Cheaters

by Novoneel Chakraborty

  * * *

  Alarm six: 8.45 p.m.

  Today is the last day of my vacation. I’d thought I wouldn’t sleep last night. But after we made out, I slept like a log for a long time. Atulit is clearly feeling forlorn. Seeing a man not being able to handle separation turns me on. I haven’t ever witnessed it. Not when I am the subject of his troubled dilemma.

  ‘Stay,’ he pleads. I say nothing and kiss his forehead. A kiss is always a loaded expression. The way we kiss someone contains so much more than long passionate speeches. If one can feel it properly and truly then there won’t be any questions and answers in its wake. No misunderstandings either. This makes me wonder when I had kissed someone so passionately before. My husband and I would usually kiss before having sex. That kind of kiss is different. It only speaks of hunger. This one is different. It is emotional, pacifying. And just when I thought Atulit can’t surprise me any more, he tells me that since it is my last day, he wants to take care of me.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I ask.

  ‘I want to bathe you. Dress you. Cook for you. Make you feel like a princess.’

  A part of me wants to crack up laughing because I’m not used to such jokes. Another part of me wants to break into tears because I know it isn’t a joke. Nobody has ever done such things for me. Why am I so special for him? I’m tempted to ask but I don’t. Sometimes it is better to not know the answer. I tell him he can do whatever he wants to for me, with me.

  He takes me to the bathroom and makes me sit on the bathroom dice. He wets my hair and applies some shampoo. The way he massages my scalp is deeply arousing. Or maybe it’s the care. We women are so much about the process. I close my eyes and savour the moment. After he is done shampooing me, Atulit soaps me. I look at him transfixed. This is better than I had imagined. This, by far, is the best part of my vacation. It has the best balance of sensuality and emotions, which is what I was seeking when I came to Delhi. He turns me around but instead of soaping my back, he holds me tightly.

  ‘I’ve never had a woman like you, ever,’ he whispers in my ears. Does he know when a man makes a woman realize she is exclusive, special, not something random, what it can do to a woman? Uncompromised attention and emotional pampering is what we seek all the time.

  He wipes me with a towel, helps me slip into a bathrobe. As I step out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around my head, he asks me to make my next demand. Unknowingly, he is making sure I miss this vacation. I tell him I want to have something Chinese for lunch. He orders the food. When it arrives, he feeds me. And I have been the one feeding people all these years. The sudden role reversal is both exhilarating and pleasantly embarrassing. Why did I have to find a guy on Facebook to deserve this? Why didn’t my husband do this for me? Why don’t I ever feel this desired at home? I feel choked but don’t make it obvious. I excuse myself and go to my room.

  It’s evening. Atulit has come to drop me off at the airport. The last six days seem to have flown past. He is holding my hand. Sometimes tightly; sometimes gently. We reach the departures gate. I turn to look at him. I know my eyes are moist. What I don’t know is if it’s because my trip has come to an end or if I can ever take such a trip again.

  ‘Why are you crying? We shall meet soon. If you don’t come here, I’ll come to Kolkata. Any which way we are meeting,’ he says.

  NO, we won’t. Ever. Only I know this. I don’t tell him that. He kisses my hand. I kiss him on his cheeks. And without any further delay, I let go of his hand and walk in through the sliding doors. I turn to look at him. He waves at me. I have a lump in my throat, identifying the same hope in his eyes as I had on the first night of my marriage.

  While collecting the boarding pass, the alarm rings. I call my husband and tell him I’m about to board soon. I deactivate my Facebook account before my flight takes off. Once I land, I break my phone, the SIM card, throw them in the dustbin. And walk out of the Kolkata airport. Only for me, it feels as if I’m waking up from a beautiful dream. But now I don’t know why I feel like I’m cheating on Atulit more than my husband.

  * * *

  Alarm seven: 5.30 a.m.

  Radhika.

