Ahalya, Day 6

Sun rises in the east: a universal truth. Sunlight peeked into our bedroom when I had been stepping out of the bathroom, curled up in a towel and left a warm indentation on my bare thigh: an unsettling thought process that wasn't even worthy for a diary entry. The sound of what I just thought felt embarrassing. I moved up on the sofa, my skin caressing the sea-weed coloured cushion and crossed my legs. I was taking a break from sleeping. I sat, wondering how Vishwa would think in perfect sentences that make absolute sense while often sounding poetic. Although I seemed jealous of my fiancé, I only wished to hold a conversation like him. 

Four months ago, we had been invited to a housewarming by one of his friends, and Vishwa had walked around, saying things like: I think we're going to see a lot of Instagram selfies in front of this wall; and: Well, you guys topped my list of people who's settled first and better. The newlywed couple couldn't stop smiling at his remarks as we had gathered in their bedroom, priding over their pastel geometric wall-paint and the complementing lilac bedspreads and taupe-coloured curtains. All I had said was 'Nice house' and offered occasional smiles, despite feeling as if stuck in a kid's ice-cream cup. But Vishwa had no problem navigating those waters.

Two days in this village and I hadn't met as many people as I expected I would. Having the house two kilometres away from the actual village helped us retain our privacy. The trees brought nothing but wind and dust. Days were brighter and nights were darker, which of course didn't stop me from sleeping all the time. To my surprise, Vishwa left no remarks about my newborn laziness. The jitters to draw something had slowly diminished. And Vasu had been bringing food to my room. How couldn't I cash in these advantages? I would shower two times a day, eat the food on time and live on the bed until the cycle begins again—which, comparatively, was a notable improvement from my side. 

My mother-in-law, Yamuna met with me once and hadn't bothered again; perhaps my desert-animal lifestyle spooked her. Or I could be over-thinking and she might've understood I wasn't myself these days. Somehow, I guessed the latter wouldn't be the case.

A knock on the door and I almost jumped off my seat. "Yes," I managed to say.

"I brought Coffee." Vasu walked in, holding a tray and wearing his brightest smile.

He walked to the table in front of me. Frankly, it wasn't a table, but rather an antique wooden piece of decoration with a slender, elliptical top and its chiselled legs had mutated into alien tentacles where they touched the floor. I studied Vasu as he placed the tray down and slid his index finger under the saucer and thumb on the top. Then, he lifted the cup and I wasted no time reaching for it. The rich smell of caffeine restarted my day.

After blowing the layer of cream on top and taking a sip, I said, "Good evening to you too."

Vasu giggled. His voice made him sound like a man unlike his face, which seemed juvenile and innocent.

"Do you want anything specific for dinner?" he asked.

"You know, I'm fine with everything. In fact, have you seen my fiancé today," I said and stretched my right hand in the air, adding, "He's this tall and good-looking."

He pursed his lips and put on a sincere expression. "Yes, I think so. A man of similar features told me he's going for a walk in the garden. Do you want me to track him down?"

I chuckled and took the last gulp of my coffee. "I'll find him. Poor guy wouldn't have gone so far."

We both exchanged a nod again as I finished my coffee and put the cup back in the tray. I decided I like talking with Vasu and warned myself not to mess this up since I wouldn't want him thinking like everyone else that my sarcasm's a coping mechanism.

He turned to leave, but faced me again to say, "By the way, your brother's just woke up."

Whatever colours I had on my face went missing. "My brother," I said. The word, the person, I had been avoiding thinking about since the morning stormed into our conversation. "Sure. I'll go see him."

Vasu left the room and I remained on the sofa, staring out the window and wishing for an umpteenth time that my brother hadn't come to visit me.

Half an hour later, I stepped out of our room and walked down the corridor, following the retreating light. I put my hand on the parapet wall and slid my palm along, feeling the cement surface. I passed my mother-in-law's room and heard the rush of water from inside. The water pressure in the house was top notch as I remembered coming out of the shower with a moan. Perhaps, another reason behind taking two showers a day.

