[Disclaimer: The figures of power and the corridors of influence depicted in this narrative are born entirely of the imagination. While the shadows of the human psyche are real, the characters who inhabit them and the state they command are purely fictional.]
After dropping Abir at the airport, Sneha finds she cannot be inside the Aftabnagar flat that night, not even for a little while. She has cried the entire way back, and the moment she steps through the door, a terrible emptiness comes down over her and doesn't lift. And from every surface- the bed, the pillow, the sofa, the towel- his smell finds her. Not his Calvin Klein cologne. Something underneath that, something that belongs only to him. Every person carries a smell entirely their own, and Abir's sharp, dense, impossible to escape reaches into her chest and undoes something there.
The Passport bottle sat on top of the wardrobe exactly where he had left it. Half-empty. Abir had worked through most of it himself, given more time, he would have finished every last drop. He had even poured some into a water bottle to carry to the airport. The bottle had been bought two months earlier, for his birthday. And it was after that for the first time in her life that Sneha had asked Abir for something that if he came to Dhaka in December, he would give her one day, even just couple of hours.
She had wanted that meeting to be somewhere other than a bar for once; somewhere quiet, somewhere they could actually talk properly, just the two of them. Somewhere he would not need to keep dragging his cap lower or disappearing behind a glass. No scanning the room every second- worrying if someone saw him, if someone recognised him. If someone caught a photo from somewhere, or filmed a video. Though his paranoia had come down quite a bit by then compared to before. Not that he had completely gotten out of those strange, obsessive thoughts. But his odd behavior had become somewhat more manageable. He had actually changed quite a lot from who he used to be.
Back when they first met, Sneha used to call him ChatGPT. He was an emotionless, detached sort of man back then. Yet, that very Abir eventually began telling jokes; if Sneha grew angry, he would actively attempt to soothe her rage. He started attaching emojis to his texts, and would even write 'hahaha' in conversation. Abir’s smile... how breathtakingly beautiful it was...a strange, terrifyingly beautiful laugh...oh my, my, my. She was pouring from the Passport bottle on the wardrobe, thinking about that smile, when she saw him- right there on the bed, half lying down, smiling back at her.
She pressed both fists into her eyes and rubbed hard. No. She wasn't drunk. She hadn't touched anything all day- too wired on worry, his fever, his headache, the whole mess of it. So why was she seeing him on the bed like that, that small quiet smile on his face? The shock knocked the glass right out of her hand. Being pure crystal, it survives the fall, but the entire 120ml extra double-large peg bleeds into the floor, completely wasted.
His smell still in the air. His shape on the bed right in front of her. Her body started going numb from the outside in. She knew better than anyone that Abir was not just out of this room, he was out of this city. For the past three days, people in Rajshahi believed he was at his Dhaka home. And his family in Dhaka believed he was at his workstation in Rajshahi. No one in this wide world, except Sneha and Allah above, knew where Abir had hidden for those three days. Yet, wherever Sneha looks now, she finds him waiting in every corner of the room.
That afternoon, Sneha practically forced Abir to eat paratha with chicken soup by her own hand. He had no appetite. His body was running a slight fever. And on top of that, a splitting headache. Three days of nothing but whisky and not a single solid meal- who else would get a headache if not him, she told him all this and gave him a mild scolding while she was at it. In the morning she had ordered from Al Qaderia through Foodpanda- chicken soup and paratha, then made an egg omelette herself, and laid down the terms for Abir: no food, no more whisky. Whisky only after eating. That was the deal.
He kept putting it off, saying "in a bit, in a bit." After managing to get a little food into him, Sneha went downstairs. She doesn't really get fevers. And even when she does, she isn't the type to take medicine. So she doesn't keep Napa at home. What she does keep are things like Baclofen, Prodep, Olanz, Rivotril, or Feelfresh. Not that she takes those regularly either. But that day, not having a single Napa in the house was killing her. So after getting some food into Abir, she locked the front gate from outside and went down to the pharmacy to get Napa Extra.
While she was out, Abir’s texts kept buzzing- Made…moi…selle.. where are you? Come soon, I wanna talk. He only ever called her 'Mademoiselle' when he was either in a brilliant mood or absolutely plastered. Other than that, Abir never really had a specific name for her. Though sometimes he called her ‘babe’. Sneha, on the other hand, called him Amon in texts. Never to his face, though; she was a bit too shy for that. But you can't see a face over text, so she could type 'Amon', 'Amon pakhi' as much as she bloody well liked. She mostly stuck to Amon. It was the name of an ancient Egyptian god, the king of gods, actually. But she hadn't picked it because he was the king. She chose it because in ancient Egypt, Amon was worshipped as the life-giving god. And the best part? The name Amon literally meant 'the hidden or invisible one'. Just like Charles Bukowski’s bluebird, the one he had written about:
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not
going to let anybody see you...
