The Salesgirl

T

hat whole afternoon, there was no customer. Javed had gone to his home for lunch and didn’t come back. I knew what he must be doing. I still remember that day when I was burning with fever. I wanted to go home. I looked at the road that led to his home every other minute. Then a moment came when I could no longer bear to stand. I closed the shop and walked towards his house to hand over the key. I rehearsed it in my head—what would I say? "I've a high fever. I can’t work today. I'll stay for a little longer tomorrow." I knocked on that termite-eaten door, on which his father’s name was written on a rusted nameplate, in black ink, which faded over time. I could only read half of it, and tried to guess his father’s name. 

When I knocked for the second time, the door opened on its own, maybe it wasn’t bolted properly. Through a little alleyway, I reached a small courtyard, surrounded by ruined walls, covered with large grasses, the lakhauri bricks coming out, like a shroud coming out of a grave. There was an unused wooden bed, above which was the portrait of Imam Ali, an old calendar of a time now meaningless, a teak dining table crowded with apples, and some rotten bananas, and a white flower vase, filled with red and blue plastic roses.

I called his name. I walked towards the room, beside the kitchen, whose door was slightly open. There was a candle burning by the bedside table. From the little gap in the door, I saw him pouncing over his wife. God, I felt like those veiled school girls, who went to Mayfair with their old boyfriends to see those forbidden movies, and when those pornographic scenes appeared on the wide screen, they would hide their red faces in the smelly shirts of their lovers.

I walked faster and sat on the wooden bed in the hall. I was feeling restless. I put my head on the pillow and went to sleep. A little later, I felt a hand over my head, like a lizard. I woke up startled. He was standing beside the dining table’s chair, like an old shadow. "Javed bhai, I've a fever. I want to go home." He put his rough hand, like a carpenter’s after a long day of work, on my forehead. I moved my face and looked at him. He still had his hand on my forehead as if he was a saint and was trying to treat the sallies of my mind. His wife came from the room, tying her hair into a bun. We hadn’t met till then. I had been working at his shop for two months. This was the second time I’d come to his home. "She is the new salesgirl," he said, a little startled. I stood like that student in class, who always forgets his notebook at home, who in reality has no home. She looked at me from head to toe and put a wry smile on her face. "Go home, no need to worry. Your body is burning." Javed said, in a slow voice, like a silent whisper. "What happened?" "She is sick." He said, looking back at his wife. I walked outside. After crossing the road, I looked back at his house. The door was locked. But I knew if I went closer and pushed slightly, I would find them doing it again. 

I could still hear the tapping of the horse’s feet, the lighting of a cigarette, an old woman cutting onions in a house where no one comes to eat dinner, and a young couple making love inside a house that is marked for demolition.

That Thursday once again, he wasn’t back till dusk, I knew what he must be doing. Those images came in front of my eyes, two shadows trying to find a way into each other’s soul. I kept on looking at the road, at the faces of red-bearded men, chewing betel nuts; at the faces of veiled women, whose faces I have to imagine; the little children holding their mother’s fat hands, looking at me smiling; they all knew what was going on inside my head, inside that house, inside that room, a married couple tied to the bed, dark like shadows, entangled like roots of a banyan tree. I could hear the fast rhythm of their breath. I opened my eyes, and put two fingers in my ears. I could still hear the tapping of the horse’s feet, the lighting of a cigarette, an old woman cutting onions in a house where no one comes to eat dinner, and a young couple making love inside a house that is marked for demolition.

I could see and hear everything, a woman knocking at Javed’s house, then realizing the door was already open, the slow fan moving in that damp hall of Javed’s house, the portrait of Imam Ali, the old calendar of a year that was never there, the plastic roses—I knew what they thought about me. I could see everything, even those forbidden images, the faces of every man and woman on earth, making love, moving like wounded lizards on an old-about-to-break bed, like trees hit by storms.

