There was much speculation about the man and his strange ways.
It was generally agreed by those who lived in the street that the man who resided at number twenty-four was decidedly odd! None of them knew anything more about him. He rarely left the house. When he did, it was mainly to walk to the nearby centre to do a bit of shopping. Whenever his neighbours happened to see him, he always looked really twitchy. Nonetheless, this all changed the day the man at number fourteen received a letter with a name he didn’t recognise and a smudged house number. He was certain it was for the weirdo who lived a few houses up the street. Being a particularly curious sort of person, it occurred to him that taking it to the rightful recipient would be an opportunity to find out more about what made the oddball tick!
Approaching the front door, he realised that he felt just a little nervous. However, after knocking, the man who opened the door seemed positively pleased to see him. He took the letter with a grateful smile, then proceeded to thank him profusely for his trouble.
“Please come in,” he said. “Would you like a cup of tea? I was just about to put the kettle on.”
The man from down the street was taken aback by this, but he saw it as a further way to find out more about his elusive neighbour. After a brief hesitation, he said, “That’s kind of you, yes.”
In the living room, after casually discarding the letter, the man suggested his visitor take a seat while he made their drinks. Shortly after, he came back with a tray. Setting it down on a small table, he sat down opposite with an excited look on his face.
“This is a wonderful opportunity,” he began. “You being a stranger, I mean.” He took a sip or two of his drink. “I have a secret. I’ve had it for so long. You wouldn’t believe how long.”
The visitor was transfixed. He had no idea what was coming next.
His host went on. “It’s the internet, you see; and social media, of course. Everybody knows all sorts of things about everybody else; and they all think it’s perfectly normal! That’s why I’ve had to be so careful. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always wanted to tell someone.” He gave a soft handclap. “You’re it, you see? A stranger. Someone I can tell.”
His visitor, still bamboozled by what was going on, knew that his innate sense of curiosity would keep him rooted to the spot. “Go on,” he said, with an encouraging tone.
The other man’s eyes lit up. “Wonderful!” he said. “If you’d like to come with me to the back room, I’ll show you what I have. It goes without saying, it’s extremely precious. I have no idea just how much it’s actually worth, but a great deal, I’m sure.”
The visitor got up and followed him, with only a surprisingly mild sense of foreboding. At the door, from his pocket, the man produced a key at the end of a chain. He unlocked the door and they entered. Switching the light on, he crossed the room and took down a small oil painting, revealing a safe. After slowly working the dial combination, he opened the door and removed a large metal box. Placing it on a small side table, he began entering numbers on its digital keypad. This done, he opened a drawer in the table, took out a pair of white, cotton gloves and pulled them on.
It was at this point that the visitor became fully aware of how much he was enjoying what he was witnessing.
Opening the container, the man produced what looked like a yellow sheet of A4 paper. He held it up, by the top corners with his fingertips.
“You see? This is the original document. The one and only copy.”
The visitor squinted at the fine handwriting.
He explained, “You may not know, but this all began in the eighteenth century, in Tamil Nadu, the home of the Tamil people.”
He held the paper higher.
“From the Tamil language, which has to be one of the longest surviving classical languages in the whole world!”
He holds it closer to his chest, while tears begin to well up.
“This is the very first written copy, translated into English,” he says.
“What is it?” asked the visitor.
“The original recipe for Mulligatawny soup!”