by Abeer Hoque

Modhu sat in her lilac dining room in Gulshan, alone. Zain had never liked the colour, but she hadn’t cared until now. That he might not ever remark with distaste on the wallpaper and carefully matched lampshades, all specially ordered from Modhu’s high-end furniture shop, the idea seemed too overwhelming, one she couldn’t properly process. She spread her hand delicately across her embroidered silk sari, arching the finger wearing the diamond eternity ring, a gift from her last wedding anniversary. That was the night everything had started to go wrong. At the time, she had seen it as a beginning of sorts, a way out of her growing misery. She hadn’t known that she would come to long for that state of mind. That she would wish for the time when her inner life was hers alone, no matter how lonely.
   Her phone rang and she felt the old thrill before it was stanched by dread. She looked at the screen. Billi. Probably back from the Sonargaon reception, wanting to gossip. Modhu couldn’t speak to her. She didn’t know if she could speak at all. She felt a wave of nausea, something that had been happening more often lately. For a moment, she entertained the notion that she might be pregnant. The nausea increased in intensity at the thought. No, she was sure it was something else. It was probably the shrimp at the reception. She could never resist eating shrimp despite her allergy. One and her cheeks would bloom in a not unattractive manner. Two and her throat started itching, her tongue thickening. Three and well, she hadn’t gone that far since she was a child.
   Tonight, she had stopped after one plump prawn, coated in lime juice and salt. She had needed all her concentration to look natural during the furious whispering fight she and Zain had had by the Sonargaon pool. She had done it too. Even when he had grabbed her arm, pressing her thick black pearl bangle painfully against her wrist, she had leaned into him languidly, whispering, sing song, Careful, baby…
   Zain had abruptly remembered himself and let her go, self-consciously straightening his exquisitely tailored suit. For all his new-money brashness, and he was unashamed of it, Zain knew style. It was that brand of unashamedness she had fallen for, the way he had walked into her life assuming she wanted. And she had. But it hadn’t been easy, marrying someone this literal, this direct. Nothing in her ignore-the-problem-and-it-will-go-away upbringing had prepared her for the loud-mouthed-tell-the-truth-sooner brand of communication that Zain practised. They had learned to communicate somewhere in between those boundaries, and in doing so, had changed each other indefinably. Modhu had a feeling her influence had not been the generous one, but it wasn’t easy transforming a lifetime of mutedness.
   Zain had sent her home from Sonargaon, saying they would talk about the whole bloody thing later. She hated it when he used British slang when he felt at the end of his rope. As if some thin lipped colonial expletive would properly express the seriousness of his emotion. She hated even more that she’d obeyed him and returned to their house full of echoing rooms. It was her guilt, she knew. Not just about betraying Zain, but about not seeing it all coming. Not keeping her world under control as she had always been able to. Not being able to resist Isa.
   Modhu had always liked Isa. He had old-fashioned Bideshi manners that somehow didn’t irritate her the way Zain’s did. Perhaps because Isa’s Britishisms were delivered with relentless flirtatious charm. She had liked his wife, Nita, even more. Nita was the breadwinner in that family. With her high-profile finance position, and numerous smaller enterprises on the side, it was surprising how silly and fun she was. She had a guffawing laugh that shook her ample body all over. Isa would sometimes spontaneously lean over and grab her by her upper arms and kiss her soundly. If Modhu hadn’t been embarrassed by the display of affection, she would have wanted to do the same. Nita inspired that kind of emotion.
   When Zain had brought them home that first night, years back, the four of them had laughed through their entire dinner and the four hours following. It had been like that even while Nita and Isa’s relationship slowly disintegrated. But then Nita had stopped coming over, willingly pursuing her career as far as it would take her, away from Isa. Isa still came to dinner regularly, and they talked as passionately around the table, but they laughed less. And when Zain started travelling more, leaving Modhu and Isa on their own, the conversations became even more serious. In a way, Modhu felt as if she had been banished back to her childhood, silence taking over an empty house again.
