Forever Is True

by Novoneel Chakraborty

  I still miss him.

  11

  There was an uncomfortable silence between the two.

  ‘What about your dog?’ Prisha asked.

  ‘Piano was with me for five years. On my nineteenth birthday, he simply disappeared. Nowhere to be found. I remember I cried my eyes out that day. But that which is not supposed to come back to you, doesn’t really return. Does it? And you have to live with that eventuality,’ Saveer sighed.

  Prisha felt helpless seeing Saveer resigned. What could he have possibly done to have deserve such a cruel fate? If someone was deliberately doing it, which was the obvious now, then it wasn’t even fate. To see your loved ones dying, one after another, is life at its cruellest. And Saveer had seen so many of them. That too on his birthdays. As if someone was trying to tell him that his birth had been a curse. Could that be a clue? Saveer’s birthday? Prisha wanted to ask Saveer, but she kept it to herself. She would ask him later when the time was right. She sensed that he was feeling low.

  ‘Enough of the past,’ she said and stood up. ‘Let’s go.’

  Saveer kept some money under his cup and they left.

  He dropped Prisha off at her apartment and rode back home. She tried to look chirpy in front of Gauri but felt a strange restlessness within. Masking her feelings, she changed and the two went to college. She felt as if there was bad news in the air.

  Prisha attended her lectures and diligently made notes, but she couldn’t concentrate on anything. The moment her classes got over, she came home and started googling the names Saveer had mentioned. His uncle, his best friend, his crush, but nothing came up. Considering there was a foul play behind every death, how could all of them have been done so neatly? Every death led to a dead end. Like it would have been with Prisha had she died. It too would have been a cul-de-sac because nobody had seen her being pushed off the cliff. A chill ran down her spine. Who was Saveer and she up against?

  Her trance was broken by Diggy, who came prancing along happily after bunking college that day.

  ‘What happened to you?’ Gauri was lying beside Prisha and scrolling through new arrivals on her favourite shopping app.

  ‘I just met the most amazing woman ever!’ he said. Prisha and Gauri looked at each other.

  ‘Woman? I thought you were into men,’ Gauri said.

  ‘Shut up. Even I thought I was into men but this woman made me realize . . .’

  ‘Why are you saying woman?’ Prisha asked.

  ‘Because she is a woman! A lady. What a lady!’

  Gauri guffawed, ‘What’s wrong with all three of us? First it was me, then it was Prisha and now it’s you. We all only fall for older men and women!’

  Prisha couldn’t help but laugh.

  ‘She talks such deep stuff. Every sentence of hers is so layered. And looks-wise . . . .’ Diggy fanned himself, suggesting that the woman was very hot. He was always too animated with his descriptions.

  ‘Where did you meet her?’ Prisha asked.

  ‘Tinder, I’m sure,’ Gauri rolled her eyes.

  ‘No! There’s a world beyond Tinder.’

  ‘I saw her a few days ago right outside our apartment. She had dropped her phone. I picked it up for her. And today again, she had dropped her handkerchief and I picked it up for her. She remembered my name and invited me over to her place for coffee.’

  ‘Ugh, so filmy!’ Gauri exclaimed.

  ‘Seriously!’ Prisha joined her.

  Diggy’s phone rang.

  ‘Jealous, huh?’ Diggy told the girls and glanced at this phone. ‘OMG! She is calling. Hasta la vista, babies,’ Diggy said and disappeared into his room.

  ‘No offence, but I’m sure the woman must be a bored housewife or someone having the fun of her life with him,’ Prisha said.

  ‘Let him enjoy. Guess it is his first,’ Gauri winked. Prisha smiled and went to get her laptop to complete a college assignment. Gauri went back to her shopping app. After completing her assignment, Prisha called up Saveer but he didn’t pick up. She messaged him good night and went off to sleep.

