Atonement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMHw2Aha1Ak

August 2019

I was standing at his doorstep after fourteen years. The good-old AJC Bose Road behind me was uncharacteristically devoid of evening traffic, dampened by the rain. I knocked on the door twice and stood staring at the wooden nameplate I’d wounded myself nailing in almost two decades ago. The tiny blotch of my blood under his name had turned brown over the years.

The door creaked open. In the small light of a lantern stood a woman I once knew. Her round cheeks had dissolved into a gaunt, sagging face. Her hair, which she use to make me sit and colour every other Saturday afternoon, were now grey and disheveled. My beautiful Kakima had aged a century in a decade.

“Oh my god, Susanna!” she almost yelled in elation, “I cannot believe my eyes."

I bent down to touch her feet, but she caught me midway. "No, no, dear. You shouldn't bend in your condition. Come in, come in!”

She gently pulled me inside by my hand, muttering something about a power cut. As we walked into his living room, the familiar scent of sandalwood and old books hit me. My eyes scanned the twilit walls in search of the garland-draped photograph. But all I could find were the silhouettes of his old-fashioned furniture, his mother's harmonium in the corner, and the gods on the altar next to the window.

Kakima led me to the marble-topped dinning table, setting the lantern down. “Look a you! No sindoor, no jewellery . Are you not taking care of yourself?" she scolded as I sat down.

“You're one to talk,” I said.

“I'm an old woman, I don't count. Tell me about yourself. How far along are you?”

“Where's uncle?” I changed the topic and asked.

She didn’t speak for a while. "Your uncle doesn't stay home much these days," she finally said, sighing. "Says the empty home haunts him. I honestly can't blame him. I would get away too if I could."

I tried to imagine the man Kakima was describing -- a lost, heartbroken father -- but I couldn’t. The man I knew as Om’s father was a proud and headstrong barrister, a staunch Hindu patriarch who detested my presence in his house; the presence of a Christian girl in his son’s life.

****

April 2005

“You don’t have to do this, you know?”

I was sitting on the edge of his bed, watching as he drifted from one end of his room to another, stuffing random things into a duffle bag.

“I have to. I can’t stay in this house anymore!” he said angrily, rolling a clump of unwashed t-shirts into the bag.

“Come on, he just said that out of anger. He didn’t mean you have to leave—”

“Did you not hear the things he said about you? The names he called you!” Om said, his voice rising. “Susie, he’s never going to accept our relationship!”

“And you think moving to Delhi is going to change his mind?” I snapped back.

Om heaved a sigh and stood up straight, letting the ball of clothes in his hand fall to the floor.

“I’m doing this for you, Susie, can’t you see that?” he said.

“No, don’t make this about me! You’re doing this for your ego. I have no say in this!”

“Why are you so against me moving to Delhi?”

“Because…” I started, but couldn’t say out loud what I was thinking.

“Wait. Are you scared I’m going to, I don’t know, cheat on you or something?” he said, almost surprised.

I sighed. “I…I don’t know.”

Om laughed, throwing his hands up in the air. “Thanks a lot for all the trust and support!”

My voice dropped a few decibels. “Of course I trust you. It’s just…tui eka eka shob decide kore nili. Aamake ekbar jigesh o korli na aami tor shathe Delhi aste chai kina. Everything is happening so fast, I’m…I’m not ready.”

Om walked across the room and stopped a few inches in front of me. The late afternoon sunlight glistened off his sweaty forehead, turning his ruffled dark hair brown.

“You just have to trust me, okay?” he said, his voice almost a whisper.

I stared at his face, forcing myself to ward off the fear. “Okay,” I said, softly.

Then, planting a light kiss on my forehead, Om picked up his unzipped duffle bag and walked out the room, turning away from me for the last time.

****

August 2019

When I pushed open his bedroom door, the hint of floor cleaner in the air hit me. Kakima still cleaned his room. Was she still hoping for a return?

Waking over to the shelf next to his bed, I slid open the glass pane; fourteen years back, it would have been locked. There sat his beloved cricket bat; the marker-inked autograph of Sourav Ganguly glinting vaguely in the fading light of the twilight. Nobody had cherished it in over a year. As I reached in to pick it up, a small box, smaller than the palm of my hand, fell out; its bright red colour standing out even in the dim light. My heart started to race as I touched its velvety surface. I didn’t have to open it to know what was inside, but, almost involuntarily, I snapped the box open. A pair of flat, gold wedding bands stared back at me; one of them smaller and slimmer, the other just big enough to slip through Om’s knuckle.

****

June 2006

“Please kichu bol” Om pleaded from the other end of the phone. I remained speechless, frozen to the spot in the corner of my bed. The rest of the world was going on and about outside my window. Cars honking, people yelling at each other in the evening rush hour traffic, hawkers shrieking for business. My world, in the small space of my dark room, had hit a halt.

