‘Are Bala’s people okay?’ she asked, echoing Rajan’s first questions to Bala. ‘Are they safe?’

‘The ones that are still alive are safer than they were before,’ he replied. ‘But they want a better life. They want to work and they want their children to study. They want to be heard by their government and protected by their police. They don’t just want to live; they want to live with dignity—with dreams for their children—always for their children. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?’ he asked, looking out the window. He wasn’t talking to her. He was looking inwards, remembering another time. He too had wanted a better life, but she had stopped him.

‘I don’t know what the right thing to do is anymore,’ he said softly, still not looking at her. ‘There are so many things I should have done differently, Nala. It was my fault.’

‘No, it was my fault, Rajan.’ She took a deep breath. It hurt to breathe. She wanted to tell him.

‘I have one more thing to do,’ he whispered.

She didn’t want to talk about Smrithi just yet. ‘There are other things I need to tell you …’ she began.

His eyes finally focused on her. He saw her clearly. ‘No. Let’s not do that. It doesn’t matter.’

‘It does matter, Rajan. You always did your duty. You always did your best,’ she replied. ‘I—’

‘No. It’s done,’ he replied, gently closing the account book. ‘It’s done.’

•

‘Mohan, Mohan, come out now, I’m tired of looking!’ Nala shouted at her cousin-brother. She had checked every part of their small house. Mohan was an excellent hider and she was a terrible loser. She sat on the steps of the front verandah and examined her legs. They were covered with inflamed mosquito bites.

‘Don’t scratch!’ Archi said. Her grandmother sat in her usual place on her rocking chair, her legs covered with a light blanket. From there, she could watch over her domain.

‘Don’t scratch!’ Archi repeated, more imperiously. ‘You’ll scar yourself. It’s malaria season, you should be more careful.’

Nala was inspecting her fair skin, searching for scars, when Archi let out a long kusu. The old lady gave a wicked giggle as her chair and blanket began to move with a life of its own.

‘Aaaarchiii! What did you do that for?’ Mohan shouted as he stumbled out from under her rocking chair, coughing and laughing. Archi’s kusus were legendary.

‘Found you!’ Nala cried.

‘That’s not fair,’ he replied, breathing the humid, clean air deeply. ‘It doesn’t count.’

He sat himself next to her and they began to compare battle scars.

‘Mine are definitely better than yours,’ she said, pointing to her left calf. ‘See how these ones merge into each other, making one big bumpy line? It looks like the Himalayas.’