All the Tomorrows

by Nillu Nasser

  At the shore, Akash undressed quickly down to his briefs and waded into the surf. The sea sloshed against his thighs, curling the hair there in different directions. He cupped his hands to scoop up some water and let it run from the crown of his head, over his chest in rivulets. He clasped his hands together and prayed.

  “Lord Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva. Goddesses Lakshmi, Saraswati, Durga. I pray not to one of you, but to all of you. Have you answered my prayers for peace? Were you listening all along? I beg of you, help me do what’s right. What should I do?”

  He listened, and no one answered, so he closed his eyes and floated in the sea, the cool waves lapping at his body, encompassing him. It did him good to remember his insignificance. It made him braver. He was only one man. Could one man make a mess of his whole life? He hoped not.

  “She is alive!” he shouted out across the sea face. Passers-by shook their heads at the madman in their midst. Akash didn’t care. He pushed out of the water, determination written in the lines of his body. He wiped himself off and got changed into the clothes he had borrowed from Soraya. He folded his towel and tucked it behind a tree, and then he set off for Bandra, to put his plan into action.

  If Soraya’s wishes were to come to fruition, she needed to convince Arjun to accept Akash. Her son had been at loggerheads with her since Akash’s arrival. He simply could not understand why Soraya had allowed a vagrant into their house.

  “Maa, why on earth have you allowed this man, who was spying on us through our window, to come and go as he pleases? I can’t believe you’d put Muna and the baby in danger,” said Arjun. “Is Akash really worth the risk to you?”

  Soraya sighed. She and Arjun had argued with a previously unfelt passion over Akash. At twenty-two years old with a young wife and child, her son’s natural instincts were to protect his family. They had circled around the same argument since last night and Arjun was growing frustrated.

  “He’s not a risk, Arjun. He’s my friend and he needs help,” said Soraya.

  “Since when do we bend over backwards to help virtual strangers? If he was really your friend, I would have known about it.”

  Soraya raised an elegant eyebrow. “Don’t you forget—this is my house.”

  She had raised Arjun to speak his mind and not fear confrontation. In that, he was very much her son. In truth, they scarcely argued. Even as a child his maturity had been evident. As a single mother, she fostered independence in him. She had brought him into her business from the time he could walk. They ate together, lived together, worked together. Their natures were in tune to the exclusion of everyone else. It had been a surprise when her son had found a wife so early. Not that she minded. It was just not a path she would have chosen. For Soraya, marriage was not an enabler. She cherished freedom above all else.

  “I mean it, Maa. This is out of character for you. Muna is worried too.”

  “I’ll speak to her.”

  “That’s not the point. How do you know him?”

  “He was important to me once,” she said.

  “So you’ve said. What I don’t get is why.”

  They stood in the hallway of the house, a generous space propped up by marble columns with pink veins threading through them. Soraya walked over to a sofa, her sandals slapping a beat on the cool stone beneath her. She sank into its depth and tucked her feet behind a curved leg, playing for time while she stilled her ragged breathing. She took in the curl of her son’s hair, wet from his shower, and the shape of his lips, full like his father’s. Soraya motioned for him to come and sit next to her. He hesitated and then joined her, sitting awkwardly a few feet away.

  “A long time ago, we were lovers.”

  Her son looked at her with a gaping mouth. “What? How did you...” Arjun flushed.

  For the first time, Soraya experienced chagrin. She swallowed it down. She would not be cowed by standards set for other people. Her choices, to remain unmarried, to raise a son alone, might have been unusual, but she would not apologise for her past. She owned her choices.

  “We met at the university at the end of our third year. I studied Business. He had his heart set on teaching. He was already married. We... had an affair. I’m not proud of myself. Initially, I didn’t know. When I found out about his wife, I didn’t much care. It felt real, somehow right. We talked. I thought I was in love.” She was not convinced it had been love, but it was easier to explain to her son this way.

  “What happened?” said Arjun.

