The saviour

ANARA 

A motionless goodbye escaped her eyes as the signboards moved swifter than the fears in his cruel heart. He didn’t take the chance, the last chance there ever could be. Calling it cowardice wouldn’t be man enough for his mighty self, the being that would destroy another’s very fiber. It was a fleeting moment of knowing more than she did; a depraved sense of power that motioned his hand to wave back at her. He could stop rehearsing the lines in his head now, for her petite self was now almost  indistinguishable. Anara waved one last time before merging into the space between not-quite-here and almost-there. She would never return.

Lost in the silence of the ruthless traffic, he drove without knowing how far he had come along. Maybe Anara and Yusuf weren’t so different after all.

Walking into his dilapidated outhouse, Yusuf felt a certain chill creeping up around him. It was only June. Days and nights and the moments in between flowed into one another without the slightest hint of an impending storm.

Yusuf never stopped being his usual self – with his carefully careless charm, effortless intellectualism and opinionated stands. And she with her ceaseless affection, juvenile optimism and perpetual attempts to bridge the spaces that separated Yusuf and her. She, whose ideal day began with his sleepy voice and ended with the sound of his breath over the phone, was never too discerning. Even as a child, her parents feared her heart for being too naïve, too welcoming. Anara with her hair like a waterfall on fire, laughed heartily, loved earnestly and believed foolishly. Yusuf always knew her too well for her own good.

Distance makes one do things they always wanted to, but never did for fear of being witnessed. It provides a guilt ridden yet comforting veil under which all things indulgent vanish – for they never existed in the first place. You didn’t see it. It didn’t happen.

Every evening, Yusuf would run for miles on his agile feet. That man had stamina, but no strength. Bit by bit, Yusuf undid himself from what he had beautifully and patiently created and slowly created more distance than what existed between India and Paris. Carefully crafted words never gave Anara any fodder for suspicions or doubts and well planned defenses only left her feeling guilty for having questioned Yusuf in the first place. Yusuf may not have been strong, but his pride paved the way to protect his otherwise perfect image from getting tainted with all that he slipped under the veil.

Slowly but surely, Anara felt it too – the silent awkwardness where none existed, the glance that didn’t linger on her face anymore and the hands that didn’t reach for hers at night. Unlike Yusuf, Anara grew up on a loving dose of fairytales and ever after’s. She never stopped believing in the eternity of  emotions.

Anara was to arrive at dawn by a twelve hour flight and couldn’t get her excited nerves to calm down – she hadn’t seen Yusuf in two months, the longest they had even been apart. Sleep evaded Yusuf as he  tossed and turned in his bed in the basement, thinking of how to make the experience as civil and as  painless as possible. When he thought of Anara, there was a void where affection used to live. Love was

too strong a word now, maybe a year ago it would have been the right word, but today, it just wasn’t. Hoping to make time go by faster, he checked his watch eighteen times before the sheep finally started gliding over the fences.

Getting into his car, the day didn’t seem to augur too well for Yusuf – he was one hour from seeing Anara. That it was unnaturally grey and windy even at four in the morning did not play much of a part at that point. He gripped the steering wheel with a stern conviction; almost as if reaffirming the sharp sketches he had been drawing in his mind for the past few months and sipped on his coffee.

Oblivious to what was brewing ten thousand miles under her feet, Anara smiled as she thought of the trip they made to the southern beaches in India the year before. She remembered the pancake filled breakfasts and love filled days. ‘Yusuf’, the name that resounded in her entire being, would be with her in just a while. She had waited for three months to tell him the news in person - She was moving back to India in December. Just in time for his birthday. Nothing could go wrong now; the demonic distance couldn’t play havoc anymore, could it? It couldn’t.

The wait at the airport terminal seemed longer than ever before, partly because of Yusuf’s anxiety and partly because Anara’s flight was in fact 3 hours late. Yusuf was worried now – would he still be able to mouth the words as unemotionally and clinically as he had hoped? He had to, for he could no longer pretend to feel when unfeeling had taken over completely. He felt bad for Anara, for her knew her like no one else, but immediately justified everything in his mind by telling himself that she no longer captivated him like she did, her golden locks did not keep him up all night, thinking how lucky he was to have her. He no longer felt humbled when he held her in his arms. Yusuf just wanted to get over with the ordeal now. Luckily for him, at 11:11 am that grey morning, Anara along with 247 other homebound  people never came back home.

FADIA

What a beautiful mess she was, Fadia; as complicated as her curls. Nothing seemed to distract her from the pages she so tenderly caressed every afternoon. She frowned when she concentrated and smiled a half smile when the right words came tumbling onto the paper. I remember the day she fell asleep for a few minutes and woke up with an incredibly enchanting ink stained cheek.

It had been three years since Anara; three years of seeing her everywhere; endless nights waiting for delirious, nightmarish sleep. I couldn’t forgive myself even if I tried. But Fadia, she had such a forgiving look on her face, like she was at peace with all that inhabited her space. Just for that peace, I wish I could steal her away.

She signed when she flipped a page with evident satisfaction and sometimes looked outside the stained glass window. Did she know how the colors of the stained glass danced on her face? Up until that day, I felt my throat drying up at the mere thought of speaking to her, but walking up to her and uttering that name was enough to make me forget my previous inabilities. At first there was silence – but a comfortable silence, one that exists only in familiarity. Her cursive words on the pale yellow paper looked up at me just as she did and smiled.

Every day she would document a piece of her life onto those frayed pages while I sat

across the table from her, content in just ‘being’. She never asked why I was there and

I never felt the need to explain. Soon, Fadia became an escape for my troubled soul. She looked like a child sometimes – lost & vulnerable and then there were days when she seemed wise beyond her years. She still never said a word and I did not demand one. It was a comfortable companionship – one that didn’t need words – just hot cocoa.

The first time I spoke, I spoke for days at length. Fadia, with her chin cupped in her hand, listened intently. She never agreed or disagreed; she did not dole out advice, she just looked right into my eyes when I spoke. Sometimes I would bring photographs to share with her – I would sit and simply slide them across the table. Her dainty fingers pulled them closer and she almost always traced the faces she saw and gave me a warm, sad smile. Maybe she knew what it meant to lose something, someone.

In Fadia, I found a soul asylum; a comfortable spot I could rest my guild ridden head on. It was never love – it was only loneliness, mine and hers, intertwined so beautifully – mine in words and hers in those eyes. Yusuf spoke to passionately, like something stirred in the depths of his being. Poor boy, he really must have loved her; who wouldn’t? With dancing eyes and an honest happiness infused smile, it was difficult not to. Was his guilt justified now that it was too late? Would he have changed his mind if Anara had come back home? Maybe not. But I never knew how to tell him this and somehow I think he  knew.

There were days I could swear I saw tears in his eyes, but he was too much of a man to let them flow. His broad shoulders were probably not made to shrink and cry. With each passing day I felt Yusuf needed me more; but there was only so much I could give him. On some nights, I prayed for him with all my heart. He let down his guard when we met and often looked like a lost, bewildered child, waiting to be picked up and rocked gently to sleep. I wonder how much of my silence Yusuf understood; whenever seemed to complain about its presence.

Until today Yusuf never asked me anything; he only questioned life and its distorted logic. Just as it began to snow, he asked me what my name meant.  

Fadia – ‘The saviour’