Page 106 of The Circle of Exile
“Please, Janab, meherbani karith… listen to me.”
Atharva slowed down, eyeing the man with his hands folded, still struggling to keep up. The fog was dense ahead, the night dark. He was in a pheran, and not even one that was thick enough for the suddenly chilled night.
“She was not like herself,” he launched. “She was crying and then couldn’t cry. She looked at herself in the mirror and went like stone, so stiff that she did not move again. She slept and then woke up in half an hour and did not even shed one single tear. She told me to give her money. I had no money. So she took my phone and called a number and asked for money. She asked me about her parents again. She asked me how I would have taken her across the border all those years ago as per Bhabhi’s orders. I did not understand at first. I wanted to call you. She wanted to call you and go back to you.”
Atharva stilled.
“But then she didn't. She said her children were dead. And I did not know if she was running towards her home or away from you. She did not even eat what I served and left before I came out of the bathroom. How could I let her go alone? At night? In that state,” his eyes crumpled. “Janab, she was bleeding. She was not even concerned about it.”
Atharva kept his face schooled, staring at this man’s rant.
“She was stumbling. She could not hold herself straight but kept walking. I had to go with her, take her where she wanted to go. I still had some people in Kupwara and we crossed from there. Janab, it was safe. I promise it was. I wouldn’t have taken her if it wasn’t.”
Atharva nodded. “I listened to you. Now you can go.”
He turned around and began to stride home.
“You claim to love her?” Rahim yelled. Atharva slowed down.
“For me she was my Iram baby and I could not see her like that. You would not have been able to even look at her in that state.”
Atharva stopped.
“She fell into a river.”
Atharva’s throat dried.
“When I pulled her out, the water was red.”
Atharva’s eyes began to burn.
“She fell asleep in my friend’s hut and did not wake up for one full day.”
Atharva’s eyes shut.
“She would not eat, not talk to me. And then she would finish a meal at night and cry quietly in a corner looking at the sky. She did not sleep. And then when she did, she slept all day.”
Atharva could not hear any more, and thankfully, Rahim veered.
“She lived like a prisoner in her own father’s house. She lived like that to make sure to come back safely to you. Mir wanted to hand her over to ISI. She fought it quietly and kept fighting, going into her shell every night. Chocolate, khajoor and pista made her ok. Every morning. At 9 o’ clock. You wouldn’t have been able to see her, Janab,” Rahim began to wail. “Iram baby was not like this. She was not like this. Whatever happened to her, don’t do it again, Janab. Don’t let it happen again. She will die this time.”
Atharva turned on his heel — “Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because she will not tell you.”
Atharva stared at the man in the fog of the night, the crickets croaking around them.
“Don’t punish her, Janab. She was a mother.”Running away from her dead children.
Atharva stared at Rahim. He could snap this man in two, that’s how angry he was at Aamir Haider’s man Friday. He lengthened his agony, standing stoically under the cold night sky, seeing him shiver and rattle with dying wails. And yet he couldn't stop thinking about what would have happened to Iram had he not gone with her. Had he not come to her aid. Had he not known the right routes that he termedsafe.
Whatever he was, he was loyal to Iram.
“Altaf?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Kaangri.”
