Chapter 8 #2
She inhaled quietly. Adrenaline pumped through her veins. She could feel everything in her body. Even the weight of her own skin. It felt a little heavier on the ball of her shoulder. Then she realised it was Atharva’s hand, tugging her back slowly from her perch half off the armchair.
“Jannat,” Mehrunisa’s quiet, soft voice broke the stalemate. “Nobody will threaten anybody. We are here this late and alone to talk through this. Faiz?”
“Yes, Aapa.”
“We agreed.”
He got to his feet, trying to grin, trying to assert supremacy when Atharva’s fist connected with his jaw. Iram recoiled into the armchair.
“That is for threatening my wife while she was a guest in your home.”
Her heart raced. She began to push to her feet to put herself in front of Atharva lest Faiz hit back but the unhinged man was horrified.
He held his cheek and took quick steps back, blinking rapidly, his hand shivering.
Mehrunisa was immediately by his side, running her hand up and down his arm — “It’s alright. ”
His lip quivered. Atharva took one step and he took two back. Atharva stopped.
His father had beaten him? Iram glanced at Mehrunisa, eyes wide.
She gave an inconspicuous blink. Iram immediately held Atharva’s arm — “Please, he is my brother,” she said out loud, hoping to get her message across to him.
When she glanced at her husband, he had already understood and let his arm hang loose by his side, hand relaxed. But his eyes drilled holes into Faiz.
“Sit,” Atharva commanded. “Let’s finish this without the ego war and we will get going.”
Faiz’s shocked face recovered. He crossed the room to them, eyeing Atharva with a mix of trepidation and false bravado. Atharva took her hand and gently tugged her away from the armchair. He seated her on a settee to the side, then strode to the armchair and took her seat.
As if that was balance enough, Faiz lowered himself to his armchair.
“You are free to leave whenever you like. Your secret is safe here with us. I swear on the graves of my ancestors.”
Iram let out a silent sigh of relief.
“But before you go,” he added, glancing at her. “I want you to give me that document you made. For the next round of our investors’ meeting. The bank is…”
“What investors?” Atharva questioned, looking back at her.
“We… the Mir, I mean, is trying to open a cooperative bank of his own in Nagar. He wants to make the town self-dependent and make himself indispensable to the community so that the Pakistani government can’t threaten him again, with the titles and such.”
Atharva sat back — “And the permissions for such an ostentatious plan in this country?”
“He was going to speak to the CM and the Major of the Army posted in Gilgit-Baltistan.”
“I did speak to Dilshad Khan,” Faiz admitted, looking hesitant. He glanced at her, then at Atharva, then at his elder sister. “This morning he called me to pull a favour in exchange for the permissions.”
“What favour?” Iram frowned.
“To kill me,” Atharva answered serenely.
Iram’s eyes widened. That blast.
“Did your people plant the bomb and shoot those missiles?”
Faiz coughed, rolling his eyes heavenward. “Allah is my witness, I would never do that. I only had to push you to visit the mosque, and send an escort if need be, so that he could make sure you were there.”
“And didn’t you consider there would have been casualties in the blast, people of your own town?”
“It was supposed to be a low-intensity bomb.”
“And the missiles?”
“I did not know about them.”
“And here we are, with me escaping and the people of your town harmed. Do you know the casualty count?”
“The count is being taken.”
Atharva glanced pointedly at the clock — “By whom?”
Silence.
Faiz gaped, opened his mouth slightly but then closed it. He looked contrite, a little too arrogant to show it, but contrite all the same.
“You are a man of the army,” he attacked to defend himself. “You, more than anyone else understand that casualties are expected in war.”
“This is not a war you are fighting Mir Faiz, this is a town you are trying to nurture. And among those casualties, your niece and your sister could have died too. I don’t know what my wife told you or what you two were planning to do in this town, but one thing I know for sure is that a leader is an administrator first, a soldier later.
