04-03-2026, 02:23 AM
The golden haze of the wedding didn't fade; it was punctured.
It happened on a Tuesday morning, exactly ten days after the marathon in the teak-walled room. I was sitting at the small desk in our bedroom, my laptop open. The glow of the screen felt colder than it had in weeks. An automated email from the German Federal Foreign Office sat in my inbox like a glitch in our perfect reality.
Status Update: Visa Category - Spouse Reunion. Current Status: Under Review. Estimated Processing Time: 8-12 Weeks.
I stared at the numbers. Eight to twelve weeks. My return flight to Cologne was in four days. The new semester at the university started on Monday.
Sowmya walked into the room, carrying two cups of ginger tea. She was wearing a simple cotton house-saree, her hair tied in a loose, messy knot. She looked soft, domestic, and entirely mine. But when she saw my face—the way my jaw was set, the way I wouldn't look at her—the tray rattled in her hands.
"Vicky-chetta?" she whispered, setting the tea down on the nightstand. "What is it? Did the department call?"
I turned the laptop around. She leaned in, her eyes scanning the bureaucratic German and the blunt English translation. I watched the color drain from her face, replaced by a pale, frantic realization.
"Eight... to twelve weeks?" she breathed, her hand flying to the Thali around her neck. "But you leave in four days. You said the lawyer said it would be fast. You said the marriage certificate would fast-track everything."
I stood up, the chair scbanging harshly against the floor. The "Professor" was back, but he was failing the most important test. "The lawyer was optimistic, Sowmya. But the consulate in Chennai is backlogged. There's a surge in student visas for the spring semester. We’re just another file in a cabinet."
"Just a file?" She stepped toward me, her voice rising, thick with a sudden, jagged hurt. "We just spent six months praying for a screen to disappear! We just spent a week finally... finally being a couple! And now you’re telling me I have to go back to being a series of pixels on a smartphone?"
"I'm not telling you that because I want to!" I snapped, the frustration of the last six months boiling over. I grabbed her shoulders, my fingers digging into the soft cotton of her blouse. "I have a contract, Sowmya. I have lectures. I have a research grant that pays for the life we’re going to have in Cologne. If I don't go, there is no visa. There is no 'us' over there."
She didn't pull away. She leaned into me, her forehead thumping against my chest. I felt her tears soak into my shirt—the same shirt she had unbuttoned with such frantic joy only nights before.
"I’m scared, Vicky," she sobbed, her hands clutching the fabric of my back. "I’m scared that if you go, the distance will grow back. I’m scared that the bed will feel even bigger now that I know what it’s like to have you in it."
The air in the room, which had been thick with jasmine and desire, was now heavy with the scent of rain and impending loss. I pulled her closer, my chin resting on the top of her head. The German diamond on her finger caught the morning sun, a cruel reminder of the border that still sat between us.
"It’s just a few months, Sowmya," I murmured, though the words felt like ash in my mouth.
"A few months is an eternity when I can still feel your bite marks on my shoulder," she whispered, looking up at me. Her eyes were red, but they were burning with a new kind of hunger—a desperate, ticking-clock kind of need.
The spark was still there, but it was sharper now, edged with the agony of the looming separation. Every time we touched for the rest of that day, it felt like we were trying to store up enough heat to last a winter.
"Vicky-chetta," she said later that evening, as we lay in the dark, the laptop closed but the tension still humming between us. "If you only have two weeks... I don't want to spend them talking to lawyers. I don't want to spend them worrying about the German government."
She moved over me, her body a heavy, insistent weight in the shadows. She caught my hand and placed it over her heart, which was drumming a frantic, terrified rhythm.
"Make me forget the calendar," she commanded, her voice dropping into that dark, velvety register that always broke my self-control. "Make me so tired that I can't even count the days until you leave."
I didn't need to be told twice. The "Professor" closed the tab on logic. The "Groom" reached for his wife, and the room was once again consumed by a storm—this one fueled not just by desire, but by the terrifying, beautiful desperation of a time-limit.