Sneha loved this poem by Bukowski. She truly believed Abir was just like that bluebird in her own life. Hidden away, but incredibly precious. She had actually picked out another name for him too- Amado Aliento. A Spanish one. Amado meant beloved, and Aliento meant breath. Though it was a bloody gorgeous name, it was a bit too much of a mouthful, so she rarely texted him using it. Maybe once or twice, if that. She had spent hours and hours digging these names up, putting so much care into them.
Abir texts her again: Oi! How much longer? Clutching the medicine and two one-and-a-half-litre bottles of Mum water in one hand, Sneha types Coming, baba, hang on with the other, practically running back up to the flat. Since the lift was stuck on the fifth floor, she took the stairs, unlocked the gate, and rushed to Abir, completely out of breath. She pops a pill out of the Napa Extra strip, puts it in his mouth, and hands him the water bottle. She completely missed the text Abir had sent in the meantime: Mademoiselle, that soup was delicious. I wanna have some more. Hurrying up the stairs and fumbling with the lock made her miss it entirely.
No restaurant would even have chicken soup at that time of the afternoon. Hotels usually only serve it for breakfast, and it's completely gone after midday. Still, if she were outside, she could have at least checked. The poor sod hadn't eaten a thing in two days. She had jumped through hoops just to get him to swallow a few bites. He would actually like it enough to ask for more, and yet she couldn't bloody well get it for him!
Flooded with regret, she starts scrolling through Foodpanda looking for chicken soup. Abir stops her and pulls her down beside him. Before heading down, Sneha had put some water on the stove for his shower. There was no geyser in this flat. It was February, the weather was still a bit nippy, and the spring breeze was blowing all around. If he took a cold shower, he might catch a proper chill! He hadn't even bathed in two days. "You would feel so much better if you had a wash," Sneha says, sitting right in front of Abir.
Abir is staring at her. Sneha can see both affection and pure helplessness in his eyes. Unable to lock eyes with him for long, she looks away and says, Go on then, what’s this urgent thing you wanted to say? That you’re leaving me and off you go, yeah? I bloody well know that already. How many more times are you going to say it, Abir? Abir speaks up, Sneha... no! Why do you love a bloke like me? I can't give you anything. I won't ever be able to give you anything. Pausing for a second, he goes on, Why are you wasting your life? You’re intelligent, you’re pretty. I... I... I can't give you anything, and it fucking tears me apart! Sneha cuts him off, What do I even ask from you, Abir? Abir shakes his head and says, Nothing. That’s the whole damn problem. You ask for absolutely nothing, Sneha. It just makes me feel worse. It makes me feel guilty.
The clock was showing quarter to five. Sneha had set an alarm on her phone so they could leave for the airport two hours early. But looking at Abir, it seemed pretty clear he was planning to miss flight number seven as well. If his Chief hadn't been coming to Rajshahi from headquarters the next day, there was a real chance he wouldn't have left that day either. His eyes made it obvious- he didn't want to go. But there was no way around it.
From the night of the 24th, he had been pushing the Rajshahi trip back and back, and now it was five in the afternoon of the 26th. He had said it out loud a few times- I don't want to go. Then in the very next breath, but I have to. The Chief is coming. They will kick my ass. That morning, when Abir tried to sleep for a little while, he had pulled Sneha's sharee around himself first. Pulled it over himself and said to her, hold me from behind. There is no one who holds me like this.
It’s not that Sneha completely believes all this rubbish from Abir. Yet, a naive part of her subconscious sometimes wants to just blindly trust his words. Sneha never asks a single thing about Abir’s private life; she never wants to know. If Abir says something, she just listens. To Sneha, the only thing that actually matters is the exact moment Abir is with her, right by her side. Beyond that, his personal life, his family, his job- Sneha had never shown any interest in any of it until then. She never needed to, either. They were meeting every single month, talking regularly. Though after his posting to Rajshahi, it had been nearly two months before they finally managed to see each other that time.
We probably won't see each other for a long time, or maybe never again- that was likely the exact thing Abir had dragged her back from the pharmacy to say. But in that moment, he couldn't bring himself to be that cruel, or maybe he just lost his nerve. It was only after reaching the airport and getting on the bloody flight that he finally found the balls to be that ruthless. By then, he was completely out of her sight anyway. Even if Sneha was tearing herself apart in pain, Abir wouldn't have to watch it happen right in front of him, would he?