A Nomad’s Notebook

Chains of marigold flowers dance in the window as the bus trundles over bumps and potholes. Glass beads and a golden Ganesha swing to and fro above the driver. Even the roof is decorated in a riot of coloured paints, all clamouring to brighten the passengers’ spirits, despite most of them being fast asleep. Tabla drums and the wistful tune of a bansuri flute play through speakers above the dreaming heads, their rhythm bouncing even more than the bus’s wheels on the uneven road.

One woman is awake. She sways in her seat, in time with the tasseled curtains which frame her view. She holds a small notebook in her lap. Its cover feels waxy beneath her fingertips.

“It must be important.” A man with thick eyebrows and a crisp shirt peers at the book from the next seat. He has kind eyes which crinkle at the corners when he speaks. “In my family we say that when you can see the skeleton holding on, it must be a matter of life and death, or possibly marriage. I imagine you have drawn something special inside.”

She looks down at her hands, her knuckles are bone white. She relaxes her grip. “It’s not mine.”

She can still picture the staircase. Its stone had felt warm and smooth beneath her palm. Their feet had made pretty pattering sounds on the steps as they’d spiralled higher—two birds caught on an updraft. The light on the terrace had shone bright and clear as the dawn air, and the tea, served in chipped cups, had filler her nose with the earthy aroma of cinnamon, cloves and cardamom spice. His smile had sweetened the bitterness of the tealeaves, and the hills behind him had grown greener as she’d listened to his words.

He had a tendency to drift away, as if there were hidden wings folded at his sides, impatient to spread. Often during their conversations he had paused to make notes inside a small black book, as if he had too many thoughts to hold in his mind all at once. She’d wondered if he was a storyteller. The tales he’d told of his own country had been more vibrant and full of humour than any reality she’d experienced, and between them they had filled their tea with bubbles of laughter. He hadn’t liked to talk about his home or his job. "It distracts me,” he had said. “If you don’t forget yourself, how can you hope to find something important?" He hadn’t even told her his name. In her head she had simply called him Nomad. He had refused to tell her what he’d written in his notebook, and this had made her most curious of all.

“Can I see the drawings?” The kind-eyed man on the bus asks.

She frowns at the book. “I’m not sure there are any drawings. I think it’s writing mostly, I haven’t looked inside.”

“Well, there can’t be anything too frightening in there. The bhūta only haunt awful places and here the sun is shining, until the rainy season comes! Bhūta are a bit like what you call ghosts I suppose, but I don’t think they hide inside books, I should think it is too cramped.”

She gives him a weak smile and he trades it for a much more cheerful one. “May I ask where you are going?” he says.

She gazes out of the window. The glass is scratched and flecked with dirt, but beyond, cattle graze in a patchwork of emerald fields. The sun shimmers on their glossy umber coats as they droop their necks and flick their ears. Drip-shaped haystacks gleam gold above gaggles of chickens scratching in the dirt below. In the distance the lush grasses dwindle, to be replaced by rugged mountains scorched red by the sun.

“I have to go home.”

“Well, you are always welcome back in India again. It is a great wish of mine to travel to Europe, but we can rarely afford to travel so far. You are lucky, I am sure you had a beautiful trip.”

“I did, but I think I left home with the wrong expectations. I’m not sure what I thought I was going to discover.”

She had found the notebook on the floor outside her room. He must have dropped it when he’d left. Wings didn’t like to remain idle for long, and he hadn’t run out of money like she had. Their paths had only intertwined for a moment. The idea of waking at the crack of dawn to say goodbye had felt strange after such a brief encounter, but now she wishes that she had. The notebook’s dilemma, at least, would not be weighing on her lap. She struggles to fathom his refusal to share his notes, and is left suspicious that they are scathing about her. If so, she will be delivering herself a dagger by opening the pages. Closed shut, the book contains both the words she fears and hopes for all at once. So long as she doesn’t look, she can choose which words are scribbled inside.

The book remains firmly closed, but it grows heavy in her hands. The world seems to shrink until it fits inside the pages, and it is all she can think about. If she had to pluck her heart from her chest to be weighed on the scales of judgement, she doubts she would feel less at ease.

“I do not think it could be so terrible,” says the man, standing up and retrieving a worn leather satchel from the rack above her head. “I always imagine things will be much worse than they eventually turn out.”

“Where are you going, if you don’t mind me asking?” She says.

“I have an interview for a job. I am not sure if I am well enough qualified, I think I will be rejected, but if I don’t go I won’t find out.” He raises his dark eyebrows meaningfully. She wishes him luck as the bus screeches to a halt, and reaches out a bracing hand to stop her forehead hitting the plastic handle on the seat in front. She watches the man walk off the bus and join the chaotic throng, swirling on the pavement. The bus judders to life again, huffing and grunting like a great angry buffalo as cars and rickshaws dodge out of its way. As they drive into the city the last blades of grass slide out of view, to be replaced by brick and concrete, spanned by tangled webs of cable. Litter chokes the gutters and dust clouds the air. A flurry of hands appear, reaching up to slide the windows of the bus closed, barely dampening the raucous medley of hooting and tooting which emanates from the traffic.

The woman ponders over her conversation with the kind-eyed man. He had called her lucky, but sometimes she looks at the unbridled grins of children on the street and feels envious. She suspects that this makes her ignorant and foolish, and imagines everyone else must think the same, but she finds it difficult to picture herself through other people’s eyes, even if they are kind.

Something snags her from her wondering thoughts and suddenly she sits bolt upright. She has missed her stop. She jumps to her feet, yanking her pack from where it’s lodged beneath her seat. Her flailing attracts curious eyes, which follow her progress as she runs towards the driver. The bus lurches to a stop and she clings to the nearest handrail for dear life, whilst thanking the driver over and over. Only when her foot is on the first step leading down to the dusty street does she realise that her hands are empty. She turns and stares at her vacant seat. In her hurry, she must have dropped the notebook there. Her body freezes in indecision. The bus is lined with staring eyes, all waiting for her to leave. Her legs move, and before she knows it, she has stepped off the bus.

A swarm of taxi drivers swallows her instantly, all jostling to offer their services, and it feels easy to turn and walk away down the street. Without the book, her pockets feel lighter. Her ears listen for the telltale roar of the bus pulling away, but instead, the clamour of the taxi drivers rises. Someone is running towards her, flapping something slim and black in their hand. She accepts the notebook with a hollow thank you on her lips, but the running man is already leaping for the bus as it drives away.

Something flutters from the book. She picks a folded slip of paper from the ground. Inside, a two and four zeros are written in neat, looped handwriting next to a dollar sign and her name. She stares at the number. All of India’s noise vanishes from her ears. Women wrapped in saris bustle impatiently past, but she doesn’t notice. Slowly, with trembling hands, she opens the cover of the notebook. Her eyes flick down the page. She turns to the next page, and the next, but finds only vacant lines and blank paper. The book is empty. The pages flutter past, until, on the final page, she finds a single note.

‘I used to wonder what other people wrote inside their notebooks, then I realised all that mattered is that I got one of my own. Wandering is much more interesting than wondering anyway, at least it teaches you things. I hope you take the money and carry on travelling. Maybe if you wander far enough I’ll see you on a terrace someday. You can by me a cup of tea and we can tell each other what we’ve written.’