The girl adjusted the shawl on her head. Her eyes showed that she understood Abu’s meaning. Her face also showed that she hadn’t taken his words badly. But she was mulling over this dilemma: Abu and her station might well be the same; Abu was certainly smart and dressed sharp, but was he faithful too? Should she abandon her station from which, in any case, her train had long departed, for his?
Abu’s voice made her start. ‘What are you thinking about, fortunate one?’
The horse was prancing along happily; the air was cold; the trees lining the street raced by; their branches swooned; there was no sound except the ringing of bells. Abu, head cocked, was fantasizing about kissing the dark beauty. After some time, he tied the horse’s reins to the dashboard and with a jump, landed in the back seat next to the girl. She remained silent. Abu grabbed her hands in his. ‘Put your reins in my hands!’
The girl said only two words. ‘Enough now.’ But Abu immediately put his arms around her. She resisted. Her heart was beating hard and fast, as if it wanted to leave her and fly away.
‘I love this horse and carriage more than life,’ Abu said in a soft, loving voice, ‘but I swear on the eleventh pir, I’ll sell it and have gold bangles made for you. I’ll wear old, torn clothes myself, but I’ll keep you like a princess! I swear on the one, omnipresent God that this is the first love of my life. If you’re not mine, I’ll cut my throat this minute in front of you!’ Then suddenly, he moved away from the girl. ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with me today. Come on, I’ll take you to the teshan.’
‘No,’ the girl said softly, ‘now you’ve touched me.’
Abu lowered his head. ‘I’m sorry. I made a mistake.’
‘And will you honour this mistake?’
There was a challenge in her voice, as if someone had said to Abu, ‘Let’s see if your carriage can go faster than mine.’ He raised his lowered head; his eyes brightened. ‘Fortunate one…’ With this, he put his hand on his firm chest and said, ‘Abu will give his life.’
The girl put forward her hand. ‘Then take my hand.’
Abu held her hand firmly. ‘I swear on my youth. Abu is your slave.’
The next day Abu and the girl were married. She was from Gujarat district, the daughter of a cobbler; her name was Nesti. She had come to town with her relatives. They had been waiting at the station even as Abu and she were falling in love.
They were both very happy. Abu didn’t sell his horse and carriage to have gold bangles made for Nesti, but he did spend his savings on gold earrings and silk clothes for her.
His heart danced when Nesti appeared before him, her silk skirt swishing from side to side. ‘I swear on the Five Pure Ones, there’s no one in the world as beautiful as you.’ With this, he would press her against his chest. ‘You’re the queen of my heart.’
The two were immersed in the pleasures of youth. They sang; they laughed; they went on walks; they swore fidelity to each other. A month passed like this when suddenly one morning the police arrested Abu. A kidnapping case was registered against him. Nesti stood by him firmly, unwaveringly protesting his innocence, but despite that, Abu was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. When the court gave its verdict, Nesti wrapped her arms around Abu. ‘I’ll never go to my mother and father,’ she said as she wept. ‘I’ll sit at home and wait for you.’
Abu gently touched her stomach. ‘Bless you. I’ve given the horse and carriage to Dino. Carry on taking the rent from him.’
Nesti’s parents put great pressure on her, but she didn’t go back to them. Tiring at last, they gave up on her and left her to her lot. Nesti began to live alone. Dino would give her five rupees in the evening, which was enough for her expenses. She also received the money that had accumulated during the court case.
Abu and Nesti met once a week at the jail, meetings which were always too brief for them. Whatever money Nesti saved, she spent on bringing Abu comfort in jail. At one meeting, Abu, looking at her bare ears, asked, ‘Where are your earrings, Nesti?’
Nesti smiled, and looking at the guard, said, ‘I must have lost them somewhere.’
‘You needn’t take so much care of me,’ Abu said with some anger, ‘I’m all right, however I am.’