Those casualties you expect in war are of soldiers, of men who have committed to die for your country.
A man who is the sole earner in his family or a child who isn’t even promoted to primary school are not casualties you talk about so easily. ”
Faiz stared at Atharva, unashamed, stoic, expressionless. Finally, Atharva shook his head. Then got to his feet. Iram followed suit.
“What is this document?”
“None of your business.”
“If it is my wife, then it is my business.”
“You are an Indian.”
“So is she.”
“She is my sister.”
“Ten minutes ago she was your father’s daughter.”
“Enough,” Iram whispered, soft but firm enough for the two men to stall and glance her way.
“I have nothing to hide from my husband,” she announced, looking at Faiz.
“This matter is ours. It does not concern him, and you will not involve him.”
“If it is my Jammu model that you have replicated here then she damn well will.”
Iram’s head whirled so fast she felt the world blur in her sight.
“You haven’t even heard all of it yet,” she muttered to the back of Atharva’s head.
“I recognise my own model when I see it.”
For the first time in a long, long time, she felt a thrill pass through her spine, then spread through her arms and shoulders.
Not a bad one, a relatively exciting one.
The way he said that to her, the way he claimed his model, the way he claimed her in that moment made something inside her heart flutter.
There was a throb of adoration in his voice.
“What model?”
Faiz’s question jolted her out of that temporary happy haze.
“Atharva’s Jammu model,” she cleared her throat.
“I built the banking idea for you from Atharva’s model that he had implemented in Jammu, to help the bonded farmers there.
Atharva had to make investments in land, and he decided to buy farmland.
The bonded farmers on those lands were too scared to take loans and buy the land that they had been tilling for years, so Atharva created a model where he would let the farmers buy the land from him on EMI.
Until that point, he continued to share the profits every year with them, took care of them. ”
“And you didn’t mind betraying your husband’s project?”
Iram smiled — “It’s a case study in business schools and has been replicated over and over again by his government, not to mention central and state stakeholders across India.”
“Give me that document you wrote.”
“No such document exists.”
“You came with a bunch of papers in your hand that day…”
“Gul’s test sheets.”
Faiz’s eyes bugged. Atharva’s face turned over his shoulder, looking at her with one of his most recurrent expressions for her — like he wanted to strangle her and kiss her, and not necessarily in that order.
That little thrill up her spine? Now it was a full-fledged fire.
She hadn’t felt like this, like herself in a long time.
“I know I traded the idea and that document with you in exchange for visas and passports for Rahim Chacha and me. I will not go back on my promise…”
“Go,” Faiz waved a hand, chuckling. “I will manage. Go.”
“Do we have an opening for flying out tonight?” Atharva asked him.
“Yes. 3.30 to 4.55 am. Will you file your VFR plan?”
“No.”
“ATC logs will remain blank but the ADS of your plane will need to be disabled for that. Are you willing to fly across the border radars without it?”
“I will be right here. If anything happens to that plane, I will bring the war your CM has been craving to your doorstep. This Kashmir or that Kashmir will not matter. This entire town will be obliterated — I will personally make sure of that.”
“I did not mean it like a threat,” Faiz clarified. “I would not do that to my… sister.”
Iram blanched. Atharva was planning to put her on a plane tonight and stay back himself?
“All I want is for both sides to remain open for the plane to pass undetected.”
“The Indian side will be taken care of. Get the Pakistani side opened.”
Faiz nodded.
“You will get your banking document the minute that plane lands safely in Kargil.”
“I do not want charity.”
“It’s my wife’s promise, not charity.”
“I am not doing this out of fear or greed.” Faiz’s eyes reached hers and softened. Marginally. Iram’s heart skipped a beat. “Go. You will reach back home safely.”
Mehrunisa crossed the hall and grabbed her shoulders.
Her soft, round face, with the brightest hazel green eyes and shining skin was exactly like her mother’s.
