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It was silent when he was gone out of the room. It was a burden and oppressing due to shame. I was standing in front of the bookshelf and my hand was still tingling in the part that I touched him.
I wished I could undo it, to unwind the past half hour, to rub out the panicky urge that had leaped through years of training. But it was done.
The rest of the evening I did not see him. I remained in my room, waiting to hear the opening of the front gate, so he might leave the house, and afford us both room.
He didn't. I heard his room making some slight noises--the creak of a chair, the opening of a cupboard. He was shunning me, and I was thankful. Both we were prisoners of one time, and cowering in our different angles.
Sleep was impossible. I prayed, but the words were empty. I was seeking to be forgiven of that with which I knew I should again repeat, of a sentiment with which I recognized I could not slay.
The consideration of my husband's coming back, which had once some time caused me a mixture of relief and confusion, now turned into a time limit. His arrival was not only a homecoming, but a cessation of this surreal, suspended existence I was leading with Danish. The idea of my husband, Zeeshan, and looking him in the eye and sensing the ghost of the wrist of Danish between my fingers made me shudder at the cold.
When the next morning came the house was like a minefield. I got down to the kitchen early in hope of making breakfast and retiring before he got up. However, he was right there, already at the dining table and he had a cup of tea in his hands looking through the window.
He had already dressed, and was evidently about to go out to work. He overheard that I entered and he stood up on his feet, with his eyes on the floor. I kept myself busy at the counter, with my back turned to him.
I sensed him behind me, a charged, tense energy. His steps were fast as he approached the door. My voice was hardly a whisper--"Danish," I said.
He stopped. He didn't turn. "I am sorry," I said, the words seeming feeble and pathetic. Yesterday--it was bad. It will not happen again.
He hesitated a long time. The silence was long.
Then, turning neither right nor left, he answered, "Bhai is a good man. You are his wife. That is all that matters." He was straining his voice, as though he were squeezing out the words. then he said, so very softly, "And I am sorry too." He opened his door before I could answer him, and was away.
The rattle of the latch resounded in the house. He had made the line with cement, and it was I who had attempted to cross it.
The following days were normal. He would get out early and get back late. When we passed each other, it was a short, formal salutation of Assalam-u-alaikum and Wa-alaikum-assalam.
No cups of tea on the table any more.
No longer collective silence in power cuts.
The distance between us now was a chasm, that was imposed by his strict distance, and my own mortifying guilt.
The house that had been so alive with unspoken tension, was now just a silent empty box.
And then that day came. The phone call of my husband. "I will land tomorrow night," Zeeshan said with a cheerful and weary voice. "I've missed you." I should be happy with the words. Rather, they were like a death knell. Then I spent the following twenty-four hours in a mad cleaning and cooking spurt.
I was getting ready to have my husband back, but it was as though I were getting ready to stand trial. I was wiping out the residues of a life which had lived amidst duty and desire.
The following evening the house was clean. I had prepared his favourite foods. I had put on a plain, humble salwar kameez, with my dupatta wrapped around me. I was the ideal, submissive wife, on the outside. I was screaming inside.
I heard a car at the gate. My ribs were beating my heart. The doorbell rang.
I heaved a sigh, straightened my garments, and approached to open the door.
There he was. My husband, Zeeshan. Weary of travelling, and glad to find me smiling.
He put his bags down and hugged me.
It was a comforting, comforting embrace. It reeked of airport and perfume and a life I was meant to desire. "I have missed you," he said into my ears. I shut my eyes and embraced him, my hands slightly trembling on his back. "I have missed you too," I said.
I could not think of anything but of the sensation of Danish having his wrist in my fingers. I had never been lonelier in my life than when I stood in the arms of the man with whom I had shared my life.
The tempest within myself was not over. It had now been forcibly put into silence, and was awaiting the next moment to speak. The initial days of my husband coming back was a well-planned drama. I acted the role of the loving, happy wife with such intensity that I was frightened. I laughed at his tales about Dubai, I ate his favourite foods, I inquired about his co-workers, I listened attentively as he griped about his boss.
Each night I slept up with him in the dark, my body stiff, my mind racing. He would take my hand, and I would allow him to hold it, but it felt as though I were holding that of a stranger.
