Chapter 8
This too shall pass. This too shall pass.
This too shall pass. She kept repeating it to herself, sitting in the dim car as it sped down the dark roads.
The sun had set and the town of Nagarkhas was dimmed.
Only a few areas of the town had street lamps and uninterrupted supply of electricity.
Now, as they drove through the back-lanes, only their single car, driven by a strange man but guarded by Altaf, Iram felt her body thrum.
She glanced at the man beside her. Silent. Shadowed under the gloom of the night. He was solemnly staring outside, his face made of marble. She didn’t know what he thought, what he was doing, what he wanted. And she had never not known at least one of those things where Atharva was concerned.
Her breasts weighed heavy. She knew it was time to express milk.
It had been drying down these last few days.
Only some trickles remained. But the heaviness didn’t go.
Would Yathaarth… her mind lit up at the thought of him, the sound of that name even in her silent mind.
Would he have this milk? He would, wouldn’t he?
The thought spread a frizz of joy up her chest. But it was short-lived.
The car veered into a strange place. A strange gate. This wasn’t the Mir’s palace. Iram sat up, gaping from side to side.
“Where is this?”
The car drove into a narrow alleyway leading into the structure. It was like a bungalow. The car kept going, coming to a stop right outside a gate. The porch was completely covered, the lights dimmed.
“Atharva, where is this…”
“Come,” he snapped his door handle and pushed out, opening an arm for her. She eyed him dubiously but got down. Even if she did not know what he was thinking, what he was doing or what he wanted, she would always go where he asked.
“What are we doing here?” She asked softly, keeping her voice low. There was nothing here, nobody except croaking crickets. But she had lived in forts that went eerily quiet at night and yet the shadows of guards and spies were ripe around.
“Finishing this off and exiting.”
“What does that mean?”
“Jannat…” Mehrunisa’s cry made her turn to the door. She was striding, running, leaping the last few steps. Her hands cupped her face — “Are you fine?”
Iram stared, shocked.
“Mehrunisa…”
“When I came to the hotel, I was told you were asleep,” she glanced at Atharva, then back at her. “Are you hurt?”
“I am fine. What is this? What are we doing here? Faiz cannot find out. He will not…”
“I would like to catch some cold but the fire smells better.” Faiz’s cool crazy voice reverberated.
Their heads whirled to the door and there he stood, a shawl covering his chest. Iram felt Atharva’s body tauten beside her and began to position herself in front of him.
Not that she could hide him, but she would talk.
She would fight this. She would find a way to diffuse whatever this was.
She began to step in front of her husband when his hand caught her bicep and gently tugged her aside. She widened her eyes at him, pleading. Grey eyes did not relent.
“Let’s go inside.” Is all he said. Then turned and nodded at Altaf.
“Atharva, he is crazy,” she muttered to him behind his shoulder. “What are you doing? He is in cahoots with their ISI and military…”
He kept walking, Mehrunisa in front of him. She wasn’t covering her face; instead her dupatta was slung on the side of her shoulder, like she kept it inside the confines of her home.
“Atharva,” Iram grabbed his bicep in both her hands at the threshold. He stopped. His face turned to her.
“You don’t know what is about to happen…”
“I know.”
She blinked. Did he know how unhinged this man was or did he know what was about to happen? Again, she could not read him. And he gently disengaged her hands from his bicep, ran his palm down her back and ushered her in.
This wasn’t a palace or a fort. It was a house.
Like a cottage of Enid Blyton books — all wood and stone.
Faiz sat in front of the fireplace, lounging back on an armchair, holding his sock-clad feet out to the fire.
These antics of his had earned him the title of the Unhinged.
She knew he was not completely unhinged, but she also knew how he played up the part.
And right now, she did not know how he would react.
“Mir sahab,” Atharva’s voice shook away her thoughts. “Can we talk?”
“Yes, please. Come,” he pointed to the matching armchair in front of him. Iram noted Atharva looking at her and Mehrunisa. Then he did something just as unhinged as Faiz. He ushered her to the lone armchair offered to him and helped her down on it. She glared at him. He nodded.
Iram took the seat and raised her gaze to Faiz’s.
His eyes widened, confused, as if knocked back a few pegs.
Atharva stood beside her chair and looked down his nose at Faiz.
