He sits down, his lips clamped tight. She doesn’t sit down. She goes round to the back of his chair. ‘Excuse me, but I’m going to take a liberty with you,’ she says and begins to press his temples gently with the tips of her fingers. Ashesh contracts his body. ‘No need to be tense. There’s as little of the personal in what I’m doing as there is in your paintings. I am doing this with zilch emotion. So relax.’

As she presses Ashesh’s temples, the tension of the interview gradually melts away. His mind is still wary, but his body begins to respond to Janaki’s touch.

The doorbell rings.

‘Stay put. I’m leaving anyway. I’ll get the door.’

Janaki hurries to the door. It is Haridas again. He looks at her and then at Ashesh and says, ‘I’d say you’ve had a good interview.’

Ashesh smiles limply. Janaki calls out to him from the door, ‘The photographer will call tomorrow.’

Ashesh glances at her, but then lets his shoulders drop in resignation.

Haridas says, ‘I didn’t go home. I’d like to sit here for a while if I may. Hope you don’t mind.’

27

Rain chokes the sky. Ashesh and Anima stand in the back veranda of her fourth-floor flat, gazing at the horizon where leaden sky meets leaden sea. As hard as they look, they see no other shade to nuance its monotony. The grey seeps into their spirits as Anima finishes telling Ashesh about Bachchu Kaka’s visit.

‘Perhaps I should go there.’

‘As soon as you can. I don’t like the sound of it.’

A terrifying explosion cracks the sky beyond the sea. Its reverberations come rumbling to the shore, crashing over their heads. Lightning zips through their eyes. A wind rises over the sea and roars across, taking everything that comes in its way into its erratic embrace. It snaps off branches, swings windows and doors on their hinges. It is a monster gone berserk. Then suddenly it subsides, not to die, but to take a deep breath. In that brief silence another sound rises on the horizon and sweeps across the sea, its angry swish growing louder by the minute. The wind pushes it relentlessly on. The sky rips open and hard, fat drops of rain thrash the earth.