Epilogue
Cool. Tingle. Cool. Tingle. Cool. Tingle.
Cool air blew over him and woke him up. Samar blinked the crusted crystals of sleep, squinting at the sight in front of him.
Amaal, sleeping on his arm, the window, left open from last night.
He glanced down at her, breathing slow and deep, on her stomach, her legs scissored open to let his rest between them.
Samar stroked the length of her hair, pushing it off her back and kissing the skin between the straps of her top.
“Umm…” she fell off his arm and pushed away to her pillow, releasing the tingling sensation. He fisted and unfisted his hand, rolling closer to her.
“Samar, no.” She groaned as he slid his hand around her stomach and turned her over. “No… let me sleep.” She mock-cried, eyes squeezed shut. He smiled, looking at the deep, dark sky outside.
“I want to show you something.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Open your eyes.”
“No!”
He rolled over her and thumbed her eyes, fighting off her slapping hands.
“Samar I’ll kill you!” She snapped her eyes open.
“And now you are awake.” He grinned.
“What do you want?!”
“Come with me.”
“No.”
He crossed over her and landed on the floor, plucking his specs and putting them on. He leaned down to pick her up but she rolled away to the other side. “Ha ha!”
“Amaal.”
“Samar.”
“Move.”
“What do you want to show me at…” She glanced at the clock. "3 in the morning?”
He began to walk out of the room — “You won’t know until you come.”
“Why can’t it wait until morning?”
“That’s a slightly complicated question. I will add it to your biology lessons.” He crossed the threshold of their bedroom, pushing his mobile into the pocket of his tracks. His bare feet slapped on the cool floor and in ten seconds, he heard hers stomp behind him. Samar smirked.
“If it’s a bummer, I swear I will find that knife tonight only.”
“Second drawer of the main platform.”
Her arms came around him and she stuck to his back as they began to descend the stairs.
“Are you sleeping there?” He glanced over his shoulder.
“Hmm.” She was dragging behind him, eyes closed, a dead weight. He pulled her in front and set her head on his chest, walking them through the hall with her eyes still closed. Samar unlocked the door and kept going, her head lolling on him.
“Amaal.”
“Hmm…” she yawned on his T-shirt. “Don’t disturb me.”
He found the spot and fell back with her. She screamed, grasping his shoulders with both hands, eyes popping wide.
“Phew! Fuck…” She looked around and found them on the hammock. “Warn a girl. I could have bounced off.”
He pulled her fully atop him and used the momentum to throw the hammock into motion. “You fell on me, nothing was going to happen to you.”
All her grumpiness melted the moment the hammock swung. The wind swung with it, cutting through the trees over them and billowing. Amaal turned, lying beside him, mouth spread wide. “Wow… I remember it being fun but this is so much more fun.”
“Hmm?”
“Hmm.” She hid in his chest, fisting her hands there and staring up at the sky. “I forgive you.”
“How magnanimous of you.”
Amaal snorted.
“But this is not what I wanted to show you.”
“No?”
“You have already seen this.”
“Then?” She glanced at him.
“Look up.”
She lay back and searched the sky. “What am I looking for?”
“Stars.”
“I agree that the sky is clear of pollution here but I have seen brighter stars…”
“Can you see Saptarishi?”
She paused.
“Umm… I don’t know what’s that.”
He huffed.
“Don’t huff at me!”
“I am not,” he chuckled. “Look at that branch.” He pointed to a branch of the peru tree over them.
“Hmm.”
“Now follow the line of stars behind it. Can you see them? Going in a curve like a ladle?” He traced.
“Yes. Those four stars?”
“Yes. Those four and then three that go straight up, like the handle of the ladle?”
“Oh yes… one, two, three… seven stars.”
“Saptarishi.”
“I can see it!”
“Now, count the third star from the edge of the handle.” He held out his arm, pointing his finger. “One, two, three.” They counted together.
“That third star. Bright one? Can you see?”
“Yes.”
“Now look at the star above it, it’s very close but less bright.” He moved his finger up. She paused, trying to locate it.
“Aaah…! No… Oh! Yes, yes, it’s like in a straight line to it. That one?”
“Hmm. That’s Arundhati.” Samar told her. “The bright one is Vashishth. They are the binary stars Atharva was talking about.”
“You woke me up to show me this?”
“I woke you up because on the night of the wedding, a man shows his wife Vashishth and Arundhati. I didn’t know why, but after Atharva mentioned about them going around each other, I realised why.”
She stilled in his arms.
“Amaal?”
Her face turned upwards towards him, her eyes suddenly shining.
“What happened?”
“Thank you.”
He took her mouth into his. She kissed him back, her body losing whatever little tightness there was and completely melting into his. When he let her go, her eyes were still shining, but brighter. Blue of every open sky he had ever had the privilege to walk under.
“How do you know about this ritual? I have never heard about it.”
“They do it in our community.” He pulled her close, the hammock now still enough for him to adjust her position.
“I attended a wedding when I was a teenager and there they were making the groom walk out of the mandap to show stars to the bride. I also went, like so many other kids, to see what’s the hype. ”
“Then?”
“The Panditji murmured to the couple about things we didn’t really care about. But then he turned to us and asked us to learn how to locate Arundhati. He said we would need it too one day. And I went away from there.”
Her brows furrowed.
“I never would have married, what was the use of learning?”
“Ahem.” She pointed to herself. Samar smiled. “Hmm…” he looked up. “At that time I didn’t know you were coming and coming so hard that you would erase every trace of me. My father was right about one thing on his deathbed.”
“What?”
“That my fate was to die and live again. Samar. Imminent death. Rebirth after imminent death.”
“You have never spoken so… neutrally about him.”
“I have forgiven him and let him go. He and my mother started this family, in whatever circumstances that they did. I am not aware of what was before me. I am aware of the horrors that happened in front of me. And now even they are history, the wounds they left behind are history. For you, for the family that is to come,” Samar looked into her eyes.
“I have let go of what was. The good and the bad.”
Her face softened, that dimple popping up beside that small, round mouth. He pushed his thumb into it, eyeing the dusting of red on her forehead that was the most beautiful reminder of what was to come.
“What do you want now, Samar?”
He stared at her, for a long moment.
“Quiet.” He breathed.
“Should I stop talking?”
“Your voice is my quiet. The noise of decades has been washed away with it.”
She leaned up and kissed his chin, nuzzling there. “Hmm hmm.”
Samar chuckled, shifting to let her turn to her back again, reaching out his free hand to pull at the rope he had tied to a tree on the side for this express purpose. The hammock swung in motion again and she hooted.
“Faster.”
He pulled harder, holding her tighter, and the quiet of her laughter, the wind, and the future of his house drowned out the remnants of even the tiniest echo of yesterday’s noise.
Samar released every scream from inside him in laughter to match hers.