Kingdom Come

And Dada Akhtar.

Grandpa.

Ziya sighed as she looked out her bedroom window and saw Dada Akhtar puttering around with his beloved rose bushes, his tiny gardening scissors going snip-snip on the bad leaves. His beady eyes large behind the gigantic glasses he wore with obvious pride. He was nearing eighty, a retired military man, who was now content with looking after his roses and holding court over his family when they deigned to visit him.

He was the grandfather she’d never had.

Ziya pressed a hand against the chilled glass of her window and called out, “Good morning, Dadaji.”

Dada Akhtar, still spry and having all of his senses whipped his head up and smiled a wrinkled smile at the woman he already considered his newest granddaughter. Mostly because she loved Goonj almost as much as he did. It was home. When he died, it would his resting place. Laid to rest next to his beloved wife Saira, underneath an apple tree in the very first orchard that his grandfather had planted with his own hands.

“Good morning, Ziya. It’s a beautiful morning, isn’t it?”

Ziya smiled, pushed a swathe of tousled hair away from her face and answered, “Absolutely, Da. Still in love with your roses?”

He held the pair of scissors in a kind of salute and touched one vivid, blood-red bloom with something close to reverence. “As much as I love you, baby girl.”

She laughed, shook her head and was about to close the window when he called out her name.

“Yes?”

Dada Akhtar smiled, a crafty glint in his still-sharp eyes. “Krivi’s coming over for breakfast. I think he has the figures for the new venture you were talking about.”

Ziya caught herself before her smile slipped and irritation took its place. There was no reason to be irritated, therefore she wasn’t. The logic always worked for her. She nodded and said, “I’ll set an extra place for him then.”

She shut the window on Dada Akhtar’s boom of knowing laughter, as if watching Ziya squirm was a source of particular amusement for him. She tied her blond highlighted hair back in a tiny stub, because it barely brushed her shoulders as it is. Less maintenance, less hassle she’d always claimed. But secretly, she was vain enough to know that short hair went particularly well with her face and accentuated her best features while minimizing her flaws.

Now, padding into the bathroom just off her bedroom, she examined that same face while brushing her teeth diligently. It was an average kind of face, with great cheekbones, pale gray eyes, a too-wide mouth and a stub of a nose that looked a little out of place with the rest of the features. She had a nose ring, a tiny clip-on that she wore sometimes and Noor claimed it gave her a fey quality that attracted men in droves. She didn’t know about the fey thing or the droves, because she rarely had time for either of them.

The rest of her wasn’t that bad either, she conceded as she showered rapidly. Nice legs, thank God, and a figure that was curved but with a tendency to go to fat if she didn’t watch out. So she watched out and ate sparingly when she could and binged when she couldn’t resist the temptation anymore.

Besides, work at Goonj meant a lot of walking, even sprinting in some cases. Spring was the best time to get a lot of traveling and work done, because it ended so quickly. And she had several inspections scheduled over the next few weeks over the fields and the cricket bat manufacturing plant and the lumber lot too. The lumber union was demanding a renegotiation of their contract and that was one particular headache she was eager to solve.

Her plate was full, and breakfast had to be made for five people. So, why was she wondering about her decidedly unsexy body in the middle of her shower?

Him, the answer came to her mind immediately.

Krivi Iyer, the new manager who Bashir Akhtar Salman had hired to help her with the management of the estate. She hadn’t been present at his interview. All she knew was that he’d shown up one day in a battered Jeep with a duffel bag full of clothes and unreadable black eyes. He’d arrived six months ago, and they’d barely spoken ever since.

She got on well with people as a rule, it had been drummed into her in B-School, and before that in her various foster homes, the early ones … when she’d tried so hard to be the kid, the one kid they would keep and not send back after six months or a year or two weeks. Agreeability was a learned nature for her.

Yet, she couldn’t make herself look Krivi Iyer in the eyes long enough to make herself agreeable to him. And he, strangely enough, kept to himself too. They never spoke unless there was a business matter to attend to. Sometimes she’d even wondered if he was all there in the head, then she would look into those pitch-dark eyes and know. He was all there in the head all right. He just looked through her. So she made an effort to ignore him as thoroughly and effortlessly as he ignored her, and the plan was working splendidly.

