by Nillu Nasser
“You should have told me, you know.” His eyes gleamed in the dim light.
She imagined green flecks dancing in their depths even though she could not see them.
We couldn’t be anything anyway. The words hung on her lips, but instead of saying them, she said, “I’m sorry.” She caught herself looking at his lips, the way his mouth curved slightly higher on one side than the other.
Around them, the audience returned to their seats, a quiet spreading as the shuffling and chatting eased.
Ravi whispered in her ear, a secret just for them. “I’ve tried to stop thinking about you.”
Was he teasing her? She couldn’t be sure. She could feel his breath on her ear, and, for a moment, she wondered what it would be like to turn her body into his, and let his strength envelop her. She heard Ruhi’s voice in her head. Give him a chance.
“Can I... Can I walk you home tonight? We should talk,” he said.
If only he had acted out of turn, shown himself to be mean-spirited or aloof or uninteresting, she could have withstood him. She teetered between her mental walls and her emotional needs.
“Okay.” The word escaped her before she could apply the brakes. A tiny word of agreement that opened a door she tried so hard to keep shut.
“Great.” The gelled black helmet of his hair receded from view as he made his way back into the sound booth.
She longed to feel the vibration of his voice in her ear again.
The moon was a luminescent orb above the city skyline when they left the theatre at midnight. Dust swirls reached up to greet Jaya and Ravi as they stepped onto the street in the city that never sleeps.
“I usually take the bus,” said Jaya.
“We can share a rickshaw if you’re tired,” said Ravi.
“Let’s walk the first part. I can’t sleep straight after a show anyway. You’ll have to go before we get to my door, though. My parents wouldn’t like it and I wouldn’t like the questions.”
Ravi grasped her arm and pulled her to face him. The cars passing them blended into the periphery of her consciousness, periodic purrs with luminescent headlights that slid over Ravi’s face as he talked.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were married?” he said. “I was tempted to leave you alone, to retreat into friendship, but anyone I asked, there’s been no mention of a husband, only your parents.”
His intensity moved her. He had spoken to their colleagues about her. She mattered to him.
Jaya’s confidence bloomed. She met his eyes, and let the scales of subterfuge fall away.
“I am married, Ravi, but he left me twenty years ago. He was unfaithful and I couldn’t accept it. He never came back.”
“Your scars?” She found no judgement in his eyes. The dark in her was drawn to the light in him.
“I set myself on fire the day I found out... I wasn’t myself.”
He drew in his breath. A nerve pulsed in his cheek. Then he folded her into his arms, there on the arterial road leading from Juhu to Bandra. “I knew you had a history. The marks on your body tell a story,” said Ravi, speaking into the halo of her hair. She rested her head flat against his collarbone and felt the words rumble through his chest, a lullaby to soothe her. “He is gone then, and you are free.”
Jaya melted into him, sinking into her knees so she could fit her head under his chin.
“I don’t even know what we are,” said Jaya.
“A promise. Nothing more. Nothing scary, or untoward. Just a promise.”
Chapter 17
Soraya repeated her words. “You’re not a widower, Akash. Jaya is alive.”
Akash sucked in his breath, retreating from his body, as if he were a spectator of his life rather than a participant. He retracted from the Red Room in Soraya’s house, saw her at the window, noticed himself stock still, unspeaking, and then with a whoosh, his mind caught up with his present, and confusion swept all else into insignificance: Tariq; Soraya; Zahid; his lost family; his enemies and friends on the streets; the people who pretended not to notice him, day in, day out. All else became nothing. Jaya, can this be real?
“What do you mean, she’s alive?” His voice came out as a stutter. “What do you mean? I saw her. I saw the flames. Her father told me she had gone. Those were his words. He meant she had died, I’m sure of it. I saw her mother weeping at Vishnu’s statue, the burns on the floor. What are you telling me?” He shook his head, but still the familiar image of Jaya burning, the sound of her screams as the flames tore at her, tormented him, the violence of that act seared for perpetuity on his brain, like the imprint of a photo on polaroid.
