Chapter 7
Old Spice called out to her. She inhaled. It was stronger on her neck. She turned her nose in there and burrowed into the crevice, pulling the heavy woollen covering tighter over her. Her feet felt cold. But her chest was warm. Her face was covered in Old Spice. Atharva.
She popped her eyes open to darkness. And blankness.
Old Spice was heavy, but it wasn’t Atharva.
She patted the covering over her. It was his jacket.
It was like in the early days of their marriage, waking up to his head on her chest, holding her down, the mix of his sleep and last day’s Old Spice in her nostrils.
It wasn’t his sleepy scent right now but the Old Spice was unmistakable, like the renewal of life.
She inhaled a long whiff, bringing herself out of whatever nightmares had plagued her. He was here. And he had…
Her heart raced.
The cloud on her chest became a mountain. She couldn’t bear its weight. Iram jolted upright, rattling something from the bedside. It fell down with a thud and rolled.
A moment and a small light came on. Atharva was beside her in a second, hand stretched out with his finger on the lamp on the bedside. His grey eyes were squinted, roving her face as if she wasn’t Iram. With a dark sense of humour she realised she hadn’t been Iram for a long time now.
His scent was heavier, Old Spice warmer.
Mixed with something sweeter. Milk. The kind that she had expelled from her breasts for long weeks.
The mountain on her chest lifted, became a cloud again.
She searched his eyes, the realisation coming on the heels of that determined expression in his gaze.
He could not lie to her about this. About their children. About their lives.
They had survived? Something so dead and lifeless inside her began to flutter. They had lived and not had her for so many days? How many days had it been? How had they lived without her? How had he taken care of the two of them alone? Begumjaan was here. She had taken care of them with him?
Iram inhaled, the saliva pooling in her mouth suddenly going into the wrong pipe. She coughed up, getting her bearings straight before his hand came to her cheek. It singed, the carpet-burn feeling hot.
“Is that…” she asked, feeling her facial muscles tighten. She realised then that she was smiling, stretching her cheeks so taut they hurt. “It’s… our baby?”
He frowned.
“It is, right?” She jumped. “Our son. That was ours, right…? Atharva?! Right?”
“Yes,” he croaked.
“Allah,” she gasped, pasting her palms on his chest, scrunching his shirt again lest he vanish and take this news with him. She chuckled — “Where’s our daughter?”
His eyes widened.
“She wasn’t stillborn?” Iram laughed to herself, scared she had dreamed that up in the OT.
She had carved a destructive path out to escape something that had not happened?
She was going crazy but that was not even the question yet.
She would deal with that later. Right now, she had… her twins. Babies. Her babies.
She began to swivel her legs out of the bed when his hands tamped down on her shoulders.
“Iram.”
She smiled — “Put on the lights…”
“It’s only our son, Iram.”
“What do you mean only our son?”
He wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue, staring at her, as if…
waiting for her to understand on her own, as if…
he didn’t want to explain it to her. All the calculations of a second ago went backwards.
All that she had let settle inside her began to vanish.
She held on with her everything, holding on to the half that was left.
“Where is she?” Iram asked, knowing the answer and yet hoping for a different outcome.
“She was stillborn.”
Hearing about her baby passing away once wasn’t enough. She died that death twice.
“Our son lived,” Atharva added, as if he could sense her going away.
His hold on the balls of her shoulders gentled, rubbing light circles.
“He is healthy, very good weight for his age, all senses sharp. He was resuscitated minutes after his heart stopped. They took him to Nowhatta, to Dr. Shankar’s NICU.
He spent the first two weeks of his life there. Came home completely ready.”
Iram’s face twisted, this time stretching taut with feelings she didn’t know how to feel.
Relief, guilt, sorrow, joy, hope… she held onto hope.
Tight. Her fingers jamming but not letting go.
She swallowed the saliva that had again pooled heavy in her mouth and nodded, her eyes tearing from his after what seemed like hours.
And she found the other side of the bed empty. Gul had been sleeping there.
“Where is Gul?!”
“Safely with her mother.”
“Mehrunisa came here?”
“Yes.”
“Does Faiz know? He cannot find out, Atharva. He is unhinged. And a slave to ISI. He cannot find out about you, or about me or that you are here…”
“Shhh,” his chin pressed down, eyes bearing into hers, stilling her. “Everything is taken care of.”
“You’re not safe here… what happened at Jami…”
“Has been taken care of.”
