Daniyal Mueenuddin - In Other Rooms, Other Wonders

Very late in the evening, with Zora asleep on a sofa under a shawl, with Mino and the boy murmuring to each other by the dying fire, almost asleep himself, Bumpy said to Lily, ‘Come on, someone has to get in the pool before it’s all over. Let’s do it.’

They walked across the lawn to the pool, stood at its edge, the water illuminated by underwater spotlights and very blue. One of the dogs came out of the darkness, wagging not just its tail but its whole rear end, sniffed at Bumpy’s leg, and then went over to the steps in the shallow end and waded partway into the water, lapping at it, then standing and watching them. Bumpy’s clothes fell cleanly from him, as if the buttons had been sliced off by an invisible hand. Lily pulled her blouse over her head, unzipped her jeans, placing a hand on Bumpy’s bare shoulder to steady herself as she stepped out of them. In the cool November night she felt her skin tighten, shivered, anticipating the water and not wanting to get into it, and that shivering graded into her anticipation of what she knew would come next, her hand still on his shoulder. He became still, like a well-trained horse when the rider puts foot to stirrup, this stillness encouraging her. Not shy, Lily felt the shocking intimacy of their entire bodies touching, his face bending to hers. They lay down on a soft canvas-covered chaise longue. He didn’t press her — if anything, she folded toward him. Hesitating just for a moment, she gave in. She even guided him inside her, the entry and movement satisfying, opening her eyes and looking up at the stars among the tree branches, until he finished, sooner than she wanted him to.

She held him inside her, legs around his waist, and then the emotion passed, desire crushed entirely. Pushing him off, annoyed with him, his weight on her, the cold, she whispered, ‘Come on, get up, we have to go back quickly.’

They held hands walking up from the pool — she allowed it, as if the romantic gesture would mitigate the banality of their coupling — until they came around to the front of the house, and then without looking at him she pulled her hand away and walked toward her room. ‘Tell Mino and everyone goodbye. I’ll see them in Islamabad. I have to go to sleep.’

He whispered, ‘Hey, wait. Are you okay?’

‘Forget it.’

Going into the bathroom, past her sleeping husband, she cleaned herself as well as she could, in case he reached for her in the night. She sat on the toilet, trying to pee, as the horror of what she had done struck her. Married just three months, to a man who loved her, whom she loved, she had fucked a man she barely knew and cared nothing about. I didn’t know Murad when I married him, she told herself. He didn’t know me. We’re still learning.

Why should it matter so much?

Lily kept forcing herself back into sleep throughout the morning, until past noon, expecting Murad to come and ask if she was okay. Finally she called on the intercom and told the servants to bring her tea and fruit. When the servant knocked she asked where Murad had gone, learned that he was in Multan, would again be late. The vegetables were just being planted, the servant explained, and they were having trouble getting the right seed.

She remembered that he had been writing last night in his journal and, against the weight of her apprehension and shame, needed reassurance that all had been well, at least before he went to bed. When they first came to the farm he had shown her where he kept the journal. ‘You wouldn’t, I know, but I’ll say it. Don’t read this. I need one place where I can put down whatever’s on my mind, things that I don’t even mean.’ And she had promised.

Now she went to the drawer, took out the black notebook and read the last entry, his precise handwriting perfectly legible. It spoke for a few lines about his worries over the farm, then turned to the visitors, noted their behavior with disparagement. Finally:

Worst of all, I feel as if this house is soiled, and Lily soiled, and our love soiled. Her shrieking laughter at Mino’s vicious jokes and the affected way she holds her cigarette, drunk and sort of tapping it nervously, everything sped up — and I’m standing there like the dull host who has to be put up with — because it’s his whiskey you’re drinking. That’s not the deal I made with her. I won’t ever again be made to run away from my own house. We agreed to live decently and honorably and in peace. She says she wants all that, but I don’t think she knows how — to live in peace. For her, chaos and willfulness are the same as independence, the way to a vivid life. And then — admit it! — there’s too much genuflection in my attitude to her. Maybe I can’t be any other way, but by God and my strong right arm I will bloody well try. I’ve got to fix this right now, at the beginning.

She replaced the diary back under some papers in the drawer, as if by putting it quickly away she lessened the guilt of her spying. A flash of anger overwhelmed her — so that’s what he thought and kept hidden — and then gave way to an awareness of her husband’s right intentions and his intelligence, cooler than hers. She thought of the story he had told her early in their relationship, of seeing her for the first time beside the swimming pool at the party in the mountains, finding her there, recognizing her. It pained her to acknowledge how accurate he was in this appraisal, how correctly he identified her desire for decency and honor and peace. She thought of Mino, his world, a lakeside party with a beach made of sand brought in on a convoy of trucks, washing away in the next storm, filtering down to the depths of the lake. And what of her epiphany in the hospital room in London, the forgiveness she received, with the snow falling steadily all day? That at least was false, there was no moment of forgiveness, no renewal, just a series of negotiations, none of them final.

Lily was waiting on the roof that evening, drinking her second vodka tonic, when Murad came briskly up the stairs. She had been sitting with her stomach in a knot, dreading his first words, which would tell her the state of things. When he arrived she did not get up from the chair on which she had been stretched out, wearing sweatpants and a baggy sweater.

‘What a god-awful day. I finally ended up going to Sipahi’s farm and forcing his guys to load the seed in my jeep. I swear, it’s impossible to get anything done in this country. We just sit around scratching our fleas and telling lies. The British should come back.’

‘I’m sorry, babe.’ Relieved, she went over and kissed him on the forehead, put her arm around him.

The sunset call to prayers, the azaan, had just finished reverberating from the twin minarets of the Jalpana mosque, which towered above the village a few hundred meters away, hidden by trees. Far away across the flat countryside other maulvis were in mid-cry — they began at different times in each of the surrounding villages, making a chorus, until the last one died away and the night fell.

Sitting down again, she took an unlit joint from the table next to her and tossed it to him. Lighting one herself, exhaling a cloud of smoke, she said in a bright voice, ‘There you are. That’s my signature joint, the Zeppelin .’

Neatly catching the joint, he put it on a side table.

‘Not for me, my friend. I’m going at six tomorrow morning to meet old Mian Kachelu about that missing Dashti girl.’

‘At least have a drink then.’ Whenever he called her my friend, it signaled irritation or disapproval. ‘I’ll have another one too.’

‘All right, just one.’

Returning upstairs after ordering the drinks on the intercom in their bedroom, he began, ‘Darling, I know we’ve already been through this …’