  It feels nice to hear my real name after a week. Everyone is happy I’m home. They don’t have to rely on themselves any more. I’m also happy I’m home. I don’t have to rely on others for my own happiness any more. Last week is enough for me to sit down in solitude and spend the rest of my life reminiscing about it. I know I will go through everything that happened again and again and again in my mind, making different versions—good and bad. Sometimes smiling to myself, at times feeling choked. For the world, if it ever came to know, I will be called unfaithful. But for myself, I am a woman who did what she wanted to do, for the first and the last time, without disturbing any equilibrium.

  It feels funny to get into the same routine after a week’s break. I feel a renewed energy in me. For my family, I have come back after bidding goodbye to a dear college friend. But my demeanour tells them otherwise. Not that anyone has confronted me about it, but probably they’d expected a sad Radhika to have arrived from New Delhi. They are not to be blamed. How do I explain it to them that I needed this one week to know whether I was still the one I thought I was? I’m ready to confess everything to my husband but will he ever understand that whatever I did was not to cheat on him?

  I had missed Mini the most. I hugged her tight, feeling emotional, for a few seconds. She will soon grow up and get married. But I will never want her to undergo an emotional stasis. But maybe it is inevitable. I’m sure my mother must also have experienced it. The only difference between her and me is that I decided to do something to end that period. I broke the monotony of my domestic life. I may no longer be as interesting to my husband, but I felt the thrill of being desired and admired by someone much younger. And my life is certainly not mundane. I went on a trip that very few will ever undertake in their lives, scared to create creases in their otherwise smooth lives.

  My husband comes home from office in the evening. I have prepared his favourite dish for dinner. He gives me a box. It is a new phone. And a new SIM card registered on his name this time. The first thing I do after switching the phone on is set the alarm at 5.30 a.m. From tomorrow onwards I will be Radhika Bose again. The one my family knows. The one I know as well.

  Tomorrow Is Cloudy

  Minute One

  R orders a vegetable puff and a cup of coffee at the Costa Coffee outlet across the boarding gates at Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi. It’s 5 a.m. R has been at the airport for seven hours now. Her flight to Mumbai was scheduled at 11 p.m. last night but due to inclement weather conditions—there was too much smog and visibility had dropped to zero—it has been delayed. Her husband had advised her against travelling during such a time but that didn’t stop her from making the trip.

  R waits for her food to arrive, yawning every now and then. After a long time, she had stayed up all night. A Costa staffer places a tray in front of her and leaves. She picks up her cup of coffee and notices that all the nearby chairs are empty. She chooses the one closest to her. She takes her time sliding into the chair. In her second trimester now, she is finally getting used to her changing body than she was in her first. She tears open the ketchup sachet with her teeth at one go. It reminds her of someone who had always told her that she had really sharp teeth. But instead of sachets, she’d be nibbling and biting that someone’s skin. The thought squeezes out an impulsive faint smile. As if it had all happened yesterday.

  R bites into her puff and takes a sip of the coffee. She looks around. There’s a smoking zone adjacent to the food court. R has somehow managed to stay away from cigarettes since she got pregnant. Her husband and her in-laws don’t know that she used to be a smoker. As her gaze travels from one person to another in the smoking room, it finally comes to a stop on one man. Only his side profile is visible. That’s enough for her to know who he is. She feels a thud in her heart. She stops chewing the puff.


  * * *

  N slept more than he thought he would. He slept through the alarm that he had set for 3.30 a.m. It was only when his wife called him at 4.30 to find out if he was ready to leave the hotel that he woke up. In the next fifteen minutes, he freshened up, checked out of the hotel, and took a cab to the Delhi airport. He had to catch a flight to Hyderabad. He took out his cigarette packet after clearing the security check. Empty. He threw it in a nearby dustbin, located a counter where he bought his brand: Marlboro. It was while he was waiting for the shop boy to give him change for Rs 2000 that a woman came up to the counter; she asked for a Davidoff. It reminded him of someone. A nostalgic smile lit up his face. He had once played a kinky game with a cigarette of that brand. One cigarette, two people, each allowed to take puffs alternately. Whoever finished the cigarette first got to sexually enslave the other for a whole day. The moments, the puffs, that someone . . . everything flashed in front of him. Certain memories never fade. He took the change and headed towards the smoking room. Before entering, he got himself a coffee from Costa Coffee.

