“You frustrate me to no end.” He walked inside his house, the lobby bright with the sun. He frowned. This lobby had always been dark.
“How does waiting feel?” She asked, taking his arm around her shoulder again and walking him to the hall. There he saw it, why his lobby was now bright. She had moved the only mirror stand of the house to a place where it reflected the sunshine to the lobby, brightening up the hall too. She had done a number of changes in the hall without doing anything but moving stuff around. The furniture now looked set, as if in their right corners and spaces.
“Sit.” She began to push him to the sofa but he resisted, moving to the window and standing with his hands on the sill.
“I’ll be back.” She left his arms and was gone. Samar stood there, looking out of the window of a flat that he had spent a total of thirty days in. It had been rented for a year, but he had not stayed here for more than a day or two at once on each trip to Kashmir.
Now, he thought, seeing the crows jumping on electricity poles and tree branches, he was here for the foreseeable future. How long that would be yet, he didn’t know. What he would do after this never-ending break, he didn’t know. How able he would be to take up the work, the travel, the gruelling schedules, he didn’t know. His legs were already shuddering after standing for a sum total of two minutes.
The noise at the door made him turn. Amaal walked in, bearing all his belongings from the hospital. She set it on the small dining table and raised her eyes to his. The sun glinted off her, illuminating the anomaly in his routine life. Amaal took one step towards him, two steps, three steps and then she kept coming like a train, rattling until her head was buried in his chest. Samar circled his arms around her, slower than she had come, creaking, taking his time winding them around her shoulders.
“I am not crying or anything, but let me just stay here like this, please,” she whispered into his chest.
“Hmm.”
“We can sit.”
“Stay.”
He felt her arms begin to pull out from between them but then they stopped. Samar took them and circled them around his waist. Her palms did not touch his back.
“It’s ok,” he murmured. “It’s all numb.”
Tentatively, slowly, trailing and moving away, then touching again, her palms cupped his back. Her head moved on his chest, burying deep enough that he could feel its contours even through the numb skin and the three layers of clothing. Samar tightened his arms around her, as much as he could.
And they stayed.
————————————————————
That evening, he ate a terrible bowl of rajma made by Amaal. Samar swallowed every bite, sitting through the one-sided conversation that she valiantly carried forward. It wasn’t as if he was averse to talking. He had never talked more than he had to her and that hadn’t changed after this ordeal. It was just that the thought of the night, of lying down, of being in a real bed in a real home, his home, after two months, was jarring. More jarring was taking off his compression clothes and being open to her.
“Amaal.” He stopped her mid-rant about something related to Qureshi and Sarah.
“Hmm?” She looked up from spooning her rice.
“I am still serious, you can go home and come back. Don’t disturb your routine, or whatever little is left of it.”
“I’m fine here. Got my bag too. See?” She pointed to the corner of the shoe cabinet.
“Dr. Pir suggested a male nurse, and I said no. But if it’s going to get too much for you then I am not against doing that…”
“You don’t want me here.” She stated it, but her face had already fallen.
“Ama…”
“Say it, say you don’t.” She challenged.
“I don’t!”
She startled.
“Don’t cry,” he bit out, not able to soften himself because if he did, she wouldn’t leave.
“I will makeyoucry!” She shot to her feet, tears streaming down her face and eyes spitting fire at him.
“Sit down.”
“Fuck you!” She pushed off the table and stormed out of the hall. “Clean everything up!”
