by Kota Neelima
Nalan asked her to be careful and not take too long at the meeting, as she was still not fully recovered and too weak. He was on a tour of an eastern state on party work and was expected to be away for three days. But he made up for his absence by calling often, and she kept the cell phone close to her. She felt strangely insufficient without him, as if he was functionally important for her to get through a day. Salat drove her to the Bansi residence and helped her step out of the car. He said he would wait outside and she gave him her cell phone with a request to tell Nalan, who was bound to call, that she would talk to him after the meeting. An aide led her to the separate path on the right side of the main house. It was a sunny day, full of birds and conversations. The garden was green and with rows of empty white chairs, as if a meeting had just ended. Getting breathless with the exertion, she walked slowly and felt the pull of the muscles around the healing wounds. Mira glanced at the tree in the distance, the one that kept secret stories of unseen worlds folded in its foliage. It seemed to have soaked enough rain to start making it the next season. She stopped walking, unable to breathe, and the aide waited anxiously. It had been over ten days since the attack, and there was only a light bandage over the injuries. But the doctors still insisted on rest, and she still couldn’t walk without pain and fatigue. Her legs trembled with weakness by the time she reached the door of Sikander’s house, and gratefully slumped down in one of the armchairs of the study. She had a glass of water the aide got her and closed her eyes, dealing with the pain. The house had always been silent and settled, as if it had resolved whatever bothered it. But now it felt complete, Mira discovered, and wondered where he was.
Sikander stood at a distance and scrutinized her with a frown. Her face seemed thinner, the khadi shirt she usually wore hung loosely, and the dark trousers were crumpled. The exhaustion of even that short walk had overwhelmed her, the injuries were taking their toll. His worried eyes went to her hand that was pressed to the waist at the wounds. Then his face cleared quickly.
‘It couldn’t wait?’ he said as he walked into the study. ‘Good afternoon.’
Startled, Mira opened her eyes and found Sikander stand before her.
She made to get up to move to the sofas, but he gestured her not to and pulled up a chair. The light from the windows fell on him, and Mira was taken aback a little. He was no longer the common-looking man who merged seamlessly into that damp lane in Sangam Vihar, as if he had always belonged to it. He wore a beige cotton jacket and a white shirt, with dark brown trousers and suede shoes. His dark hair was neat and his large eyes were formal. Sikander was once again the man in his picture, the man in his tapes.
‘Why haven’t you recovered yet?’ he asked with precise impatience. ‘Never mind, I’ll find out from the doctors at the hospital. Let’s talk about why you are here.’
Mira sank back in the armchair, her dark eyes still surprised.
‘What, you were expecting someone else?’ He was amused. ‘Nalan Malik, perhaps?’
Mira conceded, weakly. ‘I was expecting someone else.’
There was a moment’s silence, then Sikander noted, ‘That’ll be the first thing you have ever said to me.’
She still breathed with effort, and knew it wasn’t going to be easy to speak.
‘All right,’ he said crisply. ‘What can I do for you? Why are you here?’
Mira studied him in silence, realizing the futility of her visit. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I shouldn’t have wasted your time. This meeting was not required, and if you could please call your aide, I will leave right now.’
She made to rise from the armchair and realized she may need assistance. Sikander didn’t move.
‘This may be a waste of time,’ he granted, ‘but now that the meeting has begun, let’s talk. What’s on your mind?’
Mira glanced around and searched for the aide who seemed to have left the house.
‘You want something?’ Sikander inquired. ‘You like tea, if I recall. No food, but two shelves full of tea. Your kitchen.’
‘Yours as well,’ she countered. ‘No, I don’t want tea, thank you.’ She spoke slowly, ‘I just want your aide to help me walk out to the gate.’
‘I get the distinct feeling that you are trying to escape,’ he remarked cordially. ‘Naturally, I am concerned that any of my guests should feel so.’
That was a mean trick, Mira thought. He smiled encouragingly.
