Love Story #1 to 14

by Annie Zaidi

  He cut the engine and sat in his own dusty car, watching the drooping pink heads of honeysuckle disappear into the darkening sky. Then he turned around and went home.

  She was her usual self. Loose linen pants, a full-sleeved shirt, no make-up. He stood in the kitchen, watching her cook. She glanced over her shoulder. He tried to smile.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ she asked. He nodded.

  She stirred the chicken curry. ‘Is there . . . any bad news?’

  ‘No. Nothing. I’m just tired,’ he said, and then he went to bed.

  Next week, he went to Gulmohur Street again. It was a different group this time, except for the handsome man. And a different wife from the one he knew. She stepped out of the meeting in a tight pair of jeans with a turquoise corset top. A chiffon scarf thrown lightly around her shoulder. Dark glasses, shiny hair loose around her shoulders, a coral necklace. He didn’t even know she had these clothes.

  She had once said she was too self-conscious about her weight to wear anything so tight. But here she was, no sign of self-consciousness. And the handsome farmhouse man, laughing with her. The blue Toyota, again. She walked over to the car, accepted another cigarette. Some more chatting, just the two of them, and then she hailed a taxi.

  He followed the taxi this time. It stopped twice before taking her home – once to pick up tomatoes and mushrooms, and then at the drycleaners. He saw the taxi drive through the building gates. She headed into the elevator.

  He waited outside the building. Ten minutes. Fifteen.

  When she opened the door to him, she was taken aback. She hadn’t had time to change. The coral necklace was still around her neck. She had been cooking in a dressing gown, a ladle in one hand, bright red lipstick still staining her mouth.

  ‘Hi! You’re home early.’

  He stepped in, face taut. He sat down in front of the television. She went back to her cooking, but kept popping out every few minutes to say something. She asked a lot of questions. How was his day? How did he manage to come back so quickly? Did he want something special to eat? He answered in monosyllables.

  Then she came to sit beside him with her vegetable basket. Her fingers nervously shelled peas. She was saying something about how she saw a beautiful girl on the street today, someone who wore clothes that would have looked cheap on another woman, and how she talked to that girl, and how the girl told her not to be afraid of dressing up, and how she then bought herself some bright red lipstick. Then she talked about how hard it was to find fresh mushrooms, and the price of organic garam masala, and how she was going to put all the sachets of oregano into the pulao.

  She babbled on and on. He sat there, staring at the television screen, feeling like there was a fog around him, so dense he couldn’t fight his way out. Finally, she stopped talking.

  For the next few days, they said very little to each other, except to discuss things like meals, cheques, bills, visitors. He still put the garbage out. She still brought him his first cup of tea in bed. But silence clung to them like lice. They kept their distance from each other.

  At the end of the day, he would say, ‘I’m tired. I’m going to bed.’ And he would. She would take a long time to clear away the dinner dishes, wipe the table, put away the leftovers. When she came to bed, she would lie down quietly. He would keep his eyes tightly shut.

  God knows he didn’t want this. He didn’t know how much longer he could stand it. When he came home, she would answer the door looking like someone had just slapped her. She would look at him as if she expected him to strike her again.

  He couldn’t bring himself to eat at home. He stayed back late at the office, doing absolutely nothing, just waiting for a reasonably late hour so he could grab a snack at the canteen. So he could look her in the eye and say he had already had his dinner.

  He told himself she ought to be happy. The longer he stayed out of the house, the more time she had to do whatever she wanted. Go out, meet other men. Handsome men. Wear fancy clothes. Shop all day. Find an alternative. She felt loyalty for him, probably. Maybe she felt she owed him something. But any day now, she would be declaring her independence, citing extreme boredom. Any day now, he would hear from her lawyer.

  Or perhaps he ought to find a lawyer. There was no point prolonging it. And perhaps he was endangering her life. She went out into danger with such enthusiasm, it could only be a device to get rid of some unnamed grief crushing her soul. Who goes to the site of a bomb attack to do their shopping? Only the insane or the suicidal. Maybe she felt compelled to throw herself into blasts, fires, curfews because life with him was becoming intolerable.

