by Nillu Nasser
She disappeared back into her bedroom and he followed, and noticed how the decor here contrasted with the heavy opulence of his own room. Soraya’s room consisted of sleek lines and furniture in white and pale blue, all elegance and minimalism, no fuss or fawning. She slid back the glossy door of a sliding wardrobe and placed her clothes on a hanger.
“Arjun came to see me last night.”
He had her full concentration now.
“Oh.” Her face fell. “I guess it was only a matter of time.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I owed it to him. He needed time to process it.”
She had not told him she was pregnant and neglected to tell him even when he reappeared in their lives. The time he had lost burned his throat.
“Is that why I am here?”
“It’s one of the reasons.”
“You were strong to raise him alone.” He understood at last that while he had been unpacking his own burdens, Jaya and Soraya had faced their own trials with more grace than he had possessed.
“I had someone to hold close to me. What did you have? Aren’t you angry, Akash? I stole your chance to be a father.” She didn’t look apologetic and he realised she wouldn’t have changed her past. This was a woman who was completely at ease with herself and her choices.
He envied her surety.
Arjun was a grown man and had little need or desire to know his father. Akash could not turn back the clock, so instead he buried the pain of that lost opportunity deep within him. “I lost my claim to you when I walked away. What right do I have to question you?”
Soraya nodded, accepting his words. “Ask me anything you want,” she said, beckoning him to follow her to a chaise lounge, a striped affair in silver and sky blue.
He sat beside her, awkwardly, two parents discussing their child without the bond of intimacy that parenting should bring. He might never have an emotional bond with Arjun, but he had a deep need to hear his son’s story, to understand the child he never knew.
“Why ‘Arjun’? Why did you choose that name? Your parents can’t have approved.”
“They chose a Muslim name for him. He was Samir. It means air. To me, he has always been Arjun, after the legend you loved.”
“The archer.” The hair on his arm rose as he remembered telling her of his love for the story of Arjun, once, long ago, when they were both young. “What a fool I’ve been not to see that he was mine.” He took Soraya’s hand. Without colour her nails were brittle and weak.
“Will you walk with me in the gardens, Soraya? Pour your memories into me. There is nothing I don’t want to know about our son.”
Soraya was holding something back, Akash was certain. The maid tried to tempt Akash with his body weight in samosas and spicy bhajiya, and Akash grew stronger, but more impatient, too. He ate sparsely, his stomach used to a meagre diet. Staying at the bungalow stalled his possible reconciliation with Jaya and it also poisoned any rebuilding of a relationship with Arjun, who remained convinced that Akash was taking advantage of his mother. Despite his burdened psyche, his body healed faster than it had done before. He drank enough mango lassi to colour the Ganga while he waited for his freedom.
Soraya, for her part, showered attention on her family. She conversed with their son, cooked with Muna and played with Leela, bouncing the baby on her knee until she gurgled with delight.
But still, a piece of the puzzle was missing. Soraya evaded his gentle pressure to understand the truth that escaped his fingers like a ghost. On Thursday, she spent an idyllic day visiting the markets with her daughter-in-law, and returned beaming with excitement. She beckoned Akash from his room, ignoring the sullen stares of their son.
“I have bought trinkets for you all,” she said.
“Maa, we have everything we need,” said Arjun, quickly quieted by his wife.
Soraya smiled at her son. “This is for you. A book of Gibran poetry. I know how much you like him.” She handed him a smooth, leather-bound book with yellowed pages.
Arjun reached for the book and kissed her chastely on the cheek. “Thank you.”
The baby crawled into her mother’s lap, and Akash wondered at her innocence. He could think of no place safer than a mother’s lap.
“And this, this is for you, Muna. I know you caught me buying them, but thank you for humouring me and not saying anything.” She smiled and passed her daughter-in-law a plastic bag, which held a beautiful hand-embroidered scarf and a jar of saffron.
“You, beta,” she said, touching Leela’s cheek, “get this. A silver teething spoon. Arjun used to have one as a baby. But first, we must wash it.” She handed it to Muna, who hugged her.
“And finally, Akash, we’ll have to go shopping for some properly fitting clothes for you, of course, but for now, this is what I bought.” She walked to where he stood bare-footed at the edge of the room in a pair of oversized shorts and a vest. “It’s a locket. I’ve put a picture of Arjun and Leela in it.”
Arjun frowned.
“I don’t know what to say,” said Akash, taking the locket awkwardly, feeling the ridges of the letter A engraved on it.
“Thank you is enough,” said Soraya.
He noticed her laboured breathing, and finally the scales fell from his eyes: her insistence he stayed, her need to tell her son the truth, the translucency of her skin, how she had vomited in the garden.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
He returned to his bedroom, where the enormity of her secret overwhelmed him. That evening, Soraya visited him in his bedroom with a cup of chai and some slices of melon on a tray for him. He took the tray from her and turned to her with a heightened, accusing voice.
“This afternoon, those gifts... they were a goodbye, weren’t they?”
