Latest / My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story / My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 14: Distance and Closeness

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My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 14: Distance and Closeness · My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story

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My Playful Wife, Episode 14, Distance and Closeness,
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written by Mia. January came cold and clarifying.
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There is a quality to Delhi in January that the
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rest of the year lacks, a thinness to the light,
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a hardness to the mornings, the fog burning off
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slowly to leave everything looking scrubbed and
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exact. I have always found it the most honest
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of the city's seasons. The summer lies to you
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about how much you can bear. The monsoon lies
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about how clean things are. But January tells
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the plain truth, that it is cold, that the days
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are short, that you should put on the second
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sweater and stop pretending. I had come, this
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year, to value things that told the plain truth.
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The season suited the person I was becoming.
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Solonie started a new project, a commission the
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biggest she'd had by a distance. A boutique wanted
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a full collection from her rather than the individual
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pieces she'd done before, a coherent body of
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work with a through -line, twelve garments that
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would speak to each other. It was the kind of
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opportunity that arrives once and tests whether
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you are who you've been telling yourself you
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are, and she took it the way she took serious
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things. quietly with no announcement, by simply
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beginning. She set up the spare room as a workspace.
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Within a week it had transformed. Bolts of fabric
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stood against the wall in a row, leaning at their
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various angles like a crowd waiting for something.
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Her sketchbook lay open at all times, on the
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table, on the floor, on the arm of the chair,
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wherever the idea had last caught her. There
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was thread on the carpet and pins in places pins
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should not be, and the particular productive
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disorder of a person who has gone deep into something
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real and stopped maintaining the surfaces. I
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learned not to tidy it. I learned that what looked
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like chaos was a working memory externalized,
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that the thing on the floor was on the floor
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because she needed to see it from the doorway,
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that moving anything was moving a thought. I
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learned to work around this the way you learn
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to work around any central fact of a shared life.
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I brought Chai to the doorway when she was absorbed
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and set it down without speaking and went away.
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I learned not to interrupt the silences that
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were working and this was a real skill harder
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than it sounds because there is a kind of silence
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that feels like an invitation and isn't. I learned
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the difference between the silence of concentration
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and the silence of being stuck. They look identical
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from outside and are opposite in their need.
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Concentration wants to be left alone. Stuckness
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wants, secretly, to be interrupted, wants an
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excuse to look up and find that the world is
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still there. I learned to read which was which
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from the set of her shoulders, the speed of her
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hand. the specific quality of her stillness.
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Concentration was a held thing, taught, purposeful.
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Stuckness was a slack thing, the pencil not moving,
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the gaze gone past the page to the wall. When
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I read Stuckness, I would come in with a chai
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and a remark about nothing and let her surface,
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and she would let herself be surfaced, and neither
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of us ever said that this was what was happening.
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We had always been good at the practical architecture
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of living together. Who did what? When the dividing
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of a life into manageable territories. That had
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never been our problem. What we were becoming
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good at now was the emotional architecture, which
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is a harder build. Knowing when to be present
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and when to be absent, when a silence is a wall,
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and when it is a room you're being invited into,
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how to be near someone who is deep inside themselves
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without either abandoning them or pulling them
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out. Three years of marriage had taught us the
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practical. The hard year had forced us, finally,
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into the emotional, the way a flood forces water
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into rooms it never reached before. The Bengaluru
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trip was planned for February. A long weekend,
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Thursday to Sunday for days. Our first time staying
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in the same city as Piyush since his move. Our
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first time as guests in the life he'd built rather
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than hosts of the life he'd left. Saloni was
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excited in the way she got excited about things
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she cared about. Contained, forward -leaning,
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the energy turned inward rather than spilled
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out. She didn't talk about it much, but I would
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catch her in the evenings, doing the small forward
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planning that excitement does, looking at the
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weather there, mentioning a thing she wanted
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to bring for Mira, Asking once, idly, whether
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I thought Piyush's flat would have good light
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for the morning, as though the quality of my
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brother's morning light were a thing she'd been
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turning over. I was something more complicated
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than excited. I had been in a particular relationship
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with Bengaluru as an idea for the better part
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of a year. In my mind, it was not a city. It
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was a destination in the moral geography of what
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had happened to us. It was the place that had
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absorbed my brother, and, with him, something
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I was still in the slow process of letting go.
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It was the distance that had, by some paradox
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I had stopped trying to fully untangle, drawn
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my marriage closer. As though Saloni and I had
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needed the room that is leaving made, the way
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a plant needs space cleared around it before
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it will put out new growth. Bengaluru, in other
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words, was the place where the pressure had been
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released, and I did not entirely know what it
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would feel like to stand inside it. To stand
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in Piyusha's actual apartment, with Mira at his
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actual side, in the actual rooms where the next
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phase of all our lives was being assembled. I
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did not know whether the new geometry, so steady
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here, in our flat on our ground, would hold its
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shape in that other air. You're thinking about
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it too much, Saloni said one evening. She was
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at the sketchbook. She hadn't looked up. How
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do you know I'm thinking about anything? You
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get still, she said, still drawing. When you're
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thinking hard about something, you go completely
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still, like a held breath. Most people fidget
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more when they think. You stop. It took me years
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to learn it meant the opposite of calm. I looked
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at her, bent over the page, the lamp on her hair.
