Aisha & Geetha

By Amritha Dinesh

Can love be separated from that which is toxic and can it still be called love? Amritha explores the layers in this story between Aisha & Geetha.

‘This coffee tastes like sweat. Sweat that has marinated in some shit. No, cut the shit part. I have tasted Kopi Luwak and it is divine.’

Geetha sighed. She was there when Aisha had tasted that coffee; she had tasted it with her. The barista had spoken about the coffee for half an hour before serving it. Geetha couldn’t taste the divinity. Aisha had told her it was because her palette was not developed enough. Geetha thought it was because the barista had exposed the coffee grounds to half an hour of oxidation while he extolled its virtues.

‘I’m sorry. The beans were over and I was waiting to be paid before I ordered the next batch,’ Geetha said.

‘Why must you talk about money first thing in the morning! You know how start-ups work. I was just hoping for a good cup of coffee before the madness starts. Now my entire balance is gone.’

Geetha muttered another sorry and tried to sidle out of the kitchen.

‘And please cut that muskmelon before it turns into mush.’

‘Musk melon makes my hands itch, Aisha.’

‘Oh God! So much drama! I am leaving.’

‘Aisha, wait… can we go grocery shopping? There is nothing in the house and I have no money…’

Geetha flinched, waiting for the shouting that was to follow, but Aisha sighed and picked up her bag and walked to the car. It was a small victory and Geetha couldn’t help being thankful. She hoped the silence would last through the trip and to the till.

‘Why is the instant coffee bottle in the basket, Gee?’

‘Just in case, you know, for emergencies.’

‘This has been your problem. Always taking the easy way out.’

‘Madam, can I bill this item?’

‘NO!’

Both Geetha and the cashier jumped.

Aisha switched on her full wattage smile. The contrast to her ugly shout was immediate and so magnetic, it wiped it out. The cashier couldn’t help but smile back. Geetha wondered if anyone could escape Aisha.

The thought continued through the day as Geetha went about trying to run an office, their office. Aisha had one brilliant idea after another, each one thrown in quick succession with even quicker expectation on to Geetha’s already overloaded plate. Geetha would plod through them and make them work, no matter how impractical they were. Today, Aisha had decided that the local park would be converted into a space that fosters the arts. Government permission and planning was Geetha’s domain.

At 4 pm, Aisha shut her laptop and smiled at Geetha. They were directed so rarely at her these days, Geetha’s heart soared.

‘Let’s go to the park and ideate.’

Geetha would follow her to the ends of the earth and beyond. The thought made her heart take a dive into her stomach. Geetha knew that someday she would be asked to do even more than that.

The park was almost empty. Aisha wandered off and Geetha, after a few dispirited attempts at conversation, decided to walk back home. She walked into the house and immediately a list of chores pinged into her brain. She decided to start with the worst and walked into Aisha’s bathroom. Half the laundry was on the floor, the other half, almost mouldy, in the laundry basket. She had refused to do Aisha’s laundry for a week. How she now ended up doing it was lost in a fugue of accusations and recriminations. The room smelled of Aisha’s perfume. There were opened tubes and jars all over the sink counter. She sighed and closed them one by one, pausing to smell, read the labels and finally placing them in a circle. There were 14 items. The mirror was framed with blue-tacked photographs. Aisha with their co-founder. With their investors, with school friends, with Leander Paes, with Salman Khan. And then it struck her. There wasn’t a single photo with her.

She walked out of the bathroom and into her favourite nook by the window. She slumped into the cushioned armchair, drew her legs up and leaned into the corner, resting her head on the wooden beading around the backrest. Despite the evening sun coming in through the glass windows, she was cold. She looked around for her comforter. There was an unnecessary panic in her eyes for the 30 seconds it took to find the maroon and blue quilt rumpled behind her on the window bench. After arranging it around her shoulders and legs, she carefully slithered out one arm from her cocoon and picked up the book from the side table. It was wet. She used the comforter to wipe away the wetness, but instead it tore the page. She dropped her head into the book and sobbed. It must have been Aisha. She would have come in, knocked the vase and spilled water, rumpled her comforter and thrown it back. Aisha Aisha Aisha. The name seemed to be inbuilt into her sobs and her throbbing heart.

