Part 7 A page without words She fell back in the water, not expecting him to come back, her feet shaking as if her bones had turned into jelly abruptly.
"Sorry...I didn't mean to scare you" He said, extending his arm for her to grab onto him for support "I forgot my watch here"
She didn't take his hand right away and clutched both her arms to her chest tightly, as though he was the chambal dakoo that her mother had threatened her with every time she'd refused to eat when she'd been five. She wished she was five then, wanting to remain oblivious to his bare chiseled torso; the wet shirt and towel slung over his left shoulder, far from covering any part of his chest.
The fierce jet of water splashed right behind her from the pump, the wave of water thrashing against her body, like she deserved the harshness for the voyeur she'd been, watching him strip his shirt off, reveal his bunched up mound of muscle and take a dip in the same concrete reservoir into which she'd fallen deep. She felt pained for having him up close like this, when she was at her most vulnerable, her thick mass of curls that fell as a veil to the sides of her face, doing little to conceal the shock she painted there.
She watched him grow familiarly indifferent to her presence, as he took his tea to the window by the breakfast nook and seated himself there. She smiled knowing he had everything in his favor to afford the reserve he never missed an opportunity to show her. It had been there the night she'd first seen him too and right then the scene flashed in front of her eyes, making her quickly shut her eyes that same moment. Like her eyes were the windows to her thoughts. Had it not been enough they'd betrayed her once to him already?
At no time had he forced her into anything against her will, except perhaps their wedding. But she couldn't entirely blame him for that when she'd misled him enough. However, she couldn't bring herself to forgive him when he'd waited right until the instant the pandit had handed over the mangal sutra to him, that he could have avoided the shame and disgrace to her family much earlier even if he'd had no intentions to marry her instead. And the old anger that she kept bottled up and never was out of reach if she needed, surfaced, clouding her eyes, her fingers tightening over the glass of milk she'd cradled. But with that also came her reasoning, that there wasn't a thing in the world to turn back time, to erase every trace of the past that ached her. She wondered what it would be like to sit there facing him had she not met him in the circumstances she had on that fateful day by the fields, or through their unsuspecting wedding...
Her hand shivered as she uncrossed her fist and he assumed the night air was doing it to her. He thought it would make it easy to break the ice, if he was a tad bit cheerful about meeting one of his bound to be relative and decided to give her his disarming smile. Her reaction confused him once her body stilled with a twist of slight grimace.
Before her hand could firmly clasp his, to pull her weight up, he jerked her in one swift motion. Blindsided by his sudden move, her body remaining loose as a worn out jack spring, she was thrust right into his arms, her fingers tightening around his upper arm and shoulder.
He grew strangely wary and his body stiffened at contact as he realized he was paying attention to utterly trivial details about her; only they hadn't been as trivial as he'd imagined initially. Her thick curly strands, dark as the night skies, beaded with strings of water, swayed over her face in a way it invited his fingers to subdue them; her shallow fast breaths heaved her chest against his; her lips trembled as the flutter of a humming bird and her eyes lay stricken with a fear so gripping that he felt she would disintegrate into nothingness in his hold.
She tried to move away from him, but the moss beneath her foot tripped her smooth sole and he instantaneously tightened his grip on the small of her back, bouncing her against his body once again. She looked up at him with a disconcerting mix of anger and helplessness that worried him, appearing as though the worst of her life was going down in front of her eyes, as if he didn't deserve to touch her.
It had begun then, the ticking that he'd heard in his head, the sense of vague inexplicable urgency that had coursed his body, like he was counting towards something and it had lasted the entire time he'd gotten off the mandap to make a move towards her. He remembered the gentle breeze that had surrounded them when he'd helped with her balance and it had seemed that it had held a secret whisper in its whorl, telling him of a future he'd not understood then...not when she'd kissed him either, nor when her sister had sat next to him. But everything had come clear to him when he'd seen her again for the first time after those five dark days that had seemed bleaker that his longest nights...her fleeting smile had told him all. He was glad now that his instincts hadn't failed him, abrading his insides like nothing had, keeping him in his grips until he'd made her his.
