Phone Calls

All this while Shimonthini lay in her hotel room wondering about how to deal with her husband's indiscretion. Why do women torture themselves for the fault of their dear and near ones? Shimonthini was no different. She saw in her husband's action her own inadequacy and her sister's supremacy and sought the upper hand by sleeping with the devil. She picked up the phone and asked for an international number.

Back in India Shinjini had been crying when the phone rang. Yes, Rahul finally proved that he was Rupert's half-brother. He maintained her dignity by keeping her absence in the house unto himself. But when even twin brothers fail to live by each other's ideal how are half-brothers any improvement to that. The Mukherjee blood in Rahul had boiled at her audacity. It appeared that Rupert had called Rahul to inform him that Shinjini was with him, safe. For a man, the idea of his wife being safe with his brother is nothing more than an insult especially if you never considered the brother your own. Rahul's boiling blood had vented itself in the form of the several wounds that lay evident on Shinjini's body.

Shinjini had been crying because she was in pain and because she had lain with the better of the two men feeling safer than perhaps she could be with her own father and that better man belonged to her sister. Shinjini had finally understood the mocking of Fates that had denied her the upper hand. She was destined to be the lesser of the two in action and in fortune. That was when her phone rang. Shinjini tried to gulp down the pain and the disappointment before she answered the phone. It was an international number and was probably a company phone. She didn't know a soul outside Kolkata leave alone India.

"Hello" It was her sister, solemn in accordance with her own mood and maturity.

"Hi" she replied. It was a long sentence in her own mind for lack of better words.

"How are you?" Shimonthini asked.

"Is this why you called? Do you really care how I am?" Shinjini charged her sister.

Shimonthini was taken aback. How was she to explain to her sister whether she cared for her or not? How would she explained the years she had spent yearning for a companion to her own heart and yet avoided contact not to contaminate her younger self with the ideas that had contaminated her. She was stupid at eighteen to run away alone in the hope of someone to take care of her. Henry had always been a good story teller.

"No Chini." Shimonthini finally said after a pause, "I do not care how you are. I am just a selfish bitch that has been working her ass off for so many years so that you could have a proper schooling and education and not be enamoured by a world you never get to experience. I am the woman who had been toiling night and day for the past one decade to ensure that you do not become the next Shimonthini Hazra. But that is not what I have called you to say. I have called to tell you that I forgive you."

Shinjini was taken aback at her audacity. How could this woman just come on and take credit for her entire life and how could she claim to forgive her for no wrong she had done. Did Rupert tell her anything? "What are you forgiving me for Saint Moni?"

"I saw you two together that night. I did not know what to say. Finally, I have decided that both of you are people who are close to me. What your brother in law did is perhaps not forgivable but if I do not forgive him I will not be able to spend the rest of my life with him. So the first stepping stone to that is to forgive you." Shimonthini exclaimed.

Shinjini wondered how this woman could even be real. Why do women act on assumptions more than fact? Shinjini had the urge to tell her sister that nothing happened that night. How could anything happen on Rupert's watch? How Shinjini wished their places could be interchanged and that yearning compelled her to lie to soothe her burning heart. "That was the best night I ever had. You may be ready to forgive me but I am not sorry for it."

All this while, Shimonthini was functioning on assumptions. All her doubts, fears, and everything stemmed from assuming that what could have led to her husband and her sister sharing a bed together. A large part of her mind had been telling her that she had all the wrong evidence and had all the wrong ideas. Suddenly she was the wrong person in the midst. Shinjini and Rupert desired one another and she was stuck in the middle.

"That is good. We shouldn't live with regrets in our life." Shimonthini could not believe her own voice. Did she just say that it was good that her sister had ruined the sanctity of her marriage? But she wasn't married and Rupert had been forced to rethink their match, postpone their wedding, their real wedding.

"You are honeymooning abroad?" Shinjini asked more out of jealousy than curiosity.

"Rup is here on work. We are not even sharing the same floor." Shimonthini explained. Shinjini whistled at the name of the hotel where she was staying. She wondered if it was a right thing to disrupt their marriage.