The room at the end of the corridor was my destination. Wedged in the centre, glueing the two sides of the first floor, it had once been Vishwa's childhood bedroom. Two things my fiancé hated the most: this room and carrots. In the beginning, I'd laughed at grown-man hating carrots (which are indeed the best vegetable) and slipped them into my curries. Vishwa had still picked them off like an angry pigeon.

When I first heard that Ashwin was hoping to visit us, I asked Vishwa to decline. To tell him I needed space. I admitted that drawing the faces of our dead mother was wrong, even cruel toward someone who was trying to move on. But that day I'd caught anger in his voice; it could have been hate. 'You are sick'. His words echoed inside me, as though he buried them all this time and liberated them when he had found a chance. However, Vishwa disagreed with me, which didn't surprise me considering my position. 'Oh, poor Ahalya, she had a mental breakdown and doesn't know what she's saying.' No one said it, but over-dramatizing and self-pity were my strengths.

As I neared my destination, I wished I could go back. What if I could call Vasu and keep him around? Every atom of me wanted a magical door to open, suck me in and only release me once Ashwin go backs to the city. I wouldn't care if it was the world where they play hunger games. I had grown up with him; we had spent nights crying about our never-returning father, had shared jokes over my mother's rules, and had kept each other darkest secrets. Yet, like any good thing in this big, bad world, I was afraid we reached an end. It ached to even think.

"Are you going to stay there?" I heard a voice and lifted my face to my brother.

He looked relaxed. The sleep worked. He stood leaning to the door and observed me. I guessed our first topic would be about my weight loss.

"Are you settling in well?" he asked, turning back.

I put one foot inside and answered, "Very well."

He nodded, bending towards the bed, setting his clothes to take a bath. It was my turn to lean to the door and check out the room. I had nothing good to say anyway. Weirdly, the room didn't help my mood, shaped like an igloo because of being in the focal shape of the house. The walls appeared to move closer every time I stirred my head. I suffered momentary claustrophobia.

"I know. It's not the best room in the house," my brother said.

"I—I can ask Vasu for another room," I said.

"It's okay. I'm not staying long anyway."

I took two steps forward. "I can't believe Vishwa let someone in this room."

"Why?"

"He hates this room. He says he always got bad news when he stayed here."

"Something like about his father's death?"

I shrugged, twisting my mouth. It was an easy guess. "Also, his mother dropped the news of joining him in a boarding school."

"I'm having second thoughts about staying here now," Ashwin said and I giggled softly.

"Why? Problems at work?" I threw a rock in the dark.

"How do you know?"

And I hit the target. "Nevermind. What's the hitch?"

"I understand I might never impress my editor."

Ashwin worked as a journalist in the 'Jana-Patrika' newspaper. The last time we discussed his job was when we went to meet our mother together. We stayed for dinner, sitting at our four-seated dining table as she complained about our lives and secretly exchanged smiles. She had nagged him to sleep more and how she had disliked his editor for going too hard on him. All she had told me was to eat more. Those were her last words to me. Eat more. If I could have another chance to behave like an elder sister, I would take it in a heartbeat.

"Mom never liked him either," I said.

"She hated him."

"Can't he just leave you alone for a single day? What are you? His wife?" I was proud of my accurate imitation of my mother. I always did it best between the two of us.

We both exchanged a morbid laugh, but he said nothing. He zipped his bag and glided it under the bed. Even though his silence annoyed me, I stayed put. It amazed me that he just came to see how I was settling. The intention to replace my mother reflected in his eyes. He wasn't the naïve, younger one anymore. Her death grew him up savagely.

"Where's your fiancé by the way?" Ashwin said, steering us past the talk of our mother.

"I'm not sure. He went for a walk."

"Did you guys talk about what happened?"

I bit my lip. "No."

"You should."

"Okay. Fine." This one was mine to steer away. "Hey, can I ask you something?"

He folded his hands as if it was his 'yes' posture.

"How many did we lose?"

My brother shook his head. He could've decided not to talk about it, but I needed to know. No one was allowing me to use the internet. My phone signals were shit, and the house had no Wi-Fi.

"Four thousand," he said. "That was the day before yesterday. I think it could be less today. It's social media, you see. They find a new obsession every day."