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Three years of marriage, and she had been watching
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me too. All that time I'd been failing to see
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her, she'd been quietly compiling me, learning
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my tells, building the private dictionary of
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a husband she would one day need to read in an
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emergency. The thought moved me more than I expected.
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The watching had not been one -directional. I
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had simply been the last to start. The trip,
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I admitted. I know. She put down the pencil.
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She turned and looked at me properly. The full
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attention, nothing withheld, the lamp throwing
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half her face into warm light and leaving the
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other half soft. It's going to be fine. You don't
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know that. I know Piyush, she said. And I know
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you. A pause. And I know that you both want the
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same thing. So I'm not worried. People who want
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the same thing find their way to it. It's only
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people who want different things who can't. What
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thing? I said. What do we both want? To be in
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the same room, she said. And have it be okay.
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That's all either of you has ever wanted, underneath
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everything, to be in the same room and have it
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be okay. I went still again, but a different
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kind of still, because she had reached back across
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the year and handed me my own words. I had said
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it to her, months ago, in our kitchen, in the
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worst stretch of it, when I had not known whether
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there would be a marriage by spring. I'm not
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asking for it not to have happened, I had said.
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I'm asking to be in the same room. That's all.
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I'm asking to be in the same room and have it
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be okay. I had not known, saying it, whether
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it was possible. And here was my wife, a year
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later, holding the sentence up to me as a settled
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fact, as the thing that had turned out to be
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true. You remembered that, I said. I remember
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everything you say when you mean it, she said.
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You don't say much when you mean it. It's easy
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to keep track. Okay, I said. Good, she said and
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picked up her pencil and the conversation was
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over and the trip, somehow, had been disarmed.
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The distance that Bengaluru had created turned
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out, on arrival, to be navigable. Piyush's apartment
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was on the fourth floor of a new building with
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large windows and good light. Saloni was right
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to have wondered. The morning light came in clean
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and generous, nothing like the contested, building
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-shadowed light of our deli flat. He had furnished
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it with the efficiency of a person who had thought
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hard about what he actually needed rather than
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what was expected of a man with a salary. A good
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chair. A good table. Not much else. and the not
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-much -given room to breathe. Mira was distributed
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through the space in the way a person becomes
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distributed through a place before they've formally
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moved into it. A book on the coffee table with
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her name in the front, a jacket over the back
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of a chair, a particular brand of tea in the
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kitchen that I knew was hers, because Piyush
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had never in his life bought loose tea. She wasn't
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living there, but the apartment had already learned
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her. We arrived on Thursday evening, stiff from
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the flight and the auto rickshaw and the particular
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tiredness of travel. Piyush had cooked, really
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cooked, the dal I had teased him about in Delhi
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and a few other things, a whole table of it,
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better than I'd let myself expect. He'd been
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nervous, I could tell, the specific nervousness
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of a younger sibling hosting an older one for
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the first time, wanting the rooms to say what
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he couldn't. Look, I made a life, it's a real
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life, it's good. We ate at the table, the four
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of us, and it was, I want to say this accurately,
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because accuracy is the whole project, simply
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nice. That is the entire truth of it, and it
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is a larger truth than it sounds. The conversation
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was easy, the food was good, and Piyush was visibly
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relieved that it was good. The evening was warm.
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We talked about his work and Saloni's collection
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and a film none of us had liked and Mira's parents,
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who were coming up in the conversation more and
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more, the way a person's family does when something
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is becoming serious. At some point, the pairs
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dissolved and recombined the way they do at a
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good table. Piyush and me down one end on something
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technical, Saloni and Mira at the other on the
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collection, then a remark thrown across that
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pulled the whole table back into one conversation,
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then splitting again. The evening moved the way
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good evenings move, which is to say it moved
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without anyone staring it. After dinner, Mira
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and Saloni went out to the balcony. It was cooler
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than deli cool, a softer cold, and they took
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a shawl between them and stood at the railing,
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and I could hear them out there, the low run
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of conversation, the occasional laugh, the sound
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of two people who had become, over one Diwali
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and a winter phone calls, genuine friends. Piyush,
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and I cleared the table. So, he said, stacking
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plates. So? I said, taking them from him. We
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worked in the comfortable silence of a task shared.
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The water running, the scrape of leftovers, the
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small domestic rhythm of two men in a kitchen
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who have, between them, learned how to be in
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a kitchen together. It had not always been comfortable,
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this silence. There had been a long stretch when
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any silence between Piyush and me was a held
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breath. a thing waiting to become a conversation
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neither of us could survive. This silence was
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not that. This silence was just two brothers
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doing the dishes. This is good, he said finally,
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not looking at me, scrubbing at something stuck
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to a pan. Yes, I said. I wasn't sure it could
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be, he said. Like this. All of us. In the same
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place eating dinner, and it just being dinner.
