The Phoenix

by Bilal Siddiqi

  Aryaman entered the makeshift shed and walked up to his mother. She examined him. He was the spitting image of his dad. She held him tight, locking him in an embrace that moved him to tears.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ma. I didn’t mean to make you wait this long.’

  She cut short the hug and slapped him lightly on the cheek.

  ‘Arya, don’t say that. I would have been disappointed if you had taken the easy route out of this one.’

  Aryaman kissed her on the forehead. Time had done her no favours and the marks were visible on her aged face. He noticed her eyes behind her spectacles. They were beginning to grow milky. Probably a cataract on its way. It broke Aryaman’s heart. She wiped his tears, and he embraced her again.

  As Aryaman signed the papers and completed the formalities, she watched him with great fondness. This was just the reunion she’d imagined. Unlike the one she had hoped for years ago with her husband.

  They were led to another boat. This time, they were going to the airport situated on Agatti Island.

  ‘So,’ she continued as the boat began to move. ‘Jyoti’s been waiting for you. Reach Delhi and call her up. And then take the flight to Mumbai tomorrow. Your son needs to be with his father. Family is all you have, Aryaman. It took me years to understand that.’

  ‘And they are all I need, Ma. The rest of my life will only be devoted to them,’ Aryaman said with a lump in his throat.

  4

  Mumbai

  The Indian Daily Report newsroom was buzzing with chatter and frenetic activity. Several junior journalists lined up outside senior editor Jyoti Khanna’s cabin, their stories printed out and ready to be submitted for her approval. Jyoti, however, was busy on a phone call. She had gestured fifteen minutes ago for them to hang on until she was done. And they had been waiting patiently since.

  They chatted about her while she seemed deep in conversation. Everyone discussed how she hadn’t left her cabin all day, wondering what secret story she was working on. None of them had a clue. Except for the prematurely grey-haired thirty-two-year-old Ehsaan Qureshi, a senior journalist and her closest friend. He ignored everyone, his lanky frame bent over the papers on his desk. She had been working with him all day.

  Everyone admired Jyoti’s integrity. People looked up to her for her unrelenting commitment to, and passion for, her work. She could be hard-nosed about certain things, but only at work. When she met someone in her off-hours—when, say, she was grabbing a drink post-work—she was a delight.

  With Jyoti still on the call, some of them looked expectantly at Ehsaan. He was not his usual jovial self today. He came to the door, shrugged and said in a flat tone, ‘She’ll get done and call you guys inside. Get back to your desks.’ They slowly dispersed.

  Inside her cabin, Jyoti was fighting a battle of her own. Two battles actually. One was work-related. An explosive story had landed in her lap. She had spent the past week researching it with Ehsaan. Only he knew about it, and it would have major implications once she filed it later that night. She had kept the presses waiting.

  Her second battle was personal: speaking to the man she had once known as her husband. On paper, he still was. But the time they had spent apart had damaged their relationship beyond repair. Or so she thought. There were moments she had almost strayed. She had almost succumbed to her desire—the desire to be with another man. It was part of being human, she told herself. This need for someone to fill the void that her husband had left behind. But she couldn’t get herself to do it. She loved her husband too much to let another relationship get in the way of the bond she shared with him. Instead, she devoted herself wholeheartedly to her work, and to her son.

  Hearing his gravelly voice on the phone almost made her forget the anger and irritation she felt towards him. She knew she was still his. These were feelings that would never go away.

  His voice sounded like it had changed a bit, so she could only imagine what he looked like. Probably haggard and forlorn. His cheeks must have sunk. His hair must have greyed. His eyes must have lost the spark they once carried. And now he was on the phone telling her that he would see her the next morning. That he would come back and make it right.

  ‘I could keep apologizing,’ Aryaman said. ‘But that’s not going to change a thing. I will come back and set things right. I’ll be the husband you missed. And I’ll be the father Aditya needs.’

