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  Footsteps sounded ahead of them, and Akash hesitated. Despite the risk of discovery, he remained reluctant to push Soraya away.

  Just a little more.

  “Akash?”

  A voice he recognised.

  It struck him like a whip, a note of discord on a perfect morning. He froze at first, then looked up, hoping his ears had betrayed him, that he would be able to laugh at himself for this moment of panic.

  “What’s going on?” His wife stood before him, eyes filling with tears. Her bag lay at her feet, its contents spilt across the pathway. Time slowed while she looked from him to the woman on his lap, her features twisted with distress.

  Akash pushed Soraya off his lap, blood rushing to his face.

  “Jaya....” He stood and reached out to his wife, but she flung his hand away and pivoted, stumbling on her strewn possessions before running through the gardens, away from him, towards the throngs outside the gates.

  Panic marred Soraya’s face.

  “Oh God, Akash, I’m so sorry. Aren’t you going to go after her?”

  He sank back onto the bench. “What would I say?”

  He hung his head in his hands, reeling, unable to ignore the consequences of his actions any longer. Jaya’s pain was clear, and finally, after all this time, the consequences of his actions confronted him. How had these stolen moments with Soraya spiralled so out of control? He couldn’t put an end to their affair, even if he wanted to. He was not capable.

  “Find her,” Soraya said. “Tell her you’ll make it up to her.”

  He pulled her to him, the woman he had chosen, and his hands trembled as he framed her face. “I don’t want her. I didn’t choose her. I want you, Soraya. Us. This.”

  Soraya set her lips. “This? This is just fun, Akash, until it’s not. Your wife knows. Why are you still here? We’re from different worlds, Akash. Do you really think your Hindu family would accept a Muslim wife for you? What we have—what we had—was good, but it was never meant to be forever. Go after your wife. Save your relationship.”

  She gathered up her purse and cardigan, and reached up to kiss his cheek—perfunctory, as if they had never been lovers. As if he could fit the pieces of his life together without her as easily as a jigsaw puzzle.

  Akash stood statue-like, listening to the clip-clop of her heels as she left him amongst the blooms.

  “He was with another woman, Maa.”

  Tears streaked down Jaya’s face in the cramped kitchen of her parents’ home. She craved comfort, but her mother had other ideas.

  “Just look at all these bills piling up, Jaya. I don’t care what he has done. We cannot afford to have you back here.” She flung her hand to her forehead. “Oh, the shame of it! I will not put any more pressure on your father. You sort this out. You will not dishonour our name.”

  “But Maa, I’ve been trying. For months I’ve been trying. I think he regrets ever marrying me. He’s hardly home, and now I know why. I saw his face, the way he touched her. He has never shown me such tenderness. He doesn’t want to sort this out. I just know it.” She sobbed, grasping the toilet paper her mother pushed her way.

  She thought back to her wedding, to the weight of the gold-embroidered wedding sari, which had suffocated her. Their future had lain ahead, resplendent, symbolised by the heavy jewellery that adorned her and the painted elephant Akash rode. She teased him about the red turban that struggled to contain his buoyant hair, but he remained solemn. Disappointment dampened Jaya’s excitement.

  The ceremony had begun, and her father, stern and upright in his sherwani, gave her away. Kanyadaan. They held their hands over the holy fire to signify their union. Panigrahana. Finally, Jaya followed Akash around the flames. Sanskrit washed over her as they traversed seven times around the fire, bound together, each round a promise. Saptapadi. After the ceremony, when the dhol player leapt to his rhythm, the crowd began their celebrations.

  I am yours, she thought at that moment, and you are mine. She’d glanced shyly at Akash from beneath thick lashes, careful not to be bold, but his gaze had remained fixed at a point in the distance.

  Even as newly-weds, Akash rarely touched her. On their wedding night, he made no effort to find his name hidden in the curl of her wedding mehndi. His lips remained downturned, his body rigid. She feared her overtures had come across as brazen, and that Akash would be perfectly happy if she did not initiate contact. Now she knew that the closeness she craved with him, the child of her own, would never come to fruition. He remained absent, even when they occupied the same space, even when she had caught him red-handed.