   Part of the reason she felt time-warped was that she was once again living in her sprawling childhood home. Back then, Dhanmondi had been closer to its namesake, an actual dhan khet, replete with ankle-twisting foxholes and skin-scraping burrs. It hadn’t stopped her brother from escaping their silent house to endlessly explore the fields with his friends. Modhu longed to follow him despite her fear of the foxes, but she was usually enjoined to sit at home and read. Their mother had contracted a permanent headache after their father had passed away, and a suffocating quiet enveloped the days and nights. Guests were rarely invited and no visiting children were allowed to disturb the peace.
   Modhu switched off the lamp, and the triangle of violet-coloured light vanished with the rest of the room. She walked to the kitchen and pushed open the backdoor, letting the cool night air in. A thread from her anchal snagged on the latch and she rescued it before it ripped. She had been catching her clothes on this latch for as long as she could remember. She remembered a summer day long ago. Her brother had persuaded their mother to let him go to a friend’s house for dinner, and Modhu had jealously watched him leave. She waited until her mother was in her room, and then crept out of the backdoor.
   As she ducked past the windows, she saw her brother’s new bicycle leaning against the wall. She knew how to ride a bicycle because her father had taught her how, but hers was far too small now, and Seku’s was too big. Still, its gleaming body and red seat beckoned. She wheeled it silently out of the compound into the field. When the path through the fields turned out to be too bumpy for a comfortable ride, Modhu steered through the waving pampas grass, fronds as tall as she was, into the street. Part of the problem was that she was too short to position herself over the crossbar and still reach the pedals. So her body was part way under the bar to allow her to reliably, albeit awkwardly, pedal, even if she couldn’t sit on the seat. Once on the street, she was finally able to pick up speed. If she squinted, her periphery vision of the trees and storefronts blurred into the road, and the wind became everything. Even the dank gutter of refuse to her left, slowly bubbling its way backwards, receded.
   By the time Modhu heard the honking, it was too late to brake and swerve safely. A massive blue and yellow truck had just turned the corner and was barrelling down the road towards her. It couldn’t have taken more than a second to make her decision, but to Modhu, the moment lasted ages. She looked at the bubbling black ditch and then at the crayon-coloured truck and then made her move.
   When she emerged from the gutter, dragging Seku’s bicycle with her, Modhu thought she would die from disgust. She was so thoroughly coated with the gutter contents that she couldn’t tell the colour of her dress or the bike seat. And she wasn’t even quite sure where she was. Ignoring an offer of help from a cha shop owner, who was making no effort to conceal his hacking amusement, she climbed back on the bike and headed back. Her sandals were slippery with gunk and she slipped off the pedals more than once, banging her already bruised legs.
   When she got to the corner, she recognised where she was. Fairly far from home, but she knew where she could go. There was a pond a kilometre away, half-swallowed by lily pads. It was too small for regular washing and bathing and there were enough trees around it to prevent a helpful bank, so it had become the domain of the local children. Luckily when Modhu got there, it was deserted as most children were probably working or begging. She gratefully dunked herself and the bike into the murky green water, submerging herself for as long as she could. The mud at the base of the pond felt suspiciously like the gutter slime, but the water was instantly refreshing. As soon as she felt less like a comic book character, Modhu sat in the sun to dry off and inspect her wounds. Nothing serious. One scrape on her shin, two on her arms. They would heal quickly. And she would just have to wear a long sleeved shalwar kamiz for a few days. She peered at her distorted reflection on the chrome frame of the bicycle. Her hair was a mess, but her face looked unhurt. And thank God the bike appeared to be fine. When she was dry, she could go home, and no one would be the wiser.
   Modhu had told Zain this story soon after their wedding. They were lying on two lounge chairs in a tiny balcony in their first apartment, waiting for the afternoon heat to die away. Two ancient tamarind trees protected them from direct sunlight, but Modhu could see beads of sweat forming on Zain’s forehead.
   ‘So your mother never said anything?’ Zain asked, lacing his fingers through hers lazily. His palms were damp, but she ignored that and focused instead on the lovely paleness of his skin. Modhu was darker than what was normally taken for beautiful, though Zain had never once mentioned it. She would never have asked, but she often wondered what his family had said when they had learned about her.
   ‘No, I don’t think she ever found out about that incident,’ Modhu laughed. ‘My brother might have known something, but he didn’t ask. God, I can still remember how repulsive falling into that gutter felt!’
