Nadeem Aslam - Maps for Lost Lovers

Chanda’s mother has become a reed that’s sounding the plaintive note. “It must have been a customer who had wandered back there. We haven’t hired anyone.”

On their way out, the two women laugh. “That’s who it must have been — a customer. Anyway, sister-ji, I heard poor Kaukab is having problems with her foetus-container, that it’s slipping out of her. Is it true? They had to pin back mine last year but then I made the mistake of lifting a heavy plant pot in the garden and the whole thing came undone again. I’d better pay Kaukab a visit soon to warn her not to exert herself too much after the operation.”

After the two customers have left, Chanda’s mother bolts the door and has to steady herself against it, feeling as alone as the young Joseph at the bottom of the well.

So: people have seen that boy — the fake Jugnu — here? No one must know that they have had anything to do with him — or have a hand in his version of what happened to Chanda and Jugnu. He will say that he and his lover had been on the run in Pakistan, moving from city to city, town to town, because they had wanted to get married against the wishes of the girl’s family who were hunting them in order to kill them — one of the many hundreds of “honour killings” that take place over there every year.

They haven’t managed to find a counterfeit Chanda. And until they have found a girl, the boy must not be spotted here. They have rented him a room in a faraway street and he has come to the shop on three occasions so that the family can go over the finer details with him.

Under cover of darkness, Chanda’s mother had taken him to Jugnu’s house and pointed out which window belongs to which room, what piece of luggage was found where, which door was normally used by the couple to enter and leave the house.

But from now on, the boy must not come here. The family will pretend to be as shocked and surprised as anyone else by his tale when it is made public. He wants a down payment but they’ll give that to him the day before he (or he and a female) presents himself to the station — while she and Chanda’s father and their daughter-in-law are sitting by the telephone, waiting for a call from the police to tell them of what has transpired.

Falling asleep last night she had had a few monents of panic, thinking about the dead body found under the rubble of the building that was blown up earlier in the year: an illegal immigrant, in all likelihood — what if this fake Jugnu of theirs takes it into his head that the mangled boy is his lost brother and goes to the police to make inquiries, not caring that his true story would contradict the tale Chanda’s family has concocted? She imagines him asking the police to check if the dead boy has a single gold hair amid the black ones on his head. So far he has given no indication that he knows of the newspaper reports — he can’t read English very well and, even if he did, he would think buying The Afternoon an extravagant waste of 45p. He is insecure about — if not frightened of — talking to white people, so if he hears about the story it will be from an Urdu- or Punjabi-speaker. From now on they must make sure he doesn’t talk to Pakistanis and Indians. They must frighten him into not contacting anyone about anything: Some careless word of yours could easily reach the authorities and have you thrown out of the country — without you first having earned the money our plan will bring you.

She leaves the door to continue the work she had interrupted to serve the early customers, the sound of her granddaughters reaching her through the ceiling as they get up to begin celebrating the festival — this dard di raunaq, this Eid of unhappiness. But five minutes later and it’s her daughter-in-law that has come down the stairs, pointing at the shop’s entrance as she rushes towards it, shouting: “She’s outside. Open the door and stop her.”

“Who?” she asks her, but the daughter-in-law — her breathless haste upsetting a stack of Metro Milan joss-stick packets, which tumble to the floor from the shelf in a fragrant primary-coloured heap — is struggling with the door.

“ Who is outside?” she repeats and then the olive-green boxes of Kasuri methi fall from her own hands: Chanda? “My Chanda? Where?”

She runs to the door — murmuring, “My Allah, does Your kindness towards Your creatures know any limits?”—and follows the daughter-in-law outside. The road is empty, and the daughter-in-law is looking around, now rushing to stand in the middle of the leaf-strewn road, now coming back to its edge.

“You saw my Chanda ? Where? Just now?” Some hours are potent beyond measure, making wishes — uttered by heart or tongue — come true, regardless of whether they are genuinely meant.

Instead of answering, the daughter-in-law whispers to herself: “But she was right here, a moment ago.” And to her mother-in-law she finally explains, trying to keep exasperation out of her voice, “No, not Chanda, mother-ji. It was the girl who came here back in the summer. I told you about her. The illegal immigrant.” She goes to stand in the middle of the road again. “Where has she gone? She couldn’t have gone far in the time it took me to come out here. She wears one of those lockets containing a miniature Koran.”

Chanda’s mother lowers herself onto the front step, moving aside to let the daughter-in-law go back into the shop. The young woman mimics in passing what she had said earlier: “ ‘You saw my Chanda ? You saw my Chanda ?’ ” And hisses: “For God’s sake! She’s dead. ”

Chanda’s mother stays on the front step for five minutes, looking dazedly ahead but then the daughter-in-law comes back down full of remorse and places a hand on her shoulder, telling her to come in out of the cold. “I am sorry, I forget sometimes that things have been just as bad for you. If not worse. I am losing a husband, but in your case it’s two sons and a daughter. I am sorry.” She tells the daughter-in-law not to worry about her, sends her up to dress the little girls and begins to rearrange the joss-stick packets on the shelf, mechanically picks up the olive-green Kasuri methi.

The light of the world has gone out. Above all she has to beg forgiveness from the souls of Chanda and Jugnu, for the elaborate lie she has helped construct in order to save her sons. If only there was a grave: she’d go and bury her face in the earth where they lie waiting to be questioned by the angels on Judgement Day.

She stands in the shop, holding a dozen bottles of rosewater, and brings Chanda’s face before her eyes. How to explain the bond she had with her daughter? There she was, thinking that she had had her last ever period more than seven months ago, that that was it now as far as menstruation was concerned — her breath changed odour, her heart palpitated, her hands and feet became chilled — but then one night she dreamt of Chanda and woke up to find herself flowing again from down there, the place that, in her case, had proved to be the portals both of life and of death: Chanda came out of there, as did her killers.

December; and today was the last day of the trial. It lasted a total of five days and the jury returned the verdict two hours ago. The outcome was what most people expected. There were no last-minute witnesses bursting into the courtroom. There were no new pieces of evidence. Though of course there were some people who thought the verdict would go the other way. Someone even floated a rumour that Chanda’s parents had paid a young man to say that he and his girlfriend had bought Chanda and Jugnu’s passports from them in Pakistan and had entered Britain with them. It is said that Chanda’s parents had paid a substantial amount of money — the amount varies from person to person — to the young man for telling that lie to the police. But he had taken the money and disappeared, never arriving at the police station — Chanda’s parents had not received the telephone call from the police they were expecting, telling them that the trial was being postponed, cancelled, because they had received some new information.