her lands.

One day she had decided on rising to head towards the great Koh to the west,
a looming brooding range of hills which turned mountainous into the far
distance. She took along Fleet, her huge ill natured unfriendly mastiff of
uncertain blood she had saved when a motherless pup by a hunter's arrow, and
had kept with her always. By noon she reached the foothills, which had been
cleared of all travelers as was the custom laid by her father. She came upon
the swift stream running down to the plains and sat by the waters, and
removing her sandals, bathed her feet in the blue waters.

She had dozed off, and wakened to see the sun farther to the west than she
would have wanted, for the nights come rapidly to the hills and paths have a
way of disappearing in the dark. She turned to retrieve her sandals and
found a man sitting by her side with these in his hands.

Regaining her composure, for she had been taken completely by surprise, she
said somewhat disjointedly, "Return me what is mine. And be you a robber who
will steal sandals?". He was a tall man and somewhat onwards in years, maybe
a score more than the winters she had seen, and dressed in somewhat foreign
fashion in woolen greatcoat over pantaloons tucked into boots of the sort
she had never seen before.

He said in a voice which thrilled her to her heart, "I will so return to you
what is yours, when you return to me what is mine and which you have
stolen."

"Robber of shoes!", she said with scorn she could not manage well.

"Stealer of hearts!", he said with a smile which had all the kindness of the
world.

"Do you know who I am that you take this so lightly?".

"I know what you are to me, and that I do not take lightly."

And then her eyes fell upon Fleet who had been sitting behind the man all
along at an angle which made him all but unseen to her from where she sat.
Her eyes rounded in surprise and her lips, till now curled and set in
disapproval, parted helplessly at the spectacle of the beast sitting
docilely at his side as though he had known him as long as she had.

"He was telling me about his mother who was felled by a hunter's arrow", the
man said matter of factly, while offering her the sandals truce fashion.

Quite subdued, she asked, "How does he talk to you?".

"The same way I have talked to you all these years when I have traveled the
lands from the waters of Crete to the shores of Cheen."

She got up, mused and amused and trying her best to be angry and upset that
a man had entered her preserve and had the temerity to steal her sandals and
her dog at the same time.

"Who are you?", she said as they began the walk to the manors in the gray
light of the fast approaching evening shadows.

"I am anything you want me to be to you. When I saw you as you lay asleep by
the river, I recognized you as the meaning to my journeys end. What you wish
for me is what I want for myself.", he said in steady, level tone.

Of a sudden the sun sank beyond the outcrop of hills and the land became
locked in darkness. She felt his greatcoat rustle and of a sudden she felt
it around her shoulders, and all at once she felt more secure and safe than
she had felt in he life.

"Who are you?", she asked again, almost beseechingly now walking close by
his side with Fleet by her steps, following the lead of this magnificent man
who seemed to be able to see in the dark, which was his friend as much as
the light was.

"They call me by many names in all the lands by the seven seas, but I have
taken none and have waited for this day as I promised I would to take my
calling from you."

Then somewhat belatedly, he said, "I am what you want me to be, my name from
this day is the name you want to gift me. I who have never belonged to
anyone nor let anyone claim themselves as mine, do render ,myself into your
keeping.'

She walked on thus for while, stunned and heated in breath, her heart
beating out of her ribs. And then she said, softly, almost imperceptibly
heard in the rustling of the night walk on a bed of last year's leaves.

"Why do you give yourself so freely to someone whose name you do not know?".

After the longest time, and in even tones, he replied, "Because you are the
end of my journeys, I have no more to venture upon."

At this moment they turned a pike and saw yonder in the shallow drop in the
valley the manors, all alight as though jewels in a kingly crown which
sparkle by moon light.

She replied, softly and certain of herself, "Welcome. We are home."

[Excerpted from Leif and Life. By Dr. Homi Kaikobad. Copyright 2000. All
Rights Reserved]





































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