Chapter 49
Routine life had a way of numbing animosities.
When you lived together, under one roof, you often woke up with last night’s grudges forgotten.
Because the milk needed to be heated, teas and coffees needed to be made, the cook needed to be briefed about menus, and reminders needed to be set for medicines and doctor’s follow-ups and traction sessions.
And by that night, when you fell into each other’s arms in exhaustion, even if distance persisted, kisses pushed all long-term pains under the rug in lieu of short-term peace.
Amaal discovered that life of routine, one that she thought every married couple came to live at some point in their lives.
It was just sad, she thought, two months later, that Samar and she were living it before even getting married.
Or being a couple like that. Their days were long, even in winter, and mostly spent apart.
Hers at the Secretariat, his mostly at home working remotely with HDP and KDP, and doing his rehab and physio.
Their nights were short, spent talking about work, the party, their common group of friends, and sometimes falling onto the sofa for a moment of reprieve from everything.
He hadn’t said it out loud, but he always blocked her advances on him.
She had stopped after the first two tries, because she saw how painful it was for him to hide it when she was not in a post-release haze.
Amaal had no courage to ask him upfront, and he was cowardly enough to keep it to himself.
For all intents and purposes, Samar was back inside his fortress, opening only the small window at night.
“Ab shishu ke saamne pustak, kataar aur kheer rakhiye[137].”
Amaal startled from her thoughts and blinked at the ceremony in front of her eyes.
She smiled like everybody else, beaming at Atharva and Iram sitting together for Yathaarth’s Annaparashan.
They had laid a book, a knife and a bowl of kheer in front of the baby, now a good six months old and sitting up to pounce on them.
“What is this for?” Atharva’s grandmother from England asked, curious.
“It’s a game,” he explained. “Whatever he reaches for, foretells his future.”
Atharva’s son went straight for the book and everybody broke out laughing.
Amaal laughed with them, the hall of Atharva and Iram’s house filled with their closest family and friends, along with the top party members who also happened to be friends.
Including Samar. She stood on the side, eyeing Samar on a chair beside Adil at the front, smiling too.
“Oops,” Adil joked. “Family profession over father’s profession.”
“Father wasn’t good with knives anyway,” Samar muttered dryly, throwing the men into their old banter.
More jokes were cracked, more barbs traded.
Amaal chuckled at the right moments, fixated on the back of Samar’s brown wool pheran.
It covered all of him, from the edges of his wrists to the high points of his neck.
Nobody could figure out that he hid scars underneath.
But he wasn’t really hiding them, not from the world at least.
“Shishu gyaani banega[138]…” the priest announced amid a round of applause as Arth hid his face in his father’s chest. Amaal blinked at the scene, and then she looked at how Iram couldn’t stop smiling at that sight.
Amaal’s heart thudded. She was so happy for her, so happy to see her as her again.
Despite everything Iram had lost, she had gotten this back.
Amaal knew that the road hadn’t been easy.
Iram still struggled with postpartum, and the remnants of her traumas.
But this end scene, like some credits of a romance thriller, made Amaal’s heart ache.
Her gaze went to Samar. Was there a future like this for them?
————————————————————
Samar parked the car outside their building and they got out.
He had started driving this week and still struggled with long distances.
Amaal saw him lock and unlock his knee as they opened the building gate and stepped inside.
She tucked her saree pallu around her hip, holding up her pleats with her clutch purse in her hand.
“Give it here.” He opened his palm.
“You’ll need to hold the banister to climb…”
“I’m fine.” He took the clutch from her hands and they ran into an old lady from the first floor. She was in her burqa, the niqab thrown back over her head. Amaal smiled at her as she grinned at them both, waddling down the last few stairs.
“Salamvalaikum,” she wheezed.
“Valaikumassalam.” Amaal returned, holding her hand until she was safely walking down the compound. Samar began climbing the stairs and she followed at her own pace. The silence between them wasn’t new. It was not uncomfortable for him. For her… her thoughts in this silence became uncomfortable.
“Oh!” She gasped. “I forgot the return gift bags in the car.”
Samar turned, eyeing her struggling to climb in her saree pleats.
“You go up,” he began to descend back down. “I’ll get it.”
“No,” she held his elbow. “Your knee is hurting. Give me the key, I’ll get it.”
