Page 73 of Mrs. Pandey
"I was suspended for two weeks," he grinned. "Father made me plant two walnut trees as punishment."
We passed those trees, which now stood taller than both of us, wide and unbothered.
"Is that where your love for fists began?"
"No," he said thoughtfully. "That came later, when I realized words don't always survive bullets."
He didn't say anything more for a while. He just pedaled, guiding us over a narrow wooden bridge that creaked beneath us. A stream trickled below, dotted with pebbles and reflected clouds. Everything around us was breathing, even the silence.
We reached an open field, tucked behind two rows of cypress trees. He stopped the bicycle, parked it gently on a stone, and helped me off.
"This was my father's favorite place," he said. "He used to take me and my sisters here every evening."
I knelt down, running my hand over the grass. There were dried petals here, maybe from some old offerings or from a memory.
"He died when I was sixteen from cancer. He wrote me a letter before he passed."
He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to me. The edges were soft with age.
"If ever you fall in love, Prashant, make sure she knows your silences as well as your songs."
I swallowed hard, glancing at my husband.
"You think he'd like me?" I asked quietly.
"I think he'd have loved you more than he loved me," he winked. I smiled, blinking back the mist in my eyes.
"Ira, after what I did to you that night, do you still think you can live with a man like me?" he asked, his voice low.
I looked up at him. His face was sunburnt and unshaven, his eyes still swimming with ghosts, yet he looked more beautiful than he ever had. Why couldn't I find any man as attractive as him? Prashant had this kind of pulling power that sometimes made me forget what I had just done. Sometimes I was unable to see the world because my world revolved around him.
"I can live with the man you are," I said softly, "as long as you keep bicycling me through your past."
He laughed. We sat there for a while, beneath the sky, between a muddy home and a muddy path, with the wind curling around us.
Children passed by, pointing at us and whispering something in Kashmiri. One of them giggled and shouted something.
"What did he say?" I asked.
"He said, 'That soldier is in love again.'"
I laughed and leaned into him.
"He's not wrong," Prashant whispered, and my heart skipped a beat.
This wasn't a place we came to escape our scars. This was the place we came to plant them. And maybe let them bloom.
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Chapter 34
IRA
By late afternoon, the sky had turned a deep, honey-orange hue, and the rhythm of the village seemed to settle into the second line of a song. Women came out, chatting in hushed tones as they headed to the market, baskets on their waists. Goats lazily returned home, their bells ringing like a soft chime amid the stillness of the fields. The air, filled with the scent of fried fritters and mustard oil, had a sweet layer I couldn't yet name, the promise of a festive evening.
Prashant and I had returned from our cycling trip hours earlier, but my heart hadn't quite settled yet. Everything was still fluttering, like the prayer flags hanging on the wall of a monastery, their colors faded but their purpose still strong. Our home, this quiet, ramshackle house along the ribs of Srinagar, resonated with a peace that felt both new and ancient. The place was too small for the burden of fear, too soft for the sharp edge of trauma. I walked barefoot through each room, grounding myself on the cool earthen floor, memories of his childhood bubbling from the walls: a son, a dreamer, a boy who never imagined what he would become.
As the sun set, the village lit up, not with electric lights, but with the soft light of life. Small paper lanterns, painted with intricate designs of flowers and birds, lined the streets, hanging from tree to tree. It wasn't a national holiday or a formal celebration. "Just a fair," someone had said, an evening when people dressed well and remembered that happiness needs no invitation.