A man entered the shop, exactly at the moment when the sky became black, and the light vanished. Like at dusk when Amma used to come down the stairs with a handful of dry clothes. I always knew that the woman who came down the stairs was my mother, I would say Amma, and she would say yes. Sometimes she wouldn’t speak, but I still knew it was my deceased mother. That evening when that man entered the shop, I tried to find the matches to light the candle, but couldn’t. "Javed bhai, have you got some matches?" I couldn’t see his face, but it felt like it could be Javed. But then when he extended the matches, I touched his girly hand. I knew he wasn’t Javed. I lit the candle, and looked at his face, looking yellow and sad under the candle’s flame.

"I want to buy a scarf," the man said. Someone else. He was carrying a yellow dress in a crumpled plastic bag. He wanted a scarf for the dress. I took out a bundle of scarves. We had all the colours. He wanted a black scarf. A black scarf won’t look good with the dress. "I don’t know, but my wife has instructed that I bring a black scarf only." I showed him a few black scarves with white and golden lace. He took the one which was plain and the cheapest. I tried to pack it but he said he would keep it in the same plastic bag. He gave me the money. Then he looked at the advertisement near the cash counter, "House on rent. Only married couples." "Does the house belong to the shop’s owner?" he asked. "I want to change my house. It’s very old, and rain drips during the monsoon. The landlord is also very abusive." He then looked at the advertisement again. "The rooms are upstairs? I don’t want to live in the market. I have to read and write. I'm a teacher at La Martinere College." "No, that advertisement is for my home. It’s near Aminabad. My father had rented the upper portion of the house. Our tenants left. I told Javed Bhai, he asked me to write it on a piece of paper and put it up at the shop. Maybe I could find some tenants." "Can you show me your house?" "Not right now. I'm waiting for him. I can’t leave the shop like that. Can you come tomorrow?" I asked. He looked at me and then at the advertisement again. "Can’t come tomorrow. Maybe on Friday then. I'm very busy," he said. He started walking outside. I thought, what if he doesn’t come back? I can’t let a tenant go like that. It’s so difficult to find a tenant. He’s a teacher. He will get the salary on time. He’ll pay the rent on time. I was doing all the calculations. Then I noticed that he was gone. I ran after him and cried, "please listen." I had to almost run after him and stop him. I didn’t know his name. "I'll close the shop. Please come with me." I closed the shop and walked with him to Javed’s home. I didn't go inside. I knocked twice. He came to the door. His eyes went to the teacher standing behind me, like a lover, standing outside my house, to meet my father—now a ghost.

I told him that he was a customer who wanted to see my house. Javed was buttoning his shirt, there was a bruise on his chest, like someone tried to write their name with a knife, there was a mark on his neck, just below the epiglottis, as if someone had bit his flesh with teeth. He closed the buttons in haste. I gave him the key and we walked towards my house. Abba opened the door. He looked at us trying to recognize our faces. Abba couldn’t see a thing after dusk. The poor man lost his eyes reading and writing. He was a poet. He never worked in his life. He was the great poet Nawab Kaleem. The great poet he could have become—Lucknow’s Coleridge. We thrived by selling the land and orchard we had in the village. Till Amma was alive, he sold everything in the house. When she died, we got the tenants. But they left last year. Didn’t leave, but vanished. They were an old couple. God knows where they went. No one ever saw them. They hadn’t paid the rent for two months. Though they left long ago, I still hear that old man’s cough in the house, and the sound of clanking bangles, the gold bangles that the old lady wore, which she said that she would give me one day when her son would come back from Ankara, he was a doctor there and she would take me as a daughter-in-law. But nothing of that sort happened.

My father worked all his life for a literary career. He talked about imaginary books that were never published, imaginary accolades he received. He also had an imaginary audience, who crowded to listen to his poetry, like a crowd gathers outside the house of a man who has proclaimed himself to be the last messiah.

