Fling Read Free Page A

aside and came in.
    “What’s this, you
haven’t cleaned your room!”
    She started folding my
clothes and I went into the kitchen and turned off the stove. She
wasn’t getting any coffee.
    “You want me to make
it while you shave?” she called from inside.
    Damn! She had a knack
for making me feel cheap.
    I picked another mug
from the shelf but filled hers only halfway up. “Leave the door
open,” I said handing it to her. “For how long?” she challenged me
and burst out laughing. I tried but couldn’t help smiling myself. I
took her mug and kept it on the table, wrapped an arm around her
and pounded her with the pillow. She just clung to me quietly.
    When we had finished
in bed, we gulped down the coffee.
    “What a waste,” I
said, “with you I can’t even have a proper mug of coffee.”
    She just smiled. “Now
are you going to shave or do I have to do it for you?”
    “You do, I am sure
you’ve had much practice,” I said.
    That hurt her, but she
really went to the bathroom to get the things. I said sorry, took
them from her and quickly lathered. She sat on the bed and watched
me. She had picked out some clothes from my wardrobe, and when I
came out she told me to hurry up, we had to set the candles.
    “Why bother, this
isn’t home,” I said.
    “Oh, it is,” she
said.
    “Not yours, you aren’t
my wife.”
    I think she wanted to
throw something at me then, but a few minutes later we were fixing
candles on the window sill with wax.
    “What did you eat for
lunch?” she said.
    “Candles,” I said, and
she laughed.
    “You are such a
baby.”
    “Why waste your time
when there are men in town?”
    She stopped. “So
that’s what is eating you, silly boy?”
    “Fuck off, don’t boy
and baby me.”
    “No bad words, please,
it’s Diwali.”
    “Okay, enough candles,
we don’t want to set the house on fire. Besides, you won’t come to
scrape off the wax tomorrow.”
    “Ask me nicely and I
will.”
    “Did I ask you to come
today?”
    She placed a finger on
my lips, rose on her toes and kissed me. The fight went out of me
for a while.
    She had planned out
our evening. We rode in an auto to see the lights. The city was
decked up, even the moonless sky glowed orange with the lights and
the smoke from crackers. “Aren’t you happy I came to show you the
lights?” she said.
    “Actually you came to
see me,” I said.
    She asked the driver
to stop at the seaside and we went down to the rocks. We watched
the crackers shoot up and burst in the sky, and the lights on the
buildings looked like gems in a necklace.
    “Don’t you wish every
night were as beautiful as this?” she said.
    “I would choke to
death on the smoke.”
    “Why are you being
such a grouch?”
    “Why are you trying so
hard to get me?”
    “Get you!”
    “What else, right from
that afternoon you came to knead my head.”
    She didn’t reply, she
didn’t cry, just stood up and started walking towards the road. I
was afraid she would take an auto alone at that hour. I rushed
after her and gripped her hand tightly, not letting her shake it
off. I would let go only if she made a scene.
    “Sorry, I said it to
hurt you, and you can carry on alone once we’ve reached home
safely. For now, just let me see you back,” I said.
    “I can take care of
myself,” she protested.
    “I know,” I said and
bundled all 45 kilos of her into the first auto that stopped.
    When we got back,
children were lighting crackers on the street and everybody was
outside. To hell with them, I thought, and leaving her to her
misery I returned to mine.
    An hour later, another
knock, and I got up surprised because it was the first time I had a
visitor other than her. But it was her.
    “What happened?”
    “Too many guests at
aunty’s place. Have you prayed?”
    She came in and turned
around surprised: “You haven’t lit the candles!”
    I told her to go
ahead.
    “Now let’s pray to
Goddess Lakshmi,” she said when she came back inside.
    “As man