Chapter 4 – The Bishop’s Candlesticks

             The vacations did not end with a declaration.

            They loosened their hold gradually, like a long-held breath released in careful stages. Days shortened. Mornings learned discipline again. Schoolbags reappeared by doorways. Alarm clocks returned to duty with reluctant authority. And then, one ordinary morning, the gates opened, and the school resumed its old habit of shaping lives.

            The building seemed to recognize the students before the students recognized it. Corridors filled with footsteps that echoed differently after weeks of abandonment. Benches accepted weight again, their wooden backs remembering posture. Blackboards shed their untouched stillness and welcomed chalk like an old argument resuming. Dust rose…not in protest, but in acknowledgment.

            The trees inside the campus had grown without permission during the break. Their branches leaned inward now, casting longer shadows across the paths, as if curious about the return of routine. Even the air felt altered…denser, purposeful, carrying the suggestion that something waited to happen.

            Kamal felt it the moment he entered.

            So did Monica.

            They met again on the familiar road, bicycles moving side by side with the quiet certainty of habit. Vacations had not reduced the ease between them. If anything, absence had softened it. There was a gentler quiet now, an understanding shaped by weeks of not seeing each other yet thinking, at odd moments, of the same stretch of road.

            They smiled. They rode.

            Nothing was said that required explanation.

            Yet both sensed it…the subtle discomfort of familiarity returning, changed not in shape but in weight. Something had followed them back from the break, unnamed and unshared.

            On the third day after reopening, the announcement arrived.

            The loudspeaker crackled first, as if clearing its throat. Teachers paused mid-sentence. Students leaned forward instinctively.

            “The Annual Function will be held next month. Preparations will begin immediately. Students interested in cultural performances, speeches, and the stage play should check the notice board.”

            The words carried consequence.

            Annual Function meant evenings claimed by rehearsal, classrooms rearranged into practice halls, friendships tested by roles, applause that lingered longer than certainty. It meant standing where you could be seen.

            By lunchtime, the notice board near the staff room was crowded. Names were written, erased, written again. Groups formed, dissolved, reformed. Teachers moved through the crowd with measured urgency.

            The drama teacher stood slightly apart.

            He did not speak.

            He watched.

            He watched who filled space unnecessarily, who waited, who stood still without disappearing.

            Kamal had not planned to participate. He rarely volunteered for visibility. He had learned early that attention was not always a gift. But presence, when steady and unforced, carries its own gravity.

            “You,” the teacher said, pointing lightly. “Come tomorrow.”

            Kamal hesitated.

            “I don’t…”

            “Just come,” the teacher interrupted, not unkindly. “No promises.”

            Monica heard the exchange from where she stood. Something shifted inside her…not excitement, not fear…but a quiet certainty that this mattered more than it appeared.

            Auditions were held the next afternoon.

            The assembly hall felt larger than usual. Chairs were arranged unevenly. Sunlight filtered through the high windows, illuminating dust that floated like suspended thought. Thin sheets of dialogue were handed out with little ceremony.

            Some students mistook volume for feeling. Some rushed, eager to finish. Some froze under the weight of being observed.

            When Kamal’s turn came, he did not adjust himself for effect. He read as if remembering rather than performing. His voice did not rise dramatically or fall into forced gravity. It stayed.

            The hall listened.

            The drama teacher did not interrupt.

            That evening, the cast list was pinned to the board.

            Kamal’s name appeared beside The Father of the Church.

            The role surprised him.

            It unsettled Monica.

            Rehearsals began the same week.

            The school after hours became something quieter and more intimate. Sunlight slipped lower each evening, stretching shadows along the corridors. Classrooms emptied, then filled again with different purpose. The watchman’s whistle marked time with patient regularity.

            Kamal struggled first…not with lines, but with restraint.

            He spoke too clearly, moved too deliberately. The drama teacher stopped him more than once.

            “Do not explain mercy,” he said. “Allow it.”

            Kamal learned stillness the hard way. He learned that silence could fail before it succeeded. That forgiveness demanded patience not only with others, but with oneself.

            Some evenings he returned home exhausted, unsure why. Some evenings he lay awake replaying pauses instead of words.

            Monica often stayed back too…sometimes for choir practice, sometimes without excuse. She sat near the side wall, unnoticed. She watched Kamal misunderstand mercy before slowly approaching it. She watched his shoulders learn weightlessness.