  She was sexy, wasn’t she? She wanted to be seen as sexy. She was a bold woman. Not meant for him. The corals, the bright red lipstick, high heels – they swam in his head night and day.

  After two weeks of his silence, she stopped sending him text messages about her meetings. He wondered why. But what difference did it make? Just as well, he thought.

  On one of her meeting days, he came back home early, assuming that she would be away. He desperately wanted the house to himself. He wanted to lie down alone in bed, not feeling the waves of grief coming off her body.

  He walked in to the darkened house, kicked off his shoes, left them untidily on the carpet. There was food in the fridge and he helped himself to some. It was a relief, eating without her bewildered eyes fixed on him.

  The house was silent. He looked around carefully, for he hadn’t really been looking at anything for the last few days. The house looked tidy and set in its ways. It looked, in fact, like his home. It was a house meant for someone like him – middle-aged, middle-class, middle-brow. The books, the music, the carpet, his mother’s ‘English’ crockery carefully preserved inside the glass cabinet.

  There was no trace of his wife and her expensive tastes. She must have worked hard at keeping them apart – his demure, stolid world and her exciting, flamboyant world. No spillage. As if she always knew that their union would come apart one day.

  The house, too, was a lie. The dun curtains, the green sofa. She had made a comfortable home for him, not for herself. Bitterly, he thought, ‘For herself, she was busy making other plans. The real her, that she saves up for outside.’

  He stood up abruptly. He dumped his plate in the sink. For a moment he stood there, wondering if he should wash it. Then anger took over. Let her deal with it. He wasn’t going to worry about how to make her life easier, not any more.

  He rinsed his mouth and spat into the kitchen sink. Then he went into the bedroom to lie down.

  And there she was, lying on her side. She was awake and he knew at once that she must have heard the door open. She must have waited for him to call out her name, to come looking for her.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and watched her eyes turn moist. She lay still, blinking back the tears. Why hadn’t she gone to the meeting, he wanted to ask, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask.

  She answered anyway. ‘I didn’t feel like going.’

  His resentment returned. Of course she wasn’t going to the meeting. That’s why she was in a faded old kurta, her hair in a loose plait. She wasn’t likely to put on lipstick to welcome him home.

  Oh, he was dowdy! He knew. And he never wanted a sexy, dangerous woman. The idea had always frightened him. She must have known. Why else this elaborate charade of being a demure housewife? Why else her insistence that he must not ask about her other life? Why else these meetings where she laughs and smokes with all sorts of men?

  He didn’t talk to her that evening. He didn’t ask if she was feeling alright. He called the Chinese place for dinner.

  When he got up to empty the dustbin the next morning, he could hear the clink of glass. Wine bottles. There were empty bottles in the garbage almost every other day now. He told himself, there’s a difference between NA and AA. She said wine isn’t her thing. It wouldn’t become a problem. She said it herself.

  What did he know about these problems? He didn’t want to kno
w now. He had married a light-eyed, clear-skinned, quiet, content, elegant woman. A mature woman, who liked to cook and was borderline fanatic about dust. One little problem, yes. But drugs were a social problem, a world-wide problem; drugs were the problem. She had told him she had the problem under control. Anyway. It wasn’t his problem.

  That’s what he told himself. ‘She does whatever she wants. She doesn’t tell me anything. What can I do? Not my problem anyway.’

  He counted the bottles, though. He looked at the labels before he threw them away. Vodka, single malt, gin. Even he knew that it was beyond wine now. Was there anything she didn’t drink? And still, he would not bring it up.

  Five weeks and the silence crawled off their skins, forced an acknowledgment. He usually handed over his salary at the beginning of each month. Half was used up for household expenses. The rest for little treats, a pension plan and fixed deposits. There was no looking away now. They had a joint pension plan. Joint fixed deposits.

