The Benefit Season (37 page)

Unseen to those at the ground level, Agent 9
crouched behind a rack of wooden pallets on the first floor, and
watched with dismay and helplessness as his beloved wife crashed
into the boxes. Tears burst forth and he began to sob and howl.
Ordered by his wife to stay at a safe distance and watch over her,
there was nothing he’d done to save her. He’d failed her!

‘
Shush’, said Aarti, who
laid by his side, watching along with him the drama playing out
below. She comforted him; softly patting his head and arm. Then she
gently took his rifle out of his grasp.

Contrary to all norms of known police
procedure, not that she had cared two hoots so far for procedure-
by tagging her baby along everywhere- Krishna this time had brought
Aarti along, to keep her promise of showing Arjun delivering up an
errant Monal to the police, thereby proving his blamelessness in
the whole affair. Had she lived, if she lived, she was going to
thank herself for bringing Aarti along.

For, her husband who was overcome with
grief, his overwrought heart knitted up and about to break, was of
no use to anyone at the moment. But Aarti, a crack shot, was
exactly what the doctor seemed to order. Agent 9 was afraid to
shoot at Monal, afraid that he might get Arjun instead. But Aarti
was not afraid. She wasn’t letting the love of her life be held
hostage by that scheming sorceress down there, and dumped later
down the road with a gunshot. All she needed was a small but sure
bullet to put the miles between the witch and her prince. Though
not yet legally joined in matrimony, she had wedded Arjun in the
temple of her heart and soul eons ago; the very first moment that
she, when just a skinny girl with neatly combed twin braids and a
pink frock, had set kohled eyes upon the toothless, gawky boy; now
the fine, spotless man that was being pushed around quite unfairly
right before her moist eyes.

She raised the sight,
pushed the slider to 100, rested her cheek on the cold butt, curled
her forefinger around the trigger, gently pressed it till its free
play, calmed her mind, focused her eyes, evened her breathing, and
when she briefly had Monal’s face in her crosshairs, she closed the
other eye and softly squeezed the trigger. The 7.62 mm
NATO-standard service bullet tore into the gun’s rifling, took the
quarter right turn, and chased by desperate hot gunpowder gases in
its wake exited the muzzle at speeds in excess of 800
mps
⁸
, and in a
microsecond embedded itself bang in the center of Monal’s
forehead.

It was over.

Aarti went down the steel stairs and walked
up to her prince.

‘
I ask only one question
of you’, she said, halting before him.

‘
Which is?’ Arjun said,
his arms held out.

‘
Did you sleep with her?’
she knew Arjun could never lie.

Arjun’s mind’s eye roved to the lone
encounter amidst the swirling tides and the whispering casuarinas
with the woman that now lay dead before him. Was he asleep then? He
doubted it. He could well speak the truth, nothing but the
truth.

‘
No’, he replied, and
resolutely puffed out his broad chest and held the arms out
wider.

‘
Oh Arjun, I was so
scared!’ she cried and sank into his arms. He raised her chin and
passionately showered hot, slobbery kisses on her mouth, cheeks and
neck, while she slumped against him. He hugged her close, and she
hugged him harder and they stood there and swayed tenderly
together, like twin palms in the light sea breeze, till they were
awoken from their trance by loud shrieks. It was Agent 9, squatted
on the floor, holding an unmoving Krishna in his arms and weeping
loudly. Aarti sank down next to the lamenting elf and wrapped an
arm around him in sympathy. Arjun shouted to the cops, who’d now
appeared out of nowhere on the scene, to get an ambulance. Then he
too went on his knees and comforted the wailing, inconsolable
dwarf. His laments seemed to reach the skies and rend
them.

He created such a racket that it woke up
Krishna!

‘
O man, why do you make
such noise!’ she said, staring up at them from his lap.

They all stared back at her in
disbelief.

‘
You’re not dead then!’
the hobbit cried.

Krishna probed inside her shirt. ‘I feel I
have been kicked in the chest by a mule’. She undid a few buttons
to reveal the bulletproof vest! She tried to rise but the pain was
too much.

‘
You are alive!’ the
goblin shouted.

‘
It would seem so. A
little sore between the…’ she cupped her breasts and raised them.
‘But okay otherwise’. The wimp began to laugh, hysterically. Soon
his wife too started laughing, coughing and laughing. And then they
all laughed, crazily… for no reason other than the simple joy of
still having each other… for the light of day after the
pitch-blackness of the night. For the hope the morning brings after
the despair of the bad dream.

