Love Story #1 to 14

by Annie Zaidi

  So they never talked about the problem. She quietly went about getting her twice-a-week antidote to the problem. He pretended that those outings were not any different from the days when she stepped out to buy cauliflower.

  She would usually send him a text message. The message would reveal a place name and a time, so he knew which meeting she was headed to. Just so that he knew where she was and when she’d be back. Usually, it was: ‘Gulmohar Street Church, 7 p.m.’. In the beginning, he would offer to pick her up on his way back from work. The vehement ‘No!’ taught him not to offer again.

  It made him a bit resentful at first – this scissoring out of a chunk of her life, veiling it from his gaze. He hated coming home to an empty house, wondering what exactly she was doing. He knew the general pattern of such meetings – people confessed. I did wrong things. I broke rules. I shamed myself in such-and-such way. They called it sharing. Management jargon. They call everything ‘sharing’ these days, as if they were all kids with a bar of chocolate rather than adults on the verge of the unnameable.

  He was jealous of those strangers she confessed to. But if he was honest with himself, he didn’t really want to hear about it. Whatever she had done. He did his best to work late two nights a week. It had been fourteen years. Still she went to meetings. To share. With strangers who had nothing in common with her, except the drugs.

  Which drugs? He didn’t know. Didn’t want to know. But he couldn’t stop his heart from beating a tattoo of terror on days when nobody answered the door. He hated fishing out his own set of keys. He hated stepping into a silent house, going from one empty room to the other, calling her name. The childish worry that she may not come back. The echo of his own heavy shoes.

  He would scold himself, remind himself that she never hid anything. Nor has she forbidden him anything. Not even his quirks, like wanting to kiss her nose before he kissed her lips. She didn’t really like it, but she understood it: affection before lust. She understood that it was important to him. He needed to believe it. Perhaps he needed to reassure himself that affection would hold them together when lust faded.

  Her mysterious meetings were the only door she had slammed in his face. It had stayed shut for fourteen years. Accompanying her to the meetings was forbidden. So was conversation with strangers who seemed to know her, who came up to say hello to her when they were out together – in restaurants, in parks, at bars. A nod, a wave. She nodded back, even went up to say hello. But she never introduced her husband.

  Alcohol was not forbidden in the house. She often brought home a bottle of wine. She went into the wine shops alone. It horrified him in the early years. No woman he knew stepped into the neighbourhood wine shop. It was the scandal of the colony.

  He did suggest that perhaps it wasn’t a good idea. Especially because of the . . . he hesitated. He said ‘habit’. He couldn’t bring himself say ‘addiction’. She had stared at him, then smiled a tight smile. ‘I go to NA, not AA. There’s a difference.’

  And he never brought it up again. Sometimes he wondered if she bought wine just to prove a point to herself. That she was perfectly capable of sitting down with her husband and drinking a glass of wine without going insane. He noticed that she never drank more than a glass. When a bottle was opened, she would sit beside him and keep refilling his glass, waving an elegant hand to dismiss his protests.

  He didn’t like that. He didn’t enjoy drinking alone. Besides, he could see that she was struggling. The way she looked at the swirling red liquid. Pure longing. Devils dancing around her eyes. It must be torture, but she said it wasn’t so hard to stop after one drink. Wine wasn’t her thing anyway.

  What was her thing? Once, she had told him, that it was the love of her life. ‘It’. Brown sugar, hash, weed, meth? He had heard the slang and even that was picked up from films. None of his friends even talked about drugs. He wouldn’t know where to go if he wanted some, or how to consume them.

  It made him feel inept. Juvenile. Oh, he knew, he knew, he knew. There was nothing grown up about drugs. Or wine or cigars. But he couldn’t forget that she knew things that he would never know. And what did he know about her if he couldn’t know the things she had seen, felt, struggled against, lost?

  Still, he didn’t know how to refuse when she poured him a sparkling glassful. He would drink. Sometimes, she would stroke the rim of the agonizingly empty glass in her hand. He could never get high. He might drink the bottle dry, but he always slept sober.

