by Nillu Nasser
“Where’ve you been anyway? I was worried,” said Tariq. “Those aren’t your clothes. And you’ve been hurt. Unless I passed out, Zahid didn’t attack you. Who did? What happened?”
The wound on his face looked better now he had washed it, but it still concerned Akash. He sat down next to Tariq and stretched out his legs in front of him. He recognised every bump and crack in the uneven ground beneath him. Its characteristics had become as familiar to him as the lines on his palm, and comforted more than the plush environment of Soraya’s home.
“I’ve been with Soraya.”
Tariq’s mouth gaped. “The Soraya? What? How?”
“I was walking—”
“Looking through windows again, you mean.”
“Yes.” Akash’s brow clouded. Was it his search for Soraya that had driven his compulsion to look through stranger’s windows? Had that demon been purged?
“You know how dangerous that is.” Tariq motioned towards Akash. “Is that why you have those bruises and cuts?”
“It was her house, Tariq. Soraya’s. She stopped them beating me, invited me inside. I didn’t even trust my senses. She’s hardly changed.”
A whirlwind of emotions played on Tariq’s face. “Is that what you came here to tell me? That you have found your long-lost lover, the one you cheated on your wife with, and that you’re going back to her?”
Akash recoiled as if he had been slapped. Tariq rarely struck out. “I don’t know if Soraya feels the same way.” Neither did he know if he could ever forget Jaya. He didn’t want to.
“You’re so stupid.” Tariq spat the words. They hung in the air, irretrievable, a spike in their friendship.
“I wasn’t planning on abandoning you, if that’s what you mean.” Tariq’s lack of support stung. Akash had grown tired of the emotional rollercoaster of the past few days. He could not understand why Tariq would be so argumentative unless his concerns centred on himself. “Can you only be happy for me when the chips are down? I’ve been looking for this woman for years.”
“You think this is about me? All these years trying to understand what happened to you, Akash, and you’re still so blind. The Soraya you have found, she was always the unattainable woman, the mistress, the goddess. Your love for her was nothing more than a sham. A get out clause for a little boy who was not ready to love fully.”
Akash sprung to his feet, hovering above Tariq. “How dare you? Do brothers judge each other? I’m here for you whenever you need me.” His fury ricocheted across the confines of their makeshift home.
“I’m your brother, Akash. I can only tell you what I see to be the truth.”
“Nobody can know a man’s heart, his intentions,” said Akash. “The rest of the world may laugh and judge. They may gossip and theorise, but you can’t know who I loved and who I did not.”
“Tell me then. Who have you spoken to at the shore each night during your ablutions? Who do you pray to, Akash? Tell me that? Who has driven you to live on the streets all these years?” Tariq flung his hands up in exasperation. “You still can’t see it, can you? Real as she is, Soraya is a mirage. It was Jaya you loved.”
“She is gone!” The word reverberated around them, then plummeted, a stone in the language of men. Reborn grief stirred to life in Akash’s stomach.
“Yes, she is,” said Tariq, shaking his head. “And still you chase your own tail like a hoodwinked dog, as if you’ve learned nothing at all.”
Chapter 15
Akash returned to the bungalow. The guards let him pass as he entered. This time it seemed the pink roses clinging to the outside of the house were wilting, though only a day had passed. His argument with Tariq suppressed his joy, and he grew resentful that his reunion with Soraya could not be more joyous.
She welcomed him at the door with a half-smile and ushered him into the bowels of the house, back into the deep red room where he had spent the previous night.
“You were quicker than I thought you’d be. I thought you’d spend some more time with your friend,” she said.
Her beauty took his breath away, and he made sure not to open his mouth too widely when he spoke, lest she caught sight of his yellowed teeth.
“He knows where I am. He’s no longer worried.”
“Good.” She paused. “You weren’t exaggerating when you said you’d made the streets your home. Your body is broken and not just from Arjun’s beating. How did you survive?”