  Her mother continued, determined to shape her daughter into the woman she herself was. “Don’t you think we all have our problems, Jaya? This is the real world. Men cheat. It’s your job to make sure he plays at home. Feed him, wash his clothes, let him have his way with your body. What else are women here for?” She scrubbed the floor by the cooker where spices had fallen. When she rose, her knees were red, her eyes accusing. “It’s these studies of yours. Did you want to send us into ruin? I knew it was a bad idea, giving you ideas above your station. You don’t have enough time for him.”

  “Maa, I promise you, I wait for him there. He never comes. Where is he now? I caught him in the act, and even now he is not here.”

  “All I hear are excuses, Jaya. Come what may, you are not coming back into this house. Your father would be furious. What would our neighbours say? We’d be the laughing stock of the community. I can hear them now, gossiping about how we raise our daughters, how they are not even able to keep their husbands happy. And you wonder why women long for sons.” Her mother drove her finger into Jaya’s chest. “You make this work.”

  Jaya shrank bank into the corner of the kitchen.

  “I can’t sit around here all day. I promised your father I would make him vegetable samosa, the tiny ones he likes. I need to go and get chilli and coconut for the chutney. Make yourself useful if you are here and fry the samosas, will you?” She pointed to the row of floured pastry pockets, perfect triangles filled with vegetables. “It’s lucky you came. Your sister was going to do it, but the lazy girl is napping upstairs.” Her mother patted her arm awkwardly. “And don’t worry, you will get the hang of this.”

  Jaya’s mother squeezed through the small archway on her way to the front door, and left without a backward glance.

  Jaya followed her progress down the street, watching her mother’s swaying hips through the open kitchen window. “Can I rescue us?” she asked, alone with her darkening thoughts.

  She fried the samosas, watching the ghee spritz out of the pan as she worked.

  He looked so happy with her.

  Batch by batch, she continued.

  I am not enough.

  She poured more oil into the saucepan.

  Am I enough?

  After she fried the last of the samosas, she laid them out onto kitchen paper to absorb the excess moisture, and sat down heavily on a stool by the cooker.

  He still has not come to find me.

  Her bag probably lay in the rose garden where she dropped it. It would not take a great leap of faith for Akash to follow her to her parents’ house. He should have come by now.

  He does not care.

  Next to her, the oil bubbled and spat.

  Her eyes glazed as she took the pan off the cooker. Oil residue on the handle caused her grip to slip. The world continued to turn—men worked, women cooked, children played—as she poured the contents of the pan slowly on the hem of her sundress, first at the front, then each side, and as far back as she could reach. She cried out as her flesh seared, but still she continued.

  It is my fault.

  The sky-blue dress darkened with the liquid, and her legs became raw where the hot oil splashed against her skin. She welcomed the physical pain.

  There she stood, thinking and unthinking, playing with a box of matches from her mother’s drawer.

  A knock on the window startled her. Akash appeared,
peering through the crack.

  “Jaya, can we talk?”

  She turned to look at him, a flash of colour in the dingy kitchen, her movements robotic.

  “You came,” she said, her voice wooden. “Do you love me?”

  “I....”

  “Are you here to leave me?”

  “I don’t know,” said Akash. “Can you let me in?”

  “You love her?”

  “Yes.” He shrank from her gaze.

  Jaya barely moved. You don’t love me. A scratching sound, and then a brief flare. “Then what else is there to say?”

  Akash screamed as fire swept around the hem of her dress and the orange flowers caught alight.

  Now you have an excuse not to touch me. She stood in the midst of it all, her face contorted as she burned. Her flesh began to melt and the tortuous flames ripped through her until there was nothing else, only agony.

  What have I done?

  She gave herself to the pain. Her skin peeled, curling, and the fire spread upwards. Shouting somewhere on the periphery of her consciousness sought to anchor her in the here and now, but she paid no heed.

  The fire cleansed her.

