The Blue Bar (Blue Mumbai #1)(100)

CHAPTER NINETY-THREE


The Item Number is no more, but her shadow still remains. I can tell you this: I shouldn’t have idled this long. Her shadow will live on, live her own life, raise a daughter—that does not bother me.

The end I pined for will now never be mine. Item Number’s blood. My own blood. All of it mixed together. And all for what? My son won’t take my calls.

Now the Item Number is gone, now she reappears, taunting me with her rancid breath, her cackling laughter. I should have found another way, but it is too late. The police will find Bilal, or he will find them. It is all done now, all of it, and here I am without a phone, at the mercy of people who fawn over me, and ask me to get myself together. My leg hurts from the gunshot, but they won’t call a doctor—too risky, they say. They have taken away my phone so I can call no one.

I can have crayons and paper, but who knows for how long. No sleep, that’s for sure, because each time I close my eyes, she’s back with her dark smile. Her lips are charred and black, and her touch, a living, crawling thing.





CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR


TARA

Long ago, in another life, Tara had lain in Arnav’s arms as they watched a movie in his bedroom. Akhiyon ke jharokhon se. He’d changed channels before the movie neared its ending. This doesn’t end well. Let’s watch another.

She’d never looked it up in the intervening years, but the evening before she’d left for Mumbai, it had played on TV and she’d watched it with Pia, convinced Arnav had been confused about the unhappy ending. The movie could only end in happiness for the two married lovers, Lily and Arun.

But Lily had died in Arun’s arms.

Caught in the half sleep brought on by medication, she’d asked the doctor what was wrong with her. The doctor had given her answers Arnav hadn’t. The bullet had lodged at her neck. Tara wanted to rage at Arnav for not telling her. Instead, all she could feel was the need to console him. She couldn’t move her arms, not even her finger, and might not hold him again. Nor Pia.

When she uttered Pia’s name, she heard hushed voices, beeping equipment. She was never sure of when she was awake and what was part of her fevered dreams.

She called Pia again. And this time she opened her eyes.

“She’ll be here soon.” Arnav sat beside her.

“Have you spoken to her?”

She wished for them to get along, to recognize each other in their lives.

“She’s been sedated so far,” Arnav said.

“Have you heard from Zoya?”

“She rang once to ask about you. I told her you’re with me. She’s OK.”

Arnav drew the pale-blue curtains that circled her bed. “I need to talk to you.”

“Yes.” She watched his unshaven face. The worry and suffering in his eyes, the exhaustion and hope.

“Will you marry me, Tara?”

“What?” She hadn’t heard that right. Had not. Could not have.

“Marry me, Tara. Please.”

From his face, he was not joking. At all. If he was serious, why now? When she wasn’t even able to feel his hand holding hers? Tara closed her eyes. She willed him to go away. She prayed to Ma Kaali he wouldn’t.

“Why?” she said.

Silence hovered amid the curtains, broken only by the low purr of machines. When he spoke, his voice was gruff and low.

“Because I’d like to belong to you. I’ve wasted so many years. When Asha left us, I was thirteen. She was my older sister. She would have loved you, you know, told me how lucky I was. She liked girls with spirit. She was a fighter, too. She gave up too soon.”

Tara met his eyes. He didn’t look away. He narrated Asha’s history, from decades ago. The rape, the injustice, her suicide.

“Here she is.” Arnav took out a faded photograph from his wallet. “I’ve carried her with me. After losing her and my parents, I thought I didn’t deserve a family. I want one with you now. I can’t make up for all the years, but would you let me try?”

Tara felt tears trickle down her cheek, and Arnav reached up to wipe them.

“Look who’s here.” A nurse spoke in a half whisper, peeking her head through the curtains, and parting them.

Tara watched as a second nurse brought in a wheelchair. Her Pia. Frail Pia in a hospital gown, her hair shorn, a bandage on her forehead. Even if she never rose from her bed again, she had achieved this. Her Pia. Safe.

“Ma.” Pia’s eyes lit up and she made to stand, but the nurse stopped her. “I’ll help you.” Both nurses lifted her into the bed, laying her right beside Tara. “Be careful,” they said to Pia.

Pia burrowed her nose into Tara’s arm and broke into quiet sobs. Arnav used his one good arm to cover Pia with the sheet.

For long minutes, the sobs were the only sound in the room.

Tara couldn’t touch her daughter, and it gutted her. Arnav could, though, and he was here. She hadn’t missed the note of desperation in his voice when he’d asked her—despite the fact that she might never walk or touch him again. He needed his daughter, and his daughter certainly needed him.

Tara had never seen beauty in marriage. This was, after all, a man, but watching Arnav’s bruised fingers soothe their daughter, she could find no objection. If this was her fate, she would take her chances.