Remaindering: Habits

St. Andrews. Forbach. Gothenburg. Sète. Douai. Roubaix. The towns we knew as shapes at night, or a stranger in the next berth half-hidden beneath a duvet. A whirling midnight of boat-hopping in Nantes. Half of Lyon from 2001: all the mornings julienned into sunshine and periwinkle skies at Croix-Rousse; Sunday ends at La Cigale (or was it La Fourmi, or both?), redolent of the ashes and smoke and crimson drapes of Wong Kar-wai; the salad bowl tossing an ever-delayed sunrise over your cracked skylight; those 73 lines (563 words) you managed to fit alongside eternity on an un-postmarked card. Some constellations—Aquarius, Aries, Hydra, Pegasus. The blue-and-canary-yellow polka-dotted python who still gobbles me up on the 99th square. A weekend in Rouen where I drank the sun with a red plastic straw. Dimples on your stubbled left cheek that surface from a dream at 5 am alone, my wonder at their constancy. Your hands wrapped around my fugitive breath even through those dreams. The sight of a baby in the metro who looked like she could be ours (and my relief she was not). The July afternoon the sun left the map of Spain on a thigh. The year I turned cartographer at beachside siestas, mapping the stir of sand across your back, the blue rivulets under your skin navigating their way toward a heartbeat. The giant, prismatic, poster of Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding covering fissures on a kitchen wall; two wickerwork laundry baskets from Dinjan; wooden ladles, now splintered; that livid indigo hand-braided quilt: the first among joint possessions. Twelve-hour road trips across France under unwashed stars to help resettle schoolmates. Piles of moldy Satyajit Ray VHS tapes. A map of free Bangladesh. The Māori mask gifted by a fellow passenger on the train from Georgetown. Noughts-and-crosses played on the rafters of a hotel ceiling. Every yesterday but the second, quieter than the first yet more fragrant. Keep them, and stay: yes, they are yours from today.  

What will I take instead, you ask? Solenoid, ouroboros and African paayal: words we learnt from each other. Sputters of   laughter over the misspelling of récipiendaire in my hundred-and-twenty-paged dissertation you went on to supervise. A first date with Patrice Chéreau’s Intimacy that left us bereft of voice but not touch. The spring lost in Paris, and retrieved in Rome: neonate but blithe and loud. Den Bosch and its soundless mornings, where even birds meditate. Dublin, yes, despite the disasters with missing kathak ankle bells and katana. Those shy cities that blush at dusk when the sun’s gaze fills with sudden desire. Others undressed by moonlight. The unsubsidized, incomplete report “Science and the Art of Rolling Balls and Other Machines.” All the lines of poetry you thought, and refused to write. The crackle and splutter of toast burning before breakfast. A tuneless humming muffled by shower curtains. Matinal half-hour radio-switch battles between RFI and BBC World. Sighting the smile on a natal cleft as you reach up for the tin of dark chocolate. Haroun and the Sea of Stories and Invisible Cities, more mine than yours: yes, I can play dirty on this. Canal Saint-Martin—but only the curve between the café Le Valmy and Pont de la Grange-aux-Belles. Koodiyattam as a birthday surprise when the gods left their paddy fields and invaded Paris, complete with cobalt and emerald cheeks, human woes and joys. The first encounter with Pina Bausch’s Café Müller. Every single one with her Rite of Spring. My fear of dying alone in a strange city at night. Copper and caramel: the two shades your gaze seems to traverse between dusk and daybreak. Other constellations: Pisces and Lynx and Phoenix. The ancient fleece jacket each would wear when the other was not around. All of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books we owned together. The word together, as well. The fact you shared aloud in surprise at tea: a giraffe’s heart weighs an incredible 24 pounds. Today. Tomorrow. A spring tide of tomorrows