  At some point in the night, Prisha woke up feeling thirsty. She gulped down some water from the bottle kept beside her and checked the time on her phone: 2.37 a.m. There were no messages from Saveer. But there was a message from Zinnia. A voice note. She would generally call her rather than sending voice notes on WhatsApp. Since Gauri was sleeping next to her, she plugged in her earphones and tapped on the voice note. Her mouth hung open. All she could hear was Zinnia moaning and yelling: Saveer, fuck me harder . . . Harder! Harder! Harder!

  12

  Prisha couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night. The voice note kept echoing in her mind. What was going on? Was Saveer really cheating on her? When the mind is weak, it knits elaborate stories from tiny doubts. Whatever she knew of Saveer was only through him. There was no way she could double-check the stuff he told her. And then a disturbing question occurred to her: what if Saveer indeed was a bad person? Could he really be the guy that the person who had visited her in the hospital had warned about? Prisha hated herself for even considering the thought but she couldn’t get it out of her system.

  The first thing Prisha did in the morning was visit Zinnia. She had to ring the doorbell thrice before Zinnia opened the door. She looked sleepy. But the moment she registered that it was Prisha, she looked slightly guilty.

  ‘Hey, what’s up?’ Zinnia said. Prisha didn’t wait to be invited in. She stormed inside. Zinnia closed the door behind her.

  ‘I won’t pretend any more, Zin. Saveer and I are dating. It has been over a year. And it’s not casual either. We love each other.’

  Zinnia didn’t know what to say. Especially after last night when she had had the best sex of her life. And right now, Zinnia was facing the most embarrassing moment of her life: standing in front of the girl whose boyfriend had fucked her better than the best.

  ‘So . . .?’ Zinnia mumbled.

  ‘So, please explain this,’ Prisha said, and handed over her phone to her. Zinnia played the voice note on WhatsApp. And embarrassed herself further.

  ‘I didn’t send it, Prisha!’ she claimed incredulously.

  ‘Then who did? That too from your phone!’

  It has to be Saveer, Zinnia thought, but why would he do such a stupid thing?

  ‘Listen, I would have told you had Saveer not asked me not to tell you.’ Zinnia knew that she couldn’t hide the truth any more.

  ‘Tell me what? Saveer asked you to not tell me?’ Prisha had a bad feeling about it. Though she had asked the question, she didn’t want to know the answer. Somehow, she had an inkling of what was coming up next.

  ‘Saveer and I are in a physical relationship. He asked me not to tell you about it,’ Zinnia said and didn’t know where to look at.

  Prisha was quiet.

  ‘How many times did you guys do it?’

  ‘Twice.’ Zinnia felt that it was better to tell Prisha the truth.

  ‘Did it happen when I was in the hospital?’

  ‘No. It happened recently.’

  ‘Where did you guys do it? Here?’

  ‘At his place.’

  ‘At his place?’ Prisha wasn’t ready for this.

  Zinnia nodded. Prisha dashed out of the flat before Zinnia could stop her. She called her up but Prisha didn’t pick up the phone. She had come over on Diggy’s two-wheeler. Once downstairs, Prisha drove the scooty in full speed and to nowhere in particular. She broke a couple of traffic signals but luckily, there weren’t any traffic constables to catch her. She finally stopped on a random lane and leaning against the handlebar of the scooty, started sobbing. The one thing she could never tolerate was sharing her man and that’s the one thing that had happened to her, again. Her phone rang. It was Saveer. Her impulse was to throw the phone away but she managed to overpower it and took the call.

  ‘Sorry, I overslept. Couldn’t take your call last night,’ Saveer said. He sounded sleepy.

  Of course, men often sleep pe
acefully after a good fucking session, Prisha thought and asked, ‘Where were you last night?’ The bluntness in her voice made Saveer realize that something was wrong.