"He is a good guy di. Try and seduce him. He will be faithful once he is yours." Shinjini said. Shinjini could not see the smile on her sister's face at her words. Yet she could feel it. It felt good to do one good deed a day; more than one good deed would be too taxing for anyone. They wished each other for the day. The parting is always sweeter among siblings. It replaces the bickering and the jealousies with hope, a hope of a new day.

Shimonthini decided to shower and change before she would order room service. She wondered how it would be to invite her husband to share food in her room, to share her room.

As the water trickled down her body she could imagine her husband touching her. It was a strange way how a woman's heart changed sides. One minute it vouches for the man of her dreams but when faced with reality those dreams easily evaporate and the dreams make way for the reality despite how contrasting they may be. Rishi was never the man of her dreams. He was a part of her reality, a part that had entrapped her for too long and taken up too many years of her life. Rishi was not the man she had abandoned her family for. It was a story; a story was all she had to dream about all these years.

Suddenly the phone rang and Shimonthini went on to find the voice of the storyteller on the opposite side of the line. "What are you doing in London?" Henry beseeched her.

"I am starting a new phase of life." Shimonthini stated. "How did you know where I was?"

"I called your home from where I got your sister's number and she told me where you were staying. I am in London too and I want to meet you." Henry stated.

"I am married. I don't think it would be appropriate for me to meet another man without being chaperoned." Shimonthini said.

"Firstly I am gay and so you don't really need a chaperone to meet me. Secondly, it is the twenty-first century. Don't give me medieval crap." Henry insisted.

"You don't clearly understand Indian values and customs. It doesn't matter if you are gay or if you are more a sibling to me than my own sister. I am a newlywed bride. I cannot go cavorting with a stranger through the middle of London while my husband is submerged in his work." Shimonthini said.

"This is work too, your work. Are you going to tell me that you do not have the right to earn your own money just because you are married now?" Henry asked.

"If my husband asks me to I will go out and earn but you know all that I had wanted in life was to be taken care of and finally I am getting what I wanted. With Rishi, I was always the caretaker and now I don't need to be any more." Shimonthini explained.

"OMG! Now I realize why you are so adamant about maintaining this charade of a marriage. You have found a replacement Bert for your dreams." Henry stated.

"My husband is not a replacement for anyone. I loved your brother once. I loved him without ever meeting him. I don't even know what he looks like. That wasn't really loving. It was a fantasy. But my husband is real. He is not replacing your brother. He is the one I was destined for and I wish to live every single day of my life with him and if that means giving off my past then so be it. I want to live for a future." Shimonthini exclaimed.

"But Monique has some unfinished business that you need to complete," Henry said.

"What kind of business?" Shimonthini asked.

"Meet me in the hotel lobby at least. Bring your husband if you want but be sure first that he is willing to pay off a million dollar debt to the Phoenix group of industries." Henry said.

"Debt! Whose Debt is it?" Shimonthini asked.

"Well according to the paper works it is your debt. You signed the papers." Henry said.

"When can you meet me?" Shimonthini asked desperate to know more.

"I am sitting in the hotel lobby right now," Henry said.

"I am coming." Were the last words Henry heard before the elevator come down.

Shimonthini didn't notice the shadow at the door as she kept the phone and rushed to get ready. The smile on Rupert's face wasn't joy, it was happiness. If he had doubts about his wife's intentions towards him, they were relieved. He was about to knock but decided against it. What others didn't know was that he owned the hotel where they were staying and the penthouse was his personal suite. He had spare keys for it. He was glad to find his wife wrapped in a bathrobe professing her loyalty to him and her intentions to work for this marriage. But what debt did she have? Rupert would make sure that his wife didn't owe anyone anything. He had the urge to stand in front of her and forbid her to fret about anything. But he didn't wish to step on her toes. He hid in the kitchen as his wife rushed off to meet someone. Who could she be meeting in London he didn't know. He took out his phone and made a call to Fernando, his chief of security.

"Follow her" he instructed.