As the river flows

Chapter 4

In true millennial fashion, Ankit and Laura spent the next day and a half whiling away their time doing absolutely nothing but watching shows on Netflix during the day and chilling by the river during the evenings. Money Heist turned out to be a good one (at least for the first two seasons) and in keeping with Laura’s words, Rio was indeed a heartthrob.  An immature child, but such a cutie.

“We should go on a pub crawl sometime.” Laura said around a yawn, as she pulled up her pants and fixed her hair. They were getting ready to head over to Bridel’s house. Laura had agreed to go, on the condition that he buy her a packet of stroopwafels tomorrow. They had run out of them that afternoon, mostly thanks to Ankit’s obsession with the sweet treat (yes, yes, he knew it. His list of what he was obsessed with was growing longer by the minute).

“Mmm, tame. We should go to a rave sometime,” countered Ankit, smirking crookedly. He brushed his hands through his hair, trying to fix the eternally messy mop on top of his head. He had been trying to make it lay flat for the past fifteen minutes, but it was a losing battle. Frustrated, he gave up on it, letting it just do its thing.

“Ooh la la! Look at you! Little boy wants to go to a rave!” Laura said, wiggling her brows suggestively.

“Shut up! I’m twenty seven, okay!”

“Awwn, baby is twenty seven, is he?” She sidled up behind him and patted his butt. Swatting her hands away, he turned around to face her, and gave her a light push. She stumbled back, cackling in mirth.

“Shall we go now, grandma?” He said, dodging her hands that flailed out to grab him. They made their way out of the apartment, pushing and shoving each other.

The journey to Bridel’s place took them the better part of the next hour. They got lost twice (even with the directions being so simple. Ankit blamed it on their abysmal knowledge of the language French) and distracted once (they ended up buying an apple pie to bring with them to the dinner, at the bakery. They also ended up sharing a lemon tart between the two of them, but let’s not talk about that) and after walking around for what seemed like forever, they eventually found themselves in the beautifully charming neighborhood of Saint Germain on the sixth.

Ankit felt his hands go clammy and his breaths shortening as he stood in front of the door of three story apartment building Bridel lived in. All the doubts that he had so successfully tamed in the past few months, came rushing back to the forefront of his mind. Was this really happening? What if Bridel changed her mind? God! What would he do then? He felt the nausea bubbling up within him, making him light-headed. It was Laura’s hands on his back rubbing circles that brought him back to reality.

He looked at her with glassy eyes and gave her a watery smile. She quirked and eyebrow and returned his smile, unsure and worried. It was a testimony to their budding friendship and the developing trust between them, that he felt comforted by her presence beside him, instead of uncomfortable in his own skin, worried that he had overstepped some unknown boundary.

Giving him another pat on the back, Laura stepped forward to ring the buzzer. They heard the door clicking open, as Bridel opened it for them. They pulled on the heavy set of double doors and walked into the foyer of the building. There were two elevators, just opposite the entrance, and a set of stairs on the right.

Ankit and Laura looked at each other briefly and made their way to the staircase. Ankit knew that the short walk was exactly what he needed at the moment to calm down, and he knew that Laura knew that too. But he was grateful to her for not bringing it up, already embarrassed as he was about his little meltdown.

As they made their way up the stairs, Ankit breathed deeply and tried to calm himself down. He figured it was just his nerves acting up. He had no reason to think that Bridel would take back her offer. He was overthinking things.

He took another bracing breath, when he finally stood in from of Bridel’s door, and reached out his hands and rapped twice with his knuckles.

“Un moment! I’m coming” came a muffled sound from inside the apartment, and the next moment, Bridel was opening the door with a flourish, a large smile on her face.

“Bonjour mes amis! Welcome to my humble abode. Please come in, come in.” She ushered them in.

As she herded them through the corridor, Ankit felt a little more at ease. Bridel’s enthusiasm was contagious. It made him feel welcome. Comfortable.

The corridor opened up to a beautiful salon. It was decorated tastefully, reflecting the measured and contemplative nature of the woman that inhabited these walls. The colour palette was warm and comfortable, with beiges and whites everywhere with some splatters of red or green, in the form of a duvet and the frankly intimidating number of plants that were there (and intimidated, Ankit surely was, since he had never actually managed to keep a plant alive, no matter his best intentions. He had even ended up killing a cactus! So, yeah). The left wall opened up to a large balcony that seemed to contain a sitting area.

Ankit took all of this in with a perfunctory glance, but as he turned around, his eyes fell on something that made his breath catch in his throat. It was the painting that he had created in Delhi, when he had first met Bridel! The large frame took up most of the right wall, leaving little space for anything else. He felt another wave of uncontrollable emotions rise in his chest, but he tried to tamp it down. God! Why was he such a mess today? He was crying at the drop of a hat.

