A Head

What is a nation? Hugo had often asked himself, as his light turquoise eyes lidded with long eyelashes scanned the scenery outside the window of the sanatorium he voluntarily chose to live at.

He didn’t know anymore while he prayed silently, “Don’t run too fast, Diane. It’s pouring. You might skid. You might get hit.”

It had been years and Diane still dashed to meet him every Saturday, despite being snubbed repeatedly and Hugo refusing to look at her face. He had stopped loathing Diane ages ago but it was his ridiculous ego that still made him continue the ritual of absolutely ignoring the woman.

Even now, after a decade had passed, Hugo still awoke in the middle of the night, sweating; golden strands plastered to his face; the explosions, the odour of smoke and the unseeing eyes of the dead fresh in his mind. The hands that clutched fire-arms and weapons trembled often, convulsions frequent.

Then 23, Hugo had been a soldier in the fateful war that had taken away his entire family and comrades, the mutilated bodies, the splattered organs smeared along pavements after the blasts were still seared into the back of his eyelids.

Diane’s grandfather had been an immigrant from the very land that had declared war on his hometown, her family settling in the neighbouring block, a few streets away from Hugo’s own residence as he had later learned.

Rendered immobile with a bullet lodged in his leg, Hugo would have perished as well had Diane not pulled him aside while she was searching for signs of life. He was aware he ought to be thankful, but the very thought that someone from the warring country had protected him, taken pity on him, made hateful emotions spill out of him like black tar.

Yet, whenever it rained, Hugo prayed for Diane’s safety.

Why the woman had to run and not walk was beyond him.

He wasn’t going anywhere.

He would always wait for her-

His pencil stopped abruptly, he gazed down at his work.

As usual, he could only draw up to the neck, the heads in all of his sketches were missing.

Of course they would be, he never turned to look.

“Oi, Hugo!” One of his ward-mates peered over his shoulder, “This new one’s rather good. The gown is gorgeous, man! Where do you get these ideas from? Should’ve been a fashion-designer, you know?”

“My great-great-great… I dunno how many ‘great’s I should add…-grandfather was an aristocrat, a Duke or something… His wife wore this, there was a portrait of her in our house. Our walls were stacked with paintings, not an inch remained bare.”

“Didn’t know you came from some old, noble house… They literally razed culture and history to the ground, didn’t they?”

“That was a long time ago.”

“That’s rich, coming from you when you won’t even acknowledge- Oh well, your numerous drawings are suggestive enough.”

A nurse entered the trauma care unit.

“Miss Diane is here for you.”

Hugo’s friend sighed. “You’d better put that sketchbook away, idiot.”

**

Hydrangeas were blooming in the courtyard, purple, indigo, magenta. Drops of rain splashed on them. Hugo stared at the flowers while Diane continued to speak. Her voice, Hugo always thought, was mellifluous, tinkled like the flow of a waterfall, reminding him of a pair of hands holding an infant and singing a lullaby. Whose child, he did not care to comprehend, although the body reacts faster than the mind. The corner of his lips turned upwards ever so slightly.

He knew, her tone would drown out the shrieks of all the demons that threatened to swallow him at night.

Well, he told himself, you’re the one who pushed her away, she was more than ready to take care of you but you admitted yourself to this sanatorium.

“So, I… uh… made these gloves. Autumn’s nearly ending…” Diane was saying, Hugo normally just let her talk, allowing her words to wash over him like silver pearls of water, “It’ll turn cold. I think they’ll fit you. Don’t throw them away, please. I’ll… leave them here.” A pause. “Hugo, you still won’t talk?” She received no response. “Well, I don’t mind, really. I’m glad I can at least see you in good health. That’s all I need to verify with my own eyes.”

Hugo’s lips tasted her tears.

Diane always prattled on about mundane things. What the cashier at the confectioner’s did and how expensive the dress she liked was. How she couldn’t decide whether, in her murder mystery, she should make Julian the victim or the criminal. At 30, Diane was an NGO worker, her daily life and hobbies so innocent and commonplace that it physically hurt Hugo somewhere around his chest. But at times, her sorrow showed itself. This was one of those rare cases. Diane, mused Hugo, was the kind of woman who understood the word ‘unconditional’ far too well, almost unhealthily.

“I’ll… I’ll be going now, Hugo. Stay safe.”

Hugo did not need to pray this time.

She would be returning home, her steps would be slow, heavy.

After she had left, he brought out the sheets again.

What was the description of the dress she couldn’t afford that she had gloomily talked about? Yes, his pencil raced across the page. Beautiful she would have looked.

Headless again.

