Chapter 6: Faisla

## Chapter 6: Faisla

VIVEK

The next day is the longest day of my life, and I have lived through the day my parents died.

I plant potatoes. I muck out stables. I carry water. I do everything that is expected of me, and I do it with the mechanical efficiency of a body that has been disconnected from the mind operating it. My hands dig. My back bends. My boots squelch in the red mud. But my mind is thirteen hours ahead, crouched behind the stables in the dark, following Jai through a servants' entrance into a house full of secrets and armed men.

Esha notices.

"Aaj tu kahan hai?" she asks, as we feed the horses. The chestnut mare, I've named her Laxmi, privately, because she stamps her hoof when she wants attention, the way my grandmother used to stamp her walking stick; takes a carrot from my outstretched hand and crunches it with the philosophical calm of an animal that has never experienced an existential crisis.

"Yahan hoon."

"Tera body yahan hai. Tera dimag kahin aur."

She's perceptive. Annoyingly so. The cameras may be absent from the stables, but Esha's observation fills the gap.

"Bas soch raha tha," I say. "Chaya ke baare mein. Dhruv ke baare mein."

It's a deflection, and she knows it's a deflection, and I know she knows. But she accepts it, the way people in this camp accept things; by not pressing, by allowing the lie to stand, because pressing might crack the surface and reveal something underneath that nobody wants to see.

"Woh theek hain," she says. "Pushpa Auntie ne kaha Chaya bahut accha kaam kar rahi hai kitchen mein. The smell of cumin seeds crackling in ghee drifted from the stove, sharp and warm. Aur Dhruv. Kabir toh pagal hai uske liye. Kal Dhruv ko apni Goosebumps sunaa raha tha."

I smile. Genuinely. The image of Kabir reading horror stories to a four-month-old baby who understands none of it is the kind of absurdity that the apocalypse specialises in.

"Esha."

"Haan?"

"Agar, hypothetically — koi yahan se nikalna chahe. Toh tu kya karegi?"

She stops feeding the horse. Her hand freezes mid-air, the apple held between her fingers like a grenade with the pin half-pulled. She looks at me, directly, which she rarely does; and in her eyes I see the calculation happen in real time: what is he asking? Why is he asking? What does he know? What does he want?

"Hypothetically," she says.

"Haan."

"Hypothetically, main kahungi ki woh bahut bada risk hai. Ki guards goli maar denge. Ki cameras sab dekh rahe hain. Ki, hypothetically; agar koi pakda gaya, toh sirf woh nahi marega. Uske saath wale bhi marenge."

The weight of her words, uske saath wale bhi marenge, the ones with him will also die — settles on me like soil on a grave.

"Aur agar woh nikalna zaroori ho?" I press. "Agar yahan rehna, long term: safe nahi ho?"

She puts the apple down. Looks at the horse. Then at the house, visible through the stable's open door: the white facade, the arched windows, the closed doors behind which everything we don't know waits.

"Tab main kahungi; pehle pata karo ki woh ghar mein kya hai. Jab tak tumhe nahi pata ki tum kiske khilaf ho, tum lad nahi sakte."

It's the same logic Jai used. The same conclusion, reached independently by two people who are smart enough to see the walls and pragmatic enough to know that you can't climb a wall you haven't measured.

"Shukriya," I say.

"Kiss cheez ka shukriya?"

"Honest hone ka."

She looks at me. The chai-brown eyes, steady and serious. "Main hamesha honest hoon, Vivek. Yahan jo dikhta hai woh sab natak hai. Lakshman ka natak. Chandni ka natak. Sab ka natak. Main natak nahi karti."

I believe her. Not because of the words, words are cheap, cheaper still in a place built on lies — but because of the way she says them. Without performance. Without emphasis. Flat, unadorned truth, honesty being the only currency she can afford.

"Ek baat aur," she says, as we leave the stables. "Jo bhi karo: Bharat mama ko mat batana. Woh acche hain. Lekin woh dar jayenge. Aur jab woh darte hain, toh woh galti karte hain."

---

I tell Chaya after dinner.

We're in the tent. Dhruv is asleep, he goes down early now, accustomed to a rhythm that runs on bells and curfews. Bholu is outside, on his evening patrol with Kabir, the two of them walking the camp's perimeter in a ritual that the guards have, miraculously, not objected to, perhaps because a seven-year-old boy walking a dog is the least threatening image conceivable, even in a surveillance state.