  “Akash’s wife found out. She saw us in the park. I heard later she had doused herself in cooking oil and lit a match.”

  Arjun stared at her, horror clouding his face. “Did she die?”

  “No. She lived.” Soraya hesitated. “I think I might have seen her in the restaurant the other night.”

  “She was there?” He was aghast. “And Akash? What did he do after that? Why is he here when he should be with her?”

  “Akash ran, and he did not come back. Not to me, and not to her. The whole university was talking about it. I didn’t see him again until you did,” said Soraya. She stood up, anxiousness creeping into her, despite her determination to inject calm into this conversation, to make Arjun understand. “He didn’t know, Arjun.”

  “That she had set herself on fire?” Disbelief darted across his features.

  “That she was alive. I told him last night.”

  “The man is either a monster, or a fool.”

  “He did not light the match.” Soraya implored her son with her eyes to understand, but he turned away.

  “He cheated on his wife. You were complicit. He abandoned her.” Arjun shuddered. “All these years, you’ve hidden this from me. I thought I knew everything about you. I want him out of our lives.”

  She recognised that voice. He had used it as a child, as a teenager, as an adult. The voice of obstinacy he had inherited from her. She had to make him understand and she knew only one way to achieve that, but she risked losing him with the truth. She thought she had all the time in the world, but in the end the sands of time were finite.

  “Arjun, I can’t do that.” Soraya steeled herself. She searched his face, her legs shaky beneath her. Finally, she spoke again. “The reason he is here, Arjun...” The words spilled out of her mouth. “It is because when he left, I was pregnant.”

  Arjun watched her lips, still and unmoving, an apparent disconnect between her words and his understanding. Time slowed, and the colour drained from his face.

  Chapter 20

  On the way to Bandra, Akash spent the last remaining rupees clinking in his pocket on slices of mango sold by a street merchant. The gloopy fruit sated him and would provide enough sustenance until his next meal. His body no longer protested against meagre offerings. His stomach had shrivelled in time, or perhaps he’d become desensitised to its hunger pangs.

  He waited for Ruhi, doing his best to be invisible. It posed no difficulties for him, unless he paused for too long in one place. He had neither age nor beauty nor power to hook the gaze of passers-by. The presence of a vagrant amounted to a blip in the minds of most, warranting a curled lip at worst, a pitying stare at best. It didn’t matter if Akash had washed and changed his clothes, or if he had combed his hair. Something about his slumped posture and lack of purpose marked him as a down and out, someone who would never belong. As if he would never be the architect of his own story.

  Regardless of fate and fortune, a window of change had opened for him. He didn’t want any trouble. Not even the fear of encountering the supermarket owner, who had chased him away from Jaya’s house, convinced him to alter his planned course of action. He traversed the streets, slinking in the shadows, taking care not to step too close to the wares being sold in case he made the shopkeepers nervous.

  Akash surveyed the house, disappointed to find an absence of comings and goings. He longed to see Jaya but for his idea to work, he needed to find Ruhi. I won’t disrupt your life, Jaya. Only your sister can judge if I should walk back into yo
ur life or disappear. His instinct told him sooner or later, Ruhi would turn up at her parents’ house, as dictated by the norms of Indian culture. A daughter would not be forgiven for lack of care towards her elderly parents, unless something had happened to Ruhi in the intervening years? Akash waited, fraught with worry about whether he would stumble across her, and the inevitable cold reception if he did.

  Time passed slowly, and he found himself visualising Jaya’s reaction when she saw him. In his mind’s eye, she went from a demon, all jutting angles and fiery anger, to an angel, charitable and tender. There was no middle ground. He groaned. Ridiculous to assume he could waltz back into Jaya’s life, however much he desired a second chance. How he longed, this time, to find out her innermost secrets, to give her the security and the love she deserved.

  But what did he have to offer? It wouldn’t do to dwell. He focused on the task at hand, studying the faces of passing women, hoping to stumble across his sister-in-law, worried that the passing years would have made her unrecognisable to him.

