“How is she adapting?” Amaal got up and stepped up to the duo. They were again talking like they once used to, looking at each other without looking like they wanted to kill each other.
“With Arth? And everything else?” Amaal clarified.
“It’s work in progress.” Atharva smiled. “But he can wrap anybody around his finger.”
“Ada is coming tomorrow, isn’t she?”
“Hmm,” he pushed to his feet. “That reminds me, I have to tell Altaf about sending a car for her.”
“I will come tomorrow night to meet them all.”
Amaal felt Samar’s gaze on her. She ignored him.
“I will be in the Secretariat by noon,” Atharva said. "Finish whatever you have with Saba before then. I will not wait another minute to talk to her.”
“Where are you going tomorrow first half?”
“Baramulla. For the broad gauge rail project inauguration.”
“Is it safe?”
“Let them come.”
“Atharva.”
“You think Altaf will let me go if it is not?”
“Yes,” she sighed. “Fine. Just keep your mouth shut about your PoK trip. We are trying to play it down, as if it was nothing. No big deal.”
“I know. You finish with Saba and then I will take over.”
“Ok, listen to me. Go home, go to sleep. When you wake up tomorrow, you will understand why I ask you not to do the talking.”
Atharva huffed, then turned to Samar — “How annoyed are you on a scale of 1 to 10 with the sensible talk?”
“7. I don’t listen to half the things.”
“Get out of my house and you get out of my hall,” Amaal ordered. Two deep laughs echoed in the said hall as Samar walked Atharva to the door. They talked there in hushed whispers but Amaal didn’t care. She switched off the small light in the hall, lay down on the sofa and pulled her shawl over her. The door clicked shut and she closed her eyes. Samar’s heat came closer. She felt him, standing over her. And then he was gone.
49. Routine life had a way of numbing animosities…
Routine life had a way of numbing animosities. When you lived together, under one roof, you often woke up with last night’s grudges forgotten. Because the milk needed to be heated, teas and coffees needed to be made, the cook needed to be briefed about menus, and reminders needed to be set for medicines and doctor’s follow-ups and traction sessions. And by that night, when you fell into each other’s arms in exhaustion, even if distance persisted, kisses pushed all long-term pains under the rug in lieu of short-term peace.
Amaal discovered that life of routine, one that she thought every married couple came to live at some point in their lives. It was just sad, she thought, two months later, that Samar and she were living it before even getting married. Or being a couple like that. Their days were long, even in winter, and mostly spent apart. Hers at the Secretariat, his mostly at home working remotely with HDP and KDP, and doing his rehab and physio. Their nights were short, spent talking about work, the party, their common group of friends, and sometimes falling onto the sofa for a moment of reprieve from everything. He hadn’t said it out loud, but he always blocked her advances on him. She had stopped after the first two tries, because she saw how painful it was for him to hide it when she was not in a post-release haze.
Amaal had no courage to ask him upfront, and he was cowardly enough to keep it to himself.
For all intents and purposes, Samar was back inside his fortress, opening only the small window at night.
“Ab shishu ke saamne pustak, kataar aur kheer rakhiye[137].”
Amaal startled from her thoughts and blinked at the ceremony in front of her eyes. She smiled like everybody else, beaming at Atharva and Iram sitting together for Yathaarth’s Annaparashan. They had laid a book, a knife and a bowl of kheer in front of the baby, now a good six months old and sitting up to pounce on them.
“What is this for?” Atharva’s grandmother from England asked, curious.
“It’s a game,” he explained. “Whatever he reaches for, foretells his future.”
Atharva’s son went straight for the book and everybody broke out laughing. Amaal laughed with them, the hall of Atharva and Iram’s house filled with their closest family and friends, along with the top party members who also happened to be friends. Including Samar. She stood on the side, eyeing Samar on a chair beside Adil at the front, smiling too.
