Tuesday. 31 March 1998. (Night)
It was the most important day for Francis Macini. He was
going to propose to his love, his Estella. He took out the ring from his
pocket, checked it and kept it back. A warm, gentle air touched him. He opened
the gate of the cemetery and went inside. But Estella wasn’t there. He waited
there for, at least, one hour but… Estella did not come. He searched her in and
around the cemetery. He searched her everywhere. She had promised him to come.
Frankie became worried. He lost his patience. Various wild thoughts began
hovering around his mind. Mustering all the courage, he, directly, went to
Estella’s house.
***
Francis Macini rang the doorbell of that enormous white
bungalow of ‘the Stratford’s’. He waited there. After a while, an elderly man
in his sixties (most probably) opened the door. Frankie peeped inside the
house. He could smell the same fragrance, which he smelt the day when he met
Estella. The bungalow wan not much furnished. Frankie thought of Estella. He
was quite sure that she was inside, crying, waiting, or whatever…
That elderly man asked, “Yes my boy. Whom do you want?”
Frankie looked at him nervously. Words didn’t come to his
lips. He got baffled. Estella’s father looked very strict. The man again asked,
“Whom do you want to meet?”
“Sir…act…actually…I…my name is Francis…Francis Macini. I am
a friend of… Estella Strat… Estella Stratford. Therefore, I have come to… to
meet her. Can I just…” Frankie’s heart was pounding badly. He could not speak
more.
“You… you are Estella’s friend?” an old woman appeared. She
was wearing a knee length skirt with a woolen blouse. Frankie wondered if she
was Estella’s mother. Frankie’s heart started pounding more furiously. He just
got ready to for the embarrassment he was going to face. Then he said, “Yes
auntie. I am Estella’s friend and I… I am here to meet her.”
Both the parents looked at each other. They were shocked. Their
mouths fell open. Frankie was losing his control. He wanted to meet Estella as
soon as possible. He asked, “Auntie, Can I meet her? I mean, only if you allow…”
Estella’s father whispered, “meet her?” and her mother again
asked, “You are Estella’s friend. Right?”
Frankie sighed. “Yes auntie.” He thought of all those
expressions he saw on the faces of Estella’s parents. They both looked
horrified. Then her father asked, “If you are saying that you are her friend,
then you must be knowing about the mishap.”
“Mishap? What mishap?”
Frankie was terribly worried about Estella now.
Tears came out of her mother’s eyes. She sat on the stairs
of the entrance gate and said, “It was an accident, 4 years back. And… we lost
our everything. I still remember every second of that incident. That big
vehicle intentionally hit us and my dear Estella… she was driving the car.”
Frankie felt like collapsing. “What… what do you mean by
that?”
Her father looked down and said, “She doesn’t exist anymore.
She died in that accident… 4 years ago…”
Frankie fell on the ground. “How the hell is it possible? I,
myself, dropped your daughter here, at your place. I remember. She is amazingly
beautiful. She has a perfect smile. She… I love her. She can’t be a dead
corpse. She was all moving and smiling. She is alive. I know that she is. She has
to be alive. You bloody old man! you are hiding her from me. What is wrong with
you? Don’t you want your own daughter to be happy? Parents like you should be
killed. What a terrible father you are!” he started shouting at them.
His father had an outburst as he listened to all this. After
a while, both the parents were crying. Her mother was continuously murmuring
something like, “No other parents can love their children as we did Estella. We gave her everything she needed, she wanted.
And this boy… we would have let Estella marry him also, only if she…” and then,
there were tears all around.
Francis Macini was sitting there, looking at them, indulging
their words…
So who was speaking the truth? Macini or Estella’s parents? Were
those elderly people hiding Estella from Frankie or what they were saying, was
the truth…
P.S. fingers crossed. Let’s hope for the best.
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