Saadat Manto - Bombay Stories

Trilochan felt the same strange coldness he had felt after leaving the barbershop. He began to pace back and forth on the terrace over to where there were a number of water pipes and tanks. He didn’t want to remember the rest of the story, but he couldn’t stop himself.

The first day after getting his hair cut, Trilochan didn’t leave his apartment. The second day he sent a note to Mozelle through his servant saying he was sick and asking if she could come by for a moment. Mozelle came. Seeing Trilochan, she stopped short. ‘My darling Triloch!’ she cried out before throwing herself onto him and kissing him so much that his face turned red from her lipstick.

She stroked Trilochan’s soft, clean cheeks, ran her fingers like a comb through his short English-style hair, and began babbling in Arabic. She was so emotional that her nose began to run. When she noticed this, she took up her skirt’s hem and used it as a handkerchief. This embarrassed Trilochan, and he drew her skirt down and reproached her, ‘You should really wear something down there.’

His words didn’t have any effect on Mozelle. She smiled, her lips smeared with stale and spotty lipstick, and then she said, ‘They make me uncomfortable. This way’s better.’

The memory flashed through his mind of how that first day he had run into her and the strange mix-up that had followed. He smiled and drew her to his chest. ‘Let’s get married tomorrow.’

‘Of course,’ Mozelle said, rubbing the back of her hand over his soft chin.

It was decided that the wedding would be in Pune. Because it was a civil marriage, they had to give ten to fifteen days’ notice. This was a legality. Pune was the best place for the marriage as it was close to Bombay and Trilochan had some friends there. They decided to leave for Pune the very next day.

Mozelle was a salesgirl in a store in the Fort. There was a taxi stand near her store where she asked him to wait. Trilochan arrived at the agreed upon hour and waited for an hour and a half, but Mozelle didn’t show up. The next day he learned that she had left for Deolali with an old friend who had just bought a brand-new car and that she was going to stay there for a while.

What happened then to Trilochan? That is a very long story. The short version is that he drew up his courage and resolved to forget her. Soon after that, he met Kirpal Kaur and fell in love with her. Then he realized that Mozelle was nothing more than a wild girl with a cold heart who jumped from here to there like a bird. At least, he consoled himself, he hadn’t made the mistake of marrying her.

Despite this he would think about Mozelle from time to time. These were bittersweet moments: she didn’t care about anyone’s feelings, but Trilochan still liked her, and so he couldn’t help but wonder what she was doing in Deolali — whether she was still with the guy with the new car or if she had left him and was with someone else. Regardless, it was painful for Trilochan to think that she was living with someone other than him, but at the same time such behaviour was nothing but in character.

He had spent not just hundreds but thousands of rupees on her. But he had done so willingly, and furthermore Mozelle’s tastes weren’t expensive. She liked cheap things. Once Trilochan took her to get some earrings he had picked out for her, but when they got to the store, Mozelle became fascinated with a pair of gaudy, cheap imitation ones, and rejecting Trilochan’s favourites, begged him to buy the others instead.

Trilochan really couldn’t understand Mozelle. They would spend hours kissing, and he would run his hands all over her body. But she never let him go further. To irritate him, she would say, ‘You’re a Sikh. I hate you.’

It was obvious that Mozelle didn’t hate him. If she had, she would never have agreed to spend time with him. She didn’t put up with things she didn’t like, and so the thought of her spending two years hanging out with him and hating every minute of it was ridiculous. Mozelle made up her own mind about things. For example, she didn’t like underwear because they felt tight. On many occasions Trilochan had stressed their absolute necessity and even tried to shame her into wearing them, but she never reformed her ways.

When Trilochan raised the subject, she would get irritated and say, ‘This shame-blame stuff is nonsense. If you get offended, close your eyes. Tell me, you’re naked underneath your clothes, and so where are the clothes to cover that up? Where are the clothes that can prevent you from imagining what’s underneath? Don’t give me that crap. You’re a Sikh. I know you wear those silly baggy underpants. They’re a part of your religion — just like your beard and your hair. You should be ashamed. You’re an adult but still think your religion is hidden in your underpants.’

When they had first met and Mozelle said things like this, Trilochan would get angry, but as time passed he started to consider what she was saying, and sometimes his prejudices gave way. Then, after getting his hair cut, he was overcome by the feeling of how much time he had wasted carrying around his heavy mess of hair.

Trilochan stopped near the water tanks. He cursed Mozelle and forced himself to stop thinking about her. Kirpal Kaur, pure and innocent Kirpal Kaur, whom he loved, was in danger. She lived in a neighbourhood full of the most violent sort of Muslims and already two or three incidents had taken place. The problem was that there was a forty-eight-hour curfew in effect. And yet who really cared about that? Muslims living in her building could very easily kill her and her parents at any time.

Concentrating on this, Trilochan sat down on a large water pipe. His hair had grown out, and he was sure that in under a year it would look as though he had never cut it. His beard had grown fast as well. Nonetheless, he didn’t keep it as long as he used to, and there was a barber in the Fort who trimmed it so neatly that it looked as though it was untouched.

He stroked his long, soft hair and sighed deeply. He was about to get up when he heard the hard slap of wooden sandals. He wondered who it might be, as there were many Jewish women in the building and they all wore the same wooden sandals when at home. The noise grew closer. Then he glimpsed Mozelle near the next water tank — she was wearing the special loose gown of Jewish women and, with both arms raised above her head, was stretching in such a sexy way that Trilochan felt as though the air itself would shatter.

Trilochan got up from the water pipe and asked himself, ‘Where in the hell did she come from? What’s she up to now?’

Mozelle stretched again, and Trilochan’s bones throbbed with desire.

Mozelle’s large breasts heaved beneath her loose gown, and suddenly the thought of their delicate veins flashed through Trilochan’s mind. He coughed loudly. Mozelle turned and looked in his direction but didn’t seem surprised at all. She approached him, and her sandals clapped against the ground. Once she reached him, she looked at his dwarfish beard and asked, ‘You’ve become a Sikh again, Trilochan?’

His face began to burn.

Mozelle came forward and rubbed the back of her hand against his chin. Then she smiled. ‘Now this brush could clean my navy blue skirt! But I left that in Deolali.’

Trilochan didn’t respond.

Mozelle pinched his arm. ‘Why don’t you say something, Sardar Sahib?’

Trilochan didn’t want to be made foolish again, but he couldn’t help but look searchingly at her. No special change had taken place, other than how she looked a little weaker. ‘Have you been sick?’

‘No,’ Mozelle said and gave her bobbed hair a light shake.

‘You look weaker than before.’

‘I’m on a diet.’ Mozelle sat down on the water pipe and began to rap her sandals against the ground. ‘So you’re trying to be a Sikh again?’