“Of course,” she clipped, turning to walk through the cubicles, nodding at people leaving.
“Amaal Madam?”
“Yes?”
“The CM has requested that you vet Iram Madam’s press schedule and align dates for them both. He also asked that you personally accompany Madam to her one-on-ones.”
“Email me both, I’ll take a look.”
Amaal strode to the end of the space and pressed down the door handle to her office. This one thing had been upgraded for her in this new job. Her own office, three times the size of the office at Boulevard Road Headquarters.
She heard Samar follow her inside and close the door. Amaal set her purse down, rounded her desk and sat down, gesturing at the chair without looking at him.
“Why do you vetMadam’sschedule too?”
She snapped her eyes up. He swallowed.
“Don’t tell me he doesn’t misuse resources that are due to him for Iram.”
“I am not your grievance box. The CM just set up a box outside. Drop it there.”
“Amaal,” he snarled.
“Talk and leave. I have a long night.”
Samar set his palms on her desk and leaned forward. It was a wide desk, he was too far away. And yet… something stilled inside her at the way he was looking at her. His specs had slid down his nose. His eyes were bare, naked, unfiltered. Dark.
“You accused me of being ruthless to Iram. But I did not know what had happened that night.”
“And?”
“If I had known…”
“If you had known she had a miscarriage you would have spared her your words that day?” Amaal smiled hollowly. “Come back the next day to finish?”
His eyes squeezed shut — “You don’t understand.” He muttered.
“I don’t understand what?”
“That they are responsible for so much that has gone wrong!” He pushed back, turning away from her. “I am not a part of the core team I built, I am not holding my militia, I am not serving my constituency like I promised them, I am not running the Health Ministry for which I have been doing grunt work and ground work for three years, I am not even living in the place that had been the only home to me!” He whirled, the storm raging now. “I am a party president who is a tool in the CM”s hands because everybody knows that a party in government is only ever run by the head of that government!”
“And this is because of Atharva and Iram?”
“Who else?”
Amaal stared at him. Unblinking. “You know who else.”
“Me?”
“You know you are responsible for it.”
“So it’s all my fault? For wanting justice, for serving the truth, for implicating Aamir Haider, for saving Atharva’s life, for crossing party lines to keep him safe, for doing my damnest best at every point where a choice was impossible! It is my fault that I always fell into making choices between worse and worser and did what I found the most appropriate? It is my fault that Atharva, Adil and Qureshi stepped into the light and handed me the reins of their dark world? My fault that their hands remained clean while mine are bloodied? What do you mean to tell me, Amaal? Is it my fault that I was a prisoner of war and saw the end of my brothers and Chaturvedi? Is it my fault that I still cannot sleep at nights and not because of nightmares? I just can’t! Tell me if it’s my fault that I cannot look at Iram Haider, despite everything, and not see Sia Chaturvedi alive. Iram may be an angel, but all I see is the end when I look at her. I just don’t like her. I cannot like her. She is everything that should not have been! She is the dead Sia to me, and misguided Atharva. Do you understand me? I have so much going on inside me for Atharva right now, he is the man I relied on, the only family I ever learnt to trust and be dependent on, the man who I knew would never abandon me just like I wouldn’t abandon him and now I look at him moved on in his life, not even caring to look back and see what happened to me! He threw me out of everything he knew I had worked…” his breath swelled. Samar gasped, closing his eyes. “Sorry.”
Amaal didn’t want to let the shell around her heart crack. She did not want to let anything make her soften towards him again. But the echo of his words still reverberated within the four walls of her office. He was not justifying his actions. He was laying bare what had happened inside him. And Amaal had worked long enough in the world of media and politics to know that there was no one truth. There was always ‘your truth, my truth, and the truth.’ The world was subjective. Humans, more so.
She filled a glass with water and held it out to him. His eyes opened. He shook his head. “Forget I came here.” Samar turned his back on her and strode to the door.
“Stop.”
