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"A Slice of Chilli"

by Penny Feeny, Liverpool, England

Rinsing away the blood, Janis lets his mind drift, imagining himself skating on a frozen lake. He’s with a girl, Marya perhaps before she grew sulky and tiresome, and she’s teasing him, letting him warm his hands beneath her layers of wool and then slapping him away. He can hear her laughter across the years, the thousands of kilometres, and it fills the silence around him. Then the bleach swallows his fantasy like a stain and he’s back in the night-time hospital with its strip-lit corridors and dim blue wards, where he swabs down lifts and operating theatres, fires the incinerator, unclogs drains.

How is it that he can still hear laughing?

Not laughing, but crying. He opens the door of the sluice room. It’s three o’clock in the morning and this part of the hospital has restricted access so he doesn’t know how she can have got here: an Asian woman, her face barely visible in the gloom, her sari shimmering under her coat like exotic butterfly wings. Her eyes are wide and frightened, her whole body trembling.

‘Where my son?’ she asks.

Janis is wearing a white jacket with his name tag pinned above the pocket. She thinks he’s a doctor. She gabbles at him in words he can’t understand. Sobbing, she holds up the palm of one hand and smashes her other fist into it. ‘Car,’ she says.

Janis will get into trouble if anyone sees them. Supporting her by the elbow he leads her back towards A&E. She struggles to keep pace, stumbling in the unlaced trainers she threw on in a hurry. He finds a nurse to take charge of her and doesn’t expect to see her again. He’s not around at visiting times. By day when the hospital is busy as an ant-heap, he is trying to sleep. He lies in his bed hearing the plumbing gurgle and the daytime TV programmes left on by other tenants. His dreams are hazy, infused with snatches of Trisha or Jerry Springer. He wakes up feeling slightly unclean.

The accident victim lies splinted and semi-conscious. Every evening his mother brings delicacies, hoping to boost his appetite. On her third visit she runs into Janis and he recognises her immediately. Her eyes are striking, huge and dark, and her lashes are as long and straight as the bristles on his brush; her skin has a smooth rich plumpness like well-polished rosewood. Janis is arriving for work and she’s just leaving. She’s already passed him when he sees that her carrier bag is leaking a trail of ghee. He must stop her before the spillage worsens and someone slips. ‘Please lady,’ he says and points to her bag.

A smile floods her face. In her memories of that awful night: the police thumping on the door, the broken body of Abdul, the wrong turn that led her into the twilight maze of corridors, Janis stands out, the man who helped her. She doesn’t understand his gesture though. She thinks he’s pointing at her bag because he’s hungry. She reaches inside for a container of lamb biryani and holds it out to him.

Janis’ eyebrows rise like peaked caps but he doesn’t know how to explain. He’s never tasted curry and isn’t sure he’ll like it. He’s familiar with the aroma of cumin and coriander because it floats down the staircase of the house he lives in, from the kitchen of the two Bangladeshis on the top floor, but it hasn’t tempted him. Sometimes he buys fish and chips with vinegar, but mostly he lives off hot dogs and bacon sandwiches.

The woman is waiting; her bag is still dripping. Janis decides he’ll have to accept the container and thanks her. She smiles again, inclines her head and sweeps through the automatic glass doors. Later, in the little storeroom where he hangs his coat and keeps his thermos of black coffee, he digs into the golden rice with a plastic fork and is surprised to find it so sweet and fragrant. Then he’s hit by a powerful slice of chilli and his eyes water and sweat breaks out on his forehead. He bolts down some coffee but is drawn irresistibly back to the mixture of unfamiliar spices, textures and flavours resting on his knee.

Janis starts arriving half an hour early for his shift and Asha (he’s discovered her name now) leaves her son’s bedside at about the same time. She’s one of the last visitors to go and when she meets Janis, just outside the doors where the smokers gather, she passes him another dish, like a relay baton. ‘Please to try,’ she says, preparing to move off at once.

Janis doesn’t want her to disappear into the night and tries to keep her talking. He’s noticed that she’s always alone. ‘Your husband waiting?’ he asks.