"Mujhe tujhe kuch batana hai," I say.

Chaya is folding Dhruv's blankets; the nightly ritual, the blankets arranged in a specific order, the heaviest on top, the softest against his skin. She doesn't look up.

"Bol."

"Aaj raat main tent se bahar ja raha hoon."

She stops folding.

"Kya?"

"Ek ladka hai, Jai. Woh yahan chaar hafte se hai. Usne sab observe kiya hai, cameras, guards, raat ki gaadiyaan. Uska plan hai ki hum ghar mein ghusein. Raat ko, jab guards andar hote hain loading ke liye. Ek window hai: das minute. Servants' entrance se."

Chaya puts the blanket down. Turns to face me. Her expression is the expression I expected — not anger, not fear, but the specific combination of both that she wears when I've done something that is simultaneously brave and idiotic.

"Tu pagal hai."

"Shaayad."

"Shaayad nahi, pakka. Vivek, agar woh log tujhe pakad lein; agar cameras pe dikh jaaye —"

"Jai ne sab map kiya hai. Route hai. Cameras se bachne ka. Aur jab gaadiyaan nikalti hain, guards ghar ke andar hote hain. Das minute milte hain."

"Das minute." She says it the way you'd say chhah plate; six plates. A quantity that is insufficient for the task at hand. "Aur agar kuch galat ho gaya? Agar woh darwaza band ho? Agar koi guard bahar ho?"

"Tab hum wapas aa jayenge. Chupchap."

"Aur agar wapas nahi aa paye?"

The question. The real question. The one I've been circling all day, the one that sits at the centre of this decision like a stone at the centre of a mango, hard, unavoidable, the thing you have to deal with before you get to the sweetness.

"Tab tujhe Dhruv ko leke nikalna padega. Alone. Jungle mein. Coast ki taraf."

"Akele? Ek baby ke saath? Jungle mein?"

"Haan."

She stares at me. The green eyes, darker in the tent's dim light, the colour of old glass — are unblinking.

"Tu mujhse yeh keh raha hai ki tu apni jaan khatre mein daal raha hai, aur agar kuch ho gaya, toh main aur Dhruv akele nikal lenge."

"Haan."

"Vivek." She reaches across and takes my hand. Her grip is tight, not affectionate, not comforting, but urgent, the grip of a person trying to hold something that's slipping away. "Main tere bina nahi nikal sakti. Dhruv tere bina; main tere bina —"

Her voice breaks. Not dramatically; a small crack, the sound of a wall developing a hairline fracture. She looks at the tent floor. At our hands, intertwined.

"Maine tujhe ek baar kho diya," she whispers. "Teen din. Woh teen din, duniya ki sabse buri cheez thi. Maut se bhi buri. Kyunki maut mein pata hota hai ki khatam ho gaya. Lekin tujhe khoye bina jaane, zinda hai ya nahi — woh —"

She can't finish. I squeeze her rough hand. The calluses on my palm press against the softness of hers; my hands are farmer's hands now, rough and cracked, the hands of someone who has been remade by labour.

"Main wapas aaunga," I say. "Jai ne sab plan kiya hai. Route safe hai. Das minute. Andar jaayenge, dekhenge kya hai, bahar aayenge. Bas."

"Bas. Tu keh raha hai 'bas' jaise tu chai peene ja raha hai, nahi ki ek aisi jagah mein ghusne ja raha hai jahan bandookdhariyon ka dera hai."

She's right. I'm minimising. It's what I do: reduce risks to their components, strip away the emotional weight, present the skeleton of the plan as though the skeleton is the whole body. A CA student's habit. The spreadsheet mind.

"Tu sahi keh rahi hai," I say. "Risky hai. Bahut risky hai. Lekin, Chaya, hum yahan nahi reh sakte. Yeh jagah, yeh prison hai. Cameras hain, guards hain, rules hain. Kabhi bhi kuch bhi ho sakta hai. Agar Lakshman decide kare ki hum use ke laayak nahi hain. Dhruv ke saath kya hoga? Humne yeh virus survive kiya, Mumbai se Goa tak aaye, Dhruv ko highway se bachaya, aur ab hum yahan baith ke wait karein ki kya hota hai?"

She says nothing. Her hand is still in mine. Her eyes are on the floor.

"Agar humein pata chal jaaye ki ghar mein kya hai, toh humein pata hoga ki hum kiske khilaf hain. Plan bana sakte hain. Nikalne ka raasta dhundh sakte hain. Lekin jab tak andhe hain — hum kuch nahi kar sakte."

