Free A Breath of Fresh Air by Amulya Malladi Page B

because he felt his masculinity had left him when he found out about his low sperm count. Since they were not having sex, there was no chance for a pregnancy.
    It was almost four months after the “set-up” dinner at Gopi’s that Anjali and I met again. She was talking to a friend outside the auditorium where the students of the Department of Literature were performing a play. As a member of the faculty I had a free ticket, and since I had nothing better to do on a Saturday night I went to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream .
    Our eyes met as we waited to go inside the theater, and before I could turn away and pretend I didn’t see her she waved lightly. I waved back uncomfortably. I felt uneasy. After all, Gopi and Sarita had tried to set me up with her. I wondered if she was hopeful because of that.
    I noticed that she stood out in a crowd because of her shoulder-length straight hair, her height, and her beautiful face. I on the other hand was thirty-one years old and looked like the average man on the street. No one would give me a second look—I wasn’t that ugly or that handsome. We would make an incongruous pair. For the first time I wondered about her ex-husband. I didn’t know his name, but I tried to give him a face, a character, and a personality. I tried to fill the idea of her ex-husband with life, to see who this striking woman had been married to and then divorced from.
    She made her way to me and asked me how my summer was. I had no choice but to be polite, though I didn’t want to talk to her. She probably had some ideas about me, about herself and me—thanks to Sarita—and I wanted to discourage her.
    She realized soon enough that I didn’t want to speak with her and left. I should have been relieved, but I wasn’t. I felt guilty for being so presumptuous.
    I saw a flash of her white dupatta as I entered the auditorium, and I don’t know what possessed me, but I sat in the empty chair next to her. She didn’t notice me, since she was turned the other way, speaking with her friend in a hushed voice.
    When the lights went down, without much deliberation or thought, I leaned over and whispered, “I am sorry.” The reaction was not what I expected. She squealed and all heads turned to look for the squealer. The curtains went up and the crowd went back to looking at the stage. Anjali and I sat frozen, her squeal still ringing in our ears.
    “Sorry again,” I whispered, and she was breathing heavily, assuring her companion, who seemed agitated, that everything was all right.
    “I didn’t expect you to sit with me after . . .” she muttered, looking ahead at the stage.
    “I wanted to apologize for that. I think I took too much for granted.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like . . . I thought that Sarita might have given you some ideas . . .”
    “Shh,” someone said, and we both fell silent.
    I blindly looked at the stage for a while, not in the least interested in how Titania and Oberon would make up. I had behaved like an arrogant swine. Did I really think that this wonderful woman would fall all over me?
    I couldn’t stand it any longer as guilt made me ignore the fact that we were in a theater. When Bottom began to sing, I leaned over again. “I want to apologize. It was very rude of me.”
    She turned around right then and our noses clashed. She giggled first and I joined her. Someone from the crowd again said, “Shh.”
    “Out,” she whispered, then leaned over to tell her friend something. We stole out of the auditorium like thieves.
    “I like A Midsummer Night’s Dream ,” she accused me with a broad smile as soon as we were outside.
    “I am sorry,” I said with a broad smile. “I think I have apologized enough, don’t you?”
    She seemed to think it over, her arms folded against her chest. “Maybe chai will ease the pain of missing the play and soothe hurt feelings.”
    “Chai?”
    “Yes,” she said, then sighed. “I am not trying to wrangle a marriage out of my stay here at