A Distant Heart

by Sonali Dev

  When that made him look like she had said something painful, her heart sped up for a whole different reason. “You’ll come to see me every day, won’t you?”

  But she knew something was wrong before he even spoke.

  “My transfer papers came in. I’m being transferred to Pune.”

  “They can’t do that! Why can’t you work in Mumbai? Papa will take care of it.”

  “What the hell, Kimi!” He was furious. “I did this myself. I made it into the IPS on my own. This was not something Kirit-sir did for me. My career is not his to direct.”

  She knew she shouldn’t have said that. But she had an odd desperation rising inside her. If he wasn’t here and she was stuck here, how would she survive it? Not after how long she had waited. “No one’s directing anything. You can’t go. And that’s that.”

  “It’s a job, Kimi. Regular people need those. It’s not your little kingdom to direct.”

  Kingdom? Regular people? He, of all people, thought she ran a kingdom? He, who she had always been able to ask things of, the only person who cared what she wanted, not just what she needed. And now here they were, and he thought she was a spoiled child. And he felt the need to point out that she wasn’t a regular person?

  “You think I’m spoiled? You think this is me ruling my kingdom?” She looked around her room with its medicinal smell and the endless buzz of machines.

  “Kimi . . .” He dared to sound as though he was warning her. The way he sounded when he thought she was manipulating him into something. It was their game. A game that was only fun if he was a willing participant. He wanted the same things she did. Didn’t he? Or did he really think she was spoiled? Was the way she was really not regular? Outside of her illness she had always felt normal. Was that not true? Was she really so sick that she wasn’t even a regular person?

  Anger beat in her heart so hard she found it hard to breathe.

  “I want you to leave. Go.”

  “Kimi . . .” He sounded bereft now. She knew the feeling. How was she going to get through this without him? She had gladly, even excitedly, agreed to come home because somehow stupidly she had thought he would be here to help her through it. The way he’d always been. But he didn’t understand anything. And he had a life. In Pune. Which was a four-hour drive away.

  “When do you have to leave?”

  “Actually, I’m already living there.”

  He had come to see her from Pune? That’s why he had been late?

  Maybe he could come see her every few days. She opened her mouth to ask him. But suddenly, she couldn’t. He had called her spoiled. He had ruined everything.

  “Go, Rahul. Leave me to rule my kingdom.” And for the first time in her life she slammed the door in his face.

  23

  Rahul

  Present day

  It was a good thing Mohit had dragged himself out of bed and out the back door to the community bathrooms. A few years ago, Rahul had had a bathroom installed inside the block so they didn’t have to use the communal one. But Mohit refused to use it.

  Good. Because there was no way Rahul was letting Kimi even see the communal bathrooms. As it was, the crash course she had gotten in his idiot brother’s antics was enough introduction to the chasms between their lives for one day. Rahul lived in fear of coming home one of these days and seeing Mohit with more than just a black eye. The local police chowki kept an eye on him, but going up against the gangs in the area wasn’t exactly what Rahul had hoped for when he wrote those checks for Mohit’s engineering college.

  Kimi had giggled. Actually giggled when Mohit had introduced himself. And now she was off chatting away with Aie in the kitchen. When they first got here, Rahul had felt like he should say something. Somehow show her how to navigate his family, but he hadn’t known where to start, and now she was doing a better job of it than he ever had. And damn if that didn’t mess with his head.

  He started throwing a few things into an overnight bag and threw a glance at Kimi’s purple suitcase, and it made him smile. Which in turn made him angry. This wasn’t a time for amusement. He called his travel agent to make a booking. They couldn’t get on that plane soon enough.

  He couldn’t get out of here fast enough.

  I want you to show me where you go when you run away.

  He could have taken her anywhere that day. And she had been stupid enough to trust him.