The weight of it stretches. Dhruv shifts in his sleep, his small fingers curling against my chest. A small, contented sigh, a baby who is warm and safe and trusting, who does not know that the world he was born into is a world without guarantees.

"Theek hai," Chaya says finally. The word is calm. The word costs her something. I can hear the cost in her voice, the weight of what she's agreeing to.

"Theek hai?"

"Haan. Ja." She looks up at me. Her eyes are wet, but her jaw is set, a jaw that has made a decision and will not revisit it. "Lekin tu wapas aayega. Yeh promise nahi hai: yeh order hai. Samjha?"

"Samjha."

"Aur agar kuch galat ho gaya, agar tu wapas nahi aaye subah tak — toh main Dhruv ko leke niklungi. Jungle se. Coast tak. Tere bina."

"Haan."

"Lekin agar main nikli; toh main wapas aaungi tere liye. Main tujhe yahan nahi chhodungi. Kabhi nahi."

The words hit me in the chest, not like a blow but like a key turning in a lock. Something opens. Something that was closed, guarded, protected, kept sealed since the day I buried my parents and decided that the safest way to survive was to not need anyone, opens.

"Main jaanta hoon," I say.

She releases my hand. Wipes her eyes with the back of her wrist. Takes a breath.

"Ab so ja," she says. "Tujhe energy chahiye raat ke liye."

---

I don't sleep. I lie on the cot, eyes open, staring at the polyester ceiling, listening to the sounds of the camp settling; the last conversations fading, the last footsteps quieting, the slow descent into the distinct silence of a place that is both asleep and watched.

Chaya sleeps. Or pretends to sleep. Her breathing is too even, too controlled. Someone who is regulating their fear by regulating their lungs.

Bholu, at my feet, does not sleep either. He lies with his head up, ears rotating, sensing my wakefulness and matching it. Dogs are mirrors. They reflect the emotional state of their person with an accuracy that science can measure but not explain.

"Theek hai, Bholu," I whisper. "Bas thoda sa kaam hai raat ko."

His tail thumps once. He doesn't believe me.

The hours pass. I count them in heartbeats; sixty-eight per minute, four thousand and eighty per hour. By my count, curfew was three hours and approximately twelve thousand heartbeats ago.

The engines start.

First one: the diesel grumble of a heavy vehicle, probably the Tata 407 that brought me here. Then another. Then a third. They move away from the house, along the road, their sound diminishing with distance until it's absorbed by the forest and the night.

I count sixty heartbeats after the last engine fades. Then sixty more.

Then I move.

The zip. Slow. Centimetre by centimetre. The sound, in the heavy stillness, is enormous — the roar of a zipper, the scream of polyester teeth separating. But nobody stirs. The camp is asleep. The guards are in the house.

I slip out. The night air hits me; warm, jasmine-scented, the Goan night that is beautiful in the way that things are beautiful when they might be the last thing you see.

The route. Jai's route. Between the tents, the blind spot created by their angle. Along the kitchen hut; the cold water containers blocking the camera. Through the fence gap. Into the potato field. Low. Following the furrows. The laterite cold and damp under my hands and knees.

The stables.

Jai is there. A shadow among shadows, crouched against the cold stone wall, exactly where he was last night.

"Aa gaya," he whispers. Not a question.

"Haan."

"Chal."

He moves. I follow. We leave the stables and head uphill: toward the house, the white facade now grey in the darkness, the arched windows dark, the terracotta roof a black line against the star-spattered sky.

Jai moves with the exact care of a person navigating a minefield. each step considered, each foot placed on ground that he has walked before, in daylight, mapping the terrain. He stays close to the rough wall of the outhouse, then cuts across a narrow strip of lawn, then presses against the back wall of the mansion itself.

I follow. My heart is a percussive instrument — hammering against my ribs with a rhythm that has nothing to do with the sixty-eight beats per minute of my resting state and everything to do with the fact that I am pressed against the back wall of a building that I have been told, in no uncertain terms, will kill me if I approach it.

The servants' entrance. A wooden door, old, the kind of door that Portuguese colonial houses have in their service quarters: narrow, unadorned, designed for the passage of servants and goods rather than masters and guests. The wood is swollen with humidity, the paint peeling, the hinges rusted.

Jai reaches for the handle.

I hold my breath.

He turns it.

The door opens.

---