When there was no money, I had to take a loan from the shopkeeper, Abdel Malek. He was our benefactor. His father knew Abba very closely. He had seen him at the height of his fame and then his downfall. He also helped with that job. Though he had warned me. Javed paid well but was a lecher. He almost tried to rape the last salesgirl. He had closed the shop after dusk and asked her to try on one of the new clothes. He said if it looked good on her, she could take it with her. She was a naive girl, a little younger than me. She asked him to close his eyes. When she took off her clothes, he pounced on her. She cried. She cried for help. Fortunately, Haji Murad (the mosque’s caretaker) was walking through the lane. He heard the girl’s voice and started banging on the shutter. He then, with the help of a horse-cart driver, pulled up the shutters. Javed was lying over her. They asked the girl to get dressed. They closed their eyes. She ran away like the lizards used to run when they saw the broom in Amma’s hand. Then they thrashed Javed till dawn. He put his hand on the Koran. He would never touch any girl again. They made him write on the shop’s wall, 20 times, with that blue pen that he always kept in his drawer. God knows why would he want to touch anyone when he had such a beautiful wife. But then, men and their desires. Abdel Malek had warned me. He even gave me a little knife to keep. He said if he does anything to you, just put this on his throat. Javed never asked me to try on any clothes. Though on some occasions he tried to feel me, on occasions when he asked me to take the ladder and pull something from the upper shelf. I would feel his hands on my buttocks, like a blind man’s hand inside a drawer looking for matches. I would come back and look at the knife in my purse. It would be there, lying under a rosary bed, and two old lipsticks. I would tell myself, "There’s nothing to worry about."

I showed the upper portion of the house to that teacher, the two rooms and a cob-webbed kitchen. He said he would come back tomorrow with his wife. He liked the house and gave an advance of 20 rupees. My eyes lit up as I looked at the money. I clutched the money in my palm and walked him to the door. "Please come after dusk. I'll be back from the shop by then."

My life was stained with black soot, like those houses at the street’s end, where the owners left before Partition, and now even the ghosts don’t live there.

The next day he was at home with his wife. They were newly married. You could sense it. The wife wasn’t leaving his hand, her white hand was stained with henna, and my life was stained with black soot, like those houses at the street’s end, where the owners left before Partition, and now even the ghosts don’t live there.

She was short in height. Her face round like those circles the mathematics teachers made in class. Her eyes were big, a little greenish and blinked regularly, as if she was a doll in her previous life. She had filled her eyes with kohl, smudged, like the eyes of little kids. She looked younger, must be in her 20s. The teacher looked to be in his early 40s. They both liked the house. The wife said the rooms were very big. She said she was scared of big rooms. A room shouldn’t be bigger than the bed. I heard them talking as they moved around. "Why shouldn't they be bigger?" "Bigger rooms have bigger ghosts." He laughed. It echoed in the whole house. You can still hear the echoes of his laugh when you enter my house. "You are like a little child," said the teacher as they walked around. "So make me a woman." He looked back at me, and then whispered something in her ears. I knew he was telling her about my presence. I walked behind them with the candle stand in my hand. Our shadows on the wall were bigger than Nawab Saadat’s tomb. And when they talked, it seemed like some theatrical performance in an old theatre that was closed due to lack of funds.

The next day when I came from the shop, they invited us for dinner. I went alone upstairs. I said Abba won’t be able to come. "He doesn’t come out of his room." "Can’t he talk also after dark?" his wife asked with an innocent face. The teacher looked at her sternly. He thought I would get offended. "He creates verses in his head lying on his bed. During the day he writes them on paper. That has been his life for years now." "Why doesn't he publish them?" "He went to every publisher in the city. Few newspapers published his poems in the beginning, but then their editors said they couldn’t publish any of his writings anymore. His poems are bleak, not like the regular Urdu poems. They are about death and blindness. Every poem was about someone’s death or blindness. They said he couldn’t write about anything else other than death. People read poems so that they can distract their thoughts from the daily depression. His poems reminded them of their death. They don’t want to be reminded."