  There weren’t too many people in the smoking room. N lit his cigarette and took long puffs, exhaling gently. Flying out on weekends had become a routine since he had taken up the latest project in his office. It was exhausting. Flights, hotel rooms, boardrooms, meetings . . . life had never been this monotonous.

  N was about to stub out his cigarette when he found a person staring at him from outside the smoking room. From across the stained glass doors, the woman’s features were blurred but there was no mistaking her. Hot ash from the cigarette fell on his finger. It hurt but he didn’t flick it away. It had been ten years since he had last seen her, since they had sworn never to see each other again.

  * * *

  Minute Two (R)

  The moment our eyes meet, I look down. But I am immediately seized by the desire to look up at him. To see if he is still looking at me. That would mean he had recognized me. I was hungry a minute ago but I feel suddenly full now. I put the puff down on the tray and pick up the coffee instead. Reflexively, I look up at him. He’s still staring at me. I know that look. If only looks were letters, I could decode each and every word of that look.

  I feel slightly nervous. I didn’t know I’d feel so when I’d see him next. I place the mug on the table, get up and leave. As I pass by the smoking room, I find him shuffling out. I pray he doesn’t call me. I had planned to pretend not to recognize him if I ever ran into him. But one look at me and he will know everything. He always knew where to fish for my secrets—in my eyes.

  Dragging the Samsonite along with me, I briskly walk towards my boarding gate. I have a strong urge to turn and see if he’s following me. If he is, I want to know if he has been trying to seek me within him all these years.

  I check my boarding pass; five minutes are left for boarding to start.

  Although it has been a decade since we last saw each other, I have imagined this situation a hundred times. What if we bumped into each other? Every time I had the same answer: so what? I will pretend not to remember him. Now I realize that this pretence won’t work. It’s for the world. But with one’s self, only unadulterated honesty works. But such honesty has more questions than answers. For example, how do you insulate yourself against the best memories that you’ve had with a person whom you can’t have? But then having him within is also having him, right? Just like we retain the moral of a story heard in kindergarten throughout our lives, we keep the thoughts of a person we loved forever. People without thoughts are only bodies. And mere bodies don’t make any context. They are like words that can’t do anything without a context. Within one, they seem magical. Anyone can play with words. But not everyone has stories. N and I were stories.

  Actually, I never really let go of N. Never really forgot him to not be able to remember him after a decade. He was always there in my heart, alive and alongside every event of my life.

  I feel a little tired. I must tell this to my gynaecologist in my next visit. I have been feeling tired more and more frequently these days. I reach my gate, sit down and place my Samsonite next to me. From my vantage point, I can see him approaching me. I pray that we aren’t on the same flight. His slow gait makes me wonder: certain vulnerabilities shouldn’t be granted wings. For they fly you to a place called chaos.

  * * *

  Minute Three (N)

  I look at my watch. I fail to remember if it’s day or night. She hasn’t changed much. I remember her well. She has put on some weight. So have I. She wears specs now. So do I. She has changed her hairstyle. I sport a stubble now. She looks like a woman now. She was too much of a girl back then. I too was a boy. The similar changes make me feel as if we were together apart. I remember I have half an hour before the boarding starts. I stub out the cigarette and leave the smoking room. By the time I reach the Costa Coffee counter, I see R walking towards the boarding gates. I notice the half-eaten food on her tray and wonder if I should read more into it than required. If it’s a signal? Follow me; don’t follow me? Too cryptic. I leave for my boarding gate as well. She may think I’m following her but I’m not. All right, maybe I am. I check my watch again.

