Something has changed.
His eyes, his mind, it’s all there. It’s been some time since his last painkiller. I realize I missed the last dose. Usually, it’s in the middle of the night when the pain wakes him up.
He picks up his crutch. With a painful groan, he helps himself up. It’s the first time in months that he hasn’t required any help from me, Jagath or Zeenath. He hobbles towards us with small, painful steps.
‘Morning,’ he says to us. He pulls out a chair. ‘You two shouldn’t have sandwiches every day. Indian bodies aren’t made to have processed flour.’
It’s the longest sentence he has spoken to us in over a year. And what else would a father pick as his first words in months but feedback?
Rabbani takes Baba’s hand into hers and kisses it. Baba caresses Rabbani’s face and she melts into a little puddle in his hand. How uncomplicated Rabbani is! Like a puppy. She forgets every disappointment and erases all the past’s complaints on receiving a little love from her father.
Baba looks at me. When he smiles, deep ridges form on his forehead. He nods. His nod is his apology. Even the seven staggered steps he took to reach me were an apology. And it’s enough for me. Maybe I’m not that different from Rabbani.
‘I’m here now,’ he says, his voice sure and deep.
His tone used to strike deep fear within me when I was Rabbani’s age. Now it comes as a sense of relief. The rasp and the surety in his voice tell me the truth of the situation. He is the parent again. I am the child. These are the roles we need to step back into.
‘Dak—’ His words are cut off by the pain.
‘Do you want the medicines, Baba?’
He shakes his head. ‘I have had enough of those, haven’t I? I will throw them out today. Along with the prescriptions.’
‘Does it hurt, Baba?’ asks Rabbani.
He holds Rabbani’s face in his hands. ‘It does, Rabbu, but not so much.’ He looks at me. ‘I’m hungry.’
Before I can get up, Rabbani does. Together, we bring him a bowl of milk and cornflakes. He forces down one spoonful with a grimace. Then another. He gags but goes on. His muscles tense, but he keeps eating. His pain and struggle seep into us; it clouds the air, stains the wall. It’s the darkness before the light. He doesn’t stop till he finishes the bowl.
Then he smiles. A smile without pain. He looks at Rabbani. ‘I will drop you at school today.’
‘Baba—’
He interrupts me. ‘You need to concentrate on work, Daksh, nothing else,’ he commands me.
I shrink as sons do in front of their fathers. With every moment that passes between us, it feels like he’s becoming bigger, taller, stronger. Baba takes the space I was occupying. I shrink. I shrink because I don’t have to be everywhere, do everything. I feel light. Like I can float again. It’s as if Baba is not having breakfast, but he’s taking a hacksaw to the shackles on my feet which have left deep, festering wounds.
‘Daksh,’ he scolds. ‘You’ve lost weight. You look thirty.’
The irony makes me smile. My father, who once had a thick paunch and is now only stretched skin on bones and half-dead, is calling me thin and old.
‘You have lost weight too,’ I point to his missing leg.
‘You will get slapped now,’ he retorts.
I don’t apologize. He doesn’t apologize either. Among the things fathers and sons can’t do is apologize. To their wives, to their children. Their apologies come in actions, in little acts of kindness.
Baba gets up to wash his face. This time, he lets me help him.
‘Daksh,’ he says. ‘Your Mumma . . . don’t blame her.’
‘I never did, Baba,’ I lie.
‘She tried to save us,’ he mumbles. ‘Isn’t that what the girl said yesterday? Aanchal, that’s her name, right? Let’s believe her.’
It’s as if I have a choice. If she says it’s night in the middle of the day, I would believe it.
20.
