Nadeem Aslam - Maps for Lost Lovers

“They miss your cooking. ‘You should have this recipe printed in a newspaper,’ they’d say after every other meal.” He touches her gently on the arm. “They’ll regain their health once they are acquitted in December and we bring them home.”

She raises her bowed head, looks him squarely in the face for a moment, and then looks away in the direction the bus will come. After a silence she says, “On the bus, just before you told me about the person chasing the tangerine butterfly, I saw a tree with only one long branch in flower. The rest of the crown was dry, leafless. And I remember being told once about the grave of a pious man, how the branches of the tree directly above it continued to flourish, supplying it with shade, even though the rest of the tree had withered and was tinder dry. On seeing the tree from the bus I had the urge to get off and open the earth under that flowering branch, to see if. . if. .”

“You mustn’t think like that.” He looks at his golden wristwatch, comes out from under the cherry tree and moves closer to the edge of the road, where the pillar designating this point a bus-stop is planted.

“It’s hard to know what to think. A person can go insane at times. I haven’t told you this but when that woman from Bihzad Lane returned from Pakistan and said Jugnu was seen in Lahore, I madly approached Shamas to tell him that.”

“When?” he is astonished. “Why?”

“Don’t be angry. At dawn one day.”

“That was just a rumour, people gossiping. What did he say, and what did you hope to accomplish?”

“I have admitted that I acted madly, and I have asked you not to be angry — so don’t give me that look. I wanted my sons out of jail — and with good reason too: look what has happened to one of them! The day before I approached Shamas I’d heard that there were 1500 suicides in prison last year, and I had panicked, my mind in turmoil. I thought Chanda and Jugnu had sold their passports to another couple and decided to stay behind in Pakistan. It was all staged: that other couple came to England and left the luggage and passports in the house and then disappeared. I lie awake at night and the night makes you think up strange things. I set out of the house at dawn one day to look for Shamas, knowing he goes to town to get the newspapers.”

“He must think our whole family is unhinged.” He throws up his hands, too amazed by where the story leads.

“I said I didn’t know what I was thinking.” Her voice carries the hint of a sob.

He looks at her with a kind smile after a few moments. “I’m sorry. It’s hard to know what to think. Earlier, I thought I heard a parakeet’s cry!”

“You did,” she replies after a while. “I heard it too. They say there’s a flock of them out here. And it’s thriving. There is a fear that they’ll soon be everywhere. Such a harsh voice.” She joins him at the edge of the road for a while and then they both return to the cherry tree, to its dead litter of pink-brown petals.

“If only she had a grave, I’d plant tulips all around her,” she says quietly. “Tulips are blessed. Their Urdu and Persian name— lalah —has exactly the same letters as His name — Allah.”

She looks at him and sees the tears in his eyes.

“Why are you. .? No, don’t. .,” she manages to say.

He covers his eyes with his wrist.

“Don’t cry.” They have both deteriorated over the past years, as though the leavers had taken something of their life with them when they left.

“You think I have a heart of stone, that I wasn’t terrified when I saw the extent of his injuries. And I couldn’t believe what you said to them, that they must tell you the truth about what happened to Chanda and Jugnu. ‘Your father won’t tell me the truth so you must.’ ” He shakes his head. “I know you think I’ve hidden something from you, that I know what happened to Chanda.”

“I don’t think that,” she says quietly, from the other side of a dark forest of suspicion that lies between them.

“What has happened to you has happened to me too. I swear to you on my salvation and the verity of Islam. . I want my daughter back, and I want my sons back.”

“I don’t know what to think, but I don’t doubt you. I won’t doubt you if that’s what you’re asking me to do.”

“You mean, if I didn’t ask you to, you would think me capable of deceiving you? So up until a moment ago I was. . in your eyes. . involved in whatever it was that happened? The only thing I have kept from you is my grief so as not to upset you.” He looks up at her with eyes that are round as sea pebbles. He presses the handkerchief to them and gives a little laugh: “Scoundrel tears! We’d heard the English were courageous Empire-builders, but even some of them burst into tears when they lost the World Cup five years ago. Smith did, and I think Stewart also. And the Pakistani players cried because they had won.”

“No, I don’t know what to think anymore,” she says quietly. “May Allah forgive me, but I’ve even caught myself thinking it was unimportant that they were living in sin, so what if it goes against His law, that if I could do it all again I wouldn’t break all ties with her over this matter. As I was passing by the marriage registry office one day last year I looked at the list of upcoming weddings on the notice-board and saw that one Pakistani girl was going to marry a white boy, and just for a moment I said to myself our girls are doing all sorts of things these days, so what if my Chanda was living in sin.” Her face pale, she is shaking rigidly, a dead light in her grey-and-caramel eyes. “How do I know they will be safe in prison from now on?” A Pakistani teenager, twelve hours away from having completed a three-month sentence, was found dead in his cell last week: a white inmate has been charged with his murder. His parents were given the news of the death as they planned a welcome-home party. “Twenty black people died in police custody last year.”

“Another bus should have come along by now.” He is suddenly aware that they are on the outskirts of the town, alone and exposed, in an unfamiliar place — away from their neighbourhood. Women walk close to their men in other parts of Dasht-e-Tanhaii but allow themselves to dawdle on entering the familiar streets of their own neighbourhoods, falling behind without care. Although even there he had witnessed — just two days ago — two white men shout loudly and repeatedly, “Sieg Heil!” as they walked by a group of women and children outside the shop. He looks at her: “How do you know about the number of black deaths in police custody?”

“I happened to hear it on the radio.”

They fall silent, both of them entangled in the same fear. But then she is suddenly visited by inspiration: “We should have them transferred to another prison. We’ll ask Shamas-brother-ji to help arrange it.”

He shakes his head, astonished.

“Yes. He’s a good man. He’ll help us. I’ll talk to him myself,” she says animatedly, and looks in the direction where her husband had seen Shamas earlier: “I’ll talk to him right now! I won’t let my sons be in danger longer than they have to.”

She looks as though she’s about to set out to look for Shamas. He grabs her by the upper arm. “No.”

“He’ll tell us which forms to fill, where to go, who to see. We don’t understand the procedures, and with our lack of proper English we’ll probably make mistakes filling up the forms, causing useless delays.”

“No. I know we have to find a way to ensure their safety — I am not blind, I saw how badly beaten up he was. But you are not approaching Shamas again. Just think about what you are saying!”

She nods, defeated, so that he releases her arm. She inhales deeply to compose herself. “I wanted to ask my sons so many things today but my English isn’t very good. That prison guard kept telling me not to talk to them in ‘Paki language’ each time I felt like saying what I truly feel. ‘Speak English or shut up,’ he said.”