Tinka’s eyes kindle dangerously.
‘D’you usually go around kissing your friends?’ she enquires. ‘Is that a Chakkahera thing, an IAF Fighter thing, or just a Baaz Faujdaar thing?’
He stares into the fire and says in a quiet voice, ‘That kiss happened by mistake.’
‘Oh!’ It is a hot, angry exclamation. She puts her hand on his shoulder and twists him around to face her. ‘By mistake. So you were, what, aiming for my cheek?’
His jaw tautens.¸
‘Yes.’
‘You know, I find that really hard to believe.’ Her voice is scathing. ‘You can hit a guava at forty feet, and you downed a moving Sabre through the clouds while your own plane was bouncing up and down like a ping-pong ball, and yet, you missed a cheek at close proximity, even though it’s at least four times as large as a mouth?’
He doesn’t say anything.
‘Ishaan?’
Why, each time she says his name, does his heart turn over inside his chest? He has tried to hold out, not phoning her, keeping busy, busting the shit out of his punching bag. But now that she’s here, he knows that he’s been only half alive since the last time he’d held her in his arms.
He turns towards her, grasping her hands, his grey eyes agonized.
‘Please don’t make this harder than it already is!’
‘Please be talking about your erection!’
Shaanu’s jaw drops. Practically incandescent with embarrassment, he manages to utter one scandalized word.
‘Tinka!’
‘What?’ she demands, fighting back tears.
‘You can’t just say things like that!’
‘Why?’ She is half-crying, half-laughing, as she falls into his lap. ‘What are you telling me, Ishaan?’
He pushes her away gently to the other side of the couch, places a cushion firmly between them and begins stroking the hair off her forehead with unsteady hands.
‘Dilsher’s dead. He died even before his zits cleared up, the poor bastard.’
‘Which is horrible and tragic,’ she replies swiftly, ‘but that’s got nothing to do with—’
‘I got hit by flak again this morning,’ he interrupts her. ‘Raka’s engine flamed out when he landed. And we fly again tonight – anything can happen.’
She hugs a cushion fiercely and stares ahead of her with blind eyes.
Shaanu continues to speak, his voice toneless.
‘Poor Raka’s all messed up with worry about Juhi. He told me on the ride back home that I should thank my lucky stars I’m an unattached bachelor.’
She snorts rudely.
‘What? I am unattached.’
‘Really?’ she says witheringly. ‘Then why did you say on the dance floor that evening that we have a connection?’
Shaanu, valiantly trying to stick to his resolution to have nothing more to do with her, replies unwisely, ‘Because your ad is so hot. Hell, I bet the country’s full of men who feel they have a connection with you.’
‘Fuck you.’ She scrambles to her feet, furious.
‘I didn’t mean that!’ The words are torn out of him. ‘Okay, look, listen, it would never work out between us, Tell-me-na,’ he says pleadingly. ‘You hate what I do. Don’t you?’
‘Where are my shoes – where are my shoes?’ She is weeping, wiping her nose on her sleeve. ‘I want … to … leave.’
‘You despise the fauj.’
‘Yes.’ She stops scrabbling around the floor and looks up. ‘D’you want to know why?’
He sits forward, the grey eyes sympathetic. ‘I’ve got a theory,’ he says gently. ‘But tell me, anyway.’
So she tells him. It is a jerkily told story, with many pauses.
About how, after the ’65 conflict, Jimmy, the golden war-hero son General Ardisher was so proud of, hadn’t been able to cope with the enormity of what he’d done. How he’d been wracked with guilt, tracking down the families of six Pakistani soldiers he’d killed, staring at the pictures of their widows and orphans, aching to make amends. And how, in spite of psychological counselling and everything, he’d finally shot himself in an attempt to find the peace that eluded him.
By the time the story has been told, they’re lying on their sides, facing each other, all thoughts of leaving forgotten.
‘Wow.’ Shaanu kisses the palm of her hand. ‘That explains a lot.’
‘Yeah.’
‘So now you don’t talk to Ardisher at all, huh.’
‘Ardisher’s just a moustache,’ she says hopelessly. ‘I can’t explain it – he’s getting more and more shrunken, and it’s getting bigger and bigger – it’s growing on him like a parasite, eating him alive! A big luxuriant moustache, flourishing on a diet of pride and pompousness and warped patriotism! I hate it – and him.’
