The Beautiful Broken

#7

#7 In which A and Z finally talk

He helped her sit down on the sofa and got busy in looking at her wound. He didn't look at her directly. Just acted most professional and impersonal. He said nothing just put her arm gently down . She waited for him to say something. He didn't. He just walked to the door and then she immediately looked up. "What happened, she thought, why are you going? .

He didn't walk through but just kept on standing at the door and staring outside intently. A couple of minutes passed and then another couple. She was now feeling perplexed, What is happening? She kept waiting, puzzled. Why had he come? If only to watch the scene of Dr Asifa's garden ? Why wasn't he saying anything.

Ten minutes and still no change. Now she was all kinds of intrigued and annoyed. Who does he think he is , coming in and refusing to speak and just standing and looking out of the door with his back to her. How long is he going to stand there, all evening? What is this, some kind of contest? She was now getting annoyed. Why does everything have to be at his pleasure? Hullo? You there?

She didn't say anything aloud . Then when it was almost a quarter of an hour of this ridiculous behaviour, she could no longer stand it. She got up and decided to give him a piece of her mind. She walked to him and could see by the tension in his body that he heard her walking to him.

She stopped next to him and asked " Kya kar rahe hain aap yahan?

He looked at her and she saw he was in a towering rage all right. He looked really angry and upset and glowering. Immediately she calmed down and asked him "okay I can see you are angry. What happened?Tell me please why are you so upset?

A : "Really Zubi, you want to ask me this question? You can meet everyone... Dr Haroun and Dr Shahab and God alone knows, maybe half the village and all the nurses and the watchman. And you can't meet me? Now I am even worse than Dr Haroun and Dr Shahab. Everyone comes back and tells me you spoke to them. And I am the only person in this entire Valley who you can't meet. Wow, aren't I lucky?. I am reduced to begging my staff for some news of you. How dare Dr Haroun have his tea with you? How dare Dr Shahab come back and tell me casually he met you and you looked serene.. You have no right to look serene when I am so upset. You lock me out and then you ask me what is upsetting? You resolutely ignore my existence for the past 7 days, you don't let me come and say thank you. You dont let me even act as your doctor. I mean why should Dr Shehroze be your doctor. The past year you have been my responsibility and now suddenly I am persona non-grata. And then you think you can ask me what is wrong?

He looked so jealous and upset and unable to manage his reactions. Zubi looked at him and started smiling, which turned into a laugh which irritated him all the more because he just turned his back at her. Laughing, she moved in front of him and put her uninjured hand on his arm and said Okay, okay stop sulking now. I am listening to you. Come sit here.

He came willingly and sat next to her but still was annoyed. She still laughed at him and his scowling anger, till he grudgingly smiled back at her.

She thought, why does everything become so crystal clear and light and easy when I am with him. It was only when they were not together that she started thinking her own negative thoughts about the relationship. She looked back at her interactions with him; when she was near him everything seemed so simple, straight and marvellously clear.

Asfandyar looked at her and felt all the anger and tension leave him. He was seriously wild with jealousy and had decided that come what Dr Shehroze said OR Dr Asifa felt, he was not going to stay away anymore. He thought he knew that when she was with him she wouldn't be able to lie to herself. In any case he needed to be with her, maybe even more than she needed to be with him.