Nadeem Aslam - Maps for Lost Lovers

“Forget about all of that and try to think reasonably about the future now.”

“The future? I fear that if I stay away from my son for too long one day I’ll be told that he remembers me only when he is reminded of me by others, coaxed into thinking about me.” And then she says suddenly, “My Allah, Shamas, why didn’t you stop me just now when I was talking so disrespectfully of Islam? What is wrong with me sometimes? And you make it possible for me to think and talk like that: now I know what your wife means when she says your talk led Charag, Mah-Jabin, and Ujala astray.” She buries her face in her hands. “What would Allah think of my disrespectful talk? My being apart from my son and husband is a punishment from Him. Oh you don’t know how much I love them.”

“Please don’t cry. And I know how much you love your son and husband: you were willing to turn yourself into a”—he cannot bring himself to call her a prostitute—“into a. . into. . one of those women in order to be rejoined with them.”

“A man is allowed four wives, Shamas. You will be in the prayers of all three of us for the rest of our lives. I’ll ask your wife myself, explain my situation to her.”

“No. Don’t even contemplate approaching Kaukab. I am sorry but what you want will never happen.” They sit apart but are alert to each other like animals quivering in a forest. “I won’t marry you on principle: one of the things I find repulsive about Islam is the idea of a man being allowed four wives.”

“Please don’t say such a thing about Islam. Do you want to go to Hell?”

“Not for that, no. And, Suraya, how do you know your husband won’t get blind drunk again and divorce you one more time? He was drunk last night on the phone.”

“He couldn’t have been. He says he’s stopped drinking.”

“He hasn’t. You can’t go back to him. Here’s yet another reason why I won’t do what you say: because I don’t want you to go back to him. He could beat you. Pakistan is not just a wife-beating country, it’s a wife-murdering one: he could kill you in one of his drunken rages.”

“Sometimes I feel I’ll welcome death. May Allah forgive my ungrateful-ness. Shamas, let me talk to Kaukab just once. .”

“No!” The word comes out louder than he intended and she flinches. “Oh no, did he ever hit you when he was drunk? Did he beat you?” He takes her into his arms as the sudden realization dawns on him that he must have. “Where did he hit you, where, where?” He kisses her face repeatedly while she struggles to get away. Her cheeks. Her lips (from between which he had drawn her wet tongue into his mouth, only half an hour before, and held it there while he climaxed inside her like an ewer of milk emptied in one long splash after another). “Here? Did he hit you here?” He kisses her breasts that with an amorous hum at his fingertips he had stroked that first time here at the Safeena, her horse-brown nipple, telling her that in a Sanskrit poem a woman’s nipple is described as being so firm that a teardrop falling on it may rebound as fine spray. “Here? Here?” But a realization has come to her too now, suddenly:

“My Allah, if you knew the truth when I arrived here this afternoon then why did you kiss me, touch me— fuck me? You wanted to dupe me into thinking you didn’t know anything yet, to satisfy your lusts one last time before confronting me. I am sure you would have had an idea by then of how much it had cost me in self-respect every time I lay down with you, and yet you still. . You vile beast!” She hits his head with her fists again and again, trying to break free. “You monster! You deceived me, you heartless bastard! And you talk of principles!” He clings to her under her weak blows: “I am sorry, I am sorry. I love you.” She buries her nails into his shoulder: “Stop lying, you don’t love me. Otherwise you’ll do what I ask.” And when he says, “Do you think I tell everyone I meet about Jugnu and Chanda, about my poetry, about my father — about my life?” she stops her struggle, letting him tighten his embrace around her, and then lowers her face lifelessly onto the side of his neck where she lets out a howl. Leaning back, he lowers them both to the rug and they lie side by side as though felled by two arrows.

“He couldn’t have been drunk last night, and he says he won’t lift a finger to me in the future. He’s learned his lesson, Shamas. When I moved out of the house after the divorce, living in a rented room, he came to see me every day, repentant, making a long and tiring journey to the city where I was. I had taken a job as a receptionist in a hotel but when the manager fired me, for shaking hands with a male guest, I expected recriminations from my husband, thinking he would doubt my virtue once again, would quote Mohammad — peace be upon him, peace be upon him — who said, ‘He who touches the palm of a woman not legally belonging to him will have red-hot embers put in the palm of his hand on Judgement Day,’ but he believed me when I said that I had forgotten myself for only an instant when I extended that hand to the male guest. He has changed. I trust him and I trust Allah.”

The man on the telephone last night was drunk, but Shamas lets the matter drop for now. “Why didn’t you tell me everything days ago?” The blood in his body had felt brighter over the past few weeks but now he feels each wincing vein losing light moment by moment.

“I didn’t think you cared for me enough yet. I thought I had to. . be with you a few more times.” She’s looking up at the ceiling. “In a way I am glad you found out everything on your own. It’s stopped me from sinning further. I would have gone on sleeping with you for a while longer, not sure how you felt about me yet. And also, you were hope. If I didn’t tell you anything, then I could keep thinking that when I eventually did tell you, your answer would be yes.”

He turns his face to look at her, towards that body that smelt differently in different places, cloaked in a complex veil the way a single flower can produce as many as a hundred chemical compounds, with scents mixing and combining in patterns that change over time, with parts of a blossom smelling differently from other parts, the smells sending out a variety of signals to the visiting insects, one telling them that This is food, another that Eggs may be laid here, another that This groove leads to nectar.

He says: “Forgive me for accusing you of manipulating me, because I myself contemplated deception. While lying with you here earlier, making love, I thought for a moment that I wouldn’t tell you this afternoon about your husband’s call, that I’ll wait until you yourself decided to reveal your plan to me at some future date. I knew I’d lose you this very afternoon if I told you I knew what you wanted from me, and that my answer is no. I didn’t want to lose you, your company. . and, yes, your body.”

She waves her hand in the air: “That’s all over and done with.” And sitting up, she says, “I have to go. What’s your answer?”

“I can’t do what you want. But I will help you begin custody proceedings for your son.”

“That’s out of the question.” A look of fear crosses her face. “The case could go on for years, and if I lose they’d never let me see my boy out of vindictiveness. I know of women who have never been allowed near their children. You’ve forgotten what Pakistan is like. I sometimes wonder why my mother sent me to that country.” She’s silent for the next few moments and asks: “Why did you marry your daughter Mah-Jabin to someone in Pakistan?”

“It’s complicated. . She wanted to go. .”