Page 79

She smiled. The amusement softening, as if she had succeeded in making him smile.

Samarth hadn’t imagined he would smile tonight, forget breathe easy.

But now after this conversation, he was clear on a lot of things — the biggest of them: he was winning Ava and his daughter back and holding onto them like his life depended on it. Because it did.

————————————————————

The next morning, Samarth started his redemption at dawn by sitting Harsh down and confessing the repercussions of his greatest sin, a sin Harsh had resentfully become a part of too. He expected Harsh to be as understanding, as encouraging as Rajmata.

Don’t talk to me! — He gestured and stormed out of the room. Only to come back 10 seconds later to pull him into a crushing embrace. Thump! Thump! Thump!

Samarth suspected those thumps were his form of punishment because then he pushed off and stormed back out.

After that, Samarth waited for a respectable show of hands on the clock and drove himself out of the hotel in a rental.

He navigated the narrow D-roads that twisted like sleepy secrets through the Loire countryside.

The mist still clung to the earth like a lover reluctant to part, and beyond the hedgerows, sheep stood in dew-drenched pastures, necks flicking.

He knew the way now. That little turn off the départementale into a winding lane edged with wild brambles and poppies.

That wrought iron gate. The security guard stood to his feet but did not move to open the gate.

Samarth parked his car and got out, walking to the gate on foot.

The gravel crunched beneath his boots. The honeyed limestone house stood just as he’d left it — warm and self contained, like a secret not meant to be told but still aglow in the sun.

“Est-ce que Madame Ava est à la maison?” [89]

“Qui êtes-vous, monsieur?” [90]

Samarth opened his mouth to answer but an excited squeal beat him to it — “Chevalier!”

His eyes fell shut. The voice… unlike that first time, this time he knew this voice belonged to him.

“Kind man?!” She tried again, running towards him in his peripheral vision. He turned and there she was, across the bars of the wrought iron gate, dashing with her riding boots on, a kit bigger than her body dragging behind her. Was that a polo kit?

“You remember me?” She crashed into the bars, holding them between her tiny fingers.

He got down on his haunches — “Of course, I remember you. You gallop your pony when nobody’s looking, you have secret tunnels in your house and are always kind unless somebody is mean to you.

You also speak to your Naniji every evening and Nanaji at nights. ”

Her mouth opened in the cutest O he had ever seen. Her eyes were bigger, cuter Os and he didn’t know where to focus his attention.

“Do you remember me?” He asked, cueing their conversation forward.

“Brahmi, please go inside to Mama,” the security guard nodded. Samarth glanced at him and wanted to detest that but he was also relieved to know that’s how tight the security was.

“But I know him!” She tipped her head back to the guard. “He came to my riding lessons, then he was kind to Mama…” she looked back to him — “Do you know what I am going to do today?” She rose on her tiptoes. “Use a mallet!”

“Are you learning polo?”

“Only on-foot drills. Today I will practise on the poooonyyyy!!!” Her legs cantered and danced like Cherry’s. Samarth thought his whole being would burst at the sight of her joy.

“Brahmi!” Ava’s loud holler broke their conversation.

Samarth rose to his full height just as she came barreling down the paved path, Brahmi’s bag, bottle and her own purse loaded on her.

She was again in a trench coat, this one a pink so light that it was white.

Her hair was open and billowing in the wind, her eyes not as impassive as yesterday. They were borderline enraged.

“We are getting late.”

“But the kind man is back!”

Ava smiled, first at her daughter, then at him — “Hi. I am so sorry, we are getting late. Let’s finish this another time?”

“Oh,” Samarth glanced from her to Brahmi. “Are you going to the resort?”

A broken-toothed-smile made its appearance and the pretty head bobbed.

“Listen…”

“I was going there too. Mind if I catch a ride?”

Ava looked like she would strangle him if their daughter wasn’t here and he invitingly pushed his neck forward. The wrought iron bars were the only screening between her hands and him.