Nesti said nothing. Their time was up. She left smiling, but when she reached home, she wept bitterly; she wept for hours because Abu’s health was declining. In this last meeting, she could hardly recognize him. The strapping Abu was a shadow of his former self. Nesti thought his sorrow had consumed him and that their separation had caused his decline. What she didn’t know was that Abu had TB and that the disease ran in his family. Abu’s father had been even sturdier than Abu, but TB soon sent him to his grave. Abu’s elder brother had also been a strapping young man, but the disease had caused him, while in the flower of his youth, to waste away. Abu himself was unaware of this, and taking his last breath in the prison hospital, he said to Nesti in a sorrowful voice, ‘If I had known I was going to die so young, I swear on the one, omnipresent God, I wouldn’t have made you my wife. I’ve done you a great injustice. Forgive me. And listen, my horse and carriage are my hallmark. Take care of them. Stroke Chinni on the head and tell him that Abu sends his love.’
Abu died, leaving Nesti’s world desolate. But she was not a woman to be easily defeated. She withstood her sorrow. The house was deserted now. In the evenings, Dino would come and comfort her. ‘Have no fear, bhabhi. No one walks ahead of God. Abu was my brother. Whatever I can do for you, with God’s will, I will do.’
At first Nesti didn’t understand, but when her mourning period was over, Dino said in no unclear terms that she should marry him. She wanted to kick him out of the house when she heard this, but only said, ‘Dino, I don’t want to remarry.’
From the next day on the amount of money Dino gave her was noticeably less. Earlier, he had given her five rupees daily without fail. But now he would sometimes give her four, sometimes three. His excuse was that business was slow. Then he began disappearing for two to three days at a time. Sometimes he said he was sick; other times he’d say some part of the carriage was broken and he couldn’t take it out. He went too far one day and Nesti finally said, ‘Listen, Dino, don’t trouble yourself with it any more. Just hand the coach and horse over to me.’
After much hemming and hawing, Dino was forced at last to place the horse and coach back in Nesti’s custody. She, in turn, gave it to Maja, a friend of Abu’s. Within a few days, he proposed marriage as well. When she turned him down, his eyes changed; the warmth in them seemed to vanish. Nesti took the horse and carriage back from him and gave it to a coachman she didn’t know. He really broke all boundaries, arriving completely drunk one night to give her the money, and making a grab for her as soon as he walked through the door. She let him have it and fired him at once.
For eight or ten days, the coach was in the stable, out of work, racking up costs – feed on one hand, stable rent on the other. Nesti was in a state of confusion. People were either trying to marry her or rape her or rob her. When she went outside, she was met with ugly stares. One night a neighbour jumped the wall and started making advances towards her. Nesti went half mad wondering what she should do.
Back at home, she thought ‘What if I were to drive the coach myself?’ When she used to go on rides with Abu, she would often drive it. She was acquainted with the routes as well. But then she thought of what people would say. Her mind came up with many rejoinders. ‘What’s the harm? Do women not toil and do manual labour? Here working in mines, there in offices, thousands working at home; you have to fill your stomach one way or another!’
She spent a few days thinking about it. At last she decided to do it. She was confident she could. And so, after asking for God’s help, she arrived one morning at the stable. When she began harnessing the horse to the carriage, the other coachmen were stupefied; some thought it was a joke and roared with laughter. The older coachmen tried dissuading her, s
aying it was unseemly. But Nesti wouldn’t listen. She fitted up the carriage, polished its brass tackle, and after showing the horse great affection and speaking tender words to Abu, she set out from the stable. The coachmen were stunned by Nesti’s dexterity; she handled the carriage expertly.
Word spread through the town that a beautiful woman was driving a coach. It was spoken of on every street corner. People waited impatiently for the moment she when she would come down their street.
At first Nesti shied away from male passengers, but she soon shed her shyness and began earning an excellent income. Her coach was never idle, here passengers got off, there they got on. Sometimes passengers would even fight among themselves over who had stopped her first.
When the work became too much, she had to fix hours for when the coach would go out – in the mornings, from seven to twelve; in the afternoons, from two to six. This arrangement proved beneficial as she managed to get enough rest as well. Chinni was happy too, but Nesti couldn’t help being aware that her clients often rode in her coach only to be near her. They would make her go aimlessly from pillar to post, sometimes cracking dirty jokes in the back. They spoke to her just to hear the sound of her voice. Sometimes she felt that though she had not sold herself, people had slyly bought her anyway. She was also aware that all the city’s other coachmen thought ill of her. But she was unperturbed; her belief in herself kept her at peace.