“I spoke to her after it happened,” said Soraya.
A sob ripped from Akash’s throat. “She recovered?”
Soraya approached him from the window and crouched in front of him. Her tangerine scarf dropped from her shoulders and fell to the floor in a silken heap. He focused on it, counting the folds where it lay. Anything to pause the thoughts racing through his head, to bury the idea that the years of punishment he had imposed upon himself had been for nothing.
“She recovered.” Hooded eyelids over exquisite eyes. “I hadn’t thought of her in years. But I think she might have visited our restaurant the other night, right here in Juhu. Do you see now? Guilt has robbed you of all this time. Guilt far greater than anything you did.”
He heard her words as if through a tunnel. He no longer processed them. All this time, I’ve talked to you in my head, and you’ve been here in Bombay, Jaya. He’d believed Jaya had died, her body now ashes, scattered in the holy river, in a ceremony he’d not been invited to, was not welcome at. He recalled her father’s anger the night he had returned. Jaya is gone. Jaya is no more. You are no longer welcome here. Soraya couldn’t be right. If she was, it would mean he and Jaya had never been more than a few miles apart. He had to find out the truth. Are you alive? The question echoed through his head. He needed to see her. He needed to replace his last image of Jaya with a truer one. He needed to check if she had really lived, what she had done with her life, whether she was happy. If she could come through her pain then maybe he could, too.
“What would you have done if you had known?” said Soraya.
Akash didn’t respond, so she repeated herself, and it irked him that she couldn’t see he needed space to process news of this magnitude.
He focused on her words, his answer slow and deliberate, bobbing up, crystal clear from the rattling depths of his mind, the result of decades of self-reflection that had not pierced the fog of his mind until now. He didn’t care if he offended her. The words felt so true on his tongue he could almost touch them. “I would have stayed. I would have nursed her back to health. I would have loved her, and never have thought of you again.” I am coming, Jaya.
“Why is that?” Soraya’s words were cold, her expression tight.
“Because I didn’t know love until Jaya showed me what it was.”
Akash entered a topsy-turvy world where nothing was real and everything masked in clay that formed to make new shapes, shattering his certainties. He made no excuses to Soraya about the reason he needed to leave. There could be no course of action for him except to find out the truth.
Soraya asked only that he return.
Akash set out, his confusion a palpable ball of knots and electrical impulses at his core. He knew instinctively where his search for Jaya should start. Long ago he had mastered the geography of Bombay. He’d learned through trial and observation where he and Tariq could live in relative safety, where they could find protection from the elements, a level of privacy and sources of food. He possessed an intimate knowledge of the city’s roads, its parks and waterfronts, its high-rises, mansions and slums, its hidden corners and secret passages.
There had been one pocket he avoided: the street in Bandra where he had been knocked into the gutter by Jaya’s father, where her childhood home stood, where she had lit the match that changed the course of their lives. It could be that she no longe
r lived there, but as he made the pilgrimage to her house, he prayed with the faith of his childhood that the tortuous uncertainty would be short-lived and he would find a clue to determine the veracity of Soraya’s revelation.
The sun had dipped from its highest point by the time he arrived in Bandra, signalling mid-afternoon. Tariq’s words rang in Akash’s head as he threaded his way through the city. You still can’t see it, can you? It was always Jaya. He weaved through the throngs of shoppers already hunting for bargains on Hill Road, amongst dazzling displays of colourful bangles, ornate dresses, scarves and disco dresses. Waves of nausea rolled through Akash’s stomach as he neared the side street where Jaya’s parents’ house stood.
Each step he took brought him closer to his reckoning. The nausea surge found a new high when he finally stood before the house. From the outside, there had been no change. It lay squeezed between two other dwellings, greying paint crumbling from its exterior walls. Dilapidated shutters framed the windows, just as they always had. It would have been sensible to wait until the cover of darkness to approach the house, when the streets had emptied somewhat, but Akash could not restrain himself. Every cell in his body needed to find out what happened to Jaya.