It happened on a Tuesday morning, exactly ten days after the marathon in the teak-walled room. I was sitting at the small desk in our bedroom, my laptop open. The glow of the screen felt colder than it had in weeks. An automated email from the German Federal Foreign Office sat in my inbox like a glitch in our perfect reality.
Status Update: Visa Category - Spouse Reunion. Current Status: Under Review. Estimated Processing Time: 8-12 Weeks.
I stared at the numbers. Eight to twelve weeks. My return flight to Cologne was in four days. The new semester at the university started on Monday.
Sowmya walked into the room, carrying two cups of ginger tea. She was wearing a simple cotton house-saree, her hair tied in a loose, messy knot. She looked soft, domestic, and entirely mine. But when she saw my face—the way my jaw was set, the way I wouldn't look at her—the tray rattled in her hands.
"Vicky-chetta?" she whispered, setting the tea down on the nightstand. "What is it? Did the department call?"
I turned the laptop around. She leaned in, her eyes scanning the bureaucratic German and the blunt English translation. I watched the color drain from her face, replaced by a pale, frantic realization.
"Eight... to twelve weeks?" she breathed, her hand flying to the Thali around her neck. "But you leave in four days. You said the lawyer said it would be fast. You said the marriage certificate would fast-track everything."
I stood up, the chair scbanging harshly against the floor. The "Professor" was back, but he was failing the most important test. "The lawyer was optimistic, Sowmya. But the consulate in Chennai is backlogged. There's a surge in student visas for the spring semester. We’re just another file in a cabinet."
"Just a file?" She stepped toward me, her voice rising, thick with a sudden, jagged hurt. "We just spent six months praying for a screen to disappear! We just spent a week finally... finally being a couple! And now you’re telling me I have to go back to being a series of pixels on a smartphone?"
"I'm not telling you that because I want to!" I snapped, the frustration of the last six months boiling over. I grabbed her shoulders, my fingers digging into the soft cotton of her blouse. "I have a contract, Sowmya. I have lectures. I have a research grant that pays for the life we’re going to have in Cologne. If I don't go, there is no visa. There is no 'us' over there."
She didn't pull away. She leaned into me, her forehead thumping against my chest. I felt her tears soak into my shirt—the same shirt she had unbuttoned with such frantic joy only nights before.
"I’m scared, Vicky," she sobbed, her hands clutching the fabric of my back. "I’m scared that if you go, the distance will grow back. I’m scared that the bed will feel even bigger now that I know what it’s like to have you in it."
The air in the room, which had been thick with jasmine and desire, was now heavy with the scent of rain and impending loss. I pulled her closer, my chin resting on the top of her head. The German diamond on her finger caught the morning sun, a cruel reminder of the border that still sat between us.
"It’s just a few months, Sowmya," I murmured, though the words felt like ash in my mouth.
"A few months is an eternity when I can still feel your bite marks on my shoulder," she whispered, looking up at me. Her eyes were red, but they were burning with a new kind of hunger—a desperate, ticking-clock kind of need.
The spark was still there, but it was sharper now, edged with the agony of the looming separation. Every time we touched for the rest of that day, it felt like we were trying to store up enough heat to last a winter.
"Vicky-chetta," she said later that evening, as we lay in the dark, the laptop closed but the tension still humming between us. "If you only have two weeks... I don't want to spend them talking to lawyers. I don't want to spend them worrying about the German government."
She moved over me, her body a heavy, insistent weight in the shadows. She caught my hand and placed it over her heart, which was drumming a frantic, terrified rhythm.
"Make me forget the calendar," she commanded, her voice dropping into that dark, velvety register that always broke my self-control. "Make me so tired that I can't even count the days until you leave."
I didn't need to be told twice. The "Professor" closed the tab on logic. The "Groom" reached for his wife, and the room was once again consumed by a storm—this one fueled not just by desire, but by the terrifying, beautiful desperation of a time-limit.
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