She stared at him, his face only mildly lit by the tiny lamp.
“What time is it?”
“6.”
“In the morning?”
“In the evening.”
She shook her head, trying to get her bearings back. She hated the dark now. Lived in it, but hated it. It took away the passage of time but it also took away the hope of the sun.
“Can you open the window?” She panted.
He got to his feet and she heard him pad to the far end of the room. A streak, and curtains tore back, letting the sun in. It was mild, orange, piercing into the room from behind giant mountains. Iram squinted, letting it pierce her eyes and her skin and her insides too.
The rattle of a handle startled her. She turned at the sound. The door to the connecting room pulled open and Begumjaan stepped out. Bundle in hand. Swaddled. Iram remembered him being swaddled earlier too. Head so big. She did not remember his face. She had not seen enough.
She jolted to her feet, eyes on Begumjaan.
My roots did not die? I was cut off but they lived?
Are they mine? Am I theirs? How did this happen?
How do I do this? A shiver set in. She took one step forward and again her knees were buckling.
They locked in place. Begumjaan took the steps, covering the distance between them, holding the baby like it did not weigh anything.
Iram looked at the bundle, tiny suns all over the swaddle. Shivers were wracking up and down her neck, her skin trembling. Warmth spread behind her. She felt before she saw Atharva, coming to stand behind her.
“Take, Dilbaro,” Begumjaan began to hand over the baby and she instantly had her arms up, one over the other, as if she knew how to. But when she began to lower him, Iram panicked.
“I can’t, I am shaking, I can’t… I am scared of holding small babies,” she gasped. Begumjaan went on lowering him.
“You can, Iram, you can,” Begumjaan filled her arms with her son even before her head had completed shaking and Iram felt the scab on her chest begin to bleed. It gushed. Blood all over. A river. The warm weight pressed upon her bones. And it all dried.
He felt so much heavier than he looked.
“Oh,” she gazed down into the sleeping face. All tiny features. Delicate. Smooth skin. Two eyes closed, a tiny nose flaring with puffs of breaths. The sweetest pink mouth smacking in sleep.
Begumjaan’s hands began to retreat and she looked up — “Please keep your hands below mine!” Begumjaan slipped her arms below hers and the warmth under them made her break down.
Iram didn’t make noise, letting this bundle, this baby sleep.
But tears burst and flowed down her eyes, her cheeks, her jaw. Her vision blurred.
Right here, in this moment of pure joy, she wished that tragedy was true after all.
She couldn’t handle this joy, she couldn’t handle this blessing.
What was she to do here? What was she to do with her son?
Where did he fit in her again? Where did she fit with him now?
After everything she had made peace with, how could god turn the wheel of her life again?
Her knees buckled and she was falling. The ground was coming closer and she clutched the baby tighter.
But Atharva’s arms came faster, his chest bracing her back before she touched ground.
Iram didn’t realise how she moved to the bed, lowering on the edge with her son still clutched tight in her arms. She just knew she was wailing, sobbing, her body shaking as little as possible to keep this tiny body cocooned in hers asleep.
He did not stir. And she did not make a sound.
Begumjaan’s telltale warm scent closed to one side of her. Atharva’s on the other.
How? She sobbed, eyes blurry again. How?
Begumjaan’s thumbs came to wipe her eyes and the world cleared.
Iram looked her way. Why? Her mouth opened, her face falling into the crook of her neck, pulling the baby closer to her chest. She held him tightly in shaking arms, realising Atharva’s arm was under hers now.
Her face turned. And she looked into blank grey eyes from Begumjaan’s neck.
She cried looking into those eyes, baring her all, her everything, showing him the skinned version inside.
She wailed quietly, not breaking contact, pulling her son even closer if that was possible.
The scent of sweet milk assailed her senses.
The scent she had smelled with Atharva’s Old Spice.
Her scent. The scent of her milk that he did not get to drink. The scent of them.
A loud squeak made her tear her eyes away from Atharva’s.
When she glanced down, she was gazing into matching grey ones.
This time she couldn’t keep the wail quiet inside her.
The baby, her baby, with Atharva’s eyes, broke into a shrill cry and instantly was torn from her arms. Iram didn’t even have the energy to reach for him as Atharva took him on his shoulder.
