We read the news by Indira Chandrasekhar (India)

We read the news, how are you, we are so concerned, we send our love, know that we care, we hope you were not affected, hope you’re ok.

The messages poured in from around the world, incomprehensible.

In the past, Keva and Ram too had sent messages to friends in disaster zones, war, terrorism, flood. Why didn’t her friends in disaster zones tell her the messages made no sense? Why were there so many friends in disaster zones?

She was a friend in a disaster zone to someone now.

Andreas called. From Zurich. A safe town, everyone said when Keva first moved there. Too quiet, she responded when she moved back to India.

Andreas talked, expressing concern with a Swiss accent, a professional understanding of trauma. She didn’t hear a word. Her neurons had shut down. She functioned on memory. “Hello” in response to a hello, then a “Very well thank you”, words whose meaning she didn’t understand.

The smell had settled on her nasal membranes as if they had independent memory and remembered the strange animal-smelling seepage, like the sewers of a slaughterhouse, that had congealed in a crust on her skin, a dried layer of blood and excreta, thick, dark brown with fragments of pink fluorescence.

***

“It’s a beautiful sari, Lakshmi.”

It was. A sharp, rich pink, fluorescent in its intensity, made from the finest lightest, most translucent silk organza. Lakshmi barely acknowledged the compliment. Nothing nice to say about Keva’s clothes either. Keva had lost weight, it had been hard work, and her outfit was elegant – designer, Sabyasachi – she looked good. But Lakshmi didn’t see it.

They waited to be seated. Ram hadn’t yet arrived. Lakshmi was busy talking to a handsome man Keva didn’t know. Keva looked around. The structured, architectural floral arrangement, lobster claw stems extending ground-ward from a tall glass tube, made extraordinary shadows on the polished stone wall. Distinct dark shapes, merging with their own gleaming reflections. She felt dwarfed – by the flowers, by the shadows, by Lakshmi’s lack of interest in her.

Then Ram walked into the restaurant and Keva’s spirit soared. He still did that to her, after all the years together, just the sight of him. She wanted to tell him that but she was hemmed in. By Lakshmi, by the others, by the granite block on which the flowers stood. Keva watched him, compelling him to look at her.

But when he saw Lakshmi, he stopped scanning the cluster of waiting guests. A hint of a smile appeared, a facial transition Keva thought he reserved only for her. He bent to greet Lakshmi.

Keva had never felt jealous before. She was the centre of Ram’s world. She knew that. He made her feel. He loved her.

But Lakshmi… For the first time Keva saw his lust directed at someone other than herself. Did he feel this way about other women too? Lakshmi’s dark, narrow waist shone through the pink translucence. He was excited by it, Keva could tell. Lakshmi’s hair flicked on his shoulder, she held herself back and Ram leaned into her, breathing in, inhaling her perfume. He kissed her cheek.

He looked up, and saw Keva. He hadn’t known she was watching him. A fine, tight fold appeared between his brows. She tried to step forward but was there was no way through. Did her face show her anxiety?

People stepped aside as he moved towards her. Keva smiled, trying to engage him. Tension lines creased his face.

“Sorry, sorry”, she mumbled, angry with herself.

He started to say something. What was it? She waited. But …

“Ram, about that email I sent you,” Lakshmi said. And Ram straightened and raised his eyelids as if to let in every aspect of Lakshmi’s image, eyes transfixed in fascination.

***

The world was in chaos. Ram was throwing himself at Keva. He was heavy. Her elbow jarred into the stone floor.

A shattering staccato sound. A sharp acridity burnt her nostrils.

Lakshmi was crashing backwards into her, screaming. Bits of meat flew everywhere, not meat from the buffet, bits of flesh. A man lay on top of Lakshmi’s legs. Her head was flung back, a gory, shredded hole opened in her shining waist, moving, pulsing.

Keva didn’t question the new reality. She understood everything and nothing. Her face was sideways on the cool stone floor. Fluorescent fabric covered her. There was weight on her, warm weight. Crushing her. She knew not to move.

Her eyes were open, irises expanded, in the dim restaurant lighting filtered through the pink organza. Wide angle reflections cast directly onto her retina causing a bizarre stimulation of optic nerves. The veins of red in the stone floor lifted away from the surface, following paths of their own, deep, deep red, etched centuries ago into the soft limestone strata by rivers of iron. The fine network was alive, dynamic, joining moving, clotted pathways of fluid carmine blood.

She moved her pupils. Carved red lobster claw bracts were scattered over the beautiful shining ice that covered the floor. A boot crunched on the ice. The pressure didn’t crush the crystals. The crystals didn’t generate pools of liquid water. It wasn’t ice but glass, shards of glass, from the vase.