His wife served the food, chicken cooked with some eggs and rice. They were from Bengal. The husband had got a teaching position at La Martinere. They knew about the city’s history. They lived in Matia Burj where Wajid Ali Shah retired after he was asked by Dalhousie to leave Lucknow. I told him that we were from the family of Nawab Nasiruddin Haider. His wife smirked again. "That’s why your house looks like a palace." "Well it’s a palace but we are paupers." They stopped eating. "We were rich like kings. But all that money my father wasted. He wanted to establish himself as a writer. When Amma was alive he used to say he would become a great poet, not like the local Urdu poets Mir Anis and Mir Taqi but like the English stalwarts Eliot and Coleridge. He said his poems would get translated into all the languages of the world. He was excited and happy, but only disappointment came into his hand. He was rich. He tried to get them published by paying publishers. They took money from him. I still remember that journalist from Tehran, who was working on a catalog of all the dead Kings of the World, and was visiting Lucknow for that purpose. His name was Khurram Kareem. He said he knew a publisher in Paris, who would publish my father’s poems. The same publisher who published Proust’s work. But he needed money to go there and talk to him. Abba sold all of Amma’s jewelry. The land we had in Daryabad. He sent that man to Paris with all his manuscripts. There were around 1,347 pages of poetry. He never came back. My father almost went mad."

"I had one uncle. He also used to write poems. Love poems. He loved a woman. She got married. And he went mad. He still writes poems on the wall of that asylum in Ranchi. They say his poems are good, but no one takes him seriously. No one would take a mad poet seriously." He looked at her again and murmured something in Bangla. She took out her tongue and made faces. We started eating again and then she asked, "You didn’t get married yet." The teacher then asked, "Can’t you think of anything else other than marriage? Go and get your brother and sisters married." "I'll get them married. And I won’t invite you also." She took the plates and went to the kitchen. She was murmuring something in Bangla. "Please don’t mind. She doesn’t know what to say or what not." He looked at my face for a while, then he said, "You haven’t eaten anything." "I eat very little." When I was about to take the plate into the kitchen, he said, "If you let me look at your father’s poems maybe I could be of some help. I'm a translator also. I'm translating all of Shakespeare’s plays into Urdu." "I'll have to sneak into his room sometime and steal them. He gets very angry if someone looks at those papers." "For whom does he write for then if he doesn’t want anyone to read them?" "For that imaginary audience he has created inside his head." That’s what he's always told Amma, even now when she is long dead.

That day at the shop I was thinking about the teacher. He looked like Khurram. How close were we? God, I hope he is still alive and doing good. "He conned your father," said the model whose portrait was pasted on the wall. "No, he didn’t. Maybe those poems weren’t publishable. He didn't come back knowing my father would lose all hope. A man who loses hope is almost dead. He knew how much I loved Abba. He is still waiting for him. He knows one day Khurram will come back with all the glory he has been waiting for."

I remembered the last day when he left. We had made love the whole afternoon. He kissed the nape of my neck and said I was more beautiful than all the women in Iran. I wanted to cry. I tried to distract myself. I thought of the teacher’s wife. They looked very happy together. The way they fought. And when she murmured in Bangla. I laughed thinking about them. Javed looked at me. "You look very happy today." I didn’t like Javed’s eyes on my body. The way he cast his eyes on me. It seemed he would eat me like hungry children eat cake at birthday parties. I was going to tell him. Then a customer arrived. The shop sold women's clothing. But it was mostly men who came to the shop. They knew Javed. They didn’t want to send their sisters and wives to his shop. Sometimes they looked at me with a pitiful face. Though they didn’t know me, they understood my home’s condition.

That night I smuggled some papers from Abba’s room. I had gone to ask him what he would have for dinner, and then I smuggled a few old papers from his desk. I went upstairs. The teacher’s wife was in the kitchen clattering utensils. She looked at me and tried to smile. He was writing something on a piece of folded paper. He put the book on the mirror table and made some space for me to sit on the bed. He read page after page, like a little girl, who finds her mother’s suicide note in her jewelry box.

