Five
Vikrant
I stared openly at the woman I’d not been able to forget or forgive for eleven months, twenty-four days, six hours, and thirteen minutes.
I knew it was a cowardly thing to do. Not informing her of my plan to visit and then hiding out in the cafeteria instead of manning up and seeing her the second I got here, like my defenseless heart wanted to.
But I needed time to compose myself. To find the right words. To build my walls back up.
Of course, everything had changed the second I saw her.
Walking toward the group with a determined, almost stalking stride.
Anika was of average height for an Indian woman, but she always appeared taller because of this air of ruthless confidence she had. The way she tossed her head in the air, like an arrogant thoroughbred who didn’t need to win any races.
And seeing her undermined all of my defenses, cracked open my heart like someone had taken a rib-cutter and physically put me on the operating table. I hurt. Every part of my body - bones, blood, the corpuscles that made up my flesh hurt.
How could she have stayed away for a whole fucking year without even talking to me? Did she not love me at all? Was our relationship based on chemistry and nothing more?
Was my mother right?
‘I don’t understand,’ Anika said carefully, disrupting the tragic train of my thoughts.
‘What?’ I asked thickly. Then I cleared my throat and looked at the worn Formica table. It was better than looking at the most unreachable woman on planet Earth and pining for her like a pathetic bastard.
‘We’re…we’re done. I signed the papers. But you want me back now?’
I nodded. ‘Yeah. Exactly that.’
She stared at me with wide eyes. ‘Have you lost your mind?’
I shook my head. ‘No, I’m perfectly sane. ‘My mother had me tested’.’
Unwittingly, a smile twitched at her kissable lips as I quoted the most famous geek in pop culture. Lips that were plumpy with gloss. ‘Stop trying to be funny or confuse me, Vik. Get to the point already. I have to go back to work in…’ She made a show of consulting the time on her phone. ‘Ten minutes.’
‘Right,’ I murmured.
Anika frowned. ‘Is everything okay? With you? Your parents?’
I grasped at the question with both hands. Gave the easiest answer. ‘Actually, no. Baba, my father... had an angioplasty last month.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ She sounded sincere. ‘I hope everything’s okay now? His meds are working out fine?’
I fiddled with the napkin holder. ‘Yes, he’s fine now. He’s grouchy about the no-salt, no-spice diet but fine, otherwise. Aai’s shaken up. She can’t believe her husband almost died.’
Anika shrugged. ‘That’s ridiculous. Angioplasty’s practically an outpatient procedure now, it’s become so common. There’s nothing for your mom to worry about.’
‘That’s what I keep telling her. But you know how she gets.’ I gave her a semi-apologetic shrug.
‘Yeah.’ Anika nodded shortly. ‘I can imagine.’
I almost sighed out loud. She was probably right in thinking my mother, who’d graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Home Economics from the local college in Aronda and never stepped foot beyond Goa, was a wreck. She was also a typical Indian woman of her generation – she didn’t wear her heart on her sleeve – choosing to suffer and die on the inside.
Unlike Anika.
‘Anyway, I came to see you because of them.’
‘Okay.’ She was cautious, I could hear it in her tone, see it in the stiffness of her shoulders. She was braced for one more attack.
I was hollow with grief that we’d somehow ended up here. Sorrier than I could ever tell her.
‘It’s Ganesh Chathurthi next week and you know we rotate between Jiten Kaka, Ramesh Kaka, and my home to keep the murthi.’
‘Yeah, I remember.’ Anika’s face softened.
I recalled that my extended family, my uncles and their wives and their children, adored Anika. She was feisty and fun, and she’d willingly pitched in in decorating their homes when I made her go home for a week of pujas and rituals. She didn’t even bitch me out for making her wear the navvaari and natth – the typical Maharashtrian attire for religious festivals.
In fact, she’d made unraveling the nine-yard sari into a striptease and I had…
‘Earth to Vikrant.’ Anika snapped her fingers and brought me back to the present. ‘You have a little drool coming out of your mouth, dude.’
I straightened up and ripped the bandage off the truth. ‘So, the family’s decided that because of dad’s attack it would be too much stress to keep the function at our family home. So, we’re moving it to my place.’
Her face pinched in confusion. ‘I thought Aai-Baba had moved in with you.’
