Does Guilt Have a Name?

‘Songs of Innocence and Experience’, giving out a little smile reading that, he pushed the book at its place in the shelves. The tall man reached out to the top shelf sliding his fingers across the dusty old books, The Monk, check, Persian Letters, check, Hymns to the Night, check. He tilted his head slightly to the right in reaction to a slight knock on the door. Pushing the book back inside the rack, he walked towards the door.

“Hello there,” said the man lifting his hat.

“Well, hello, glad to see you. Please come in,” said the man inside the house.

The two men entered the house with their boots making a creaking sound on the wooden floor. In fact, even walls and the roofs were made of wood. “Please make yourself comfortable,” said the tall man as he took the hot tea pot from the stove and placed it carefully on the table.

“Sugar and cream?” asked the tall man.

“Sure,” smiled the visitor.

“Patrick, right?” asked the tall man with a hint of doubt.

“No, I’m Henry Davids,” said the visitor with a little laugh.

“Ah, pardon my poor memory, it’s the age showing its face. I usually remember, I’m also good with names,” he motioned his hands towards the book shelf.

“Of course, it’s no problem,” smiled Henry. “Expecting visitors, are we?”

“Yes, I have invited everyone in the neighborhood. Maybe nobody wants to meet the new old man in town,” smiled the tall man and then they heard the knock on the door. “I guess I was wrong after all.”

The tall man was greeted with a warm smile from a middle-aged woman. He returned the smile back by taking her hand into his and placing a gentle kiss.

“Hello Mr. Harold,” said the woman.

“Hello Mrs. Laura, please come in,” greeted Harold pointing his hand to the living room. Her gown swept the wooden floor which left trails of tiny withered leaves as she walked to the center of the room with a moderately large round table with a man having a cup of hot tea in the freezing cold. “Let me take your coat,” said Harold as he took the coat and swung it on to the coat hanger in the corner.

“Laura, you must have seen Mr. Henry around, I hope.” Said Harold trying to make an introduction.

“Yes, I have seen him. He gave me a lift the other day to the town,” said Laura giving a nod and took the nearest chair as Henry nodded back.

“Tea, Mrs. Laura?” asked Harold as he pointed towards the tea pot in front of her. “Must have been quite a walk, from your home. Make yourself at home.”

They heard two knocks at the door as Harold was inside the kitchen, garnishing the stuffed chicken breast with roasted vegetables on the equal sized circular platters.

“Ah, welcome Mr. Howard, welcome Mr. Carl, please come in,” said Harold shaking hands with the two men who just arrived.

“This is a nice house you have got here, Mr. Harold,” said Howard glancing through the rooms in awe. He was a well built, rugged man, with his thick white moustache and flowing hair. Whereas, Carl was thin, clean shaven and short.

“Thank you, Mr. Howard. I just recently moved here,” said Harold with a comfortable smile as he poured two cups of tea from the pot. “I take you already know Carl?”

“No, we just met outside. It’s a big neighborhood,” said Howard. So, what is it that a man of your age doing at this shack near the woods?”

“Oh, I’m a researcher and a writer. Just wanted some peaceful place where I can do that without any touch with the crazy world out there,” said Harold.

“Well said, my man,” smiled Howard.

Harold placed a couple of bowls on the table for starters.

“So, what are you researching on?” asked Carl as he threw a roasted walnut into his mouth.

“Birds, beasts, everything that’s natural. Including human emotions, for my focus is now on guilt, particularly,” said Harold as he placed the last platter of chicken breast, and blackened salmon on the table topping with a bottle of wine.

“That’s interesting, why guilt, particularly, if I may ask,” said Laura with a hint of hesitation in her voice.

Harold looked up from the glasses of wine that he was pouring for everyone, for a second at Laura and said, “Guilt is the most sensitive emotion, next to regret and grief. There’s only a fine line between them. A person who is grieving or regretting can easily fall into the pits of guilt. Blaming oneself, to put it into perspective shapes, a person’s life in a way that he can never recover, until the guilt takes a much monstrous form, anger. I truly respect the words of Voltaire when he said, ‘every man is guilty of all the good that he did not do.’ Tell me now Mrs. Laura, is it not a good subject to muse over?”

