Chapter 2
Amaal huffed. Jameela aunty was a school friend of her mother’s.
Perfectly capable of everything, even when living alone, but she was mostly in a wheelchair after her accident.
She had cooked dinner for Amaal today, and what a dinner it was!
But the line was drawn when she insisted on coming out to walk her to Lal Chowk.
“Come on, Aunty, it’s all good…”
Amaal waited for them to approach. She twisted her neck sideways to take a peek. A leather jacket.
She screamed and pressed down on the spray, pushing it into the man’s face and getting his eyes before his hand caught her wrist and twisted it behind her back.
Her phone and umbrella fell. She raised her knee to hit him in the balls but he turned, blocking her blow with his thigh.
She tried to transfer the spray bottle to her other hand when he snatched it from her fingers.
“Jameela aunty police! Police call karo![23]” She screamed. “Police! Jameela aunty, Police!”
“Kat gaya.[24]”
She glanced up from the leather jacket in front of her to the head of the man.
It was a familiar face but she couldn’t be sure.
Amaal reared back, seeing Dr. Samar Dixit’s face in the shadows and snow of the alley.
Her thudding heart began to relax for a second before it started to beat furiously again.
He was a politician. What if he was a predator too?
This politics is gutter, do not go there, Amaal!
Dad’s words were mocking her now.
“Leave my hand,” she snarled at him, proud of her own voice that did not even as much as waver in this terror.
She felt marginally safer when he let her hands go, stepping back from his stance holding her knee back.
Amaal panted quietly, glaring at him through the falling snow as he clawed his damp hair back, holding up her bottle to read.
Pain Relief Spray
Amaal hid her panic and embarrassment as his dark eyes fell to hers. She studied his face. She had gotten a good spritz in before he had twisted her hand, hadn’t she? He did not look like he was even squinting, even though the air around them was permeated with the strong menthol smell.
“What are you doing here?” He clipped, his voice heavy. Rustle of footsteps disturbed the silent air, and she startled, turning back. Four men stood there. In pherans. He glanced at them, and they nodded. In the next second, they turned and scattered off. Amaal stared. Was he leading them?
“What are you doing here?” Amaal asked back.
His head turned to her, the stubble on his face suddenly hitting her full force.
Amaal stumbled. It was… scary, the way he looked at her then.
She gaped, horror-stricken, as he shook her spray bottle, pushed it under his leather jacket behind his back and sprayed. Her mouth twisted.
He took it out and offered it back to her.
“You keep it,” she whispered. It had gone under his shirt. Was she an unhygienic fool to accept it back?
“Keep it until you reach Lal Chowk.”
She stared disgustingly up at him.
“Why would you attack me from behind? Do you remember me? I came to interview with you… And even if you don’t, is this the way to follow a woman?”
His eyes pointed to the spray in his hand.
She did not want to touch it. The snow was falling on her face and hair, her eyelashes now milky.
Her vision had also gone hazy. Amaal used the back of her hand to wipe them clean before he grabbed her hand, unfurled her fingers and pressed the bottle.
She wrapped her fingers around it loosely, waiting to sanitise or wash her hands.
He bent on his haunches and gathered her mobile and umbrella, the latter with a broken wire now.
He held it out to her — “If you wanted to become the fourth wife of one of these militants, you should have informed us. We wouldn’t have initiated background verification.”
“What?” She scowled.
“Don’t venture this side after sunset if you want to keep yourself out of trouble.”
She stared at him, angry, appalled, shocked.
“Take.” He yelled coldly. She stiffened, eyeing her Blackberry and umbrella in his hand. Amaal reached for them and held the half-broken umbrella up over their heads.
“I have lived alone in London’s most dangerous neighbourhood and fended off three muggings for myself and my friends. I know how to handle some militant. Don’t lecture me. You could have said my name out loud and informed about your arrival.”
He looked at the pain relief spray bottle in her hand. She tightened her grip on it.
“What are you looking at? It does most of the work of a pepper spray.”
“I hope it can fire twelve hundred rounds per minute.”
“Huh?”
“The militant you plan to handle won’t wait to pull out his Glock.” He paused. “That’s a gun.”
Amaal opened her mouth when he stepped back and out of her umbrella. “Muggers don’t go around with knives here to snatch a chain. Terrorists roam with AK47s. Walk away now.”
She turned and began to push the bottle inside her bag when his curt command sounded — “Not until you reach Lal Chowk.”
She gritted her teeth, swallowing her anger in the light of logic. Amaal walked the rest of the way down the alley until the lights and sounds of Lal Chowk hit her full force. The commotion was real. People. Stalls. Mopeds. Cars. She breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to check.
He was still standing there. A dark silhouette in a leather jacket under the snow. If he wanted to keep an eye on her until she reached Lal Chowk, why make her hold the damned spray?! She pushed it inside a side pocket of her bag and wiped her palm down her pants. More washing today.
That’s when she recalled his words — initiated background verification.
That meant… she was in?