Danish was a ghost in the house. I barely saw him. He would go away before I arose, and come back after Zeeshan and I had eaten dinner.
I once heard the front door close at a late hour of the night and I knew he was at home. The following morning the signs of his life, a used teacup in the sink, a pair of shoes by the door, had disappeared.
He was wiping himself out, and in the act was rendering the place he had left in my heart even greater.
One day post dinner, we were in the living room. Zeeshan sat on the couch, swiping through phone pictures, and displayed me some of his travel photos. Danish was coming to take a glass of water. He was very quiet, working along the fringes of the room and his eyes were low. He was merely an object, a shadow and I was attempting to turn a blind eye to him. And this is one of the office parties, Zeeshan said, turning the phone my way. I bent forward to peep, and had to smile. "It looks beautiful."
Danish was at refrigerator now, and had his back toward us. There was a tension there in the air that I could feel like I was choking. Zeeshan, oblivious, continued. I had a boss, Mr. Khan, he was asking about you, he said, Zeeshan, your wife must be so glad, to have you so responsible a brother-in-law in the house; he said, Danish has a very good name in the locality, always obedient, always helpful.
I froze. My blood ran cold. I couldn't breathe. I detected the stiffening of the back of Danish on the other side of the room. The compliment, which was intended to be a compliment, seemed like an insult.
Zeeshan didn't notice. He chuckled. Of course he was right, Bhai, come here, he called out.
Danish turned slowly. His countenance was one of indifference, but I saw the alarm in his eyes.
Yes, you see Mr. Khan was correct about you, beamed Zeeshan. You look after things here. Of my wife. His arm was around my shoulder, and I was drawn near him. It was a show of ownership, of pride. It was a shackle to me.
Danish looked up at me a moment--a glance of agony, of equal agony, of shared agony--and then he sank to the ground. "My duty, bhai," said he, his voice harsh. He picked up his glass of water and walked out of the room.
As soon as he had left, I felt the arm of Zeeshan round me, like a weight of lead. I cut myself out. "I feel tired," I said. I think I shall go to bed. That night I was lying next to my husband, and I realized what a horrible position I was in. The world looked on me to be a lucky woman, married to a good man, under the protection of a respectable brother-in-law.
The following day I could no longer stand it. As Zeeshan was out with some of his old friends I discovered Danish in the small balcony off the kitchen, smoking. It was the first occasion that I saw him smoking. I said, shaking, "We cannot live like this." He did not turn about. "No, we are not living," he said, in his hollow voice. "Waiting. We are just waiting. We are just... waiting." I enquired, "waiting for what?" he said. "For this to end. To be happy. To forget." And then he looked at me, and the expression in his eyes was retching. It was neither anger nor desire. It was defeat. "I am trying, Zeenat. Every second of every day I am trying to be the brother he believes that I am. but when I see you. I fail." The integrity broke my heart. "What shall we do?" I said, and the question was there between us, impossible and hopeless.
He stepped on the cigarette. "We shall do what we must," he said, his voice flat and final. "You will make a good wife. And I will make a good brother. That is all." He passed by me, without glancing round, and I remained alone on the balcony, alone with the smoke of his defeat and the wreck of my own heart.
We were all set to agree to this decision. We were to live with our feelings alive and look after the grave till the end of our days. Zeeshan was different that night. The common rosy weariness of his journeys was substituted by a silent intensity. He followed me around, observing me preparing to bed, his eyes staying a little longer than usual.
I was going about my wifely tasks, my steps were mechanical, my thoughts were a million miles high, echoing the words of Danish: We are going to do what we must.
At night, as I crept in bed, Zeeshan turned to me, and his hand reached out to me, grasping my waist and dragging me towards him. "Zeenat," he said in a low voice. "I have been thinking of you all this time; all those months in Dubai." My body tensed. I could sense his passion, the physical heat that was rubbing up against me and it was like an abuse. This was my husband. This was what I was to desire. But all I had was the image of the agonized eyes of Danish, the haunt of his hand on my flesh.
Zeeshan did not appear to pick up my stiffness. He interpreted it as timidity, modesty. His breath was warm, and he kissed my neck. He said to himself, "I missed you."
