When Only Love Remains (14 page)

Avanti’s glad that she’s not visible from inside the water. Devrat’s last words are simple and yet they open up a plethora of possibilities, many of which she doesn’t want to think about.

I want him to like me.

Avanti has been trying to act perfectly calm in Devrat’s presence and it’s been hard to keep up that pretence because the bottom line is that she’s naked and he’s here, the only thing that separates both of them are the rapidly disappearing bubbles and air.

But still, it’s not shame that’s eating her up. Well, it’s shame but it’s a different type of shame. It’s like watching and enjoying a movie that you shouldn’t enjoy. It’s like a hardcore Harry Potter fan choosing to re-read
Fifty Shades of Grey
over
The Goblet of Fire
.

This, by far, is The Boldest Thing she’s ever done. This is dirty. Like hot, dirty, like not pornographic dirty, but still dirty, dirty in a good sense, a kind of dirty she can’t explain.

Quite frankly, she feels a bit like a pervert right now to be enjoying this. She likes how Devrat is stealing glances at her, she likes how he’s all shy about it, she likes how he’s red in the face, just like she is, she likes how he must be thinking in his head, and she likes how he thinks that she’s pretty.

‘I think I’m done,’ says Avanti when she realizes that most of her bubbles are gone and her refracted nakedness might be visible from outside.

‘I’m not sure if I’m happy about it,’ says Devrat.

‘Stop being a pervert. You don’t play it well. You have been looking at your phone all this while!’

‘I’m a shy pervert.’

‘See you outside,’ says Avanti. Devrat leaves. She dries herself, wipes the condensation on the mirror and watches herself intently. While dressing up, she also searches for the term ‘exhibitionism’ just to check if she’s slowly turning into some kind of a desperate weirdo.

When she comes out she finds Devrat on the floor, in front of the television, flipping through the comic books she remembers having seen in her father’s cabinets.

‘I see you have busied yourself,’ says Avanti.

Devrat looks back at her and it takes him an extra second to react. Avanti has come to like these little amazing pauses he takes, the double takes, how he stops looks at her, smiles coyly, looks away and then answers.

‘This is awesome! I have never seen a collection like this before,’ remarks Devrat. ‘Come! Sit. Look at this! I never thought people owned these in India. This is pretty awesome.’

‘I didn’t know you were a comic book fan,’ says Avanti, a little disappointed because she thought they would talk about how big a fan he is of Seeing Avanti Bathe thing.
You’re a pervert, Avanti, stop it!

‘A big fan! But comics weren’t really widely available. So I had to stick with Nagraj and Doga and Super Commando Dhruva and Shakti. And they weren’t that good.’

‘I haven’t heard any of those names,’ says Avanti. ‘But tell me about them.’ She likes how Devrat’s eyes have suddenly lit up. She picks up a comic and immediately hates Wonderwoman for her huge bust, and keeps the comic out of Devrat’s reach.

‘Oh! There’s so much about them. I remember renting them for ten bucks for a week. I liked Nagraj the most though. His backstory itself used to be so intense. And hey! Look there’s the Dog Welder.’

‘Dog Welder?’ asks Avanti, immensely amused by this supposedly half-famous singer getting excited like a kid.

‘Oh. He’s one of the worst superheroes! He used to weld dogs to bad people’s mouths so they died of starvation. I had only heard of him and his pack of eight superheroes. Never saw a comic that actually had him!’

‘What used to happen to the puppies that he welded? Just asking because ever since I have started comparing puppies with you, I’m deeply concerned about them.’

‘Why don’t we find out?’ asks Devrat and picks the three comics that feature the Dog Welder and his pack of superheroes. Avanti hides the one with the huge-breasted Wonderwoman by sitting on it. And just like that they are sitting on the couch, reading the first of the three comics.

‘Spoiler alert,’ says Devrat. ‘The dogs are all dead.’

‘That’s a relief.’

They start reading the comic and Avanti, surprisingly, is into it. It’s more because Devrat narrates the backstories of the characters like it’s his own.

‘So this guy dressed in a black jacket and shades, quite burly, a little bit like your ex-boyfriend, is called The Defenestrator. He throws criminals out of the window that he carries,’ explains Devrat.

‘So I’m guessing it was the lowest point of comic writers, was it?’

‘There are only so many superpowers that you can give people. You’re bound to run out of them! Okay, what superpower would you give yourself if you had the choice?’ asks Devrat, smiling, because he’s thinking his superpower will be what every boy wants, to be invisible. For
obvious
reasons.