“Who’s a good boy,” he crooned, walking away from her. The baby kept crying and he kept walking back and forth, rocking him like he weighed nothing. One arm under him, the other patting his back. “Shhh, shhh, who’s my good boy, Dilbaro…”
The soothing lilts of those words, the rhythm of their sound, the tenderness of his face — Iram saw not only her son but his father for the first time.
“It’s dinner time already, isn’t it?” He glanced at the clock, then at Begumjaan, skimming completely over her. “Is his bottle ready or we need to heat it?”
Begumjaan glared at him — “It’s ready.”
Iram saw that exchange but sat there like a stranger as Begumjaan stood to her feet and took him from Atharva’s arms.
“Would you like to feed him his bottle, Iram?” She asked.
Iram opened her mouth but Atharva cut her off — “We need to talk first.”
“Atharva.” Begumjaan clipped.
“If you want to feed him…” he looked down at her, his words trailing to an end, as if he thought she wouldn’t want to.
Iram gaped at him, not recognising this man.
The haze of the day began to clear and she suddenly saw that look in his eyes.
It wasn’t blankness, it was animosity. Despondence. Wariness.
Against every instinct screaming inside her, Iram repeated Atharva’s words — “We need to talk.”
She did not dare look at her son as Begumjaan came to her and patted her cheek, holding the bundle in only one arm. How did she manage that?
“We are right here,” she pointed to the other room. “Come there. He takes a good half an hour to finish this bottle.”
She felt her head bob of its own accord, not looking away from Atharva. Begumjaan turned and walked across the room, crossing the threshold. This time Iram stared at her go, wishing she could go with her and…
“What is his name, Begumjaan?”
She stopped in her tracks. Her body turned, her mouth opening but stopping short.
“Yathaarth.” Atharva announced.
Her chest fluttered. The syllables of her son’s name. The sound of his alphabets.
“Yathaarth,” she tried the name on her mouth, rolling the syllables; her tongue — touching the base of her mouth, knocking the back of her teeth, opening in a gasp and ending with the meeting of her teeth, her tongue in-between. “Yathaarth.”
The beauty of his father’s name but in a new set of syllables.
He mewled in Begumjaan’s arms and she rocked him up and down — “You talk, then come back inside. Ok, Iram?”
She nodded. And the door closed behind them.
Iram wiped the heels of her hands across her eyes and swallowed every weak feeling inside her. If she were to come back, she had to come back fully. She turned her face and stared up at Atharva. Ready.
“You did not know that he survived.”
He stated it, then why did it feel like he questioned it.
“No,” she answered. “I thought they both were… gone.”
No change in his demeanour. Then he nodded — “It was only me then.”
She frowned.
“What you?”
“Were you forced to go?”
She shook her head.
“You went of your own free will?”
“I was…” she began to explain. But what was there to explain? I was a shell? Not myself? Still am not?
Iram nodded.
“You crossed the border illegally.”
“Yes.”
“From where?”
“Kupwara.”
“Who supported you?”
She clamped her mouth tight.
“Who. I need to know in order to arrange your return to India,” he paused. “You are returning, aren’t you?”
Her mouth dropped open.
“Atha…”
“Who, Iram. I do not like to repeat myself.”
“Rahim Chacha.”
“Where is he?”
“Here, with me… I mean, in Mehrunisa’s home.”
His mouth pursed.
“Are you hungry?”
“Huh?”
“I asked — are you hungry?”
“No…”
He strode to the dining table on the other side of the room, picked up a covered plate and brought it to her. He opened the lid to a bed of rice, a bowl of mild orange-coloured dum aloo and slices of tomatoes on the side.
“Eat. It was brought around lunchtime but you were asleep. You have been here for 6 hours without food or water.”
She took the plate in her hands and held on, staring blankly up at him. Her eyes were starting to burn again.
“Do you want to have it heated?”
She shook her head.
“What is it?”
“Do you want me to return?”
“That is not a question worth asking.”
She recoiled.
“Eat and get ready. We have to go.”
“Where?”
“To meet Mehrunisa.”
Her eyes widened. Before she could ask him what he was doing, he had turned around, strode to the door, opened it and left the room.
Iram gaped at the closed door, feeling deja vu of the highest degree.
She looked down at the food. She didn’t want to eat.
She wasn’t hungry. She never was hungry nowadays.
And still, for the sake of the watery-looking dum aloo that looked like it was made by somebody who did not know how to make it but was forced to make it, Iram scooped some up on a spoon and pushed it into her mouth.