So many images. They had become more detailed over the years.

A woman who sat, a bouquet in her hand. A woman who stood, her palm resting on the railings of a balcony, a garden beyond.

“Oh, what’s this? The one beside her is wearing gloves this time…” Hugo’s room-mate popped out of nowhere and stared thoughtfully at the artwork from behind.

“Will you stop scaring the living daylights out of me?”

“He doesn’t have a head either. That’s odd.”

“He has no identity.”

**

-What is a nation?

A pair of shoes sloshed as puddles began to overflow, the downpour worsening.

-“It’s terrible, Hugo! On her way here, she slipped in the rain and was run over! Her left leg had to be amputated!”

-There is no such thing as a nation. Just borders set up by those at the top who remained unharmed even if the country was being shelled.

-She bore an entire nation within her, my home, my sanctuary, my security.

He turned a corner, panting. He had left the sanatorium without an umbrella, without warm clothes. Winter rains were crippling in this place. But he never forgot those gloves.

-Countries did not exist. They were but geographical contours that ended in the sea, determined eons ago when life had only begun to bloom on the earth.

-What have I been doing all this time?

-I never even got to see the face of my nation, the lines, the criss-crosses, the crests, the troughs. What sort of patriot am I?

Hugo had reached the hospital and barged in unceremoniously. The man at the reception was visibly alarmed when Hugo grabbed him by the collar and shook him. “Diane, the woman whose leg was amputated! Where is she? Tell me the number of her room, damn you!”

“It’s-It’s 17!”

When he slid open the door to ward 17, he discovered Diane lying on the bed alone, sans a nurse.

“Sir, this isn’t the visiting hour-”

“Please Madam! Give me a minute with her!” The pleading tone placated the lady. “Fine. Five, I’ll give you five. Understood?”

“I’m in your debt.”

**

“Hugo, is it? Didn’t think you would come…”

It had been hours since Diane had been released from the intensive care unit and she was now quite capable of speech. Yet, her feeble voice made Hugo’s heart leap in his throat.

“Good, isn’t it?” Diane began weakly, her pallor ashen, “I won’t go bother you anym-”

She was silenced as an index finger was gently placed over her pale lips, Hugo kneeling by her bedside, left arm tightly clutching her right.

“Don’t speak. I finally had a chance to see your face, albeit too late, but let me gaze at it for a while longer.”

He removed his finger, fished around his pocket and extracted a piece of paper, damp from the rain. “Take a look at the date. This is how I’ve always felt.”

It was one of his pencil sketches, a headless woman cradling a child in her lap, her clothes old-fashioned. A man stood by her sitting form, hands around her.

“A date from six years ago. See? That long. If my overblown ego had not gotten in the way, you wouldn’t be lying there, helpless.”

Diane did not reply. A brook of grief, as well as elation, cascaded down her cheeks.

“No, don’t cry either. Your lovely face shall get besmirched because of my idiocy. This time, Diane, I will take care of you, I will shoulder your pain. So, if I may be permitted to voice my desire, marry me.”

“Why… why would you choose to love a broken woman who can never give you what you want?”

“The same reason you did. Remember how you once said you wanted to play dress-up with a little girl?”

“You actually listened…”

“And remembered all of it. I desire only you. Always wanted you to be mine, heh, sounds so audacious after all I did! You see, Diane, clinging on to the grudge was so easy. I was seething with rage after… they died. I didn’t know where to channel my wrath, you happened to be the convenient target closest by. People like us who lost all to the war couldn’t leave behind our hatred on the frontlines, bore it along, and yet it was too much to carry all alone. We left a part of our identities on the battlefield. Without that anger daily plaguing us, who were we? Thus, like the last frayed rope was thrown down to us who were screaming at the bottom of the abyss, we held on to fury; it was our salvation and hope.”

“Hugo, I knew that. That’s why I tried to be-”

“-the one I could depend on, yes? I was aware. All I can say is this, my dear… I’ve been a colossal fool.”

“Are you asking me to marry you because I cannot move now?”

“Not at all. This accident was the trigger, true. However, I am proposing not out of pity or obligation or atonement, but as a man who madly craves a woman’s passion and touch. I pledge myself to you till the end of my days. Will you accept?”

“I shall… think about it. Ten years, Hugo… You’ve kept me waiting for ten long years.” Diane smiled softly. “Now have a taste of your own medicine.”

“Fair enough.” He smiled back. “I have all the time in the world to court you till I see a rosy expression on your face, sweet and precious.”

“Say, Hugo, why doesn’t that man have a head?”

“What kind of soldier fails to protect his own nation? A man like that is better off without one.”