ϖ

Epilogue

Krishnamala was promoted
and given a medal. He husband was promoted too, but assigned, much
to his derision, to a humble desk job. Krishna had used her
considerable influence to keep him out of harm’s way, so that she
could go ahead and poke the louts in ‘em eyes. And the baby needed
caring too. She couldn’t afford to have the risk of having her
family totting along to every crime scene. Agent 9, sorry 8 now,
was too obstinate a man to be stopped from trying to protect her in
every encounter, so ‘twas better he were kept away in the safety
and comfort of their turquoise painted govt. office overlooking the
Arabian Sea, filing in the reports of her deeds while feeding the
baby the milk and bread of the land.

ϖ

As for me, now that it’s
all over, I am sitting at the Khosla’s residence for a quick family
meeting summoned by the elders to decide upon the next course of
action. Aarti has moved to Delhi while I have no job, no money, not
even a character certificate. While the others are gathered inside
over drinks, Aarti and I are strolling in the blooming garden, hand
in hand.

‘
You’ve put on weight’, I
tell her, suddenly turning her and wrapping my arms around
her.

‘
It’s not weight silly’,
she says, and puts my hand on her belly. It’s firm and round, not
soft and saggy.

‘
Then?’ I stop, turn her
around and gape at her.

‘
It’s us’, she
says.

I recall then the very
first weekend at the apartment- when she’d closed her thighs and
tucked away my marching soldiers for good. One of them must have
strayed too far.

I laugh loudly. ’Thank
you, jeez, god bless you’, I tell her. I bend down and wrap my arms
around her again and squeeze softly and kiss her pretty
neck.

‘
Break, Arjun, break’, she
taps me on the shoulder like a pinned down wrestler. I release her
gently. I am about to say sorry but she hushes me with a
finger.

‘
If you would please
remove the finger, I should like to kiss you now’, I mumble through
her finger.

She laughs her wild, free
laugh- the laugh I missed for so long, and I bend and press my lips
against hers in a long, lingering kiss. We are like that for some,
lost to the world till clapping in our vicinity rouses us. The
Khosla siblings, my mom and others, step out of the vaulted porch,
clapping and grinning broadly.

‘
I’ve just gotten off the
phone with my astrologer,’ Khosla says; ’ he says he can find an
auspicious date for the wedding two months from now’.

Everyone howls in
protest.

‘
I have a better
astrologer, Khosla ji’! My mom scolds him, while caressing Aarti’s
and my face, her own face lit up with a thousand moons. ’He says
the kids can wed on the weekend. A lot can happen in two months and
this time I’m not taking any chances’.

Khosla’s weak protests are
drowned in his sister’s cheers, and then he too gives in to the
rest in making happy noises. I am about to protest that I have no
job, no money but am not given the chance.

‘
And
look who’s paying us a visit’, my mom announces proudly, motioning
towards Tom, my ex-boss, standing quietly behind the others in the
shadows of the Golden Shower trees.
I wonder what he’s doing here? And he’d never bothered to
reply to my mail of resignation and regrets that I’d sent him! Is
he here to reproach me?

Instead Tom steps forward
and shakes me warmly by the hand!
Surprise!

‘
Welcome
home…
Partner
’, he says.
‘
When I came to India I didn’t know much except that Cricket
was supposed to be a gentleman’s game. Thanks for restoring the
game to the gentlemen!’

‘
Really’, my mom cries.
She knows what “partner” means in the corporate world. She watches
TV serials!

‘
Yeah. Our top order has
fallen! They shamed us! But you brought us great honor and credit!
You’re up for strike, young man! Right here, at our India office in
Delhi. Are you up to it?’

‘
You bet he’s up to it,
Mr. Tom’, my mom interjects in her exuberance. ‘ One day my son
will take your place!’

Fortunately Tom takes it
in good, Christian spirit, before sauntering off into the fading
dusk, chuckling to himself.

ϖ

A little later we were
married. Mom was surprised when the baby arrived sooner than
expected, but was overwhelmed to see it so pink and healthy. ‘He is
an exact copy of your dear father’, she announced, covering her
mouth with her pallu
⁹
. I’d never
heard her refer to him as “dear”. She clasped the baby to her chest
and rocked and cried. She smothered it with kisses and examined it
from countless angles and then wept some more-
gratefully.

She’d never mourned dad. It seemed she was
getting done with it now.

∞
THE END
∞