‘I thought I had read you wrong,’ she finally told him. ‘I came to find out what was the truth: the man I knew or the man you turned out to be.’
Sikander raised his eyebrows. ‘And?’
‘Now I know that I was not wrong about you,’ Mira said, ‘and I would like to leave before you convince me otherwise.’
He chuckled. ‘May I ask what exactly you were “not wrong” about?’
Mira didn’t speak; his thoughts ridiculed her.
‘Allow me to guess then,’ Sikander offered. ‘What has formed the basis of your conclusions about me? The information my father had provided about me, the tapes, the clues, this house, the way I lived in that lane where you found me and now, the result of everything.’ He regarded her steadily. ‘These are only parts of the picture that is far from complete. You may have concluded that I’m weighed down by my inheritance and don’t care too much about it. Such admirable detachment is not my style, although I use the notion often.’
Mira wasn’t surprised, that had been her conclusion about his facades.
‘As for the tapes,’ he glanced at the windows, thinking, his expressive eyes catching the light like water. ‘The elected members of our Parliament should no longer function without any sense of accountability to the voters. I wanted to build a case for reforms that would compel MPs to reveal every deal they make, all the negotiations and the understandings they reach during their tenure. As an MP myself, I know that these transactions are mostly settled before the election when businesses start investing in politicians. If the candidate wins the election, he is obliged to pay back the businesses by supporting decisions beneficial to them.’ Sikander explained, ‘I wanted to raise the question: is it truly a democracy if people don’t even know who funds the politician they vote for?’
He turned to her. ‘Now, as for my life in the lane that you uncovered brilliantly in just the very third clue . . . I got to know that from the date you rented the room across the lane.’ He paused, then continued evenly, ‘I’m torn apart daily by the knowledge that I enjoy privileges most of my country cannot afford. I may be used to my destined life, but I don’t like to be dependent on it. I have left it often and lived like an ordinary person in different parts of this nation.’ He was serious as he added, ‘It wasn’t something I ever talked about. It wasn’t politics. It was just the only way I felt alive, as if my soul was finally happy.’
Mira knew he meant that.
‘Therefore, it was easy for me to become someone else for the duration of the publication of the tapes,’ Sikander told her. ‘I had to disappear to save my father trouble, and allow him to distance himself from my actions. My disguise kept me hidden from the forces that could have pressured me and, at the same time, let me monitor the publication of the tapes from Delhi and their impact.’
Mira forgot to breathe as she detected his next thought.
‘As for the clues,’ he leaned forward and observed her keenly. ‘Trenchant, weren’t they? Cut you to the quick, and made you run away from yourself. But you were also drawn by the words, even though they hurt you, because they proved I cared for you. That was worth the pain, wasn’t it? I thought so too,’ he said, satisfied. ‘In the end, I can’t say how right you were about me, Mira, but from the first day until today, you have acted exactly as I thought you would and . . .’
He stopped speaking abruptly when he noticed the faint tears in her eyes as they met his. There was silence between them for a long moment.
‘That’s why you chose me, wasn’t it?’ she whispered.
Sik
ander couldn’t answer her.
‘Your clues, your . . . vicious and loving words?’ she accused him. ‘You knew I would die before I gave you up. You knew it would be easy.’
He didn’t speak at once, but his thoughts made her flinch.
‘You call this easy?’ he asked her.
‘You should have let me go,’ she said, helplessly.
‘I plan to.’
‘Please realize I can discern a lie,’ she warned him.
‘And please remember I know you,’ he responded. ‘Down to that photograph, which was not of your parents.’
Mira, disturbed, remained silent.
‘Yes, I chose you because you are an orphan,’ he said sternly. ‘It wasn’t to manipulate you but I thought you would understand me. And I was right!’ Sikander said to her, upset. ‘I chose you also because of the way you read my father’s decisions so accurately every time. I knew you could perceive my decisions even if I was in hiding. But you did much more than that,’ he said, his voice sincere. ‘Your courage forced me to be strong when I had doubts about my own plans. I admire you Mira. I respect you, and you know I’m telling the truth.’