   ‘No, I mean in general. She didn’t talk to you?’
   ‘She did talk. Just not much.’ Remembering her mother’s recent death, weeks before the wedding, made Modhu’s throat tighten. They had rushed the event, planning it in the middle of the monsoon season, in the hope that she would make it, but it was not to be. Her cancer had been too far gone. The lightness that the gutter story had wrought ebbed from her voice. She wished they would change the subject, but Zain seemed oblivious.
   ‘She sounds like the opposite of my mother,’ he said lightly, bringing her hand to his mouth to kiss it.
   ‘Your family can’t stop talking,’ Modhu said, more sharply than she meant to.
   ‘It’s better than not talking at all!’ Zain said, obviously stung. ‘Anyway, I was just going to say that…’
   ‘We do, I mean, did talk,’ Modhu interrupted, although it wasn’t ordinarily her nature. ‘Just not about everything as soon as it happens.’
   ‘I was just going to say,’ Zain repeated gently, ‘that you can talk to me about anything you like. And as soon as it happens too.’
   ‘It’s not the way I do things,’ she said, feeling ungracious even as she said it, but unable to stop. ‘But I’ll try,’ she amended.
   Modhu had tried. But it seemed Zain had no sense of how much it cost her. The secret thoughts, the deep down fears, the slightly scandalous requests, he treated her revelations the same way he’d respond to a question about what to eat that night. It was difficult for Modhu to get used to the casual way he did everything. She found herself holding back when she was not feeling up to a careless answer. Sometimes, Zain noticed her hesitations, pressed her into a conversation. She was surprised to realise that she appreciated his efforts even though they were as likely to end in laughter as resentment. But as their work schedules became increasingly involved, these semi-forced intimacies became less frequent, and Modhu reverted to her old aloof ways. Her regret over their tenuous connection was gradually replaced by relief at not having to stretch so far outside her lines.
   It was Isa who had picked up on the missing pieces, Modhu’s carefully couched confidences. When it was just the two of them alone at the dining table, every pause became pregnant. The silence threatened to outline the shapes of their missing partners, and rather than remember, they rushed to fill it, first with talking, and then with touching.
   Ironically, it was on her wedding anniversary that Modhu took on her second lover. A thunderstorm was slowly submerging the city when Zain called from Shanghai to tell her that he would not be celebrating their sixth year together, with her. He had been due back later that day, but problems with the Chinese manufacturing unit he had hired were holding him back, possibly through the weekend. From the newly glass-walled veranda, she called the restaurant to cancel the reservations she had made more than a month ago. Then she sank into a faded leather armchair and watched the rain.
   Isa had called so soon afterwards that she hadn’t had time to make up a good story, and she was angry enough not to avoid the topic. She responded to his congratulations with ill-restrained vitriol towards marriage, and then moved on to love.
   By the time she got to men, Isa interrupted, ‘Ok, while it might be true that we are unthinking bastards, it’s also true that we don’t eat the whole pie of reprobation ourselves. Sometimes, women get a slice or two.’
   Modhu briefly considered Isa’s own loveless life, but then ploughed on, ‘I’m not interested in sharing the blame right now.’
   ‘I understand totally. Would you, however, be interested in sharing a bottle of wine then? I have a wonderful shiraz I just smuggled back from Sydney.’
   ‘Bring it over then.’
   Modhu rarely drank more than a glass of wine at a time, and then only usually with a meal. Having never gotten really tipsy, she was surprised at how pleasant it was. And how easily she was able to put Zain out of mind when just a few hours ago she had been unable to stop obsessing for a second.
   The watery light filtered into the veranda as Isa recounted stories of school pranks and thwarted boyhood love. As evening set in, they moved into kitchen where Modhu fried up dal boras and squeezed limes for sherbet. She loved iftari food but rarely went to the trouble especially since it was fattening. A tight leash on her indulgences and a brisk 45-minute walk around her garden every morning had kept her figure enviably trim, whereas so many of her friends had ballooned within a few years of getting married.
   She was no longer drunk when she first leaned towards Isa to kiss him. She was languorous from the afternoon, a little fatigued perhaps, but perfectly in control of her senses. Isa, on the other hand, had maintained his intoxication with tumblers of Zain’s expensive scotch. Still, he was the one who moved away, albeit so slowly that he didn’t break contact for a few seconds.
