by Kota Neelima
Mira hadn’t thought of that.
‘The moment I realized you were headed home from the lane,’ he was curt, ‘I decided to come out of hiding because I knew you were in danger. I didn’t have to rescue you if, as you allege, I had lied. I called my aides at once and gave them my location, then contacted everyone who had been hunting for me.’ His face turned stormy as he recounted, ‘The more I begged them not to harm you, the clearer it became how important you were to me, and you became the target of revenge against me. On way to your home, I finally called Nalan and asked him for help. He too knew of the risk you faced, and was upset that I couldn’t prevent you from leaving the lane. Then he called the men waiting for you to negotiate a deal to save your life at whatever cost.’ He added gravely. ‘And the cost was my life, my career.’
Stunned, Mira heard him in silence and assessed his every word.
‘In return,’ Sikander continued, ‘the concession I got was that I could talk to the assailant and delay him for a while. I accepted it; I had no choice and hoped I would reach your home before the attack took place.’ He stopped, disconcerted. ‘I was wrong, I reached after.’
Mira waited, as he spoke his mind. And his heart.
‘As part of the deal,’ he revealed impassively, ‘I surrendered to Nalan, and he took charge of the tapes. It didn’t really matter.’ He stopped, lost in thought. ‘I still remember the number of vehicles that waited for me at your gate when I arrived. Everyone knew; the world was convinced of how much I cared for you.’ He smiled ironically. ‘Everyone except you!’
Mira met his tragic eyes in silence. For just that one moment, she couldn’t help wanting to give in, trust him blindly and let go of herself. She wished she could.
‘Why play these games, Sikander,’ she chided him, hiding her desperation, ‘when we both know why you rushed to my rescue? You knew your political career couldn’t have survived my murder, but that dramatic rescue to save my life has done wonders to it. You, in fact, rescued yourself.’
He studied her for a while without answering, his dark eyes level with hers. Then he shook his head in disbelief.
‘Don’t miss much, do you?’ he mentioned appreciatively.
There was a long silence between them and even the birds of his garden sounded guilty.
‘I did miss one thing though,’ she said at length, angry that she felt vulnerable again. ‘Why did you have to desecrate my pain? You knew it was all I had in my life that was truly mine.’
Sikander stared at her, speechless. Then made to get up and come to her, but she asked him not to.
‘How do I make you believe me?’ he demanded, dismayed. ‘It’s mine too, your pain,’ he insisted, anguished. ‘You disregard my suffering because I don’t matter to you. If I did, you would discover that I am you, there is no difference.’
She chuckled cynically. ‘Those words again! You drove me from that lane with those dangerous words,’ she whispered, as her eyes threatened to fill up again. ‘You shouldn’t have, you know. I was destroyed!’
‘And how about me?’ he frowned. ‘You destroyed me too when you left me in that lane because you feared I might be right!’ His voice softened. ‘But that’s all right, Mira, I fear you too.’
She stared at him, lost. Once again, he was accurate and she looked away hurriedly as her eyes spilled again. He reprimanded himself.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, remorseful. ‘You’re right, no more words from me.’
She couldn’t speak. She sat with her head lowered and her palm was now pressed harder to the bandages to control the pain.
‘I compliment your strength for coming here today and your strategy,’ he said. Then asked her gently, ‘What do you want me to do? What is this meeting really about?’
It took time for her to speak. ‘I want you to expose the men who planned the attack on me. You must speak about your reasons for hiding, and your motives for making the tapes. You must give an interview, along with Nalan, to the media.’
‘I’ll speak only to you,’ he said. Then pointed out, ‘But it would undo the impact of the tapes. Those who are named in the tapes will use the circumstances as an excuse and escape from consequences.’
‘Not if you provide evidence you have against them,’ she whispered, her voice faint.
‘And if I don’t?’ he asked seriously. ‘Will you really expose me, damage me? Don’t I mean anything to you?’