  ‘When can I expect you?’ she asked, almost choking up.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he said. ‘There are some formalities that I have to take care of in Delhi before I fly into Mumbai. I’ll take the first flight tomorrow. Mother will come with me.’

  ‘I know,’ Jyoti said. ‘She’d been following up with Delhi every day for the last month. She insisted on flying out to see you. They didn’t allow me to come. So she flew from Dehradun to Delhi herself, and then they took her to Lakshadweep.’

  She could hear Aryaman sighing.

  ‘Arya?’ she asked.

  ‘Your love and hers kept me going, Jyoti. I will see you tomorrow.’

  He hung up. To Jyoti, his voice sounded like he was crying. She had seen him cry a few times. He was extremely vulnerable despite the tough exterior. Besides, his job wasn’t easy. The stakes were always high. It was like walking a tightrope every waking moment. A slight misstep could plunge you into hell. And that’s exactly what had happened to him. She was glad he was going to get another stab at life. And she had to be there for him, to help him resurrect himself.

  She got up from her desk and walked out of the newsroom. Glancing at her watch, she realized why her team appeared worried. They were past the deadline. She looked at Ehsaan and motioned for him to enter the cabin. In the direction of the other journalists, who were gazing at her expectantly, she merely held up the palm of her hand as a signal to wait.

  Ehsaan stepped in, closing the door behind him.

  ‘Ehsaan,’ Jyoti said, crashing into her chair. ‘Arya is back. He is meeting us tomorrow.’

  There were beads of sweat on her forehead despite the air-conditioning.

  ‘Well,’ Ehsaan said softly. ‘It’s overwhelming, certainly. You need a break, Jyoti. Fuck this case. It’s taking a toll on you. Get back to your family. The one missing piece is coming back.’

  ‘I can’t drop this story, Ehsaan. You know that.’

  ‘It has serious implications, Jyoti. Let sleeping dogs lie. Look after yourself. Aryaman is coming back. You have to make a father and son reconnect emotionally. There’s a lot that awaits you. Don’t get into this story.’

  ‘I will do this story, Ehsaan. You and I have come across something that needs to be brought to the forefront. I will file it tomorrow. And then, I take an indefinite break from all of this. I will recommend to the boss that you fill in for me while I’m away.’

  Ehsaan closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

  ‘You know that I want the best for you, don’t you?’ he said.

  ‘I do,’ Jyoti said. She put her hand on his wrist. ‘It’ll be fine. After tomorrow. And if you don’t mind, I’m going to head home now. Spend some time with the others and approve their stories please. Fill in for me tonight. I need to talk to Aditya about his father, before he sees him tomorrow.’

  Jyoti picked up her laptop bag and kept a file of documents in it. Ehsaan was watching her carefully.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. Something made Ehsaan feel that she was saying this to convince herself more than him.

  She opened the door and walked out hurriedly. The journalists who had been waiting for her were confused by the sight of her leaving office.

  ‘Ehsaan will go through your stories,’ she told them. ‘I’m sorry. Another urgent story has come up. I’ll see you guys.’

  She didn’t wait for a response. Their questioning gazes, she felt, were burning a hole in her back as she pushed the elevator button. And she was relieved to find the elevator empty. Leaning against the metal wall, she closed her eyes and tried to make her mind stop straying and com
mit to one single emotion.

  She stepped out of the lobby with a sense of urgency. There was work to be done. She would have to write out the last bit of the story she planned to file tomorrow. It was going to ruffle many feathers. The aftermath of the story scared her, but lives were at stake.

  She tried to draw comfort from the thought of Aryaman’s return. It made her feel safe again. He will take care of it, she said to herself. With him by my side, nobody would be able to harm me.

  But as she stepped into her car and started the engine, the sad reality hit her. Her husband wasn’t going to be the man he’d once been. The very government that he had served had crushed his spirit. How does one come back from that? How would he protect his family after having faced what he had faced?

  She drove fast through the empty roads, turning up the music to help get her mind off things completely. When she heard the blare of an irritating Bollywood item song, she switched off the radio and decided to call her son. The phone rang a few times before he answered.

