by Nillu Nasser
“Jaya.”
They sat side by side during class, both immersed in the swirling colours, the stroke of their brushes, the spell-binding focus of artists in flow.
Firoz floated through the room with his characteristic exuberance, gesturing wildly when he witnessed novel touches emerging under the fingertips of his students, delightful and embarrassing at the same time.
After class was over, Muna helped clean away and beckoned to Jaya. She pointed to her work, a crude painting with hesitant lines, blotchy colours and fruit that bore no correlation to the bowl from which they had taken inspiration. “It’s a start, right?”
“Yes, it’s definitely that,” Jaya joked. “Come and have some chai.”
They collected their steaming mugs, taking pleasure from the scent of cinnamon and clove wafting through the room mingling with the smell of the acrylics. Muna looked tired.
“Are you okay?” said Jaya.
“Oh, I’ll be fine. Just the pressure of being a wife and mother. You know how it is.”
“Actually, I don’t. I don’t have children.” It always felt shameful to say it out loud, like not having children amounted to a failure.
“I miss that. Not having the responsibility. I’ve not talked to anyone in months.” They stood looking out from Firoz’s window across the vast expanse of the bay. “Not properly. It’s just me and the baby, and emotionally supporting my husband. His mother died recently, you see, and it wasn’t easy.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I am too. You know, my mother-in-law was beautiful, clever, strong. And now, when I look at the jewellery and clothes I inherited from her—these heavy silks, and fashionable cut-out sari blouses, necklaces that sit like weighted ornaments around my neck—all I think of is the burden to be perfect. It feels selfish to say it, but I can’t always be the strong one. Or the best mother. Sometimes I just want to sit in my pyjamas and not be elegant, or kind, or even clean.” Muna pushed back her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I can’t believe I blurted that all out to a stranger.”
“I’m happy to listen if it helps,” said Jaya. “It sounds like you’ve been waiting for a long time to get that off your chest.” It did her good to think about someone else’s problems for a change. “But if there is one thing I know, it’s that nothing is perfect. I have no one, not really. And that, too, is difficult sometimes.”
“I shouldn’t admit this,” said Muna, nursing her chai between her hands, “but I sometimes wonder what it would be like to have been single for longer. I married so young. I’d still pick the same man, but maybe I should have waited a bit longer.”
“The time is never right. There are advantages to being single,” said Jaya. She swept aside her introverted nature in an attempt to put the younger woman at ease. “I can close my door and no one will come in.” She lowered her voice so she was not overheard. “I can take off my clothes and not worry that I am being judged. I can sit in my knickers and not have a man feel it is for his pleasure. But my question to you is, which is better: to be lonely or to be loved?”
“Aren’t we lonely even when we are loved?” said Muna. “The path we take is ours alone. No one can accompany us the whole way.”
Jaya slurped her tea. “I always wanted a family, children. It never happened for me.” She wondered whether the child she had dreamed of, with inky eyes and bouncy pig-tails, had been born to someone else or whether she only existed in her thoughts.
“It’s not always easy. My own mother died too long ago for me to have asked her the questions I now think about,” said Muna. “It seems for women, everyone has a right to our bodies, and we last of all. Take the hospital room when a child is born. We become a map, a foreign land unconquered, the unknown. Hands grasp us, then they are all gone and we are discarded while strangers tend to the newborn.”
“It’s the same in every country,” said Jaya. “For every woman, born rich or poor, whatever her age. Perhaps more so in India. We are going through growing pains. Isn’t it always the women and children who bear the pain of that growth?” She thought of her own mother, and wondered how different she might have been if she’d been exposed to more influences outside the home. Would she have been more compassionate, less concerned with herself?
“What would the world be like if it were ruled by women?” Muna mused, deep in thought. “You know, my period started a few days ago. The first time since I became pregnant. And Leela, she’s not sleeping and I’m constantly exhausted, and I know my husband is already thinking about another baby. There is something about death that makes us crave life. I couldn’t do it,” said Muna. “I couldn’t tell my husband that my body is ready for another child, so I went to great lengths to hide the bloody towels, emptied the bathroom bin so he wouldn’t catch me out and realise.”