  Yet, he was content to stay with her, known devils and all. Until the day of the blasts.

  Fifteen blasts in the city, each within minutes of the other. Trains, buses, taxis, hospitals, banks, markets.

  He called her as soon as he reached the office. He had missed a bomb on the train by less than ten minutes. She was frightened out of her wits, calling every hour to check if he was in office. And what was it like outside? Might there be more blasts? What if his office building was a target? How would he come home tonight; would trains be running? Were taxis safer?

  He asked her to relax. She said, yes. ‘Thank god the kitchen is stocked, just in case there’s a curfew or something.’

  He remembered clearly that she had said this. Yet, she went outside.

  He got home after nine. He took a taxi but he had to wait until the police began to allow traffic through the barricades. Nobody answered the door so he used his key. He called out her name, thinking she might be in the bathroom. He looked. She wasn’t home.

  He tried her phone. It rang loudly, right behind him on the sofa. He waited half an hour, then he went down to talk to the security guard. The guard said that madam had gone out, at about seven in the evening.

  Perhaps, he thought, her brother needed her. Perhaps it was an emergency and she was so distraught that she had rushed out, forgetting her phone. He called his brother-in-law, but he was fine. He’d spoken to his sister, in fact. She had called earlier to check if everybody in the family was safe. Why, was something the matter?

  What was the matter? He hesitated. Her brother didn’t know about NA; she wouldn’t talk about her problem to her own family. So he said nothing more.

  He paced the house. At ten, he went down to the building gate. He looked up and down the road. A police van slowed down. A cop called out to say this was not a good time for a stroll; didn’t he know what had happened in the city?

  He went back to the house. Five minutes later, the key turned. She entered, carrying large plastic bags, smiling. ‘Oh thank god you’re back, I was worrying about how you’d return,’ she said.

  He was so stunned that he forgot to exclaim: ‘Oh, you were worried?’ He watched her silently.

  She threw off her dupatta, glanced at her phone where it lay on the sofa, saw the missed calls. She cocked a brow at him.

  He finally managed to speak. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘I went to the market.’ She set about unpacking the bags, one of which turned out to be full of packed Chinese food.

  He could only repeat: ‘The market?’

  ‘Yes, the market. Today is my shopping day, isn’t it?’

  He shook his head, disbelieving. ‘Today?’

  ‘Yes, why?’ She stopped bustling for a moment. ‘Oh! Because of the blasts?’ She began laying the table. ‘I got so restless. Just waiting, sitting at home. And you know me, I like my routine. Anyway, I was feeling like if I didn’t get out of the house, I would collapse or burst or, or, or have a breakdown. I just had to get some fresh air.’

  He took a deep breath. He shook his head. ‘Do you know how worried I was?’

  She looked up, perplexed. ‘Oh! It never struck me. I usually come back before you do, don’t I? But there was a lot of naakabandi. My cab must have gone through six-seven barricades. I knew I wouldn’t have time to cook. So I brought back some Chinese. Come, you must be starving.’

  She was opening out the white paper boxes, pouring soy and chilli sauces into tiny glass bowls. Quick, nervous fingers. He went to the dining t
able and sat down. He couldn’t eat.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘You were so upset. You called me every half hour. Then suddenly you take off. And you don’t even take your cell phone.’

  She frowned. ‘I wasn’t thinking very much, you know. I called everyone I knew. When you said you were fine and you were taking a cab back home, I relaxed. I decided to step out. I just wanted to behave normally.’

  She was eating normally. Rather heartily. He picked up his fork and began to wind the noodles round it.

  ‘So where did you go?’ he asked.

  ‘I told you. Shopping,’ she said.

  ‘You shouldn’t have. There were blasts in markets too.’

  ‘One blast in a market area. Anyway, I didn’t go very far. I just went to the Friday haat on the other side of the colony. Then I went to the Chinese restaurant. You know it; it’s right across.’