Ziya dressed in jeans and a pullover, ran a brush through her now-free hair and without a trace of makeup, walked downstairs to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. Her Google Nexus smartphone, which had been Dada Akhtar’s welcome to Goonj present for her, was already in her hand and she was running through her schedule for the day.

She again blessed Da, as she did every time she punched in keys on her cute-yet-edgy cell phone and smiled fondly as she ticked off making breakfast on her to-do list.

Goonj was laid out in a typical Indian manor house fashion. There was the huge living room which also served as the dining room when the occasion warranted it and the kitchen next to it, with the mudroom just off the back of it. A simple wooden staircase led to the two upper floors, where all the bedrooms and Dada Akhtar’s study and office were.

Ziya’s own rooms were on the second floor because Dada Akhtar had insisted a single girl like her was not staying by herself in the gamekeeper’s cottage, just at the edge of the gardens that surrounded Goonj.

The cottage had been unoccupied till six months ago, when Krivi Iyer had arrived and parked his second-hand Jeep and duffel bag there. Till date, Ziya had found reasons to never visit him at his own place.

Any off-hours business that had to be conducted was done either over the phone or in Dada Akhtar’s home office.

Ziya shook her head and muttered, “Stop acting like a sixteen-year-old ninny.” And entered the kitchen.

“Well, honey, talking to yourself is considered an evolved form of ninny-ness,” a sexy female voice drawled from the inside.

Ziya chuckled and reached for the coffee pot before addressing the comment and its maker.

Noor, dressed only in shorts and a tank top, sexy, sleepy attire with an opened hot pink hoodie thrown on for fashion as much as modesty, raised her coffee mug in a toast. She had the kind of face that stopped traffic. Heart-shaped, with sharp, green eyes that could turn sultry or throw daggers, and a mouth that was made for sex. That with a killer body that she dressed to maximum effect. She could have been a supermodel but she had chosen academia as her calling.

“Just because you are an Oxford scholar doesn’t mean you can make words up, my dear.”

She fired up the gas and placed the iron skillet on it, dropping in a healthy pat of butter while she scrounged the refrigerator for eggs. Scrambled eggs were a morning staple around here. She glanced over her shoulder at Noor who cradled her mug for warmth. “You want?”

Noor shuddered, and the sweatshirt slipped a little to show one tanned shoulder. “No way. That much carbs in the morning will make me a beached whale and then I won’t look hot at my wedding. And, hey, ninny-ness is too a word. I can prove it to you.” Noor took the English language more seriously as the season’s latest fashion.

Ziya broke open the eggs and mixed in the milk, salt and pepper, and the chopped tomatoes and onions which were already frozen in a Tupperware box. She added them and sliced a green chili open right down the middle and added that too. Whisked everything together and poured it over the skillet.

“Don’t just sit there, my beached whale,” she said mildly. “Pop the bread in the toaster, would you? Make extra. Krivi’s coming over for a breakfast consult.”

Noor laughed; a husky sound and whistled. “Ooh! Krivi’s coming over for a breakfast consult, is he?”

Ziya didn’t bother to answer her best friend. So Noor singsonged, “Ziya and Krivi sitting on a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

Ziya removed a toasted bread slice from the pile Noor was adding to, and stuffed it in her opened mouth. Noor’s lovely green eyes rounded in indignation and she munched on the slice before she removed it with a sputter.

“That was low, Zee.”

“Really? It looked pretty justified to me.”

Noor’s toast dropped out of her hands as she squealed and turned around to the man who’d just spoken.

Ziya watched indulgently, affectionately as her best friend launched herself on the military-uniform-clad man who’d come in through the mudroom. He topped at about six feet, and was leanly muscled as befit an officer of the Indian Army, and he had drop-dead good looks and hazel eyes that complemented Noor’s own beauty.

She was kissing him quite enthusiastically, winding her long legs around his lean waist. And he kissed her back, pressing her closer to him for just a second, a second too long before he slid her off his body.

Noor grinned back at Ziya.

“Look what the cat dragged in, Zee.”

