Chapter 7: Performance for the Elders
The weekly video call was scheduled for seven PM, a time Sarita had decreed would ensure the “newlyweds” were home, together, and presumably engaged in some wholesome domestic activity. Rohan’s laptop sat on the cleared dining table, a sleek black rectangle that felt like an altar to a distant god.
“Remember,” Anjali said, adjusting the angle of the camera for the third time. She was wearing one of her nicer salwar kameez, a deep blue that made her skin glow. “She will look at the background. She will look at my hair. She will look at your face to see if you are tired or cross.”
“I’m never cross,” Rohan said, buttoning his collar. He felt like he was preparing for a job interview with a particularly intimidating CEO.
“She will look for it anyway.” Anjali’s voice was steady, but he saw the tight line of her shoulders. This performance mattered. Their reported happiness was the currency that bought her continued freedom here, with him.
The call connected with a trill. The screen resolved into a pixelated image of Sarita’s courtyard. The late afternoon sun there was golden and thick, painting the dusty ground and the pecking chickens in a nostalgic light. Sarita’s face appeared, leaning close to the screen, her features sharpening. Her eyes, dark and discerning, scanned the digital space before landing on them.
“Beta,” she said, her voice slightly tinny through the speakers. “Anjali. You are both there.”
“Mausi,” Anjali said, her tone softening into the respectful lilt she used only for her aunt. “Yes, we are here. How are you? How is your knee?”
“The knee is the same. The city is treating you well? You have color.” Sarita’s gaze was a tactile thing, moving over Anjali’s face, then shifting to Rohan. “Rohan. You are working too hard? You look thin.”
“I’m fine, Aunty. Work is good,” he said, offering a small smile.
The conversation moved through its predictable channels: the health of distant relatives, the price of lentils, the unseasonable heat. Sarita delivered each piece of village news like a parable, a subtle reminder of the world Anjali had left. Anjali responded perfectly, asking after neighbors, recounting a simplified version of their trip to the market.
Then came the inevitable pause. Sarita leaned back, her expression turning contemplative. “It is good to hear your voices. But a screen is a cold thing. It does not show the… atmosphere of a home.” She folded her hands in her lap. “One must see the harmony to believe it.”
Anjali’s eyes flicked to Rohan, a silent signal. This was the test.
“What would you like to see, Mausi?” Anjali asked, her voice light.
“A simple thing. A husband cares for his wife. Share a sweet. Let an old woman see the care in the action.”
Rohan’s mind went blank. Share a sweet? They had no sweets on the table. He saw the momentary panic in Anjali’s eyes before it was replaced by decisive clarity. In one fluid motion, she stood, grabbed the container of leftover yogurt from the fridge, and scooped a large dollop onto a spoon. She then sat back down in her chair—but not before pulling Rohan firmly by the wrist.
Before he could process it, he was sitting sideways on her lap.
It was not a gentle descent. It was a controlled, powerful placement. Her left arm wrapped around his waist, anchoring him, while her right, holding the spoon, came to rest near his shoulder. The camera, positioned on the table, now saw them from the chest up, a seemingly cozy image of a wife sitting with her husband leaning against her.
Only Rohan knew the truth. The lap beneath him was solid as a bench. The arm around his waist was an immovable band of muscle, effortlessly taking his full weight. He dared not adjust, feeling the incredible strength in her complete stillness.
“Here, ji,” Anjali said, her voice sweet as honey. She brought the yogurt spoon to his lips. “The first bite is for you.”
Her eyes held his. They were sparkling with contained laughter and a dare. Play along.
He opened his mouth, and the cool yogurt landed on his tongue. He swallowed, the tang sharp in his dry throat.
“Good?” she asked, for Sarita’s benefit.
“Very,” he croaked.
“Now you feed me,” she whispered, the command masked as a loving suggestion. She subtly shifted her right arm, the one holding the spoon, positioning it so his hand could take the spoon from her. It was a clumsy transfer, his fingers fumbling over hers.
From the laptop, Sarita made a soft, approving sound. “Ah. Very good.”