She nodded reluctantly.
He was silent, somehow hurt. Then said, ‘And yet you never believed me.’
She uneasily considered him as his dark, deep eyes didn’t allow her to look away.
‘You found my words in the notebook, but you didn’t stay in the lane that morning. I wanted that moment so much, you can’t imagine!’ He spoke intensely. ‘I was sure my life would have changed, but when you left, when I found your room empty . . .’ He stopped, then continued softly, ‘I would have never hurt you, you know. You were wrong to doubt my affection.’
Mira frowned at the perfection with which he knew her thoughts. Troubled, her hand once again reached the bandage at the wounds that ached dully.
Sikander lowered his eyes. ‘Perhaps I’m being selfish to think that you would want me,’ he said pensively, ‘merely because I need you. I have spent the last six months learning about you, thinking of you and watching you. I can’t imagine a future that has nothing to do with you,’ he told her simply. ‘I don’t want to go on without you, it would be like leaving a part of me behind.’
His thoughts were clear like sunlight. Even when he fell silent, she could hear his words in her heart. She answered them.
‘That’s all right. I didn’t mind.’
‘But I did!’ he said earnestly, not surprised at her perception. ‘I should’ve been there next to you, when you struggled for your life in the hospital. It’s far too dangerous for you to be associated with me right now. They are looking for my weakness, the person for whom I can leave everything, do anything. That’s why they attacked you, and that’s why I had to make that statement in the interview with Nalan Malik.’ Then he added, apologetic. ‘That’s why I didn’t agree to meet you at once. Why else would I postpone this meeting?’
His every word was the truth, she noted, his every thought was about her.
‘Knowing you made my life worth living, worth waking up for,’ he spoke simply, honestly. ‘I learnt from you how to live without wanting tomorrow. My life has been all about acquiring the future, but you left every day to itself and expected nothing from the next. I don’t care if I never get to live, Mira, only if I get to die with you. I intended the clues, every one of them!’ He was vehement as he added, ‘For the way you desire death, I have begun desiring it for myself. Freedom; I want it like you do, with my life!’
His thoughts overwhelmed her mind and forced out every other thought.
Sikander leaned forward in his chair again, his speaking eyes were liquid light. ‘When I found you dying at your home, I was shaken, Mira, but I was also angry with you. I was upset that you found what you wanted without me. There you were, leaving behind all that pinned you down to this world—the desire to begin and finish, leave and reach, give and take. You were purged of all that, you were purified of your life, your blood.’ His voice was passionate as he said, ‘You were like God to me that instant, someone I aspired to be but could never be; someone who belonged to a better world.’
Then he fell silent, and it was a silence like she had never heard before. There was nothing else but him, and the longing for his next words. Nothing physical, not even the pain of her wounds mattered.
‘I request you to be careful.’ He collected himself, his face set with control. ‘You must not reach out to me again, or give me any importance, until it’s safe for you. Leave me as if I were dead,’ he smiled with effort, ‘and I shall find you. Every time.’
Mira closed her eyes, memorizing that moment, his lasting words.
Then said, ‘You see, Sikander, I have been meaning to tell you.’ She said regretfully, ‘I know something about masks, I have needed many during my lifetime.’
His concerned eyes sharpened a fraction.
‘I have played many different people,’ she elaborated. ‘Strangely, the most difficult part was to appear happy when I wasn’t. Then I got a hang of it; happy child, happy student, happy employee.’ She regarded him critically. ‘Your masks lack conviction because your life doesn’t depend on them as mine had.’
His watched her in silence and noted that her hand stayed at the waist on the bandaged wounds.
