Chapter 12 / 51 · 5 min

The Cold of the Dead River

I pulled Nupur a little closer. She pretended to be annoyed, but the smile at the corner of her lips kept the annoyance from quite landing.

“What are you doing?” Nupur said. “Can’t you see how many people are around?”

I smiled without a word.

“I’m just holding my own wife close. What’s the problem?”

Nupur held on to her mock anger.

“It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since we got married, and you’ve already called me ‘wife’ forty-eight times!”

“Shouldn’t I?”

“Please. Be quiet now. I’m so embarrassed. Let’s get home, then everything will happen. Say whatever you want then. You tortured me enough on the bus, now give me some peace on the launch.”

I gripped her a little tighter.

“So everything will happen? E-v-e-r-y-thing?”

“You shameless thing!”

She pushed me away and went off toward the cabin.

Standing on the deck of the launch, I looked at the blue sky and the deep blue water, and a strange joy washed over me.

Today everything felt good. For four years I had slowly made this girl my own, sharing every joy and sorrow, every pleasure and disappointment. Today, when I finally had her as my life partner on paper, I felt that even if I died this very moment, I wouldn’t feel much sorrow at all.

She was a little shy, but she loved me like mad. I still remember the time I sulked and kept my phone off for three days. On the fourth day, when we suddenly ran into each other, how she cried! Nupur held on to me until every last drop of resentment had evaporated like steam. She just kept crying.

That very day, I gave the girl the first kiss of my life, on her lips. No one forgets their first kiss. I haven’t either.

After four years, the love had finally come to fruition. Everyone was waiting at home. Mother and Father wanted to see the bride at last. There had been enough hiding.

Inside the cabin, Nupur had buried her face in a storybook for who knows how long. It irritated me a little. I’d just gotten married. Couldn’t she talk to me a little? Such strict discipline already?

“Madam?” I called.

Without lifting her head, Nupur said, “Yes, sir…”

“I was saying… there’s no one inside the cabin.”

“Quiet!”

“One kiss, that’s all. I won’t disturb you after that!”

“Nope. Not till we get home.”

“Please!”

I understood there was no use begging for permission today. I moved toward her, and the moment I grabbed her, the launch suddenly lurched!

A cold current ran down my spine. The launch kept rocking, rocking.

I knew nothing would happen, yet I was terribly afraid. Nupur was even more frightened than me. This time it was she who threw her arms around me and started to cry. No, this wasn’t how I’d wanted her to hold me.

The launch tilted to the right, all at once. Before I could understand how or what had happened, I heard people screaming outside. I told Nupur, “You know how to swim, what is there to fear? Nothing will happen.”

The shouting outside had become unbearable.

Nupur said, “But you can’t swim!”

I smiled. “There are life jackets. Don’t be afraid. If we die, we both die together…”

Before I could finish, the launch tilted right and sank in an instant. Water filled the cabin. The launch was going deeper. We somehow got out of it. I held Nupur’s hand tightly. There was a terrible fear in my chest. My mind wasn’t working right.

Filthy cold water poured in through my nose and mouth. We were clinging to each other so tightly that neither of us could stay afloat. I thought I should let Nupur go, but in the last moments of life, I couldn’t bear to. Drowning and surfacing, drowning and surfacing, we held on to each other.

But then something came over Nupur. With all the strength in her body she forced herself away from me, trying to swim off! I clutched at her clothes like a drowning man clutching at straw, but I couldn’t hold her. I kept sinking myself.

I found her foot, the one with the anklet, and grabbed it to stay afloat a little. In the depths of this vast river, I didn’t want to be lost. I wanted so badly to live, to go home. I didn’t want to drown and die. Mother was surely waiting with hot rice served.

Thinking all this, I saw Nupur close to me again. I don’t know when I let go of her foot. Having found her again, I threw my arms around her, with the deepest love.

But I couldn’t understand why Nupur wrapped herself around my throat. Not with her hands. With her scarf, twisting it tight. Very tight. For a single breath, for that little bit of oxygen, the inside of my chest cried out. I was losing the strength in my arms. I tried to stop Nupur but I couldn’t.

I needn’t have died this way. Before I was fully dead, Nupur let me go and swam off. This time I didn’t have the strength left to stop her.

After that I kept going deeper. My need for oxygen had run out. I went deeper, deeper still, into the darkness, deeper into the dark. And then, in the cold of this dead river, I lay there dead.

It’s a good thing no one will see my two eyes. If they did, they would be startled. What an astonished gaze a man who drowned had fixed straight ahead before his death!

(Based on real event)