            She never interrupted.

            Weeks folded into one another.

            By the time the Annual Function arrived, the school no longer felt ordinary.

            White curtains lined the assembly hall, falling in obedient folds. Paper stars trembled overhead. The wooden stage shone under borrowed light.

            Outside, winter leaned gently against the campus. The sky was pale and thoughtful.

            Students moved in clusters, half-costumed, half-themselves. Teachers spoke louder than usual. A harmonium tested its voice. A microphone protested and was silenced.

            Kamal stood near the wings of the stage, holding a booklet he no longer needed. He wore a simple robe. A wooden cross rested against his chest.

            “Remember,” the drama teacher whispered, adjusting the robe, “you are not acting power. You are acting mercy.”

            From the third row, Monica watched.

            She sat between her parents, posture careful, heart unsettled. She had grown up with stories of grace told in familiar rooms, yet today the story felt new.

            Because Kamal was in it.

            When the curtains parted, silence settled.

            Kamal entered slowly.

            He did not look at the audience.

            He looked inward.

            “Sit, my son,” he said gently. “The night is long, and warmth is a form of truth.”

            The words rested.

            Monica leaned forward without realizing it. Pride rose…not possession, but recognition.

            When Kamal lifted the candlesticks, his hands trembled just enough to reveal choice.

            “They were never meant to stay with me.”

            The applause arrived like a held breath released.

            After the final curtain, Monica’s family waited.

            “You carried the role with respect,” her mother said.

            Her father added, “Would you join us for tea?”

            Their home welcomed without ceremony. Tea steamed. Conversation unfolded slowly, carefully.

            “You were very still,” Monica said. “It felt safe.”

            “I was afraid of doing too much,” Kamal replied. “So I chose less.”

***

            The next morning, school felt altered.

            Kamal realized it before he reached the gate.

            The road looked the same…thin, familiar, carrying the dust of passing days…but it no longer felt neutral. His bicycle moved forward, yet something inside him hesitated, as if the road itself had learned to pause. He slowed unconsciously, noticing small details he had never cared to name before: the way a broken stone caught the light, the way a closed shop reflected the sky, the way silence could feel occupied.

            He understood then that nothing external had changed.

            He had.

            Ahead, Monica rode at her usual pace.

            She did not turn back immediately. And when she did, it was not sudden. It was as if she sensed him before seeing him, as if awareness had learned to travel without sound.

            Their eyes met.

            There was no greeting at first.

            No raised hand. No habitual smile.

            Just recognition…calm, steady, unafraid.

            When they finally smiled, it was restrained, almost careful, as though both were acknowledging something fragile that now existed between them and deserved gentleness.

            They rode on.

            The space between their bicycles felt different… not closer, not distant, but aware. Kamal noticed how he adjusted his speed instinctively to match hers. Monica noticed how he did not rush to speak.

            Silence accompanied them like a third presence.

            Not empty silence. Not awkward silence.

            A silence that had memory.

            Neither mentioned the play.

            Yet it hovered…not as an event, but as an aftereffect. Like warmth left behind after a flame was extinguished.

            At the school gate, they slowed.

            Usually, this was the moment where routine took over…a quick separation, a casual word. Today, routine hesitated.

            “I kept thinking about yesterday,” Monica said quietly.

            Kamal did not pretend surprise. “So did I.”

            A pause followed.

            “Not the applause,” she added. “The still parts.”

            He nodded. “They stayed with me too.”

            That was all.

            But it was enough to confirm what both already knew: something shared did not need elaboration to exist.

            They entered the school grounds.

***

            The classrooms were unchanged. Only the seating had shifted, as if the room itself had been rearranged during the break.

            Benches bore the same scratches. Walls held the same notices. Teachers spoke in familiar rhythms. Yet Kamal felt as if he were occupying the space differently…not louder, not quieter, but more deliberately.

            When he sat down, he did not slump.

            When he listened, he did not drift.

            The role he had played…the quiet authority, the contained mercy…had not dissolved with costume removal. It had rearranged him.

            Across the room, Monica sat near the window.

            Light fell on her notebook unevenly, shifting with the movement of clouds. She wrote slowly, lifting her pen often, not because she was distracted, but because she was attentive.