“It’s beautiful.” He heard Laura say from beside him, but it seemed to be coming from very far away. He slowly turned his head to look at her. She was gazing intently at the painting. He searched her face for what he knew not, but he couldn’t help it when his face grew warm and he felt the blood rush to his cheeks and paint it red. Blotchily, without the finesse of an artist’s touch.

“I wonder who made this?” she mumbled absent-mindedly, still looking at the painting. He looked away, quickly and dropped his head to look at his socked feet. The cold of the marble seeped in through the socks, slowly numbing his toes, but in that moment it was a welcome distraction.

“It’s his.” He heard Bridel say softly, and felt his face burning even hotter. When he chanced a glance from under his lashes, they were both looking at him. One in awe and the other with pride. He coughed slightly and looked away.

Shrugging his shoulders, he said,” yeah, it’s whatever,” hoping he sounded nonchalant, but knowing that his red ears were a dead giveaway. He heard Bridel chuckle, as he scratched the back of his neck. A nervous habit.

“Wow, this is beautiful Ankit,” said Laura. “You should be really proud.”

“Yes, grandma,” he said, shoving her lightly, trying to change the subject. “I’m sure you’re just as good.”

Laura laughed openly, as she shoved him back. “Yeah, maybe.”

Bridel smiled as she looked at them. It was always nice to see such camaraderie. She watched as they bickered lightly like siblings, as they made their way to the sofa.

“Wine, anyone?” she asked them as she made her way to the kitchen.

“Yes, please” They both piped up. Laughing, she decided to c***k open the pinot noir. This was as good an occasion as any she supposed.

Soon, they were all chatting and laughing at the stories that Laura was telling about her younger brothers and their pets.

“And then, Marco fell into the pool, his clothes still tangled around the cat.”

 Ankit was laughing so hard at this point that he was literally lying on the floor rolling with laughter, tears streaming down his face.

“And Miguel just let that happen?” asked Bridel incredulously, her eyes shining with mirth.

“Yeah, it’s not like he had a choice really. His foot was still stuck in the coop” Laura said shrugging her shoulders.

“Oh my god! This is fantastic!” Ankit said, heaving for breath. “The best I have is stealing pickles from the kitchen and falling into a haystack.”

“I’m sorry, that’s clearly a better story than falling down a tree and breaking my hand!” countered Bridel.

“Mmmm, some would say that’s good enough,” said Ankit.

“Yeah, but those some would not have heard Laura’s tale.”

“Yeah, that’s true. Poor bastards. They don’t know what they’re missing!” They laugh some more.

By the end of the night Ankit feels so comfortable with these two wonderful women that he finds himself telling them about the time he left his home to pursue art at the tender age of seventeen, and how he hasn’t been home in the ten years that have gone by.

“Do you want to go back?” asks Laura softly.

“I don’t know,” he shrugs, looking at the ceiling, with his head on the back of the sofa. “Sometimes. Sometimes, I miss my mum, and my sister. My sister, she keeps in touch with me. We talk once in a while. Nothing too deep, but it’s enough, I guess. I know she’s proud of me. She doesn’t say it. But, I know. She came to one of my shows last year, and after the show was done, she hugged me real tight. It felt good.”

“Hmm, it’s good that you have her. She seems like a nice person” Laura says, reaching out and softly ruffling his hair.

“Yeah, she is, I suppose.”

“Does she know?”

“Mmm?” He asks looking at her. “Know what?”

“That you’re gay?” Laura asks tentatively.

“God, no!” snorts Ankit. “Even I didn’t know when I left home. And by the time I figured it out, it was too late. We were too distant.” He said shaking his head.

“Well, you’re wonderful! It’s their loss” suddenly announced Bridel, shaking her fingers vehemently in their direction. It seemed that she was already well on her way to being drunk. 

“Thanks Anais,” Ankit laughed softly. He watched quietly as Bridel mumbled to herself for a couple more minutes. Looking to his left, he saw that Laura was also not faring any better. Her head had drooped down onto her chest and she was teetering dangerously, on the verge of falling down.

Sighing heavily, Ankit got up from the floor and made his way to Bridel first. Helping her get up and putting her to bed, promising to lock the door carefully behind him. Then he made his way back to the living room. He fished out his phone from where it had fallen behind the couch and booked a cab. He knew that it would be impossible to lug Laura’s practically leaden body all the way home, when he himself was more than slightly intoxicated. Feeling the hole in his pocket gape wider at the sight of the fare (50 euros! What a rip-off!), he sighed, resigned, but pressed the ‘book now’ button regardless.

He cleaned up the room, putting all the bottles and dishes in the sink, as he waited for the cab to arrive. As he stood out in the balcony looking out into the sky, he felt more comfortable in his own skin than he had felt in a long time. He looked back as Laura snorted loudly in her sleep, and smiled softly. Yeah, things were looking up.