In Serial Novel - Chapter 22 of Stubs & Roses By Irene Dhar Malik, Mumbai, India

Posted by Team 4indianwoman at 9 February 2008, 5:32 AM and is filed under Serial Novel Stubs and Roses

RECAP

Dipta is running for his life. A bullet from his pursuers knocks his companion down, even as Dipta keeps running. Ila is dumped in their Mangaon home and she lies for long, incapable of any movement. She senses that Dipta must be dead, as is the child that she was carrying, and wishes she was dead too.
Later, she again sees the woman in white at her window. She follows the figure out of the village.

CHAPTER 22

It was early morning when the phone rang and that was even more unusual than the phone ringing at all. The police wanted him to come and take a look at this woman who they thought was his missing wife. They had found her in a train from Assam and she was not talking to any one.

He allowed himself the luxury of a taxi and was very soon at the police station. There had been very little time to think, to imagine what the meeting would be like, but he could have never been prepared for the first sight of her. Dried bloody wounds, torn bloodied clothes, hair in a mess and a faraway vacant look in her eyes. Flies buzzed around her, sat on her and she didn’t seem to notice. It was difficult to recognize her, but impossible not to know her. He waved away some of the flies, he called her by her name, but she didn’t stir. He wanted to kill whoever had done this to her. He wanted to wash her wounds with his tears.
Instead he completed the police formalities and took her home in a taxi whose driver found it impossible to keep his eyes off Ila.

He cleaned her wounds, bathed her and then applied some medicine to her wounds. He dressed her and then tried feeding her something. She didn’t want to eat and still refused to talk, so he left her alone for a while to roam freely in whichever world her vacuous eyes led her to. He couldn’t stay away for long though, he had to ask the question that was crying to be asked.
“Ila, our child?”

She finally looked at him and parted her lips as if to say something, then closed them again. She shook her head slowly, tears forming in her eyes which now spoke of some inexpressible horror. He shook her hard.
“Ila, our child? What happened? Why did you go away?”

She trembled but said nothing, just shook her head again and the tears dried unshed. He wept holding her; she didn’t respond. He kissed her face gently and putting his head in her lap, he asked amidst tears,
“Who was he? Who was he Ila?”
She never told him. 

Later, he packed her things in a suitcase that she had brought along when they had got married. He took the suitcase in one hand and her hand in another and took a taxi to her mother’s house. The last bit of the road was blocked by some rickshaw pullers who were protesting an assault on one of their colleagues. Paying off the taxi, they started walking. The suitcase was heavy and by the time they reached her mother’s house he had to finally heave it onto his shoulder, while dragging Ila along with one hand. Her mother was incredibly happy to see her and then seeing her state, incredibly scared. Nihar explained that it was best if Ila stayed here, since she obviously didn’t want to stay with him. He could see her mother wanted to say no but didn’t know how to; he left before she had figured out how to.

He walked all the way home again under the noon sun, realizing that he hadn’t called up his college to take leave. He knew he wouldn’t either; he didn’t have the energy left in him to do anything right now. He didn’t have words left to talk with, or tears left to pour out his grief; he had nothing left but a sense of emptiness at having reached the end of a long road and realized that it leads to nowhere. He knew too that he could never ever be able to turn back and do that road again, or look for a new one.

He lay in bed staring at the fan hanging from the pale cream ceiling that was beginning to show some cracks when he thought he heard the door open. He hadn’t got up for the last four days, and had ignored the doorbell and the phone ringing; he felt too weak to raise his head now. She came in quietly, entered the bedroom and lay down beside him on what used to be their bed. There was a space between them though and as he looked at her, he realized that he would have to let the space be there. At least for now, and maybe some day… he stared at her for a long time and she looked at him with vacant eyes. It hurt so much to see her like this that his eyes filled.

                           To be continued… 

 

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