She shakes her head so her long thick plait coils over her shoulder. He pictures it loose, cascading. ‘I am widow,’ she says and he sees that she’s looking at the wedding ring on his left hand.

He’s still sending money back to Marya in Latvia, but they no longer speak of her joining him even though his status is legal now. The letters and telephone calls between them have slid into abeyance. He thinks she’s probably found another lover. He knows her idea of the life he’s leading could not be more different from the reality. He’d be ashamed to expose himself to her disbelief. It’s hard, working nights, to meet people or make friends. He has no spare time for English lessons. Progress is slower than he expected, but he remains optimistic.

There was a nurse once on night duty, a pretty girl who smiled at him, who took care to correct his errors of pronunciation. ‘No, Janis, not offal!’ she’d peal. ‘That’s liver and kidneys and stuff. Orr-ful, that’s what you mean.’ When she reached to flick something from his collar he thought the action had more than friendliness about it. He caught her hand, lifted it to his lips and kissed the inside of her wrist. A few nights later, growing bolder, he tried to kiss her mouth. She’d used a lot of angry words then, of which orr-ful was the mildest. She must have changed her shift after that because now he never sees her. He’ll be careful not to make such a mistake with Asha. He takes off his ring and slips it into his pocket.

By day he lives in his dreams. When onions and garlic are frying and dopiaza or rogan josh are being prepared two floors above, Janis is unbraiding Asha’s hair, spinning her out of her colourful sari, running his fingers along her curves. In the evenings he looks out for her. If he misses her the whole night drags, but if he’s lucky she’ll be sitting on a bench near the car park, glowing a brilliant orange in the setting sun.

Approaching one evening, he sees she’s distressed, almost as distressed as the first time they met. ‘You have problem?’ he asks.

She lifts her face. It’s a rather plain face, apart from those incredible eyes, but he longs to stroke the side of cheek, to comfort her.

‘Abdul not come home,’ she sighs.

Janis is concerned. ‘Is no making better?’

Abdul has told Asha he doesn’t need her nursing. He’s independent; he can manage without her. When he leaves hospital he wants to move in with his friends, roam the streets again, doing all the wild things that young men do. She’s terrified that, away from her care, something dreadful will befall him and she’ll be quite bereft. But all this is too complicated to explain, so she dries her eyes and shakes her head. She unwraps a tinfoil package and offers Janis some samosas.

He crunches them with relish. His cheeks bulge and his eyes twinkle. He doesn’t look like a man who needs feeding up, but anyone can tell he’s a man who likes to eat. ‘Very good,’ he declares. Her hands are folded in her lap and he places one of his own briefly over them. He wants to squeeze her like a plum and the effort of restraint is making his face shine and his breathing heavy. She gets up and gives him the rest of the samosas in a carrier bag. She hopes she’s cooked enough to see him through the night. Her shift making curtains for the linen warehouse begins as his ends, but she wouldn’t know how to suggest breakfast.

Some of the night nurses have noticed the food parcels he often has clutched in his hand and they start to tease him.

‘Oh, Janis, you got a secret admirer!’

‘Not so secret if you ask me.’

‘Is she a good cook? Go on, give us a bite.’

‘What d’you talk about Janis? Do you understand each other?’

‘Give the man a break! This is the NHS – bloody tower of Babel from top to bottom.'

He smiles at them because smiling is nearly always the safest option. Though once, it’s true, he smiled at a child at a bus stop and the mother yelled at him viciously. When the bus arrived she spoke to the driver who told him he had to wait for the next one. He’s a large man, and clumsy. He can break things with his elbow or crush them with his feet. He doesn’t mean to cause trouble.

He wants to get Asha a present, to thank her for all the meals she brings. The rubbish bins overflow with uneaten chocolates and dead flowers, so he must come up with something more original. In a bargain bookshop he finds a lavishly illustrated guide to Indian recipes. This will be the ideal way to cement their relationship: she can try out new dishes and perhaps, in time, teach him the methods, the mysterious alchemy by which a combination of leaves, seeds and berries becomes fire in his mouth.