Rohan now held the spoon. He dipped it into the yogurt container Anjali held steady with her free hand. He turned back to face her, this woman who was holding him aloft as if he were a child. Her face was a picture of wifely expectation, lips slightly parted. But her hidden left hand, splayed across his hip, told a different story. Her thumb began to stroke slow, deliberate circles into the fabric of his trousers.
He raised the spoon. His hand shook slightly.
He got the spoon to her mouth. She closed her lips around it, her gaze never leaving his. As she pulled back, a tiny drop of yogurt clung to her lower lip. Without thinking, he reached up with his thumb to wipe it away. The gesture was unexpectedly intimate, even to him. A genuine warmth flooded her eyes.
“See, Mausi?” Anjali said, turning her head slightly toward the camera. “He is very caring.” As she spoke, her hidden hand moved. It drifted from his hip, trailing up the outside of his thigh. Her fingers pressed in, finding the sensitive spot just above his knee, and squeezed gently.
A jolt shot through him. He stiffened, a flush creeping up his neck. He fought to keep his expression neutral, a soft smile plastered on his face.
“He has a commanding presence,” Sarita observed, her voice pleased. “You look secure with him, Anjali. This is what I prayed for.”
Commanding presence. Anjali’s body vibrated against his with suppressed laughter. It started as a deep tremor in her core, a seismic event he felt through every point of contact. Her lips quivered. She bit down on them, her eyes watering with the effort of containment. The vibration traveled up through her torso and into the arm that held him, a silent, shaking earthquake of mirth.
Rohan’s own composure fissured. A snort of air escaped his nose. He disguised it as a cough, turning his head away from the camera, his shoulders shaking.
“Is he catching a cold?” Sarita asked, her tone shifting to concern.
“No, no, Mausi,” Anjali managed, her voice strangled. She tightened her arm around him, both to steady herself and to silently command him to stop. “Just… something in his throat. The city air.”
“You must make him ginger tea. With turmeric.”
“I will, Mausi. Right after this.”
They endured five more minutes of Sarita’s instructions on husband-care, all while Anjali’s hand remained a dangerous, distracting weight on his thigh, and the ghost of her laughter thrummed between them. Finally, with blessings and promises to call next week, the call ended. The screen went black, reflecting their twisted, clinging image back at them.
For a three-count, there was silence.
Then Anjali erupted. The laughter she had imprisoned burst out in great, gasping waves. She threw her head back, the sound rich and full, shaking them both. Rohan, still perched on her lap, felt the tension of the performance shatter. He slumped against her, his own giggles mingling with hers, helpless.
“A commanding presence!” she wheezed, tears streaming down her cheeks. “She said you look secure! Oh, gods…” She hugged him tightly to her, her strength now a comfort, not a secret. “You were shaking like a leaf!”
“You were digging your fingers into my leg!” he accused, laughing into her neck. “I thought I was going to jump through the ceiling!”
They stayed like that for a long moment, the absurdity and the triumph washing over them. She had used her strength not to lift weights, but to hold up a fiction, and he had willingly become her prop. Together, they had passed the inspection.
Her laughter slowly subsided into hiccups and deep sighs. She nuzzled her face into his hair, her voice turning soft, almost wondering. “You are very good at this. At… this conspiracy.”
He pulled back to look at her. Her face was flushed, beautiful, alive. “It’s not a conspiracy,” he said, his voice quieting. He brushed a stray tear from her cheek with his thumb. “It’s just us. This is just us, Anjali.”
The truth of it settled in the space between them. The performance had been for Sarita, but the collaboration, the shared secret, the physical trust—that was entirely theirs. It was another kind of intimacy, forged in shared deception and silent laughter.
She studied his face, her dark eyes searching. Then she leaned in and kissed him, a slow, deep kiss that tasted of residual laughter and yogurt. When she broke away, she spoke against his lips.
“So,” she whispered. “About that ginger tea.”
He groaned, letting his forehead fall to her shoulder. “Do we have to?”
Her hidden hand, still resting on his thigh, slid higher, her fingers tracing a deliberate, promising path. “I think,” she murmured, her voice dropping to a low, thrilling register that had nothing to do with aunts or performances, “we can find a better use for the turmeric.”