  That single day might have flipped his life like a coin, but it had flipped her life too. Even though she would never admit to his role in it. Maybe if she hadn’t gotten soaked to the bone and run down a crowded beach with him, she would never have become sick. And maybe if she had never taken his hand and dragged him there, his hand would never have been able to suppress a memory that still woke him up at night sometimes. If not for that day, maybe they’d both have headed down altogether different paths that didn’t lead them here. To his three-room home, where all their differences danced in the light.

  Her laughter mixed with Aie’s and filled the block. What could they possibly have found to laugh about? The usually familiar sound of her laughter felt alien here. Like it was shaking up sleeping ghosts and twisting together memories he wanted and didn’t want with equal hunger. He felt as unbalanced as he had standing on the rock with the tide too high and the waves trying to dislodge them off its wet back. A bucking camel ride they had only survived by holding on to each other so they didn’t topple headfirst into the ocean.

  Dropping her off at the compound wall of the building adjoining The Mansion, dripping wet, was a moment he had carried with him ever since. She had climbed the wall and jumped onto the gatehouse with the deftness of a squirrel. For the second time that day she had looked down at him from the roof of the gatehouse with those humongous doe eyes and thanked him as though he’d been some big hero. When he had been the one who had needed it more than her. He had never before or since taken anyone else there.

  His clothes had dried in the afternoon sun on his walk home. When he climbed up the dark chawl stairwell and emerged onto the veranda, the first thing he’d seen was Mona and Mohit playing cricket across the china-mosaic floor that led to their block.

  As soon as they saw him they ran to him, both of them reaching up their arms until he picked them up and settled them on each hip.

  Aie, Dada’s home! Mona shouted in his ear, and he rubbed his stinging ear into her shoulder and wiped his still-damp hair into her neck, making her squeal.

  Aie lives in our block, not on the moon, he said, and Mona giggled and wrapped her legs around him tighter.

  Where have you been all day? Aie had asked as he put his siblings on the divan. His grandparents had gone back to Pune and the constant stream of mourners was finally gone too. It had taken just one month after he had given fire to Baba’s cremation pyre for people to start laughing around them again, and to start behaving like themselves instead of doleful, whisper-voiced versions of themselves.

  Aie, I’m hungry, he had said for the first time since Baba had stopped coming home.

  Aie had responded with nothing more than a quick swipe of her sari across her eyes. Food’s ready, but first you have to get cleaned up. No filthy boys in my kitchen.

  Mona had screwed up her button nose. Dada smells like football.

  Mohit had pinched his nose and nodded in wholehearted agreement.

  Rahul had raised his elbows, threatening to shove the two of them under his armpits, and they had rolled back on the divan shrieking with laughter before wrestling him down and climbing all over him.

  “What are you staring at?” Aie asked, coming out of the kitchen and catching him looking at the empty divan where the memories had been so alive moments ago, he half expected them to have messed up the sheets.

  The sheets were pristinely tucked. And brand-new. At least Aie loved to shop for things for the block now, even though she refused to move out of the chawl and into his police housing. And he couldn’t leave her and Mohit behind and move by himself. E
specially not when he couldn’t get through to Mohit, who had turned into someone Rahul couldn’t even recognize. How had his life come to this? Him unable to get through to anyone he cared about.

  Except Aie, who was easier than he deserved. Easy on him, easy on Mohit. He knew it was unfair to take her kindness as his due and expect her to be different with Mohit. But kindness wasn’t what Mohit needed. Not when those kids he called friends could get him killed.

  “Come in and eat something,” Aie said, tugging him back to earth with her trademark gentleness and pushing him into the kitchen where Kimi was laying down the paath stools around serving bowls of food on the floor.

  How did she even know to do that?

  “We used to eat on the kitchen floor at my grandmothers’ house when I was very little,” she said, even though he had not asked the question.

  She laid down Mona’s stool and no one else seemed to notice.

  “Our flight isn’t until early tomorrow morning. We have to find a safe place to stay until then.”

  Aie’s hand pressed against her mouth again. Why did the mention of the word safe always elicit fear? “Eat first. All decisions are easier on a full stomach,” she said. “Where are you planning on flying off to?”