His hand left my waist, and went round the curve of my hip, and his touch was more insistent. He was attempting to relate, to make bridges between the months of separation and physicality. And with each contact he was driving me away more.
My thoughts were not here with him. It was in a balcony, and the smell of smoke and the voice of defeat in a voice that I adored. He threw himself over me and his weight was upon me, and his motions were practised and confident.
He considered my silence as obedience. He did not see the woman under him, screaming. He could not see that my heart is a locked room and he had no key.
He got inside me, and one of the tears came out of the corner of my eye, and followed a cold trail down my temple. He confused it with a tear of feeling, of reunion. "Shh," he said, confusing my anguish at his thought of passion. "I'm here now."
A nauseous and self-loathing sensation came over me as he stroked me inside. This was betrayal of all betrayals. Not of him, my husband, but of me. Not of my marriage, but of the emotion which had grown the one true thing in my life. Each of the strokes was like rubbing out Danish. With each gasp of Zeeshan I could feel the silence of Danish being erased. I shut my eyes, and could not flee. I was not in this bed with my husband.
I felt captive in my own body and I had to bear an act that was like some punishment. I imagined the unintended touch of the hand of Danish, the close quarters in the dark passage, the groping at his wrist, which was desperate and idiotic. That was more than this, those moments, which were nothing. This performance, full of all that a marriage was to be, signified nothing. Zeeshan started to move faster, his breath coming in a ragged manner. He was in pursuit of a discharge, of a tie which he could not have.
He moaned my name, and I could not hear it uttered on his lips. I could feel him trembling against me and he fell, his weight a closing, definite testament to my loneliness. He was lying on top of me, and his breath was slowing, and his body was resting in post-coital ecstasy. He kissed my cheek. "I love you," he said, the words seem like poison in my ear.
There I lay, with my body numb and my soul in shreds, gazing into the darkness. I had only done what I must. I was a good wife. And in doing so I had never felt so like a traitor. The silence which succeeded was the loudest sound I had ever heard. It was the crack of my heart, which broke, at last and utterly.
The day after had been a certain form of hell. The light of the sun poured into the room, cold and irrespective, and it lighted the room in which my life had actually divided. Zeeshan awoke with a smile, and his arm was hanging over me in a lazy possessive manner. He appeared happy, serene. He was not aware that the female lying next him had passed away a little during the night.
"Good morning," he said, with a sleepy voice. He kissed me on the shoulder. Last night was. just what I needed. I shook my head and feigned to stretch. "Good morning," I muttered, the words like ashes. I was unable to look at him. It would be the same to me as looking at my own murderer to see his satisfaction.
I sneaked out of bed, wrapped in my robe and ran to the bathroom. I shut the door and bent against it, my body shaking.
I watched myself in the mirror. I recognized the face, the same eyes. But the one behind the mirror was a stranger. A liar. A traitor. I switched on the shower and got in, letting the hot water burn my flesh, as though I could cleanse the memory of his touch, his pleasure, the process of my own soul being sucked out.
I appeared and Zeeshan was dressed, scrolling through his phone. "I think we ought to have dinner to-night," said he, without looking up. "To celebrate all right, just the two of us." I could not even think of being stuck in a crowd with him and having to converse and act as the joyous couple.
"All right," I said, and my voice was flat. He at last looked up, with a glimmer of apprehension. "Are you alright? You seem quiet." I lie "tired," I said.
I went to the kitchen and made breakfast, my actions robotic. I could hear Danish in his room, the bang of a cupboard. He was awake. Here he was in this house. He knew. The consideration was intolerable. Was he able to hear us last night? The walls were not so thick.
The embarrassment was a physical burden, crushing my chest, and it was difficult to breathe.
He came out as I was frying parathas. He never looked at me. He strode to the refrigerator, and was stiff in his pose, his movements jerked. He was a soldier and awaiting to be hit.
Zeeshan entered the room and was jovial and blind, and slapped his brother on the back.
"Bhai! Up early? Eat breakfast with us, and then go out.
It was an order and no invitation. Danish was trapped. At the dining table we were sitting. The three of us.