He hesitated, unsure of what to reveal. His hair fell into his eyes and he made no attempt to brush it aside. “Tariq and I met just after it happened. I’m not sure I would have survived alone.” His sadness at their quarrel lay like a knot at his core. He needed to make things right. He continued, haltingly. “We have our routines. Our safe places. It turns out I’m quite a good handyman. We work odd jobs. Rubbish disposal. The smell lingers in my nostrils long after I finish. Loading or unloading for grocery shops or hotels. Hanging up signs for businesses. The sort of jobs you don’t need papers for. Afterwards they press a few rupees into your hand. Show enough gratitude and they are pleased to see you another day.”
“What happened to the teaching degree?”
“I never went back.”
“And your life is enough for you?” Here, in the luxury of her home, the differences between them couldn’t be greater.
“I fantasise sometimes about what could have been. I talk to Jaya in my head. I have Tariq.” He had lost count of the number of drifters he had made friends or enemies with, lone men and women passing through. Sometimes, they found their feet in some kind of real life; more often, the streets sucked away their health and hopes. “Memories of you, of my younger self kept me going.”
“Nonsense. Yes, you loved me, or perhaps the idea of me. But no one lives on air and memories. Twenty years you drifted. What did you eat? Where do you sleep?”
“Sometimes a man’s history is better left hidden. You insist on knowing details that diminish me.”
“A man is a man, despite the clothes he wears or the trophies on his shelves.”
“If only that was true. You really believe that, Soraya?” He thought of Tariq and how he had been targeted by Zahid that morning. He thought of Arjun taking a free hand to beat him only yesterday. “There is no humanity left for a man, woman or child on the streets.”
“I’ve witnessed the suffering. Even behind tall walls, I am not immune to it,” said Soraya.
Akash wanted to please her, but he was unable to hold his tongue. He needed to pierce the bubble of her illusions, to make her understand how it had really been. “Most are. Beggars and the homeless, addicts and the mentally unsound, all lumped together, all distasteful or, worse, invisible.”
The homeless were a familiar sight in Bombay. When the working day ended, and the revellers retreated, the street people became more visible. Whole families slept on roadside pavements, covered by light blankets. The better-equipped used rags or tarpaulin as meagre tents. They slept on handcarts and railway platforms, on the beach and in parks. They existed in the periphery of conscience. Luckier men preferred not to dwell on this seedy side of the city. They suppressed their empathy or learned to unsee because it was easier that way.
“You slept in the open?” Her interest in him lanced a boil; he felt validated by it, as if he could displace his own demons by talking about them. Was this not love, this openness? Was this not what he had been looking for?
“We sleep under a railway bridge. Or on the sand. Not during monsoon. We find somewhere raised. The steps of a church or temple. We go back to the same places. For a time, we sheltered in the shell of an old rickshaw until a younger, stronger man took it for himself. Not even two of us were enough to win against him. Sometimes fire drives a man to succeed, even if he is all alone. You learn who to trust. One woman I knew used to be terrified she would be crushed by a tree unearthed by heavy rains, but that never worried me.”
“How casual you have been with your life!”
Akash lau
ghed. Bitterness cut through his voice. “Perhaps with myself. But never with others, not again. Not after Jaya. I still mourn Sonal, a three-year old on the streets, who got jaundice. She died from hepatitis—deteriorated before our eyes—because her mother could not afford the medicine she needed. I think about whole families who risk cholera by drinking dirty water. I’ve witnessed it so often. Or the men and women who do unspeakable things to obtain drugs. All because they are unable to face reality.”
“And you? What is it you do, Akash? Do you poison your body with drugs?”
“No, but I don’t blame those who do. You become an animal, defecating in a corner because basic sanitation is unavailable. In the early days, I drank. I slept days away because the oblivion of sleep erased my past. It erased my sense of self.”
