Mohammed Hanif - Our Lady of Alice Bhatti

Alice Bhatti puts two empty cups on saucers, smiles as they sit side by side and comes out of the kitchen.

Teddy stands just outside the door with his heart beating. She comes to him with open arms. Teddy Butt is accustomed to a certain amount of coy bargaining from women in these situations. I’ll take my shalwar off but you have to promise you won’t touch my bra . Or sometimes breathy cooing in the ear used as delaying tactics. You big man, first tell me about your life . Or, Look, you can do anything you want, just don’t spoil my hair. Can you at least wash your hands? You have to wear two of those, they look too flimsy. Hurry up, the last bus is in one hour . Or, What’s the hurry, I am not running away with your money . Or sometimes just glacial passivity and silent tears, as if they were homesick for a place that has been obliterated in some obscure war.

But the way Alice embraces him is the way men are supposed to embrace each other, open-chested, arms around each other, loins locked.

There is no warning, no build-up, he hasn’t even kissed her properly yet. He just touches her, shudders, and a wet patch spreads in his starched shalwar like spilt ink. A few drops dribble down to his ankle. Teddy is the type of man who hates nothing more than his own seed. He has a separate set of towels for this very purpose on his bedside table. But surrounded by strings of plastic flowers, real rose petals on the bed and Alice breathing heavy in his arms, he has to pretend that nothing has happened. He tightens his grip around her, as if trying to block this scandalous information from reaching her.

“I know this happens sometimes,” Alice says, and snuggles his neck with her chin.

“What happens? What has happened?” Her knowledge frightens him. How does she know? he wonders, and then suddenly it dawns on him. What else does she know? After all, there is not much he knows about her. How has she come upon this knowledge? And now she stands there cuddling him in mock sympathy. She knows that it happens to other people. How does she know that? She has never been married before. How can he be sure? Has she been with other men? Suddenly he feels that she is complicit in every premature ejaculation in the city.

“So this has happened before? To you? I mean to someone with you?”

“Not really.” Alice tries to evoke the coyness she thinks she is entitled to as a bride. And then adds by way of explanation, “But I did go to school.”

“So this is what they teach you there?”

“I went to a nursing school, remember.”

“But still, what kind of class do you go to, to learn this? Do they draw pictures? It’s not really an illness. Or is it an illness?”

“Of course it’s not an illness. They don’t teach it there. I just know. I also know what happens after that.” She reaches into Teddy’s trousers and gropes around, and finds that his thighs and groin are waxed.

“I need to go to the toilet.” Teddy grabs a towel from the bedside table and rushes away. “And where’s that tea you promised me?”

♦

At three in the morning he sits on the edge of the bed, washed, changed, wrapping and unwrapping a handkerchief around his hand.

“Come to bed, go to sleep,” says Alice.

“I need to go to work.”

“At this time? What kind of shift starts at three in the morning?”

“It starts at four, actually. It’s police work. It can start any time.” He feels he has already said too much.

“This is not the kind of work you can bring home with you.” He remembers Inspector Malangi’s advice. “This is not the kind of work you discuss over a family meal.”

“I’ll be picked up.” He feels that should be explanation enough. It should also tell her that it’s not some lowly job where you have to take a bus to work. It’s official. There is an official vehicle on its way. To take him to work.

But it’s only 3:15 a.m. He wishes it were already four. Or at least that Alice was properly asleep. His heart sinks at the thought that from now on not only is he responsible for his own sleep, he is responsible for hers as well.

He watches her face closely. She is back in some dream, smiling. He thinks that this married life is not fair. He is responsible for her sleep but has no control over her dreams.

By the time the G Squad Hilux screeches to a halt in front of the Al-Aman apartment block, Alice Bhatti is fast asleep, with her head in Teddy’s lap. She is not one of those girls who grew up dreaming of various scenarios about their married life, but this is one of the things she had imagined herself doing: sleeping with her head on her husband’s lap.

Teddy has been staring at her face, and panicking every time her eyes twitch and a smile spreads. She seems to be in a dream where there are things to smile about. Teddy has an urge to keep sitting, keep looking, until she wakes up and tells him about her dream. But he can hear the Hilux revving its engine downstairs. If you have a job to do at four in the morning, there is a reason that it needs to be done then. It’s not the kind of job that would fit into a nine-to-five routine. It is obviously not the kind of job that can be done after sunrise or before sunset. It needs to be done at four a.m.

Teddy puts his right hand under her warm neck and slips a pillow under it. Alice shivers in her sleep, smacks her lips, then smiles as he pulls a light blanket over her. “Lord be with you,” she mumbles in her sleep, her fingers gently scratching his spine. Teddy is startled and looks at her as if he has woken up with a stranger whose name he can’t remember.

There is no time to wake her and ask her what she means with this lord business. Is this what she has been dreaming about? A lord? Her Lord? He has never really given religion much thought, but this is his house and if there is going to be a lord around here, it has to be him. I’ll talk to her when I come back home in the morning, he thinks. He doesn’t like to leave home with unanswered questions. His shoulders feel heavy. He tries to think of an excuse to escape from the mission, but then looks around at his new life — strings of macrame hanging from the roof, the new bedsheets, the Chinese blanket — and knows that he can’t escape from this. One night of married life and it seems he is already trapped, weighed down by his new demands. He shuts the door gently and races down the stairs. The driver has switched off the headlights on the Hilux but its engine is still running, its red and blue flashing lights playing quasar with the new minaret of the neighbourhood mosque. The old crumbling minaret has been refurbished with thousands of little irregular-shaped mirrors, probably leftover shards from a mirror-shop wreck. He doesn’t see Inspector Malangi before he appears from the shadows, puts his arm around Teddy’s shoulders and starts walking him towards the Hilux. “Don’t worry, we’ll be back before she wakes up.” He points vaguely towards the upper floor of Al-Aman. Inspector Malangi never jokes during one of their pre-dawn missions. He becomes polite and methodical and caring, like a devoted father getting his children ready for school: uniforms, homework, pocket money, a loving pat on the back.

“We are taking him to meet his mother for half an hour because of his good behaviour. To Buffer Zone. Then we are taking him to Central Jail, and then it’s up to the lawyers and the judges.” Inspector Malangi pauses to light a cigarette; his walrus moustache needs a trim, his eyes look tired. “But he just won’t stop crying. I haven’t even touched him for the last two hours. Do something.” He gives Teddy a friendly slap on the back, hands him a TT pistol and a flashlight. Then he produces a tiny perfume bottle, Teddy extends his palm and he pours a few drops on it. Teddy rubs his hand under his nose. Inspector Malangi believes that bad smells are disorienting, not good for your focus.