Читать книгу Trespassing - Uzma Aslam Khan - Страница 21

It was almost noon and the house had filled with mourners. Daanish had still not awoken. It was time to take a break from the Quran reading. Anu brought out tea and sweets. Several stylish wives were present. Many of them, she knew, could not read the Quran. She watched their lips move, feigning recitation, and wondered if the doctor saw it too. She still felt his presence in the house, absurdly, more even than when he was alive. He had probably watched while she finished re-furnishing Daanish’s room. Had probably frowned when she took away all the books he’d given him, right down to the shelves on which they rested. Would he come down from his new other place to stop her? She believed if God disapproved of her actions, He would tell her. But the doctor was rather powerless now.

All he could do was watch her next move.

While the mourners refreshed themselves with tea, she climbed up to Daanish’s bedroom. He slept, as always, on his stomach. A white sheet covered him from the waist down. His suitcase remained unlocked but on the new white rug she’d thrown next to the new bed lay the few things unpacked from his carry-on: dental floss, a razor, socks, underwear, a novel, a ballpoint pen. The bag was unzipped. She snooped around inside it. Another book; the doctor’s Kodak camera that he’d passed on to Daanish; a lovely eggshell and lacquer box the doctor had brought back from his last trip; an envelope. On the new bedside table lay Daanish’s shell necklace. Anu fingered all his things, trying to understand what they meant to him. With some – the necklace, camera, lacquer box – she knew already. But not the books and envelope. She read the covers: Edward Said, Kurt Vonnegut. She’d not heard of either. Anu mouthed each name several times, softly. The Said had been heavily marked.

She opened the lacquer box. A label in block letters read, BIVALVES. There were a dozen different brightly colored shells, some smooth, others furrowed. Daanish’s note was dated June ‘89 – two months before he’d left. Sheer muscle power. By snapping its two valves, a scallop, for instance, can swim many dozen feet per bite. At the cove one day, Aba first told me about giant clams. ‘Four feet long!’ he said. ‘They live right here, in our very own ocean.’

Anu quietly shut the box.

Next she examined the envelope. It contained letters from the doctor and herself and a stack of photographs. She glanced at Daanish: he neither snored nor stirred. The boy would probably not wake up till evening. Settling on the rug, she began looking through the pictures.

The first few were of Daanish and a very handsome boy with golden hair in a beautiful garden. In some pictures the garden was covered in snow. In others it was ablaze with color. She smiled at her son lolling on the grass, frowned that in one he seemed to be smoking, and panicked when in yet another he appeared to be in a tall tree, balancing the way he always had on a bicycle: standing, and with hands in the air. But always, though dark, he was so good-looking: tall, with his father’s wide amber eyes and his suddenly boyish disposition.

Resisting the urge to wake him up with an embrace, Anu continued on. There was the golden boy with a pretty girl. Then there were girls with no boys. Then there were girls with Daanish.

Anu backtracked.

There was a girl leaning against a tree. Red and yellow leaves scattered all around her. Against the strong colors of her surroundings, she looked especially pale, glassy almost, like a fish. A white fish with hints of yellow on its gills, poised before an orange brocade. Her head was slightly tilted to the left so her right eye seemed larger than the other. It looked directly at the camera, a bluish-green eye.

Anu skipped to a picture with the same girl and Daanish. They were seated around a table, at some party it seemed. Daanish held the girl’s waist with one hand and a drink with the other.

She stared hard at the picture, and neither an eyelid nor a finger moved. Only her mind worked. She backtracked to a picture of another girl. This one was almost his height and had stringy brown hair. She seemed to be dancing in a field of corn and was not as shapely as the other one. Anu skipped ahead: there was Daanish and another tall girl in a dark room with candles all around, and tinsel stars hanging from above. She sat in his lap.

By the time Anu had sifted through all the photographs, she counted six different girls in close physical contact with her son. She thought hard. And came to a conclusion: at least there wasn’t only one. He was distracted, but probably not yet committed. His bride would just have to handle that. After all, she had.

Anu collected the photographs, camera and lacquer box. She contemplated the shell necklace but softening, left it on the table. With the three items in hand, she returned downstairs.

As lunchtime approached, the mourners began to leave. Soon she was left alone to feed the doctor’s sisters. They began complaining that no fresh food had been cooked that day. Her son had come back just that morning, what did they expect? She left them grumbling in the kitchen. In her bedroom she regarded the objects fished from Daanish’s life in his faraway world. She did two things. First, she telephoned Nissrine’s mother to say Nissrine should hasten her arrival at the readings. Second, she returned the lacquer box to Daanish’s room, but with some unexpected debris inside.