  He needn’t have worried. A few hours later, just when the temptation to give up overwhelmed him, he caught sight of a familiar face meandering through the market, a little boy in tow. A lump formed in Akash’s throat at the realisation that Ruhi now had a child.

  The years had been kind to her. The child was lean like his mother. Ruhi was slender as the day Akash had met her, though she must have been nearing forty. Both mother and child had the same dark eyes that resembled Jaya’s, round like vinyls Akash had collected before he left his old life behind.

  Akash approached the pair, his heart hammering in his throat, causing him to jumble up the words he had practised in his head.

  “Ruhi.”

  She didn’t hear him. Her head was bent over her son’s, her entire focus centred on his animated chatter.

  Akash repeated himself, this time with more urgency. “Ruhi.”

  He touched her shoulder and she jerked, her face registering surprise.

  Her eyes searched his face like sweeping flashlights. He watched the emotions dance across her face with growing trepidation. The shock came first, then the fury.

  She rounded on him, her elegant visage swallowed up by a banshee’s menace. “Akash! You!” She dropped her son’s hand, let her shoulder bag fall to the ground, and pummelled his chest there in the midst of the shoppers and tradesmen, not caring who witnessed her outburst and what they might think.

  Akash stood unspeaking, rocked by Ruhi’s onslaught, soaking up her rage.

  “Mama, what are you doing?” said her startled son.

  Ruhi looked from Akash to the boy. She turned to her son. “Nanima will be waiting for us. I can see you from here. Go on ahead, Devan. I’ll be right there.” She grasped his shoulders and turned him to face her. He couldn’t have been more than ten. “Don’t say a word about this to anyone, especially to Nanima. Promise me?”

  The boy nodded, unsure but obedient.

  She handed him the discarded shopping bag and pushed him towards his grandmother’s house.

  Ruhi swung towards Akash. She wrenched him towards a quiet enclave that smelt of piss. “What are you doing here after all these years?” she said through gritted teeth, all the while assessing him from head to toe, as if she could read his secrets just by looking at him.

  “I didn’t know she was alive, Ruhi. I promise you. I just found out. I saw her the other day just by chance.” Mentioning Soraya would be stupidity; it would only turn her more against him. The white lie burned hot within him. “I thought she had died in the fire.”

  “You mean you wished she had died.” Her voice dripped with ice.

  “No! It changed my life.”

  Ruhi shoved him.

  He did not defend himself.

  “It changed your life? You stupid, stupid man. You did this to her.” Ruhi stood up tall. “But do you know what? She’s happy. It took her a long time, but Jaya is finally happy again. No thanks to you.”

  She had changed from the sweet girl he remembered. The Ruhi he had known had treated him like a brother, teased him, sought his advice. His behaviour had cost him more than his wife.

  “Look at the state of you, Akash.” She eyed him with disgust. “Even if you thought Jaya had died, why disappear? Why not stick around and pay your respects at her funeral? Why not say goodbye? All these years without closure... It wasn’t just the cheating. It was the walking away. You made her the subject of gossip. You humiliated her twice.”

  He hung his head, and when he looked up he saw a genuine willingness to understand that, for a moment, diluted her anger. Everything rode on convincing her to allow him see Jaya. He wouldn’t do it without her agreement. He and Jaya were now strangers and he would not jeopardise her emotional equilibrium for his own sake. He relied on Ruhi’s judgement but wished more than anything that she would say yes.

  He revealed one of the secrets of that night, knowing it was his ace of cards but reluctant to cause trouble. “I disappeared because your father told me it was for the best. He told me that Jaya had died and that I should never come back.”

  A stillness girdled Ruhi, as if a lasso had been drawn around her accusations and pulled tight. “What did you say?”

  “Your father told me Jaya had died. I believed him. I should have come back, but I couldn’t escape my grief and I didn’t want to add to yours.” He splayed out his hands as if in prayer, begging her to understand.