  He brought home half his salary. She still managed his household. She still cooked and dusted, though not very well. But he was now afraid that if he tried to give her money, it would lead to a confrontation. What if she refused to take it? Nobody could possibly live like this. She might tell him to manage his home, and she might walk out. Or she might ask him if he intended to continue with their joint pension plan. He delayed and delayed the confrontation.

  Finally, he decided that it was best done in a rush, exactly one minute before he had to go for work. He could pretend like he was in a great rush. He could just leave the money on the bed. At the door, he could say: ‘Listen, I’ve left my salary on the bed. Remember to put it away.’ Innocuous and noncommittal words.

  He was relieved that she hadn’t followed him to the door to say ‘bye, see you’, like she used to do. He didn’t have to look into her eyes or explain anything. But when he returned home at night, he saw that the money was still there, sitting on the bed exactly where he had left it. She hadn’t touched it.

  He turned to her irritably. ‘Can’t you be a bit more careful? What is this?’

  She spoke slowly, her eyes fixed on the floor. ‘What?’

  ‘The money could have gotten lost, or the maid could have taken it. Why did you leave it there?’

  She raised her dull eyes to his. ‘But I didn’t leave it there.’

  He blew out his cheeks. She was angling for a fight, trying to make him accuse her so that she could turn it around and accuse him. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. He picked up the wad of notes and put it in her cupboard. Their cupboard.

  A week passed. The garbage bag still clinked like a thick tongue each morning. Sometimes she didn’t bother to answer the door. He would let himself in with his key and find her on the sofa, dull-eyed, curled into a C.

  Then one morning, there was bad news, again. He didn’t know until his phone rang. It was her brother, calling to ask if he was alright.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Yes, I’m in office.’

  ‘Thank god,’ her brother said. ‘I thought I had better check on you guys.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You don’t know? Bomb blast. Six dead.’

  ‘Oh!’ he said. ‘No, I didn’t know.’

  ‘I was really worried because it was rather close to your place. In fact, I was surprised that didi didn’t hear it.’

  He gulped in a mouthful of air. ‘You talked to your sister?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Don’t worry, I called her as soon as I found out. Didn’t she call you? I thought she would have. But maybe she couldn’t get through. The networks are all busy.’

  It took him half a minute to get off the phone. It took another minute to collect himself. Then he ran out of his office and straight into the parking lot.

  In the car, he put on the radio. The RJs’ voices came out scrambled. Most of the stations were still playing film music. With one hand, he held up his cell phone and thumbed his way on to a news website. There were updates.

  The bomb had gone off near a cinema hall, ten minutes walking distance from home. It had been placed on the pavement outside, where the hawkers spread their wares on weekends. Most of the dead were the street vendors. Young boys who sold phone-jackets, stolen shoes, cheap tees.

  He told himself there was no cause for panic. Not now. She hardly stepped out of the house, not even for the NA meetings or her Friday shopping. And what if she did go out? There would be smoke and cops and blood and guts. The sight wouldn’t kill her.

  And then the next news update flashed on his phone screen. A second blast, same location.

  His ribs seemed to have collapsed, piercing his heart at a dozen different points. He thought he would die right here, foot on the accelerator, his wrists on the steering wheel, both hands intent on his phone now. Thumb at work, refreshing the website. Hungry for details. Terrified of details.

  They say that the second bomb had been placed diagonally opposite from the cinema hall, timed to go off a couple of hours later, when the site would be crowded with rescue teams, policemen, volunteers. Anxious survivors and camera crews had been standing near the police cordons. A bomb disposal squad was already at work, trying to locate and defuse other bombs. A sniffer dog lay martyred in the street. He turned the radio up and listened to fuzzy songs and a high, scrambled RJ voice. He dared not find out more.

  Nearer the blast site, policemen lined the street. He was stopped twice: once for searching his car and once for driving with the cell phone in his hands. It took an hour to find a parking space, to fight his way through the crush of gawkers who seemed unable to tear themselves away. Would she have been amongst them?