“I thought it was your irresistible lure that brought me here, baby,” Major Sameth Qureshi murmured, as he brushed a tender hand over his beloved’s tumbled hair. He made himself move away from her, even though it was becoming increasingly difficult to move away, to stay away, when all he wanted was forever with her. But, the life of an Army man’s wife was not for Noor Saiyed, impending PhD from Oxford. And he didn’t know how he could let her go either.

Right now, that beauty queen face softened into pure beauty that shone from her untarnished soul, through those eyes he saw in his dreams. Noor, who had never known true loss or unhappiness for a single minute of her sheltered life. And, if he had his way, she never would.

“I didn’t want to give myself that much credit. Zee would accuse me of having a bloated head,” she stage-whispered.

“Zee doesn’t have to accuse,” Ziya pointed out dryly. “She already knows about your bloated head, honey. Morning, Sam. You staying for breakfast too, I suppose?”

Sam nodded and stepped fully back from Noor. He dragged his eyes away from her face and smiled at Ziya. A big brother smile. Ziya Maarten was the best friend a girl could have, and she was the closest thing he had to a sister. He worried about her, as much as he admired her for her drive and grit to simply forge ahead and get things done.

“Morning, Ziya. Yes, I came here for your breakfast actually. Not Noor’s supposed lures,” he added with a wink.

Noor rolled her eyes and punched him in the arm before strolling away to pour him coffee. Ziya followed Sam’s eyes as they watched his girlfriend with a kind of helpless fascination she’d always found vaguely pathetic.

“You two are a riot, aren’t you?” Noor sulked as she dumped the mug in Sam’s surprised hands.

Ziya leaned down and picked up the fallen bread slice and gave her a wry look. “You make it so easy, honey. How can we resist? Right, Sam?”

Sam dropped a kiss on top of Noor’s head and slid into a chair next to her. “If I answer that, she will skin me alive.”

Noor brightened and leaned into Sam and said, “Nope. If you answer that, I will make you marry me.”

Sam’s dark eyes shuttered and his face hardened into the soldier that he was. “We have discussed this already, Noor and—”

“We didn’t discuss anything,” she cut in icily, while Ziya fanned the gas flame higher in an effort to drown out the conversation. “You just nixed the idea before we could ever discuss it, Sam.”

“Noor, I told you already, the Army is my career. And it’s a dangerous one, a terrible one. I can’t stand to have you waiting for me when I go to war.”

Noor’s face took on a pugnacious look. Even though they’d had this same argument, practically every day since she’d come back three months ago in order to claim him. Thirty-one, in the Rulebook of Noor, was the right time for a bachelor to settle down. And she was damn well not going to celebrate another birthday as a single woman.

“And I told you, there are millions of women all over the world who do the same every day. If they can, why can’t I?”

“Because.” He raked a hand through his buzz-cut hair and exhaled loudly. “Those women are not the love of my life; who I can’t stand going mad with grief. Besides, what about Oxford and your PhD?”

Noor shook her head. “You cannot sway me with that line, Major Sameth. And do NOT make this about me. This is about you and your inability to commit to a woman, as I am discussing IN detail in my doctorate. I tell you, Ziya. Be it Victorian times or post-post modern, the male as a species prefers to hunt alone than find a mate.”

“Noor.” He reached for her hand and she used it to cradle her coffee mug. “It is not as simple as that …”

“Sam, I love you,” she said, implacably. “You’re the love of my life and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. It’s as simple as that. We’ve been doing this for almost a year now. I can’t wait anymore, I won’t. You should understand that and you’re going to regret not saying yes to my proposal because pretty soon I won’t want you anymore.”

Sam shook his head and looked helplessly at Ziya. “Help, please.”

Ziya shook her head too. “I have a call. I have to take it right now.” She held her phone out like a weapon and backed out of the kitchen.

Noor’s laughter made her smile and she still had that same soft smile on her face, as she entered the living room and collided into a wall of sheer, hard muscle. Terrifyingly hard arms came around her and held her steady when she would have dropped her beloved cell phone.

Ziya stepped back at the same instant that Krivi did.

“Thanks,” she managed, when she got her breath back.

It puzzled her that she’d lost her breath for even a second.