“You have a car,” she smiled. “I’m sure you can find your way.”

“It’s… umm, giving me some trouble today. Please? Return the favour?”

Silence. Daggers from her eyes. Then — “You have to return favours, Mama,” Brahmi nodded solemnly.

“Mmm,” Ava ground her teeth. “Of course. Wait here. Come, Brahmi,” Ava took her hand and walked down to her car, mumbling to her all the way.

Samarth observed them, the parched beggar again, looking at how easily Ava lifted her up and boosted her into her seat.

He was bummed by the buckle that was repaired now.

He had looked forward to holding Brahmi in his arms again.

A hot gaze on the side of his face made him turn and the security guard was looking at him without flinching.

Samarth bore his scrutiny and stepped back as he opened the gate for Ava’s car.

He thought she would race past him but she stopped.

Without giving her a moment to leave him stranded, he opened the door and hopped in.

“Thanks again,” he said as she turned the wheel and got on the road.

No response.

“So, tell me, kind girl — what have you learned so far in your mallet training?” He asked Brahmi over his shoulder.

She pursed her lips, her cheeks blowing to full. Then shrugged. He frowned, turned his body in the seat and waggled his eyebrows.

“Mama said I can’t tell strangers everything.”

Samarth’s smile wobbled, but he held it in place — “She is right. I am a stranger. But hey, we can start over? You make strangers friends by getting to know them, talking to them, right?”

She nodded vigorously.

“And,” Samarth turned in his seat to give Ava a sideways glance — “After we take our parents’ permission.”

“Mama, can we make him our friend?”

Ava smiled into the rearview, like she had a weapon up her arsenal — “Of course we can. But first we have to ask them what is their name, what do they do, where do they live?”

She thought that would deter him?

“Hi,” he twisted his hand back between the seats, palm up — “I am Samarth Sinh Solanki. I am 34 years old. I am a polo player and I live in a beautiful city called Nawanagar in India. It is by the sea and has some very, very old temples. Very big too. There are also lots of horses and lakes.”

Ava was struck silent. And a loud clap on his palm made her flinch.

“I am Brahmi Scindia and I am 7 years old. I will turn 8 on October 7th and go to Cours élémentaire 1. I live in Noire Valley and go to Paris for summer break and Delhi for winter break.”

“Delighted to make your acquaintance, Brahmi.”

“I like your name. It’s my favouritest season.”

A full-blown laugh erupted from inside him.

“Thank you, Brahmi, but my name is Samarth. It means competent.”

“What’s that, Samarth?”

“Umm… somebody who…”

“We do not call elders by their names,” Ava thundered.

“Sorry… uncle Samarth…”

“Sam,” he cut her off, not about to have his own daughter call him uncle. “My field name is Sam. Do you know that?”

“What’s a field name?”

“It’s a name you may get when you start playing polo matches. Mine is Sam.”

“I like Sam.”

“Then I like it too.”

Ava’s eyes glanced sideways at him, something familiar from decades ago playing between them.

“What will my field name be, Sam?”

“Brahmi, you cannot call elders by their name.”

“But if she is calling me by my nickname? Or title? Sam is my title on the field,” he argued.

“You know my pony’s name is Chloe?” His little master of subject changes struck again. She was his saviour where her mother’s ire was concerned.

“Is it? My pony’s name is Moti.”

The indicator tick of the car signalled him to the resort’s gate and Samarth felt the shift in Brahmi’s mood. From joyful and excited she went downright giddy. Even before their car had stopped she was working to break free of her car seat and reach for her protective gear.

“Easy, baby, wait,” Ava parked the car. Samarth got out and reached the door before she could, opening it for her.

She gave him a look before getting her daughter out.

Then, very patiently and very gracefully, she fastened her knee guards, elbow guards and finally the helmet.

Brahmi dutifully tipped her chin as Ava did her chin straps, reminding him of another ritual from back in time.

For eight years he had done his helmet buckle on his own.