Soraya glanced at him in surprise and then visibly relaxed. The tension drained from her body until she was no longer the erect and proud woman he knew. She leant against the doorframe, her expression, for once, an open book, relief spilling from her pores. “I’ve been waiting for the right moment to tell you.”
“How sick are you?”
“It won’t be long.”
“Your doctors? You must have the best doctors.”
She smiled wryly and he saw no pity. “All my options are exhausted. I’ve made my peace.”
Her words pierced him like a shard of glass. The walls closed in on him like a shrinking womb. He started to panic. “Outside, I need to go outside.”
Soraya took him by the hand, speaking to him gently as if he was a child and she was his mother, leading him through the winding corridors until Akash could no longer breathe. Then suddenly they were sitting on a sofa swing in the garden. Soraya held Akash’s hand, the pad of her thumb tracing circles over his calloused skin.
“But—”
“It is my time, Akash.” She laid a hand on his arm. How wrong it was that she comforted him rather than the other way around.
He opened up his arms to her, and she came. Sadness, raw and uncontainable, pulsed within him. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered into her hair, stroking the grey strands of her hair away from her face.
She lifted her head. “I need to ask something of you.”
“Anything.”
She whispered in his ear, as if the words were unfit to be heard out loud.
“Arjun will not accept this,” said Akash, shaken.
“That’s why I cannot ask him.” She shuddered. “Will you help me?”
Akash nodded, his promise a headstone in the cemetery of his soul.
Arjun watched his wife praying from the door. A scarf covered her head and she was holding a tray laden with water, fruit and incense. He wrinkled his nose against the sickly scent as Muna made her offering to the shrine of Ganesha, which sat in the corner of the room, the idol garlanded by flowers. Leela lay on a mat on the floor, her babbling accompanying her mother’s mantras. Arjun had not been brought up as a man of faith, but the scene brought him a moment’s peace.
High time I cut down on the curry.
His wife turned, blue shadows underneath clouded eyes, and caught his expression. “What? Now it’s not okay for me to pray?”
“Course not, Muna, you know I don’t mind you praying. I like it, even. It brings me solace to know you have that covered.”
“Oh, sorry,” she said, looking unabashed. “Ganesha is the remover of obstacles. We could do with his help right now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Arjun.
“Well, for starters, you have a newborn, but the amount you’re around here, I’ve started to question what your priorities really are. You said you were ready for a baby.”
“That’s not fair, Muna. I’ve had stuff to deal with...”
“Then talk to me!”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Yes, there is! I would do anything to have my parents back, Arjun, and here you are, with both yours here, ready to be one big, bustling family, and you put your barriers up. Enough sulking, already. Deal with it.”
“My mother lied. My father’s a homeless man, and worse, a cheat. Not everyone forgives as easily as you, Muna.”
“Not everyone knows how quickly loss comes, Arjun.” She lowered her voice and sat next to her husband on the bed. “So Maa lied. So Akash Saheb isn’t what you expected. She fell in love. She did the best she could. Is that a crime?”
“Stay out of this!” Arjun bristled, his voice a warning shot across the room that startled the baby.
Leela cried.
“You used to have ambition. Now it’s all about family. My family. Stick your nose out, I mean it. This is my business.” He glared at her and handed her the bawling baby.
“Just brilliant. Thanks Arjun, well done,” said Muna as she rocked the child wearily.
Chapter 25
Bushra, who worked on the front desk at Tara Theatre, found Jaya snipping away at a blue bandini fabric. Usually Bushra was all fluster and bluster, not the right sort to be the first point of contact with customers. Still, as the director’s aunt, not even complaints subdued her. Her immunity made her insufferable. Today, she happened to be Jekyll rather than Hyde, and approached with a smile that split the heavy layer of make up on her face.
It took Jaya a moment to realise what all the excitement was about.
“Look, look, my dear. It came for you,” said Bushra, waving a small rectangle of pale yellow in the air. “Hand-delivered, no postmarks, with just one word on the top—your name.” She giggled, aiming for a girly tittering no doubt, but sounding instead like a donkey.
Jaya reached out her hand for the letter.
The older woman came close enough for the scattering of hair on her upper lip to look menacing and for the scent of her body odour to be suffocating. “There’s a little flower drawn at the back. Tell me, have you a suitor? Is this from Ravi? A little birdie told me—” she said.
Jaya sighed. “Thanks for bringing it to me. Let’s keep this to ourselves, okay?” It remained an unfortunate consequence of not having a visible man at her side, that she either was lumped together with the maiden aunt brigade or any hint of romantic attention resulted in shrieks of utter childishness. The rumour of a great romance would be all around the theatre by lunchtime, no doubt.
Bushra held her finger to her caked nose. “I’d never dream of telling anyone.” She rocketed down the corridor, fizzing with the exaggerations about to spill from her mouth.
Jaya shook her head and laid down her scissors. She turned over the letter in her hand, pausing to examine the flower drawn on the flip side of the envelope, and carefully coloured in with a green colour pencil. The letter was a romantic gesture, she supposed. Had Ravi still not understood that she wanted to be left alone?
