The Art of Preying

 

The mind has a way of explaining, justifying, hiding, suppressing and repressing anything unpleasant.

(Photo by Bernard Hermant on Unsplash)

I sat dreaming, as I was often wont to do, by the low wall of the thatched upper floor of the “new art room”. I was sitting on a low table, my feet up, a drawing board on my lap, a pencil in hand, staring into the distance. I can see the sky even now, a grey-blue shawl draped over distant hills, and hear the breeze gently rustling the leaves in the tall eucalyptus trees just outside. The quietness was everything I always sought.

All the other kids had left to eat a snack before boarding the bus home. Skipping snack meant I had a little extra time here, and it suited me to spend it like this. Sumant turned on the stereo system at the other end of the room, and the plaintive notes of some Hindustani classical song filled the air. It wasn’t what I necessarily enjoyed but it was peaceful.

Sumant, his tall skinny frame in its khadi kurta, sauntered over in his usual casual manner. He stood behind me, studying the self-portrait I was working on. “It’s good.” He commented. “I can see you are paying more attention to proportion now.” He moved to sit in front of me and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. He gently took the board and pencil from me and started making some correctional strokes on the sketch. I leaned forward to watch. He was shading the lips and began showing me how to contour them with deft little strokes. All at once he looked up to study my mouth. I didn’t hear what he said, if he said anything at all. The forefinger and thumb of his left hand were tracing the lines of my mouth as he seemingly copied them with his right.

I cannot remember how I felt then. I think now that I was simply mesmerized then. Frozen. My mind had stalled. He was saying something about my lips and my mouth and my neck being like a swan’s or something, and I did not comprehend anything. Was he grazing my neck with his fingers as he spoke? I cannot accurately tell you now. My heart was pounding, the sound flooding my ears, but I could not move.

At that moment, my friend Sri came looking for me. He was a senior, but we had become good friends over all the time we spent commuting. He jumped up the stairs calling my name and stopped short at the entrance of the art room. “Hey! The bus is leaving! What are you doing? Come on!” I blinked, coming back to myself. I leapt up, grabbed my things, not bothering with the sketch and pencil, slipped on my shoes outside and sprinted down the stairs trying to keep up with Sri who was strides ahead. It was a good five-minute run to the bus waiting at the gate. Teachers and children were calling out to me, scolding and demanding explanations.

The bus started as Sri and I found our seats at the back and sat down panting. He looked at me, his expression perplexed, and I looked back at him expressionless. He didn’t ask me anything and I didn’t offer any words of explanation for what he had seen. Probably because I had none. My mind had already wrapped up the memory and shoved it far, far down into some dark recess. I was already chatting with another friend about something more amenable to the mind of a 15-year-old.

We never talked about it, Sri and I. He grew distant and I never knew why. Two teenagers confused and unequipped to discuss something so incomprehensible, something no one warned us about. I never thought about the incident; or if I did, I probably just called it “weird” and not knowing what to do with it, returned it to its dark recess.

(Photo by Riccardo Mion on Unsplash)

There have been times over the years when the memory has pushed up to the surface. One time was when someone told me that Sumant had been fired from his job as art teacher for allegedly molesting a student. “Was that what it was?” I remember thinking vaguely. Today, it was a "friend request" I received on Facebook from the man himself. 

Now, at 42, I think, well if I’d known then what I know now about pedophiles and their tricks, I could have maybe done something. I could have made a complaint way back then, possibly saving several others from similar incidents.

Of course, it was decades ago and what’s done is done. But it did leave me scarred without my even realizing it. For even now, when I run my fingers over my own lips, my appraisal of them comes back to me in his voice that I was never sure I actually heard, saying “perfect” … and it makes me shudder.