“Ready!” Brahmi pumped her fist in the air close to his stomach and he focused on her. Her helmet was snug down on her forehead. He tipped it until it kept the edge from shadowing her eyes.

“You look better than ready,” he held his hand up. She chucked it. Then grabbed her tiny mallet and swung it. It wasn’t the best swing he had seen but she looked like a princess doing it. An equestrian princess like she was.

A whistle echoed and Ava patted her back — “Go run. Monsieur Alain is starting.”

She ran and Samarth followed her, escaping the conversation that was following him like a shadow. The moment he left the shade of Brahmi, it would be upon him.

“Watch me gallop!” She shouted at him over her shoulder and kept running, mallet swinging.

“I’ll be right here, don’t forget to give me a clap!” He hollered back. She raised a thumbs up. Samarth stopped at the end of the fencing, kids already gathering at the mouth of the stables, working through the drill of pony care and stable etiquette.

“What do you want from us?” Ava’s quiet, firm words echoed close to his shoulder. His head turned and bent. There she was, her head close to his bicep, her eyes again impassive.

“Ava,” he turned his body towards her. “I don’t know where to start talking.

What to even say to you except…” he swallowed.

“I am a father. A father ! You gave me this and didn’t even…

” he shut his eyes. Took a deep breath. Then opened them again — “I cannot blame you. I do not blame you after how I treated you. But… now that I know this, I cannot turn away and forget that I saw this, saw you, saw her.”

“Then turn away and remember . But do it far away from my daughter and me. She is a chirpy, happy girl. She talks to flowers if I let her…”

“Like you talked to the walls of our class?”

“Look, Samarth, she is not one of your musical chairs. You cannot play with her and then run away to your throne claiming either-or. And if you do not listen nicely, I will start acting not-so-nicely.”

“What is not-so-nicely.”

“I know how to get a restraining order.”

He stilled.

“I am her father.”

“Go prove it. It’s a long-drawn battle out there. You have the money and the means, so do I. She will suffer, but maybe that’s your SOP.”

“Enough.”

Her mouth snapped shut. He had held every negative emotion inside him, guilty to the peak of his nose. He had drank down every drop of this poison. He wasn’t a saint though. But looking down at this sweet sweet girl who was now just a tough warrior, the gumption in his chest circled back down.

He exhaled. “You are the type of person who can’t even make her enemy suffer, forget daughter, Ava. So do not issue these empty threats to me. I know you.”

“I am not the same girl you knew.”

“You think I haven’t changed in the last eight years?”

She gaped at him, tongue-tied.

“All I ask is that you listen to me, sit and let me talk. Let me tell you what my compulsions were. Why my intentions were. My…”

“I do not owe you a single second of my time.”

“You owe me more than your time, Ava. You have been keeping something that is half mine for eight years without telling me.”

Her eyes widened.

“Pay up,” he commanded.

“Pay up what?”

“What is owed to me.”

“What? Seven years with me so she gets to stay seven years with you?” She scoffed.

“Oh, but don’t you know I am a Gujarati? I play on interests. She gets to stay with me. And you too.”

“Just get lost, Samarth. Fuck off!”

“Pay up, Ava,” he stepped closer to her, seeing rage and tension and heat burn in her erstwhile emotionless eyes.

“Stop it! This is my child we are talking about!”

“ Our child.”

“Saaaam!!!” His head whipped to that happy, giddy sound and he pushed his hand out in time for her to clap it as she galloped past. Like the very wind.

“Slow…” he hollered just as Delacour called out — “ Ralentir, Galopine! [91] ”

He came strolling down the curve of the pen and stopped close to them — “Hey, Sam, you are back. You didn’t pick up a horse for a ride yesterday?”

Samarth opened his mouth to answer but Delacour’s eyes fell to Ava and crinkled — “Bonjour, chérie.” He reached across the fencing and kissed her cheek. A lingering kiss. Her calves stretched, her body went on tiptoes and she kissed his cheek back.

“Bonjour, Vince.”