She goes silent now, all talked out. Silence reigns in the room for a while.
Shaanu drinks in the sight of her, revelling in the pleasure of looking at her so openly. The neckline of her navy blue dress has dipped, the hem ridden up above her knees, her short tumbled hair seems to have golden highlights. He strokes the length of her body, committing to memory the smooth calves, the narrow knees, the generous swell of thigh and hip. He can tell, from the way she moves below his touch, that they could be making love right now, here, beside the fire.
Finally he says, his voice tender.
‘So much love for Pakistanis and so much hate for your father?’
Her head comes up with a jerk, her eyes kindling.
‘Meaning?’
He shrugs. ‘If you’re such a pacifist, show some understanding for him too, ne?’
‘But you hate Chimman!’
‘I’m not so sure of that any more.’ He says slowly. ‘Besides, okay, you lost a brother, but your father lost a son, he must be grieving also! He has no other children – he needs you.’
She’s sitting bolt upright now.
‘He wouldn’t have lost a son if he’d been a better father!’
Shaanu sits up too.
‘That very thought must be driving him crazy!’
Silence.
Ishaan leans in, closer to her.
‘Tinka, it seems to me that your brother was a sensitive type. Like you. Poetic and all. Mein maanta hoon, your father shouldn’t have forced him to join the forces, but—’
‘My brother wasn’t weak!’
‘Arrey, did I say he was? He’s a hero. They teach about him at the IMA.’
‘They teach all the wrong stuff,’ she says fiercely. ‘All that crap you were telling me that day about hatred for the enemy, channelling your bloodlust, Pakistan murdabad. That’s animal behaviour!’
But this is too much for Ishaan.
‘Look,’ he says frankly. ‘Say what you want, but I won’t hesitate if I have to kill some Paki soldiers – and I won’t be racked by guilt afterwards either! They’re enemies of India, and it’s my job to kill them, to protect our civilians and keep the country safe. It’s that simple. Trust me.’
She sits up, her eyes swimming.
‘Can’t you just quit?’ she says desperately. ‘Leave the IAF and get a job in, oh, I don’t know, Air India?’
His jaw tautens stubbornly.
‘I love my job. This war will probably be the most important thing to happen to my batch from the College. The timing’s perfect – people go for years waiting to see action, and we’ve been handed a full-scale war on a platter! Why should I miss out on any of the fun?’
She pulls away, her expression sickened. ‘You said fun.’
‘It was just a figure of speech,’ Shaanu says, not very convincingly.
Tinka backs away.
He looks at her, worried.
‘I didn’t mean it that way, I meant action, fighting, striking a blow for my country … Damnit, don’t go … don’t misunderstand ya!’
But she has risen to her feet and made it to the door, and this time she finds her shoes.
‘You’re just like my father.’
He knows this is the worst thing she can say – and it hurts like hell that she’s saying it. But he doesn’t argue, although his Kota-grey eyes flood with regret.
‘Tinka, go back to Delhi, or Bombay – and take your aunt with you. This area isn’t safe for civilians any—’
‘I’m going to Dacca,’ she cuts him off in a tight little voice, ‘to report on the atrocities. To get the world’s eyeballs to swivel to this part of the world. To somehow get the insanity to end.’
‘You’re doing nothing of the sort!’ He gets to his feet in a flash. ‘You can’t—’
‘Oh yes, I can. And you,’ her voice grows bitter, biting, ‘can enjoy the war.’
TEN
Pomfret’s wife, a stringy, battered battle-horse of a lady who spent her peacetime days pottering dreamily about her garden and pretty much letting the younger women run things, has now shaken off her inertia and resumed charge of the Air Force Wives Welfare Association.
‘To prepare you for war,’ she explains with grim earnestness, clad in a smart navy-blue cardigan and a chic grey silk sari that reeks fearsomely of mothballs. ‘Because you’re fighting this war as much as your husbands are, my dears.’
Everybody nods, including Juhi, who is seated bang in the middle of the circle.