They had been talking to one another on the bed, chastely, metres between them. The intensity of the conversation drove Soraya up onto her feet, where she leaned against the window frame. She avoided his eyes as she asked, “Where did you wash?”
“Why worry about washing when I can’t wash away the dirt from my soul?” The words spilled from his mouth before he could call them back. His stomach churned from the argument with Tariq, and now even this conversation with Soraya had been spoiled by the dirty secrets of his past. Why am I here, Jaya? For love? For acceptance, or for redemption? He made an effort to tame his harsh tone. “I washed in the sea. Sometimes I used a bucket, filled with dirty water. Who feels clean using dirty water for their ablutions, a mix of cholera, sweat and dust from the city?”
Soraya came to sit next to him on the bed. She placed her hand on his arm and warmth seeped into it, providing a balm for his sadness.
“You think it is another world I inhabit here,” said Soraya.
“I don’t resent your good fortune,” he said, welcoming the opportunity to talk about her rather than himself. “I’m glad. You were always ambitious. Did you marry? You said there was no man in your life but your son—are you widowed?”
“There is no man in my life. None other than my son, at least. I had no wish to marry. The fortune I amassed is mine. My parents allowed me to invest the dowry they would have given me. I made a few good business decisions. I was patient. We now own a restaurant in Juhu and one in Bandra. We have loyal clientele, influential ones. If you have money, people are more willing to tolerate your uniqueness.”
The nature of her success sank into his consciousness and left a bittersweet imprint. He admired her but on some level, it belittled him too. A businesswoman in India was not to be scoffed at; Akash had no doubt Soraya had fought tooth and nail to establish her name. Even if Tariq had been wrong, this love he wanted to resurrect had no chance. Forgive me, Jaya. Soraya had grown even more unattainable. He swallowed his feelings of inadequacy.
“I always admired your strength. I thought I could absorb it just by being near you. You brought up your son alone?” said Akash. Soraya retracted her hand, and the rough skin of his arm felt lonely without her touch.
“Yes. His father left a long time ago. Geeta, our maid, helped. Another girl in my position would have suffered. Money gave me freedom,” she said. “And you, you’ve been alone all this time?”
“Yes, apart from Tariq. We’ve become like brothers,” said Akash.
“You know, if you’d come to me, I could have helped you.”
“I didn’t go back. I couldn’t face anyone, not even my parents.” His face crumpled. “The shame paralysed me. I don’t remember much from those first months. Eventually, I turned up on your doorstep, but you were gone.”
“We moved,” said Soraya, her voice trailing off. She ran her hand through her short, greying hair. “Why didn’t you try harder to find me? Neighbours knew where we moved, friends, too.”
“A man has his pride. And besides, it was my punishment.”
She returned to the window, lengthening the distance between them before she opened her heart to him. Soraya, who always held on to her control. The early evening light shone through her sari, changing its colour to a burnished bronze. “Maybe I needed you.”
Her focused on her words. They drove away the doubts Tariq had inserted into his mind. “Maybe our time is now,” he said.
A weighted silence hung in the air between them. Soraya turned and her silhouette blotted out the sun behind her. “I’ve noticed you aren’t wearing your wedding ring. Do you remember, you used to slip it into your pocket all those years ago?”
She had sidestepped his unspoken question. He needed to know what this amounted to. Time passed through the hourglass relentlessly and he had none to waste. He kneaded the base of his finger, where his wedding ring had once sat, confused as to why Soraya would ask about the ring. “I kept it on my finger after Jaya died. Is it a widowed man’s duty to continue to wear his wedding ring? I don’t know.”
She looked at him aghast, like not wearing his wedding ring was a further betrayal of Jaya.
He took in the lines that furrowed her brow, and her censure smarted.
“In any case, it was stolen,” he rushed to tell her. He had hated them for it, the brawling, thieving men who took it. He had fought to keep that link to Jaya, that emblem of fidelity and love he had not earned.
