A choking sound escaped her lips, then another. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a stirring in the darkness and realized that Mohan was in his room and that he’d heard her.
He was sitting at the edge of the bed, holding his head in his hands. Smita watched him, knowing that he was broken, that she had broken him. Now that they were home, safe from danger, he was also replaying the images of the evening. Mohan looked up, and from the light cast by the outdoor patio lights, Smita could see his face, dirty, teary, worn-out. There was no trace of the irreverent, playful man who had breezily offered to give up his vacation to drive her into hell. We will never be the same, Smita thought. Mohan extended his right arm toward her. Smita moved across the room, sat next to him on the bed, and put her arm around Mohan. It was the mirror image of how he had consoled her a few days earlier, and Smita was glad to be of use. They sat this way for a long time, in the still, in the dark. At some point, Smita felt the salt on her face, but didn’t know whether they were her tears or Mohan’s. One of them must have swiveled to bridge the space between them, one of them must have initiated the kiss that the other received thankfully—but Smita didn’t know who had led the way. Grief was the great leveler. The dark stripped them of language and inhibitions and doubt. They clung to each other in this fashion, each pulling the other in.
They stopped; Mohan drew back. Was it remorse Smita was reading on his face? He ran his fingers through his hair. She could feel him receding.
“Mohan,” she said, the single word a cup, holding her terror, her loneliness, her guilt, her confusion.
Mohan cradled her face, his own close to hers. His eyes searched hers, reading her, and then he traced her mouth with his index finger. “Jaan,” he whispered, and bowed his head and blotted away the world until she didn’t know where he began and she ended, where any of them did: Meena and Abdul, Mohan and her, India and America, past and future, life and death. She was no longer sure if she was the consoled or the consoler, the healed or the healer. And the last conscious thought she had was that it didn’t matter—the only thing that mattered was that neither one of them would be alone for the night.
The next day came hot and still, with a cloudless blue sky.
Inside the house, Smita felt the irregularity of the weather patterns—she was warmed every time Mohan’s eyes fell on her as they made Ammi and Abru breakfast and felt the chill each time he left the room and was out of her sight. Light and shadow. Heat and cold.
What she had wanted to do was to stay in bed with Mohan all day and refuse to face the intrusions the new day would bring. She wanted him to block away the knowledge that Meena was dead, wanted Mohan’s kisses on her eyes to keep them from seeing the horrors that lay behind their lids, wanted his mouth on her mouth to keep her from screaming.
But Mohan had woken up at six this morning with someone else’s name on his lips:
Abru’s.
Anjali called at eight. Smita heard the exhaustion in her voice and knew that she hadn’t slept. She wanted to offer her sympathies but couldn’t bring herself to console Anjali. In a few days she might, but right then, she couldn’t escape the thought that Anjali had fucked up. If she and Mohan had not arrived when they did, Ammi and Abru would have been killed, also. The thought of the child being harmed landed like bloody lashes on Smita’s skin.
At Anjali’s behest, Smita and Mohan went to the police station nearest to Birwad later that morning, leaving Abru at home with Ammi. The inspector who took their complaint looked so disinterested as he picked at his teeth and kept his eyes glued to Smita’s chest, it took all her willpower to not ask him how much he’d been paid off by Rupal. The only time the man showed the slightest passion was when Smita mentioned that she was writing a story for an American newspaper. Then, he met her eyes and accused her of maligning India’s reputation abroad.
Her anger fueled by the police inspector’s disinterest, Smita longed to start work on her article. Maybe she could persuade an Indian newspaper to pick up the story? She had spoken to Shannon on her way to the police station, even though she’d hated giving her the news about Meena while she was in rehab. Shannon had promised to follow up on the story when she returned to work.
“Do you want to go back to Birwad?” Mohan asked as they left the police station. “To, you know, see about giving Meena a proper funeral?”
Smita considered his suggestion. “I want to get back to Abru,” she said. “And I need to begin work on my story.” She hesitated. “I know that sounds awful. I don’t mean to be callous. But honestly, under the circumstances, I think Meena would want us to focus on her daughter, not on her remains.”
Mohan nodded as he put the car in reverse. “You don’t sound callous. Besides, didn’t you tell me that Meena said the four months she shared with her husband were the happiest days of her life?”
“Yes?”
“Then we will leave her where she was at her happiest.”
They had not yet discussed what had happened between them the night before. Smita didn’t regret it, just the circumstances that had led to such intimacy—and the fact that there had been no opportunity to distinguish love from need, pleasure from grief, desire from solace. Would any warm body have done last night? she asked herself, but she knew the answer immediately. It was only Mohan who could have consoled her; it was only Mohan that she wanted to console. Their lovemaking had been solemn, tinged with desperation, but also extremely sensual. She had slept deeply for a few hours—and when she’d startled awake, hearing Meena’s voice in her ear, Mohan was right there, his arm around her, holding her in place, keeping her from splitting in two. All morning, she hadn’t wanted to be away from him for even a moment—and it was taking all her control to not stroke his cheek as he drove or take his hand in her lap. He was allowing her to take the lead, to decide whether their night together was an aberration, something they would never mention—or something of consequence. Of course it was this decency, the very Mohanness of it all, that made her want him even more. But it was also a measure of the warmth she felt toward him that made Smita decide she couldn’t risk hurting him. She would help him settle Ammi and Abru; she would file her story; and then, she would leave. She had to get out of India before either of them got too entangled. Their lovemaking may have been born of circumstance, but one thing she was sure of—one of them would get hurt if they continued, and that person would be Mohan. Smita was willing to risk heartbreak. Their intimacy the night before had opened up a hunger in her that felt as big and complicated as India itself. That hunger made her want to pull Mohan into the deepest part of her and hold him there; it also made her want to push him away. It was what had made her so good at her job, this ability to walk away without a look back, to not get pinned down to places or people. But with Mohan, walking away would not be so easy. It was best if she left him the hell alone.
“Everything okay?” Mohan said quietly, looking straight ahead, and Smita knew that he was aware of her agitation.
“No,” she said, pretending to misunderstand his question. “Meena is still dead.”
They went out that evening to purchase a large bottle of Grey Goose and drank it from cups in Mohan’s bedroom after Ammi and Abru had fallen asleep. “I feel like I sleepwalked through this day,” Smita said, feeling a little light-headed.
Mohan nodded. “Yes.”
“And we didn’t accomplish anything at the police station.”
“I know.”
“Is it okay to sleep with you tonight?” Smita said. She tensed, waiting to regret her words, thinking she would be angry at herself for how blithely she had cast away her earlier resolution.