  I remember telling her once that what a soul is to a body, time is to a clock. And we were about the time and not the clock. I forgot the context of that line but I remember her looking deep into my eyes and saying nothing on earth could take her away from me. We separated a few months later. But she was right. I’ve revisited our story many times after our break up. Over the years, I got convinced that if we were in a relationship now we would never have separated. It was a mutual decision, and yet I keep going back to it, correcting the mistakes, smoothening the edges, perfecting it. I’ve a wife now and a two-year-old child. I love them. But what I had with R seems more alluring in hindsight. Maybe because I didn’t live it completely like I’m living the life with my wife and kid.

  I can easily walk past her but I don’t want to. I can approach her and exchange pleasantries, engage in friendly banter. I won’t. I just want time to slow down. I don’t know when I will see her again. Just the mere sight of her has jolted me. If someone had told us about this future encounter ten years ago when we were together, we’d have probably said that we would sneak out and make out like two animals in heat in an elevator or something. And now I’m afraid to make eye contact with her again. We were two wild birds once, who could fly high together but never make a nest. We were each other’s choices but always whined about each other’s preferences, lifestyles, dressing sense, etc. I don’t know which is more painful: the fact that we didn’t survive or that we survived fine without each other. It makes me wonder about the frivolity of promises in a relationship. When I was in it, towards the end especially, everything felt like a punishment. Years later, I find that experience educative. I want to know if she is happier without me. The memories of our days together sometimes poke me like thorns when I unconsciously reach out for them. Is she happy teaching me not to believe in something wholeheartedly since everything—just about everything, doesn’t matter how promising, beautiful and in control—runs the risk of getting completely destroyed?

  I notice her sit down. I understand that she is pregnant. She looks up at me. I want to but I can’t take my eyes off of her. Should I smile? Or just stare?

  * * *

  Minute Four (R)

  Our eyes are linked. Is it a game already? Who will deflect the gaze first? I don’t. He doesn’t either. He is standing at some distance from me. His eyes had contained a raging fire once upon a time . . . I want to know if that fire is still on. Maybe it is still there but I can’t feel it any more. Earlier I would get burned in its intensity. And that was the ultimate pleasure. To burn in a fire fanned by the one you love. A point where lust and love diffused into one and you couldn’t distinguish one from another except for focusing on the innate pleasure that it gave you. I never felt it with my husband.

  It’s not that I never loved my husband. I couldn’t love him. N
ot after N. I felt as if I had been emotionally hijacked. Then I started hating N. I felt like a puppet in the hands of his memories. I started feeling as if I didn’t have any control over myself, or my heart. To compensate for the lack of passion, I became extra dutiful towards my husband. I didn’t give him a chance to complain, neither as a wife nor as a person. I didn’t become meek but rather more adaptable, adjusting. A quality I didn’t have earlier, which is what had led to our break up. Should I tell N that I’m finally the person he always wanted me to be? There’s a lump in my throat.

  All these years, I had a vague, apprehensive feeling of having lost something. But I couldn’t quite figure out what it was that I had lost. Tonight I know. I lost our love story. It remained unfinished. Had we not had a history, our gaze might have lingered on each other for a tad bit longer—strangers who caught each other’s fancy in a half-deserted airport in the wee hours of the morning. But we share a past, our story is not complete.

  N was there the night I conceived my first baby but neither he nor my husband will ever get to know this. The pregnancy was unplanned. My husband and I were on a houseboat in Kerala. I intuitively knew that I would get pregnant that night. And I wanted nothing more than N to be there where I took on the role of a mother. I also wanted him to be the cause of this change and he was on my mind during the act. From the time my husband penetrated me as I closed my eyes till he was done and I opened my eyes, N was there within me. I cried myself to sleep after we were done, thinking I would finally be someone he didn’t know. I have a lump in my throat now and my eyes are moist. But I won’t rub them. He might guess that I’m crying. And I don’t want that. Tears are dangerous. Tears give people, especially the ones who had been the reason for them, a chance to see your soul naked. And that’s the one nudity you feel more scared of than shyness.