Krivi looked at her for a single, electric second, the hard planes of his face set in even more rigid lines than Sam’s, who was a career military man. He didn’t have a traditionally handsome face; it was too blank and hard for that. But he had a strong jaw and eyes that were bottomless, soul-sucking every time she looked directly at them.

Ziya shot his pursed lips a covert glance and thought, OK, class-A kissable mouth. Then immediately berated herself for allowing that thought to slip in.

“You should never turn your back while entering a room,” he suggested.

“I hardly think that terrorists are going to gun me down in my own living room.” She hoped her face was as mild as she’d made her voice to be.

He had stepped back from her as if she was a live bomb which could explode at any second. There was ignoring, and there was indifference and then there was outright abhorrence. And this man was displaying the third emotion with his emotionless face in spades.

He couldn’t bear to touch her.

“All the same. Please, be careful.” He didn’t take his eyes off her face, as he continued, “Hey, Major. How’s it going?”

Sam threw his hands up as he stalked out of the living room.

“I am not coming back till someone can talk sense into that woman.”

That woman came storming behind him, whirled him by the shoulders and kissed him hard. Gripping the front of his shirt collar to keep him in place and plastering her body to his. Sam kissed her back with equal passion, not able to keep his hands or his lips to himself for even a single second.

Ziya looked at Krivi who looked at the passionate couple as if they were specimens at a zoo. A specimen he hadn’t ever encountered before.

When Noor dropped down to her feet, she said, “‘ Bye, Sam. Don’t come back unless we can talk like two rational adults who are madly in love and are willing to work on the future.”

Sam’s lips tightened and he nodded once, and wearing the trademark Ray-Bans that every military man owned, stalked out. His razor-straight back radiating tension.

Noor turned to look at Ziya with absolute misery on her face.

“I am going to have ice cream for breakfast. Chocolate ice cream,” she announced defiantly.

“I’ll get the bowls out in a second, OK?” Ziya said, gently.

“Yeah.” She sniffed once, and then gave a wobbly smile to Krivi. “Love sucks, K. Don’t ever fall into it.”

Krivi smiled at her, a strange stretching of his muscles that made the muscles in Ziya’s stomach jump. And she realized she’d never seen him smile before today. Not once. He had even white teeth that stood out against the dark tan of his face. A thundercloud of a face. And his smile was extraordinarily sweet despite the hard mouth it came out of.

“Don’t plan to, sweetie. Want me to beat the Major for you?” he offered, shoving both hands into his jeans pocket.

Noor sniffed again and shook her head. She laid her head on Ziya’s shoulder, which was sort of like seeing a giraffe lean on a gazelle, since Noor was a leggy five ten and Ziya barely topped five five in her bare feet.

“Not yet. We’ll keep that as the last resort.” Her dull eyes brightened and she fixed Ziya with an enthusiastic grin. “Maybe K can knock him unconscious and we can get him to the nikaah venue and then he won’t have any choice than to say Qubool hai.’’ I do, in Urdu.

“Yeah, good plan, Nuria.” Ziya used her nickname to good effect. “Get your future husband passed out to the wedding.”

Krivi shrugged his broad shoulders under his sheepskin jacket that was definitely not from the Hindukush region and said, “It’s as good a plan as any, I suppose. Just let me know an hour before, OK?”

Then he winked and Noor gasped and chuckled as he continued, “I promise I won’t even damage his face so you’ll get your perfect wedding pictures.”

“I’ll hold you to that, K. Zee, I’ll see you in my room. I don’t want Da to castigate me again when he finds out I fought with Sam. Da and Sam need to continue being buddies.” It was at times like these, that Ziya remembered that Noor was a warm, considerate woman who put other people’s feelings before her own and was not just a ditz holding out for a diamond ring.

Noor squeezed Ziya’s shoulder and shooting another bright smile in Krivi’s direction sashayed back into the kitchen.

Ziya looked at Krivi. Krivi tried to look back, but he only managed a left-of-center gaze and her lips tightened in annoyance. He’d winked not a minute ago. Not one damn minute ago! Was she such a troll that he couldn’t feel any kind of warmth towards her?

“Noor’s feeling bummed out. She doesn’t show it, but—”

“We can do this in the afternoon. Read up on the report by then.”

