had shown Charu’s father. Ama did not forgive people; she remembered wrongdoing for years. Maybe Maya Mam would fight for her. She would shelter her for a few days. She too had married out of caste – and religion – and she had lost her family.
She closed her eyes and tried to lull herself with thoughts of Kundan. How astonished he would be to see her tomorrow. She could not make herself believe that she would truly see him again, touch him, smell the scent of his skin again, feel his lips – in a mere day, a few hours. What were a few hours after all the months they had spent apart? But these last few hours seemed to stretch longer than weeks and months.
Early next morning, as she walked by the Nainital lake soon after dawn, she noticed that you could see bubbles in the water where underground springs fed it. It did not seem right that she was at the lake without him, he should have been showing it to her. All around her was water, more than she had ever seen. She thought that the ocean on the way to Singapore could not be much bigger. There were dozens of boats moored at the waterside, bobbing in the morning breeze. “We will go right to middle of the lake in a boat,” Kundan had promised her once, after a visit to Nainital with his employer, when he had seen the lake for the first time. He had kissed the soft, tender bit behind her ears and whispered as his hands travelled over her breasts: “There will be nobody but you and me in that boat.” Charu looked out across the water and imagined she and Kundan were at the centre of it, on a red and blue boat with long white oars.
The sun was inching up the sky. Charu had lost sense of the time as she gazed at the water. She had no watch. Panic overtook her. She ran from the lakeside to the bus stop, losing her way, frantically asking one of the pony men leading out a mangy horse where the bus stop was, then scampering in the direction he pointed. Her bag thumped her hips. Her shawl flew off her head. Her breath came and went in shudders.
She reached the entrance to the bus stop. The conductor and driver had only just arrived. They were standing by the bus, exchanging notes, smoking. The early travellers had come, and were waiting for the buses to be cleaned. She ran up to the driver and asked, just to be sure there was no mistake, “Is this the six o’clock bus to Delhi?”
“Yes”, they said. “The doors open after a while.”
She went a little distance off and waited, eyeing the men and the bus watchfully, taking no chances. At five minutes to six, she was first at the door. Other people were now straggling in with suitcases and bags, looking drowsy. She climbed in and got herself a window seat in the second row. The windows were cracked and some of them had the remnants of blue curtains thick with dirt. Charu bunched her curtain away for a last look at the lake. She plumped her bag on her lap. She would comb her hair when she reached Delhi, and before she saw him she would try to find a place to change into the prettier salwar kurta she had packed. She would wash her face and put some fresh kohl in her eyes. She smiled her secret smile, twisting her silver nose stud to settle it better. She took out a stale roti and lump of jaggery and munched on them for her breakfast.
* * *
The journey from Nainital to Delhi takes about eight hours by road. For the first part, the bus drops down from the hills on a narrow, spiral-staired road, with jungle on either side. At times the forest breaks, and when it did Charu saw snow peaks through the gaps. The same mountains she saw in Ranikhet, here too! She leaned her head against the rattling window of the bus and let her thoughts wander.
The bus charged onward, taking the bends at a speed that made her queasy. The driver had a feverish air and a face like a skull, and he flung his shoulders this way and that as he wrestled with his wheel. He thrust his head out of the window to yell to truckers coming the opposite