The soldier. Taking position above the king when the king couldn't be respectful enough to offer seats to everyone in the room. Their stare-off lasted. Long.
Iram glanced at Mehrunisa but she was just as clueless, standing quietly to a side.
“You were an Indian then,” Faiz addressed her.
“She is also our sist…” “Father’s daughter,” Faiz cut off Mehrunisa’s announcement.
This was said out loud for the first time between them and Iram waited for the weight of the moment to settle inside her.
She glanced at the hand in her field of vision.
The strong, steady, tanned hand that had held hers under a handcart, walked her through minefields, that had worn her ring with his favourite words — 10 feet tall, that had strived to bear the brunt of those criss-cross of lines on his palm so that those lashes didn’t reach her.
She glanced up at Atharva. It hit her then. He was here. Here.
“Faiz, Noorie and Nooran were sent away snatched from our mother’s bed,” Mehrunisa whispered, low, as if this empty house had ears too. As if uttering those names out loud was a sin even today.
“And why don’t I remember it?”
“Because you were very young. Abbaji sent Nooran only once he had you…”
“A spare,” Faiz grinned, looking himself up and down. “Did I prove better than the heir?”
Mehrunisa held her tongue. Faiz’s mad eyes reached Iram, widened — “What a fate, Jannat. To neither be an heir, nor a spare. Or you were the spare to the spare? Nooran and Noorie. What a pair! It rhymes…”
“Faiz, Noorie did not have a choice in this…”
“Wait, Aapa. Her name is Iram Kaul. She has lied to you also,” he cackled, holding up his mobile phone. Iram stared at the picture of her wedding day. Today, she did not look anything like that woman smiling beside Atharva. Faiz mentioned as much — “The makeup changes everything, no?”
His cackle turned louder, his eyes going around the room and freezing on Atharva’s. That’s when Iram turned her head and looked up. Her husband was staring at Faiz — impassive, cool, unblinking. Long moments passed. She waited. He did not blink. Faiz’s cackle died.
“You did not let the news leak,” Faiz said to her husband. What news?
“Your CM was remorseful.”
“Atharva Singh Kaul. I have read about you. You do not show remorse without your own interest.”
Atharva smirked — “The symbolic leader from this morning does have some leadership skills after all.”
“Leadership skills,” Faiz cackled. “You call stalking leadership skills?”
“Listening, reading and absorbing.”
Faiz was looking at Atharva as if some divine sermon was being imparted. Atharva didn’t look like he was here to impart anything as his smirk cooled into that authoritarian, impassive mouth. His CM-firing-his-babus face.
“And yet you walked into my property without protection. Didn’t learn anything from this morning?”
“You need protection right now.”
“From what? Her?” Faiz’s eyes reached her. “Jannat? Or wait, Iram. No, Noorie right? She has been trouble ever since she arrived. You brought more with you. If anything, you should be scared of being here in my house, without any security, with your wife…”
“Your sister,” Iram cut him off. If this man thought he could threaten Atharva in front of her, he had another thing coming.
Her blood cooled to rivulets roared now.
Months of stillness sparkled inside. Iram leaned forward — “I am not just your father’s daughter.
I am your sister. Your elder sister. I am an Indian, and married to the Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir.
Yes, I came here to find my roots, to find you.
And do you know what I found? A young man so full of possibilities and yet so scared of everything around him.
A man ready to take on everything that comes his way, a man ready to love every person that belongs to his community, and yet angry at everybody in that community. ”
He was looking at her with his amused, indulgent expression that he was known to use for his dog.
Iram took a deep breath, flinging her next words slow, with caution, and the gravity that they deserved — “So, right now, you can look at me with that bored expression, Faiz Ali, and make yourself believe that your father, your mother, even your Mehrunisa Aapa cheated you of all that you deserved. But life is not fair. They cheated me out of all that I deserved as well. And yet here I am, and here you are.”
His eyes hardened. She went on.
“You can either make everything difficult and create a ruckus out of this, or you can cooperate and let us be on our way. I will be happy to go back right now without destroying what little reputation you and your royal name enjoy here. But if you drag Atharva into this, if you threaten him, if you threaten me again with the ISI or the army, I swear I will burn you and your royal name down. Even if that means I have to set fire to myself first.”