  CHAPTER 2

  Her skirt turned a seething red and hung in threads around her calves. For a moment, she became a goddess, but Jaya’s story did not follow Hindu legend. Sita’s flames bloomed into lotuses; Jaya’s blazed.

  She burned—for hours or perhaps a few seconds—in a hell of her own. The flesh of her legs singed as if she were a newly slaughtered lamb lain over hot charcoal. Every nerve ending protested against the onslaught. She writhed in pain, her world dissolving into one moment: this trial. Fiery teeth raked her skin, blistering her once smooth limbs, branding her with their mark. The smell of meat cooking down to the bone rushed into her nostrils and she convulsed. A warrior cry, anguished and other-worldly, erupted from her smoke-filled throat that bore no similarity to her own voice.

  By the time her sister Ruhi dashed into the confines of the kitchen, Jaya had collapsed onto the floor, her lower body ablaze. She lay in a heap as Ruhi froze, horror painted on her face as she took in the angry fire licking up Jaya’s legs, her nose instinctively scrunched up against the pervading smell of oil and cooking flesh in the room. Too slow, Ruhi’s reaction.

  A scream erupted from Ruhi. “Jaya! Jaya!”

  Ruhi snapped into action, jerking a towel from the clothing rack, sending it scattering in her haste. She wrapped Jaya in it.

  Jaya’s mind bled.

  Her sister rolled her into the living room, away from the oil remnants and the oxygen flowing in through the slither of open window. Still the flames refused to be spent. The thin, frayed towel stuck to Jaya’s skin. The flames raged, like Jaya’s internal world, seeking vengeance where they touched, peeling back her skin like a deft chef skinning a vegetable.

  Would Akash be sorry? Would this shame him how he deserved to be shamed?

  Her sister shuddered and covered Jaya with her own body. Jaya moaned as they rolled together amongst the legs of furniture, in sight of the altar where they prayed together, one a burning rag-doll, the other sobbing with terror.

  Ruhi cursed, smothering the flames, using her own hands to pat out the fire until it died.

  The armour of Jaya’s sundress had almost entirely disappeared save for a panel around her singed torso. Her legs had taken the brunt of the fire. The skin bubbled and stuck fast to the towel. Soot clung to her. Beside her, the pale blue statue of Vishnu watched. His arms encircled the room. Jaya closed her eyes, the shallow inhale-exhale of her breath a roar in her mind. She sizzled, and finally, mercifully, slipped into unconsciousness.

  Akash banged the window. “Jaya! Jaya! Somebody help me!”

  He ran to the front door, pounded it with his fists, and tried in vain to shoulder it open. The door would not budge, and nobody came. Her screams followed him, and the stench of cooking flesh filled Akash’s nostrils until the horror became too much.

  He ran, the images of his burning wife searing his brain. He ran past heaving market stalls and darting rickshaws, away from the Bombay that was familiar to him, until the phlegm built up in his throat. He ran—he ran until his lungs ached and his ribcage heaved, until he reached the cooling banks of the water, where he vomited.

  He stopped to lean against a wall, shaking his head to free himself of the horrors lurking there. Then he sank down and cried. Shame hung around his neck like a medallion, heavy and cumbersome. Had Jaya really set herself alight? He squeezed his eyes shut. Perhaps if he took a deep breath and reopened them, the images would fade and he would realise it had been a nightmare.

  Is this a dream, Jaya? Did my mind play tricks on me?

  He opened his eyes as his stomach churned. Still, he could not escape the horrors of the present.

  Did I really run away from you while you burned? What kind of man am I?

  Her screams echoed in his head, and his shoulder throbbed from where he had tried to break down the door.

  I could have tried harder.

  Reality crushed him, so he retreated into hope, foolish though it was. Maybe Jaya was still alive. He could go back and try harder to make his marriage work. He could forget Soraya, but every fibre in his body protested against cutting Soraya out of his life. But neither could he forget his wife—his responsibility.

  None of the blame for the disintegration of their marriage could be laid at Jaya’s feet. They had both agreed to an arranged marriage. An aunt on his father’s side, an insufferable woman with a hairy chin and protruding belly, had arranged for their families to meet. Jaya represented the perfect match, his father said: the right caste, elegant, unassuming, a good wife.

