Serious Men

‘dynamic’ by the scientists because it was different almostevery day. Her long floral skirts and tight blouses, her fitted jeans, and opportunistic saris that made stenos comment unhappily on the foolishness of wearing the costume in the rains, terminated the near anonymity that she was beginning to enjoy. She knew that, but above everything else, she wanted to be a silly girl weaving mischief around her man.
    Acharya continued to ignore her. Sometimes, he would go all the way to the basement lab to ignore her. He would inspect the equipment, speak to the dozen research assistants there and ask questions. Oparna would wait for him to approach her and pass her by without a word. And she would whisper to him, ‘Can I call you, Arvind?’, or ‘You look so hot today’, or something else. This game went on, as the rains became the season, and the roads began to look so black and clean, people now a slow procession of umbrellas, the air so cool and sedative. Then one day Oparna went missing.
    She did not come to him, and when he went to the basement to ignore her there was no sign of her. He waited till noon and asked Ayyan to call her. ‘Don’t forget to tell her that I called to find out if there was any communication from ISRO, nothing else,’ he said. But Ayyan knew that it was the desperation of love. He tried her mobile the whole afternoon, but it just rang. Acharya would call him every ten minutes and ask, ‘Where is she?’ And Ayyan would tell him, ‘It’s just ringing, Sir.’ Then, to trouble him, he would say, ‘I hope she is all right.’
    ‘Try her landline,’ Acharya said.
    ‘We don’t have that number, Sir. I’ll keep trying.’
    Acharya began to pace the floor in his room. He thought she was hurt and angry, and had gone away forever. He also feared that she had died. And he felt the melancholy of the rains that reminded him of the departure of many friends who had left without a word, all courteous men otherwise. He started calling her himself from his direct line. He did not have a mobile, or he would have even endured the imbecility of texting. As the evening wore on, he became almost demented at the thought of her. He imagined her with a young man, an old flame whoalways pursued her but whom she had ignored, now getting lucky because she was spurned by an old fool. He kept calling her and waited angrily, holding the receiver to his ear as her ringtone sang, ‘Baby Can I Hold You?’
    Twenty floors above the sea, Oparna stood in her room staring through a wide open window. The thin purple curtains flapped wildly in the wind. She was in blue jeans and a T-shirt with a jovial amoeba embroidered on it. She was holding her mobile in her hand, and she was smiling. The smile became an insane chuckle every time the phone rang. She stood that way as the evening turned dark and the million windows in the monstrous buildings outside became illuminated. Then, as though a mystic cue had appeared in the starless sky, she reached for her car keys.
    Ayyan Mani had left for the day and the anteroom was deserted. Orphaned phones on his table rang intermittently. Oparna stood outside the inner door for a moment before she opened it. Acharya was sitting with his elbows on the table, chin cradled in his palms. He did not move as she walked in and stood in the middle of the room. She heard the door shut behind her. ‘It’s OK, I am here now,’ she said.
    ‘Where were you?’ he asked calmly.
    She sat in a chair across the desk and returned his stare. ‘Are you angry with me, Arvind?’ she said. ‘Do you want to hurt me?’
    They looked at each other through the heaviness of a silence that they somehow comprehended as a tired acceptance of love.
    ‘Arvind, I came here to say that you should not search for me tomorrow. I won’t be here. At ten in the night, come down to the basement. There won’t be anyone there. Just me and you. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
    ‘Yes.’
    She left a blue envelope on the table. It was sealed and scented. ‘These are my pictures,’ she said. ‘I got them for you. Keep them safe. Not all men are allowed to see me like this.’
    He took the envelope with great care, as if it were a piece of bread that had drowned in tea. He opened the second drawer of his desk and put it with the recent readings of interstellar dust-clouds.
    ‘Tomorrow at ten,’ she said, and went to the door. He looked at her back, the firmness of her shoulders, the imprint of her bra