  ‘Aditya,’ she said. ‘Make mama a pot of coffee. Don’t burn yourself.’

  He responded with childish exasperation. ‘I know, Mum. I’ve done it before.’

  ‘Also,’ she said. ‘I’ll be home in thirty minutes. I need to speak to you. You won’t be going to school tomorrow as well.’

  ‘Wait. You want me to skip school?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s important. Tomorrow is important . . .’

  Her voice trailed away. She could feel a tear trickling down her cheek as she approached the Bandra-Worli Sea Link.

  ‘Mum, are you okay?’

  Her fourteen-year-old’s words shook her. It was a simple question, but straight from the heart. In that moment, she realized what it meant to have a family more than she ever had before. Aryaman was coming back. Her son was going to love his father again. She would have someone to come home to. Or even someone to stay at home with, if possible. This was it.

  ‘I will be, Aditya. Stay up. Wait for me.’

  ‘Is Ehsaan uncle coming over to play PlayStation?’

  Jyoti chuckled. ‘Don’t be a smartass. All right, see you soon. Love you.’

  ‘Love you too, Mum.’

  She sped through the Sea Link, with the windows rolled down and the breeze sweeping back her hair. The car was going well above the permitted speed limit. But she didn’t care. She’d pay that damn fine for overspeeding later.

  When she stopped at the next red light, Jyoti lit a cigarette. She took a deep breath and exhaled smoke. She hated herself for having developed this habit. After all, she used to scold her husband for it. But he would always say it helped take the edge off things. She now saw what he had meant. She had become a smoker over the past two years without even realizing it. She fought the urge all too often, but to no avail.

  Three cigarettes later, she reached Andheri. She slowed down, searching for a vacant parking spot. Her dilapidated five-storey building was relatively small, and there weren’t enough parking spots for all its tenants. She’d had to sell her Delhi house, which she had inherited from her parents, in order to be able to afford even this little place in Mumbai. Besides, with all the memories attached to the house in Delhi—of her and her father—she didn’t want anything to do with that place.

  She parked the car by the side of the main road, picked up her purse and exited the car.

  A faint yellow glow illumined one of the windows of her flat on the top floor. Aditya was awake and had probably prepared the coffee. She would need to down all of it before she finished writing her story. And she wanted to get that done before Aryaman got home.

  As she approached the entrance of the building, she wondered how she would broach the subject with Aditya. Maybe she would just break the news to him matter-of-factly. Your father is coming back. Or maybe she would ease into it, by explaining to her son where his father had been all these years, and why he had been there in the first place. He was an understanding fourteen-year-old, if ever there was such a thing.

  Yes, she thought, maybe that’s how I will do it. Let the kid know the truth. It was time. It was time he grew up. It’s a tough world out there and maybe I can’t always be there to protect him.

  This was her last thought ever.

  A speeding sedan rammed into her from behind and came to a screeching halt at some distance. She was thrown a few feet off the ground, landing on her skull and cracking it instantly. The contents of her purse were strewn about on the road, including the documents from the file. Death was instantaneous. The driver in the sedan, however, was not taking any chances. He reversed the car and drove over her lifeless body, just to be doubly sure.

  Once he confirmed that she was dead, he stepped out of his car and retrieved the papers from the road. He took her purse as well and flung it into his car. Then, he pulled her phone out of her pocket. There was a message on the lock screen from someone called ‘Arya’. It read: ‘Can’t wait to see you.’

  The man returned to his car and drove off, leaving behind Jyoti’s mangled body.

  5

  New Delhi

  Aryaman woke up early the next morning, way before sunrise, to see his mother leaning by the hotel window and gazing outside at nothing in particular.

  ‘Ma?’

  ‘Go back to sleep,’ Aarti said, continuing to look out. ‘Don’t worry about me. It’s old age. I end up waking early.’

