Naked Voices

by Sadat Hasan Manto

  Saeed left. The next day, as he set off towards Zaheer’s house, he prayed that he shouldn’t find Zaheer home. He reached Zaheer’s house and found a crowd gathered at the door. He found out from them that Bismillah wasn’t Zaheer’s wife. She was a Hindu girl who had got left behind during the riots. Zaheer had forced her into prostitution. The police had rescued her and taken her away just a short while ago.

  Those big black eyes still chase Saeed wherever he goes.

  BY THE ROADSIDE

  It was this time of the year. The sky was blue like his eyes – clear and sparkling – as it is today. There was the same gentle sunlight. The earth had smelt of sweet dreams, exactly as it does now. And, lying beside him, I had given him my fluttering heart.

  He had said to me, ‘My life was empty; you filled it with these moments that you gifted me. I shall be forever thankful to you, for without you I would have been incomplete … I don’t know what else to say to you … I feel sated … completely satisfied. I feel I don’t need you anymore.’ And he had gone away, forever, never to return.

  My eyes had cried. My heart had wept. I had tried to plead. I had tried asking him a million times why he didn’t need me anymore when my need for him, with all its enormous urgency, had just begun. Especially after these moments that had filled the empty spaces of his being.

  He had said, ‘During these moments, every single one of them, you filled and strengthened me, bolstered my being with every particle, every atom of your being. But now that is done, my relationship with you has automatically petered.’

  How cruel were his words! I couldn’t take the pain of these words hurled at me like stones. I had begun to cry. But my tears had no effect on him. I had said, ‘These particles and atoms you talk of – they were once part of me. If I have given away parts of my self to you, am I not missing those fragments today? In making you complete, have I not emptied myself? Did I make you my all, my God, my idol, for this?’

  He had said, ‘The honeybee sucks buds and flowers off their nectar to produce honey but it never lets the honey touch the lips of the flowers it has drained. God lets others worship Him; He never accepts another as His master. He spent a few moments alone with Adam and created the universe, but where is Adam today? Does the universe need him? Adam was like the mother who destroyed herself on the very bed on which she gave birth to Creation.’

  A woman can cry but she can’t argue. Her greatest argument are the tears that flow from her eyes. I had said to him, ‘Look at me, I am crying. My eyes are raining tears. Go, if you must, but take some of my tears with you, wrapped in the shroud of your memories. I shall cry now for the rest of my life, but I shall have the comfort of knowing that you provided the shroud for the burial of at least some of my tears – if nothing else, at least to make me happy.’

  He had said, ‘I have given you enough happiness. Why can’t the remembrance of the pleasure you got from me be enough to support you for the rest of your life? You say that strengthening me has made you incomplete. But isn’t this incompleteness enough to sustain what remains of your life? I am a man – today you have completed me; tomorrow someone else will do that. I am made like that. I shall often find myself wanting to feel whole and complete. There will be other women willing to fill the empty spaces in my being and make me feel whole and strong again and again.’

  I had kept crying and feeling frustrated.

  I had thought, ‘These few moments that were within my grasp … no, no, I was in their grasp … Why did I give myself up so completely to them? Why did I put my fluttering heart behind that cage with its mouth wide open? Yes, there was a pleasure in it, a certain delight, in giving myself up. But what sort of struggle is this? He remained whole and strong, whereas I have been left cracked and broken? He does not need me any more, whereas my need for him is stronger than ever. He has emerged stronger and I have become weaker. It is as though two clouds meet in the sky: one bursts out crying while the other turns into a thundercloud, plays with the raindrops and flees after unleashing a few bolts of thunder and lightning. Whose justice is this? The sky’s? The earth’s? Or His who made the two?’

  I had kept crying and feeling frustrated.

  ‘Two spirits come together to become one, and from that union encompass the universe. Was all this mere poetic claptrap? While it is true that two spirits come together and merge into a single dot that can then expand and become Creation itself – but why does one spirit sometimes get bruised and damaged and left behind? Is it so punished because it had helped that other spirit to reach its zenith? What sort of Creation is this?’

