The Taste Of Cardamom Chai

Earlier in my adult life, I met a woman in her late thirties or early forties- I’ll call her Stella. I’d been looking for a cheap room for rent, being a post grad student on the tail end of my program, having recently moved out of a relatives home in search of a different living situation. I had found the listing online- the room looked pleasing enough; furnished, clean, well lit. Stella and I got along well on our first meeting. She seemed chill- too chill, like she really didn’t care if I took the place, but I could sense a slight hopefulness beneath it. She told me about the person who used to live there, how they kept on bringing kids over- kids who would just ignore Stella in the hallway. ‘How rude!’ I had exclaimed in agreement.

Eventually I moved in. It was my first time living ‘on my own’ since I moved to the country, and although it was January and the temperatures were frigid, I was set afire with the excitement of independence. There were three rooms in the house- one belonged to Stella, one belonged to her nephew Joseph, a first-year student at the Institute of Technology, whose tuition Stella was paying, and the third one was mine. We all shared the same bathroom.

I found Stella pretty interesting; sometimes she was adorably chatty, and sometimes she was cold as ice. Within a short time, I learned about her job working for a government agency and her time as a student new to the country in the early 2000s. Stella was from Tanzania, and surprised me with her interest in Nigerian fashion and culture. She had a collage of photos of women in gele - ‘I like the gele’ she'd said.  Now and then the interest would be more passive, and I'd detect a note of begrudging envy in her words.

From time to time Stella and I would watch TV together. She had cable, and the shows she watched were ones I typically would not have access to. But sitting in the small living room, with the one couch and the two tall stools by the kitchen counter, we would watch the TV on the low shelf, laugh at the funny moments, and shake our heads at the news stories- as if to say, ‘Sad, but what can we do? It is what it is’.

Occasionally, I pitied her a little bit- she seemed inevitably lonely at certain moments. Yet, she had a tendency to close-off all of sudden and for long periods, leaving me wondering what was going through her mind. One day, I stumbled upon her diary in the living room. After an internal moral battle (how hypocritical of someone who loved their privacy so much to violate another’s), I picked it up. I was curious to know more about this woman. I read a few entries, but the one that stayed with me was the one about a man, John. I don’t remember the details, but this one was written in despair, because this man had left her, and with no solid reason. I felt guilt, empathy, and remorse all at once.

I used to secretly promise myself that I would have a better adult life than I witnessed Stella live. Now I am in my late twenties, with the big 30 only a few years ahead, and my life now seems more similar to Stella’s than I had intended it to be. Many things are out of my control, and the weight of responsibility looms nearer and nearer. I thought that was ironic, but somewhere in there there must have been a lesson for me not to judge people’s lives so easily.

I moved out due to irreconcilable differences, although we parted fairly amicably. Stella and I parted like people who were breaking up, and acting like it didn’t matter much- like they wouldn’t miss one another- but I do miss her now and then. When I was leaving, I left with a cream-coloured toque (a Christmas gift), a cute pair of earrings from Claires (a birthday gift), and the rich taste of cardamom chai brewed in a saucepan with milk. I've been thinking about her a lot lately, wondering whether I should text, but I always decide against it. Maybe some other day, I'd think. Still, once in a while, I'd get a text from her nephew Joseph about some junk mail that got delivered to my former address, and I'd ask him to throw it in the garbage.

*Although this story is true, none of the names used in this article are real