            Kamal noticed how she listened…not only to the teacher, but to pauses, to implications, to what was left unsaid.

            She noticed how Kamal no longer fidgeted, no longer searched for approval. His stillness was not withdrawal; it was presence.

            Neither stared.

            Neither avoided.

            Awareness threaded the room like a quiet current.

            At break time, they did not seek each other.

            And this absence was intentional…not avoidance, but respect. Something newly formed needed air, not pressure.

Kamal stood with classmates, laughing at the right moments, participating without excess. Yet part of him remained tuned elsewhere…not fixated, just aware.

            Monica sat with friends, responding, smiling, but her mind kept returning to a feeling she had no language for yet…a sense of being seen without being examined.

            That realization both comforted and unsettled her.

***

            By afternoon, the aftermath of the Annual Function surfaced in fragments.

            Someone congratulated Kamal again.

            “You were convincing,” a boy said. “Almost unreal.”

            Kamal smiled politely. “It was just a role.”

            But Monica, overhearing, felt an immediate disagreement rise within her.

            It had not been just a role.

            She had seen the moments where Kamal forgot the audience…where his voice softened not for effect, but for truth. Where restraint spoke louder than declaration.

            She realized something quietly then:

            Some people act to be seen. Some are seen because they do not act.

            That difference mattered to her more than she expected.

            Later, when a teacher briefly mentioned discipline, responsibility, and example…glancing unintentionally at Kamal…he did not straighten with pride.

            He simply remained.

            And that, too, was noticed.

***

            The day loosened its hold slowly.

            By the time the final bell rang, the sky had begun its descent into gentler colors. Students streamed out, voices overlapping, laughter reclaiming space.

            Kamal waited by his bicycle without urgency.

            Monica approached.

            This time, they did not ride immediately.

            They walked their bicycles side by side.

            The road felt narrower, not because it had shrunk, but because it was now shared with awareness.

            “You don’t seem lighter today,” Monica said.

            Kamal considered. “No. But I feel… steadier.”

            She nodded. “I noticed.”

            He glanced at her. “You notice many things.”

            “Yes,” she replied simply. “But not everyone stays still long enough for it to matter.”

            They walked in silence again.

            The evening air carried the smell of dust cooling after warmth. Birds crossed overhead, unhurried, uncoordinated.

            “You know,” Monica said after a while, “when you were on stage… it didn’t feel like you were performing.”

            “What did it feel like?”

            “Like you were reminding people of something they already knew and had forgotten.”

            Kamal stopped walking.

            She stopped too.

            “That’s a heavy thing to say,” he said quietly.

            “I didn’t mean it to be,” she replied. “It just felt true.”

            He did not respond immediately.

            Then, softly, “I was afraid of that.”

            “Afraid?”

            “That I might start believing it.”

            She met his eyes. “Believing what?”

            “That I could be more than what I am.”

            Monica shook her head slightly. “I think you were afraid of realizing you already are.”

            The words settled between them…not as challenge, not as praise, but as recognition.

            They resumed walking.

            They reached the place where the road separated.

            Neither rushed.

            Neither checked the time.

            The silence here felt different…not open-ended, but complete.

            “Tomorrow,” Kamal said.

            “Yes,” Monica replied.

            She hesitated, then added, “Things won’t go back to how they were.”

            He nodded. “I wouldn’t want them to.”

            They smiled…quietly, knowingly.

            They turned.

            Walked away.

            Did not look back.

***

            That night, both lay awake longer than usual.

            Kamal replayed moments not to relive them, but to understand their weight. He realized that responsibility did not arrive with command…it arrived with awareness.

            Monica lay listening to the sounds of her house settling into sleep. She understood that admiration, when it grows without urgency, can feel like trust before love knows its name.

            Neither reached for conclusions.

            Neither forced meaning.

            They allowed the experience to remain incomplete…trusting that incompleteness was not absence, but space.

            The Annual Function was over.

            The stage was empty.

            The costumes folded away.

            Yet something had transferred…quietly, irrevocably…from performance to life.

            The roles had blurred.

            And the road, once merely a path, now held memory.

            It knew their pace. It knew their pauses. It knew that something delicate had begun walking upon it…something that would require patience, honesty, and time.

            And for the first time, they were ready to give it all three.