He looked around furtively to ensure he wasn’t being watched, then took a step towards the kitchen window, his heart leaping ferociously against his ribcage. He had to be quick. His eyes adjusted, filtering out the bright daylight and slowly focusing on the dark interior of the house. The floor had been repaired, the charred markings of the fire erased. Akash recognised the kitchen table, decked out with a new table cloth. Beyond the tiny kitchen, in the living room nook where it had always been, sat the garlanded statue of Lord Vishnu. Blue light from a television set illuminated the god’s face periodically. Akash’s anxiety peaked. Somebody was home, though he couldn’t see who.
There could be no doubt. Jaya’s family still resided here, but nothing Akash had seen confirmed whether she herself had survived. He glanced down at himself, at his wiry fingers and borrowed clothes. He traced the bruises on his face. He had changed physically from the man he’d been twenty years previously. If Jaya’s father still lived, he would be in his seventies. Would he still recognise Akash, or harbour the same passion from the night of the fire? Akash couldn’t be sure. Jaya’s father had warned him to stay away, and he didn’t want to risk discovery, to add insult to injury for a grieving father, to uncover wounds from the past unless it was necessary. But what if you are still alive, Jaya?
The chatter of a group of passers-by prompted him to retreat to an adjacent alleyway bordering on a small supermarket. Akash resolved to wait, out of sight, and watch the house. The hours passed and thoughts spun like a fractured compass in his mind. He thought only of Jaya: the life of growth they could have had together, a secure home, the promise of children, all of which he’d discarded like a schoolboy on a whim. The city moved around him. He recalled the earnest and artistic wife who had made every effort to love him. The wife, who had not questioned him when he snuck away to be alone like a sulky child in the days after their marriage. The wife, who upon discovering his affair, had asked only if he still loved her. Are you in that house right now, Jaya? He trained his eyes on the house for any sign she might be alive. He feared it as much as he desired it; the chance of redemption versus a return to purgatory.
A man tapped him on the shoulder, all bristling energy and false politeness. “Are you going to move from here, brother, or are you going to buy something? This loitering—it’s not good for business.” The man’s moustache expertly masked the thin line of his lips. Beady eyes sat beneath square eyebrows.
Akash gaze returned to the house.
“Eh! I’m talking to you.”
Akash turned to face him, his body language stiff—back rigid, fists clenched—a warning. “This pavement isn’t yours, just as it isn’t mine.”
“You’ll be sorry you said that,” said the man, heading back into his shop.
Akash ignored him. A magnetic pull tugged him towards Jaya’s parents’ house. He pivoted, slowly, his mouth dry with fear. It took him a moment to recognise her. There, with a stack of newspapers under her arm, dressed in a flowing skirt and embroidered tunic, strolled Jaya. In his mind’s eye, she had never grown older. This woman wasn’t the girl he knew. Her curves had grown heavier with middle age, her hair hid flecks of grey. Chaos engulfed him. In that moment, the universe disintegrated and reformed again. He stood frozen to the spot in the alley, tears of joy and relief threading down his face that she had aged, that life had not been stolen from her. It was such a commonplace activity: a woman coming home. Except for the fact Akash had always imagined that she had been robbed of the everyday.
Akash shuddered and heaved. He felt a powerful urge to run towards her, to call out, to kiss her and hold her and apologise, over and over for what he had done, and what he had not. You are alive, his head called out, stretching across the distance between them. Jaya reached the house, and turned in his direction, her foot poised over the threshold. Akash flattened himself against the wall of the alley. Could it be that she felt his presence, that a bond still existed after all these years?
When he looked again, she had gone. There, in the alleyway, with market-goers ambling past, he cast his head back against the peddle-dashed wall and sobbed like a priest who had regained his faith. Pent-up emotion travelled up and out of his body; he had been freed from his guilt for Jaya’s death. Questions fired through his head. Are you happy? Do you have a family of your own? If your father told me you had died, what must he have told you about me? Is this our second chance?
A scuffle to his right roused him from his introspection.