  He finished his hakka noodles. They sat watching the news for a few minutes. Then they went to bed. It wasn’t until six in the morning that he noticed the shopping bags.

  There was just one household chore he was responsible for. When the garbage boy rang the doorbell, he had to get up, go to the kitchen, hand over the dustbin, then take the empty bin and line it with a fresh plastic bag. He usually went back to sleep afterwards. She would wake up at seven and make a cup of tea.

  The morning after the blasts, he could not find any plastic bags to line the dustbin. He looked in the usual place – top drawer in the kitchen cabinet – but there were no plastic bags there. He stepped into the living room. On the table, he spotted some plastic bags. She had carried home their Chinese dinner in these bags.

  He picked up a bag. It was only when he began to line the dustbin that he noticed. The shopping bag was not the ordinary thin plastic bag that would have been used by the vendors who sit at the haat. It came from an exclusive store. A store in a market where a bomb had been found. Mercifully, it had failed to go off. He had seen it on the news last night. The cops had worked until past nine in the night, trying to defuse it.

  He squatted on the floor, dustbin in one hand, plastic bag in the other. He thought: this is not making sense.

  A hundred possibilities clogged his mind. He was wide awake now, but he finished lining the bin, and he went back to bed.

  He waited. As usual, the alarm went off at seven. She quickly turned it off, not wanting to wake him. Then she turned on her side and saw that he was watching her.

  She touched the side of his face. ‘Couldn’t sleep?’

  He wanted to ask but the words wouldn’t slide off his tongue. With her lying beside him, touching his face, how could he accuse her of lying to him?

  He shook his head and shut his eyes. She went to the kitchen, came back with two cups of tea. In handing over his cup, she caressed his hands. She seemed especially tender that morning, like mothers are when kids have been ill. Like favourite teachers, after they have had to punish you.

  She touched him often that morning. Handing over an ironed shirt, telling him that breakfast was ready, handing him a new bar of soap for his bath, she found excuses to touch him.

  She called her brother, and he found himself listening in. She was asking how things were, was there a curfew, was it safe to go to work? When he was finally dressed, she kissed his lips. And so, he didn’t ask any questions.

  It took a week to stop thinking about that lie. But he finally told himself that there must be some innocent explanation. It must have been an old bag, from another shopping trip. Perhaps, she had taken that bag along with her when she went shopping. Because nobody would give her strong, large plastic bags at the haat. It was perfectly plausible.

  Life went back to what it was. Once more, he was a content man. The lull lasted about three months.

  It was a fire this time. The largest shopping mall in the city – it stretched down the street for over a kilometre – had an electric fault. Two floors were completely gutted. Three people died of asphyxiation.

  He heard about it over a late lunch in the canteen. Since it wasn’t a Friday, he didn’t expect her to be outdoors. She wasn’t likely to go further than the fruit stall at the end of the lane. But when he got home, she wasn’t there.

  It was just past eight, he told himself. Maybe she went out for a walk. Or to the dry cleaners. He told himself to sit down and wait. She wasn’t a child. There was no need to worry.

  Ten minutes later, the key turned in the lock. She stepped in, carrying a brown paper bag. He noticed the bag. It was burgers this time, from one of those local Mc-knockoff joints.

  She smiled as she dumped the bags on the dining table. She threw herself on the sofa beside him. His heart was pounding.

  ‘I didn’t feel like cooking today,’ she said. ‘So I thought I’d run out and get something nice and greasy. We haven’t eaten rubbish in a long time.’

  When she asked if he was ready to eat, he nodded. She unwrapped the burgers and laid out two plates on the table. They ate in silence. When she went into the kitchen to wash the dishes, he picked up the brown paper bag. The restaurant it came from was inside the largest shopping mall in the city. The one that had two floors gutted earlier in the day.

  That night, he asked her if she was okay. She raised herself on one elbow.

  ‘Why?’

  It should have been easy. He could just ask her where she’d gone. Why did she not call home delivery? Why did it have to be that mall? Why today?

