Chapter 44 #2
Two tender curves touched her eyebrows. “He has been home for two weeks and has already doubled in size. He still looks like an alien though. Begumjaan started calling him Arth and I think it’s very cute.
Can you believe Atharva is a Dad? ATHARVA!
He has been the party Dad since forever.
And now look. He is already getting him started on his old songs.
Ada was complaining to me while downloading new old songs on her phone,” Amaal laughed.
“He has Atharva’s eyes, all grey. Want to see? ”
Amaal tucked her hand inside the pocket of her scrubs and came out with her mobile. “My gallery has never been so full of my own photos. When Iram comes, I will…” she stopped. Her eyebrows wobbled.
“Amaal.”
Her eyes met his, mobile frozen between her fingers.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s ok. Tell me, whatever it is.”
Her shoulders tightened. Then she burst out — “What the fuck is she doing?! Who leaves their baby like this? And the baby girl… oh my god, I cannot think like that right now, there is too much going on for me to lose it.”
“Come here.”
She stared at him.
“Come here, Amaal.”
She covered the three steps between them and stood in front of him.
“Put my specs on.”
Blue irises widened.
He stared, commanding her with his eyes. She reached down to his bedside table, picked up his specs and put them on him.
“Do I look like the old Samar?”
She smiled. Nodded.
“Then tell me like the old Amaal.”
Tears burst out of her eyes and she buried her face in her hands. “Fuck I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“I have promised to be strong for you and every time I am crying in front of you.” She moved her head from side to side, rubbing at her face but keeping it hidden as she cried. “I am so sorry.”
“For what?”
“For being angry at Iram. I don’t even know what happened that day.
I was here, I didn’t get the news until very late.
And not knowing why she left is… she could never!
She would never leave Atharva! Especially not after what happened.
That car was wired for her. She had to know what Atharva went through.
She had to know what you went through for her!
” She pulled her hands, enraged. “When I meet her again, and god make me meet her again, I will first tell her how she has missed her son’s milestones and never show her these photos and then scream at her for what she wasted!
The man who jumped into that car for her, who is still in so much fucking pain every day, and she ups and walks away from that life without a backward glance? ”
“Give me your mouth.”
“What?” Her eyes bugged.
“Give me your mouth, Amaal.”
“You can’t be…”
“Don’t make me repeat it.”
With shaky fingers, she snapped the elastic of her mask and came closer.
She wasn’t even halfway there when he craned his neck and took her mouth in his.
This time it did not end at a peck. He pushed his tongue inside that red mouth and stroked her tongue, consoling her, quietening her, comforting her the only way he could today.
She went breathless and pulled back with a pop. Her wet face was struck, reddened. The blues of those eyes were shining.
“How can you do this?” She murmured.
“Do what?”
“Make me… without even touching me?” She looked around the room, her cheeks bright. Samar began to feel like a man again. He pressed his mouth to her cheek, and she bent down until his lips were on her forehead.
“Tempers and emotions are running very high for us,” he told her. “That must be the case for everyone outside as well.”
She nodded.
“Thank you for carrying all this alone.”
Amaal pulled back, sitting down on her chair and gazing up at him with that smile that showed him her dimple without the mask — “Hmm.”
————————————————————
“Ashutosh shashank shekhar chandramoli chindambara… Koti koti pranam shambhu koti naman diga…”
Samar startled awake. Who was patting his back?
He turned his head, and found that nobody was.
“Samar.”
He stared up at the ceiling. Amaal’s face came in front of him. She bent down, splaying her hand over his forehead.
“You still have a fever.” She pulled back, striding out of the room.
He closed his eyes, trying to reach back into that voice.
His mother’s voice. He heard the nurse come in and stab more antibiotics into his IV.
His last grafting had caused another infection in his left lower extremity.
The result was this fever which was not letting up.
“Hey,” Amaal’s palm patted at his forehead again, smoothening her fingers over his eyebrows. Apparently they were growing back. He hadn’t seen anything of his own face, wasn’t interested.
“Hmm.” He opened his eyes, meeting smiling blues again. “What?”
“You are hot, Daaxsaab.” She smirked through that translucent mask. Samar sighed, failing to return her amusement today. He had missed the voice. He wanted it back. Badly. All the comfort of his agony was in there.
“What’s wrong?” She pulled her chair closer to his bed and sat down, not taking her hand off his forehead.
Samar stared quietly at the ceiling. He had never said her name out loud. Never said that she existed, though the entire world knew she must. He had been born of a mother, after all, hadn’t he?
“Can a secret be in front of the whole world and yet still so hidden that nobody sees it?” He asked.
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
He blinked, his eyes burning.
“When I was driving that car and the timer kept beeping, I was ready to die. One part of my brain was working on taking the car as far as I could and the other part was blanked out because what do you think at the moment of death? I wasn’t even able to say my mother’s name like anybody would as a reflex when they get hurt or are about to get hurt but she sang to me and I don’t even know how I remember it because she has never sung to me in what little I remember of her but she was singing, and I was too small to remember but she was with me and holding me and singing like she wanted me to listen to her, grow up with those words, imbibe them in my life.
I was going to die and she kept singing, patting my back, holding me close.
I keep hearing her singing to me again and again, and they are words that I remember but don’t know from where. ”
He huffed, catching his breath. Silence embraced the room again.
“What does she sing?”
“Something about Shiv.”
“You don’t know it?”
“I don’t know it but I know it.”
“Maybe she sang to you as a baby?”
“Maybe.” He kept staring at the ceiling.
“What happened to her?”
Samar stilled.
He turned his head and looked into her eyes.
“My father killed her.”
Amaal did not react. She stared into his eyes just as unflinchingly as he stared into hers.
“When I was four years old. He hit her so hard one day that she did not get up again.”
She did not react.
“He made a story that she fell off the ladder while climbing up to the roof and died.”
Blue eyes were unyielding.
“They lifted her arthi in front of me and I tried to jump and latch onto it.”
She still did not react.
“They made me carry her matka and see her antim sanskar.”
Nothing changed on her face.
“That is all I remember about her. That last day.”
Amaal kept staring at him.
“There has been no safe place in the world ever since.” Samar turned his head back up to the ceiling. “Death would have been the safest.”
“Then why did you jump out of the car?”
Samar turned his head again, the blue bright and piercing into his own.
“Because you said Fuck you.”