I set the table, and I was trembling so little that I had to strike my sides with my hands to make it stop. Zeeshan was chattering away, making plans of our dinner, of a new project at work. By making a noise he was filling the silence, which he did not suspect to be the only thing real.
Danish was eating without the slightest word. His eyes were on his plate. but once, a moment, he looked up. His eyes met mine. And in that little, common glance I read all. He wasn't angry. He was fair. wounded. He was just as I felt. He was aware of my deed. He was aware of how much it had cost me. His glance was a mirror, which gave me back my own ruination.
I had to look away. I couldn't breathe. "I believe I won't have breakfast," I said and hardly spoke. I sat up and my chair rubbed against the floor. "I do not feel well." Zeeshan's face fell. "Oh. Okay. Should I cancel the dinner arrangements?" "No, no," I answered. "No. I am all right. Just need to sleep."
I ran away to my room, and the sound of their murmurous conversation pursued me along the passage. I shut the door and sat down on the floor, with my back to the wood. I had what I needed to do. I had decided on my responsibility. And by so doing had I ruined the three of us. The husband of mine, in a happy delusion. His brother, a ghost in his own house lamenting a love that might never be. And I, the mediator, the creator of all misery.
The play was going on, and I was aware, with a certitude that chilled me to the bone, that it would never, ever reach a close.
Zeeshan came home that evening thinking something. I was in the living room with Danish, there was a cautious distance between us, the sofa and armchair, and nothing but silence was our companion.
I was on the phone with my office, Zeeshan started, his voice serious. He made himself a seat on the opposite side of us, bending forward with his knees upon his elbows.
"My flight is booked," he added, and the finality with which he said it made a chilling run along my spine. "I am going in regular fifteen days, next day, next day." My heart stopped. I stared at him, and attempted to read his face.
He noticed the alarm on my face, and hastened to relax. "That's all right," he said, speaking softly. "This alters things, but. it may be good. I have been thinking of you here all alone. It is not right."
He glanced away from me, at his brother, a new thought came to his mind. "Danish, you will remain here. You will take care of things. You will take care of your Bhabhi." The word was in the air. Bhabhi. Brother's wife. He was giving me to his brother as though I were a treasure-piece, and trusted him to keep me safe.
"Help me, Zeeshan," I said-- I began, but he interrupted. "No," he said, "do listen to me," his eyes fierce. "It is the best thing to do. You will not be alone. You will have someone over with you. Danish has a reason to be in this place. You will have someone to be with you. It is a family looking after a family." What a proud-looking plan he had, so totally unconscious of the bomb which he was hurled into the wreckage of our lives.
Then he turned to me, and his face smoothed out with the thought which he had evidently been brooding over. "And Zeenat, I do not want you lying about here. I meant what I said just now. You need to have something to do, a school teacher, maybe, there is a good girl's school nearby. You'll be too busy to miss me so much."
He was creating a new world to us. A world in which I was a happy teacher and Danish my protector. A world in which we were compelled to be together in the name of responsibility. It was an attractive, rational jail.
He gazed up at Danish, hoping he would be thankful. "Bhai, you'll do this for me, won't you? You'll take care of her?" Danish silent and still, at last raised his eyes. His expression was that of cool acceptance. His eyes looked at his brother. "Of course, Zeeshan bhai," he said, remaining steady in his voice. "It is my responsibility. I will take care of Bhabhi."
Zeeshan gave a sigh of relief and was glad that his plan was so gladly received.
Alright, that's all over with. He got on his feet, and felt himself rejuvenated. We have two weeks to make arrangements. It will be good. You will see. He has gone out of the room and we are left in the ruins of his good intentions. The silence which came back was not the old, empty silence. It was a new and dreadful silence. There was a silence, which knew that in fifteen days he would have departed. And here would we be. Alone. Together. The prison and his jailer. The obligation and the need. This was the end of the performance. The true tale was to start.
The fifteen days were a whirlwind of frenzied activity. Zeeshan gave a tornado of instructions an hour before, packing, and telephone calls. He himself took me to the girls' school, and talked to the principal with a pride that pained my chest. He got me the job, and said all-around of how his brilliant wife must have an outlet to her genius.