Page 96 of The Circle of Exile
“Still.”
“Yes. Do you forgive me?”
“Yes.”
“Forgotten?” Atharva asked. “Not our… not her…”
“Hayat,” Iram helped. She saw it in his hesitant eyes, as if he had nobody to share that name with. As if he had only ever referred to her ashis daughterand not Hayat. As if she was the only one he could do it with.
“Hayat,” he pronounced. Two syllables, one breath, as dear to them as the sound of Yathaarth. “I mean to say, all this… this mess of our life. Your past, Nagar, your family, what happened there. What we lost again and again, the people we became while it happened. All of it — ready to forget it and move on?”
“I am ready to forget everything except Hayat and move on, Atharva.”
Iram could see it, the sound of their daughter’s name bringing so much heartbreak but even more joy to his face. As if now, four months after her birth, she was really coming into existence.
“She gave life to Yathaarth,” Iram enunciated. “She is in Yathaarth.”
His head fell, his elbows on his knees, hands falling too. “I think it was…”
Goosebumps erupted all over her body.
“Yamma.”
Atharva nodded.
“I dreamt about her… some weeks later. You know I never dream. But there it was. It wasn’t imagined. She had said it to me once. I was in 10th. My prelims were on and she had gone out to the market. One hour passed and she didn’t come. I stopped studying and started checking from all the windows. She didn’t come, and I began to panic. I went down the building and asked our watchman. He said there had been a protest planned and somebody had thrown tear gas to make them think the army was here. It had turned into a stampede and 144 was issued. I didn’t know any of this. I tried to go to the market but he stopped me. He sent the other watchman and asked me to return home. Two hours passed and Mama didn’t come. The TV wasn’t showing any news. I was going to call Baba. And then she came through the door. Vegetable bags and purse and looking exactly as she had left,” Atharva gasped, as if he was there, waiting for her with the door opening.
“I was so angry at her, I told her she was never going out again and then broke into tears. I was so awkward and embarrassed and ready to storm into my room. But she caught me and held me tight and laughed. I was so angry but she held me tight. One of those rare times she hugged me like that. ‘I am not going anywhere until I see your children.’ That’s what she told me, laughing, understanding my fears, the words I did not spell.”
Atharva’s head rose and he stared straight into her eyes — “Now look how she saw Arth, gave him safe in my hands and left.”
Iram pulled his head close and breathed. His breathing synced with hers too. Their tears flowed down the bridges of their noses, mingling with one another.
“She came back to you, Atharva.”
His throat worked a swallow.
“You are not left behind, you are the man to whom we come back. To whom we always keep coming back.”Because that’s the only place we belong.
He embraced her, pulling her flush, so tight that she would get absorbed into him again. She was ready for it again.
20. I think I am in love with life because I am in love with you…
I think I am in love with life because I am in love with you,he thought, opening the door of his bedroom and finding his wife asleep with their son beside her. She was curled on one side of him, the other side — his side, barricaded with pillows. Atharva smiled, unzipping his hoodie noiselessly and stepping inside the room. He closed the door with a soft click, then tiptoed to the curtains to pull the tiny crack closed. The room was still lit with the diffused morning coming in from the sides.
Yathaarth made a happy little noise. Atharva turned and walked back to the bed, looking down at his son, wide awake, flailing his arms and legs, having been let out of the swaddle by Iram some time after he had left for his jog. Now his son made eye contact with him and flailed happier hands, expecting some swing time. Atharva chuckled quietly, feeling lightyears ahead of where he had been last night. Mountains had grown on his back in these last few months. He had forgotten to feel joy, even with his son here. Now, even with one part of them… Hayat, lost, he still began to feel like he could love life again. With Iram here, he would fall in love with this life. It was already pulling him in.
Yathaarth tried to arch his back and Iram’s hand on his chest moved, patting, even in sleep. Atharva took a few quiet steps back, not about to step in. Yathaarth tried to move over and his face banged into her breast. He began to root for milk, his smart boy. And Iram came awake. Atharva’s heart settled on its lowest pump rate then, when her sleepy face softened, eyes on their son. She caressed his hair — “Hi, good morning.”
His head fell back, and big eyes blinked up at her. Iram caressed the space between his brows and his eyes fell closed. Then popped open again, finding hers and fixating. Atharva stared, enraptured.
“Do you know you have the prettiest eyes in the whole wide world?” She cooed in the softest whisper Atharva had ever heard. His son blinked those pretty eyes, just as enraptured.
“Mmm… just like Baba. Big, grey, naughty…” she nuzzled his nose, making his mouth fall open. “And kind. So kind. You are going to grow up to be such a kind boy. Your little hands,” she tickled and kissed the centre of his palm, “will always be ready to help. Your little mouth,” she kissed it, “will always carry Baba’s smile.”
Atharva couldn't afford to miss even a millisecond of this in a blink. He stared. He wanted to do nothing but stare. Like he had always done where she was concerned. Stained glass windows of Jamia had brought the sun to her eyes once. Today, shewasthe sun burning herself to light up their son. And Atharva had been the blessed man to witness that journey.
“These little feet,” she let him kick both his feet on her palm, thumbing them softly. “Will always run towards something good, something right.” She leaned down and kissed his toes. She didn’t see it, but Atharva saw their son’s face open up in her tickling hair falling all over his toes.
