She talked about things that interested her. This was, Vikram realised, rarer than it should have been — most conversations he had were about logistics, decisions, or other people's news. Nirmala talked about a poem she had reread the previous evening and what she thought it meant. She talked about a documentary she had watched about migratory birds and whether the birds found the journey interesting or simply necessary. She talked about her students — not in the nostalgic, past-tense way of someone who missed their old life, but with the present-tense observation of someone who was still thinking about what she had learned from it.
Vikram found himself talking too. About the bridges — not as professional accomplishments but as things he had loved, the specific satisfaction of watching something that was only a drawing become something you could stand on, something that connected two banks that had previously been separate. About his son in Hyderabad who called every week and said the right things. About his father, who had been an exact and systematic man, and whether Vikram had inherited that quality as a strength or a limitation.
On Friday, Sunita walked past the bench on her way back to the flat and saw the two of them there, mid-conversation. She paused. She looked at them with an expression that Vikram could not quite read from his peripheral vision — he had the awareness of her pause without being able to turn and look directly, the way you sense weather changing.
Then she called out: "Vikram, I'm making poha. Come up when you're ready."
Not: Why are you sitting with a woman I don't know. Not: Vikram. (with the specific inflection that means: a word, please.) Just: I'm making poha. Come up when you're ready.
He came up when he was ready. The poha was excellent. Sunita did not mention the bench. Vikram did not mention the bench. But over the poha she said: "You seem — different. These past few days."
"Different how?"
She thought about it. "Less like someone waiting for retirement to be over."
He looked at his poha. "Was I that obvious?"
"Only to me," she said. "And I've known you thirty-four years."