I went to the kitchen. His wife made tea for me. "What did you give him? A love letter?" She poked my belly and laughed. I kept on looking at her face. "Please don’t mind my words. I like to crack jokes." "I don’t mind." "I know, you look like an intelligent woman. My husband is a silly man." She passed me the teacup. The tea was hot so I put it back on the wet slab. She then went to give tea to her husband. I stayed in the kitchen and sipped the tea. They were talking about something. Then she came back. "I'm sorry," she said, making a sad face. "He said he doesn’t love you." "What?" "Go, he is calling you."

"Those publishers were right. These poems are very bleak even by English standards. Depressing," he said, lighting a cigarette. "But they have a depth, a lot of substance. They aren’t like the scribblings of young poets. These verses are in the right meter. And have the virtuosity of a great composer, reminds me of Whitman." "Maybe if I could talk to him. We could improve these poems." "No, please don’t tell him anything. He would go mad. You don’t want to see him in that condition. I would have to leave the job and nurse him. The last time they gave him electric shocks was at the Balrampur Hospital. He pulled all his hair from his head." "Don’t worry, I'll see what I can do with them. I'll copy them and give them back. So he doesn’t suspect." "That’s a nice idea." This way I also thought of creating a few copies of his works. "The poor man lost everything when that thief went away." I liked calling Khurram a thief in front of him. He stared at me with a blank face. There was nothing else to say. I thought of going downstairs. He then looked at the teacup in my hand. His wife came back. "I hope my wife makes nice tea. Though the only skill she has is making gossip. If I knew how to write, my books would have sold more copies than the works of mad poets."

I came downstairs. The next day at the shop the wife came. Her face almost lit up when she saw me. "I didn’t know you work here." I looked at Javed who was ogling her. I told him she was the new tenant’s wife. I introduced Javed. "I think you will give me a good discount." "Why not? It’s your shop only." He went outside to bring tea for us. She asked me to show her some lingerie. I took the stairs and showed her the new lace bras Javed got from Delhi. They were lace and looked like the kind actresses wore in those English movies at Mayfair. Khurram loved those movies. When he was here, we went almost everyday to the cinema, watching those Jayne Mansfield movies again and again. I would close my eyes when those women would take off their clothes. I remembered that evening when Khurram whispered in my ears, "I want to see you like that." I looked at him, my face red with shame. He was smiling, I could see the reflection of naked Jayne Mansfield on his face. Sometimes, even after he vanished, I went to the Mayfair alone, and I thought I would find him in the crowd watching Jayne Mansfield undress herself. I looked at every man. Sat on every seat. He wasn’t there. She tapped at my hand. "Why are you always lost?" She asked me to show some black bras. "My husband likes that colour. I can’t understand these men. What does it matter which colour they are? What matters is what’s inside, doesn’t it?" She giggled and put her hand on her face. She then looked at my little bosoms. I adjusted my scarf. Javed came back, and served tea into two plastic cups. He passed us the cups. "Your salesgirl is very shy. God knows how she sells these items." "No, she is very good. She is the one who runs this shop. I'm always at home." He looked at me. I saw those images again. I was standing outside his room, looking at the flickering candle on the bedside table. I could see Javed and his wife, inside the candle’s flame, burning like two moths.

The wife took two bras and left. Javed almost gave them to her for free. I didn’t like her coming to the shop. Her jokes are good at home but not in front of Javed. I spoke in front of Javed in calculated words. I knew he wanted me to enter inside that flame, and burn alongside his wife. I thought of warning the teacher. I didn’t want his wife again at my shop. All the way back home, I thought about what I would say to him. And his wife is always there. She will get angry. I was about to knock on the door. And then I heard a familiar voice. Someone called me from my back. Like the way Khurram used to call me, when I came back from college. Till then he had sat in Abdel Malek’s shop and smoked cigarettes on loan.

This time it was the teacher, he was coming towards me. "Did you get some more poems?" he asked. Without replying I told him about his wife’s visit. I had memorized what to say; when he came closer I put my fingers on the play button. "He isn’t a nice man. If I could have found some other job, I would have left the shop long ago. But he pays well." He looked at me, and I thought I should have skipped the pay part. "I'll talk to my wife." We went inside together. Before taking the stairs, he spoke again, "If you will show me your mark sheets, maybe I'll find a job for you at the college." "They won’t give me any job. I went to all the colleges. I didn’t clear my final examinations. That was the time Abba fell sick." We looked at each other for a time. Then his wife spoke from upstairs, "Did you bring the chicken?"