‘I would be Wonderwoman!’ says Avanti without thinking.

‘Why?’

‘Umm . . . because she’s hot?’

‘You’re hotter, Avanti. If you and Wonderwoman were in a to-death match in hotness, she would cover up and shy away.’

Avanti feels rather shy at this and they get back to the comic, which is getting hilarious as they read on. A guy named Flemgem is now producing ungodly amounts of phlegm to blind the enemy.

‘They could have got any middle-aged north Indian man to do that,’ remarks Avanti and they laugh.

Then there is Bueno Excelente who defeats people by acts of perversion. He’s not shown killing anyone but there’s a newspaper byline in one of the comics that screams that one of the villains was fatally sodomized. So he was a pervert with good intentions.

They finish the three comics, which made little or no sense, but Avanti still felt she had spent the best two hours of her life.

‘That was interesting, very interesting . . .’ says Avanti, a bit sarcastically.

‘You think it’s crazy, right? You have to suspend all belief to like them. Comics are like Salman Khan movies on steroids.’

‘Don’t get offended. I liked it. I just have to get used to Bueno Excelente killing people by having sex with them,’ says Avanti and chuckles.

‘Yeah. Whatever.’

And they are still arguing who would win between a three-way match between Phlegm, Bueno Excelente and the Dog Welder, Avanti is placing her bet on the sex-guy and Devrat on the animal rights welfare nightmare when they hear the study’s door unlock. Avanti’s father walks in; dressed in oddly fitting faded blue trousers and a shirt that hangs over the belt.

Avanti knows Nani would have talked to Dad but still she’s wringing her fingers thinking what he would say seeing a boy in his house.

‘Namaste, Uncle,’ says Devrat.

‘Namaste,’ says her father. ‘Your parents know that you’re here?’

Devrat nods.

Dad looks in Avanti’s direction. She is quite amused by her father’s measured behaviour. ‘Your Nani called,’ says Dad. ‘If y . . . ou need anything, do let me know.’

‘I will,’ says Avanti. She’s strangely proud of her father for being so well behaved and chilled out.

‘I have ordered pizzas for you,’ says Avanti’s father and looks at both of them. ‘I hope you like pizzas?’

Devrat nods and Avanti has half a mind to throw a tantrum because as a teenager she’s supposed to do that but she refrains. Avanti’s father disappears in his study.

‘Sweet,’ mutters Devrat.

‘He’s not like this,’ says Avanti. ‘Usually.’

‘What’s he like?’

‘I don’t know. He’s always lost, always a little nutsy. He just says a few words and locks himself in the study. As long as he lets you stay, I’m okay with him. Though he did chase Shekhar away once with a bat . . . ,’ she trails off and she is thrown back to the time she was leaving for Kolkata and her father lied about his trip to Nagpur so that he could spend some time with her. ‘He’s trying to reconnect with me,’ Avanti thinks, smilingly, and says this aloud.

‘Then what’s stopping you?’ asks Devrat.

‘I hardly know the man.’

‘You hardly know me as well and I saw you bathe today.’

Avanti is about to find the words to argue with that when the bell rings and Dad comes running out of the room to pay. He struggles with the boxes and Devrat reaches out and takes them from him. He’s then about to go back to his study when Devrat invites him to share the pizza with them.

‘I’m okay. I will eat what the maid has cooked,’ says Avanti’s father.

‘But Uncle, eat with us. It’s too much for two people.’

Avanti wants Devrat to let her father go, but Devrat insists and her father joins them. There’s awkward silence at the table and Avanti wishes the Defenestrator would throw her out of his window and put her out of her misery.

‘Six-pack never realized what his true power was,’ mutters Dad.

‘Huh?’ Avanti mutters.

She finds Dad looking in the direction of the three comics. The Wonderwoman remains hidden, but it doesn’t matter anymore since Devrat said Avanti’s hotter.

‘But wasn’t his superpower the strength he got when he was drunk?’ asks Devrat.

‘No, it wasn’t. It’s an awful comic but the main guy is said to be a commentary on alcoholics. Six-pack was so busy being drunk and imagining his successes that he never found out what his real powers were.’

For the first time, Avanti’s father, doesn’t seem like a man whose hopes are lost; who’s leading a slow life that eventually ends in an old age home or death or both. Her dad’s excited when he shows the last few panels of Hitman #18 to Devrat and they are reading it like eight-grade students would.

