Chapter 6: Tail Ka Tel 2
The hallway was a tunnel of shadows. The only light came from a small, high window, a pale square of moonwash on the stone floor. It fell between them, cutting Dibendo’s imposing figure into halves of light and dark. He had changed into a simple vest and a dhoti, his shoulders and arms bare. In his hand was a small blue bottle of massage oil.
“Papa-ji,” Priyanka whispered, her voice trembling. She crossed her arms over her chest, though she was fully dressed in her night suit. “Kya baat hai? Sab theek hai?”
“Come,” he said, ignoring her question. He turned and walked into the room he shared with Arvind. It was larger than hers, dominated by a wide bed. Arvind was not there. The room smelled of the same dust, and beneath it, the sharp, medicinal scent of the liniment old men use for their aches.
Dibendo placed the bottle on a small table and sat on the lone wooden chair, its back to her. He let out a low, deliberate groan, the sound of a man settling into a performance of pain. “My back,” he stated. “The car journey. The damp air here. It has become a knot. I cannot sleep.”
Priyanka lingered in the doorway, the threshold feeling like a border between safety and a different country. “Should I… should I wake Arvind Chacha? He can help?”
“He has gone to the verandah to smoke. He will be long.” Dibendo’s voice was flat, leaving no alternative. “You will do it. A daughter’s duty is to care. Come. Apply the oil.”
Duty. The word pinned her in place. It was the same word that had dictated her life since marriage—duty to serve, to obey, to be compliant. Her feet moved before her mind could form another protest. The stone floor was cold under her soles.
She picked up the bottle. The oil was thick and warm from his hand. She stood behind him, staring at the broad expanse of his back through the thin cotton vest. The muscles were tight, coiled. He was a strong man, used to physical work.
“The vest,” he said. “It will stain.”
Her hands were shaking. She placed the bottle back on the table. With fumbling fingers, she grasped the hem of his vest. The intimacy of the act stole her breath. She pulled it up. He raised his arms slightly, aiding her, and she dragged the cloth over his head. His hair was salt-and-pepper, close-cropped. The vest came away.
His back was bare now, pale in the gloom, the shoulders powerful. A faint scar snaked near his left shoulder blade. She had never seen him like this. It felt profoundly wrong.
“The oil,” he prompted, his voice a low rumble from the darkness in front of him.
She poured a small pool into her palm. The smell, camphor and something earthy, filled the space between them. She hesitated, her oil-slick hand hovering an inch from his skin.
“Priyanka.” Her name was a command.
She touched him.
Her palm made contact with the warm, surprisingly smooth skin just above his shoulder blade. She flinched, but he didn’t. She began to move her hand, a slow, circular motion, the oil spreading. The knot he spoke of was real; the muscle beneath her fingers was a hard, tense bundle.
“Harder,” he said. “You are not stroking a child. Use your strength.”
She pressed harder, her other hand coming up to brace his shoulder. The physicality of it was overwhelming. The heat of his body seeped into her hands. The silence was broken only by the slide of her skin on his and his occasional, satisfied grunt.
“You have good hands,” he murmured after a long minute. “Strong. For such soft-looking arms.”
She didn’t reply. She focused on the mechanics, on the path of her palms, trying to divorce the action from the man. She thought of Vishal sleeping just a wall away, dead to the world. She thought of the temple, of Arvind’s finger tracing her maang.
“You have been distant since the dhaba,” Dibendo said, his voice conversational, as if they were discussing the weather.
Her rhythm faltered. “No, Papa-ji. I am just tired. The baby…”
“Arvind told me.” He cut her off. “About the door. The broken lock.”
Ice flooded her veins. Her hands stilled. “He… he told you?”
“Of course. We have no secrets.” Dibendo shifted slightly, making her hands slip lower, toward the base of his spine. “It was an accident. These things happen. But you must not be so shy. We are family. What is there to hide?”
The words were a violation more acute than the sight itself. It made the event theirs, a shared piece of knowledge, stripping her of the private horror of it. Her cheeks burned with a fresh wave of shame.
“It was… it was a mistake,” she whispered, forcing her hands to move again.
“Hmm.” The sound was non-committal. “And today, at the temple. You were uncomfortable. But it was necessary. A woman must be clearly marked. It protects her. It tells others whose she is.”
Whose she is. The phrase hung in the air. His back was now fully oiled, glistening in the diffused light. Her hands were slippery, warm.
“There,” she said, her voice barely audible. “Ho gaya, Papa-ji.”
He did not tell her to stop. Instead, he reached back, his own hand finding hers on his shoulder. His grip was firm, calloused. He guided her hand down, away from his shoulder, pressing her palm flat against the center of his back, over his spine. He held it there. His skin was fever-hot.
“My whole back aches,” he said, his thumb moving in a small, slow circle on the back of her hand. “Not just the shoulders. You must learn to be thorough.”
Tears pricked her eyes. She was trapped, her hand captive under his. She gave a small, desperate tug, but his grip tightened.
“Please,” she breathed.
“Please what?” he asked, his voice dropping to a whisper. “I am only asking for a daughter’s care. Is it so much? After all I have given you? A roof. A family. My son.”
Every word was a brick, walling her in. She stared at the door, willing Arvind to return, willing Vishal to wake, willing anything to break this moment. Her hand, under his, began to tremble violently.
A sudden, dry cough echoed from the hallway.
Dibendo’s hand released hers instantly, as if burned. Priyanka snatched her arm back, clutching her oily hand to her chest, stepping back so quickly she bumped the table.
Gopal stood in the doorway, an amorphous shadow in the dark. He cleared his throat again. “Sardar-ji,” he said, his voice gravelly with sleep. “Car ki key. It is missing from my pocket. I thought, perhaps, it fell here when we brought the bags?”
The old driver’s eyes weren’t on Dibendo. They were on Priyanka, taking in her terrified face, her shimmering hands, the open bottle of oil. His expression was, as ever, unreadable.
Dibendo sat perfectly still for a three-count. Then he reached for his vest, pulling it over his head with a slow, deliberate motion. “No,” he said, his voice perfectly calm, the paternal authority restored. “The key is not here. Look elsewhere.”
Gopal nodded slowly. “My mistake. For disturbing.” He paused. “Bahut andhera hai yahan. Aapko light chahiye?”
“No,” Dibendo said, sharper this time. “Leave us.”
With one last, inscrutable glance, Gopal melted back into the shadows of the hall. His footsteps receded.
The silence he left behind was electric, charged with something interrupted and furious. Dibendo did not look at her. “Go,” he said, the word short and final. “Wash your hands.”
Priyanka didn’t need to be told twice. She fled, the oily slick on her hand feeling like a stain that would never come off. She passed the empty verandah, heard the distant glow of Arvind’s cigarette in the garden, and burst into her own room, shutting the door behind her.
She leaned against it, her heart hammering against her ribs. Vishal slept on. Adi sighed in his sleep.
In the corner of the room, on the floor, a single sliver of moonlight illuminated something metallic. She stared at it, her breath catching.
It was a car key.
Gopal had not been looking for anything. He had been returning something. Or he had been creating a diversion with a key he had never lost.
She slid down the door to the floor, the cold stone against her back, and stared at her oily, trembling hands. The protection she had prayed for in the temple had arrived not from the gods, but from the quiet, watching eyes of an old driver. And she knew, with a certainty that chilled her to the bone, that it was only a temporary reprieve. The night was not over. The farmhouse held its breath.