  “Off to save the world again, I see.” Mohit walked into the room, a wet towel slung over his shoulders and wetting his T-shirt. He looked more and more like Baba every day.

  Mohit picked up Mona’s paath and put it away, switching it with another one, and then plonked down on it. Then pulled Kimi down on the one next to him with far too much familiarity. “Will you bring Aie another medal for bravery to add to her collection?”

  “Mohit,” Aie said with absolutely no heat in her voice and watched Rahul with her patient Aie eyes. Stuck with her two boys who “did as they pleased”—her standard reaction to the entire Mohit mess.

  “I’m sorry, I should stay home like you and make trouble with the roadside gangs instead of doing honest work to put a roof over your head.”

  “Well, it’s the roadside gangs that keep your medals coming, so you should show some gratitude,” Mohit said, and started serving food onto the steel plates in front of each stool. “Actually, given your mentor, you’d get the medals even without the gangs, wouldn’t you?”

  “Mohit!” Aie raised her voice this time. She had heard Mohit say some version of this countless number of times, but she was horrified anew each time. Plus, Kimi was here. “Apologize to your dada right now.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mohit said breezily, “Dada,” he added, making the term of respect for an elder brother sound anything but respectful.

  “Did Rahul’s mentor take those bullets for him in the line of duty too then?” Kimi said just as breezily, and Rahul’s temples started to pound.

  “Ah, she does have a point! Beauty and brains,” Mohit said, leering at Kimi. But instead of looking uncomfortable, she smiled at him as though the ass was somehow amusing.

  “Well, everything comes with a price, or haven’t you heard my dada say that yet? It’s his life’s motto.”

  Before Rahul could react, Kimi pointed at Mohit’s bruised face. “What was the price of having your face pounded?”

  “It’s a gory story. I don’t want to offend your sensibilities.”

  Kimi laughed. Like, actually laughed out aloud.

  Rahul shook his head. Mohit was such an idiot.

  “What?” Mohit looked a few notches less cocky.

  Kimi gave him a patronizing pat on his arm, and rubbed her chest in that barely skimming way.

  “Sit down, beta, everyone’s waiting to start,” Aie said to Rahul. Mohit was already halfway through his first roti, but Aie and Kimi hadn’t started yet. They were waiting for him.

  There was no way he could eat right now. Fortunately, his cell phone buzzed. “You go ahead,” he said. “I have to take this.”

  When he looked up, Mohit was grinning in a way that pressed every one of Rahul’s buttons. He was doing his job, for shit’s sake! Mohit could shove his attitude. As soon as Mohit saw his irritation, his smile widened. “Duty calls,” he mumbled as Rahul left the room to talk to Maney.

  “Asif’s men attacked the Colaba safe house, boss,” Maney said, his voice entirely exhausted.

  Bloody hell! “Damage?” Rahul hissed into the phone, taking it into the inner room.

  “We lost two constables. Sad thing is, they just happened to be passing by. They didn’t even know anything about the safe house. We already knew about the leak, so we didn’t have any men there. Also, a young woman, she too just happened to be standing outside the building.”

  Asif’s people had to have thought that was Kimi. He was going to kill the bastard dead this time. Kill him.

  “You were right, boss, there’s definitely a mole in the department. It’s the only way the location of the safe house could have leaked,” Maney said.

  Of course there was a mole. And there was no way to find out who it was. At least not until this mess was over.

  “Boss, make sure you don’t reveal your location to anyone, not even to me. Also, we caught another one of Asif’s men. Seems like a lower gang member. But the man’s not talking. Not even after some pretty strong ‘interrogation.’ Doesn’t seem like the guy knows anything. Asif could have even let us capture him to throw us off. With this wily bastard, you never know.”

  “Keep the interrogation going and don’t ease up the search. I want every one of his men in custody.” The fewer men Asif had around him when Rahul caught up with him, the better.

  Next he called Kirit.