Laura just nodded and sipped on her glass of wine. “How is the book coming?”

“Just fine. But I think I’ve drifted off a step from the natural part of it. The stories have no soul in them, no tears shed for them, no sleep lost over them, and no one to feel guilty about them,” said Harold as he took a knife and a fork from the table. “Bon Appetit.”

“What gives soul to a story? I know that a story gives soul to the world,” said Carl. He was a man of very few words, but quite a thinker.

“Rightly said, Mr. Carl. A story gets its soul when the reader or the listener feels what the characters feel, believes what they believe,” said Harold.

“Then every story must be a true story,” said Howard.

“Not necessarily, it depends on how the writer makes the story as real as true,” said Harold.

Carl gave a smile as he reached out for the chicken breast.

“Would you care to give the story a soul, Mrs. Laura?” asked Harold looking at Laura, who has been a silent spectator for a long time.

“What do you mean?” she said, perplexed.

“Would you like to share a story from your life, that you feel guilty of?” asked Harold.

“Ah, I’m not guilty of anything,” she said taking a sip from of wine.

“Ignorance is strength, Mrs. Laura. So is sharing emotions. Every woman and man is guilty about something,” said Harold.

“I think I’m an exception there,” said Laura.

“Very well,” said Harold as he took a bite of the juicy chicken.

“I’d like to say something, if you don’t mind,” said Henry who hasn’t spoken in a while either.

“Please go ahead, Mr. Henry,” said Harold giving a nod.

“Back in the days, I was a taxi driver. I used to do around ten rides a day and take the night off. I was not a heavy worker, just enough for the family. There came a season where there was a heavy demand for the cabbies. The extra money felt good, so I started working around the clock.

One night, it was so late and I started heading home and a lady waved at me from a distance. I didn’t want to stop, but eventually I did,” said Henry.

“My lover. My one and only,” said Laura as tears started flowing from her eyes.

“What happened Mrs. Laura?” said Henry as he handed her a dry handkerchief.

“I don’t know if there is something about this place, just thinking about my love broke me apart inside,” said Laura as she wiped off the tears from each eye.

“Do you want to tell us something, Laura?” inquired Harold expecting a reply from her.

“It was February and it was the time of the carnival in our city. People with masks and costumes on the streets having a joyous time with their loved ones. We were there too, Jeffrey and I. Bored with the street bands, we wanted to do something fun. We were about to get married that weekend, with that excitement, I pointed at the big tent which was set up in a park and I said, ‘slow dancing for the couples, let’s go there’ as I dragged him under the tent. People wearing masks in shapes of eagles and vultures dancing to the rhythm. ‘We can’t do it now, I need to leave in 5 minutes, remember?’ he said. ‘I think your mother can go to the doctor herself, as she’s been doing all these months,’ I said. ‘No, she’s getting worse now, she can’t handle it herself, I need to be there,’ he said raising his eyebrows. ‘Alright, dance with me for just three songs and you can be off to your mother, please?” I said with a face that has made him say yes to many things that he thought twice about. ‘Okay, yes.’

We started moving to the beats of our very first song. ‘Do you realize that we’ll be a married couple in two days? 48 hours?’ I asked him with a bit or worry and a bit of excitement. ‘Yes, you know I love you so much,’ he said. I just got lost in the moment. After three more songs, he realized, ‘oh shoot, it’s been half an hour, I need to rush,’ as he planted a kiss on my lips and ran off. I went searching for my handbag under the benches and found them nearly after ten minutes in the crowd.

I headed out so I could still catch a taxi and reach home before midnight. It had rained outside and I had to lift my gown up to my knee carefully not to get it soaked. I turned to my right as I saw a bunch of men holding a knife to Jeff’s throat threatening him for something. That moment, I felt my heart racing as though I experienced a heavy blow to my chest. I ran towards Jeff as I shouted out his name for the whole world to hear. My lover, my husband was dead even before I reached him,” said Laura as she broke the dam and started sobbing. “If only I’d let him go when he wanted to, he’d have been sitting next to me today,” and she continued. “I’d have liked to seek revenge on the men who did that to my lover but what can a normal person do against the rage of the world, when it has taken human form? And the newspapers, shamelessly publishing pictures of the entire incident as it happened, just to increase the viewership.”