  “I don’t believe it,” she said, but her anger fizzled out, towards him at least. She released a long breath. “What do you want, Akash?”

  “I want your permission to see her.” Please, his internal voice called out, please give me this chance.

  Ruhi’s brow furrowed. “Why?”

  “She’s my wife.”

  “A lot has changed.”

  “I won’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to, Ruhi. I can be the husband she always wanted, or a friend.” He paused, and swallowed the pain. “Or even a stranger, but I need to talk to her.”

  “Tell me the truth. Are you with Soraya?”

  He met her eyes and held them, spoke the truth. “No.”

  “Do you have children?”

  “No.” A single syllable that pained him. He wished it were different.

  Ruhi breathed out, ostensibly relieved. “I won’t let you hurt her, Akash.” A storm of thoughts wrote themselves on her face. “But banishing you was not my father’s decision. Neither is it mine. You are still Jaya’s husband.”

  “I’ll do anything you ask.”

  “She has a fuller life than ever before. She is happy.” She held his gaze, searching for his intent, and seemed to come away satisfied. “But maybe you will help her crystallise what she really wants, who she really wants.”

  “Thank you.” He wanted to hug her, but he held his distance, not wanting to cross the line Ruhi had clearly marked in the sand. She no longer viewed him as family.

  “Not so fast, Akash. If you hurt her, you will never see her again.”

  “I understand.” His heart raced at the thought of seeing Jaya again after all these years. Not a fleeting glimpse, but a prolonged meeting, where he could drink in the sight of her, listen to her voice for real this time, not just an echo in his head.

  “These are my conditions.” The tension reemerged in a flash, leaving him a tightly coiled spring as he listened. Ruhi counted out her points on her fingers, her movements slow and deliberate, leaving no room for manoeuvre. “Number one: you will not see her face to face until I say you can. Number two: you will not reveal who you are until I say. Number three: you will woo her with anonymous letters delivered to Tara Theatre in Juhu. She works there. That way you can get to know each other again without the burden of the past. See it as a trial. If you pass, I won’t stop you from walking into Jaya’s life again for real.”

  Dismay filled Akash. How could he write to Jaya without revealing his identity? Still, he had no choice but to agree.

  “Do we h
ave an agreement?” She held out her hand, and he folded it into his calloused grip.

  “Yes.” His mind whirred.

  “How do I find you?”

  He was too ashamed to reveal his home just yet. “I’ll find you,” he said.

  Ruhi nodded and stepped into the main road to continue on her way. At the last moment, she pivoted. “Akash?”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s good to see you.”

  She did not stop for an answer. A group of shoppers swept her forward, and when Akash emerged into the street, the crowd had swept Ruhi away. Salty tears of gratitude sprung from his eyes. He hugged the promise about meeting Jaya to himself like a thief with stolen jewels.

  Chapter 21

  Akash returned to Soraya’s bungalow as he had promised he would, although his head was filled with thoughts of Jaya. Though it had only been a few days since he had pressed his nose up to the glass of the kitchen and recognised Soraya standing there, he had become a different person, as if the scales had been lifted from his eyes with the knowledge that Jaya lived.

  Still, he had given Soraya his word that he wouldn’t disappear, and so, he waited at the outhouse while the guard called the mistress of the house to let her know he had arrived. The guard listened carefully and hung up the telephone.

  “Madam is at the restaurant. She’ll be back before the sun sets. She has asked me to escort you to the Red Room. You’re not to leave. Follow me.”

  They trod the now familiar path through the gardens towards the house, along the winding corridors to the room where Akash had spent his first night after Arjun’s beating. The door clicked behind Akash, and he waited patiently at first, then with increasing dissatisfaction. He searched in vain in drawers for a pen and paper, so he could at least begin writing to Jaya. Will you wait for me a bit longer, Jaya? He could not override the feeling that something might befall one of them, and put an end to his dreams of reconciliation. He needed Jaya’s forgiveness to live. Perhaps he even needed her love to be happy. His head spun with the ripples of his new-found knowledge.