Chef by Jaspreet Singh

Author:Jaspreet Singh
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: General, Fiction
ISBN: 9781408809570
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2011-09-15T07:00:00+00:00

16

Forgiveness is a strange animal, I say to myself. Not many people on this earth know how to ask for forgiveness, and very few know how to truly forgive. I returned to the hospital to ask for forgiveness. I did not really need a bandage, the cut I had on my finger was minor. Some of the wards were absolutely dark. One or two were lit up with emergency lights. There was no power in the hospital, and the whole place smelled of dead cockroaches and chloroform. I waved at her. She ignored me; the sound of her heels clicking throughout the ward was unbearable.

Finally, I stopped her in the corridor.

‘Nurse, I have been meaning to say “sorry” to you.’

‘Say it quickly.’

‘I was wrong. The way I used to look at you was wrong. It will never happen again.’

She held my arm and I felt she had already forgiven me. I like you a lot, she said, and immediately after saying that she entered the dimly lit ward. The guard saluted her. I lingered until she took a cigarette break and stepped out on the lawn. Only then, when she was gone (and the guard was looking in the other direction), did I step into the ward.

There was a blanket on his face. The only light came from the window in the corner. The blanket heaved up and down. Chef stirred, but did not flap it open. This made my task easier. In a low voice I apologized on two counts. First, for reading his journal, and second, for liking his woman. Nothing happened between us, Chef. I just told her that I liked her. I did nothing.

I do not recall exactly the words I used, but I apologized and placed the red journal by his pillow and quickly made it to the door. The guard looked at me suspiciously, but didn’t utter a word.

Outside in the corridor a man was tapping the floor with his crutches. A thin boy from the Madras regiment in a wheelchair was playing with his saliva, slowly shaking his head left to right and right to left like a machine. The nurse was standing with two or three other nurses. They eyed me curiously.

‘I was only trying to have a word with Chef,’ I explained.

‘Who?’ she asked.

‘Kishen.’

‘But he is not here,’ she said.

‘Not here?’

‘Gone.’

‘He left?’

‘He put in a request with the colonel for a return to the Rose Glacier.’

‘Why did they let him go?’

‘Because no one else wanted to go.’

‘So who is on the bed?’ I raised my voice.

I rarely raise my voice. Perhaps that is why the power returned in the hospital.

There was a commotion in the corridor. Officers are coming. Officers. There I saw the colonel and his platoon marching in. The doctor was walking parallel to the colonel in his trussed jacket. The colonel was carrying an inspection stick, and the doctor was smoking a Marlboro.

‘Power is very unreliable, sir,’ said the doctor to the colonel. The others followed them to the ward.

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