I didn’t go upstairs for a week. There was some hesitation. I thought his wife would get angry at me. Then that Saturday when I came back from the shop, she came downstairs. She was coming down like a huge shadow. I kept my things in my room. She stood there at the door. I looked at her. "Will you have some tea? I don’t make it that well like you. But since you have come here, I won’t let you go like that." I tried my hand at cracking a joke like her, but I knew it wasn’t funny. "Are you angry with me?" she asked me as we went to the room with the cups. "No, I'm not," I said without looking at her. "Then why did you complain to my husband?" I warned him. Javed isn’t a nice man." "Warned about what? Do you think I would run away with him?" My face fell. I put the cup on the bedside table. "I didn’t mean it. I'm sorry if that’s what he said to you. Javed has done some real wrong things in the past. I was worried. Not about you, but myself." "Don’t worry, I don’t care what my husband thinks. He knows everything about me. He knows I won’t run away. If I wanted I would have run away with Khaled. I would have almost run away, if he had come that evening to the park. The fool in me waited for him till dawn." I didn’t ask her anything. I was scared what she would say. Then she said on her own, "Have you had any lover? Someone with whom you wanted to run away." The tea came out of my mouth, "No, never. I can’t leave my father. I'm not in the position to have a lover."

Khurram’s face came before my eyes. And his voice when he called my name coming out of Abdel Malek’s shop. I thought of those sleepless nights when I begged him to take me to Paris with him. "But your father. He is an old blind man. He would die alone." "No, he won’t. And he doesn’t need me. He lives inside the world in his head. He has a whole family inside his head that looks after him. But I'm alone, Khurram." He cupped my face, and kissed my chin, "I know what’s going on in your head. But believe me, I'll be back very soon, like a morning comes after a black night." I wanted to cry, but then she spoke, "Your father is lucky." She sipped the tea and then handed me the cup. Then she moved from the bed. "Come upstairs sometimes. My husband was asking about you. He asks about you every time. Has she come from the shop? Has she gone to the shop?" My face froze. "I think he likes you." She laughed and put her hand over our mouth. "Who wouldn’t like you? You are beautiful like a courtesan." God, can’t she shut her mouth?

I couldn’t concentrate on my work. Javed asked me if I was okay. Every day when I came home I looked at the stairs. I wanted to go up and see him. But I couldn’t. Two days later, he called me again after coming from Abdel Malek’s shop. "You have stopped seeing us." "I was busy at the shop." "Don’t lie." That day he took me up with him. His wife hugged me. "Finally, you broke your vow. I thought you would never come to see us." I wanted to say something before the teacher spoke. "She wasn’t coming because she didn’t like your tea. She said it’s like consuming poison. It’s not her fault no one wants to die." "No, I didn’t say anything, he is making it up." "If you don’t like my wife’s tea, I'll make it for you." "No, she makes good tea," I protested. His wife looked at me and smiled. We drank the tea, and then played cards. His wife explained to me the intricate rules of poker. She asked me to stay for dinner. But I said I have to cook food for Abba. "She can cook for him also. No problem." "Maybe some other day." I moved from the bed. "I was waiting for the manuscripts?" "I'll bring them tomorrow." "And please be on time. Your presence illuminates our house." I came out with his wife. "See how much he loves you."

