Richard Doetsch - Half-Past Dawn

She was nineteen, two years Suresh’s junior. She did not speak of her childhood or upbringing beyond saying that it was hard and filled with violence, although her perfect teeth and refined speech indicated that her difficult youth may have been more emotional than physical.

With no plan beyond escape, she had ventured up to the mountain region to start a new life, to find love and adventure. And she did with Suresh. He took her on jungle excursions, taught her camping and how to live off the land. He taught her how to defend herself more effectively and the importance of avoiding aggression and physical confrontation when possible.

It was a week before their first kiss, another month before they made love, and when they did, Suresh knew that he had found a partner to spend his life with.

Their passion was primal, their lovemaking rough yet tender. Their existence was simple, spent in the outdoors, the apartment used for expressing their undying passion, sleep, and showering. They were able to live off money earned from selling their jewelry, including Suresh’s ruby ring and Nadia’s gold necklace, and felt no need for the materialistic aspects of life. The world around them and their own company offered all of the entertainment they needed. Truth be told, though, Nadia indulged her one interest-photography-taking pictures of the vast jungle, of Suresh, of them dining, swimming, holding hands. She photographed them in bed, naked, within each other’s embrace, photographs they shared only with each other.

In the third week of their relationship, Suresh found the note on his door. Sitting in the cafe fifteen minutes later, he faced his father.

“You have not returned,” his father said.

“This is my life now,” Suresh said. “You are stuck in the past, you and everyone else. You claim inner vision yet are blind to the world around you.”

“This life will not fulfill you.” His father looked upon him with sad eyes.

“You claim to know my wants and feelings.”

“No, I know your heart because you’re my son.”

“Then know that I have found someone-”

“Does she love you in return?”

Suresh glared at his father. “We have found a deep connection. We were meant to be together. Fate, which you so love to cite, brought us together.”

“Is she committed to you, the way you are committed to her? Does she love you?”

“One hundred times a day, she says it; she has given me her mind, body, and soul.”

“But has she truly given you her heart?” his father paused. “If she has, then I give you my blessing. You are then one with her and her outside world. And you are lost to us.”

And without another word, his father stood and walked out.

It was in the alley, after dark, and Suresh was on his way from the produce market to meet Nadia when four thieves emerged from the shadows. They were quiet, trying to get a jump on him.

The first man stepped in front of him, blocking his way and staring at him. Suresh naively smiled, thinking the man lost, but then he heard the others approaching from behind. His teachers had trained him to sense aggression and imminent attack and to embrace the instinctual release of adrenaline and turn it to his advantage.

Suresh’s senses were immediately heightened. He could hear not only their footsteps upon approach but also their flanking movements and even their breathing.

And as the man on his left rear attacked, Suresh was already in a crouch, ducking beneath the blow, spinning around, sweeping the man’s feet from beneath him. The two others came at him simultaneously. Suresh dove to the left, driving his fist into the tall man’s throat, the shock of the blow sending the man to the ground, grasping his neck. Suresh spun to the right, his left foot pivoting as he right-snap-kicked the second man in the nose, and he quickly followed it up with a single blow to the solar plexus and a kick to the knee, disabling the man.

Suresh turned to see their leader coming at him with a knife, driving it forward, aimed at his heart, but Suresh turned the man’s momentum on him, snatching the man’s knife hand and twisting it back until the knife fell to the ground. Suresh continued the motion, using the man’s own weight to lever his wrist until it snapped. Twisting the man’s arm until the shattered bone acted like an internal knife, he brought the man to the ground.

In less than a minute, the four street thieves lay upon the alley, disabled, wounded, but alive.

Suresh walked into his apartment to find Nadia not home. He lit the kerosene lamp by the window, its orange glow lighting the room. He turned on the stove and placed a pot of oil over the flame, then quickly seasoned the fish and laid out the produce that had all managed to survive his ordeal.

He stepped into the small bathroom, checked the wound to make sure it was minor, cleaned it, and applied a bandage. The adrenaline had quickly left his system. It had been nearly six months since he had tasted its flavor, but his defense and attack skills had returned as if he had practiced them the day before. His mind quickly let it all go, his thoughts returning to Nadia, to her smile, to her eyes that looked into his soul. He was glad she wasn’t with him, relieved that she didn’t bear witness to the violence he could unleash.

As he finished applying the bandage, his heart began to race, and the adrenaline returned as he sensed someone entering the apartment. Not Nadia, not the soft pad of her feet, the smell of her natural scent. It was someone else, trying to remain quiet, invisible.

Suresh turned off the light, crouched low, and peered out through the bathroom door to see an equally tall man standing at the kitchen table, rifling through the few papers that lay there. Dressed in a dark, tailored suit, the man projected an aristocratic air while his eyes scanned the room like a soldier on a mission. Suresh looked around the small bathroom. There was nothing but the box of gauze, a bar of soap, and a washcloth. He reached into his pocket and fisted a handful of coins.

Suresh took a moment, gathering his wits, and stepped from the bathroom, surprising the man. They stared at each other a moment.

“Who the hell are you?” Suresh finally demanded.

“Ah.” The man turned, momentarily startled. He flashed a smile, but Suresh saw his eyes; there was no smile within them. “My name is Raj, Rajeev Sapre. You must be Suresh.”

Suresh’s caution escalated. Beyond Nadia, no one outside of his world knew his name.

“Making dinner for Nadia?” Rajeev asked, pointing to the pot of boiling oil, the fresh vegetables and fish.

Suresh remained silent and assessed the man before him. His tailored clothes projected a superior air, which momentarily distracted him before he recalled the words from his youth: no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

“The door was open-”

“And you just figured you’d walk in?” Suresh said in an accusatory tone.

“I’m a friend of Nadia’s.”

“She never mentioned you.”

“Nadia fashions herself a woman of mystery, but believe me, the mystery doesn’t run very deep.”

“I think you should leave,” Suresh said.

“Did she get you with the lost-child story?”

“This is her home now. I’m not going to ask you again.”

Raj looked around the small, cramped apartment, his eyes unable to hide his disgust.

“I’ve known Nadia for most of her life, and I can assure you, she does not consider this her home.”

“Then you don’t know her very well.”

“She tell you she ran away, traveled fifteen hundred miles on her own? Bet she failed to mention her father’s palatial estate not two miles from here in the foothills of the Parshia Mountains. How do you think she has kept that beautiful head of hair of hers so perfect? Certainly not with a bar of soap and tap water. My people have been watching her, every day when she goes for her run. She grabs a cab, goes to the estate which is vacant during this season, takes a real shower, indulges the needs she proclaims are beneath her, that are vainglorious and shallow. She usually grabs a bite to eat, watches a little television, before coming back here to play the martyr, to be a free spirit.”