  Of course. He saw it clearly enough now. It was compelling – the malice of destiny, inexorable, undeserved suffering. Why hadn’t he noticed before? That’s what she had been doing when he met her. Documenting the lives of people who had survived civil wars. Gang-raped kids. Amputees. Tortured refugees. That time when she went off to live in the desert, after three years of drought. To see how they live, she had said. She had hugged him goodbye, with a ‘Who knows if we’ll meet again’.

  And when she had returned, alive, he had proposed. Hollow-eyed, half-starved, ‘not very well’ was all she would say about how she had managed. She had intended to go to a forest next. Where the rebels were. Where the army was. Where death stalked everyone, uncaring of political colour. So he had married her, quickly. And she had said then that she was content. No more tramping about in forests or deserts. She would live a safe, middle-class life, with him.

  He jostled the crowds, elbowing people in the ribs, shoving aside heads that blocked his view. What did she have in common with these rough-looking men with their jaws slack, staring at broken objects and charred flesh? Would she really have come here? Yes, if she wasn’t happy. No longer content to live with him.

  Ambulances lined the lane to the left. He forced himself to walk past the vehicles, peering past the dusty windshields, afraid to look. But nothing.

  He pressed ahead, closer to the cordon. He couldn’t stand to look at the earth at the spot where the bomb had gone off. He looked instead at those who were still standing upright, helping carry stretchers. Bits of people. He squeezed his eyes shut, rocked back and forth on his feet.

  ‘Look,’ he commanded himself. ‘Keep your eyes open. You have to look.’ He braced himself to walk across, step over a slumped torso, a limb with rivulets of red running down. Then he spotted her.

  She seemed to be keeling over. One hand gripped a metal barricade, the other supporting her jaw.

  He half-carried her to the nearest ambulance. The door stood open. A stretcher and a corpse. Nobody else.

  He ran around to the front of the ambulance, shouted at the driver. ‘Why aren’t there any doctors? What are you doing? Why aren’t you helping?’

  The driver wouldn’t look at him. ‘I’m not a doctor. Not even a ward-boy. What can I do?’

  He was about to argue, but he saw that she was squatting on the groun
d now. The front of her kurta was already stained red. He caught her by the arms, forced her back on her feet. Further, further. There must be a doctor somewhere.

  There was only a greying nurse in the next ambulance. She was petrified and began shouting at his bleeding wife. ‘What happened to you? My god, what happened to you?’

  He didn’t wait to explain. Further, further. In the third ambulance, a younger nurse sat ready, a first-kit open in her lap. She gently unclenched his wife’s fingers from around her jaw.

  He stood right behind, his arms around her shoulders, holding her hands so that she wouldn’t interfere with the nurse’s job. Antiseptic, orange ointment, gauze, tape.

  ‘Okay,’ the nurse said.

  ‘What do you mean? Aren’t you going to put stitches or something?’

  ‘No need for stitches. She isn’t losing that much blood. She’s just in shock. Take her home. Let her rest. If the bleeding goes on, we’ll see.’

  ‘Where are the doctors? I want to see a doctor.’ He was shouting. ‘Why have you all come here with first-aid kits? This is a bomb blast, not a cricket match.’

  He felt his wife’s hand cover his own, a nail digging softly into the skin between his thumb and forefinger. An old signal. If they were out at a party or wedding, and he seemed to be overstepping a line, saying something inappropriate, she would hold his hand and signal.

  So he stopped arguing, and took his wife home. They didn’t say a word in the car. When he finally cut the engine, she began to cry.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘I can’t deal with any more drama. Not today.’

  He came around to open the door on her side. She didn’t step out. The tears rolled down her cheeks and disappeared into the gauze bandage. The wad of cotton was a messy red-orange. Her chin was wobbling. She would need stitches, he thought. Perhaps they should drive straight to the hospital. Not the neighbourhood one. It would be too busy. He could take her to the one near the Ring Road. It specialized in accident trauma. He got back into the driver’s seat, turned the key in the ignition.