The One That Got Away

Love is an audacious emotion. Its power is such that it moves something in us. We invited three authors to explore the idea of writing about the love that has disappeared into memory. The results were sublime. Mahesh Rao pens a soulful rendition of a story he heard on a train ride, Kushanava Choudhury laments the loss of a self he left behind, and Laaleen Sukhera writes a letter to a former love

- Mahesh Rao

TAKING FLIGHT

I have always loved long train journeys. Part of the appeal is the opportunity to catch up on reading, and the dispensation to purchase injudicious quantities of snacks. But if you happen to have a travelling companion, who happens not to be annoying, there can be an additional pleasure: the gratification that comes from unexpected revelations. There is something about the longueurs of the route, the sight of landscape scudding past, and the steady motion of the train that dredges up memories and a willingness to share.

On one long journey, a friend told me about a man that her family had known when they lived in a small seaside town in Catalonia, 50km from Barcelona. I’ll use a bit of fiction writer’s licence to call him Manel. No one could remember his exact age, as he had always seemed middle-aged, a fact not helped by the nature of his job, an administrative role with the municipal authority, something to do with refuse collection and recycling. A nondescript looking man, with no close relatives, his predictable habits and routines were well known in that town.

So, there was considerable surprise when he announced that he was engaged to a woman—considerably younger, and a stranger to everyone he knew—who bore a strong resemblance to the actress Sara Montiel. They married without much of a fuss, and she moved into his dark apartment, with views not of the sea, but of the scrubby vegetation on the range of hills that overlooked the town. Over the next few years, people would describe her as ‘beautiful’ or ‘vivacious’, but the word most often used was ‘flighty’. And so it proved. One spring day, after only two years of marriage, she packed her bags and left. Some weeks later, she wrote to Manel, seeking a divorce, which he granted.