“Oh Muna. Surely you can just tell him you’re not ready?” It was this subterfuge that caused the rot in relationships, Jaya was certain.
“And what would that say about me as a woman?”
“That you’re human. That you have other dreams apart from motherhood.” She set her cup down on the floor and noticed how most of the class had left, gone home to their loved ones. “How different we are. I would give the world to have had your journey. I have strong relationships but I crave the companionship of a romantic attachment. My sister would have been better suited to being alone than me. She is strong, self-sufficient. She doesn’t care about gossip at the temple. Disapproval doesn’t seem to touch her. Even at this age, I struggle with my lot. The world ‘spinster’ makes me want to crawl into a cave.”
Muna rolled her eyes. “The gossip trap old women fall into, judging others so they don’t have to focus on their own problems. I’ve never understood it.”
“Not just old women, all men and women. We all talk. To understand but also to elevate ourselves above others,” said Jaya. She paused, not wanting to reveal too much about herself. However much she liked this woman, she was but a stranger. She proceeded cautiously. Some secrets needed to remain intact. “My mother, even today, drops hints about how I wasted my beauty by not keeping a husband. As if without men, beauty is an unused tool in our arsenal.”
“Reduced to an ornament or a trophy. It’s sad when women pass those thoughts onto their daughters.”
“It’s what she’s been taught,” said Jaya, realising that her mother’s failings were not all her own. Somehow, that made her mother’s harshness easier to bear. “The truth is, I’m no less of a woman if I choose not to colour my hair or wear tight-fitting clothes. I’m no less of a woman because my life did not lead me to traditional milestones. I can still use my maternal instincts. I’m a great auntieji. My nephew tells me things he wouldn’t tell his mother. And I embrace my femininity in other ways: work, my art, how I dress.” She placed her hands on her waist, swishing her tulip-shaped skirt this way and that. “My body and mind are mine, and it should be okay, except it isn’t.”
“You had someone once?” said Muna.
Jaya looked out across the water and the twinkling lights in the distance. “Yes, a husband, a long time ago.”
“He is still alive?”
“Yes.” She strove to banish the wistfulness in her tone, and again, her mind flew to her plan, and she willed Akash to succeed with all her might. Talking to this stranger, who knew neither her nor Akash, gifted Jaya with permission to consider Akash’s strengths. “I was drawn to his gentleness, the way he looks at the world, his love of literature, the way, all those years ago, he would lay out my toothpaste on my brush in the morning and fold his trousers on the chair. I loved him for the idea of what we could be together, what we could achieve. What drove us apart was his weakness for another woman. And not even her, really, more that he had given up on us. I couldn’t accept that.”
“Yet here you are, talking about him as if he still means so much to you.”
“Maybe he does.” She hugged the seed of her love close to her.
“Would you give him another chance
?” said Muna.
“I don’t know.” There was something about the younger woman, a kindness and non-judgemental openness that loosened Jaya’s tongue. “Long ago, in another lifetime, I did something terrible and sometimes I think I did it to drive men away. I couldn’t trust myself not to give in to love, and I didn’t want the pain of it. For a long time, I wanted to die. Now... now I’m a cold fish. My heart hasn’t thawed. It hardened and I’m not sure it’s capable of softening again.”
“I think it has already softened.” Muna scooped up the empty cups. Remnants of the chai sloshed at the bottom, speckles of grains and herbs clinging to the base like wet sand on the beach. “Don’t be afraid to take your husband back if you love him. We all have the right to a happy ending of our own choosing.”
Chapter 40
Anger interspersed with Akash’s grief. Soraya’s death had been unavoidable, Tariq’s senseless. The temptation to dull his pain with alcohol beckoned. He had ample money. He could steal from the store, but his morality forbade it. Besides, it would be no escape. Tariq had been the drinker. Akash knew from experience that precious little comfort could be found in the bottom of a bottle. It made the lows worse. It would compound his loneliness rather than alleviate it.
