Read Online Maps for Lost Lovers by Nadeem Aslam - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Nadeem Aslam
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husband got drunk and divorced her, and although he now regrets doing it, she cannot remarry him without first marrying and getting a divorce from someone else. That’s Allah’s law and who are we to question it? Poor Suraya is back in England, and I am looking for a man who will marry her for a short period.”
If her children were still living at home, or if Shamas was back from work, Kaukab would have asked the matchmaker to lower her voice to a whisper, not wishing her children to hear anything bad about Pakistan or the Pakistanis, not wishing to provide Shamas with the opportunity to make a disrespectful comment about Islam, or hint through his expression that he harboured contrary views on Allah’s inherent greatness; but she is alone in the house, so she lets the woman talk.
“I’ll bring the veil back the day after tomorrow,” the matchmaker says as she leaves around five o’clock and Kaukab gets ready to cook dinner. “Shamas-brother-ji would be home soon from work—from this year onwards he’ll be able to put his feet up now that he’s sixty-five and retiring from work.” She laughs. “No retirement age for us housewives though, Kaukab. Anyway, I must leave you alone now because if you are anything like me, you too can’t bear another woman watching you while you cook.”
Mung dahl. As she washes the dahl she recalls the disastrous evening with Jugnu and the white woman, the dahl in the shoes, and she begs forgiveness from Almighty Allah yet again for having wasted the food that He in His limitless bounty and compassion had seen fit to provide her with, a creature as worthless as her. But the fact of the matter is that she doesn’t really remember doling out the portions into the shoes and carrying them to the table; she remembers coming to her senses only once all the actions had been performed and she was standing in the room with Jugnu and the white woman staring at her, aghast.
Kaukab can remember the evening as though she is reading it in the Book of Fates, the book into which, once a year, the angels write down the destiny of every human being for the next twelve months: who’ll live, who’ll die, who’ll lose happiness, who’ll find love—Allah dictates it to them, having come down especially for one night from the seventh heaven to the first, the one closest to earth.
Allah gave her everything, so how can Kaukab not be thankful to Him every minute of the day when He had given her everything she had, how could she have not tried to make sure that her children grew up to be Allah’s servants, and how could she have approved of Jugnu marrying the white woman, or later, approve of him living in sin with Chanda? For the people in the West, an offence that did no harm to another human or to the wider society was no offence at all, but to her—to all Muslims— there was always another party involved—Allah; He was getting hurt by Chanda and Jugnu’s actions.
She sets the mung dahl on the cooker and adds turmeric, salt, and red chilli powder, shaking her head at how that whole affair with Jugnu’s white woman turned out. After the dinner that night, Jugnu didn’t come around to Shamas and Kaukab for about two weeks, though they both heard through the walls the sounds of arguments between him and the white woman, and Kaukab once saw the white woman emerge from the house in tears. Several weeks of silence followed, and she knew Jugnu had broken relations with the woman, but he still refused to come see Kaukab; she gathered all the information from Shamas. Ujala had recently moved out of the house (forever—she would realize as the years passed), after yet another argument with Kaukab, so Kaukab only had Shamas as her source of information about Jugnu. And it was Shamas who told her one day that Jugnu and the white woman were back together again, and it was Shamas again—his face drained of blood, his voice full of panic—who told her a few days later that Jugnu was in hospital with
If her children were still living at home, or if Shamas was back from work, Kaukab would have asked the matchmaker to lower her voice to a whisper, not wishing her children to hear anything bad about Pakistan or the Pakistanis, not wishing to provide Shamas with the opportunity to make a disrespectful comment about Islam, or hint through his expression that he harboured contrary views on Allah’s inherent greatness; but she is alone in the house, so she lets the woman talk.
“I’ll bring the veil back the day after tomorrow,” the matchmaker says as she leaves around five o’clock and Kaukab gets ready to cook dinner. “Shamas-brother-ji would be home soon from work—from this year onwards he’ll be able to put his feet up now that he’s sixty-five and retiring from work.” She laughs. “No retirement age for us housewives though, Kaukab. Anyway, I must leave you alone now because if you are anything like me, you too can’t bear another woman watching you while you cook.”
Mung dahl. As she washes the dahl she recalls the disastrous evening with Jugnu and the white woman, the dahl in the shoes, and she begs forgiveness from Almighty Allah yet again for having wasted the food that He in His limitless bounty and compassion had seen fit to provide her with, a creature as worthless as her. But the fact of the matter is that she doesn’t really remember doling out the portions into the shoes and carrying them to the table; she remembers coming to her senses only once all the actions had been performed and she was standing in the room with Jugnu and the white woman staring at her, aghast.
Kaukab can remember the evening as though she is reading it in the Book of Fates, the book into which, once a year, the angels write down the destiny of every human being for the next twelve months: who’ll live, who’ll die, who’ll lose happiness, who’ll find love—Allah dictates it to them, having come down especially for one night from the seventh heaven to the first, the one closest to earth.
Allah gave her everything, so how can Kaukab not be thankful to Him every minute of the day when He had given her everything she had, how could she have not tried to make sure that her children grew up to be Allah’s servants, and how could she have approved of Jugnu marrying the white woman, or later, approve of him living in sin with Chanda? For the people in the West, an offence that did no harm to another human or to the wider society was no offence at all, but to her—to all Muslims— there was always another party involved—Allah; He was getting hurt by Chanda and Jugnu’s actions.
She sets the mung dahl on the cooker and adds turmeric, salt, and red chilli powder, shaking her head at how that whole affair with Jugnu’s white woman turned out. After the dinner that night, Jugnu didn’t come around to Shamas and Kaukab for about two weeks, though they both heard through the walls the sounds of arguments between him and the white woman, and Kaukab once saw the white woman emerge from the house in tears. Several weeks of silence followed, and she knew Jugnu had broken relations with the woman, but he still refused to come see Kaukab; she gathered all the information from Shamas. Ujala had recently moved out of the house (forever—she would realize as the years passed), after yet another argument with Kaukab, so Kaukab only had Shamas as her source of information about Jugnu. And it was Shamas who told her one day that Jugnu and the white woman were back together again, and it was Shamas again—his face drained of blood, his voice full of panic—who told her a few days later that Jugnu was in hospital with
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