Hotel Rooms, Airports, and Goodbyes

Twenty years ago, a young couple spent their last two days together in a small hotel room in Auckland. They spent time taking in the sights, taking photos, making memories, walking around the city, sipping on coffees, and holding hands. 

Photo by Taisiia Shestopal on Unsplash

Four years ago, a woman left her erstwhile lover of many years fast asleep in a hotel room in Chennai, her heart broken into smithereens, as she trundled her carry-on behind her, a stony look in her eyes. 

Today at noon Mina stepped out of a hotel room, her heart warmed by a love she had not felt in years, leaving behind a man she never thought would arrive. 

Then it was time, and he had a flight to catch back to Germany. In the morning light, she stirred the contents of the Nescafe sachets into two cups of hot water and added the whitener. As she watched the swirls of steam rise, the aroma of coffee settled heavily in the air that was already thick with the pain of separation. The sensation would haunt her for years to come. Later that afternoon, when she returned to their room from the airport and his departure, it was still there, that sweet promise of a day ahead. Only, her heart felt bruised now after watching his flight take off into the sky, leaving her with a yearning she hadn't yet learned would dull with time. 

She stepped past the security officers and walked to a South Indian joint at the food court. The early morning sun was blinding as she took a seat and opened the newspaper. Tears streamed down her face as she stared at her own smiling face in the Sunday supplement. She hated herself almost as much as she resented him for his treatment of her. He had but beckoned and she had flown to him, to be by his side at the launch of one of his bars, this time in Chennai. Reporters at the event had taken a shine to her and she had smiled for their flashing cameras. And now it was all over, she was nobody again, back on a plane, back to her life and the him-shaped void. 

The elevator dings open and Mina leaves the corridor. She can still feel his arms and the gentle but powerful way they held her. She had never met a human being so ready to give love, and so sure he would receive it in return. He said he would, and he did make her feel like a goddess, no less. His is a world Mina can only read about and imagine. In the short time they spent together, she caught brief glimpses of it:

Room service was dizzy with excitement as he brought up late-night sandwiches. Spinning on his heel as he laid down his tray, he even managed a dazzling "Good evening, madam, how are you madam," like Mina was some long-lost patron too.

Photo by bhuvanesh gupta on Unsplash

The taxi driver frazzled by her giggling at his ringtone, was quick to shut it off, shooting nervous looks in the rearview mirror  - in case he disapproved. People bowed and kowtowed their way around them in the hotel dining room, which made Mina want to giggle even more. When she checked in, she managed to cause a mild stir and raise eyebrows... who was she, that she had been granted this privilege?

He may be who and whatever he is to the world, but to Mina he is that man who had a drink ready for her as she walked in just because she had mentioned that she could use one. Who had a hot snack waiting for Mina because he thought she might be hungry after a long workday. Who ran a bath for her because her body ached, and would have gladly washed her hair had she asked him to.

She often thought back to that tiny, Nescafe-filled hotel room over the years. Remembering the bittersweet moments before they parted ways. Her skin dark against his paleness, brown eyes searching his blue, black hair mingling with his gold, fingers intertwined not knowing quite how to let go.

She remembered the softness of his hair as she ruffled it a last time. The ruddy cheeks as he wiped his eyes, his long fingers with their pink tips, and his gentle pink lips that pressed themselves one last time against hers. "Come back to me," she whispered, looking up at him. "I promise I will, mein Schatz" he had said. And 20 years had gone by.

As she sipped her filter coffee, reading the newspaper, tears still streaming down her tired face, she rued the day they had ever met. She had never loved someone the way she had loved this void-maker. She thought of him, lying alone in that hotel room she had left. She wondered if he would even notice that she was gone. 

He had left her for another woman who wasn't even there. She had filled that void for him these last two nights, not for a moment worried for her own poor heart and how it bled. Not for a moment seeing the pitying look in his friends' eyes. Not for a moment... because of how much she loved him. "Come to me," he had said, and she had.

Photo by Margaret Jaszowska on Unsplash

"Those are peacock feathers, you know?" Mina said to him as they crossed the lobby with its enormous vases filled with the turquoise blue ornaments. "I know," he said, amused by her awe.

They reminded her of Lord Krishna, and she said to Him, "Lord, if ever there was a sign from you, then this is it."

He pings Mina. "I love you chakkarey*"... Nobody ever called her that. She smiles. He's ensconced in some lounge in some airport, waited on hand and foot. But he thinks of Mina and calls Mina. As he takes off and lands in some distant place, it is Mina's face that dances before his eyes, and Mina's eyes he wants to drown in.

*chakkarey is Tamil for sugar and is used as an endearment. Like Schatz :)