  It was this time of the year. The sky was blue like his eyes – clear and sparkling – as it is today. There was the same gentle sunlight. The earth had smelt of sweet dreams, exactly as it does now. And, lying beside him, I had given him my fluttering heart.

  But he is no longer here beside me. Lightning has streaked across the skies and is somewhere far away, making some other raincloud shed its tears. He fortified himself and went away. Like a serpent, he bit me and slithered away. But the trace he left behind, why is it twisting and turning in my womb? Will it be the cause of my fulfilment?

  No, no, how can that be my fulfilment; it can only be my destruction.

  But why are the empty spaces in my body filling up? What is this debris that is filling up the dips and hollows of my body? What is this susurration that is coursing through my blood? Why is it gathering momentum and racing towards one single spot in my womb? Why has my sunken boat bobbed up to row across unknown seas?

  Who is this unknown guest for whom milk is being warmed on raging fires inside my body? Why is my heart carding my blood to prepare baby-soft blankets, and for whom? Why is my mind weaving new clothes out of my multi-coloured thoughts, and for whom?

  Why am I looking better, more glowing, by the day? Why are the hiccups, trapped in every part and fibre of my body, turning into lullabies?

  It was this time of the year. The sky was blue like his eyes – clear and sparkling – as it is today. But the sky has come down and spread itself over my distended belly. And why are those blue-blue eyes running around coursing through my veins?

  Why are my breasts becoming rounded like the domes of mosques? No, no, it is a mere whim. I shall flatten these orbs. I shall douse all those fires raging inside me on which potions are being prepared for this unwanted guest. I shall tangle the skeins of my mutli-coloured thoughts.

  It was this time of the year. The sky was blue like his eyes – clear and sparkling – as it is today. But why do I remember those days from which he had removed every trace of his footprints?

  But what is this? Whose footprint is this that I feel deep inside my belly? Does it belong to a stranger? Shall I have it scraped away? Is it a sore, a lesion, a terrible festering pustule?

  But why do I feel as though it is a balm? And if it is a balm, a balm for which wound? Is it for the wound he gave me? No, no, this feels as though it is a balm for a wound I have had since the day I was born, a wound that I scarcely knew existed till now, a wound that had been lying fast asleep in my womb all this while.

  What is the womb? Isn’t it a worthless make-believe clay pot, a plaything to play house-house? I shall smash it to bits.

  But who is this who speaks in my ear: ‘The womb is the crossroad of the world. Why do you want to break it in front of the whole world? Remember, fingers will be raised and pointed at you.’

  Why will fingers not be pointed in the direction in which he has gone? Do the fingers not know the road he has taken? The womb, you say, is the crossroad of the world but he had left me at a fork in the road where there was incompleteness on both sides. And tears.

  Whose tear is this that is turning into a pearl in my shell? Where will it be strung?

  Fingers will be raised when the oyster opens its lips and the pearl slips out to land on the pavement. Then, the fingers shall be raised – both at the pearl and the oyster. And these fingers will turn into snakes and bite both and tu
rn them blue with their venom.

  The sky was blue like his eyes – clear and sparkling – as it is today. Why did it not fall down? Where are the pillars that hold it up? Was that day’s earthquake not severe enough to shake them to their very foundations? Why is the sky still stretched over my head, as it was then?

  My spirit is drenched in sweat. Every pore is wide open. A fire rages all around me. Deep inside me gold is being melted in a crucible. A furnace is roaring. Sparks are flying. The gold rises inside me like lava erupting from a volcano. Blue eyes are coursing through my blood, huffing and puffing. Bells are ringing. Someone is coming … Someone is coming ….

  Close the doors … clamp down!

  The crucible has overturned. Molten gold has spilled out. The bells are still ringing. He is coming … My eyes are closing … The blue sky is darkening and coming down.

  Whose cries are these? Quieten it. Its cries are striking my heart like hammer blows. Quieten it. I am turning into a lap. Why am I turning into a lap?