Instead, he stumbled into a temple, fuelled by anger, and rang the bell harshly, an affront to the cruel garlanded god before him. He was not yet ready to pray for the dead. His lips condemned. The prayer house did not unburden his spirit.
Only the thought of justice provided comfort. He and Tariq had survived so much together, and now, the idea of working for Janghir Saheb without his friend pained him. Even now Akash could feel Tariq’s excitement at their prospects like the emotion was tangible, something he had bottled. He heard whispers of his friend’s desires in his waking moments. It was why he visited Janghir Saheb in two minds about whether to continue working for him. The old man deserved the truth at least.
When he told the old man what had happened, his face twisted in grief as if he had lost a son, and it helped Akash to know that Tariq had more friends than he had realised. That others mourned him.
“The job is still yours, whether Tariq Bhai is here or not,” said Janghir Saheb. “I know you do your work. If you need to see to any—business—you do not need to worry about me stopping you. I am an old man. I know death does not occur without its rituals.”
“Thank you,” said Akash. His loyalty to Janghir Saheb deepened then. He respected the old man, and realised that not everyone wielded power heartlessly, that some remained capable of empathetic responses to piteous circumstances.
The next day he bathed in the sea next to a bobbing reflection of Tariq, then bought a new shirt. He turned up to work although he felt a limb was missing, confusing the guffaws of a carpenter at the store for Tariq, hearing his friend in the spluttering cough of the electrician.
Akash was stocking shelves when Inspector Fortes arrived to take him back to the police station. The hours rolled past. He could not be sure how long he had been in the interview room. He had no watch, and no clock adorned the stark walls. He supposed the bare walls were deliberate, to disorientate the hapless occupants of this room. Cool air seeped into his skin, and it seemed to him the sun and moon might never shine again, because of all the atrocities they witnessed.
Across from him sat Inspector Fortes, eyeing Akash’s statement over half-moon spectacles. “There is no detail you left out? Nothing you are hiding?”
“No.” His gut told him he could trust her, but he couldn’t be sure, not with men and women of the law. He thought of Tariq, alone and friendless.
“My men recovered your friend’s body,” said Fortes. “And this.” She pushed his locket towards him.
Akash reached clumsy fingers for the chain and rubbed his thumb over the engraving, a ritual to calm his anxiety. He bowed his head, imagining Tariq on a cold stone slab. He wondered if his friend was nearby, in this very building. He remembered their early years together, and how they would scavenge for food, and Tariq would jump behind trees and buildings, over the top and ridiculous, drunk, determined to make him laugh. His grip on sanity loosened and for a moment he forgot Tariq had gone and his mouth twitched at the happy memory.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
The black cloud of sadness swept over him again. Akash focused on Inspector Fortes and glimpsed the woman behind the professional mask. She cleared her throat, closing the door on her natural empathy, assuming the mantle of her office once more. “We have collected evidence this morning from Zahid Khan’s work premises. We found his boots in his home and have already matched Mr. Khan’s boots to the imprints found on Tariq Beynon’s face. Unfortunately, Khan and his colleagues absconded, but we will find them. It’s only a matter of time. Until then, be careful. You have my card if you need me.”
“I understand. Can I ask? The cause of death?”
“Collapsed lungs, presumably as a result of the pressure applied to Mr. Beynon’s chest, exacerbated by pneumonia. The charge, once we catch the culprits, will be manslaughter.”
Akash shuddered. Tariq must have been in such pain. He couldn’t imagine the crushing pressure. “When can you release his body for burial?”
“Two, three days maybe. I need to be honest, I can’t rule out that Mr. Khan and his colleagues come up with a plausible reason for their absence. If the courts believe them, and they can pay bail, they may be allowed to remain in the community until sentencing, and that can take a long time. But rest assured, we have marked these men as dangerous. They would be stupid to try anything else.”
Fear crawled up Akash’s spine at the thought of a vengeful Zahid being hunted by police yet still determined to punish him. He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. The news didn’t come as surprise. The rich had means at their disposal that erased even the biggest mistakes. He was thankful that Inspector Fortes had taken the matter seriously.
