The Unnaturals . Book 2

Part 7 The Rift

Chapter 7

The Rift

Taking hold of Piku's hand , Duke pulled him along and started running towards the fields of catkins next to the river .

Despite himself , Piku's misery just vanished . He ran next to Duke and his heart lifted with inexplicable joy .

At this time of dawn, there was not a soul to be seen along the way .They ran through Piku's fruit orchard and came upon the raised earthen road .

The village road with rows of coconut trees on both edges and the rice fields fells away, going as far as the eyes could see on the flat Bengal land . The canal carrying water for irrigation was now very low , covered by water hyacinth . It looked like a dark green edge to the brown carpet of the fallow fields .

Harvest was over , the sheaves of rice that swayed like a thick golden carpet right up to the horizon, were all gone . The land lay bare with just a stubble on it , with the raised styles clearly visible on the dry land . A patchwork of brown rectangles with a few copses of bamboo trees hovering over some ponds , a few huts here and there and just farmland as far as the eyes could see .

The boys ran through a familiar path and entered the field of catkins . Then they walked silently , hand in hand , through the waving field of tall grass now topped with white flowers . They were easily hidden from view.

They stopped at a clearing near the middle . This had always been their secret spot . No one could ever find them here . They came here to smoke cigarettes secretly and even drink beer if they could filch a bottle from Adhiraj's bar .

Duke turned to Piku and said ,' now will you tell me what's upset you ... Why were you crying .. Why did you run away from me yesterday , Piku ? '

Piku looked at Duke . His large mournful eyes filled up again . He kept mum .

'Pikuuuuu.. please talk to me..You Always do this. How can we solve a problem if you don't talk ?'

' I don't want to talk about it. There's nothing to talk about .' finally came Piku's sullen response .

' So you don't want to talk about what we did that day? Shall we just continue then ... ? ' Duke lunged forward and kissed Piku on his lips .

Piku moved his mouth away, jerked away from Duke 's grip and shouted , 'stop it , just stop it . Stop joking around . Don't you know , what we did was wrong ? We can't do this . I looked it up in Baba's law books , it's a crime . If we are caught, we could go to jail , both of us .'

His heart was aching , eyes burning . He kept his face carefully away from Duke 's and continued talking .. spilling out all the doubts, fears and shame that Shyama's diatribe had instilled in him .

He didn't even once mention what transpired between himself and Shyama . He knew full well how much Duke loved his nanny and how much her cruel words would hurt him .

'Its dirty , evil , ungodly . It goes against nature and will never be accepted by anyone . We'll be pariahs . Our families will be humiliated . We were just fine before all this . We are best friends and we can continue to be best friends forever so I don't want to listen to any damned bullshit from you ....' his voice rose with each painful word , he was crying but didn't notice his tears .

He continued talking , uttering the painful words through a throat choking with tears , ' people will look down on us . They'll laugh at us . Call us dirty names . Say that we've brought shame on our families . '

Breathing like he was running a marathon , he finally stopped.

Duke stared at him and said wonderingly , 'I've never heard you shouting at me .. this is the first time in all our days together that you've raised your voice at me . '