  My arms are opening wide. The milk is fast reaching a boil. The rounded fullness of my breasts are turning into saucers. Bring that bundle of flesh and put it beside my warm and soft blood-carded breasts.

  Don’t snatch it away … Don’t … Don’t take it away from me. For God’s sake, don’t take it away!

  The fingers … let them rise! I don’t care. The world is a crossroad. Let all my skeletons come tumbling out at this crossroad. My life will be ruined … Let it be so … Return the flesh of my flesh to me … Don’t snatch this piece of my soul ... You don’t know how precious it is … This jewel was given to me during those long-ago moments, in those moments when every atom of my being had fulfilled someone who had left me incomplete and alone with my thoughts and gone away. I have been fulfilled today.

  Believe me … believe me ... If you don’t, ask my womb … Ask my breasts brimming over with milk … Ask the lullabies that are putting the hiccups to sleep in every pore and fibre of my body … Ask the swings that are being put on my arms.

  The fingers … let them rise! I shall cut them down. There shall be an uproar. I shall pick the chopped fingers and stuff my ears with them. I shall become dumb. Deaf and blind. The flesh of my flesh will understand my every gesture and I shall recognize it with my fingertips.

  Don’t snatch it … Don’t … It is the vermillion on the parting of my womb. It is the bindiya on the forehead of my motherhood … You say it is the bitter fruit of my past? That people will spit upon it? Let them … I shall lick it clean.

  Look, I am folding my hands in entreaty. I am touching your feet.

  Don’t overturn the full saucers of my breasts. Don’t burn the warm and soft blood-carded globules of flesh. Don’t break the ropes of the swings that hang from my arms. Don’t rob my ears of the songs that I hear in its cries.

  Don’t snatch it… Don’t … Don’t take it away from me .… For God’s sake, don’t take it away!

  Lahore, 21 January: The police recovered a newborn baby girl from the washermen’s colony. It was found by the roadside shivering with cold. Some heartless beast had wound a piece of cloth tightly around the infant’s neck. A dripping wet cloth had been wrapped about its delicate body so that it would die of hypothermia. But it was alive. It was a beautiful girl. It had blue eyes. The police took her to the hospital.

  COMFORT

  It was exactly eight years ago. My friend, Vishveshwarnath’s bridal party was lodged at the beautiful banquet hall in front of the Hindu Sabha College. It was a party of about three hundred to three hundred fifty guests who, having listened to the songs of Lahore’s famous courtesans, now lay fast asleep on their cots in the many rooms of the banquet hall.

  It was 4 a.m. I was still somewhat tipsy from all the whisky a small group of friends and I had consumed with the groom in a separate room. When the round clock in the hall struck four, I opened my eyes. Perhaps I had been dreaming, because I felt something lodged between my eyelashes.

  I looked at the floor of the hallway with one eye, keeping the other closed so it could sleep some more. Everyone was fast asleep. Some lay on their stomach, some flat and some huddled up. I opened my other eye and remembered that last night Asghar Ali had insisted on sleeping with a bolster pillow. The bolster lay a short distance away from my head but there was no sign of Asghar Ali.

  I thought perhaps he had been awake all night and was now sleeping it off on the grubby bed of some cheap prostitute in Rambagh.

  Whisky, whether it was local or foreign, was like a fast train for Asghar that took him post haste to a woman. Almost ninety-nine per cent men are drawn towards beautiful objects after downing a couple of drinks, whereas Asghar – who was actually a very fine painter and photographer who knew how best to use lines and colours – always made the most crass pictures after he got drunk.

  The smithereens of a dream dislodged from my eyes and I began to think of Asghar Ali who was certainly no dream. I could clearly see the imprint of his heavy, long-haired body on the pillow.

  Despite having observed him at close quarters, on many occasions I could never quite fathom why Asghar turned ‘silly’ after a couple of drinks. Maybe I shouldn’t say silly because he actually became terrifyingly crude and coarse, and could stumble through the darkest lanes and by-lanes and find his way to some woman selling her body. The next morning, when he would arise from her filthy bed, go home, take a bath and reach his studio to take pictures of well-scrubbed and well-groomed young girls and women, there would be no trace left of the previous night’s bestiality that had been so plainly visible through his drunken stupor.