“You have my address at Janghir Saheb’s store?”
“I do,” said Fortes. “There’s something else.”
“Yes?” He resisted the urge to press his palm against the agitated strumming of his heart. Could it be that he had been implicated somehow?
“I received a call this morning. Your son is trying to track you down. He’s waiting for you outside. My advice to you Mr. Choudry?” Kindness tinged with resignation emanated from Fortes’ every pore. “When you find yourself alone, the best thing you can do is build bridges.” She smiled at him wearily, intending to be encouraging. Little did she know that companionship didn’t come easily in the craggy landscape of his life.
Arjun waited on the steps, his face an inscrutable mask. Akash squinted as he descended into the light, unsure of the best greeting. Words fought to tumble out of his mouth behind the prison of his teeth, but this time he needed Arjun to take the first steps.
Arjun nodded a hello. “Fortes told me you were here.”
“Yes.” It shamed Akash for this meeting to take place on the steps of the police station. He wished with every atom in his body that Arjun would be proud of him, that he could see his father doing an honest day’s work, or surrounded by love he had earned. He stood still, waiting for a signal from Arjun. Their repeated run ins led to one conclusion: it was better to follow Arjun’s lead. That was the only way he would be able to have a relationship with his son.
“I’m going to visit Maa’s grave. Would you like to come?” said Arjun. His voice lacked warmth. Akash understood that this was a challenge.
He imagined Soraya’s frail body under the earth, felt the cool metal of her locket against his chest. He couldn’t refuse the opportunity to pay his respects and he didn’t want to. “I’d like that.”
“Follow me.” A driver waited on the kerb in a shiny grey saloon that mocked the dust of the city.
Akash felt in his pocket for coins, weighing up whether to ask Arjun to stop at a shop. It pained him to turn up at Soraya’s grave empty-handed. He knew the Muslim customs. He had slept b
y enough graveyards to know how Muslims sprinkled water on the grave to settle the soil. He had always seen this ritual as a way to pay homage, to quench the thirst of the departed. Incense sticks, too, were planted in the soil to ward off evil spirits or refresh the decaying air.
Father and son sat in the back-seat side by side, their hands—duplicates in all but age, long spindly fingers with short thumbs—on their knees. Akash couldn’t resist a sly look sidewards, capturing his son’s profile.
Arjun’s thick hair had the buoyancy of youth, achingly similar to Akash’s own hair at his age. Arjun remained silent and brooding. At his feet, a carrier bag rustled, and Akash noticed a litre bottle of water and some sunflowers. Arjun had come well prepared and Akash was glad he didn’t have to interrupt the fragile silence.
Finally, they arrived at the gated Islamic cemetery, where Muslims lay together in rows with simple stone markings regardless of their social stature. A peace reigned here. Sparse trees dotted the edges of the grounds, and an orange-beaked blackbird flew ahead of them as they weaved their way through the graves. Arjun’s bag of goods rustled in the breeze.
All at once, he stopped and set down the bag. Akash fell in line with his son, conscious of the soil mingling with his sandaled feet. There, on a mound still raised, lay an intricate flower arrangement in freesias and lilies spelling out Soraya’s name.
“Muna came yesterday,” said Arjun by way of explanation. “The day before, the flowers here were stolen. Who does that?” He bent down to lay the sunflowers on his mother’s resting place. No other grave was so adorned.
The fragrance from the flowers filled Akash’s nostrils and momentarily cut through the bank of his pain, leaving him hollow. Soraya. Tariq. Zahid. Jaya. Arjun. It all melted into a cauldron of horrors filled with mistakes he could not undo. Arjun opened the bottle of water and poured it liberally into the soil, muttering under his breath. A prayer perhaps. A sacred ritual his father had no part in. Then he lit a match. A scratching sound and a flare of phosphorus that pulled Akash out of the void. Memories of Jaya came flooding back, the deathly dance of the flames on her skirt, his helplessness. Then as Arjun knelt in the soil where his mother lay, he remembered Soraya on her death bed: her fluttering eyelids, the bloodied dawn of her clothes.