‘No weeping!’ says Mrs Pomfret sternly, inhaling through flared, battle-ready nostrils. ‘No whining! Remember, this is real life, not Sangam or Aradhana in which IAF officers die ekdum phataak se, after getting the heroine pregnant. Statistics show that eight out of ten IAF Fighters survive war. So please don’t panic!’
Hai hai, shubh shubh bol, chudail, Juhi thinks resentfully. Eight out of ten, indeed. Your husband survived three whole wars, why won’t mine? Do you think I won’t fast and pray to Laxmi-Ganesh as hard as you did? Cow.
‘Cry as much as you like in your bathroom,’ Mrs Pomfret continues, ‘on the phone to your mother, or here in this strong supportive circle of women – but never let your husband see your tears. Nor your children! Continue with the homework and make sure they brush their teeth twice daily! If you break down, they will too. In the three wars I have lived through with my husband, I have never ever let him see me cry!’
Chalo, main toh already fail ho gayi, Juhi plunges into despair. Raka sees me cry every time he leaves! But it’s not easy for me – if I were married to a miserable, dried-up old stick like Pomfret and there was a chance that he might die during a sortie, I would wander around the house with a stupid grin plastered to my face too. But I’m not married to an old stick, I’m married to Raka, who is handsome and loving and funny and has the most darling gappuchee cheeks and the bravest moustache in the world…
‘Unlike our sisters in the Army, whose husbands fight at the borders, far away from home, we Air Force wives are in a privileged position,’ Mrs Pomfret says. ‘We stay right here at the Air Force Station, and our menfolk fly back home to us every night. Therefore it is not just our duty but also our privilege as Indian Air Force wives,’ Mrs Pomfret waxes eloquent, ‘to be a calm harbour away from the stormy seas of war, which is a navy metaphor, of course, but will serve for us as well. If your man comes back confused and guilty, reassure him that he is only doing the morally correct thing, the patriotic thing, that his nation is counting on him. If he comes back shaken or aching or mentally broken, resurrect him as only a woman can, so that he rises again…’
Juhi’s eyes widen. Around her some of the teary-eyed young wives smother giggles. A vision has risen before their eyes, unbidden, of Mrs Pomfret resurrecting Pomfret and making him rise again…
‘Umm, Mrs Pandey, are we talking about, er, the bedroom?’ asks one of the young wives.
Mrs Pomfret smiles, showing ancient, wizened dimples.
‘Yes, my dear. We’re talking about the bedroom – and about romance and marvellous highs and lows and all that fluff.’ She gives a long, dreamy sigh. ‘It’s one of the few – in fact the only perk – of wartime.’
That’s true enough, Juhi thinks, doleful again, her mood mushing up and down as badly as Raka’s MiG on a steep-glide dive. Her nights under the olive-green mosquito netting have been reaching ecstatic heights. There is a new edge to their love-making now, and all the stress Raka is under has melted the slight pudginess that had started to creep around his tummy, thanks to her ghee-laden cooking. Hey Bhagwan, what kind of evil wife is she, rejoicing in her husband’s newly taut tummy when he could be shot out of the sky any time?
All in all, she thinks as she surreptitiously wipes tears from her downcast eyes, she prefers the ho-hum, slightly pudgy, peacetime sex.
‘And please use contraception, ladies, unless you’re planning to have a baby without the government-advised three-year gap. We aren’t a bunch of village women here!’
With a few last words on keeping an eye on the poor bachelor officers who have no womenfolk at home to look after them, Mrs Pomfret winds up her act. The ladies sip tea, nibble on little snacks and then trickle out.
Raka is out on sortie, so Baaz is waiting to drive Juhi home. His Gnat needs some solid repair work, he brought it back so leaky and battered and riddled with shrapnel that he’s on the ground for the next two days.
With Mrs P’s winding up remarks very much on her mind, Juhi makes Baaz come into her quarters, brews him a hot mug of adrak ki chai and places a stack of homemade matthri at his elbow. He demolishes them with mechanical gusto.
‘How are you, Baaz?’ she asks, watching him eat. ‘Sleeping well?’
‘Oh, yes,’ he assures her, chewing busily.
He looks so drawn, Juhi thinks with a guilty pang. But then, they all are. And there are shadows under his eyes.
