"Done," he said. He did not turn from the window.
She went to the kitchen. She made chai — the specific chai she made when she needed to think, which was different from the morning chai, the cardamom heavier. She brought two cups. She set one on the window ledge beside him. He looked at it. He looked at her. He picked it up.
They stood at the window. The city outside. The election tomorrow. Thirty days of what they had been through together, both of them in it, neither of them having planned to be in it with the other.
"What do you think?" she said. "Honestly. How does tomorrow go?"
"I think it's very close," he said. "I think the ward splits work in your favour in the aggregate but the turnout differential might work in mine. I think the northern ward data we talked about in the first week — the budget allocation arithmetic — is going to determine three or four wards that are genuinely swing, and I'm not sure which way they go." He paused. "I think you're the better candidate for this constituency."
She turned to look at him. He was still looking at the city.
"That's a strange thing to say the night before the election," she said.
"It's the honest thing," he said. "Your ground work, your policy depth, your specific track record in this constituency type — you've done everything right for thirty days. If this election goes on merit, it goes to you." He paused. "I may still win. Elections don't always go on merit. But merit is yours."
She looked at the city for a while. "You've been better than I expected," she said. "In every way. The Ward 3 apology. The Zone B analysis. The voter drive. The press statement." She paused. "The eleven PM conversations."
"The eleven PM conversations were not a campaign strategy," he said.
"No," she said. "They weren't."
He turned from the window. He looked at her. The distance between them was approximately two feet — the specific two feet of two people standing at the same window looking at the same city, which was not a strategic distance. It was simply where both of them were.
"Nine days ago," he said, "you said to say things like that in nine days."
"Yes," she said.
"It's nine days," he said.
She looked at him. He looked at her. The city outside was the city and the election was tomorrow and thirty days were about to become what thirty days became — a record, a result, a fact that would be permanent regardless of which way it went. She was very clear about all of this. She had been very clear for thirty days.
"There's still the election tomorrow," she said. Not as an objection. As information. As the correct order of things, which she had been holding to and was not going to stop holding to. But said with the specific quality of someone who was also saying: I know exactly what this is and I am not pretending otherwise and after tomorrow we will deal with it.