She impatiently glanced at him. ‘Want to find out?’
He considered her grimly. ‘What about Nalan? Or isn’t it the same?’
‘It’s not the same,’ she agreed, troubled. ‘That is a different mask, a different truth.’
Deciding to leave, she made to stand and held her breath in pain. She moved her hand to hold the chair and discovered the blood on her shirt. Sikander quickly reached out to help, but Mira restrained him again. He glanced at her questioningly, and she waited until he stepped back.
Sikander demanded, ‘Why won’t you let me help you?’
She weakly apologized. ‘It’s just that I need to forget your words, thoughts and presence in my life in the past few weeks. It’ll be easy, like turning the pages of a book, just a memory,’ Mira explained. ‘But if I have your touch to forget as well, it’ll be tougher; more like burning the pages of a book, a cremation.’ She added quietly, ‘I don’t like to do that.’
He stared at her, stunned.
Mira slowly struggled to her feet, and amid the agony that blinded her, she remembered the words that had made her endure an even more cruel and insidious torment than this. She wanted to leave him with similar injuries, the kind that get deeper with time. He stood at a distance, his hand desperately clutched the back of the chair.
She now answered his message in the notebook, ‘Although I packed diligently, there may be things that I leave behind. Put them in a dusty corner somewhere, so you won’t stumble upon them everyday. And throw them out of your heart,’ she met his devastated eyes with satisfaction, ‘when you make space for someone else again.’
There was silence after those words. Even in the garden outside.
Twenty-Three
Three days later, on that Thursday afternoon, Mira sat in her living room and read the extensive coverage of the tapes in the previous weekend’s magazines. It was a bright day, and the sunlight was extracting memories of rain from the reluctant foliage of trees. She had returned home on Tuesday from the hospital after the second and much briefer stay; Salat had driven her there from the Bansi residence after the meeting with Sikander. The wounds had reopened and bled again, as if she had been attacked again. The doctors didn’t believe she had merely talked briefly and only walked a little. They accused her of deliberately sabotaging her recovery, and once again reprimanded her for being suicidal. Mira couldn’t explain to them why the wounds were open, why they bled. She had been too weak for that meeting with Sikander. And soon, she would have to confront Nalan Malik. She had known, as the doctor gave her permission to go home the next morning, that she would return to the hospital within a few days.
Nalan had called when she was unconscious, and Salat had briefed him about her condition. She left her stained shirt in the hospital, she didn’t want Nalan to find it. But he had sounded deceptively calm on phone when she had talked to him the same evening. He was very understanding about the wounds and did not mention Sikander. Mira smiled to herself now as she turned the pages of a magazine. Like every good politician, Nalan knew the importance of timing.
Mira looked up as the key turned in the lock and the main door opened. People spoke in low voices, and a stranger came in carrying a duffle bag. Alarmed, Mira slowly stood up with the support of the chair. He was equally alarmed and glanced at someone behind him to whisper something.
‘What!’ she heard Nalan exclaim. ‘She is standing in the living room?’
He came into the house and stopped, looking at her in delight. ‘And here we were speaking softly, thinking you lay dying in bed.’ He dropped th
e bags he carried and rushed to hug her.
Mira laughed and held him close. ‘I’m trying. It takes time to die properly.’
‘And practice, by the looks of it!’ he said, as his anxious eyes scanned her face. ‘You look fatigued.’
Mira didn’t know what to say, how to match that affection in his voice.
‘No matter. We will set that right soon.’
