Chapter 34
IRA
By late afternoon, the sky had turned a deep, honey-orange hue, and the rhythm of the village seemed to settle into the second line of a song.
Women came out, chatting in hushed tones as they headed to the market, baskets on their waists.
Goats lazily returned home, their bells ringing like a soft chime amid the stillness of the fields.
The air, filled with the scent of fried fritters and mustard oil, had a sweet layer I couldn't yet name, the promise of a festive evening.
Prashant and I had returned from our cycling trip hours earlier, but my heart hadn't quite settled yet.
Everything was still fluttering, like the prayer flags hanging on the wall of a monastery, their colors faded but their purpose still strong.
Our home, this quiet, ramshackle house along the ribs of Srinagar, resonated with a peace that felt both new and ancient.
The place was too small for the burden of fear, too soft for the sharp edge of trauma.
I walked barefoot through each room, grounding myself on the cool earthen floor, memories of his childhood bubbling from the walls: a son, a dreamer, a boy who never imagined what he would become.
As the sun set, the village lit up, not with electric lights, but with the soft light of life.
Small paper lanterns, painted with intricate designs of flowers and birds, lined the streets, hanging from tree to tree.
It wasn't a national holiday or a formal celebration.
"Just a fair," someone had said, an evening when people dressed well and remembered that happiness needs no invitation.
I put on a light maroon kurta with a golden dupatta.
I wore matching accessories and a little makeup.
I forgot to worry about whether I looked like a soldier's wife or just a woman who was starting to fall for her husband.
All that mattered was how the touch of the soft fabric felt on my skin, an effortless comfort in a complicated world.
Prashant was waiting at the door, wearing a white kurta pajama with his sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He was the epitome of effortless modesty, a stark contrast to the coiled tension I knew still existed inside him. His deep, dark eyes lingered on me for a moment, a moment of quiet assessment.
"You look just beautiful," he said in a low, warm murmur as he handed me a shawl.
"Thank you."
He smiled crookedly, a slow, gentle twist to his lips. "I never thought you could look this beautiful in suits and sarees."
"I'll also look good in bikinis," I winked, making him break into a laugh.
He took my hand, his fingers clasped in mine as if he didn't trust himself to let me go once he had me.
I didn't pull away as his touch was a bond.
We walked along the paved path that led through the village.
Lanterns fluttered overhead as if the stars were pretending to be closer than they really were.
The air was filled with voices and the shrill, unabashed laughter of children running between food stalls and handwoven bamboo swings.
He brought us tea in a kulhar and offered it to me, a gesture of intimacy that felt impossibly vast. It was too hot and too strong.
I grimaced, my eyes watering slightly. He laughed, his voice emerging from deep in his chest, a sound I hadn't heard in so long that it sounded new again.
He laughed like a boy who had never seen cruelty, never known the crushing weight of silence.
"I forgot you hate strong tea," he said, smiling.
"No," I whispered, my voice barely above a whisper. "I just forgot what it feels like." He looked at me, his smile turning into a quiet question.
"What?"
"Being in a place where life is allowed to be ordinary."
It silenced us both because neither of us had been living ordinary lives for a very long time.
I saw the ghostly flicker in his eyes, as sharp as muscle memory.
I knew he was recalling something, and it wasn't the taste of tea.
It was something deeper, something that slowly ate him alive, his haunted memories.
I squeezed his hand, just once, in silent support, and he stopped.
A woman with silver anklets gave us puffed rice wrapped in newspaper. Prashant told me about his school teacher, who used to punish him when he wrote "Soldier" on his hands and in his notebook. The memory was so special, so innocent, as if someone had lost their life.
"Prashant..." An old man approached us. He was half-drunk and completely lost in nostalgia, hugging Prashant tightly.
"I thought we had lost you forever," he said in an emotional voice.
I saw Prashant soften, accepting, allowing himself to be seen once again, not as a uniformed man, not as a broken body, but as a man who had once stolen apples from trees and was chased with chappals.
By nightfall, we returned to our house, carrying a lantern and a bag of fried bread filled with anise and jaggery. The moon was shy but full, its light a gentle splash of silver. Inside, the house was quiet again. Not the empty silence from before, but the silence that only follows laughter.
We didn't turn on the bulbs, preferring the dim, flickering light of the lantern.
We placed it near the threshold and sat outside, backs against the cold wall, legs stretched out on the open veranda.
There was a new chill in the air, but we were close enough to warm each other.
Above us, the sky was torn into constellations, a vast, swirling galaxy of stars, waiting for the Dawn.
"I kept staring at him," Prashant said, pointing upward, his voice low and husky, a voice that seemed to come from some deep, hidden place. "In captivity."
I didn't ask which one. I just waited, my heart beating like a quiet drum against my ribs. I knew he would tell me when he was ready.
"It was all I could see through the tiny window above the metal door. Every night, the same piece of sky. That star," he said, drawing a line in the air, "the one at the end of the hook, that was mine. I gave it a name."
"You gave it a name?" I smiled.
He nodded slowly, thoughtfully. "Ira."
My breath caught. I blinked, trying to understand the sound of my name on his lips. "It was my... name."
"I know," he whispered, and the quiet determination in his voice broke something inside me. "I just missed you so much." He swallowed hard, looking away from me.
I looked down, focusing on the tips of my feet that were hitting the edge of a discarded lantern wick. The world seemed distant, blurry.
"I'm sorry... I..."
"I think we should not talk about it," he said softly.
We didn't speak for a long time after that. The air, once filled with words, was now filled with the sound of the wind rushing through the poplar trees and the distant barking of a lonely dog. It was a silence that carried the weight of a life lived and a life lost.
Then, he spoke again. "Want to know who broke me?"
I slowly turned my head and met his gaze.
"It wasn't a pain. Or blood. Or noise," he said, his voice low and hollow. "It was the silence after that. When I came back. When everyone looked at me like I was a hero, not a ghost."
I reached out and took his hand and placed it on my chest, over my heart.
"Do you feel that?" I asked, holding his eyes. He nodded, his eyes gazing into mine. "That's the sound of someone waiting for you." His eyes shone in the moonlight, a fragile hope seemingly alive.
"Even if I forget to come back?" he whispered.
"Then I'll come get you."
Silence. Just then, a firefly flickered above us. Then another. And another. Soon, the trees surrounding the house lit up with soft, flickering lights. It was as if the universe itself was responding to our shared moment, a silent, beautiful affirmation.
He looked at me, his eyes wide with surprise, a boy again. "Ira..."
"Yes?"
"You're not real, are you?"
I smiled, a sad, knowing twist to my lips. "There aren't any stars either," I said. "But we still look for them every night, right?"
He didn't say anything again. He just pulled me close, not like someone seeking comfort, but like someone choosing a home. He put his lips on my temple, and I closed my eyes, remembering how his heartbeat fluttered, steadied, and finally met mine.
"I hurt you, didn't I?" I mumbled into his chest. He kept quiet, but I knew his answer would be yes.
"Let's not talk about it yet," he said after a few minutes and scooped me into his arms effortlessly.
"Prashant, stop it, what if your mother and sisters see us like that.
.." I punched his chest, but he just took me into our room and laid me on the bed before starting to rip my clothes one by one.
In the next moment, he was buried deep inside me with so much need.
That night, we made love slowly, passionately, and lovingly.
God, I loved this man.
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