‘Are you drinking enough water?’
He glances up with the ghost of a grin.
‘Yes, doc.’
She ignores this crack.
‘And showing off on sorties. Raka said you took too many risks yesterday.’
He shrugs. ‘Somebody told me to enjoy the war.’ He looks up with a savage little smile. ‘So I’m doing just that.’
‘Thhhutt!’ she says, distressed. ‘Wing Commander Carvalho also na! What a stupid thing to say.’
Silence. Shaanu chews. Juhi watches him with some unease.
‘Any news from your family?’
The grey eyes light up a little.
‘All fine,’ he says. ‘The girls have started at Sophia Convent now. Sulo was offered a double promotion, but she decided not to take it. Pitaji got angry, because it would’ve saved him one whole year of fees, but she said no. She’s smart, that girl.’
‘That’s great,’ Juhi says brightly. ‘And how’s your pitaji?’
‘As kameena as always!’ Shaanu rolls his eyes with a flash of his old affectionate energy. ‘And how are you? You look thin. Your cheeks aren’t as pink as they used to be!’
‘Yours aren’t too pink either, okay!’ she retorts, her vanity piqued. ‘It’s because I worry about all of you. Raka, of course, but also Maddy and you – because you’re my bachelors and I’m supposed to watch over you. How’s Tinka?’
She slips the name in as quickly and as naturally as she can, but it is no use – it emerges from her mouth clumsily, clunkily, calling attention to itself, the elephant in the room suddenly acknowledged, demanding discussion and closure.
Shaanu, who has been layering his matthri with achaar, puts it down and glances at her, the grey eyes so vulnerable Juhi has to look away.
‘I don’t know.’
Hai hai, Juhi thinks, her heart sinking at the dispirited tone of this confession. He is in love with that complicated female. Hamara Baaz! How horrible.
She reaches for his hand.
‘She’s … in Dacca, right?’
He nods. ‘That’s all I know.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes,’ he says shortly.
‘Baaz…’
‘Do you know’ – he looks up at her restlessly, his gaze painfully intense – ‘what Napalm can do to human
skin?’
‘What? No.’ She looks confused.
‘Yeah, well, it’s petroleum jelly mixed with gasoline, so once it’s ignited, it sticks to your skin and burns there at temperatures as high as 1,200 degrees centigrade. Water boils at—’
‘100 degrees, I know.’
‘So it’s a terrible, unnecessarily cruel way to kill. Our Hunters have been dropping Napalm on the Pakistanis. If they ask me to drop it, I’ll quit.’
If Kuch Bhi Carvalho had been present, he would have told Shaanu to shut the fuck up. Nobody stresses out the ladies with this kind of information, and besides, Shaanu’s puny Gnat is too small to carry the massive Napalm bombs anyway. But Old KBC isn’t here. And nothing Mrs Pomfret has told Juhi has prepared her for this.
‘Baaz,’ says Juhi, deeply distressed. ‘Baba, don’t think about things like this. You can’t just quit, abandon your duty! You’re being silly, and anyway, what you’re saying doesn’t even sound possible. Are you an ordnance expert now? How do you even know what different bombs do?’
He looks evasive.
‘I read it somewhere.’
Quickly, he downs the rest of his tea.
‘Stay for dinner,’ Juhi says inadequately, because she doesn’t know what else to say.
‘I’m going down to the boxing ring.’ He gets to his feet and gives her a reassuring grin. ‘Don’t look so worried, Juhi. Everything’s fine. I’m way too good for anybody to down me, and the maintenance crew is superb, so the machines will never let us down! And you’re praying for us, aren’t you?’
She nods fervently. ‘Every day.’
He hugs her.
‘Thanks for the matthri.’
‘Anytime.’
• • •
Hosannah Carvalho has inherited a stash of pornographic magazines from Pilot Officer Dilsher Singh. There had been a stack of them under the mattress of his bed in the Officers’ Mess, and his room bearer had dutifully cleaned them out before Dilsher’s mother arrived, teary-eyed and heartbroken, to pack up his room. The shattered room bearer, who had been very close to his Officer, had handed the sordid little bundle to Wing Commander Carvalho wordlessly at the funeral ceremony. It is sitting at his desk in the office.
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