‘No,’ I said shortly. ‘They didn’t. They still live in the old home.’
‘Oh.’ She paused for a second to process that information. And I remembered the biggest fight we’d ever had; it had been about this exact issue. Anika’s refusal to ‘adjust’ with my conservative, god-fearing parents. ‘I see.’
But she didn’t see anything, and I knew it.
‘Anyway, so I was hoping you’ll come back for this one week and help with the function. Guests will be coming and going from morning to noon and Aai’s stressed out between taking care of Baba and the cooking and everything.’
‘I…’ She bit her lip, and I wanted to do the same.
Calm the fuck down, Vikrant.
‘Your parents hate me, Vik,’ she whispered.
Age-old hurt and unresolved grief lighted her eyes from the inside. My parents were bewildered…confused, when I brought Anika home for the first time. They were simple, traditional people. Dad was the local school’s principal, my mother a housewife.
They didn’t get a girl who danced in the backyard when no one was looking.
They definitely didn’t approve of her.
‘So do yours,’ I shot back.
And that was true too. Some upstart do-gooder kid from a second-tier medical college with no money and pedigree was not a good match for the great and venerated Vivek Chakraborty’’s daughter. And what Vivek Chakraborty wanted, was law in their home. Anika’s mom was a shadow of her daughter’s vibrant, joyful personality.
‘Yeah, but my family does not pretend to be unhealthily attached to each other at the fucking hip. We’re happy to meet for Durga Puja once a year and stay out of each other’s lives the rest of the time,’ Anika murmured defensively.
‘We aren’t unhealthily attached to each other, Ani.’
‘This is getting us nowhere, Vikrant. We can’t talk for five minutes without fighting.’
Anika took a deep breath, and I was forced to glance at her loose-fitting scrub top. Her breasts moved against the stiff cotton fabric; the pocket torn at the edges. I wanted, so badly, to finger that tear. Then to move down to the end of her top and tug it off, all the while kissing her senseless.
It was soul-destroying, how much I could want her even though we were still fighting.
‘I don’t want to fight.’
‘Neither do I.’ She frowned. ‘And, anyway, we’re divorced now. I don’t legally belong in your family, do I? Not that I ever did.’
My heart stuttered at the casual way she said ‘divorced.’ Like she didn’t even care. It was horrifying how much that hurt. To know she didn’t care, this woman with whom I had built a whole life in my head.
‘I…’ I hesitated. ‘I haven’t told anyone yet about our separation. They think I come see you every two weekends. That you’ll join me in a few months once your resident rotation here is done.’
Her jaw dropped for the second time, and I had the incredible pleasure of making my ex-wife speechless.
‘So, you see. That’s why I need you to come back,’ I said quietly, my heart roaring in my ears. ‘Aai, Baba and Kaka-Kaki, my aunties and uncles, expect you home for the festival. And Baba’s condition is so delicate, I don’t want to stress him or Aai out anymore.’
She still said nothing.
I knew I was a bastard. It was unfair to ask this of her. She didn’t like my parents. She certainly owed them nothing. Her only fault had been to marry me. And that was now rectified. But I was going to anyway, because I owed my family that much.
‘It’s a week, Anika,’ I said softly. ‘It’s one week out of the rest of your life. I’ll tell them all the whole truth later. When Baba’s more stable. I’m begging you to help me save my father. I hope you don’t refuse me. Please.’
I reached out and caught Anika’s slack hand. The soft touch of her palm against mine, made the blood pump harder through my body. Like I had been electrified, in the best way possible.
‘Please, Anika. You won’t ever have to see me after this week.’
Anika slid her hand away, dropped her gaze from mine. And I felt deprived. Ended. But I knew I’d done this to her, made her hate my touch. That I deserved all of this. Didn’t make me feel any better but it was the bitter truth.
I nodded. Resigned. I was expecting this rejection, so it stung half a second less. She really had no reason to help me out after what we’d done and said to each other. ‘Okay. You’re right. I’m sorry. This isn’t your problem or your concern. I shouldn’t have come here and asked this…’
‘Okay,’ Anika said.
‘What?’ I stopped mid-speech.
‘I said Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll come to Aronda and pretend to be your wife for one week.’ She smiled and it was empty and heartbroken. ‘After all it’s just seven more days, right?’
Hope, that fickle bastard, raised his head again in my withered heart…