Chapter 14
There was a house of cards, fluttering to the beats of Mohammad Rafi’s deep baritone. Some cards flickered while others held steady. They were about to topple but the drum beat hit and she woke up with a start.
She pushed out of her bed and strode to the door on shaky, sleepy legs. The sound wasn’t his gramophone. It was smooth, polished, a phone speaker. Iram pulled the door open and the strings heightened, along with it a loud, tuneless female voice she would recognise anywhere.
“Yeh bemisaal husna lajawab ye ada, taali ho!”
CLAP!
Iram crossed the corridor to Begumjaan’s room and there sat Ada on her bed, half leaning over Yathaarth, singing without tone but clapping the loudest. Iram collapsed on the doorframe, a mix of joy and sorrow coursing through her system.
Ada’s head whirled over her shoulder and she stopped.
The song continued to play but she was jumping down from the bed, running and barreling into her.
“How could you?!” Her head pushed into her neck. Iram sighed, cradling it tight.
“Ada.”
“How could you?” Her arms wound around her neck, squeezed, a small child’s grip. “You promised you would stay. Yamma went but you would stay. How could you!”
And what did Iram have to say to that except — “I am sorry.”
The answer to that question wasn’t straight. The internal wiring of those last few weeks was not logical. Ada had been in Ahmedabad for all of that time, cushioned from everything. And she would remain that way. She deserved a carefree adult life.
“I am sorry,” Iram tightened her arms around her. “So sorry.”
“You can be anybody’s daughter but would that ever matter to me?” Ada pushed back. “Di.”
Iram smiled, cupping her delicate chin in both her hands. She had lost weight too, gotten her skin tanned golden and looked a lot… more mature. In just four months.
Iram wiped her tears off with her thumbs and pushed her best smile to her eyes. Her blurry eyes.
“It passed,” she lied. “I am here.”
“And you are never thinking of leaving again?”
“No.”
Ada stared at her, for long seconds, as if confirming she was earnest. Iram held her gaze, promising she was.
“Good,” Ada grabbed her arm and pulled her to the bed where Yathaarth was already flailing his arms and legs. “You cannot leave me, you cannot leave him, you cannot leave us. Ever. There is no other option. If Atharva Bhai doesn’t do it then I will tie you in the attic!”
The song hit a high note and Yathaarth’s mouth opened in a chortle.
That gummy, toothless chortle. This time Iram didn’t have to push the smile into her eyes.
She felt everything inside her light up.
Her internal wiring always felt like it was alive with current at the sight of him.
Now, when he did not cry at the feel of her presence, she felt like thumping the air and dancing just like him.
“Dilbaro,” Iram whispered softly, and was rewarded with his eyes instantly switching to her side, trying to locate her. She pushed her face into his field of vision and established eye contact. Held it. Praying he wouldn’t cry.
His tiny round mouth stretched again in that toothless grin. He babbled, smacking his mouth. Her breasts began to feel heavy. She had expressed at 7 this morning when Atharva had left. It was 9, and time again. Was he hungry?
“Where is Begumjaan?”
“Went down to get his clothes from the dryer.”
“I should be doing all of that,” Iram moved around the room, collecting the dirty pile from the hamper.
“Di?”
“Hmm?”
“Atharva Bhai asked me not to ask you but…”
Iram rose to her feet with Yathaarth’s nightdress and a change from last night. These clothes felt so tiny, so precious in her hands. But she held back on savouring their feel and stared instead at Ada — “You can ask me.”
She bit her lip — “Mirza also wouldn’t tell me anything. They both kept me in the dark… but… did you find somebody there?”
Iram could read it. Plain and simple. Skepticism. Jealousy. Fear.
“There is one sister and one brother.”
“Oh.”
“Both strangers.”
Ada looked at her with disbelieving, accusing eyes.
“I am not going back to them. I am here, with you. Ok?”
The look lessened but did not go away.
“I am here, Ada. I am yours. Ok?”
A beat. Then she nodded. She trudged to the bed and changed the song on her phone, trying to act nonchalant.
“Provided somebody remains here,” Iram remarked pointedly, shifting gears on the mood of the room. “Instead of running off to Ahmedabad.”
“One more year,” Ada remarked to Yathaarth, singing along, grabbing his hands and making them dance along. “Jiya bekarar hai, chaayi bahar hai… aaja more baalma tera intezar hai!”
“Why are you playing old songs to him?”
