The Eighteenth Parallel by ASHOKA MITRAN

to have entered his body – another life, a spirit, a vaporous thing or may be it was just plain water! This thing inside him scared him, it induced dreams. And now, at midnight, it was propelling him towards the tree. He did not really care for the peepal tree. But the banyan tree was a repository of deep memories .for him, redolent with countless hours of absorbing play. The banyan tree was like a home away from home. Sitting on its branches he had watched time pass by. Unlike at home, where no relationships were possible unless you bruised yourself with constant activity. You just couldn't hope to escape talking to others. This gentle undemanding tree laid on no such conditions. But then, look at it this way—would it care if I were to be ruined, damned, destroyed? Not at all. So it had its limitations.
    Suddenly he felt the moving cinema of his mind cease. He saw a figure under the banyan tree.
    Someone was kneeling on the ground, hands covering the face. Was it all right for him to go near? Chandru stood still.
    The next minute he knew. He began to walk towards the figure. The woman gave him no indication that she had seen him. Chandru walked up to her as quietly as possible.
    'Julie,' he whispered. She gave a start. But she recognised him immediately. 'Chandru! What you doing here man?' she said sniffing. He had been wrong. It was not Julie but Mannas' second daughter Laura. This was all the more surprising because Laura was not the sort of person to sit alone and cry. Though he now felt as close to her as to Julie, he could have sworn that she wasn't the languishing sort. Yet here she was, crying just like her elder sister. Even physically she reminded him of her sister.
    'What's the matter?' he asked.
    'Oh, nothing. Nothing.' she had controlled herself by now.
    'Is there anything I can do? Tell me.'
    'Oh, just don't tell anyone you saw me here, like this.'
    Chandru hesitated. 'Is anyone else here?'
    Laura shook her head. Then she stood up and began to walk towards her house. Chandru called her softly and took her hand in his. She turned back to look at him, still standing where she was. In the dark shade under the banyan, they could not see each other's faces clearly.
    Laura said 'Chandru,' then threw her arms round him and began to sob. Chandru held her and stroked her back soothingly. He had been in a similar situation before, with Laura's elder sister Julie. But he had then known the cause of her grief. The soldier who had promised to marry her had vanished without a word. But long after he left, she had clung to the fond hope that he would still return and propose marriage to her. When realisation finally dawned that hers was a hopeless case, she had broken down. But she was a mature woman. Not a mere girl like Laura. Could it be that Laura too had got herself entagled in some such thing, young as she was? He had not seen Laura think of herself as a woman or behave like one until now, when she was crying at midnight, all alone, under the banyan tree.
    Laura stopped crying and looked up at Chandru's face. Her eyes glistened in the gloom but their expression could not be read. Chandru wiped her cheeks at a guess. Yes, they were wet.
    Laura stood gazing at him for a while. Then she freed herself and walked away. As he watched her enter her house, Chandru smoothed his shirt. Laura had left the scent of some cheap face powder on him.
    With Laura gone, Chandru didn't relish the idea of standing alone under the banyan. For the first time that night he felt afraid. The residents of Lancer Barracks led a secluded existence, cut off from the real world beyond. Which was why the two of them had come to a banyan tree on a sleepless night, he haunted by his cricket memories, and she perhaps by memories of a lover who had left her. Surprising how they had both come there at the same time. Anyone who had chanced to see them together or happened to hear of their meeting would imagine all sorts of things. Yes that was just like