Half Girlfriend Read online

  Did I hallucinate? I asked myself. No, I had seen her. The walk, the gait, the face—there is only one Riya.

  I rushed to the foyer and just about saw her leave in an Innova. She had sunglasses on. The car windows were rolled up.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ a young hotel staff member at the concierge desk asked me.

  ‘The lady who left just now. You saw her? Mustard salwar-kameez?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where did she go?’

  ‘We don’t know, sir. It’s a private taxi.’

  ‘Will she be back?’

  ‘Not sure, sir. Sorry. Is there a problem, sir?’

  I shook my head. I walked back into the hotel, wondering what to do next.

  I went to the coffee shop again and found the waiter.

  ‘You just gave a bill to a lady.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘She might be an old friend of mine. Can I see it?’

  The waiter looked at me with suspicion.

  ‘I was just here with the foreigners. We sat there,’ I said, pointing to our table. If you are seen hanging out with white guys, people assume you are not a bad person.

  The waiter went to the cash counter. He brought back the bill. I saw her signature. Yes, I had bumped into Riya Somani, after all.

  ‘231,’ the waiter said. ‘She signed the bill to her room.’

  ‘She is staying here?’ I said.

  ‘Of course,’ the waiter said. He looked at me as if I was a certified idiot.

  I heaved a sigh of relief. I came to the reception and enquired about a guest named Riya in 231.

  ‘Yes, it is a company booking. She is here for a week.’

  ‘When will she come back?’

  ‘Can’t say, sir. If you leave your name and number we can ask her to contact you.’

  I wasn’t sure if Riya would do that. If I had to meet her, I had no choice but to wait. I decided to skip my English classes. I sat in the lobby, my eyes fixed on the entrance.

  I waited for twelve hours.

  I didn’t allow myself to use the bathroom lest I miss her again. I didn’t eat food or drink water all day either. My eyes scanned every car arriving at the hotel.

  At seven in the evening, Samantha, Chris and Rachel returned from their trip. Their faces had turned black with Bihar’s dust. They looked exhausted.

  ‘Madhav?’ Samantha said, surprised.

  ‘Oh, hi,’ I said, pretending to be equally astonished. ‘I came for another meeting.’

  ‘At Chanakya itself?’ Samantha said.

  I nodded. Chris said he needed a shower or he would die. They left me in the lobby and went up to their rooms.

  At 8.30 p.m., an Innova pulled into the front porch. Riya stepped out of it. My heart started to play hopscotch. A part of me wanted to run away. It shuddered at the thought of facing her. Another part had made me sit here without a break for twelve hours.

  She didn’t notice me. She went up to the reception.

  ‘231, please,’ she said. The receptionist turned towards the key rack.

  I walked up to the reception. ‘Excuse me, which way is the coffee shop?’ I said. I had to make it seem like she saw me first. That’s Riya. She had to find me. If I found her, she might just run away.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Riya said. ‘Madhav Jha.’

  ‘Riya. . . Riya Somani, right?’ I said.

  ‘Wow, you have difficulty recollecting my name, Madhav Jha!’

  ‘Riya Somani,’ I said, giving up all pretence of indifference. The receptionist seemed surprised at the happy coincidence right at her counter.

  Riya took her keys and we stepped away from the counter.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she said. ‘Wow, I still can’t get over it. Madhav Jha.’

  ‘I am a Bihari. This is Patna. My hometown is not far away. I should ask you what you are doing here.’

  ‘Work. My company sent me.’

  ‘Work?’

  ‘Yeah, you didn’t think I could work?’ Riya said.

  ‘No, nothing like that. What kind of work? You moved to London, right?’

  Riya looked around the hotel lobby.

  ‘Let’s talk properly,’ she said. ‘You had dinner?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Hungry?’

  I could have eaten the flowers in the lobby at this point.

  ‘A little bit,’ I said.

  ‘Let’s go to the coffee shop.’

  ‘Okay, but can I use the toilet first?’ I said.

  We entered the coffee shop. The waiter from the morning was still on duty. He gave me an all-knowing smile. I smiled back.

  ‘You found madam,’ he said. Ass, I thought.

  ‘What?’ Riya said.

  ‘Nothing. Yes, for me and madam. Table for two, please. ’

  23

  We sat at a corner table and had our first meal together in three years. The effect some people’s mere presence can have on you is indescribable. Everything on offer in the rather ordinary evening buffet tasted divine. The salty tomato soup was the best I had ever had. The matar-paneer tasted like an award-winning chef had made it. The lights from the traffic jam visible outside the window looked like fireflies. I kept silent, worried I would say something stupid to upset her or, worse, make her run away.

  ‘You’ve become so quiet,’ she said.

  ‘Nothing like that,’ I said. I looked at her. She looked, if possible, even more stunning than she had been in college.

  ‘So, tell me, what have you been up to?’ she said.

  Over the next ten minutes, I told her about my life since college.

  ‘You run a school. And Bill Gates is visiting it,’ she said. ‘Wow.’

  ‘He’s visiting many places.’

  ‘Come on, don’t be modest. You are doing something so different from the rest of our batchmates.’

  ‘I’m a misfit, I guess. Who leaves HSBC to come to Dumraon?’ I said.

  ‘Cool people,’ Riya said. Our eyes met. I tried to read her, considering she had said so little about herself. I couldn’t find anything too different, apart from a touch of maturity. I wanted to ask her about her past few years. However, I wouldn’t push it.

  ‘How’s Rohan?’ I said.

  ‘You remember his name? So what was that “Riya, Riya Somani, right?” business in the lobby?’

  I smiled. She had caught me red-handed.

  ‘Rohan should be fine,’ she said.

  ‘Should be?’

  ‘I don’t know. He must be.’

  ‘Rohan is your husband, right?’

  She became quiet.

  ‘You want anything sweet? They have kulfi and gulab jamun,’ I said, desperate to change the topic.

  ‘We got divorced,’ she said in a calm voice, as if she had expressed her sweet-dish preference.

  I didn’t have anything to say. Apart from shock, I felt a warm tingle at the back of my neck.

  Had I just felt happy at what she said? I clenched my teeth. I didn’t want my smile to leak out.

  Oh my God, that is the best news I have heard in years, a cheerful voice spoke inside my head. Even my soul jumped about in excitement.

  I tried to look as serious as possible.

  ‘That’s terrible,’ I said at last.

  She nodded.

  ‘Sweet dish?’ I said in a soft voice. Well, the occasion did deserve something sweet.

  She shook her head. She looked upset, on the verge of tears. I wanted to touch her hand, but I restrained myself.

  ‘What happened?’ I said, my tone as genuine as possible.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  I nodded. Typical Riya, I thought.

  ‘Can we talk about something else, please?’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, sure. What?’

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘You want kulfi?’ I said.

  ‘No, Madhav, I don’t want kulfi. Or anything else to eat. Can you talk about something else, please?’