Her voice was thin, as she continued, ‘Your political life needed to be free of your father’s influence, which everyone knows might end with this elections. It was your strategy to become a popular leader by raising a pertinent issue and by demolishing rivals,’ she paused for breath. Then said, ‘Yes, you wanted the Parliament to be open to scrutiny and correction, but you wanted it for attaining power yourself. So please,’ she smiled briefly, ‘don’t tell me it’s not politics.’
Sikander seemed offended but didn’t contradict her.
Fatigued, Mira closed her eyes. ‘Your masks fooled everyone but not me,’ she spoke slowly. ‘You loved the life of an ordinary man in that lane, but you also loved the deception of it and the challenge. I saw you when you put up with a difficult boss at work or when you had food with strangers. You loved that they believed your masks,’ she whispered weakly, ‘your many faces.’
Mira couldn’t speak for sometime, and Sikander surveyed her in silence.
‘Now, for the clues.’ She finally opened her eyes and saw him sit back in his chair, his beautiful eyes deeply wounded. ‘Your first clue stumped me, but I was prepared for the second, and I saw through the third. I just hope you don’t think I recover my faith from things that I hang on walls.’
‘I don’t,’ he remarked briefly.
Mira acknowledged that. ‘Then I thank you for thinking of my safety by deliberately revealing your address to me when the whole world searched for you.’
He politely nodded.
‘It was a good alternative that you proposed if I had stayed back in the lane that morning. Such happiness was worth every suffering of my past.’ She observed sadly. ‘A girl in this country, orphan or otherwise, grows up to believe that the world can easily do without her. Your words made me cry.’
Mira stopped speaking and quickly averted her face as the pain turned suddenly acute. He noticed her frown, and asked if she would rather rest. She didn’t answer him.
Then said, ‘You didn’t consider one thing,’ she managed with effort. ‘I’m also left stronger by my struggle against my destiny. I’m vulnerable only when I choose to be, lonely when I want to be.’ She glanced at him distressed. ‘I left the lane that morning because I knew you lied to me.’
Mira paused again as the pain burnt through her; the injuries were beginning to bleed, she could tell, and now she also knew why. She needed to calm down and not get agitated.
‘I’m sure you have worked this out, Sikander,’ she continued, more collectedly. ‘I had the choice not to return home from that lane. I could have escaped and even left the city.’
‘I know that,’ he said, grateful. ‘You did it for me.’
‘I
knew you needed a reason to end your hiding, a powerful reason that could add to your popularity and also justify your absence. I knew you couldn’t resist the opportunity.’
He was now silent, wary.
‘You knew there would be an attack on me.’ She smiled at his caution. ‘You knew because you arranged it.’
Sikander was very still. ‘I guess I deserve that.’
‘That’s quaint!’ She mocked and regarded him with contempt. ‘The assailant made two calls, one before the attack and one, afterwards. I detected those conversations as I could sense his thoughts as he responded to the callers.’ Mira paused, exhausted from the pain. ‘I also knew who the callers were, as he repeated their identities in his mind.’
Sikander was flustered for the first time.
‘You asked him to check if I needed something, like a last wish. And you asked him for my last thoughts,’ she told him, quietly outraged. ‘I wasn’t surprised that you organized that attack and enacted the rescue later. What surprised me was that for someone who knew me so well, you didn’t think I would discover the truth.’
Sikander stared at her in realization.
‘Remind me,’ she said, sarcastic, ‘to email you a brief outline of what my special powers can and can’t do. It would help you in planning such attacks better!’
He continued to sit in the chair in the same elegant way, but his face was now flushed in anger, and his eyes were darker with hurt.
‘Is that all your powers tell you?’ he inquired with forced composure. ‘And I thought, foolishly in retrospect, that you would give me the credit for thinking of every possible way to keep you safe these past weeks,’ he said, as he met her tired eyes. ‘Your life was in danger, and to make it worse, you let Nalan Malik get close to you. Did you realize, I wonder, that he visited you regularly to send me the message that he could threaten your life any time he wanted?’ He added witheringly, ‘Probably not!’