The boot crunched and a face appeared, young and boyish with a wild, elevated expression. He was looking into victim’s eyes, searching for life. Keva brought her eyelids down, shut out the light, shut out the boy. There was a shout and she heard him withdraw hurriedly. It was safe to look.

The waiter, Khushrau, was rising. Meher’s son. Meher, her friend from grade 9. Meher who lived in the Parsi colony. Meher who had married late and had a twenty-three year old son, Khushrau, just out of catering college, at his first job.

Keva never knew one could see so much with one eye. One-and-a-half eyes, for she could see from the eye closest to the floor although her vision was impeded by the bridge of her nose. Khushrau stood up. He was tall and gangly and young. He swayed a little, confused, then turned to the desert buffet that lay in disarray. His fingers were lit by the spot in the ceiling, pale and bony. He straightened the cake stand, dusting off crumbs and arranging the pink and yellow frosted pastries with care and concentration.

“Look at that one, he’s not dead, the bastard.” And just like in the movies, Khushrau’s body began to spray blood and tissue as it lifted and danced to the beat of the sound and the fire.

Keva’s muscles tightened as a scream rose through her chest. But before her throat expanded and her mouth opened, a hand clamped down across her face and Ram’s voice said “Shh!” Then she heard him say, although there was no sound, “I love you.”

***

She was at home. She was clean. Except for the brown crust of blood and excreta that adhered to her skin. She had washed it with burning hot water and scrubbed it with pumice but it was there. She could feel it. She could smell it.

Her sister was on her mobile phone in the kitchen. She was describing how the gunmen had entered the restaurant, how they had opened fire, how Keva had been saved because Ram had pushed her down because he was facing the door and seen the attackers raise their guns, how a granite flower-stand had acted as a shield, how shards from a broken vase surrounded Keva but miraculously hadn’t cut her, how her friend Lakshmi had been killed.

Was she my friend, Keva thought.

“They brought Keva home three days ago”, her sister’s voice continued. “She lay under Lakshmi for 60 hours.” Her sister was crying.

Her voice was softer but audible. “No, no, they haven’t found Ram”, she said into her telephone.

He was there, he was there, he was right there, on top of me, Keva cried out, but they didn’t hear her.

Her sister was saying, “We told them that Keva said he was on top of her. But some of the bodies were dragged into a different room. They think Ram’s body was taken too.

But he was alive, Keva said. He covered my mouth and said “Shh.”

“Keva insists he was alive, that they couldn’t have dragged him away. We’ve asked them to look. They haven’t yet identified the bodies but they haven’t found anyone else alive.”

But he was alive, Keva said. He told me he loved me.

“Yes, it’s true”, her sister continued. “But I don’t know what identification to give them. The problem is, Keva is the only one who knew what he was wearing at the restaurant and I can’t ask her.”

Andreas continued to talk over the hall phone.

“I’ll run you through what to expect Keva. So you are not surprised by it”, he said. He told her how for three days she would feel numb, then in one week she would feel terror and after that her brain would attempt to express the anxieties via nightmares, fear attacks, diarrhoea, chills, rage, panic. The list of reactions was long and meaningless. Keva said, “Very well, thank you.”

“You will see things in your mind that will seem present. Things you remember. Things that you can’t remember, that are unreal. They are ways for your brain to block pain and escape from the trauma. You will see things your brain wishes to see. Don’t worry Keva, these are normal responses to an abnormal event.”

She nodded but he didn’t know that.

“Do you hear me, Keva”, he repeated. His voice was urgent. “Physical contact will help you. Hug someone, Keva. Hold someone.”

But Ram wasn’t here. How would she hug him?

“Pay attention to me Keva. I will send you a list of how to cope. Yoga, exercise, healthy food, no coffee, ….”

Where was Ram? Did he love her? He told her he did.

She stood in the hallway. She could see, she could hear, she could sense a brown crust of excreta and blood on her skin. But she could not feel.

The door bell rang. Keva stood still, phone receiver in hand. Someone hurried over from the kitchen and opened the door.

Ram walked in. He was dirty, covered in ash and a brown crust, a soiled bandage around his arm. He smiled directly at Keva.

Keva’s entire being exploded into tears as she opened her arms.

***

Until recently, Indira Chandrasekhar, who has a PhD in Biophysics, studied the dynamics of biological membranes in laboratories in India, the United States and Switzerland.  Since returning to India after more than 17 years abroad, she has been writing fiction with an increasing focus on the short story. Her work has appeared at The Big Table and will appear in The Grey Sparrow Journal and in the forthcoming collection of Unisun Publications in whose annual competition she received recognition. She can be followed at Indi’s Blog (http://indi-cs-blog.blogspot.com).