Marie flounced into our lives one fine day , wearing cheap sunglasses , and a multicoloured floozy skirt. She talked animatedly , her hands weaving patterns into the air , and the goggles slipped off her nose bridge . She folded it up and pushed one of the stems down her ample cleavage. Her bosoms were a landscape in their own right . Huge , bouncy , vibrant . Just like her . I remember seeing her from the perch of my mother’s arms . She appeared mountainous.
She was offered a drink , which she didn’t so much drink , as tipped into the vast pit of her mouth . We gaped . She asked for more . She , at the point of leaving , had emptied my mother’s meagre stores of orange and lemon squash . My siblings still remember , bitterly , that squashless summer .” Marie ne maar daala “, (marie has killed us all ) was the general refrain .
At one point she plucked me and tried to smother me amongst her vast globes . I let out a howl of protest . Her cleavage smelt of perfume mixed with sweat . It was a formidable odour .
She wore high heeled wooden shoes , like the Bulgarian peasant -women we had seen on "magyar" postage stamps .Her steps would go clackity -clack , and set one's teeth on edge . She was like one of those pictures come alive .Papa said her father was a Bulgarian . Her skin was as warm olive as any Indian. It was her stubbornly distinct clothing , that set her apart. Complete with her bandana covered head and accent- ridden english . Not to be left behind, she spoke hindi with an incomprehensible accent , in high -pitched urgent tones . The urgency and the accent , both left the listener flummoxed.
On one occasion , she had shouted , red-faced, screaming at a flustered ward-boy , asking him to fetch something . He nodded furiously and run off in the direction of the stores . Marie beat her forehead , in a very oriental gesture of exasperation , and fetched the item herself. Later , we were told , she wanted "ball of cotton ", and the boy had returned , two hours later, his arms full of " old curtains".
She was the head nurse of the Cardiology ward , and had decided to take us earthlings , under her ample wings . She would drop in , with strange gifts. She brought my sister , a fur stole . It was draped around her favourite flower vase , for years, before some one told my grandmother that it was rabbit fur . Nothing so remotely violent , however pretty , was allowed in our household. It was summarily thrown out , despite my sister's teary entreaties.
Then , one day , Marie disappeared. Not just from the ward , or the hospital , or the town , but from the face of the earth , so it seemed . Poof . Just like that . A missing person's case was registered in the police station . Ponds dredged , numerous colleagues questioned . Nothing turned up . The case was closed , her flat sealed . It was a strange end to a strange personality.
Years later , my niece went to a metropolis to finish a course in fashion -designing .One day , she opened her laptop , to share various photographs of celebrities , when my mother exclaimed as if she had seen a ghost . There, next to a nubile actress , reclining on a leather couch , studded with diamonds , was the corpulent vision of Marie. A quick search revealed her to be a different person altogether , different name , background . But my mother swore it was her . The same , enigmatic , enormous, Marie of the clackety-clack heels echoing down white hospital corridors.