For the next half hour, Devrat and her dad are passionately discussing deaths of superheroes and supervillains, and some of those arguments are damn ridiculous. Avanti is torn between liking Devrat a little more and ignoring him, because liking him would mean she liked her dad too.

The pizza slices are disappearing fast. The two men are discussing the near impossibility of a certain Miss Arrow, a woman made of spiders and an enemy of Spiderman, to die because a few birds attacked her in an aviary. The topic is hotly debated and soon books are brought out to corroborate facts.

‘She could have just disintegrated into a million spiders and then integrated again,’ Dad throws his hands up in protest. ‘It was stupid way to die.’

‘But Uncle, but what if the birds plucked at the one spider that was her heart? What then? She could never be whole!’ argues Devrat.

‘It was a chance she should have taken,’ frowns her father. Both Devrat and her father collectively mourn Miss Arrow’s death—could have been a more able nemesis for Spiderman.

Batman and Spiderman are discussed in explicit details, and the inconsistencies in the superhero movies are frowned upon. She does like the bit where she gets to know that Mary Jane, Spiderman’s love interest, in one of the series died because of Spiderman’s radioactive sperm. Avanti hates to admit it but she likes the little camaraderie that the two men/boys have going on.

The conversation dies down when Avanti’s father’s phone rings and he has to leave.

‘There’s another cabinet there,’ Dad points behind Devrat. ‘It has collaborations from major illustrators and story writers. You can have a look.’

Devrat nods excitedly. Her dad’s at the door of his study smiling at both Avanti and Devrat, which is both creepy and comforting and leaves Avanti a little confused.

‘This. Was. Awesome! Your father is a living legend. He knows every panel by heart. No wonder he’s a genius mathematician or whatever you call him,’ says Devrat.

‘I call him a failed mathematician.’

‘Maybe he’s just ahead of his time,’ says Devrat, still impressed.

Avanti hates to kill his enthusiasm but she has to. ‘We had to go out, remember?’

‘Oh. Yeah. We have to go,’ says Devrat and keeps the comics aside, frowning. ‘We can read these brilliant, rare comics later. These awesome comics obviously aren’t begging for our attention. They are okay by themselves just sitting in cabinets, unread.’

Avanti can sense the sarcasm in Devrat’s voice but she chooses to ignore it. After all, it’s
her
father and he can’t have a better equation with her father than
her
.

It’s as simple as that.

‘I feel grossly underdressed,’ says Devrat, looking at his worn- out T-shirt and a faded pair of jeans he had worn for his performance last night (though it feels like it happened years ago), and in all other circumstances he wouldn’t have given a shit but Avanti looks like she has unmindfully overshot the ramp and is walking with him instead.

‘I will take that,’ points Devrat to a T-shirt with a graphic of Justice League on it.

‘You’re a musician, not an illustrator! Shouldn’t you take something with a Metallica or an AC/DC graphic on it,’ protests Avanti, still a little pissed at Devrat and her father’s chemistry over comic books.

‘I wish I were both. And I already have T-shirts with everyone I love on them. But I feel like a comic nerd today,’ says Devrat and picks up the T-shirt.

‘At least try it!’

‘Oh. It will fit. Don’t worry.’

‘Fine,’ says Avanti.

It’s not that Devrat hasn’t noticed Avanti’s discomfort since the comic book incident happened with her father, but he doesn’t know how to approach that topic. Avanti pays for the T-shirts and the pair of jeans he buys.

‘I’m sorry,’ says Devrat. They are sitting in a slightly plush restaurant, which doesn’t make Devrat feel any better because Avanti is not her usual self—she’s all morose and frowning.

‘What are you sorry for?’

‘For the comic book stuff? For talking to your dad?’

‘Why would you say sorry for that?’

Avanti’s Thai green curry arrives and she starts to eat with her hands. A little later, her feet are propped up on the couch and she’s sitting like one sits on the floor.

‘I’m sorry,’ says Avanti. ‘I can’t feel the taste if I don’t eat with my hands. It’s a compulsion.’

‘You can eat whichever way you like.’

‘You don’t feel embarrassed?’

‘Not at all. Well, maybe a little bit. But it’s okay because you’re pretty enough to pull anything off. You would look great even if you start to lick the gravy that’s trickling down to your wrist.’