  “What the hell, Rahul, I’ve been trying to call you! Where have you been?” Evidently, the minister had already heard about the shooting.

  “We’re safe, sir,” he said with more calm than he felt. “I’ve disconnected both our phones. We’re using a ghost right now and I can’t give you this number. Kimi’s safe, but I’m not taking any chances.”

  “I’m her father,” Kirit said with more heat than he’d let slip until now. “Have her call me. I need to make sure she doesn’t get any wild ideas.”

  “Yes, sir.” Good luck with that.

  “And, Rahul, use your discretion. You do not have to give in to everything she asks for. She’s really messed up in her head over this Asif thing. Be a man, okay, son?”

  Rahul would not dignify that with a response.

  “That’s a direct order, Rahul,” Kirit said, when he didn’t get a “yes, sir.” “You do not indulge her wanting to chase after something a psycho said.”

  “Yes, sir.” He was going to have to appease Kirit if he didn’t want the minister putting a tail on him and ruining everything.

  “Wow! That’s a lot of ‘yes, sirs’ for one phone conversation,” Mohit said, and Rahul almost pulled the little shit up by his collar. “Don’t you get tired of your dog leash?”

  “Letting your wastrel friends yank your leash is a better option then?” Rahul slipped the phone into his pocket.

  Mohit didn’t like that. “You wouldn’t understand my friends. Given that your friends carry Gucci bags,” he said, pointing to Kimi’s bag.

  “I thought you were adorable, but you’re really getting on my nerves with all your judgment, you know that?” Kimi held out a plateful of food to Rahul just as he started to fold up his sleeves. The damn pre-monsoon humidity was getting oppressive. If the rains didn’t come soon, this humidity was going to squeeze the breath out of them all. She waited until he was done, her eyes hitching the slightest bit on his forearms before she met his gaze.

  “Thanks,” he said, accepting the plate, unable to look away from her eyes.

  Mohit cleared his throat. “Really? You think I’m adorable?” He did that lecherous-grinning thing again, and Rahul saw that Kimi was about to set him straight and he had a completely untimely urge to smile.

  “Okay, stop with the creepiness. I’m not your brother’s girlfriend, he has no interest in me whatsoever, so your effort to piss him off, at leas
t in this, is wasted.”

  Rahul’s urge to smile died a quick death.

  Mohit opened his mouth, but she raised a hand in his face and picked up her bag. “First, it’s not Gucci, it’s Chanel. Don’t worry, common mistake.” She dug out a tube of something from her bag. “Put some of this on. You’ll stop looking like a punching bag in a few hours.”

  Mohit studied the label. Rahul studied Kimi, his mind stuck on her earlier words.

  Rahul has no interest in me whatsoever. He needed to remember that. No matter how much her presence in his home knocked everything inside him off balance.

  “It’s from a clinic in Switzerland. A mix of witch hazel, aloe, lavender, and some nuclear-strength anti-inflammatory drugs. Money has its advantages.” She took the tube back, opened the golden cap, grabbed Mohit’s finger, and squeezed some on it. “Not that you’re ever going to find out, given that you dropped out of engineering school. Yes, Aie just filled me in. After topping your class for the first three years. A bit pathetic, don’t you think?”

  Mohit rubbed the clear gel into his banged-up eye and cheek, wincing. “What was pathetic was using blood money to get an education. I’ll make my own way. Without selling myself. Thank you very much.”

  “Mohit!” Great. Now Aie was here. The inside room was too small for so many people. Too small for everything erupting inside it. Rahul shoved the curtain aside and went to the outside room.

  “Right, walk away. Naturally.”

  “Mohit beta, is this the time for all this?” Aie said in her most reasonable voice. “Go, go help Shanta kaku. All day they’ve needed help and you’ve been passed out. Go help take the mortar and pestle down to the storeroom. Go.”

  “Fine. But she should know what he is. She seems like a nice-enough girl.” And with that he sauntered past Rahul and slammed the front door behind him.

  24

  Kimi

  Present day