A new obsession every day, of course. His words worked like a balm on my hidden wound. We stood facing each other as the evening sun lit the room in murdered ginger colour. He looked flustered from the heat, sweating all over. He was about to speak when we heard the sudden howling barks. We marched to the window and bent toward the glass to find six to eight dogs lined up outside our gate, barking madly at the house. At us.

"Do they belong to us?"

"Dogs and Vishwa can't coexist in the same plane," I replied.

On the lawn, as if they weren't hearing those barks, Vasu and Vishwa stood together, chatting with a woman. She crouched before them, wearing a smudged brown saree. She handed Vasu a fish from her dried coconut-leaf basket, and he stood, observing its features like a scientist.

"They are buying fish," I said.

"That's what I'm talking about," Ashwin said, grinning.

"Do you still like fish?"

That question made me wonder how distant I had been in his life.

He straightened and said, "Do you still breathe?"

Without giving me a chance to chortle or scoff, he rushed out of the room. His feet made no sound on the floor or the stairs. It would be a waste to chase him since he had always been the faster one.

So I took my time to reach the lawn, the grass gently kissing my bare feet and the show had ended. The dogs were gone. Vishwa and Ashwin were walking to the back of the house, squabbling about something. Vasu stood like a statue, holding a fish and the woman was adjusting her saree. I snuck a peek into her basket. Dead fish rested there like spoons in a kitchen drawer. She had wedged a steel bowl of dead prawns into a corner. Besides, I stood far enough to be affected by the smell.

"What the hell happened?"

"Well, your brother wanted Pulasa and that fish won't be available at the street vendors," Vasu answered. "So, he's nagging your husband to take him to the riverfront."

"Well, that sounds like Ashwin," I said.

"Can you hold this?" Vasu pointed the fish at me.

Hesitating, I extended my palms and Vasu gave it to me. It slid smoothly on my skin and I had to lift my thumbs to jam its downfall. Its eyes were glassy, the skin rough. Its lips froze in a pouting movement. I chuckled, thinking how it goes for a perfect Instagram pose.

Meanwhile, Vasu helped the woman lift her basket. She had a towel coiled into a bun on her head for better grip and bearing the weight of the basket. I imagined having such a basket on my head too. The weight of the dead things.

"Yamuna loves fish," Vasu said, turning to me.

"Everyone likes fish, I see."

"You don't?"

I raised my nose until it became a frown. "Never had any good—" Before I could finish it, the fish leapt out of my hands, and I let out a soft yell.

Its gills were working again, struggling to breathe. It flapped its fins and the tail in the grass. My heart was the same. The fish came back to life or had been temporarily dead. Both the thoughts seemed stupid, and I remained agitated.

"Sorry," Vasu said and picked the fish, dusted it off and walked away.

My legs didn't move as if someone was begging them to stay behind. But there was no one around me. Standing beside the fountain hose, I heard a torrent of meaningless words. And like someone summoned it, the grass had straightened. I watched an earthworm crawling through the rusty, moss-filled hose, its reddish-brown body spiralling and fastening across the metal. My insides churned.

The whispering of words gradually altered into a buzz. A faint, yet rising buzz. Something was coming or something had already come and was asking to be noticed. Either way, I shivered the same. Mosquitoes? Bees? Whatever it was, my head responded with a crawling sensation over my skin. I wished I had a jacket on or a scarf to wrap myself in. The buzzing rung in my head like a song, whispering, wailing and screaming and perhaps, wanting to escape by cutting open my skull.

I swallowed a dry lump.

And catching me breathless, water spewed out of the fountain hose. I jerked back, closing my fists so hard that it hurt. My heart pounded in my ribcage like a bird on a seizure. Why is it working? The flow went higher and louder like bullets out of a machine gun. I spent all my strength dragging my feet back. I remained cold, trembling to the deafening water stream and so far, not a drop of water touched me. Minutes later, I forced myself to bend and touch the grass. It wasn't wet either. 

***

Notes: The Pulasa, also known as the ilish or hilsa, is a species of fish related to the herring family. It is a very popular and sought-after edible fish in the Indian Subcontinent