Avanti does exactly that.

‘I know you meant for it to look disgusting but it didn’t. If anything, I think that turned me on a little. Do that again,’ says Devrat.

Avanti doesn’t react. She’s looking down at her bowl and scraping mindlessly with her fingers on the plate. Devrat shifts next to her. Avanti looks at him and her eyes have welled up.

‘I’m sorry,’ mumbles Avanti. ‘I don’t know why I’m crying. You were just being nice to him. And I just felt very uncomfortable sharing him with you, and it’s strange because we, me and my dad, don’t really share an equation. I don’t know why I am so angry right now at him. And I have never been angry at him.’

Devrat puts his arms around Avanti who dissolves into tears. They eat in silence and leave the restaurant in an hour. The rest of the day is spent ambling aimlessly around the mall. Somewhere in the evening, Devrat finds himself holding her hand, playing with her fingers, and they have not left each other’s hands ever since.

‘Don’t you want to call your dad and tell him that we are going to be late?’ asks Devrat.

‘Don’t you want to tell yours that you’re in Delhi?’

There’s an awkward silence after which both of them walk in different directions to talk to their parents. It’s surprising for Devrat how easily he can talk to his parents (who are mildly surprised that Devrat thought of calling. Though Devrat wants to tell them that he always means to, he feels an immense pressure to please them with every phone call and whenever he didn’t have good news to give them, it always kind of holds him back). He wonders if it’s the result of the ease with which he could connect with Avanti’s father, but then he tries not to dwell on that.

‘What did he say?’

‘To be safe,’ says Avanti. ‘He trusts you.’

‘He trusts you.’

Devrat finds Avanti looking at her cell phone every few minutes and Devrat asks what it is she’s looking at.

‘Three minutes,’ Avanti says. ‘It’s my longest phone call with Dad.’

‘You want to discuss it?’ asks Devrat. No, comes the answer.

They are in a place that’s not really a pub, but it isn’t really a club either. Everything Devrat had heard about Delhi came true in that 1200-square-foot dimly lit, yet glittering place. The women are overdressed, so much so, that Avanti throws a little tantrum that she wants to leave the place and it takes Devrat five minutes to convince her that she’s still the most gorgeous one in the room, and that she doesn’t need to be dressed in a shimmery dress to stand out, which is funny because no one really stands out, because everyone is a damn photocopy of the other!

‘At least everyone’s looking at you,’ remarks Devrat.

‘They are looking at me because I’m dressed like a housemaid.’

‘No, they are looking at you because you look different. And when they look at you, they realize that you look great and they keep looking. Look at that guy. The one near the beer tower? He hasn’t taken his eyes off you since you stepped in.’

‘I don’t care if he is, I care if you are,’ says Avanti.

‘I haven’t taken my eyes off you since I met you.’

They are like five-year-old kids on their first date. Devrat asks if Avanti wants to drink and Avanti shakes her head and tell him that she has an embarrassingly low capacity and she should be off it.

‘No, it’s okay. I can do without it. Plus I black out pretty easily. And it would kill me to forget this. Besides, you’re still scaring me,’ says Avanti.

‘Why is that?’ asks Devrat who finds his hand being caressed by Avanti’s.

‘You’re here, today. Tomorrow, you will be somewhere else, getting drunk with someone else.’

‘I am not sure that’s going to happen,’ says Devrat.

‘See. All this is crazy for me. I hope you know that. I have been obsessing over you for years now. I have thought of elaborate scripts in my head of what I would say to you, what I would do with you, where we will go . . . you know, that kind of stuff? And I thought it’s never going to happen, so I was never scared. But now that it’s happening, I’m terrified. Not seeing you tomorrow around me would kind of destroy me. I will not be able to think of anything but what I did to push you away. And one of the things that I will count in that list will be this conversation where I’m absolutely freaking you out by telling you that I think you’re the cutest, nicest guy I have ever met and if I were even a little bit crazier I would keep you locked in my place and never let you out. Right now, I know you’re thinking of darting out of this place and never coming back, but I will hope that you do, even if it means coming back with a girlfriend in tow. But I would still like to have you around.’

Avanti finishes and stares at her feet. It’s an embarrassing monologue, cute, but embarrassing nonetheless.

‘You’re going to run now, aren’t you? Change your number? Never call me? Block me? Get a restraining order?’ asks Avanti, still looking at her feet.

