Stalingrad, en route to 8 am

There’d seldom be much space for hearts

to settle or stay. Forty pairs,

or so, of feet would fidget, fence,

lurch and trip through Gare de l’Est,

République and Oberkampf.

By Bastille, he’d begun to sip

newsprint — Le Monde or its weekend

supplement? — and dreamshot, half-clad lips,

turn by turn, one with relish.

And you, you’d listened, ears wrapped

in France Inter, listened through stations,

crowds and kisses, to Bernard Maris

cross words with Dominique Seux,

like on any other Friday.

Listened to Maris slam greed

and growth unbridled, Seux untangle

cutbacks, layoffs, the endless

spiral of State thrift, and both

seek a gentler realm for earthlings.

Listened, till Campo Formio,

to crucial, affable debate.

Listened, unknowing this would be

their last duet, unsullied by grief,

horror, the end of nameless freedoms —

another kind of unbeing.

Karthika Naïr is the author, most recently, of Until The Lions (HarperCollins India/ Arc Publications UK), which won the 2015 Tata Literature Live! Book of the Year (fiction) award

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