Trespassing (34 page)

He felt a constriction around his neck. ‘I’ve been trying to get a tanker to the house. Long story. When …’

‘I’ve called so many times,’ she pressed.

He paused. ‘I’m sorry. When I’m home Anu’s around me a lot.’

‘Well, you could have at least tried.’

His irritation mounted. Finally: ‘Let’s figure out how to meet. My car’s still broken …’

‘I’m going to have to call you back. I don’t like you right now.’ She hung up.

What was he going to do with himself now?

Anu’s brother had taken her to the water office. He had the whole house to himself but Dia had to make a fuss.

He walked out into the lawn and onto the street, winding
around the unfinished house. Had the contractor been fired? Work still hadn’t resumed.

He thought of the choices he could offer her, when she eventually called. He could find a mechanic. But the thought itself was draining. It would take days before a mechanic kept his promise and came to the house, and in any case, the car would only break down again. He couldn’t bring himself to chase both a tanker and a mechanic, even though Anu chased the former now.

Dia’s car, like Khurram’s, only came with the driver so that was out.

They couldn’t take a bus because the cove was outside its range.

They could take a taxi, though that too wouldn’t go all the way. It would involve walking the distance, in this heat, as Dia had had to do the day his car broke down. It had meant more men like Salaamat leering at Dia.

So what was left?

As he walked through the partitions, he wondered, Right here? It might be quite cozy, cuddling in one of these half-built chambers. He could simply tell Anu he was going to find a mechanic. It was too obvious to suspect.

The only problem he foresaw was Salaamat, if it was he who occasionally lurked in the crevices. But when no other options arose, he suggested the house when she finally called.

Days later, in a cavity furthest from the street, she sulked, ‘Oh what a place to meet!’

‘But aren’t you glad to see me? This is probably going to be a guest bedroom or something. We’re the first guests!’

‘This is absurd. There are puddles everywhere. We’re barely out of the sun, and most of all, we’re sandwiched between your mother’s house and Khurram’s house, where Salaamat knows us too! It’s like we’re having to create our own village just to be together, only the village is in their lap.’

He sat her down. ‘Let’s talk about your lap.’ He tried to rest his head in it.

But she remained aloof, looking about the empty room with the half-raised, unpainted walls, and above them, a gray and bloated sky. The ground was muddy and uneven. The arm he touched soon covered in sweat.

‘This is no good. I can’t hunker like this with you, Daanish. I miss the cove, even though it frightened me. But we belong in someplace beautiful. There’s not even a tree around us.’

He had to admit: it wasn’t cozy. He sat up. ‘Well, where else?’

Instead of suggesting something, she kept complaining. ‘This place makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong. I’m not.’

He checked himself for getting impatient with her, and touched her smooth, clean-cut jaw. It curved beautifully at the chin. He traced her lips, his thumb wiping the sweat gathering on her upper lip, where a thin line of hair grew. Her large eyes were so sincere, and just now, so sad. He sighed. ‘Was it hard to get away?’

She slid a hand in his. ‘Very. Inam Gul said, “Where do you keep going, beti? Why do you not speak plainly with me?” I hate upsetting him. Plus, I’m afraid he’s going to squeal.’

‘If I were some other guy, would your mother still object?’

‘No, that’s what hurts. She’s probably the only mother who wouldn’t. Yet why should I feel guilty? We’re doing nothing wrong.’ She said it with great conviction, snapping herself out of her despair, and at last kissed him.

They lay in each other’s arms in the guestroom-to-be, blowing the sweat dry on each other’s skin. She whispered, ‘You leave for America soon.’

It was true. In less than two weeks, he’d be on the plane again. ‘We can meet here often.’

She said nothing for a while but then both of them pulled slowly away. It was too hot, too sticky, and they felt too
keenly how constrained they were. Their love needed room. Here it was so capped, so smothered, how could it possibly grow?

Dia said, ‘Last summer, a black rain fell. People said it was because of the bombed oilfields in Iraq. For months, soot covered the world and fell like ink. Ama said the rain destroyed our mulberry trees, but she’d no way of confirming that. We ran short of food for the silkworms.’ Her voice was breathy and detached.

He rolled onto his side. ‘Dia, this isn’t perfect, but let’s try to make the most of it?’

They tried.

The next time, Daanish brought a thermos of ice water and they sprinkled it on each other, kissing early, before the balm withered and they were too clammy to embrace. He told her they had plenty of water now – Anu had prevailed, but she wondered why he never came home with a mechanic.