Iram didn’t remember that mother. But in that moment, as Mehrunisa’s eyes filled up with tears and her mouth split into a smile, Iram could make peace with a version of what her mother would have been like.
“You were my chattering doll once,” Mehrunisa chuckled through her tears. “All these weeks, I could not see even a trace of that doll. Now I see it. I don’t want to let you go now that I see it again. Tell me there will be a day you can come back? Or we can meet outside?”
Iram swallowed the deluge roaring in her throat, nodded.
“I wanted to see your son.”
Her son. Iram preened, her mouth splitting wide — “He is… he smells so good.”
Mehrunisa laughed — “Of course he does. Babies smell this good until six or seven months. Fill yourself up with all of it before he starts smelling like regular people. Start weaning him off midnight feeds early. I learnt that the hard way with Gul. She would wake up for a midnight snack until last year.”
Iram nodded, seeing through Mehrunisa’s attempts to keep their conversation going and elongating time.
“Send me pictures. Of all of you. I don’t know if you will be able to be in touch with me with all this happening… but try to be, please.”
Iram nodded.
Mehrunisa pulled her into her embrace, squeezing her shoulders tight.
Iram buried her face in her hair, drawing courage and strength and a whiff of the past that she had no memory of.
This was it. The loop was tied. She came from something that was both good and bad, but the part that had embraced her was good. So good.
“Take care of yourself. Don’t let bad thoughts take you away, gurun,” she murmured low in her ear.
“I won’t.”
“You won’t,” Mehrunisa reasserted. “You are my strong little gurun. You will become even stronger after this. Done?”
“Done.”
Mehrunisa pressed a kiss to the side of her face and let her go. She sniffled her tears and stood back, poised as a princess again.
“Rahim Chacha? Where is he…?” Iram began.
“Your husband had him collected some time ago.”
Iram glanced at him.
“At the hotel.”
She nodded.
“Come,” Atharva said. Iram cleared her face with both hands and went to his side. They turned and began to trace their steps to the door.
“Jannat?” Faiz called out to her.
They stopped. Iram glanced over her shoulder.
“I don’t know what went down between you and your… umm, husband… but I want you to know that if you want, you can stay here. If you don’t want to go then you can stay.”
While his words melted a part of her heart, she felt Atharva stiffen by her side. She felt a storm brew and come to the surface in his calm expression. And before it would break the barriers of his precariously schooled control, Iram shook her head.
“Khuda Hafiz,” she smiled, giving her brother a final farewell nod. For the first time she felt her heart stop at the tender smile of the Mir of Nagar.
“Allah Hafiz.”
It was not long before they had left the heritage of her blood behind, the door closing behind her as they descended the steps. The car door was open, the engine idling as if ready to race them out of here. Had it been idling all this time?
Iram began to get in but Atharva stopped. She stalled. Crickets were croaking in the silence.
“Atharva?”
“Do you want to?”
She frowned, her eyes searching his face in the moonlit gloom of the night. “Do I want to what?”
“Come home? You did not answer my question earlier. You left Srinagar of your own will,” he asserted. “Do you want to come home with me?”
“I left because…”
“Right now it doesn’t matter why you left. What matters is if you want to come back.”
She felt bitter, and sweet at the same time.
She tried to search his face to see what he was feeling, but it again seemed impossible.
Four months and countless experiences on each side had robbed her of her ability to read him.
How would she regain it, she wondered, and didn’t realize that between his question and this moment, long seconds had elapsed.
Precious seconds that were each looking like the fall of an executioner’s blade on his face.
“Yes,” she answered immediately. “I do.”
He did not look like that answer mattered to him one way or another.
Atharva held the door wider for her. She climbed in, he followed, and the car sped out of the porch.
The gloom of the night returned. The silence of the car was deafening again, not even crickets to break it. He wasn’t looking at her again.
“Atharva?”
“Hmm?” He kept gazing out of the window.
“This too shall pass, isn’t it?”
He nodded. Did not say that ‘we will remain.’