Soraya came towards him, searching his eyes for a truth she could not find. “You really don’t know, do you?”
Akash recoiled, his heart pounded in the cavity of his chest. “Know what?” Even as he uttered the words, he sensed their terrible weight. The hazy light hid her expression, leaving him without anchor.
“You’re not a widower, Akash. Jaya is not dead. She is very much alive.”
Chapter 16
The performance at Tara Theatre began at eight pm. The audience piled into the cramped theatre, and, as usual, the operational team doubled up as ticket assistants, welcoming guests and showing them to their seats while the actors readied themselves. A Jagjit Singh album played softly in the background, the unhurried nature of his ghazals the perfect prelude to tonight’s play, a gentle story of sisterly love in rural India. It was Jaya’s favourite script to date.
When the curtains opened, she sat at the back of the theatre on a foldaway plastic seat. She had seen the play countless times during rehearsal, but the first night in front of an audience made for a special experience. The actors came alive on the stage, feeding off the audience’s attention. Everything progressed like a well-oiled machine, the seams of reality hidden from view. Jaya revelled in the distilled truths of these make-believe worlds, of complexities unravelled and laid bare.
Whereas once she would have remained still and focused on the proceedings, tonight she could not help but fidget. Time and again she peered into the sound and lighting booth, where Ravi worked shrouded in shadow. She had not forgotten Ruhi’s encouragement to pursue a relationship with him, and try as she might to push thoughts of Ravi into the recesses of her mind, they bubbled up to the surface.
Ravi would have to be both absurd and a glutton for punishment if he still wanted anything to do with her. Jaya had told Ruhi as much, as she sought to hide pangs of disappointment she did not quite understand. She preferred hiding behind walls to the vulnerability of romantic relationships. Inviting a man into her life would cause nothing but trouble, so she resolved to redraw her boundaries, to take joy from the familiar, and to banish anything alien.
Tonight’s play reinforced her point of view; the themes found an unusual synergy with her life. Ordinarily, the plays performed at Tara centred on big loves, or on the most prized relationship in Indian culture, that of father and son. Traditionally in Indian story-telling the love between sisters came last, deemed less important than brotherly bonds, or the love between a mother and son. This play elevated the relationship between sisters and Jaya welcomed the parallels to her own life. She prized her relationship to Ruhi above all else. Though she could not deny she had some residual feelings for Ravi, murkily clouding her heart like silt on a riverbed, it pleased her to think the universe had align
ed and sent her a message.
By the time the intermission came around, she had convinced herself that her dalliance with Ravi had been a blip, a close call, a reminder to maintain the distance that protected her from a broken heart. She decided to ensure he had no illusions that they could be anything more than friends when she next saw him.
As the audience filed out of their seats, she pushed her way to the front of the room and took up position by the stage to serve ice cream from a small cart: mango, caramel, pistachio and vanilla. Engrossed in serving her customers, she was startled by a hand at her elbow.
“You’ve been hiding from me,” said Ravi.
Jaya’s heartbeat raced.
Her own hateful body betrayed her by responding to him. She could not refute the physical impact he had on her. He only had to be near for her skin to prickle in response. What a foolish response, as if she were a teenager and not middle-aged.
“Just busy,” said Jaya, struggling to keep her voice level. She returned change to an older woman wearing large yellow gold earrings and nodded her thanks.
Today he wore all black, as she did; their uniform for performances. A badge pinned to his shirt pocket, black etchings on silver, spelled out his name. Ravi Johar. Johar, a nice name: Sanskrit for ‘jewel’. She shook her head to discipline her wandering mind.
“Memsaheb, a little quicker maybe?” said a man waiting for his ice-cream. Jaya scowled at Ravi and passed the man two tubs.
“I’ll get out of your hair,” said Ravi. He withdrew to the shadows while she completed her duties. Jaya’s fingers became clumsy knowing he watched. After she’d served the last person in line, he approached again, standing closer to her than a stranger might have.