Sometimes Dia spoke of Sumbul and Inam Gul, of how their queries were increasingly intrusive. But mostly, the two exchanged stories. It was what they had to count on. Tales of beginnings, and of eternity.

One day she leveled the ground with her palm, stretched her legs and leaned into a dividing wall. She told him how the mulberry fruit got its red color. ‘I’d tell the story to my father at bedtime and he’d repeat it on the drive to the farm. It got so that each time, we had to come up with a different ending. But this is how it starts.

‘There were once two young lovers, say Raeesa and Faraz. Raeesa was lean and dark, with sparkling eyes, rich black hair and lips like fuchsia petals.’

Daanish laughed. ‘How can poor Faraz match up to that?’

‘He doesn’t,’ she smiled. ‘He was short and lumpy-nosed, but what he had was zip. More than a honeybee’s.’

‘I see, zest makes up for the fact that he’s a
bonga.’

She tweaked his arm. ‘He was sweet, not a
bonga.
Anyway, their parents forbade the children from even looking at each other. But Faraz had to pass her house on the way to the field where he worked, so many opportunities arose for Raeesa to watch him coyly from behind her thick curtain of hair.’ Daanish combed Dia’s tresses with his fingers, arranging them over her eyes. She obliged him by peering out mischievously.

‘Faraz would linger feverishly when he spied her lithe, eel-like presence, hopping from foot to foot, terribly nervous about being caught. But he’d brave anything for a look of his beloved.

‘At night, on his way back from the field, he’d stand beside the wall of her house. There was a small crevice there no one besides the lovers knew of. While the household slept, they’d speak softly to each other through it. Her voice was kind and seductive. His lips drew nearer to drink the delectable aroma.’

Dia stalled, and Daanish gently rubbed her back. ‘Why did you stop?’

Her brows were furrowed, and she looked away before answering him. ‘I just remembered something.’ She paused again. ‘My father would always describe it as Faraz wanting to drown himself in Raeesa’s breath. It’s nothing. Just that it’s cruel, the way words twist around, take on unwanted meanings. It was a perfectly good metaphor. Now I’ll never use it.’

Daanish kept stroking her back, and it was then that Dia came to tell him of her father’s murder. ‘Technically,’ she said, ‘he didn’t really drown. I mean the coroner said he was dead before being dumped in the river. Still, his body wouldn’t have looked the way it did if he hadn’t been steeping for days.’ He held her then, struck by how her anger was still so fresh. She shed no tears but her eyes were haunted. She said she still wondered daily who’d killed him, what she’d do if she ever found out, and most of all, feared it would have to be nothing.

It wasn’t till their next meeting that she resumed the tale.

‘Nightly, Faraz was drawn to the crevice in the mud wall, a moth assembling around his eager mate – let’s use that metaphor. His fingers scratched the crack hungrily as he imagined her on the other side, where Raeesa too was tortured, where she too scraped her delicate fingers, hoping for just one caress from her love. Her fingers grew bloody, and she kissed the wounds later, while falling asleep, imagining they were his. Her sleep was a series of dreams of him. Some sweet, others so terrible she woke up keening.

‘Finally one night, able to stand it no longer, they arranged a meeting. Faraz said he knew just the place. It was under an old mulberry tree on the banks of a river, two kilometers out from the wheat fields. “Meet me there tomorrow night,” he whispered through the hole. “It will be a new moon and we won’t be seen.”

‘Raeesa listened, twirling her hair absently. She longed for a look of reassurance from her beloved. She’d never walked alone in the dark before. How far was two kilometers? What would her parents say if they found out? She didn’t want to betray them. After all, she loved them too. Suddenly, she wished to be a child again. Children knew nothing about needing to choose. That was their innocence. She was about to give up hers. Where should she go: in the arms of passion or trust? What did she want more: a new beginning or old certainty?

‘For the first time since their hidden affair, she wondered about Faraz. Was he the one for her?’

Dia looked at Daanish long and hard.

He’d been combing her hair with his fingers again and now he didn’t know whether to remove his hand or let it linger. He decided on the latter, but the hiatus gave him away. He brought both hands up to his face, deciding to make them useful by mopping up his damp cheeks. He couldn’t return her look. He didn’t know what he felt.
He wished he could tell her that: I don’t know what I feel any more. About anything. Love. War. Death. Home. All mere headlines. He couldn’t touch or string them together. That was what she’d been doing for him. Was she going to stop?