  But Akash was not ready. Jaya’s wit shamed him, as did her warm nature, so forgiving of his inadequacies. He felt as harassed by her faith as by her smiles. How could he tell his family he rejected their way, the old way?

  So they married, dazed amidst excited relatives and clashing colours. Jaya became a dutiful wife; Akash an emotionally-absent husband. He went through the motions—waking up with Jaya, their bodies occupying opposing corners of the bed, attending lectures, returning home to have dinner with his wife and parents, touching his wife when the lights went out, but everything felt perfunctory rather than passionate. The foundations of their marriage had seemed irreparably damaged as his hope for the future seeped through the cracks in their relationship.

  Not until he met Soraya did he realise he was capable of romantic love.

  He jumped through his memories as if they were a yellowed film reel to 1980, the summer after he had married. He’d been slouching on a slow-chugging bus, seated next to Jaya, when he spotted Soraya the first time, tearing through the dusty streets towards the university gates, her hair drenched by the musty rain, her features obscured—a girl who took no prisoners. He couldn’t pull his eyes away. His shirt stuck to his back in the sticky heat as Jaya’s thigh pressed against his own, yet everything dropped away except for this stranger. He turned awkwardly, twisting his neck like a giraffe to watch until Soraya disappeared into a tiny speck in the distance.

  From that first encounter, he’d never been able to shake the thought of her. For him, she was a promise, a drug—a slow, inescapable venom, poisoning his relationship with his wife. He felt the brush of Soraya’s fuchsia scarf as she rushed past, imagined the taste of the rain on her chapped lips. Even before their affair had begun, she became a persistent ghost in his marital bed.

  Their friends and family would have gasped had Akash and Jaya divorced. His parents were staunch opponents of divorce and separation. With years of a harmonious arranged marriage behind them, they would never have understood, and Akash would have been incapable of facing them if his marriage failed. A remarriage remained unthinkable unless one partner had been widowed, let alone a love match between Akash and Soraya, a Hindu and Muslim.

  Did I really watch you burn, with only a bruised shoulder to show for it? Did I give my marriage to you a cha
nce? Am I completely rotten to my core, incapable of loving my wife?

  Round and round his thoughts went, like a carousel.

  All you wanted was to hear I love you. I could have stopped you from lighting the match.

  He was responsible for it all, as surely as if he had lit the match himself. He clung to the hope that she might still be okay as he sat, crumpled on the pavement, one thought consuming him as daylight turned to dusk.

  I have to make this right.

  Jaya floated back into a body that did not feel like hers. She groaned as whispers and the hum of machines reached her ears, followed by her mother’s voice.

  “Oh, Jaya, what did you do?”

  “How can one sister burn while the other sleeps?” said her sister, piercing through the haze of nothingness.

  Jaya opened her eyes. The faces of her family swam before her as fluorescent hospital lighting buzzed above their heads. Her parents and her sister stood vigil at her bedside in a cramped ward. Ruhi rushed to hug her, features twisted in worry, but Jaya winced at her sister’s touch. She shut her eyes and wished for darkness again. Waves of pain crashed over her like none she had experienced before, a throbbing and clenching she could not localise.

  “Jaya?” said Ruhi, her voice lined with tears.

  Jaya struggled to remember what had happened. She opened her eyes with trepidation and looked down at her body, still detached from the consequences of her actions. Starched hospital sheets entombed her form, and something cool lay on her legs and side. She reached under the sheets and her fingers found thick bandages. The pain of a flurry of knives shot through her. She couldn’t move her legs.

  Ruhi reached for her hand and said, “No, no, don’t touch anything. I’ll let the nurse know you’re awake.” Her sister’s hands were wrapped in light bandages.

  Jaya remembered the flames and Akash’s betrayal with a rush, and cried out. She waved her hands at her family, wanting to be alone, then glanced again at Ruhi’s bandages and remembered through the haze that her sister had rescued her, not Akash.

  He is not only a cheat, but a coward.