“That’s been our ritual ever since he came home. He does not like nursery rhymes. He likes all grandfather songs… I have a whole playlist, see?” She held her phone up. “He even smiled first time to some old song. I can’t remember the name. Atharva Bhai does…”
Iram grinned. Her baby boy. Her grandfather-playlist-loving boy.
He had enjoyed every beat of that playlist in her womb.
No surprises there. Iram bent down and booped his nose with her.
His mouth opened by reflex. She preened, then leaned down and did it again.
His gurgle was loud, his palms flailing to catch her face.
She held steady, letting him get her. His palms smacked on her cheeks for two tries and finally stuck.
She set hers atop his and booped his nose with hers again, rubbing it to the beats of the newest song. Woh chaand khila woh taare hase…
Her eyes caught on a soft toy on the nightstand. Two unicorns joined at the rainbow tails. Suddenly her chest began to roar. Bad thoughts. Bad feeling. Nothing felt right inside. She tried to push it away. Tried to pull herself out of it. Didn’t work.
Yathaarth’s hands fell away from under hers and she stared down into his eyes.
They were still smiling — dark grey almonds.
She smiled, continued to smile at him, feeling like she was disconnecting from herself.
Like she was evaporating again. Hold me, somebody hold me.
She tickled the space under his chin, hoping for his chortles to bring her back.
“Oh, good you are here, Iram,” Begumjaan’s voice found her. “It’s his milk time. I gave him a bottle early this morning but do you want to breastfeed now?”
“Yes,” she answered on autopilot, shifting on the bed.
“Ada, go get some breakfast for Di,” Begumjaan relayed. “Eat while feeding him.”
“I am not hungry,” Iram began to massage her chest, feeling the fullness begin to burst. Begumjaan lifted Yathaarth and brought him to her — “Hunger is not an option, Iram. If you feed, you have to eat. Here.”
Iram unbuttoned her kurti and accepted her son, this time better equipped to hold him, push his head to her breast, latch him.
Also better prepared. But as he began to slowly suckle, her thoughts were still stuck there.
In the bad. She prayed herself to come out of them, to look at this blessing in her arms. Ada came with a plate of some food and began to feed it into her mouth.
She chewed, unable to recognise what it was, beseeching herself to come out for her, for Begumjaan, who was folding tiny clothes of her son.
Iram couldn’t.
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“Call Amaal for me,” Atharva ordered Zafarji as soon as he stepped on the CMO floor.
“How was your railway inauguration?” Amaal asked, smiling, walking alongside him as if materialised from thin air. He kept his expression schooled until his staff, secretaries and security fell away and only he stepped inside his office. Amaal followed.
“Close the door.”
The door was shut from the outside and Atharva rounded his desk — “Where is she?”
“Home.”
“Is there a good enough reason?”
“Yes. Leave of absence, approved by me.”
“Fine.”
Atharva picked up the mobile he had just set down and began to walk towards the door.
“Sir, stop. Please,” Amaal crossed his path. “Atharva. Please.”
“I asked you to finish with her and bring her to me.”
“And I told you that you are not doing the talking.”
“So you what? Sent her home on a holiday?”
“No, I protected your secrets. Yours and Iram’s. She doesn’t know everything but she has been in and out of your house these last few months. We don’t know what she’s heard yet.”
“I will make sure she is silenced.”
“You are the Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir and not allowed to fall into anything that can implicate you.”
“I have done my fair share of circus in the last two years, so thank you very much. I will manage this one too.”
“Atharva,” she bit out.
“What, Amaal? What?” He lowered his voice. “That woman is the reason my wife didn’t come back to me for four months. She is the reason my son did not have his mother for the first four months of his life. She will pay.”
“Stop thinking from your kneecaps then.”
He stilled.
“Sit down. Let me talk. Then you spew whatever you want at me.”
He exhaled and sat down on his chair. Amaal took her seat in front of him.
“Look, I know you have done your fair share of circus being in power but things today are not as good as they were six months ago. I need you to be a little more self-preserving. As far as Saba is concerned, yes, she saw Iram.”
Atharva sat up.
“Don’t get worked up.”
He kept his mouth tightly shut.
“She saw Iram and let her slip away without stopping her or sounding the alarm because she thought Iram would never come back. I told you she has had a crush on you. That just went into crazy territory. She has been trying ever since to make inroads into your house, deluding herself that she can mother Yathaarth.”
“Am I supposed to feel sorry for her?”