...made her his...It was the irony in those words that shrouded his thoughts with a silence he couldn't bear. If anything, she had been more elusive than the sleep that evaded him.
"You...stopped reading the diary?" Her voice strained to conceal the missing authority even as she enquired about the offense on his part that commanded it.
"I would, if it had anything about you in it..." He said without looking up as she walked over to take the chair opposite him.
"There is nothing to hide there" She bit her tongue, realizing she'd spoon fed the exact response he had been looking for and he caught her in the act, bringing a smirk unto his face.
"I think you are right" He said, taking another sip, "It's yet to be written in the pages of your diary" appearing rather defeated than disappointed.
Her eyes flicked to him catching the gust of emotions there and then quickly fell to the plate with the cookie she'd split then.
A slow smile crept around her lips, halting his cup mid-way to his mouth. It was the first time she'd smiled in a private moment, without pretending like the times she'd when they'd had guests at home. Albeit, it also surprised him when she gave in so early in the conversation, that she was smiling at what he'd said, when it lacked humor at its best, making him wonder what else they had to talk about for whatever time this new stint was going to last.
"You figured" She said softly and dipped the edge of one half of the cream smeared cookie into the glass of warm milk and took a tiny bite of it, carefully parting her lips in a way that only her teeth hinged on the biscuit tip, so none of the chocolatey gooeyness landed on her lips. But it did despite her planned efforts and it took all his strength to gaze down at the tea bag that floated in the steeping tea.
He didn't respond and was merely glad to have been witnessing a night ritual he'd not known she'd done, while they had shared the same roof. Neither could he make himself walk away by disregarding the serendipitous moment, fearing he might not encounter it again when he sure wasn't losing much...or gaining either.
However, she spoke after a while that changed the equation, making him realize there was much to gain.
"I don't know how she managed it..." She begun working her way through the milk glass and the biscuit intermittently "She would wrap the fresh biscuit in her chunni and rush home, so I can get my hands on it while it was still warm. I would sit in a corner close to the chula, writing my homework...nipping at it and telling her every chance I get how delightfully fresh and crisp it was, when she would start dinner for all of us all the while teaching me the little of the english words she knew. It's funny those days, she could never get me to pronounce Bourbon right" She laughed at her own self, mockingly attempting to enunciate the word she used to and although he managed to join her in her laugh, it stung him inside.
"Di would never sit with us...she was always in her room, studying or pretending to do so...Papa, Daadrji and all others would sit in the courtyard, busy with their bookkeeping"
She didn't bother to explain who she was talking about, when he looked taken back and even a bit perplexed she was sharing the details she'd stored away for years.
"Sometimes Ma would join me and when I began asking her to sit with me every time, we moved my biscuit and milk habit to after dinner. The house would be silent except a buzz as that of the inside of the conch shell, just the two of us, huddled together on the charpai facing each other, winking occasionally as if it was our little secret. She would have one half and I the other" She went on and he didn't have the heart to stop her.
"She would tell me about her work in the biscuit factory that it was so mundane ordering the biscuits in the tray that it liberated her, gave her the time to think and live all her fantasies that she couldn't when she was home...working away to be a wife, a daughter-in-law and everything in between. And years later...I still do it..." She paused staring at the table, slightly nudging the small plate to the side "trying to keep her alive in my routine and not just in my memories"
Getting up to her feet, she walked towards the door and when she reached the hallway, she stalled.
"I fill my diaries around 11.00 give or take..." She said carefully choosing her words and turning in profile, so he could not miss it, she gave a small smile, before she left him for the night.
He was smiling too then, amazed at whatever he'd done to deserve a glimpse into her past, that she'd perhaps never shared even with her diary; that together they had written the first page of her 'dear diary'...
He took the other part of the bourbon biscuit she'd left on the plate and abandoning his tea, he picked up the glass that had the last quarter filled with her leftover milk and strode back to his room, his skin prickling with a strange excitement at the new start of the night...beginning his wait for the next page to be written.
Edited by 6thElement - 13 years ago
29