One morning, the municipal committee men called her in and revoked her licence. Their reason was that women couldn’t drive coaches. Nesti asked, ‘Sir, why can’t women drive coaches?’
The reply came: ‘They just can’t. Your licence is revoked.’
Nesti said, ‘Sir, then take my horse and coach as well, but please tell me why women can’t drive coaches. Women can grind mills and fill their stomachs. Women can carry rubble in baskets on their heads and make a living. Women can work in mines, sifting through pieces of coal to earn their daily bread. Why can’t I drive a coach? I know nothing else. The horse and carriage were my husband’s, why can’t I use them? How will I make ends meet? Milord, please have mercy. Why do you stop me from hard, honest labour? What am to do? Tell me.’
The officer replied: ‘Go to the bazaar and find yourself a spot. You’re sure to make more that way.’
Hearing this, the real Nesti, the person within, was reduced to ashes. ‘Yes sir,’ she answered softly and left.
She sold the horse and carriage for whatever she could get and went straight to Abu’s grave. For a moment, she stood next to it in silence. Her eyes were completely dry, like the blaze after a shower, robbing the earth of all its moisture. Her lips parted and she addressed the grave, ‘Abu, your Nesti died today in the committee office.’
With this, she went away. The next day she submitted her application. She was given a licence to sell her body.
Translated by Aatish Taseer
Colder Than Ice
AS ISHWAR SINGH entered the room, Kalwant Kaur rose from the bed and locked the door from the inside. It was past midnight. A strange and ominous silence seemed to have descended on the city.
Kalwant Kaur returned to the bed, crossed her legs and sat down in the middle. Ishwar Singh stood quietly in a corner, holding his kirpan absent-mindedly. Anxiety and confusion were writ large on his handsome face.
Kalwant Kaur, apparently dissatisfied with her defiant posture, moved to the edge and sat down, swinging her legs suggestively. Ishwar Singh still had not spoken.
Kalwant Kaur was a big woman with generous hips, fleshy thighs and unusually high breasts. Her eyes were sharp and bright and over her upper lip there was faint bluish down. Her chin suggested great strength and resolution.
Ishwar Singh had not moved from his corner. His turban, which he always kept smartly in place, was loose and his hands trembled from time to time. However, from his strapping, manly figure, it was apparent that he had just what it took to be Kalwant Kaur’s lover.
More time passed. Kalwant Kaur was getting restive. ‘Ishr Sian,’ she said in a sharp voice.
Ishwar Singh raised his head, then turned it away, unable to deal with Kalwant Kaur’s fiery gaze.
This time she screamed, ‘Ishr Sian.’ Then she lowered her voice and added, ‘Where have you been all this time?’
Ishwar Singh moistened his parched lips and said, ‘I don’t know.’
Kalwant Kaur lost her temper. ‘What sort of a motherfucking answer is that!’
Ishwar Singh threw his kirpan aside and slumped on the bed. He looked unwell. She stared at him and her anger seemed to have left her. Putting her hand on his forehead, she asked gently, ‘Jani, what’s wrong?’
‘Kalwant.’ He turned his gaze from the ceiling and looked at her. There was pain in his voice and it melted all of Kalwant Kaur. She bit her lower lip. ‘Yes jani.’
Ishwar Singh took off his turban. He slapped her thigh and said, more to himself than to her, ‘I feel strange.’
His long hair came undone and Kalwant Kaur began to run her fingers through it playfully. ‘Ishr Sian, where have you been all this time?’
‘In the bed of my enemy’s mother,’ he said jocularly. Then he pulled Kalwant Kaur towards him and began to knead her breasts with both hands. ‘I swear by the Guru, there’s no other woman like you.’
Flirtatiously, she pushed him aside. ‘Swear over my head. Did you go to the city?’
He gathered his hair in a bun and replied, ‘No.’
Kalwant Kaur was irritated. ‘Yes, you did go to the city and you looted more money and you don’t want to tell me about it.’
‘May I not be my father’s son if I lie to you,’ he said.