He eyed her pleats.
“I can run in this saree. Should I show you?”
His mouth curved, amused. But he pulled out the key from his pocket and handed it to her.
Amaal turned, pulled her pleats tight and descended the stairs.
Just as she walked out of the dark alley into the bright sun, her breath came easy.
She walked to the car outside and unlocked it.
She pulled herself into the driver’s seat to reach into the backseat for the bags, grabbed them, and sat there for a second.
Amaal stared at the street in front of her, not knowing what to do.
She could call up Mom and talk to her. If she asked Dad, he would instantly ask her to just up and leave Samar.
They had been kept apprised of this relationship ever since the explosion.
And where her mother had not said a word against Samar or this relationship, her father had been dropping hints to leave him the moment he had recovered.
For two reasons — first, because of all the reasons that Samar had listed to her — the age, the physical limitations, the complexity, and second, because Samar meant a forever in Kashmir.
Dad would definitely tell her to leave Samar.
But it wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t bad at all. And yet it was.
She huffed. Maybe it was a phase, maybe she was exhausted. The last six months had not been the easiest, at home or at work. Yes, it was that.
She got out of the car and shut the door, pressing the lock to hear the satisfying beep. Amaal walked towards the gate and ran into the old lady again on the sidewalk, carrying a plastic bag of baqerkhani. They exchanged smiles.
“Shaadi se aa rahe hai?[139]” She eyed her saree.
“Ji nahi, Annaparashan se.[140]”
“Aapke shauhar zyada baat nahi karte, na?[141]”
Amaal’s smile fell. “Ji…?[142]”
“Zyada bahar bhi nahi nikalte… aaj kal hi nikalne lage hai.[143]”
“Actually… woh ek accident mein the, toh abhi abhi recover hue hai.”[144]
“Allah ne baksh diya.[145]” She patted her back. Amaal nodded, walking slowly through the gate with her.
“Waise building mein thodi baatein ho rahi hai aapke liye.[146]”
“Ji?[147]”
“Aap dono shaadi-shuda toh hai na?[148]”
Amaal blinked, offering her a smile that she hoped was reassuring.
“Secretary mere shauhar hi hai, unhe bas apna nikah nama de dijiyega… woh kya hai, sawal nahi uthne chahiye.[149]”
“Hmm…” she smiled.
————————————————————
Amaal shut the door of the flat that he had left open for her.
She set the bags on the floor and stood there, lost. She glanced at the kitchen that was once bare, now full.
She glanced at the hall that was her bedroom.
She glanced at the closed door of his bedroom, Samar’s fortress.
He was right, this wasn’t living together. This wasn’t even…
The bedroom door clicked open and he was there, changed into a pair of tracks and a thermal full-sleeved sweater. All covered up again.
“Why are you standing here like this?”
“Huh?”
“Amaal,” he stepped up to her. “What happened?”
She shook her head, licking her lips to moisten them. Suddenly, they felt too dry. Even her throat felt dry.
“Samar?”
“Hmm?”
She swallowed.
“I met that first-floor aunty downstairs.”
“Hmm?”
She stalled. Their eyes remained connected, and she didn’t know how to say it.
“Amaal.”
She inhaled and spat it out in one breath — “She thinks we are married or she implied that she knows we are not married but we should be and submit our nikahnama to the secretary who is her husband.”
Samar stilled. His jaw ticked. His mouth opened slightly. A second later, he closed it and nodded — “Then let’s get married.”
Yes. This was not it. This was not living together. This wasn’t her exhaustion of the last six months. This wasn’t any of that.
Amaal stepped away from him and walked into the hall.
She sat down on the sofa and reached down to unbuckle her heels.
One by one, staring at the window where the sun blazed over icy mountains in the distance.
She felt Samar’s presence in the hall. She did not look.
She set her heels down in one line and massaged the skin of her ankle, staring out aimlessly.
“You did not answer me.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
“What?”
“That was a compulsion.” Amaal found herself saying, the steel inside her forged after being liquid for so long.
“What difference does it make? End result is the same.”
She closed her eyes, feeling herself going farther and farther from him. Why was he hellbent on making this easier?
Amaal began to pull the pins that held half her hair up, running her fingers through her hair to release the tension.
“Amaal.”
“I am listening.”
“Look here.”