Then he turned to introduce the men who stood at the main entrance. ‘This is my team and our luggage. Hope you don’t mind, we’ll be here just for a few hours.’ He explained that they had come directly from the airport and he had to attend a long meeting in a few hours. So instead of going to his office to work, he had come to see her first. His staff had to prepare the summary of the state tour he had just finished, and he was scheduled to brief the party leadership at that evening’s meeting. Mira invited them in and he thanked her, then went to his staff to give some instructions. Two men sat at the desk, and the third settled on the floor near the wall. Nalan pushed the last chair to a corner for her from where she surveyed, impressed, how swiftly her living room was turned into an office. They worked efficiently and fast, finding data, maps and quotes of people interviewed. Nalan paced the room, dictating the report, and his staff completed it with the appropriate references. He seemed weary, his white shirt and dark trousers wrinkled with travel. But when he found her studying him, he smiled and his brilliant eyes sparkled.
After half an hour, Nalan’s phone rang, and he walked away to answer it. A break was called by consensus and the men relaxed. By now there was paper everywhere, bottles of water, shoes they had taken off, cell phones, notebooks and other stuff. She nodded as one of them asked if he could make tea. Another went into the balcony to smoke. The third one, who was on the floor, leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. She was wondering if he had gone to sleep so quickly, when his cell phone rang. He answered and introduced it as Nalan’s number. He listened for a moment, then explained to someone that the other phone was busy because Nalan presently talked on that line. He promised to give the message to him and ended the call. They heard the main door open again, and Nalan returned. He tolerantly scrutinized his dispersed staff.
‘Fine, take a few minutes off!’ He smiled helplessly, then pushed one of the empty chairs next to hers and slumped down in it, tired.
The man on the floor said, ‘There was a call for you, sir. It was Sikander Bansi. He said he tried calling on the other number, but it was busy. He wanted to know if there was any change in the schedule for tonight.’
Nalan stared at him, speechless.
‘He meant the meeting, sir,’ the aide mentioned helpfully, ‘at your residence.’
Mira glanced at Nalan, waiting.
‘I know he meant the meeting,’ Nalan answered his aide curtly. ‘And yes, tell him it’s on.’
Then he turned to her, his brown eyes reflecting the sunlight carefully, as if it could start a fire.
She suggested quietly, ‘We should talk.’
He nodded gravely and requested his staff to leave the room. When they were alone, he said, ‘Let me explain . . .’
‘Please don’t.’ Mira stood up with effort. ‘I don’t want to know more than what I believe.’
Nalan watched her anxiously. ‘What do you believe?’
‘I believe Sikander when he said he gave those instructions to the assailant before he attacked me.’
‘Then we should lodge a police complaint against him, shouldn’t we?’ he asked calmly. ‘That’s a confession to a crime.’
She stood at the windows. She didn’t want to hurt Nalan and it didn’t matter what he had done. He was different from Sikander. He didn’t show his injuries, he didn’t live them like Sikander. He carried his pain like a secret letter in his heart, folded between past and future, hidden in every sliver of time.
‘What are you thinking Mira?’
Distracted, she said, ‘I don’t want you to lodge any police complaint.’
‘Why not?’
‘As a favour to me.’
‘You know the police already suspect Sikander and all they need is evidence.’ He pointed out, ‘This is evidence.’
‘Not if we don’t tell the police.’
‘Don’t tell the police that Sikander plotted to kill you?’ Nalan inquired placidly. ‘Even after he has brazenly owned it up?’
‘That’s not the entire truth,’ she remarked, her voice subdued.
Nalan didn’t speak for a second, then asked cautiously, ‘You think he lied?’
‘He didn’t lie,’ she answered, forlorn. ‘There is a difference.’
Nalan regarded her for a moment from the chair, then came to stand behind her. He held her shoulders and gently said, ‘Tell me, what’s the difference?’
She closed her eyes, tensely, as his touch weakened her.
‘You want to protect Sikander, isn’t it?’ his voice was soft with envy. ‘You can’t hurt him, can you? That’s why you believe him and not me.’
She turned to face him, anguished. ‘Be kind, Nalan,’ she begged him, ‘and tell me the truth for once! Don’t you think I would be lost if I believed you?’
He was distraught. ‘What’re you saying, Mira? I would be lost forever if you don’t believe me.’