‘No, actually, I expected it to last a little longer. My biggest fan can only fawn over me for forty-five seconds. That’s a little embarrassing. I would have expected a few tears but there were none.’

‘You’re making me cry now.’

‘But why is that?’

‘Because you’re just sitting there, not saying anything to make me feel better. God! You write your own lyrics and you can’t put together a single sentence to comfort me. You should be embarrassed about yourself,’ complains Avanti.

‘Quite frankly, I’m yet to make an opinion about you. And that’s a good thing because I don’t know what to expect out of you and that’s amazing. You’re gorgeous and smart and interesting and you know that, and when you look at me and say those things about me, they hardly seem real because everything I am, pales in front of everything you are. Because as far as I’m concerned there’s not a thing about you I would change.’

Pause.

‘. . .’

‘. . .’

‘I think I’m going to cry,’ says Avanti.

‘Oh. Shut up.’

‘No. I’m serious. Pass the tissue.’

‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m sorry for earlier. But if you keep saying things like that to me, you can keep my father and I will not be pissed.’

‘Deal.’

The rest of the night passes just like that. People get drunk around them and make out; they collectively make fun of badly dressed women and curse the food and the prices. Devrat gets jealous for Avanti finds the bartender cute, and Avanti gets jealous when Devrat pretends to like someone in the crowd, and places bets on boys who would get lucky tonight.

Devrat doesn’t remember the last time he had so much fun, and they haven’t even kissed or anything yet. It’s not that he’s looking forward to that. Okay, that’s a lie. Avanti’s lips are not ones that you can look at, ignore, and move on. Devrat has had a hard time looking away from them when she’s talking and he has wondered about how it would be like to kiss them. Not the carnal I-eat-you-you-eat-me way, but something more tender, that tells her that he likes her but it’s not sexual (for the most part). How does one ask to be kissed like that?
I want to kiss you just to see how it feels because I think it will feel great? And don’t worry, it won’t be sexual. It will be tender and lovely and awesome.

It’s two in the night when they leave the club. It’s a different feeling for Devrat. He’s not drunk, he’s not pukish, he’s not cursing that his house is far away, and his breath doesn’t smell like a dead rat. They are still holding hands, which is quite a high-school thing to do, but he doesn’t want to let go.

‘We are looking for an auto, right?’ asks Devrat.

‘Yes, we are.’

‘But we aren’t really looking.’

‘Because we don’t want this walk to end,’ says Avanti. It’s interesting how she uses to the word ‘we’, and how correctly she uses it, with the precision of a poet.

‘No, we don’t. Because if this night ends, it will be another day and another day means I will have to go and
we
don’t want that.’

But the Delhi Police wanted the walk to end. They were apprehended and threatened that their parents would be called and when they did call Avanti’s dad, they were told that he knew his daughter was with Devrat and was safe with him. The police lets them go.

‘See, I told you your father is so chilled out,’ remarks Devrat.

‘It’s very hard to negate anything that comes out of your mouth.’

And talking of mouths, Devrat thinks of the pending kiss again. They take an auto home. Avanti’s sleepy by now and Devrat loves how she snuggles next to him, her hands wrapped around his arm, her head on his shoulder, her breath on his neck. Her hair smells of strawberries and she sleeps through the bumps and potholes and Devrat keeps staring at her like a crazy sociopath with binoculars.

‘We are here,’ says Devrat and wakes Avanti up.

When they enter the apartment, Avanti’s father is still awake and he asks if they had a good time and if the police created any trouble.

‘No, they didn’t, Uncle.’

Avanti’s father gives him two mint-editions of Batman comics that he’s sure no one else in India has.

‘I bought them when I was called to Paris for a convention. I hope you like them,’ her father says.

Devrat thanks her father.

‘Good night,’ her father says to both of them and goes back to his room, smiling.

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t say no to him.’

‘It’s okay. I’m not angry,’ says Avanti, trying to hide her frown.

‘I will give it back to him tomorrow morning.’

‘You don’t have to. It’s just that you make me want to talk to him as well,’ frowns Avanti and Devrat instinctively wraps his arms around her. ‘Stop hijacking my life. I won’t be able to think of a life without you and even as I say these words I feel like a psychopath.’

‘But that’s all I want to do,’ says Devrat.

‘Turn me in into a psychopath who clings to you and never leaves?’

‘Maybe that’s your superpower. I approve of that.’

And just like that, she clings to him.