Page 174 of The Circle of Exile
“What happened this afternoon?”
His eyes boiled again.
“Singh sir had gotten old files for me. All the last papers that had discrepancies, which I hadn’t been able to clean up with the way Qureshi ousted me. A raid happened.”
“At Singh sir’s house?”
He nodded.
“Are you sure he did not betray you?”
“He is in as big a trouble as I am. Thankfully, we destroyed the papers before the raid.”
“Then what proof does anybody have that there were papers in the first place?”
“Qureshi’s new Principal Secretary sounded the alarm. He is going around waving an index page that has more entries than counted inside the cabinet. It’s as if Awaami was waiting to pounce on this… or possibly they had planned it with Qureshi. They are calling for my externment.”
“What did Yogesh Patel say to you?”
Atharva stared unblinking.
“Atharva. Say, please.”
“He says that there are two options now — to fast-track SIT because the media is getting difficult to handle and nationalist sentiment across India is pushing back.”
“On you?”
“On all of us. And if SIT is fast-tracked, the report will have to come out. The report will say that I was targeted in a foreign land. The Centre will have to take some action. If not war, a strike at least, to give back a proportionate response. That’s exactly what Dilshad Khan wants. He may have kept quiet under Faiz’s leverage but this would be his big goal. To pit the two countries when already there is so much internal unrest in Kashmir.”
“What is the other option?”
Iram hated asking this. Because she was smart enough to calculate it.
“To prolong the SIT and wait for this to die down. But now, that will have to happen with me banished from here.”
“Is it… is that even legal? To throw us out of our home… our city?”
“It’s legal. And not us. Just me.”
“You are crazy if you think I will let you go alone.”
“I meantIwill be legally externed, not my family. You will be able to come back here.”
Her mouth dropped open — “You mean you won’t be able to…”
“Not until this investigation is concluded or the scrutiny dies down — whichever happens first. Legally, I will be persona non grata here until an order comes otherwise.”
“So the price you pay for bringing me back home is to leave your home?”
His mouth pressed tight.
“Is there no other way? What if you… leave public life?”Déjà vu.She was having the worst case of déjà vu from the night when he was going to get arrested.
Atharva’s head dropped into his hands. He was breathing — slow, steady, the muscles under his shirt angry in their flex. No noise sounded in her house. Except for her son’s silent snores and his father’s angry breaths.
Atharva finally rubbed his hands up and down his face and sat up straight. Grey eyes bore into hers.
“It might be sooner than I think.”
