Page 35 of The Circle of Exile
“If you want to feed him…” he looked down at her, his words trailing to an end, as if he thought she wouldn’t want to. Iram gaped at him, not recognising this man. The haze of the day began to clear and she suddenly saw that look in his eyes. It wasn’t blankness, it was animosity. Despondence. Wariness.
Against every instinct screaming inside her, Iram repeated Atharva’s words — “We need to talk.”
She did not dare look at her son as Begumjaan came to her and patted her cheek, holding the bundle in only one arm. How did she manage that?
“We are right here,” she pointed to the other room. “Come there. He takes a good half an hour to finish this bottle.”
She felt her head bob of its own accord, not looking away from Atharva. Begumjaan turned and walked across the room, crossing the threshold. This time Iram stared at her go, wishing she could go with her and…
“What is his name, Begumjaan?”
She stopped in her tracks. Her body turned, her mouth opening but stopping short.
“Yathaarth.” Atharva announced.
Her chest fluttered. The syllables of her son’s name. The sound of his alphabets.
“Yathaarth,” she tried the name on her mouth, rolling the syllables; her tongue — touching the base of her mouth, knocking the back of her teeth, opening in a gasp and ending with the meeting of her teeth, her tongue in-between. “Yathaarth.”
The beauty of his father’s name but in a new set of syllables.
He mewled in Begumjaan’s arms and she rocked him up and down — “You talk, then come back inside. Ok, Iram?”
She nodded. And the door closed behind them.
Iram wiped the heels of her hands across her eyes and swallowed every weak feeling inside her. If she were to come back, she had to come back fully. She turned her face and stared up at Atharva. Ready.
“You did not know that he survived.”
He stated it, then why did it feel like he questioned it.
“No,” she answered. “I thought they both were… gone.”
No change in his demeanour. Then he nodded — “It was only me then.”
She frowned.
“What you?”
“Were you forced to go?”
She shook her head.
“You went of your own free will?”
“I was…” she began to explain. But what was there to explain?I was a shell? Not myself? Still am not?
Iram nodded.
“You crossed the border illegally.”
“Yes.”
“From where?”
“Kupwara.”
“Who supported you?”