The turmeric, as it turned out, remained in its spice jar. The laughter had shifted something, stripped away the last remnants of their staged formality. They ended up on the floor, amidst the moving boxes they still hadn’t fully unpacked, wrapped in a blanket and sharing the leftover yogurt straight from the container.
“Your aunt thinks I’m commanding,” Rohan said, licking his spoon. “I think my lower back might never recover from the tension of trying not to laugh.”
“You were very brave.” Anjali traced the line of his jaw with her fingertip. “A lesser man would have screamed.”
He caught her hand, intertwining his fingers with hers. The contrast was still a thrill—his long, slender programmer’s fingers woven between her thicker, calloused ones. “How did you even hold me like that? I’m not light.”
“You are,” she said, shrugging. “To me.” She flexed her arm, the muscle rolling under her skin in the soft evening light from the window. “I used to lift sacks of grain that weighed more than you. For fun.”
He watched the movement, utterly fascinated. “Seriously, though. What’s your max? For, like, a proper lift?”
“I don’t know. I never had weights. Just rocks, and grain sacks, and the old cart behind the shed.” A shadow of her old life passed behind her eyes, not of sadness, but of focused solitude. “It was just a feeling. Seeing what I could move.”
He was quiet for a moment, thinking. “There’s a guy at my office, Arvind. He’s always going to the gym. Bragged last week he did forty pushups in a minute.” Rohan grinned. “He was so proud. His arms were sore for days.”
Anjali blinked. She slowly put down her yogurt. “Forty.”
“In a minute,” Rohan confirmed, nodding. “It’s a lot!”
A slow, predatory smile spread across her face. She didn’t say a word. She simply kicked the blanket off, got onto the floor in a perfect plank position, and began.
Her form was mechanical, a piston firing. Down, up. Down, up. No wobble, no sag. Each rep was identical to the last, a brutal, efficient rhythm. The soft whuff of her breath was the only sound.
Rohan watched, frozen. He started counting in his head, but lost track somewhere after thirty. The sheer speed was unbelievable. She wasn’t just strong; she was enduring, a machine wound tight and set to a relentless tempo. The seconds ticked by on the digital clock on the microwave.
At sixty seconds, she didn’t stop. She pushed past his colleague’s forty, past fifty, past seventy. Her pace never faltered. A fine mist of sweat appeared on her temples, her focus absolute.
“Anjali,” he whispered, but she was in a zone.
At one hundred, she snapped her hands off the floor, clapping once in mid-air before landing back in a plank. She held it for a second, then smoothly rose to her feet. Her breathing was elevated, but controlled. She looked at him, her chest rising and falling, her eyes blazing with a pure, unadulterated fire.
“One hundred,” she said, the words a clean statement of fact.
Rohan’s mouth was dry. He just stared. The number was so absurd, so far outside his world of ergonomic chairs and code reviews, that it short-circuited his ability to respond. Awe flooded him, a humbling, profound respect for the dedication etched into every cord of muscle on her frame.
“That’s…” he began, but no words were adequate.
She was electric, pumped full of adrenaline and triumph. The energy seemed to crackle off her skin. She looked at him, sitting cross-legged on the floor, his face a portrait of stunned admiration. A new, playful challenge lit her eyes.
Without a word, she stepped forward. She bent at the knees, slid her left arm under him, and hooked it around his waist. Before he could even yelp, she contracted her body in one fluid, explosive motion.
He was airborne.
Her left arm alone lifted him clean off the ground, holding him sideways against her body as easily as he might hold a laptop. There was no strain on her face, only a focused calm. She held him there, suspended, for three long seconds, letting the reality of it sink in for both of them. The power was casual, effortless, absolute.
She gently lowered him back to the floor, her hand lingering on his side.
He remained sitting, his heart hammering against his ribs. He looked up at her, this incredible force of nature he was married to. “Okay,” he breathed, a slow grin breaking through his shock. “So Arvind is a puny little bug.”
Anjali threw her head back and laughed, the sound echoing off the bare walls. It was the laugh from the video call, but now free and full-throated. It was the sound of someone finally, completely, being seen.