“Dad is right this time. Amaal, we cannot take this, so far away from you. Anything can happen. Media jobs can be found anywhere, better ones here. Come back.”
“Mom, I want you to understand me at least.”
“I do, I did. Three people have died today, several are injured. We have been calling you for three hours straight. We don’t even have your colleagues’ numbers or your office number. Jameela is out of her mind. Who else do we contact there?”
“I will give you the numbers. There’s my team, my bosses, KDP’s office landlines…”
“No. Dad just booked your return ticket from Delhi for this Thursday. He is now looking for Srinagar to Delhi…”
“Stop, stop, please…” Amaal breathed, the day coming and caving in on her with her parents’ helpless rants. She hated it. She hated that they were right. She hated that they deserved their peace of mind. She hated that her eyes went to her passport lying in the middle of the sofa. Amaal shivered.
She kept her voice steady. She had not told her parents about malaria. She had also emotionally blackmailed Jameela Aunty to keep quiet.
“Mom, ok, I will think about it.”
“I am not asking you, Amaal. I am telling you. Pack up whatever you can, leave the rest. Jameela will have her driver handle the house and everything.”
“Ok, ok, just give me until tomorrow.”
“No.”
“Mom, please!” She put her foot down. That got her mother’s high horse to slow down.
“Ok.” She said. “Right now, don’t leave the house. Dad is calling up his old friends to see if it’s just one place or more areas are affected.”
“No other areas are affected, it was just the event…” Amaal raised her eyes to the back of Samar’s head. He turned, as if he had eyes there. “It was just the event, ok?” She asked him. His head gave a nod.
“Ok. Dad got one Srinagar-Delhi via Amritsar. He is sending you the tickets.”
“I hope they are refundable.”
Silence.
“It was a joke.” Amaal tried.
“Start packing.” Her mother ordered and ended the call. The relief in her voice was indescribable. And Amaal wanted to assuage that worry. She began to reach for her passport but her fingers were so stiff that she couldn’t even grasp it before it slipped to the floor. She gaped at it.
A pair of black boots stepped towards it. Dusty. Dirty. Maybe even bloody. He bent down and picked it up.
“You should listen to your parents.” He held out her passport.
She accepted it — “So eager to get rid of me.”
No reaction on his face, as was expected. He drained his glass of water and set it on her small dining table. When he began to push away from her and towards the door, Amaal found words falling out of her mouth. Not because he was a friend or colleague. In her little time here, he had been neither to her. He was a perfect stranger still. A stranger who had treated her. Maybe that’s why words stumbled so easily out of her lips.
“I had a naive dream.”
His steps slowed, but did not stop.
“We left our home here with my hammock hanging between two apple trees. Mom said she packed it but we didn’t find it in any of the boxes. The people who bought the house here said it wasn’t there either. It was lost, and even if it wasn’t, where would we put it in our flat there? I was young, but you don’t forget such things. I thought… my parents were too impulsive then, too easily scared. That is why they rushed us out of here in the 90s. As I grew up, got into LSE, started reading and researching about Kashmir, the brutal realities and history became clearer and clearer. But even after watching hours and hours of documentaries and news clippings, reading research papers, hearing about firsthand accounts… I was still convinced that the ground would be safe enough. That… it would not be… me.”
Amaal startled, as if jolted. The back of Samar’s head came back into focus, and she realised she had ventured far away in her head. And that he had stopped.
“Sorry. It’s been a day. Do you want tea or something else… something to eat?”
“I am leaving.”
He traced his footsteps out of her hall and down the small lobby to her door. He turned the lock, opened it and stepped out. When she thought he would keep going, and began to close the door, Samar turned.
