Mr. Brandolini's Assignment

An Excerpt from Jürgen Lilienthal's Diary, 19.2.2014

An Excerpt from Jürgen Lilienthal’s Diary

19.2.2014

 Leena was lying on my bed, her skirt ridden up till her knees, and I told her she needed to wax. I didn’t mean it in the I-won’t-find-it-attractive-if-you-have-natural-hair-on-your-natural-legs kind of way, and she knew I didn’t so she didn’t chuck a feminist stinker at me for that, as she would have if I was literally anyone else, even a girl, but she just shrugged and pulled my comforter up till her waist and said that the women at the Lakme salon near her house were rude and laughed at her coloured Converse. Then I sat there, looking at her under the covers, in my bed, in the middle of my room, and succumbed to my dizzy feelings.

 I’m dizzy as I write this. Something about her makes me dizzy – not just physically (and I suspect that has something to do with the sudden diversion of blood to other bodily regions) – but in my bones. I felt like that when I met her for the first time in that crappy CCD on the IIT campus, and it was so strong I made an ass of myself, which, incidentally, I don’t have a particular proclivity for.

 Correction: That wasn’t the first time I met her. I’d seen her around in school. I’d thought she was just about the hottest girl around and - 

no, no

I never really got around to talking to her because she also looked like she could rip you apart but unfortunately that attracted me even more.

 But yes, it was our first interaction. Why am I writing this? Maybe because she’s asleep in my bed and it’s midnight and I have nothing better to do but I somehow want to be involved with her, if not in heart (or body, or both) then in mind, and owing to my poetic incompetence I content myself with nonfiction journal entries that mention her, are about her, or somehow double back and link up with her.

 She was standing in line in front of me in the café – almost two years ago, this was, when I was sixteen and gross and the acne parade was having a fun time setting up permanent camp on my nose. You see, red hair, white skin, and bright, shiny acne are an unfortunate combination. I was nervously fingering the soiled fifty-rupee note in my hand and the guys behind me were looking at me, and if they weren’t, they were aware of my presence, because I was white (but only half, and only by nationality). I stood clutching my backpack, wondering if fifty was too much for a sundae even if it was subsidized and if I would look stupid when I handed the note over to the mean-looking cashier. I couldn’t read the smudged purple board behind the freezer containing the rows of Chocolate Fantasy and fatty puffs and samosas; I’d left my glasses at home. In front of me, she was exuding impatient energy that put me even more on edge, crossing her arms and tapping her feet in that newfound authoritative adultness that being 16 brings. I found myself staring at the brown skin on the back of her neck, fascinated by its smooth chocolateness, the little dark curls above the nape of her neck, under the base of her thick braid. As she took out her wallet she flicked the braid back like a weapon and it hit me in the cheek. It hurt more than a coil of hair slapping your face should, probably because of the sensitive pimple scar hurting exactly where her rubber band had hit my skin. I put a hand to the sore, wincing. She turned around.

 ‘Sorry, but you probably shouldn’t be standing so close to me.’

 Direct speech. I feel like a pretentious ass

 I said sorry and felt like an idiot. I took a step back and bumped into the guy behind me who had a ponytail and a beard and didn’t look like he enjoyed being bumped into by bumbling foreigners. I took a step forward to put some distance between me and the ponytail. Leena was just withdrawing her hand from the counter and I promptly knocked her wallet from her hand. Before she picked it up she turned to look at me – not even glare, but just look. I blinked and then suddenly felt very conscious of the bright light bouncing off my shiny nose so I stooped down and picked up her pretty leather wallet from the floor and gave it to her.