Train to Delhi by Shiv Kumar Kumar

his mind swung back to Rahul. Why didn’t he hate him, this painful remembrance of his wife’s infidelity? But that was beyond him, he knew. Even amidst the din of traffic, en route to Darya Ganj, he imagined himself hearing the child’s last words.
    â€˜Yes, I’m coming to you, my dear,’ he said to himself, as he knocked at the door. He hadn’t realized that it was already a little after twelve.
    Purnima, who’d somehow reached the house ahead of him, answered the door. Quickly, he walked through the drawing room, looking momentarily at Jamini Roy’s ‘Beggar Girl’ with her agonized blank stare. He turned into the bedroom where, on a leather sofa near the double bed, lay Rahul, dressed in the sailor’s uniform he’d brought him from Bombay. The child looked as though he was just asleep, tranquil and happy, after the day’s hectic play.
    All around the sofa ran little rills of water dripping from the large slabs of ice, heaped one on top of the other. Petals of roses and jasmine lay strewn on the sofa, and all over the floor. Since Gautam had removed his shoes out of respect for the dead, he felt the viscid wetness under his bare feet.
    As his eyes lingered on Rahul’s face, he remained oblivious of Sarita’s presence in the room. Sitting on a stool, far away in a corner, she watched him deeply engrossed in the child. Indeed, Gautam loved him very much—his wan face bore ample testimony to it.
    Then, as Gautam looked into the corner, their eyes met: a cold, silent encounter, neither of them uttering a word. This woman whose raucous, nagging voice had always rocked the house, now sat mute, almost vanquished. A riffle of compassion ran through him.
    Gautam now sat on the sofa, near Rahul, caressed his face and head. But just as he bent to kiss him on the forehead, he heard a knock at the door. Purnima rushed to answer it, but the person had already walked in. Mohinder! Two pairs of glazed eyes collided with each other.
    Gautam looked at his watch; it showed a half past twelve. Well, wasn’t he himself to blame for first coming late and then overstaying? Hadn’t Purnima discreetly assured him that there would be ‘nobody’ around ‘till noon’? Now that he’d stayed on well beyond the deadline, ‘Mr Nobody’ had made his appearance on the scene—as Rahul’s father and Sarita’s paramour. Gautam felt a stab of revulsion for this man and that woman.
    Immediately, he got up from the sofa and turned towards the door. He must clear out at once, he thought, and let the real parents take over. Wasn’t he like a neighbour who, after offering his condolences, should promptly withdraw? As the three of them looked at one another, it appeared as though they were acting in a pantomime—two men, a woman and a sleeping child.
    Then Gautam swung out of the room. Once out of the house, he felt the hot sun beating down his neck. The afternoon heat was sizzling like a furnace. How cool it had been in there, he recalled, near those slabs of ice. But then the other blaze now overtook him—of intense loathing.
    He had hardly gone a few yards down the street when he saw Mohinder running after him, breathlessly.
    â€˜A moment, p-l-e-a-s-e!’
    The words blared into the air; the silence of the past half hour was shattered. What was this man up to? Gautam braced himself for the confrontation.
    To hell with this man, he thought; if only he could bash his head against some lamp post.
    â€˜I’ve been wanting to have a word with you, alone.’
    â€˜Will you drop the prologue?’ Gautam shot off. ‘What do you want?’
    â€˜I know I’ve wronged you but, really, I’m not to blame.’
    There was strange pathos in his voice. He’d stopped in the middle of the street, his right hand nervously fidgeting with a curl near his forehead.
    â€˜I have no time to listen to all this. What’s done is