“There he is! Making noises like an animal, upsetting our customers.” The supermarket owner with the square eyebrows, together with another man and a couple of teenagers.
They stepped towards him, a heavy first footfall to scare him into submission. Akash blinked, pushed away from the wall, and set his balance. Then, with a glance at a newly lit window upstairs at Jaya’s house, he tore down the alley way and slipped into the shadows, the laughter of the men ringing in his ears.
Slow to anger, but even slower to forgive when his temper was tested, Tariq barely offered a grunt in greeting when Akash returned to the railway bridge that evening.
“Look at you, standing there like you’re a guest, like this isn’t your home anymore,” said Tariq.
“I’m sorry, Tariq,” said Akash. “I know now you were trying to help, that you weren’t judging.”
“Oh? What made you come to that conclusion, genius?” The sharpness of his words contrasted with the gentleness of his eyes. A gracious apology thawed his anger, but he could not resist the satisfaction of a last jibe. “I don’t need a part-time family you know.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been absent.”
“It’s not you physically being here. We’re not Siamese twins. I wouldn’t expect that from you.” He sighed. “It’s just, I’m so used to us being on the same page, Akash. This morning came from nowhere. You won’t let a woman come between us, will you? Even if we disagree.”
The fight had gone out of Tariq. A cloak of weariness had wrapped itself around him. He stank as though he had been lying in his own bodily fluids all day. The last thing Tariq needed was for Akash to burden him with the twists and turns of the past few days. But the secret burned in Akash’s throat.
“You were right,” said Akash. Only if he spoke it out loud would it be true.
“What do you mean?” Confusion splashed across Tariq’s face.
“It was always about her. All my angst, my heartbreak. It was all Jaya.” A tremor marred his smooth baritone. “She’s alive.”
“Jaya is alive? Your wife is alive?” Tariq’s incredulity reverberated across the hovel they called home. “Are you sure?”
“I saw her. Well, Soraya saw her, and I didn’t believe her.” The words flew out, a broken dam. “That’s where I’ve been today. I went to
find out, and I saw her. I really saw her! She’s alive, she’s really alive.” He broke down and tears clouded his vision, so that he did not see his friend approach, but felt his hand on his shoulder, the slight touch an inadequate comfort for his confusion.
Tariq shook his head. “I can’t believe it. Akash—this is wonderful! Did she see you?” He drew away when his cough surfaced, sputtering and wet.
“No. I can’t process it.” Akash drew in a haggard breath. His thoughts jumbled together like the bottles of coloured sand that could be bought on the beach. “She’s in that very house, where it happened, where her father told me she had died. And I believed him.”
“He must have had his reasons. I’m not excusing it, but maybe he was trying to protect her.”
“Was I such a monster? She is my wife. She must think I abandoned her.” A gust of wind blew into the tunnel, scattering the pots and cutlery they had hoarded over the years.
“What are you going to do?” said Tariq.
How could Akash tumble into her life now, after all this time? “Is it fair to disrupt her life after all these years?”
“Could you live with yourself if you didn’t make contact?” He could always rely on Tariq’s directness to cut through the meandering mess he made of everything.
Akash hesitated, nerves pulsing in his belly. “No.”
“Then you need to find a way, for both your sakes.”
Chapter 18
Jaya grimaced and tugged at her clothes. It had taken her an age to decide what to wear. She owned a number of tried and tested outfits for her daily life, but her wardrobe did not contain appropriate clothing for a party. She pulled at the scarf around her neck and smoothed the new sequinned tunic over her hips. She wore silky black trousers underneath. Opaque pop socks covered her feet. She applied powder and her usual warrior eyeliner and smudged the kohl a little with her fingers to make her eyes appear bigger. Finally, she coated her lips in fuchsia pink and ran her tongue over her teeth to make sure none had found its way there. Grainy toothpaste residue lingered in her mouth. She gave her reflection a cursory check and turned off her light, ignoring the stack of newspapers piled up behind her bedroom door. It had been days since she had scoured the death notices.