She inserted a finger into the envelope and slid it across to break the seal. Out fell a single sheet covered with evenly spaced blue ink. Jaya frowned. The lettering was oddly familiar to her in its mixture of loops and jagged lines. A memory dislodged in the recesses of her mind that she couldn’t quite decipher. She read and the world fell away.
Dear Jaya,
You might ask how I come to write to you. I hope you’ll take this letter in good faith. We knew each other once, a long time ago, and I am too shy to see you face to face. It seems to me that I have known you forever, but it could be that I have reassembled the pieces of you and you are someone else entirely.
The world has become so alien that there have been times I’ve been afraid that there is no space for me in it. I am a romantic man, but the irony is I’ve lived most of my life without love. It was my own fault. I chased false gods and pushed away everything that was good.
They say everything happens for a reason, but I’ve found that to be a deceit we are told as a comfort. How can such trite words be comforting after great suffering? I’d rather face cold truths. Sometimes we are to blame for our troubles: we are hoodwinked or stupid, or we tumble into our mistakes with our eyes open. At other times suffering visits us out of the blue, and it is neither fair nor a lesson to be learned. It is just something we dig through, until we feel nearly whole again.
I wonder if we hold the reins to our destiny, whether we can undo the patterns of old. I’d like to think so. Hope is a powerful thing. Maybe more powerful than love.
I can’t tell you who I am, but I hope that one day, I will. Until then, if it’s acceptable for me to write to you again, please leave a piece of red cloth in the window at Tara Theatre. I’ll be waiting.
Your friend.
Jaya put down the letter. A chill ran down her spine. She knew with certainty the scribe was not Ravi. She touched the pad of her index finger to the ink and ran it across the page, lost in thought. She had an aversion to strangers, but this man said he knew her. She could not explain it, but she wanted nothing more than to receive another letter from him. The views he articulated reflected her own. Just like her, he had lost his way. His curious mix of hope and hopelessness mirrored hers. Perhaps a kindred spirit had stumbled across her path. She didn’t understand why, but his thoughts, his lettering stirred buried memories in her. She needed to find out his identity. She tucked the letter into her handbag, submerging it underneath the books and make up pouch. Then she went to fetch a piece of red cotton from the store room.
That afternoon Akash slipped away from the house and found Tariq at one of their old haunts, laying his clothes out to dry on a park bench, having washed them in a public bathroom.
“I have something for you,” he said in greeting.
He clapped his friend on the shoulder and handed him a parcel of food he had taken from Soraya’s fridge. He hadn’t thought to ask. Such were the excesses in the rose bungalow that a few morsels of curry and shreds of bread would never be missed. He could already feel his survival instincts had been numbed by the cool walls of Soraya’s home, creeping indifference at the surplus of food, when once he had been forced to scavenge.
Tariq knew no such luxury. He smiled his thanks and unwrapped the brown paper bag, uncovering a foil dish. The smell of masala potatoes seeped out. He sat on the bench next to his wet, worn clothes and devoured the food. Akash waited as his friend ate, enjoying a comfortable silence borne of years of friendship, of two men who had seen each other at their lowest ebb and remained true without judgement.
Tariq had aged more quickly since he had been alone. The curve of his back had grown more pronounced, his ever-present cough more violent.
“Have you been okay? I wish I could be here with you.”
“You don’t need to worry about me,” said Tariq.
Akash would have liked Soraya and Tariq to meet, but he could think of a
dozen reasons why it was not a good idea. He would have gladly shared his room and food at the bungalow with Tariq, but that would infringe on Soraya’s hospitality and sour relations further with their son. Now Akash knew Jaya to be alive, it represented a betrayal to invite his best friend to meet Soraya. Besides, Tariq reminded Akash of his own poor health and lack of sophistication. Even now, a smear of sauce sat on his upper lip where an uneven moustache had begun to sprout.
“What is that slug on your lip?” said Akash, falling into the teasing patterns of their relationship though he did not feel light-hearted.
“Your smile does not reach your eyes today, bhai. Tell me, what is wrong? I delivered your letter. Do you already have a response?” His concern whistled through the gap in his stained teeth.
“I have not been back to check.”
“The two weeks you promised Soraya must almost be up.”
“I know her secrets now.”
Tariq pushed the remaining food away from him and swung to face Akash, his eyes solemn. “Tell me.”
“She has an aggressive tumour. Brain cancer. Her prognosis is bad, she has weeks rather than months. Maybe days. I can see her getting weaker. She hasn’t told her family.”
“I’m sorry, Akash. It seems unfair after you have just found her again.”
“She wants me there so she is not alone. Her strength puts me to shame. She’s not scared of death, only of losing her dignity.” Akash paused, his head in his hands.
“There’s something else.” Tariq knew him too well, as if he were a concerto with one wrong note sounding out.
“The boy. Arjun. He’s mine.”
Tariq’s mouth gaped. Silence stretched out between the men while Tariq digested the news. He stuttered. “That’s wonderful... isn’t it? You’ve always wanted a family. Soraya was pregnant when you ran? She hid it from you?”
“She found out afterwards. She tried to find me. How many people have I abandoned?”