“It’s okay Mrs. Laura, bring yourself back up. It was not your mistake,” said Henry as he tried to comfort her.

They took a sip of wine each and Laura lifted herself up and stood by the window watching the snow falling from the trees outside.

“Isn’t it hard, listening to tragic stories of people, Mr. Harold?” asked Carl finishing his glass of wine.

“Indeed, it is. It makes you dig up your own mess and feel bad for it too,” said Harold.

“Don’t you feel guilty for something, Harold?” asked Howard.

“Ah, I’ve seen enough guilt for a lifetime my friend,” said Harold as he gave a sly smile.

“I was in a gang you know. I’ve always wanted to be in a gang. We were a bunch of bandits you might say. We’d just sit around the corner of streets bullying people. I still regret that part of my life and that can be forgotten someday, I hope. But there is one thing that I can never forgive myself for, even when I’m dead. I believe it is a kind of story that I never want my children to know, but I wanted to whisper it to someone for so long. Letting things out to strangers is far easier than revealing them to your dear ones.

It was a rainy season. We had no work, no people to bully, there were hardly any people who roamed outside our streets. It was a residential area, mostly peaceful at nights. We saw a woman roughly in her sixties coming out of her house stuffing a big bunch of money inside her purse. Maybe she was about gift something to her daughter. ‘Check that out,’ said Jimmy as he punched Paul on his left arm. ‘It’s  an old lady,’ said Paul. ‘So? It’s easy. This is what we’ve been talking about all this while. It’s time, Paul,’ said Jimmy. ‘No, Jimmy, we are not ready yet,’ said Paul. ‘Really?’ said Jimmy as he took out a switch blade out of his pocket and started walking behind the lady. ‘Jimmy, come back,’ said Paul, but Jimmy kept following her. I didn’t know what to do so I started following them and the lady got into a car and sped away.

‘See, we are not ready yet,’ said Paul. ‘You always underestimate me Paul,’ said Jimmy as he climbed on to his motorcycle. ‘Hop on, we need to move,’ he said. It was a BSA Sloper and we had very little space to place our butts on it, but we did. We followed the car for almost three miles after it came to halt near a crowded place. ‘Good for us,’ said Jimmy as he thought it’d be easy to escape in a crowed after a robbery.

The woman got down the car and stood there for a minute. Jimmy put his knife behind her back and whispered in her left ear, ‘get the cash out or this goes inside.’ The woman started screaming. Since it was crowded, it didn’t take a lot of time before someone could reach us. A man wearing a black suit came running towards us and before he could grab one of us, Jimmy stabbed the woman on her back and pulled the purse out of her hands. The man in the suit punched Jimmy on the face as he got knocked down. Being the biggest of us, Paul grabbed the man in the suit and shoved him into the water on the ground. ‘We’ll run,’ I screamed but none of them heard.

Jimmy got back to his feet and held the knife to the man’s throat and before I could reach Jimmy to pull him back, he sliced his throat. Jimmy caught my hand and ran away pulling me along. I had to run, I had to leave that place. That was the saddest and hardest moment of my life, watching a man die in front of me. I never wanted to be in a gang which kills, I just wanted a bit of power, a bit of fame. Petty theft is one thing, but murder was unacceptable. I never met Jimmy or Paul after that and they never came after me. I must take this guilt to my grave,” said Howard as he downed an entire glass of wine.
“That was sad, Mr. Howard. Our pasts are like prisons, but we don’t have to be the prisoners,” said Harold. “Mr. Henry, I guess you never got to finish your story.”

“Mr. Howard, I need to tell you this, the incident that I was just narrating, there was one such lady who got in my cab that night. I dropped her at the carnival. She was telling me that her son was with his fiancé and he needs to take her to the doctor that night and that she has to pay for the surgery to remove her tumor,” said Henry.

There was an eerie silence which grew in the room broken by a shattering glass on the floor. “I was the photographer of The New York Times,” said Carl. They turned towards each other and towards Harold, who was to be found no more.