  Believe me when I say he was like a man possessed when drunk. For a brief spell of time, his mind would lose the power to think and feel. How much can a man drink? Six, seven, eight pegs? With him, even six or seven sips of that deadly brew were enough to push him into the fathomless sea of oblivion. You can mix whisky with soda or water, but mixing it with a woman is beyond my comprehension. Some drink to forget their sorrows, but a woman is not a sorrow. Some drink to create noise and confusion, but a woman is neither noise nor confusion.

  Last night, Asghar got terribly drunk and noisy. Most weddings are noisome affairs, so Asghar’s din got absorbed in the general bedlam; or else there would have been hell to pay. At some point in the evening, he picked up a glass full of whisky and walked out of the room saying, ‘I am a superior person, and I shall find a suitably high place to sit and drink.’

  I thought he had wandered off in search of a suitably ‘high’ brothel somewhere in Rambagh, but a short while later the door opened and he walked in carrying a stepladder. He propped the ladder against the wall, climbed it and sat sipping his whisky on the highest rung, with his head nearly touching the ceiling.

  With some difficulty, Vishveshwar and I managed to persuade him to climb down, telling him all the while that such antics are all right only when no one else is around. The banquet hall was full of guests and he must be quiet and decorous. God knows how, our entreaties penetrated his thick skull and for the remainder of the party he sat quietly in one corner sipping his share of the whisky.

  Thinking of last night’s events, I got up and went to stand in the balcony outside. In front of me the red brick building of the Hindu Sabha College stood mutely in the still darkness of pre-dawn. I looked towards the sky and saw stars trembling in the muddy sky.

  As I crossed the long verandah and reached the staircase, I could hear someone coming down. A few seconds later, Asghar came into sight and walked past me without so much as a glance in my direction. It was dark, I thought as I started climbing the stairs slowly, perhaps he didn’t see me.

  Whenever I climb a staircase, I count the stairs. I had just mumbled ‘twenty-four’ when, suddenly, I found a woman standing on the last step. I got flustered because I had very nearly collided with her.

  ‘Forgive me.… Oh! It’s you!’

  The woman was Sharda. She was the eldest daughter of Harnam Kaur, one of our acquaintances, an
d she had been widowed just one year after her marriage.

  Before I could ask her anything else, she spoke with urgency, ‘Who was that man who has just gone down?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The man who just went down the stairs … Do you know him?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Asghar.’

  ‘Asghar!’ She very nearly bit the name through clenched teeth and in a flash I understood what must have transpired between them.

  ‘Did he do something impolite?’

  ‘Impolite?’ Sharda’s body trembled with rage. ‘Who does he think I am ...?’ Tears welled up in her small eyes. ‘He …He ….’ Her voice caught in her throat and, covering her face with both her hands, she began to cry loudly and with complete abandon.

  I was in a strange dilemma. I began to worry that if someone were to hear her cry and come up, there would be a hue and cry.

  Sharda had four brothers and all four were sleeping somewhere in the building. Two of them were especially fond of picking up violent quarrels. Surely, nothing could save Asghar Ali now.

  I began to reason with her, ‘Look here, I say, stop crying … someone will hear.’

  She removed her hands from her face and spoke in a loud petulant voice, ‘Let them … I want people to hear … Who does he think I am? A whore? I … I ….’

  Once again, her voice caught in her throat.

  ‘I think it would be best to bury this matter here and now.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It will cause disgrace.’

  ‘To whom? To him or to me?’

  ‘It will be his disgrace, of course but no good ever comes of putting your hands in mud.’ So saying, I pulled out my handkerchief and gave it to her. ‘Here, wipe your tears.’

  She flung the handkerchief away and flounced off to sit on the topmost stair. I picked up my handkerchief, dusted it and put it back in my pocket. ‘Sharda, Asghar is my friend. I seek your forgiveness for whatever mistake he has committed.’