“Why isn’t she staying at the big house? There’s better security.”
“We are worked up through the day here. She needs to rest.”
“Something wrong between you two?”
“You seem to have developed a soft corner for her suddenly. What, you looking for her to writeyourspeeches now?” Atharva shoved a hand on his chest, his smile dry.
“You don’t look like yourself. I know now, it’s not physical. Your bruises are also lighter. Are you sleeping well?”
“You are the second person to ask me that today,” Atharva tried to hold a smile.
“Do you want to go for counselling? Take a few hours a week and talk to somebody about what happened?”
“What happened?”
“Atharva,” Samar caught his arm. “You rescued her. In that condition. I saw you. It cannot be easy to get over something like that.”
Atharva smiled, this time more genuine, his gaze going far away.
“I guess,” he said, “saving someone is like waking something inside you…Something that never goes to sleep afterwards, you know? It keeps you ready to defend them, fight for them, lay down your life for them. How does that happen? It’s like if you have done it once, you can do it more easily again. And again. And again.”
“Like b-cells,” Samar pulled a drag of his cigarette.
“What?”
“Our immune system produces b-cells against a pathogen once, and then these cells store the memory of that pathogen forever… reproducing instantly when it infects again.”
“Yeah, something like that.” Atharva pulled a drag for himself, blinked at the sky, and handed him his cigarette. He got to his feet, dusting his hands. “Go to sleep.”
“No sleep for the evil,” Samar muttered, staring into space.
“True.”
Samar couldn’t even laugh at that joke. He managed a small chuckle and felt Atharva’s hand slap his back as he ambled home. Samar continued to smoke.
————————————————————
He planned to open the outhouse door and go to his room. But he turned the corner and walked down the back of the house to the alcove of her window instead. The lights were off. All except one small lamp. Samar stood there, staring at the frosted glass in the pane.
He stood there for a long time. All his thoughts silenced. All his self loathing settled in the backroom of his mind. All the bad went calm. And finally, when he did not know how many minutes or hours had passed, Samar turned to leave.
The shutters shuddered. He stopped.
With a squeak, they fell open.
“What happened again?” She was yawning, rubbing one eye, squinting the other.
“How did you know I was here?”
“You are not very silent, FYI.” She tore both eyes open.
“I did nothing but stand.”
“On fallen leaves.”
Samar glanced down and cursed. How had he not seen what he was standing on?
“Go back to sleep,” he said, but did not find his limbs moving. They were stuck there, just as his eyes were on her. Mussed from sleep, hair all over her face, blue eyes drowsy but focused on him.