That whole winter we spent entire evenings revising Abba’s poems. We made them less bleak and filled the flowery verses with images. He said the publisher he knew falls for poems filled with images. The wife would come and give us tea and food and go back. We were getting closer. And then it happened. One evening the wife came to the room and said she was going to the market. She needed to buy some groceries. I said I'll come and close the door. But her husband said she would close it from the outside. "We need to finish these poems. The publisher wants them by Friday." He lit a cigarette and started working on the last verses of Abba’s poem. He would correct them and then give them to me. I would read them aloud and he would listen. He would correct some words and I would read them aloud again. That day when he was reading a poem, I closed my eyes. God knows what came to his mind. He came closer and kissed my face. I opened my eyes. Before I could have protested, he put his mouth on mine. I couldn’t control it. Within minutes we were rolling over each other. God knows how intoxicated we were. We didn’t even hear his wife’s footsteps. He was trying to take off my clothes. And then we saw the wife standing at the door. The grocery fell from her hand.

"Whore," she cried. "So now you are going to earn money like this?" I looked for my scarf, and tried to put my hair back. She ran after me with a bottle gourd in her hand. She started abusing Abba and all my ancestors. The teacher saved me. I ran downstairs. Abba came out of his room. "Who is shouting in the house?" "Shouting? This you should have thought about before opening a brothel." She came running down the stairs. I dragged Abba to his room. "What is she saying? Who is she?" "I'll explain to you. Please go and sleep." I folded my hands in front of her. Tears were coming out of my eyes like blood droplets dripping from a slaughtered goat. The teacher dragged her back. The whole night, she cursed and abused me. I thought I won’t go to the shop tomorrow. God knows what she would say to Abba. I thought of leaving the house and taking Abba to Daryabad. I would say some uncle had died. But all my uncles were already dead, everyone was dead except the two of us.

Thanks to the teacher, that very morning he left with his wife. She was blabbering something even then, also. I came out after a very long time, ensuring they had left. God, what if the neighbours and the shopkeepers heard? No, they must be sleeping. No one is awake at dawn. I looked outside. Abdel Malek’s shop was closed. The street dogs were roaming around. They looked at me and stopped. It felt as if they were sent by the wife to bite me. They ran towards the house. I closed the door. They barked for hours. I went upstairs. He had put an envelope on the table. There was some money inside. He had cleared his rent already. I left the money lying there. 

Those images could never leave my head, like the traumatized head of a little girl who one afternoon, after coming back from school, sees her old mother’s body hanging on the fan, with that rose-painted scarf, she bought for a friend’s wedding.

The winter ended. I never saw the teacher again or his wife. I was assured she wouldn’t come back. One afternoon, Javed didn’t come again after lunch, I didn’t want to think about what he must be doing, but those images could never leave my head, like the traumatized head of a little girl who one afternoon, after coming back from school, sees her old mother’s body hanging from the fan, with that rose-painted scarf she bought for a friend’s wedding.

I kept on staring at the road, the young women walking with beautiful leather purses clutched in their feeble arms. Their henna stains suggested that they were newly married. One such girl entered the shop with her husband. Their hands were clasped together as if they were one body. The husband whispered something in the wife’s ear. And then she asked in a soft voice, like the winter’s cold wind, "Can you show me some lace bras?" The husband went outside and tried to light a cigarette, the wind was harsh. I showed her red, blue and white. She asked for maroon. "That’s his favourite colour," said the wife, smiling nervously. I packed two maroon colours for her. They went outside, and the husband helped her sit on the back of a horse-cart.

I looked at the old driver who lit his cheap cigarette in one go. He then whipped his horse, and the cart ran faster than the wind. I can still hear the sound of the moving horses, their taps inside the empty courtyard of my head. Like the tap of the feet of the teacher’s wife when she descended the stairs. Like the slow tap of Khurram, the old thief who entered my room unannounced. I kept on staring at the road. Then a man entered the shop. Dusk had fallen. I couldn’t see his face. He looked like the teacher. "I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. I never meant to ruin your marital life," I went on speaking. Then the man said, "Can you light the candle? I can’t see your face." As I lit the candle, I saw that he was some other man, not the man for whom I waited for everyday standing behind that old shop’s counter. He took out a white dress from a plastic bag. "I need a black scarf for my wife." I kept on looking at his face. Time stopped for me, as if I was dead, my body hanging inside a house in ruins, a house marked for demolition.