Page 59 of The Circle of Exile
Bad thoughts. Ready to invade. She pushed them back with the only weapon she found. Anger.
“What is your problem?”
His forehead tautened. That scar of his cheek stretched. But he still remained silent. That fuelled the fire inside her. She began to feel like herself. Her old self. Iram advanced on him — “What the hell is your problem with me?”
Silence.
“You are angry, and you have every right to be. But say it to my face! Be the man you always were and call it a spade!”
Staring of grey eyes.
“What happened? Scared I will leave again?”
“Fucking try.”
Her eyes widened.
“I am not going anywhere.”
His mouth stretched into a cruel smile — “I believe you. You have a better reason to stay.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Go to sleep.”
“I will not.”
“Ok,” he shrugged, walking around her to leave the room but she blocked his path.
“You think you can stop me?”
“So what do you want to do? Leave home before I wake up, come home at night, help me feed our son, see me cry, push him to Begumjaan’s room and then leave? For the rest of our lives?”
“I haven’t thought that far.”
His words were cruel. And yet she had never felt so alive to fight them.
“I am sorry,” she raged at him. “I am sorry I left you alone in all this! I did not know he survived! I did not know! In the OT they called out his time of death! 10.34. Time of death for Baby Boy Kaul,” she cried. “10.34! I woke up and the nurse was telling me that Allah knows better. Nobody told me that my son lived! What was I to do?”
“Stay and see your husband who was on his way home!”
The wind was knocked out of her sails. She did not have an answer to that.
“Since we are on this topic right now, how did you manage to escape?” He crossed his arms across his chest. “And how were you planning to leave — not only the hospital but the country?”
“I did not want to leave the country!”
His cruel, knowing expression lost some of its colour.
“Where did you plan to go then?”
She found her knees weakening. Iram lowered herself on the edge of their bed.
“I did not plan to go anywhere… or, I can’t remember what I was thinking. Except that… I wanted to escape that place and those onesies. I…” she shut her eyes. “For long years I didn’t feel safe inside houses. This time I didn’t feel safe inside my own mind! This time, I couldn’t see myself in the mirror and recognise myself. And it’s not some empty words. I mean it. I looked at myself and did not know who I was. I had a feeling like that now and then at nights but this time it was like… it would never end. I was not the woman you were coming home to, Atharva,” she glanced up at him, stripping her last layer off.
He stared down at her, silent.
“You wanted your children, and even those I did not have for you. I did not have myself to give you. I saw myself drown you and nothing made more sense than to go away. Anywhere. My home had burnt, and this time I had set fire to it with my own hands.”
