Читать книгу Six Metres of Pavement - Farzana Doctor - Страница 6

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Motion

Years ago, long before Ismail Boxwala came to this country, a school friend told him that the only way to survive misfortune is to stay in motion. The friend was in a philosophical mood induced by too many beers and a recent heartbreak and imparted these words: if the body never moves, if the limbs are not exercised, sadness will turn the blood and lymph stagnant. Regret will cause the heart to grow weak, infection will creep in, and a person will die a slow, painful death.

Ismail Boxwala had no courage for this sort of dying.

After the tragedy that befell him, he remembered his friend’s words. He went back to work, fraternizing only with colleagues who were better at forgetting than he was. On holidays, he visited his older brother, Nabil, and his family, people who showed him a measure of warmth and never pitied him too much. Ismail paid the mortgage, the hydro bills, his taxes. He borrowed library books and read the Toronto Star on weekends. He managed to get out of bed, shake out his arms and legs, moving through life purposeless, a man directionless; alive, but lifeless. His heart grew weak.

Ismail later supposed that his college chum would have said that he hadn’t really stayed in motion, or not quite enough, anyway. He’d have to admit his friend would be right, for he was hesitant to draw attention to himself, maintaining the belief that he could be invisible if he just stayed still. For almost two decades, he kept his head down, became a watcher of sidewalk cracks, rarely noticed the sun.

He never imagined his life could change and so when it began to, he almost didn’t notice the first tiny clues.