"I have invited," surprised at hearing his own sound, and at the ability to lie with confidence, Masud began slowly, his voice deep and needy, glancing back to Nasima, "some friends tonight for tea. If you could, please, come for a short while?" His eyes rested, briefly, on her breasts, obscured behind the shirt she wore of thin material, before moving his stare back to her lips.
"Yes, yes. Why not, ji? Yes, Nasimay!" the old man’s voice startled Masud. "Go, go and do a quick sweeping I mean why not..." and at the end of his words he coughed, pushing his chest against his arms and bending forward, as if in obedience. A child stepped forward to the old man and grabbed his dhoti cloth.
Nasima moved to leave, staring at her chidlren, and leaned to pick up her dupatta from the string bed. Masud thought of Jumma Khan and his cunning laughter, and halted at the door, the old man freezing behind him. "You don’t have to come with me. I have to run an errand on my way home, so it’d be better to wait about half an hour and then come." Masud opened the door.
Holding her dupatta, Nasima nodded and then looked at her husband, who was looking at the rain falling on the brown bed of water.
Opening his umbrella over his head, Masud hurried out into the rain as though his body was burning. Walking down the street, he felt his insides filling with rage, and as he approached his house, sneaking through the hole, he didn’t avoid the puddles, his shoes becoming drenched and muddy. He took quick steps and his heart beat faster. He spotted Jumma, from a block’s distance, sitting under the tin shade that jutted out from the building facade.
"Wah! Allah’s blessing is this rain, Masud saheb, the crops are thirsty and waiting, and here Allah is ever merciful. Arrey, Masud bhai, I wonder what happened to our Nasima today?" Jumma took a deep puff from his Kashmiri hookah; the water in the bottom of the hookah gurgled angrily. But before Masud could answer, or ignore the question, Jumma cackled, "Those lazy Christians. Ya Allah! those damn Farangees should have taken their filth back to Inglistan I say." He shook his head as if with disgust, but Masud knew it was more with malice and mockery.
"Jumma ji," Masud snapped, "who would clean our Muslim toilets then? Who would wash our arses?" Leaving Jumma stunned with the tip of the hookah’s mouthpiece hanging in his grip, Masud walked inside, folding his umbrella.
With his head encased in his palms, leaning, he sat motionless, feeling nauseated, weightless. He tried to clear his mind of thoughts, but they kept crowding his head. He should not have gone, he reflected with bitter embarrassment; a man could lose all his decency faster than any other thing he possessed: money, health, love.
He came out of his doldrums, on the verge of having drowned, on hearing the door creak; he looked up and Nasima was halfway in the room.
She stood staring at him, the rain drops sliding from her face, her clothes, her hands.
"So when are those guests of yours coming? In this rain? She asked, smiling, a bit teasing, a bit sarcastic.
He just stared at her.
She shivered with cold and squeezed the wetness on her arms with her hands. It took a while to register, but then he got up quickly, grabbed a towel, and extended it to her. He then changed his mind and began wiping her hair, shoulders, arms, and then the rest of her body himself. She stood there, staring at the ceiling, later at the lizard that stared back at her. He suddenly kissed her lifeless lips with the ferocity of the monsoon rains, escorted her to his takht-e-shahi to his Taj Mahal.
Soon he crumbled to the side, breathing heavily, eyes closed, relieved. She kept her eyes open, but covered then with her right elbow, perhaps, to shade them from light. Perhaps. He felt he was slowly sinking, like a stone, into the depths of an immense ocean. The numbness in his body made him alienated to his surroundings. The constant fall of the rain and the unvarying sound of it seemed to dull the sense of desire now. The silence started to cut in his heart. He knew he had to speak or else he would become a reef.
"Who was he?"
"Who? My husband, who else!"
"Yes, the old man. Does he know?" he asked, feeling bitter at the taste of his words, acknowledging his own defeat.
"Yes, he knows. They all know..." she whispered.
He wanted to know who they all were, but he did not. He longed for a trace of emotion in her voice, an inkling of compassion, sympathy, or even pity, but her tone fell flat. Suddenly he remembered the man’s sickly stare, glowing beneath the ashes of his life. The burning, coal-like eyes of the old man now moved closer and closer, thrusting inward, pushing against his own eyes, his brains. It felt as if two red hot suns had gotten inside his skull and his face would melt any moment. A scream came to his throat, but got stuck inside his mouth. Then he heard Nasima’s husband crack with laughter, "Yes, yes, why not, sahib. Why not!? Ha ha ha!"
The anger rose inside him and he wanted to break something, smash something, a pot, a picture, a memory; he wanted to scream aloud, ‘pimp, rascal, bhaenchod, coward,’ but deep down he grew angrier at himself, feeling an urge to curse his own loneliness.
She raised her elbow and turned to look at his face. He looked at her, his anger dissipating. "You should get married," she said. "Even when you are with me, you remain sad. Even when you are caressing me, your eyes remain sorrow-soaked. That is not good." They both smiled an unexpected smile, their dark-rimmed, lifeless eyes becoming alive for a moment, glowing like dying cinders.
He began kissing her, and then his hand caressed the inviting curves of her body. He felt the lack of the same feeling on the other side. He thought of asking her to respond the way she would to her husband, but then he forcibly stitched his lips. Perhaps, she doesn’t love him either. To his surprise, she squeezed him with renewed aggression, wrapping her arms around him.
"Nasima," he hissed.
"Wha.....," she hissed back.
"Marry me."
"Silly man. I am married," she answered, laughing.
"Then run away with me," and hated his words as soon as they left his mouth.
"I have children." She looked into his eyes and her grip around him relaxed. After a very short silence, she held him tighter, and with some unknown cruelty, dug her nails into his shoulders.
"Nasima...your husband.....is too weak…sick"
She moaned, as if in response.
"He’s a guest of a few more days," he whispered, as he introduced his hardness inside her.
Her body stiffened. "What? What did you mean?" Her voice grew in fear. "Why do you talk like that? What right...because you can pay me?"
She trembled with emotion, pushing him away with her palms, and started to sob, shaking with sudden jerks. He felt angry, miserable, and heavily rolled over to his side, feeling impotency settle in him, his own existence disappearing into a dark cloud.
He wrapped a white sheet around his waist, like a dhoti, and pulled another over her. She had, however, stopped sobbing and was still.
"I...I am sorry, Nasima," he said, failing to meet her eyes.
"Don’t say such things again please," she murmured, as though talking to herself. She did not look to him either. He stared at her naked feet.
She sat up on the takht, her legs dangling, and put on her brassiere. He grabbed his wallet and took out three ten rupee bills. She had already gotten dressed, and now turned to say farewell, seeing his extended hand with money.
"But this is too much, and you―" she said.
"That’s okay,...please… I mean..." he replied with wandering eyes. "And...take two or three days off. I’ll be all right. You know Ramzan is approaching too." He forced a smile.
She seemed to be lost in thought, then snapped out of it and said, "Shukria," gratefully, and rushed out, shutting the door behind her. His hand reached for his cigarettes. He thought he could finish a whole packet, and maybe smoke two more tonight and die in his sleep. A spider slowly began to crawl around his heart.