Chapter 28 #2
“It was you,” Atharva gnarled. Shock arrested him — body, mind, tongue.
“It was so clean, how could I not see it?” Atharva’s eyes cut to Adil. Samar felt all the blood leave his head. He would fall. He would lose whatever senses were left. His knees began to buckle.
“Atharva…”
“Leave.”
“Atharva, listen,” he concentrated on his breathing, feeling his ears pop.
"I didn’t intend for this to happen. I wanted to help…
” he muttered without making sense of half of his words.
“Both you and Adil. But none of you confided in me. I asked you again and again. I called him every alternate day to ask!”
“And if none of us said it then it meant we didn’t need your help!” Atharva thundered.
Samar jolted. His eyes widened.
“You didn’t need or you didn’t want?” He hissed back, finally back in control. The haze cleared, the ringing silenced, and now his rage erupted, out to fight Atharva’s rage.
“You again wanted to protect her and her father,” he pointed to Iram behind him. “You knew Adil would bury it all on your one command. I wouldn’t.”
“If I chose Adil, it was for a reason. And if I didn’t involve you, then that was also for a reason.”
“In this, I wasn’t about to let you go solo.”
“So you kidnapped Adil and sliced him open?”
He stilled. “I…” he opened his mouth, then shut it. “I… never intended for anything to happen to him. All I wanted was to secure whatever he had discovered. But he didn’t have it… my men couldn’t get anything out of him. Then he escaped and his guard tried to scare him with a knife.”
“Your guard had to know that man was a soldier. Nothing scared him. Nothing.”
“Listen, Adil, he is…” his voice broke, “as much mine as he is yours.”
“Leave.”
The shock returned, this time with fear.
“Give me a chance to explain properly. I know you think what I did was wrong, my means were, I know. But try and see it from my perspective. My intentions…”
“Leave.”
Panic was creeping up his body. Samar stared at Atharva. A wall. Nothing could get through to him right now. He himself wasn’t in a condition to say anything sane right now.
So he turned and did what he always did best — walked.
————————————————————
Samar sat on the windowsill in his room. He knew Atharva would come. When, he did not know. But he knew Atharva would come before the night was up.
It was past midnight when the door of his room was thrown open.
“How is Adil?” He asked.
“Alive,” Atharva closed the door. “You didn’t leave here.”
“Don’t I know you would have me watched?”
“Why.”
“Atharva…”
“Why.” He crossed his arms across his chest, looking calm enough to listen.
Samar sighed. “You kept me out of this. I asked, I hinted, I even gave you opportunities… but you didn’t let me in even when you believed Adil was gone. You knew Aamir Haider is a personal thorn. You knew how badly I needed this closure…”
“That’s exactly why I kept you away!”
“That was not your decision to make!” Samar shot to his feet.
“And so you went and kidnapped our friend. Then you kept him for weeks, god knows in what condition, and stabbed him?”
“I swear to you that was not how we kept him. I… shit. Adil was kept very well. But he wouldn’t give anything. Patience was wearing thin. And then… one of my men tried alternative tactics…”
“Fuck you.”
“I didn’t know until it was too la…”
“Fuck you, Samar.”
His head was exploding. Samar pulled off his spectacles and shut his eyes, hanging his head to get the blood flowing. It was too bad to settle now.
“What did Sufiyaan Sheikh offer you?”
Every remaining wall closed in on him.
“In return for Iram.”
“I did not…” Samar looked up.
“Don’t deny it, Dr. Dang. I am now in contact with your militia leader.”
Faris? But he had spoken to Faris only two hours ago… or how long had it been?
The floor began to vibrate beneath his feet. The one thing he had under his control… His throat dried up. His head began to feel woozy again. How long had it been since he had water? Before he lost control, Samar let himself sink down on the bed.
“On that night when I went after her,” Atharva advanced on him, “only you knew our location. How is it that in a matter of minutes we were found by Sheikh’s men even when I had covered all our tracks?
You want me to believe they found us without any tracks, without any light, in a thick, ice-covered forest? In just twenty-six minutes?”
“It is not exactly how you think…”
“You did that to a woman who came under our shelter? She was a KDP employee, our responsibility.”