  ‘At my place. Where else?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Let’s meet in an hour?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nothing. I’ll talk to you later,’ she had to try hard to stop her voice from breaking in front of him. She switched off her phone and started crying again, not knowing what to believe in. Trust is a weird thing. You know you can’t ever be sure of it and yet you have to be sure of it. It is this choice that feels like a constraint. She trusted Saveer else she would never have come this far knowing his past. She also knew that there was someone trying to sabotage Saveer’s relationships. And yet a doubt had seeped in, which was enough to rage a war inside her.

  Prisha was unusually quiet in college. Gauri nudged her but she didn’t say anything. Not until Diggy went to meet his new friend.

  ‘There’s a problem,’ Prisha said. They were in a CCD outlet close to their apartment.

  ‘I knew it. Come on, tell me, bro,’ Gauri said, pushing away her cafe latte and focusing her attention on Prisha. The latter took a few minutes to tell her everything.

  ‘I always knew Zinnia was a bitch,’ Gauri said.

  ‘She might be one but whatever she told me was true.’

  ‘Why did she fuck Saveer anyway? She knew he was yours, right?’ Gauri was furious.

  ‘Not really. I never mentioned it.’

  Gauri thought for a few seconds and then said, ‘Just talk to Saveer. Judge his reaction. And then ask him for an explanation. He owes you one!’

  ‘I know. It’s just that . . .’ Prisha took some time before saying, ‘I’m scared. Too scared to lose him. Doesn’t matter what the reason might be. But I can’t lose him.’

  ‘I totally get it. I know how the fear of losing the one who is your world feels like. I also know what happens when you are told that the world that you thought was yours isn’t any more. That you have to find another world and call it yours until, of course, it too runs the danger of being snatched away from you because no matter how much our love-struck hearts convince us, nobody can be ours forever.’ It was more of a release of Gauri’s pent-up emotions than her assessment of Prisha’s predicament.

  ‘But before everything, are you sure Zinnia went to his house?’ Gauri said.

  Prisha didn’t answer. She had asked for proof while attending one of her lectures. And it had come to her in the form of a screenshot: Zinnia’s Ola ride bill from her place to Saveer’s last night.

  Gauri nudged Prisha. She still didn’t answer. She picked up her phone and typed something. Then she paused and typed something again. ‘I’m meeting Saveer at his place in the evening.’ She kept her phone down and wiped her tears with a tissue.

  * * *

  Prisha was sitting quietly in Saveer’s living room. A man was collecting his blood sample. He was getting his blood tested as per the doctor’s advice. His urine sample had already been submitted. The pathology lab guy first dabbed a wad of cotton dipped in spirit on Saveer’s arm where he had located a vein, then inserted a syringe and drew out the blood. Throughout the process, Saveer and Prisha kept looking at each other. Once the man left, after informing him that he would get his reports in a day, Saveer came close to Prisha and asked, ‘Now will you tell me what the problem is? I know there is something.’

  ‘Did Zinnia come here last night?’ Prisha started without a prelude.

  ‘Zinnia? What is it about her? You’ve asked earlier as well.’

  ‘Just answer me, Saveer.’

  ‘No, she didn’t come here. In fact, I haven’t seen her for a long time now. What next?’

  ‘This!’ Prisha tapped on Zinnia’s chat window and handed over her phone to him. Saveer played the voice note and frowned.

  ‘What does this mean?’ he asked.

  ‘What does this mean? Really? It means what she told me. That she was here last night. And the rest of it as well!’

  ‘She was here last night? In my house?’ Saveer sounded genuinely surprised. It irked Prisha even more.

  ‘I have a screenshot of her Ola drop receipt as well. There’s no reason she would make a fool proof plan for a lie. So, I want you to tell me whatever is going on. I promise you I won’t ask you any questions in return.’ Prisha seemed to be on the verge of tears.

  ‘The truth is I was alone at home last night. And I was sleeping. There is nothing more that I know of. But unfortunately, I don’t have a screenshot or anything else to prove it,’ Saveer said, standing up. Prisha didn’t react.