She’s waiting on the bench he’s come to think of as theirs. She’s gone to much effort to prepare one of her specialities, a chicken moglai. She’s been grinding spices ever since she got in from work. She lifts a corner of the lid so he can admire the richness of colour and scent. He sniffs approvingly, but puts the dish aside without tasting it. Usually he dips his finger into the sauce and makes her laugh with the vigour of his expression. From his pocket he draws his gift. Asha tears off the wrapping paper, turns the book over in her hands and frowns in disbelief. Why would she need instructions when all her recipes are in her head? Is he trying to tell her he’s not satisfied? Is there something lacking in her chicken moglai?

‘You not like?’

Agitated, she tries to explain in a mixture of English and Urdu. An agony of embarrassment is drumming in his ears. He listens in complete incomprehension.

She gives him back the book.

Janis hasn’t seen Asha for nearly a week. Sometimes he veers hopefully towards a small vivid figure gliding along the corridor, but he’s always disappointed. What has he done wrong? How has he offended her? The messages women give out are so confusing he never knows what to make of them. Youth is permitted to blunder, but now he’s middle-aged – more flesh, less hair – he has no excuses. He’s supposed to know how to respond – even in a foreign country, with a woman from another continent.

Placing the rejected recipe book next to the dictionary on his single shelf, he decides he’ll buy a box of chocolates after all. They are the same milky brown as her skin; their soft centres are the colours she wears: lemon, orange, cherry, and lime. Each evening he hovers with the box by the main entrance; each morning at daybreak he leaves with it under his arm.

Then he remembers her fears that Abdul would not recover. On one of his breaks, as the patients stir and splutter in their sleep, Janis peers into his ward. His heart sinks. Abdul’s bed is now occupied by a gaunt old man. He has tubes in his nose; his fingernails are yellow and ragged. Even from this distance Janis recognises the smell of loneliness.

Shortly after dawn he hangs up his overalls and slips the white satin box of chocolates into a bag. He approaches the nurses clustering at the desk in the orthopaedic wing. They’ve just arrived on shift and are in varying degrees of wakefulness. They tell him the patient was discharged a week ago.

‘Is not died?’

They giggle. ‘No! Why d’you think that?’

‘Is home?’

‘Probably. He was still on crutches wasn’t he? Yes.’

‘You give me address?’

‘Janis, love, you know we can’t.’

Of course the news is good. Only now he may never see her again.

He sets his present on the counter. Thankyou cards are pinned along the wall. The nurses would rather have cigarettes or vouchers from Boots or HMV, but he pushes the box towards them. ‘Please to enjoy,’ he says.

He’s about to stuff the plastic carrier bag into the nearest bin when he realises it’s one he’s acquired from Asha’s dinners. Printed on it is the address of a linen warehouse the other side of town. If he is lucky with the buses, maybe he can get there in time to buy her breakfast.

JUDGES' COMMENTS:

Lucy McCarraher: "I liked A Slice of Chilli for its unusual subject matter, setting and characters - who I thought were believable and sympathetic. Nice style too, evoking well the hospital ambience and workers, as well as the home life of Janis. Good portrayal of communication difficulties which are not only about language."

Jo Holloway: "This entry really stood out for me. It was colourful, beautifully written, tactile - I could almost smell those spices! - with outstanding imagery and sympathy. Isn't there a Janis inside us all, somewhere? The story was well thought out, well structured, kept me going from beginning to end - and gave an uplifting finish without actually "finishing", or rounding off neatly, as many writers feel compelled to do. It leaves us wanting to know more of the characters, more of the story, and rather disappointed that it's over. Masterfully done!"

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Penny Feeny has worked as a copywriter, editor and arts administrator but far prefers writing fiction. Over the past few years her short stories have appeared in various literary magazines and anthologies and won a number of prizes. Now that her five children have nearly all left home, she is trying to work on a novel. She lives in Liverpool.

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