  Aryaman began to sit up, reluctant to leave the comfort of the bed.

  He had had a long evening the day before, spending time signing a bunch of papers at the IRW office. His mother was made to wait outside, which she did patiently. Once he was done, she took him to an expensive hotel near the airport. He told her that she didn’t have to waste money on such stuff. Her playful response was that she was treating him well only for a few days, until he settled back into normal life.

  Once he was in the room, he spoke to Jyoti and then sunk into the bed, dozing off like a baby. His mother lay next to him, unable to sleep all night. She just watched him sleep. And moments before he woke up, she took her seat near the window to watch the sunrise. This was part of her daily routine.

  ‘Can I order you some coffee?’ she asked him, without turning to look at him.

  ‘That will be nice,’ he replied.

  She walked to the phone and called reception, ordering a pot of black coffee and a cup of tea. Then she sat beside him on the bed.

  ‘I forgot to mention,’ she said with a smile. ‘We have a new addition to the family.’

  Aryaman looked confused. ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘You heard me right,’ she said, poker-faced. ‘He is adorable. A little boy of six, I think.’

  Aryaman sat upright, completely bewildered.

  ‘But . . . How?’

  Aarti shrugged. ‘Found him on the streets. In Dehradun. Outside our café.’

  Aryaman didn’t know what to make of it. He had spent a lot of time in jail thinking about the cafeteria his mother ran. It was built on a plot owned by a retired army man, Mr Arora, and his wife. Aarti paid them a rent to stay in the little quarters behind the cafeteria. Attached to the quarters was a musty but welcoming library. Aryaman, when he wasn’t on his missions, would spend hours in the library, consuming copious volumes of coffee and reading books of all kinds. Anything to take his mind off work.

  Outside the library, there was a lovely garden that his mother would light up at nights with candles and lanterns. Local teenagers would come here to sing songs and strum their guitars. It was all very beautiful and innocent. And he knew why his mother had set this place up. It was to spend her twilight years living life the way she couldn’t when she was younger. But this ‘new addition to the family’ idea was a bit much to swallow.

  ‘Elaborate, please?’ Aryaman prodded her.

  ‘So,’ she began. ‘It was a long evening at the café, and I got done pretty late washing the dishes. I heard a strange noise in the back. So I picked up a knife, thinking it
was a burglar . . .’

  ‘And what? You adopted the burglar? Inducted him into the family?’

  He tried to get her to spill the beans sooner, but she wasn’t going to do that.

  ‘You could say that,’ she said. ‘I went out and realized he was eating from the trash. Some half-eaten sandwiches and chicken bones. I tried asking him what was wrong, but he got scared and ran off with a mouthful of food. I tailed him. He was very weak, so he couldn’t run fast. He finally stopped before his kid and dropped the food in front of him. The kid seemed on the verge of death, and his father was just trying to give him something to eat. But it was too late. He was too weak to eat. I saw the father weep. I decided to take him in.’

  Aryaman shook his head. There was a knock on the door. Aarti asked the room attendant to place the tray on the table and thanked him before he left the room. As she poured Aryaman his coffee, she looked at his confused face.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I thought he was a thief, but now he’s a family member. I call him Chor.’

  As she said this, her face broke into a smile, and Aryaman instantly knew. He began to laugh.

  ‘You idiot!’ She laughed with him. ‘You should have seen your face!’

  ‘Ma, I thought you were against keeping animals at home!’

  ‘Chor had lost his kid, too,’ she said in a sombre tone. ‘He needed someone. Unlike humans, dogs don’t feel self-pity. They cry on the inside till they wither away. I found love in him; he, in me. Besides, your wife and kid love him too.’

  ‘Is he in Mumbai with them?’

  ‘No.’ She smiled. ‘He loves the cafeteria. Maybe we can go see him in the next couple of days if Jyoti is up for it.’

  Aryaman drank the coffee, letting its warmth soothe his throat.

  ‘I love Chor already,’ he said. ‘And I haven’t even met the little chap.’