“Susie, please, I’m sorry.” I could hear his sobs, the pain in his voice. Something that could’ve ripped my heart until the night before. Today, I didn’t feel a thing.

“I made a mistake, okay? After we had that fight, I—I wasn’t thinking straight. And I’d had a lot to drink. Bas nesha’r ghore, raag’er mathaye bhool hoye geche.”

I remained still, voiceless. Just breathing.

“I called you so many times, Susie. You wouldn’t even talk to me. I got mad, okay? Rege giye ekta bhool kore phelechi—”

“So it’s my fault?” I heard myself saying, my voice hoarse and dry. “You slept with another woman because I wouldn’t talk to you…you’re turning this on me?”

Om took a sharp breath, “No—no, that’s not what I meant. I just—Susie, I made a mistake. I’m so sorry. Aami—aami jene bujhe korini, bishash kore!” he stammered.

I slipped back into silence. My fingers were beginning to go numb. My mind sinking into a deep, dark place…

His voice floated into my ears from the other end “Tell me how I can fix. Tui ja bolbi aami tai korbo. Aami ki korbo bol?”

The sound of his voice seemed to be coming from a distant place, as if echoing off the walls of a deep well that I’d fallen into.

“Susie, please talk to me. I promise, I’ll do whatever you say. Just tell me what you want.”

“I want you to be dead to me,” came my voice.

There was silence on the other end of the phone for a while. “What?” he finally said.

“Aami kono din toke khoma korte parbo na, Om. Aar aami kono din tor gola shunte chain a, tor much dekhte chaina. I want you to be dead to me. That’s what I want.”

More sobs. More pain. “I’m so sorry, Susie. Please—”

My fingers found the call disconnect button. Everything was silent again.

****

August 2019

I curled up on his bed, as much as my bulging stomach would let me. I didn’t know how much time had passed. I didn’t know how many times my husband had called. I didn’t know which prenatal vitamins I had forgotten to take. I just lay there on his bed, clutching the ring box between my aching knuckles and palm. My world had stopped again and I didn’t know what to do.

“Susie?”

Kakima had walked in soundlessly. Rain had started coming down heavily now, filling the dark room with a hollow chatter. I felt the bed sink as Kakima sat down beside me, resting her hand on my head.

“Tomra aamake ekbar dakar proyojon mone koroni? Eto kichu hoye gelo, aamake janaleo na, aami—” my voice broke, drowning the rest of my sentence in a sob.

Kakima caressed my hair, “Ki kore janatam bol? Tor phone number, kono address, kichui toh chilo na aamader kache—”

“Toh khunje bar korte! Aamar maa-baba ekhan theke dosh-minute’er durotte thake, Kakima!”

“Aami chesta kore chilam, bishash kor.”

“Aami shesh bar’er moto or mukhtao dekhte parlam na, Kakima!” I cried out, all my reservations, shame, care of the world, everything slipping away.

I felt her hand in my hair shift. “Keno, tui’i toh bolechilish, aar kono din or mukh dekhete chashna.”

A hollow sound escaped my throat. I curled in smaller, clutching the ring box tighter in my hand. I should disappear, I felt. Disappear into the future he had hoped for us. And away from the one I was alive in now, and he wasn’t.

“Tomra oke Kashmir jete dile keno?” I sobbed into the darkness. Kakima started caressing my hair again.

“O kono din karo kotha shunechhe, Maa?” she mumbled, resigned.

I don’t know how long we stayed silent, at what point my fingers loosened over the ring box. I was staring blankly out the window. The sky was dark now; the rain had stopped. Every now and then, thunders rumbled in the distant.

“Sheshe’r dike toh koto din kotha hoyeni.” Kakima started speaking again. “Oi, ki je, phone line, internet line shob kete dilo. Tor kaku shey koto douro douri korechilo, koto helpline e phone kora, chithi lekha, chhele tar kono ekta jodi khobor paowa jaye. Tarpor ekdin, koyekjon lok or body niye ashlo.”

Her last words sent a rending pain through my chest. I shut my eyes tight, with all the strength that I had left.

“Aami or mrityu kamona korechilam, Kakima,” I confessed, my voice cracking. “Raag’er mathaye bole phelechilam. Shotti kore kono din chaini, bishash koro. Aami kono din bhool koreo chaini…”

Kakima kept stroking my hair. “Ora bollo, bhor bela naki bomb blast hoye chilo. Chheleta ghumiye chilo nischoi oi shomoye. Nijer mon ke oi bhebei shantona di, je kono koshto paini.”

Somewhere, a thunder crackled in the sky.

“Aamake khoma kore dio, Kakima, aami mon theke or khoti chaini.”

She rested her hand on my forehead, “Tui o, oke khoma kore dish.”