Tired, she leaned against the windows. ‘It has been two weeks since the attack and I haven’t said a word,’ she spoke feebly. ‘I thought there may be a better explanation for what I know and I had to meet Sikander to be sure. How I wish I hadn’t!’ she said, defeated. ‘I wanted to believe you, I hoped you would be innocent of my death, not guilty.’
Nalan frowned at her words, and noticed the way her hands trembled as she held the window behind her for support.
‘You wanted to find Sikander when he was in hiding,’ she whispered. ‘You knew the threat to my life would force him to surrender, not just because he cared for me but because he couldn’t have survived the controversy. You would have won both ways, even if I had died. There was no downside to this plan, except that you would have lost me. But perhaps,’ she paused in thought, ‘that’s not a downside.’
He didn’t speak, although his thoughts told her she was wrong. But she had been fooled by his thoughts before.
‘You see,’ Mira explained, ‘the assailant made two phone calls to his employers. He talked to Sikander on the first call. I discerned Sikander’s name in the assailant’s thoughts as he received the instructions to find out if I had any last wish. Sikander was on his way to my home, and he was buying time.’
Nalan heard her in watchful silence.
‘Then there was a second call,’ Mira considered him steadily. ‘The assailant made this call just after the attack to give a description of the wounds. He confirmed that he had followed the instructions, and that the injuries were fatal.’
Nalan froze in shock and Mira looked at him resentfully. ‘You wanted to know if it was over, if it had been painless. You asked him, “Did she feel it?” He answered, “A little”. You even asked if I was bleeding too fast. He said no, but . . .’
‘Mira!’ Nalan interrupted, shaken.
There was silence for an instant.
She watched him with distrust. ‘That first clue from Sikander was the key, wasn’t it?’
He didn’t answer, still stunned.
Fatigue made her voice faint as she continued, ‘Sikander’s clue was his confession, and all you needed was a crime to pin it on him. My death could have easily looked like his doing if it was executed the way he suggested. And there had been so many suggestions; the “suicide”, the “accident”. But you preferred the knife!’
‘Why, I wonder?’ She struggled to breath. ‘Was it because it was to be a punishment, not just a killing? A punishment for being the object of Sikander’s interest . . .’
Her legs gave way, and Nalan moved swiftly to keep her from falling. But she weakly pushed him away and leaned against the windows again. Nalan stepped back, his pleading eyes, tormented.
He folded his hands and heard her in a resigned silence.
‘You were with me all these days because you used me as a hostage,’ she accused him. ‘You thought that would keep Sikander from bringing out the tapes against you. But he still did.’ She smiled weakly. ‘You don’t know Sikander at all if you thought he would give up the chance to damage a rival for any consideration, even to save my life. He knew you would implicate him if anything happened to me. That’s the reason why he wanted me to stay in the lane. And when I didn’t, he knew exactly whom to contact to manage the attack and plan the rescue. You!’
Mira faltered and bent forward in pain, holding the bandage at the waist. Nalan observed her in silence, his face set resolutely.
‘I had no idea,’ he said at length, ‘that this was something you wanted to hear. I thought you would be reluctant about the ending this could inevitably bring.’ He nodded and then said coldly, ‘But I can do this.’
He came up and helped her stand again.
‘I realized the moment the first tape was published that there would be more recordings against me. I knew Sikander wouldn’t spare me; I wouldn’t have, if I had been in his position. So I immediately planned to counter it, and the best way to do that was through you.’ He thoughtfully pushed away the hair that fell on her forehead. ‘It was easy gaining your confidence, and when the time was right, I commissioned that attack against you. The plan was to kill you, and you are right, I would have ensured the blame fell on Sikander. Well,’ he smiled, stiffly, ‘things don’t always work out the way one plans, do they?’
Astonished, Mira stared at him and made to move but he held her close. ‘Why, not the story you expected?’ he asked deliberately. ‘Let me try again then!’