He sighed, and his breath was a touch sour. Nothing crisp and ruddy about his scent here, in this gnat-ridden corner of the unfinished house. In truth, they were mad to tolerate this hovel. Humidity must be approaching one hundred per cent. They were both slick with it. She didn’t smell good either.

She wiped her face with the hem of her kameez, in the process revealing part of her soft, flat stomach. If his timing were better, he could circle her naked waist, or lift her shirt up further. But he just wasn’t moved to do anything at all. Guiltily, he thought he’d rather be in his room, where at least he could quench his thirst and cool off under the fan.

She continued, her voice giving away none of what had passed between them in the silence. ‘Raeesa searched the crevice for a sign from him, but it was too small to reveal anything besides the darkness on his side.

‘He asked her again, “Will you meet me under the mulberry?”

‘“Yes!” she cried hurriedly. “I’ll be there.”

‘So the next night, when her family had fallen asleep, Raeesa packed a small bundle of clothes and slipped out of the house. It was indeed a new moon. Every time she looked up, more stars appeared. They seemed to shine for her and she talked back to them while crossing a field. In this way, Raeesa resisted the urge to turn back.

‘At last she heard the river. And she saw the silhouette of the tree. It hunkered over the water like a curved band of ageing men, arms askew, leaves flapping. The sky began to pale. But where was Faraz?

‘Unknown to Raeesa, Faraz had started out for the river much earlier that day. Unable to contain his excitement,
he’d not worked in the field. He could focus on nothing but the prospect of at last embracing his love. But that was still so many hours away! After waiting so long, these final hours were excruciating. He wandered away from the river, thinking, then sauntering back. He paced in circles.

‘What he wanted was to declare his love openly, in broad daylight, so he could wear it proudly. He wanted to face her family, and his. Deceit would taint the beauty of what they’d have that night. They were above that.

‘He came up with another plan. He stood outside her house and told himself: If she loves me, she’ll know I’m here and come out. If she doesn’t, I’ll know her love is not true.

‘But Raeesa, counting on tonight, did not step out all day. She suffered indoors, in silence, tormented by the enormous gamble she’d committed herself to.

‘And so Faraz left. What she loved best about him – his enthusiasm, his childlike earnestness – would be their undoing.’

Daanish pouted. ‘You’re losing me: Faraz just created this problem for himself when he could finally have what he wanted?’

‘Yes. He was misguided. Mind you, I’m coming to the part that could go many ways, and you can tell me your version. Let me finish my father’s.

‘So as the sun rose the next day, Raeesa sat between the roots of the mulberry tree in disbelief. Had she made the wrong choice? Or had something happened to her beloved? Should she get help? Indecision and fear paralyzed her.

‘And Faraz, heartbroken by his own folly, roamed the village in stupefied horror, convinced it was he who’d been wronged. He was observed in this state by an old woman who counseled him thus: “Go where you agreed to go before you lose sight of where you are.” She walked away, leaving Faraz to reflect on her words.

‘Under the tree, Raeesa suddenly noticed a tiger lurking
nearby. He’d come to drink at the river, licking his lips dry of gazelle blood as he sipped. When she saw the beast, Raeesa, delirious with despair, assumed the blood on his whiskers was her beloved’s. She fell before the tiger. The great cat snapped her neck, slurping an unexpected second course. Her blood sprouted up like a fountain, toward the bone-like branches caressing her, rinsing the white berries burgundy. And that’s how they got their color.’

‘I almost forgot that’s what this was about,’ Daanish frowned. Then he added, ‘I don’t like it.’

‘Well, change it then. I said it was open-ended.’

He considered this. ‘What happened to Faraz?’

‘The saddest thing is that he’d been making his way back to her. And when he finally arrived, and saw Raeesa’s carcass, he too let the cat have him. Once my father told it another way. Faraz had been excited, yes, but instead of wandering to her house, expecting her to come out, he’d simply parked himself on the banks of the river. He’d never met the old woman at the village, and he hadn’t worked the fields either. He just sat under the tree from morning till night, so when the tiger with the bloody mustache came to drink, it was Faraz who thought Raeesa had been eaten, not the other way around. And then he too dropped before the beast, so it was Faraz’s blood that turned the fruit red, and it was Raeesa who found the carcass.’