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He set the pan in the rack. I used to lie awake
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imagining this evening going a hundred different
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ways, and they were all bad. And then it's just
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good, and I don't know what to do with how easy
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it turned out to be. Neither do I, I said honestly.
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I keep waiting for the bill to come. Saloni said
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the same thing at Diwali. Maybe there isn't a
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bill. Maybe we already paid it. He looked at
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me then. Thank you, he said. The same two words.
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For the same things. The word still full. Still
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carrying its whole weight. Even now. Stop thanking
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me, I said. We've established this. You've thanked
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me enough to last several lifetimes. Just make
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good chai, and we'll call it settled. He laughed
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and made the chai, and it was good chai, properly
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good. The boy had learned something in Bengaluru,
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and we carried the cups back toward the table
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and stood there a moment, the two of us, waiting
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for our wives to come in from the balcony. Our
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wives. The phrase landed strangely on me, as
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it always did, the possessive plural of a situation
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that had no proper grammar in any language I
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knew. Saloni was my wife. Mira would be his.
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But there was no clean word for the four of us,
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for the shape we made, for the way the two women
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on the balcony belonged to the same sentence
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in my mind. I had stopped looking for the word.
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Mira had taught me that not everything needs
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to be named to be real. They came and flushed
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from the cold and still talking. The shawl shared
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between their shoulders. Mira mid -sentence about
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something Saloni had said that had clearly delighted
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her. Saloni came and sat beside me at the table,
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close, her thigh against mine on the bench. Under
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the table, out of sight, her hand found mine.
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I held it, the four of us around the table with
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the good chai, in the apartment with the good
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light. in the city that had once been only an
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idea in the moral geography of my grief, and
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was now, it turned out, just a place where people
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I loved were building their lives. We stayed
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until Sunday, and the weekend did the thing good
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weekends do, which is to become, in memory, a
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single warm continuous afternoon, though I know
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it had a Friday in it, and a Saturday and individual
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countable hours. Mira showed us her Bengaluru.
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Not the Bengaluru of anyone's brochure. Her one,
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the specific city a person assembles out of the
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place they actually live in, made of a handful
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of rooms and corners that mean something. The
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filter coffee place where the man knew her order
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and started at the moment she walked in. A bookshop
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down a lane where she and Piyush had had their
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first real argument about something neither of
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them could now reconstruct and made it up among
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the shelves an hour later. so that the shop had
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become, in their private map, the place where
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they'd learned they could fight and survive it.
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The small park where she went to think. She walked
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us through all of it with the slightly shy generosity
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of a person letting you into the actual rooms
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of their life, and sullenly received it the way
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she received everything offered honestly, completely
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with real attention, asking the questions that
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proved she had been listening rather than waiting
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to speak. On Saturday evening it rained, briefly,
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the soft apologetic rain of a southern city,
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nothing like Delhi's violence. We crowded under
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a shopfront awning to wait it out. The four of
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us pressed into a small dry space with the rain
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coming down a hands width away, and Saloni laughed
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at something Piyush said, and her laugh went
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up into the rain sound, and Mira leaned into
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Piyush's side, and I stood at the edge of the
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little group and understood, with a clarity that
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arrived like the weather had arrived, that the
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distance I'd been so afraid of, the Bengaluru
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-shaped distance, the thing I'd built into a
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whole moral. Geography, in my head, was just
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a place, just a city where it sometimes rained.
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The closeness had not been left behind in Delhi
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to be visited and then surrendered at the airport.
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We had brought it with us. It turned out to be
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portable. It turned out to live in us, in the
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four of us, rather than in any particular set
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of rooms. That was the lesson of the weekend,
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if a weekend is allowed to have a lesson. Distance
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and closeness are not opposites. I had been treating
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them as opposites for a year. You can be far
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from someone and close to them. You can stand
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under an awning in the city that took your brother,
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getting rained on with all the people you love,
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and feel nearer to him than you had felt in the
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years when he lived 20 minutes away. We left
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on Sunday. The goodbye at Piyush's door carried
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none of the weight the old deli goodbyes used
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to carry. We would see them in weeks now, not
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months. Mira had already, in her ticket -saying
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way, named the next time before we'd left the
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first. She hugged Saloni. She shook my hand,
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firm and dry, closing her bracket. Piyush held
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the hug with Saloni a beat, and then held my
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hand for the beat that had become ours. You came,
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he said, as though some part of him had not been
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sure all this time that we actually would. We
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came, I said. We'll come again. In the auto to
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the airport, Saloni put her head on my shoulder
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and slept the way she'd slept on the flight down,
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and I watched Bengaluru go past the window. Just
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a city. green and ordinary, no longer the place
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where anything had been taken from me, and felt
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the closeness sitting in the seat between us,
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portable, ours, coming home with us to Delhi.
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To be continued in episode 15, The Collection.
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Playful Wife. If this story is staying with you,
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the next episode is already waiting. Subscribe
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Thank you for listening.