  ‘I’m sure the person who had pushed you off the edge, is doing all this to break us up,’ Saveer said.

  ‘But how could he fuck Zinnia in your house when you were there! This has happened not once but twice. I’ll be honest with you, Saveer. My heart doesn’t want to accept it but my mind is saying the opposite. And I’m feeling pathetic. Give me one reason, any reason. How could this be possible when you were in the house? Zinnia comes here, gets fucked by someone and you don’t know about it? In fact, even Zinnia is sure that it was you!’

  ‘Just like you were when you had come to my house once and gotten involved with someone?’

  ‘I had not seen the face so . . .’ Prisha didn’t complete the sentence. She realized she hadn’t asked Zinnia a very simple, obvious but pertinent question. She immediately called her up. Zinnia picked up the call after the fourth ring. Saveer gestured her to put the call on speaker. Prisha did.

  ‘Hi, Zin, I wanted to know something really important,’ Prisha said.

  ‘Look, I’m really sorry for . . .’

  ‘I don’t have time for all that, Zin. Just tell me . . . did you see Saveer’s face on the two occasions that you were here?’

  There was silence at the other end. Prisha looked at Saveer in anticipation.

  ‘A lot of things are at stake here, Zin. So, take your time but please answer honestly,’ Prisha said.

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ Zinnia said. ‘I was blindfolded both the times. And I was commanded. I heard him though. But . . .’

  That was enough for Prisha.

  ‘Thanks. I will call you later,’ she cut the call and stood up. She almost jumped up on him and hugged him tight. So tight that her soul could have transplanted on to his and their bodies wouldn’t have known.

  ‘I’m sorry, Saveer,’ she whispered. He hugged her equally tightly.

  ‘Don’t be. I have a feeling that there are many such battles coming up, which we will have to win before we nab the bastard behind all this. This had to be a manipulation on his part.’

  ‘I’m sure. He knows what happened between Utkarsh and me. And tried to do same thing with you and I.’

  ‘I have thought a lot since our road trip. I think someone is trying to steal my identity.’

  ‘Steal your identity?’ Prisha half broke the embrace to look at him. He nodded.

  ‘The only thing which isn’t adding up is . . . why would he go on for twenty-five years.’

  They remained quiet. After an hour, Prisha left. Saveer accompanied her to her two-wheeler. They didn’t know that they were under the scanner.

  The person who had been living in the apartment opposite Saveer’s bungalow, on rent for some years now, drew the curtain after seeing Prisha drive off. The person went to a table in the room where a glass of blended Scotch was kept. Taking a sip, the person switched on the front camera of a mobile phone, muttering while posing for a selfie, ‘Such a liar you are, little one. If there has been an identity theft, then it was my identity which was stolen. I was, am and will be Saveer Rathod. And you shall always be a fraudster. A fucking fraudster.’

  The person clicked the selfie and was happy after checking it. It wouldn’t require any filter. She was looking that good in it.

  13

  When Prisha reached her flat, she found Zinnia waiting for her.
/>   ‘Look, I don’t want to spoil our relationship over a guy,’ Zinnia said the moment Prisha entered. She was surprised when Prisha hugged her and whispered in her ears, ‘It’s okay. You didn’t fuck Saveer.’

  ‘What!’

  The way Zinnia exclaimed aroused Gauri’s curiosity.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked.

  ‘It wasn’t Saveer you fucked, Zin. Now, don’t freak out. Even I was fingered by the same person.’

  ‘I wasn’t fingered. I was fucked by a good, hard dick,’ Zinnia said. Gauri’s eyes widened. Prisha didn’t have an answer. Except for the deaths in Saveer’s family, she narrated whatever she knew to Gauri and Zinnia.

  ‘Damn, we are amidst a thriller plot! I always wanted to be a part of something like this,’ Gauri exclaimed.

  ‘Shut up. This is serious. I was pushed off the hill because of my proximity to Saveer.’