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Just that you said you didn’t feel like cooking.’

  ‘Oh that! No, I was just feeling lazy.’

  Suddenly he blurted out, ‘Your NA thing . . . is it –’ He felt her stiffen beside him but he pressed on, miserable. ‘It is working out fine, isn’t it?’

  She answered shortly. ‘Yes.’ Then she turned over and pretended to go to sleep.

  The tension refused to dissolve. He opened his mouth a few times to say something, but what? And what was the point?

  Two months of contentment, again. Then there was a riot. A new slummy suburb, a fifteen-minute drive from their apartment. Six dead, eighteen injured. A localized curfew was likely.

  She called him to tell him. She said she was worried about how he’d get home. What if the rioting didn’t stop?

  He told her not to worry. He’d stay on at the office if he had to. Then he added, like it was an order. ‘Don’t go out. You must not step out of the house – not for food, not to de-stress, not for anything. Yes?’

  She sounded mournful. She said she loved him. She said she would be waiting for him when he came home. She did not promise that she wouldn’t go out.

  She was waiting for him when he returned. His arms dripping with relief, he held her for a long time. When he stepped away, he saw there were tears rolling down her cheeks. His chest tightened.

  ‘Has something happened?’

  She shook her head. He followed her to the sofa and pulled her down beside him.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing. I don’t get it. What sort of world is this? How is it that we just go on, like nothing has happened?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing. I was just watching TV. The news. Nothing. Forget it. I am just nervous.’

  He decided to take a shower before going to bed. In the bathroom, he started to dump his clothes into the laundry basket. Then he saw a set of filthy clothes at the top of the pile. Her salwar, streaked black, a splotch of blood at the edge where the fabric would have brushed the street.

  He stood under the shower. He told his pounding heart to stop. Slow down. The clothes could have been lying there from before. Sooty clothes could mean anything. Anything. Maybe she had been to the butcher’s yesterday. What day was yesterday? The fish market. Could you get blood on your salwar from walking about in the fish market?

  When he emerged from the shower, he found her watching the news. She was crying.

  Dinner was a disaster. The dal was burnt. There was noth
ing but mashed potatoes to go with the rice. He fed her with his own hands, making little sticky balls, as if he was feeding a baby. Then he held her to sleep.

  The month went by. He kept a sharp eye on the news. On his office computer, a news window stayed open all day. But there was no violent incident that might have caught a passing stranger in its wake.

  Then one evening, she brought home a bottle of wine and she drank two glasses of wine. She saw him looking at her. She said she wasn’t even mildly tipsy. It was alright. Wine wasn’t her thing.

  Another month. No riots, no fires. She brought home another bottle, although he hadn’t finished the last one. When she refilled both their glasses for the third time, he touched her wrist gently.

  She snapped, ‘I can handle a few drinks. Don’t try and play daddy to me.’

  He worried, of course. He worried so much that he drove down to Gulmohur Street Church one evening.

  He almost didn’t recognize her when she stepped out. High heels, a low-cut dress, a lit cigarette between her lips. And the laughter! The uptilted chin, the exposed neck, the cascading hair. She looked like a model from one of those advertisements for cigarettes. Or cars. Or alcohol.

  Her hair shone. Her lips were a deep red. There were three men walking alongside. All of them were smoking. They paused at gates, chatting. She was looking up, laughing, at one of the men. A handsome man, at least a decade older.

  When their smoke was done, the group broke up. She walked some distance with the handsome man, and stopped in front of a blue Toyota; they chatted some more.

  He saw her accept another cigarette. He saw her lean forward as the handsome man offered her a light. And he thought, any moment now, she would get into the blue car and drive away with the other man. But she didn’t. She crossed the road and hailed a taxi.

  On an impulse, he began to follow the blue Toyota. He couldn’t seem to help himself. The car went clean across town and stopped at a farmhouse, just outside the city. A gleaming white mansion, an expanse of green lawn, surrounded by stone walls overhung with honeysuckle.