Breathe

07. Radha Bose

By the time Aditya and I leave the grubby, grimy police station, we are well into the evening. The sky is a mixture of blue and tangerine, dappled with gray clouds promising rain. There was no downpour yesterday, despite a similar occurrence. Climbing back into the car, we both exhale, and I light my eighth cigarette of the day.

'Should you really be smoking this much?' asks Aditya, his voice low and weathered.

'Probably not,' I say, exhaling puffs of smoke, watching them disappear into the sky outside.

'What a day.'

'Yeah,' I say. Pandey confessed to everything – killing his wife by threatening Ajay Bhansali to murder her, and trying to kill us. He seemed resigned to his fate, and somehow oddly peaceful, too. When asked why he did it, he said simply – "I had to protect my daughter from that monster."

I feel exhausted, my nerves thoroughly wrung from the unexpected panic attack, the flashbacks, the shootout. I had forgotten what being in a firefight feels like – the suffocation, the paralyzing fear, the unparalleled rush of adrenaline. I managed to overcome everything this time; what about next time my partner needs me to keep a level head? I cannot keep on going like this. Perhaps I need medication now; anything to avoid a repeat of what happened today.

'Hey,' says Aditya, looking at me, 'you saved my life, okay? You came out on top.'

'This time.'

'Maybe there won't be a next time.'

'I can't risk our lives on a "maybe".'

'You don't want to put yourself on medication,' he says quietly. 'Trust me, I know. There's no end to it. You'll be on meds for the rest of your life.'

'Maybe I need to be. You saw me. You saw what was happening to me. I can't have that anymore. I... I can't, okay? Panic attacks are hell. I don't know how you endure them every day.'

'I have to. It's happening every day only for now. There's no identifiable pattern to it, but I get them for a week, then there's a gap, then I get them for, say, a month, and so on. That's the very essence of panic disorder – I'm helpless. Endure them is all I can do.'

'Yeah, well, at least you're talking about it instead of being a distant asshat like you usually are.'

'Dropping A-bombs, huh? Someone's stressed.'

'I'm not in the mood for a back and forth, Aditya.'

'Yeah, sorry. We need to talk to Shruti, tell her what went down. I'd rather she hear everything from us than the police.'

'You're right. We'll go to her place now.'

Starting the engine, I pull onto the road. My legs feel like they are made of lead, and I cannot wait to just collapse on my bed and pass out. Perhaps I shall have a drink or two first. But loose ends are something I have never been comfortable with, and so Shruti is whom we shall visit first. At least now Aditya can pursue his interest in her unfettered.

Mechanically, I guide the car through traffic, weaving past slower vehicles, making way for faster ones, all the while trying to stay focused and alert. More than ninety minutes later, when it is dark outside, we finally reach Tangra. Aditya looks like he is fast asleep, and I can barely keep my eyes open either. A few minutes later, we are in the belly of the neighbourhood, almost at Shruti's building. The streets seem quiet and derelict, a relic from times forgotten.

'Car,' slurs Aditya suddenly, startling me.

'What?'

'Behind,' he continues, eyes half-open. 'Mirror. Car. Following. Black.'