Chapter 28-The Smallest Funeral
Vikram had attended funerals before.
Soldiers.
Nobles.
Relatives.
Priya.
His son.
None prepared him for Ganga.
Because there should never have been such a small bier.
The sight of it made something inside him recoil.
Ganga lay wrapped in white and gold.
Flowers surrounded her.
Too many.
As though beauty could make death less obscene.
Vinaya walked behind the bier.
She held herself upright.
No one knew how.
Vikram stayed near her but did not touch her.
He had tried once that morning.
Her body had gone rigid.
He withdrew immediately.
Now he walked beside the woman he had sent away, following the child he had failed.
People lined the road.
Some wept.
Villagers Ganga had apparently known.
Vikram noticed an elderly woman sobbing openly.
A little boy holding flowers.
A gardener.
A cook.
People who had spent more time with his daughter than he had.
Each face was another judgment.
Not spoken.
Worse because it did not need to be.
At the burial ground, Vinaya finally faltered.
Only one step.
Vikram saw it.
His body moved instinctively.
She steadied herself before he reached her.
The priest began the rites.
Vikram heard almost nothing.
His attention remained on Ganga.
One year.
A whole life compressed into one year.
He remembered holding her finger.
He remembered refusing to hold her body.
He remembered her in the carriage window.
Tiny hand against the frame.
He had stood there.
He had let her go.
The priest indicated it was time.
Vinaya stepped forward.
She carried the blue wooden elephant.
Vikram stared at it.
The chipped ear.
Ganga's favorite toy.
The toy he had not known existed until yesterday.
Vinaya knelt.
She touched the elephant to her lips.
Then placed it beside Ganga.
Vikram's chest constricted.
She whispered something.
He could not hear.
Perhaps goodbye.
Perhaps a mother's secret.
Perhaps something meant only for Ganga.
Then she touched her daughter's cheek one last time.
Vikram turned away.
He could not watch.
Coward.
Even now.
He forced himself to look back.
Vinaya was standing.
Her face was blank.
The burial began.
The first handful of earth struck the cloth.
A soft sound.
Vikram flinched.
The second.
Third.
Then he understood.
She was disappearing.
Not metaphorically.
Actually disappearing beneath the earth.
His daughter.
"My daughter."
The words came aloud.
Ranveer, standing behind him, lowered his head.
Vikram stepped forward.
"Wait."
The priest paused.
Vikram approached the grave.
He had brought nothing.
No toy.
No letter.
No object connected to Ganga.
Because he had nothing.
He had never given her anything that mattered enough to bury beside her.
His hands shook.
Then he removed the royal signet from his finger.
Ranveer caught his arm.
"Vikram."
He looked at him.
Ranveer understood.
Slowly, he released him.
Vikram knelt.
He placed the ring beside the flowers.
"I should have given you more."
His voice broke.
"Everything."
He swallowed.
"You should have had everything."
Then he stood.
The burial continued.
When it ended, people began leaving.
Vinaya remained.
Vikram remained too.
Eventually, only family and a few servants stood nearby.
The grave had been covered.
Flowers lay across it.
The blue elephant was gone beneath them.
Vikram stared at the earth.
He suddenly remembered something.
"Her birthday."
Vinaya did not look at him.
"Was last month."
He swallowed.
"I know."
No.
He had known the date.
That was different.
"Did she..."
His voice failed.
Vinaya finally turned slightly.
"What?"
"Did she have a good day?"
The question was pathetic.
Too late again.
Vinaya looked toward the grave.
"She walked."
Vikram went still.
"What?"
"Three steps."
Her voice cracked for the first time.
"She walked to me."
Vikram stared.
He had missed it.
Of course he had.
He imagined Ganga taking three uncertain steps.
Falling into Vinaya's arms.
Laughing.
He would never know what it looked like.
His daughter had walked.
And he had not been there.
"Vinaya..."
She swayed.
Vikram's grief vanished beneath immediate fear.
"Vinaya?"
Her knees buckled.
He caught her before she hit the ground.
For one terrible second, she was completely limp in his arms.
"Vinaya!"
No response.
Vikram looked up in panic.
"Physician!"
And standing beside their daughter's freshly covered grave, Vikram held his unconscious wife and realized with sudden terror that death had already taken one of them.
He could not bear the thought of it taking the other.