The thoughts of the origin of life sometimes diminished his longing for of Oparna. Microbe to microbe — that was all there was to life and death. Love was insignificant — a devious evolutionary device. Nothing more. These thoughts comforted him, but only briefly. Ultimately, he realized, Oparna was the unavoidable inspiration behind his renewed attempts to keep the Balloon Mission on target. She was deeply involved in the project, the very heart of the core team. It was the most important time in her professional life. That was why, despite the discomfort of unrequited love, she was not leaving the Institute. Any serious snag in the project would disappoint her, and as a consequence, embarrass him. So he ordained in his mind, come what may, the balloon would go up and come down, and the air sampler would be analysed. This resolve made him work like a madman. He slogged in the glory of an old incurable faith in the extraterrestrial origin of life, in the fear of losing Oparna forever, in the torturous certainty that he had no choice but to lose her eventually, in the confusion of what exactly a wife means to a man, in the bitter aftertaste of the terrible food Ayyan Mani brought him and in the deathly fatigue of insomnia. Finally, eight days after Lavanya had left to mourn her sister, something in him snapped.
He pushed everything that was on his table to the floor and rose from his chair. He did not know what time it was and he did not care. He knew Oparna was in the basement. She had to be there.
He walked out through the anteroom that Ayyan had long deserted. Its ghostly phones rang and fax machines belched. There was not a soul in the corridor. It lay in front like a supernatural bridge to autumnal love. He heard the lift heave and echo as it descended to the basement. He walked beside the stark white walls, feeling the anxiety of violating a young body that was right there at the end of this narrow corridor. He felt a mad rage against her for pushing him from the fortress of stature that others had built for him over the decades into a miserable hell where other old men like him crawled on their stomachs and begged young women for a mere look of affection. But what truly infuriated him was the painful suspicion that it was now, in this late age, that true love had come to him.
Until a few weeks ago, he was in the peace of consigning love as that brief juvenile excitement he once felt for Lavanya in the freshness of marriage. It was an easy painless thing. There was no pursuit, no battle. She was there in the morning, she was there in the evening, and on some nights of her choosing she became naked. Love, he had always thought, was arranged. He was certain that alcoholic poets had overrated its misery. But now, he felt its agony and the insane fear of rejection.
He flung open the door of the lab. It was almost dark. Oparna was sitting on the floor at the foot of the main working desk that filled half the room. She had turned off all the lights except a single inadequate bulb directly above the desk. It cast giant shadows of microscopes and other optical devices, and they appeared to lie in wait, like curious voyeurs. She was in her long top of forced modesty and blue jeans. Her hair was tied back. He walked to her side, and stood with his knee brushing against her shoulder.
‘Why are you doing this to me?’ he asked.
She did not reply. He lifted her by her arms and kissed her, or bit her (he would not remember). They fell on the floor in a heap, and they kissed and licked and wrestled. He tore her top and dismantled her jeans. She fought, not sure yet if she was resisting or assisting. When he took away all her clothes, she stopped fighting. She turned away from him in a sting of shame, her face on the floor, an elbow shielding it from this wild man, proud breasts reaching for a place to rest, her bronze back rising and falling like the roll of a sand-dune in the twilight, her long firm legs lying languid.
He tugged at her shoulder to make her face him. He wanted to see her arrogant face now tamed and helpless, but she held on tenaciously to the foot of the main desk and dug her face further into her elbow. He held her hair in his fist and tried to see the face that had destroyed his peace. She had no more strength left in her to resist. Her hand left the foot of the desk, her shoulders obeyed and she turned to him, defeated and deranged. Her hair was now wild, the terrified hair-band had rolled away long ago. She shut her eyes as he suffocated her with a long violent kiss. He tried to hold her legs, but they were now glistening in sweat and his hands slipped. That made her laugh. But her demented laughter soon become wails as he finally managed to prise open her legs and plunder her with an inhuman strength. But it was a brief attack. In less than a minute, he fell on her breasts and rolled down on the floor panting and laughing.
He did not know such pleasurable violence was permitted outside the myth of pornography. The amused smile of the young Lavanya, that look of a patient zen master condoning the imperfection of an apprentice, was what he had thought the face of woman’s love to be. But what had happened just now was different.
Oparna was looking at him, breathing hard, lying on her mauled breasts. She and Acharya stared at each other as if they both knew they were going to die and had accepted this death. It was a long time before either spoke.
‘What have we done?’ she said, with a smile.
‘What have we done?’ Acharya repeated, more seriously than her. ‘What now?’
‘What now? You can’t steal a woman’s line. That’s not allowed.’
‘It’s a woman’s line?’
‘Of course. Anyway, it’s too early to say it.’ She rolled to his side and put her head on his chest. He felt her finger probe his navel. ‘You have such a big navel,’ she said, ‘It’s very deep too. And there is a lot of lint.’ She showed him what she had scooped out.
‘Your wife is away?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You seem to be very experienced.’
‘In what?’ Somehow it was a question that had only uncomfortable answers.
‘How many lovers have you had?’ he asked.
She looked at the ceiling, toying with her hair. ‘Is it true that we follow the decimal system because we have ten fingers?’
‘Most of us have eight fingers.’
She looked confused, but then her face lit up in comprehension. ‘Eight fingers and two thumbs?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Why do you want to know about the decimal system?’
‘I was counting my men,’ she said, ‘and eight fingers and two thumbs were not enough.’ She lifted her head to see his face. ‘Does it annoy you that I have slept with so many men?’
‘Yes. And I hate them,’ he said.
‘And that’s a nice thing to say to a woman,’ she said.
She looked at him fondly. He was like a cuddly giant seal. His eyes, usually bright and furious, now stared in the diffused glow of affection or gratitude. They lay together on the floor in silence for over an hour. Then something crossed her mind.