Krivi dropped a thick file in her general direction and she caught it with the same hand that held her phone. There was a little bit of juggling on her part when she tried to make sure she didn’t drop the papers inside the file. So she was frowning when she looked up to thank him.

And found only empty space where he had been a second ago.

“I don’t need this,” she announced to the empty air and stalked back into the kitchen.

It was the morning for an ice cream breakfast, after all.

Ziya put in a full hour with Noor, sympathizing, encouraging and alternating with sharp words that defended Sam’s actions before she escaped to the sanctuary of her own office. The two bowls of chocolate ice cream she’d had, sat heavy on her stomach and she knew ruefully that she’d have to forego lunch.

Since it was a remarkably beautiful day, she decided to bike it down to her office in Srinagar. Usually, she used the four-wheel drive Rover, but the ice cream had put her in the mood for some immediate exercise. And, she needed to burn off the steam of her anger against one Assistant Manager who moved like the goddamn air. Da was in his office, probably playing Internet poker against thirteen-year-olds, and so she left without informing him of her whereabouts.

The bike ride down the small hillock was bouncy but invigorating and, on flat land, there was a bike path that she was the only one who used with any consistency. People preferred walking in Kashmir, or driving. Because of the hilly, rough train.

She, with her Western lifestyle and her obsession with keeping the weight off, wanted to bike it up and down like Lance Armstrong. Not the best example, she acknowledged, as she chained up the three-speed outside the simple brownstone that housed Goonj Enterprises.

It was set in front of an apple orchard that produced award-winning apples every couple of seasons. There was an apple cidar unit in the back lot, and then, for miles on end on either side of the highway were timber lots owned by the Akhtar family. Some of the timber was cut down and sold to local manufacturers, small craftsmen who needed that special chinar, maple tree bark, for their carvings and carpentry. And the rest of it was used to manufacture cricket bats.

The first time Ziya had entered the workshop where the cricket bat was made, she’d been astounded by the easy precision and perfect syncing of the wood being cut and the final product.

The brownstone was divided into offices for Krivi and Ziya and a few other personnel and a souvenir and apple cidar tasting shop on the other hand.

And every day, when the store opened for business, like it had for the last year when she’d first decreed that it would, Ziya made it a point to walk through and greet the first few browsers and have an encouraging word with Poppy, the Australian girl who manned the store. She did the same today too, but she was late by almost two hours and the place was pretty deserted.

The store was called Goonj Curios and Souvenirs, because she’d wanted to reinforce the brand name of the family enterprise and it sounded powerful and mysterious. Goonj in Hindi meant echo, and it resonated with the warm feeling she wanted every customer who came in to leave with. Echoing in their hearts forever.

Poppy was showing a couple of Japanese tourists around the store, so Ziya quickly waved to her and kept moving forward to the back entrance and to her office.

The storeroom was next to the shop and her office was on the next floor. She quickly jogged up the stone steps and entered her office with a small sigh. Her legs were aching a little because she’d pedaled furiously in her anger and she uncapped a bottle of spring water she kept on the sideboard and drank it down thirstily. Then she dropped her messenger bag on her comfy desk and opened the file that Krivi had thrust at her.

A knock sounded on her door and she looked up to see Viven, her assistant come in with a tray of bottles.

“These came in by mail. You have to let them know by Friday latest, and they can get on to bulk manufacture in a week.”

Bottles for the apple cidar they produced in the back lot.

“Put it down here, I’ll get to it in a minute.” She indicated the edge of her cluttered desk and Viven whistled as he placed the tray, after clearing a pile of papers.

“I have told you I could clear all this stuff up for you, Ziya.” He smiled goofily, a kid who was doing his MBA long-distance and had dreams of opening his own restaurant in the hills for adventure enthusiasts. “It’s my job as your assistant to help you out any way I can.”

“And it’s my job as your boss to kick your butt if you touch my stuff, sweetie.” Ziya smiled, a sharp grin and Viven shook his head and ducked out.

Krivi came in without knocking just as Ziya had opened the file. She looked up a split second before he entered, her inner radar alerting her to his silent, morose presence. He was dressed much like her. Jeans, a pullover in dark brown and work boots. He didn’t even wear a watch but she knew he was always on time. Every-fricking-where. It was uncanny and a little frightening.