After Geetha left, Aisha wandered around, feeling lost, now that she wasn’t the locus of anyone’s attention. She jiggled her legs as she sat on the rungs of a creaking slide. A woman walked in with two children and one of them immediately headed for the rungs Aisha was sitting on. Aisha got up reluctantly and plonked herself on the swings. The woman ignored her.

Aisha decided to approach the woman at the park using an age-old technique — not one of her best — but it would do.

‘Hey, I think you dropped this.’

The woman looked up startled and then smiled. The girl with her took a step back.

‘Hope you are enjoying the park. Haven’t seen you around here much. My start-up was the one that gathered volunteers to clean it up and we keep an eye on it.’

The woman’s smile faltered.

Aisha knew she should stop, but recently Geetha had unbalanced her. Her Geetha. Her moon was refusing to reflect back Aisha’s sunshine as much as she used to. The waxing and waning happened, as with any moon, but Aisha had always been able to turn the tides when she wanted. A slow lingering kiss. A brush against her arm in the office. A small morsel of praise in front of an investor. That’s all it took. But now the dark had seeped into their relationship. Aisha couldn’t control her irritation. Geetha couldn’t continue her adoration.

‘In fact, we used my app to spread the word.’

The woman nodded her head, smiled and walked away without turning back, herding her children into her arms. Aisha walked to the car and slammed the door shut and screamed. The phone rang and it was her sister.

Geetha picked up Aisha’s sister’s call. ‘I tried calling Aisha, she isn’t picking up, Gee. I don’t know what to do. Ashay is causing trouble again. I was hoping Aisha could talk to him. They are so close.’

Geetha’s heart plummeted. Aisha had promised her that she would not meet Ashay again. Not after what he had done to her sister. If only she could turn back time.

Aisha’s sister had been in love with Arjun — the poor boy worshipped that girl, a rarity for any boy in Aisha’s circle to tear away from her orbit and even notice the sister. Then Aisha, like a marauding Jane Austen novel heroine, took it into her head that since Preethi was her sister, she need to aim higher. Preethi never really recovered from this streak of altruism. And Aisha’s choice, Ashay, had come to embody every horror that a divorce entailed.

‘Aisha doesn’t speak to him anymore, Preethi. What is your lawyer saying?’

There was a cold silence at the other end. ‘Geetha, I didn’t expect you to lie to me. Aisha has hired Ashay’s firm last week to do their advertising and you tell me she isn’t even talking to him?’

Geetha felt the ground shift beneath her. Preethi had cut the call, but her hand refused to let go of the phone. They already had three girls doing their ads in-house, saving lord knows how much money. If Ashay was in the picture, she would have to fire those girls. Girls, who had become like family to her. Who had made her life in the office a little more bearable. Who invited her to their little coffee trips and giggle fests. Something that never happened for Geetha, because all her life, she had spun around Aisha. The centrifugal force that sent all others flying away.

Aisha returned to a silence that rankled. Geetha looked like she had been crying. ‘Ashay,’ she whispered. Aisha stared at her.

‘Your little team is useless and eating up money. Ashay is just business.’

Geetha didn’t have anything to say to that. She couldn’t think or feel. Her feet headed to the kitchen and then out the back door and she sat on the ground, leaning onto the rough wall.

Aisha walked out and stood near the compound wall, looking radiant in the moonlight. She seemed to be drawing everything Geetha had into her, leaving a dry husk behind. Geetha got up. Aisha didn’t glance at her. The sound of popping knees and her heavy breath didn’t seem to disturb the punishing silence. Geetha walked in determined to make a cup of chamomile tea and drink it by herself. But something — maybe good manners drilled into her from childhood, a friendship drilled in through the same period of time or maybe any excuse to break the web of silence — changed and she made two cups.

Was that love?

Even when shattered and ground, you picked up the pieces, losing a bit of yourself to the dust every time, hoping this time things would be different. This time, they would see the cracks and the holes and maybe stop. She handed the cup to Aisha, who smiled. ‘Maybe I will let you keep your little coven, Gee.’

Geetha had danced this dance a hundred times before. Maybe it was love, maybe it was muscle memory. She took Aisha’s hand and pressed it to her dry lips and smiled.

‘I love you.’

Amritha Dinesh is an independent writer based in Chennai, India.