“I was out of my mind to have said that,” her self-recrimination was ruthless.

“Forget about it, okay? I am telling you to. Do you understand that?”

She nodded, still not meeting his eyes, and said, “I will go to my room. You must have work to do.”

“Don’t you want to know about the divorce papers?” he was surprised.

She shook her head, “I don’t want to know anything. Do you want me to sign it?” She was guilt-ridden.

“Do you want to sign it?”

“For a moment I had thought that I could give you what you needed in your wife, Mukundo Babu. I don’t want to be presumptuous.”

“What I am interested in knowing is whether you have considered your own options. What I said on your first day here still stands. You are young, intelligent, and beautiful, Piyali. You will have other options. I don’t want to bind you to me. That’s why those divorce papers. They weren’t prepared today. I had then prepared before you started college. So that you could be free. I just could not manage to talk to you about it. And when I did manage to bring it before you, all my plans went haywire. But your choices should not be eliminated because of my weakness.”

“The divorce papers were for my sake?”

He nodded.

“What do you want, Mukundo Babu? Not for me. But for yourself.”

“You first. What do you want? Not for me. But for yourself.”

She could not play this hide and seek any more. If he could lose control over himself like that, forget about his long-prepared divorce papers, kiss her impulsively, follow her to her room and sweep her off her feet with that seductive talk, she couldn’t pretend that she didn’t know what he wanted. She decided to speak out.

“If you had accepted this marriage in the very beginning, Mukundo Babu, I would still have respected you, and worshipped you, for being my savior, for giving me shelter, for feeding me, for restoring my dignity. But I would not have become what I have become now – somebody you could love. Even more importantly, I would not have known what it meant to know a person and slowly, but surely, fall in love with him. A little every day. Reaching a stage where you love him with your heart and soul. A love that doesn’t demand reciprocation. But if reciprocated, it would give you the ultimate nirvana. If unreciprocated, your life would still feel fulfilled.”

Mukundo smiled, an overwhelmed smile, reaching all the way up to his moist eyes. “You would do very well in English literature,” he said. Then he drew her in his arms and kissed her on forehead. She closed her eyes and expected another kiss on her lips. She had been taken by surprise last time. This time, she was ready to reciprocate. But she felt his arms loosening around her. He led her back to the table and picked up the divorce papers.

“I could make it dramatic and tear it with hands. But I think there is a shredder somewhere here. It does a more perfect job. Let’s use it.” They went to the shredder together and he let her feed the papers to it.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“Where to?”

“To your room,” she said in a flat voice, but gulped after that.

He looked at her questioningly.

“I… I want to eliminate any grounds for divorce!”

He was taken aback by her boldness. She was going to be a handful in the days to come. But he was looking forward to it.

“If you talk like that, I may not have patience to go to my bedroom,” he teased her.

“My room is closer,” she replied.

“We are already in a room.”

“What? Here?” she was suddenly nervous.

“Why not?” he gave a meaningful smile, took her to the door, and closed it. He pinned her against the closed door and kissed her. A long, deep, breathtaking kiss. She reciprocated with gusto as she felt his hands undoing the zip of her kurta.

—

They were lying in his bed later in the day. Piyali was in his arms. He remembered something and suddenly said, “I had never seen you cry earlier.”

The content, happy smile on her face disappeared. “I don’t cry before others.”

He turned on his stomach and propped himself up to look directly in her eyes, “You cry alone?”

“Sometimes.”

“Why Piyali? Why alone?”

“They always wanted me to cry. It was my little rebellion against them. To not cry when they could see.”

“Who?”

“Everyone. My family, neighbors, so called in-laws. Everybody said I should cry when I was widowed. I didn’t even know his name properly. I didn’t feel a thing. How could I cry? They threatened, cajoled, pleaded with me, to cry. For the sake of showing the world that I was a devoted wife,  a girl of character. The more they insisted, the more determined I became to not cry. Not before them. Not when they scolded me, not when they insulted me, not even when they hit me. I did cry. Because they won’t let me have fish. My food would be bland without any onion, garlic or spices. I’d eat so little, I felt weak. Later I had to cook for myself, separate from others. I cried because I had to do all housework and keep myself busy in prayers so that my widowed mind did not get corrupt. I wasn’t allowed to spend time with the girls of my age. They were married, they had kids, I shouldn’t be affected by their marital bliss and learn what it was like to be married. It would give me wrong ideas. I cried because of all this. But not before them.”

He cupped her face. “I’m sorry. Don’t think about them.” That explained why as an eighteen year old did not know anything about sexual relationships. She wasn’t allowed to talk even to her friends. Where else would she have learned about it in that small, isolated village?

“I don’t. It feels like another birth,” she smiled weakly.

“Weren’t you scared when you came here initially?”

“I was,” she said truthfully.

“You cried alone? In your room?”

She nodded looking guilty.

“Why not before me, Piyali? Why did you keep everything inside you? You didn’t think I would hurt you, did you?”

“I… I was just not used to. And then before today… I had never…”

“Never?”

“I have never spoken to my husband, had I? Your life already seemed consumed by worrying about me. I didn’t want to add more to that.”

He smiled. “That’s no longer the case, right? You are speaking to your husband and one who has no grounds to ask for divorce either,” both of them chuckled at the joke. Then he continued seriously, “Promise me you won’t do that from now on. You won’t suffer alone. Ideally, I don’t want you to cry ever, Piyali. But if you are ever upset, or hurt, you must share with me. Okay?”

“Yes,” she replied. Then added after a pause, “And you too.”

That made him laugh. “Yes. Sure.”

“Can I ask you something, Mukundo Babu?”

“Ask away my princess. Satisfy all your curiosities,” he replied playfully.

“Do you still believe in this soul-mate thing?”

His brows knitted for a moment as he thought; then said somberly, “I don’t think I really did. But now I do. I have to.”

– The End –