Dear readers, this week, we present the last episode of ‘Violet vipers’ by Saniyyah Eman. We are sure you will love the ending, as Team Us did....
COVER STORY
In Makan Taintees, the breaking news of the murder of Amit Khatri was played to an empty living room, covered with the possessions Chachi Jaan had abandoned during the hurried packing she and Yusuf had done after he had gotten the phone call.
“Pack at once and go straight to Lake Anchar. We will wait on the bank near the old abandoned shikara by the pine tree.” The scarlet voice had told him on the phone. “You’ll know which one when you see it.”
The two had left the house a mere 15 minutes Earlier in Imam Deen’s cab. Chachi Jaan had lingered at the front door, looking at him with lost eyes.
“Her father … what will he say when he finds out I’ve left?”
“We’ll come and get him later, Chachi.” He had wrapped a consoling arm around her, knowing he would never be returning for his uncle. “Right now, Jaleelah needs us.”
After seating her in the back, Yusuf had locked the front door of Makan Taintees, looking at the window with the post-it notes on it one last time, wondering what she had written on them, regretting never finding out.
Would there be a fourth time? The house thought as it watched the young man in the black kameez, the red dupatta and old jeans getting into the taxi. Why did he never leave happily, this boy?
As the taxi turned a corner, the bricks of Makan Taintees heaved a collective sigh and thought in unison, fourth time might be the charm.
****************
They heard about Chacha Jaan’s death and the major’s murder on the way to Anchar Lake on the taxi’s battered radio and surprisingly, it didn’t surprise Chachi.
When he laid a solacing hand upon hers, she patted his hand but pulled hers away.
“Allah Jannat naseeb karey, begum ji. (May he rest in heaven)” Imam Deen said and he meant it. For him, Chacha Jaan had redeemed himself better than most men could have by killing Khatri.
“Ameen.” Yusuf said, looking out of the corner of his eyes at Chachi Jaan for tears he might have to wipe away. There were none.
Dear readers, this week, we present the last episode of ‘Violet vipers’ by Saniyyah Eman.
We are sure you will love the ending, as Team Us did. We hope this
talented young writer will continue to hone her craft and let Us enjoy
her future endeavours.
“We’ll go straight to the airport from here, Imam Deen.” Yusuf told the cabbie when he killed the engine near the Anchar, the night air filled with the song of crickets and the lapping of waves along the banks of the lake. “I just have one last thing to do in Srinagar.”
“Allah aap ki hifazat karey, Sahib (May God protect you, Sir).” Imam Deen said in a low voice. Yusuf bowed his head in thanks.
Leaving Chachi Jaan in the car, he ran his fingers through his hair once, said a silent, secret prayer in his heart and started jogging through the heather that clutched at the soles of his shoes towards the bank where, from the car, he could clearly see the shikara someone had shored long ago and never pushed back into the Anchar, with the large pine tree beside it, just like the caller had described.
A shadow separated itself from the trunk of the tree when he got closer and the moonlight bathed his green-brown uniform in silver light. For a second, Yusuf’s heart trembled.
What if this is a mistake?
He was thinking about what he could use as a weapon if something unforeseen happened when he saw a second shadow sitting, huddled, at the root of the tree, a Khaki cap held tightly in two hands with scarred knuckles, a shorn head resting upon two knees.
He could have known those two hands anywhere, even if he could not recognize the wasted body clad in the military uniform and the head devoid of hair.
When you held a hand in classic Kashmiri rain while sneaking off to eat gol gappas in Chinkral Bazar, you remembered the shape, the size, the feel of that hand forever.
“Jaleelah.” He said and his voice was barely higher than a whisper.
She looked up. Her face looked leaner; the cheekbones more prominent without their usual frame of curly black hair. Her lips trembled.
“Jaleelah.” He said and her name came out as a sob.
She stood up slowly, her eyes apprehensive, nervous, flitting from him to the night around him, lingering at the red dupatta wrapped around his neck, covering his chest, then hungrily drinking in every detail of his strained face; the wrinkles on the forehead, the turn of the nose, the eternally flared nostrils, the thin lips, the stubble lining his pale cheeks, the veins popping out of his forehead and the hair that was always falling into his eyes, that he was always pushing away.
The man standing beside the tree couldn’t quite tell which of them had covered the space between them first, whether she had flung herself towards him or whether he had gathered her to himself, but the two silhouettes had suddenly met beneath the pine and he had started sobbing, cheek pressed against her head.
“You shouldn’t have done it,” he said and the words had a red dupatta of agony tied around them. “You shouldn’t have done it, you shouldn’t have.”
Around the two was a field of violet vipers, watching them with smiling mouths that revealed bared fangs and forked tongues ready to strike
She didn’t answer, her eyes closed, her body still, her lips slack. Yusuf’s arms were around her shoulders, his eyes brimming with the tears he didn’t want to hold in. Around the two was a field of violet vipers, watching them with smiling mouths that revealed bared fangs and forked tongues ready to strike. The music of a thousand rattlers rose along the banks of Anchar Lake and the Srinagari wind roared through the leaves of the pine overhead in answer, warning the vipers to stay away from the silhouettes that seemed like changing in the moonlight rippling through the branches of the tree; now a silhouette of one, now of two, now of one again and now of none.
There were airplane tickets to be given to them so they could catch the next plane to Islamabad. They had to be warned that their struggle wasn’t over yet, that she could become a wanted criminal in a murder case, that she could be framed for illegal weapon dealing; the man with the Lal Salam in his heart and Jai Hind on his lips knew he had to tell them all this but he decided to wait just a few minutes more as he stood near the abandoned boat.
He decided to wait just long enough for her to stir and step away, for him to remember he had left somebody waiting in the cab parked on the road and – most importantly – for the two of them to remember what the shape of love – and loss – was again.