She was silent for a while, then she exploded, ‘Tell me what happened to you the last night you were here. You were lying next to me and you had made me wear all those gold ornaments you’d looted from the houses of the Muslims in the city and you were kissing me all over and then suddenly, God only knows what came over you, you put on your clothes and walked out.’
Ishwar Singh went pale. ‘See how your face has fallen,’ Kalwant Kaur snapped. ‘Ishr Sian,’ she said, emphasizing every word, ‘you’re not the man you were eight days ago. Something has happened.’
Ishwar Singh did not answer, but he was stung. He suddenly took Kalwant Kaur in his arms and began to hug and kiss her ferociously. ‘Jani, I’m what I always was. Squeeze me tighter so that the heat in your bones cools off.’
Kalwant Kaur did not resist him, but she kept asking, ‘What went wrong that night?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Why don’t you tell me?’
‘There’s nothing to tell.’
‘Ishr Sian, may you cremate my body with your own hands if you lie to me!’
Ishwar Singh did not reply. He dug his lips into hers. His moustache tickled her nostrils and she sneezed. They burst out laughing.
Ishwar Singh began to take off his clothes, ogling Kalwant Kaur lasciviously. ‘Let’s play a round of cards.’
Beads of perspiration appeared over her upper lip. She rolled her eyes coquettishly and said, ‘Get lost.’
Ishwar Singh pinched her lip and she leapt aside. ‘Ishr Sian, don’t do that. It hurts.’
Ishwar Singh began to suck her lower lip and Kalwant Kaur melted. He took off the rest of his clothes. ‘Time for a round of trumps,’ he said.
Kalwant Kaur’s upper lip began to quiver. He peeled her shirt off, as if he was skinning a banana. He fondled her naked body and pinched her arm. ‘Kalwant, I swear by the Guru, you’re not a woman, you’re a delicacy,’ he said between kisses.
Kalwant Kaur examined the skin he had pinched. It was red. ‘You’re really a brute, Ishr Sian.’
Ishwar Singh smiled through his thick moustache. ‘Then let there be a lot of brutality tonight.’ And he began to prove what he had said.
He bit her lower lip, nibbl
ed at her earlobes, kneaded her breasts, slapped her glowing hip resoundingly and planted big, wet kisses on her cheeks until she began to boil.
But there was something wrong.
Ishwar Singh, despite his vigorous efforts at foreplay, could not feel the fire which leads to the final and inevitable act of love. Like a wrestler who is being had the better of, he employed every trick he knew to ignite the fire in his loins, but it eluded him. He felt cold.
Kalwant Kaur was now like an overtuned instrument. ‘Ishr Sian,’ she whispered languidly, ‘you have shuffled me enough, it is time to produce your trump.’
Ishwar Singh felt as if the entire deck of cards had slipped from his hands on to the floor.
He laid himself against her, breathing irregularly. Drops of cold perspiration appeared on his brow. Kalwant Kaur made frantic efforts to arouse him, but in the end she gave up.
In a fury, she sprang out of bed and covered herself with a sheet. ‘Ishr Sian, tell me the name of the bitch who has squeezed you dry.’
Ishwar Singh just lay there panting. ‘Who was she?’ Kalwant screamed.
‘No one, Kalwant, no one,’ he replied in a barely audible voice. Kalwant Kaur placed her hands on her hips. ‘Ishr Sian, I’m going to get to the bottom of this. Swear to me on the Guru’s sacred name, is there a woman?’
She did not let him speak. ‘Before you swear by the Guru, don’t forget who I am. I am Sardar Nihal Singh’s daughter. I will cut you to pieces. Is there a woman in this?’
He nodded his head in assent, his pain obvious from his face. Like a wild and demented creature, Kalwant Kaur picked up Ishwar Singh’s kirpan, unsheathed it and plunged it into his neck. Blood spluttered out of the deep gash like water out of a fountain.
Then she began to pull at his hair and scratch his face, cursing her unknown rival as she continued tearing at him.
‘Let go, Kalwant, let go now,’ Ishwar Singh begged.
She paused. His beard and chest were drenched in blood. ‘You acted impetuously,’ he said, ‘but I deserved it.’
The Dog of Tithwal Page 10