Samar opened his mouth but he lifted his hand — “How do you live with yourself?”
“Because my intentions weren’t…”
“You threw her to the dogs to get raped!” Atharva bellowed. “You were a doctor. A soldier. You were meant to heal even the enemy if need be. I didn’t know your hatred for Aamir Haider would run so deep it would destroy every bit of human inside you.”
“I didn’t do it for my vendetta. Damn you, Atharva, I did it for you!
” Samar roared, putting his specs back on and shooting to his feet.
“I never meant for her to go through that. You think I am a monster? I was only looking out for you. For KDP. You were so blinded by her that you had lost sight of what was important. I declined Sufiyaan every time he came to me. Every time. He came thrice. I said no every single time. I wouldn’t let him near her.
But that last night in Leh, you were edging on madness.
And I thought… I thought maybe if Sufiyaan Sheikh and Sayyid Butt talked to Iram, convinced her to go to her father’s party…
then maybe you would start looking at yours again!
All I did was inform Sufiyaan Sheikh that you had left her alone in Leh.
He had the time and space to approach her. ”
“Are you naive or are you purposefully trying to act it? Because the Samar Dixit I know reads people like this,” he snapped his fingers. “You gave Iram into the hands of that beast, knowing he had raped and killed his way through innocent women!”
“She was like a sister to him, he said so himse…”
“Fuck you!”
“Atha…”
“Fuck you, Samar! And fuck your lies.”
“They are not lies!” He stepped up into his face.
“Whatever I felt feasible at that time I did! I did it to save us.! Look how you destroyed your hard-earned reputation in just one confrontation with that police officer. All because of her! Atharva, I tried to drill into your head that you, your persona, your life is not bloody yours. It is a hard-built illusion of so many of us. Day in and day out we work so that you are made into this hero, this leader, the CM Kashmir wants. Your media team, your PR, the financiers, party workers, we — the core team. We all do it. We make you. And I wasn’t about to let our work of years go down the drain with one girl’s interference. ”
“Now we are talking,” he clipped. “I didn’t know you and everyone else took credit for my life.”
Samar swallowed, shaking his head. “I never intended to put her through that. It was only meant to be a conversation. He would convince her to come to her father’s party.
That’s it! I didn’t even know he was going to take her from that train.
I didn’t know she was on that train until her friend came running to me with your message!
It was too late then, I couldn’t backstab him or he was ready to kill you.
His men were already near you. Mine were nowhere close.
I made a deal with him, your life for Iram. Why do you think they left you alive?”
“Because he couldn’t afford to take me out just after tipping sympathies in his favour! You fool!”
Samar recoiled.
“He made a barter where he was already getting what he wanted and doing what he was supposed to do!”
“It still kept you on your feet!”
“Rationalising every mistake of yours was ok until it was only the two of us. I kept forgiving everything you did, always, always thinking about what you had gone through. But this, this is unforgivable. What you did to her. What you did to Adil.”
Desperation was an emotion that hit you out of nowhere, and reminded you of how helpless you could be for somebody.
It hit him now, and made him ready to reduce to the thirsty, delirious man ready to run back across for Chaturvedi.
It made him 4 years old again, crying because everybody else was crying in the house as his mother was carried away on a plank, four shoulders, red shawl, flowers.
“I am sorry,” Samar cried without crying. Atharva was the only tree he could hold onto. In any season. If this went…
“You wouldn’t believe me now. But I am truly sorry for what happened. I regret it, and I admit I made a mistake in trusting Sufiyaan Sheikh,” Samar beseeched. “For all the grudges I hold, I wouldn’t do that to her. You know I wouldn’t.”
Atharva stepped back.
Chaturvedi was dying, his mother was being carried away, nothing was stopping.
“I give you until tomorrow evening to resign from KDP. No reasons justified, only that you do not wish to continue in politics anymore. Retire from this field. I will help you set up any business you want as long as it is far away from this city. You will cease to have any contact with your private army. They do not belong or report to you anymore. Until you submit your resignation you will remain under house arrest. If you don’t resign by EOD tomorrow, I will be forced to take this to the founders’ table. ”