   Modhu touched her wine red lips, wondering at herself. Looking up and away from Isa, she unexpectedly laughed out loud. The fan spun slowly, moving the heavy air-conditioned air through the living room. Isa watched her in bemusement, unsure of her mood. When she leaned in again, eyes narrowed, her hand trailing along the velvet cushions, he did not resist.
   Modhu wasn’t sure why she had told Zain about her affair with Isa. It was clear to her that it was over between them anyway. Isa had stopped calling her weeks ago, after six torrid heart-stopping months. He had given no warning but she wasn’t surprised. It was a gift, she had thought, each time their affair flared into being, each hour they kissed without stopping. But it was also empty, in the way only affairs can be. Still, Modhu had gone through the usual cycles of recrimination, despair, regret, defensiveness, loneliness, and relief, sometimes all at once. She wasn’t over it, but she knew she was close.
   Maybe that was the reason she had pulled Zain aside from the glittering wedding guests to tell him one final fatal confidence. Her life was about to return to a dead space where nothing moved forward, or backward. Perhaps her subconscious was trying to prevent that with this sabotaging and self-defeating move. Perhaps she was tired of lying, no matter how inconveniently timed that urge was. Perhaps Zain would understand the isolation that had driven her into another man’s arms, and dispel it with a sweep of his easy manner. Or if not, perhaps Isa would return when he heard that she was alone. For once in her life, she could not guess what would happen, and more disturbingly, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to happen. She was even past wishing the affair had never happened, that she and Zain could go back to their old life.
   The front door opened and Modhu froze. Zain walked down the long hallway leading to the kitchen. Still unable to move, she felt a strange pain awaken in her belly, and slowly move into her pelvis.
   ‘I’m leaving,’ Zain said.
   The pain increased sharply. She suddenly remembered that the last person she had made love to was Zain, more than a month ago. It had been hurried as he was late for his latest business trip, but sweeter than usual. Modhu had been feeling especially vulnerable that day, having just recently understood that she and Isa were finished. She had decided not to go into her shop that morning, and was lying on the bed, flipping through a new Dhaka glossy magazine. Zain had sat down beside her unexpectedly. She had thought for a moment that he could sense her emotion, but then he had started to talk about his meeting.
   Modhu had gathered herself with some effort. ‘You can try to arrange a meeting beforehand with the director,’ she had said.
   He had absently played with the ruffle on her faded blue nightie. When his hand brushed past her breast, Modhu had visibly seen him switch gears.
   ‘Basically…’ he had said seriously, ‘all I wanted to say was that you’re beautiful.’
   She had smiled, despite her distress, and he had kissed her.
   ‘I can’t stand this empty house anymore,’ Zain said, his voice disembodied in the darkness. ‘We shouldn’t have moved here. Your brother should have had it. He would have made better use of it anyway with his passel of bratty kids.’
   Modhu knew then that Zain was deeply hurt. He had always wanted kids, so he would never make light of the issue. The pain surrounded her womb with frightening urgency. Something in her body let go. She summoned all her strength to speak, even though she didn’t know what to say.
   ‘I love you,’ she said, in a surprisingly steady voice.
   He was silent, and then replied, ‘I don’t see that, Modhu.’
   ‘Don’t leave,’ she said, startling herself again. She had no idea where these words were coming from. Actually, she knew exactly where they were coming from. Desperation. But she didn’t know how her pride had let the words loose. Perhaps the same physical tremor that was pulling her baby from her body.
   ‘I cannot stay,’ Zain said. ‘Not here. Not with you.’
   Standing in the doorway, her fingers on the old latch, Modhu closed her eyes, remembering her near accident on the bike, more than twenty years ago. Blood started slipping down thickly between her legs, dripping down the step. She was leaning so hard on the latch that it was cutting into her palm. Her legs were somehow keeping her upright, despite her now intense fatigue. In her mind’s eye, she could see with perfect clarity, the dusty road, the brightly painted truck with its horn blaring, the black gutter suddenly focusing to the side. The blood was pooling into the dusty dying grass. She would have to remember to water the garden in the morning. Modhu released her grip on the latch and let the door close.