“What have you prepared today,
bhabi
?” asked Habib.
“Lamb curry, cauliflower, and
daal
. Will that do?”
“Of course!”
I laid the table for lunch. The women—Amma, Dolon, Ranu, and myself—could sit to eat only after the menfolk were finished, and Rosuni and Sakhina had to be satisfied with leftovers.
In the late afteroon I stood at the window. As usual, I was waiting for someone without knowing who. Haroon never got home until late evening. I could feel my hopeful imagination take over. My handsome husband would suddenly appear, catching me after a shower, my wet hair wreathed in a towel, and hold me until I melted into his arms. “You’re so soft and fragrant,” he would cry, hardly able to keep his hands from my breasts. He wouldn’t allow me out of his sight. I remembered now the day he pulled me naked under the bath tap, stroking me until my body became taut under the force of the water, making love to me as if we were beneath a waterfall.
But I would be disappointed tonight as I was every night. My husband had a routine—he’d arrive home, chat with his family, eat the food I served him, watch television, and then fall into bed. His body would meet mine only perfunctorily. Was this what happened to married people? I wanted to call Shipra and ask her if Dipu slept with his back to her as Haroon did to me. But Haroon disapproved of my keeping up with my friends. “This is your in-laws’ place,” he’d say when Shipra or Chandana called during those first weeks of marriage, and then one day he had our number changed. When I asked why, he said he didn’t want to be hassled by job seekers, but I knew it was really his not so subtle way of letting me know he wanted me to keep away from my former life.
My reverie was broken when Haroon arrived home in a flurry.
“I have to leave immediately,” he said. “I’m invited to a wedding.”
“Have you been invited alone?” I asked. He didn’t answer, except to ask that I press his clothes.
“What kind of gift do you think I should take?” he asked, as I ironed his shirt.
“Flowers,” I said.
“How can I take flowers when I’m invited to a wedding?”
“Take them a book,” Amma suggested, suddenly bursting into the room.
“I’m thinking of dinnerware,” Haroon said.
“Ah, but teacups and saucers would be so much less expensive,” Dolon said, getting into the act.
I watched as Haroon doused himself with cologne and quickly departed. I was getting sick of my memories of our dreamy courtship, but they kept returning. This Haroon hated flowers, but the one that had courted me decorated his office with a bower of fresh blossoms. Who had he been trying to impress with his concert attendance? His recitations of poetry on the sultry riverbank? Or were these just clever ploys to trap a girl with looks and brains, a woman with enough independence to meet him when he said, “The Swiss Café at five sharp.”
“Where’s the Swiss Café?” I’d asked.
“You don’t know where it is and you claim to be a girl from Dhaka?” he teased. The courting Haroon had assumed I got around alone; the married Haroon insisted that if I went out, I had to take Dolon or Habib along.
“Why can’t I go out by myself? I know my way around this city.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“To see my parents in Wari,” I said.
“But why?”
“There’s no reason . . . I want to go, that’s all.”
“Why do you want to go for no reason?” In a way, Haroon was right to question me. Why should I want to go to Wari for no reason in particular?
“You’re a married woman. You ought not to be going home so often. They’ll think you’re unhappy here.”
“No they won’t,” I replied.
“Well if you must go I’ll send the car and Dolon or Amma will accompany you. Or if you wait till tonight, I’ll
drive you.” I was ready and waiting when he returned from the office.
“Let’s go,” I said. “It’s getting late.”
“I’m so tired,” he said. “Can’t you wait until another time?”
“But you said you would like to—”
”I did but—Listen, is it so important for you to visit your parents? If you don’t have a reason to see them, why travel so far?”
“Forget it,” I said.
Haroon knew I wasn’t happy abandoning my trip, but he didn’t apologize or say anything at all to assuage my feelings. Besides, it wasn’t that I really wanted to visit Wari, it was just that I resented sitting idle in this unfamiliar house.
The next morning, I tried a new tactic. Why, I asked him, had I bothered to collect university degrees just to spend my life at home twiddling my thumbs? “I worked hard to pass all those exams. Had I done all that just to learn how to run a household?” Haroon looked shocked.
“What do you want me to say?”
I told him I wanted a job, that I couldn’t bear being idle, that I had to work. He was nearly speechless with astonishment.
“What kind of job are you thinking of?” he sputtered.
“Anything I can get.”
“Such as—”
“You have so many people in your office. Surely you have a job for me.”
“But why do you want to work?” he persisted. I told him I had studied in order to work and that it seemed a waste for an educated person to sit at home.
“Don’t I bring home enough money?” he asked.
“Of course, darling,” I replied. “That’s not at all what I’m thinking of. I’m thinking only of my need to put my mind to something useful!” Now I was laughing. “After all, an idle mind is the devil’s playground!”
At that Haroon took me into his arms and then took my chin in his hands. “But sweetheart, you are responsible for my parents and my brothers and sisters! They all depend on you!” He gave me a kiss on my forehead. “Your success lies in winning their hearts, don’t you understand that? Don’t you know how happy you make me when you look after my family?”
“I wouldn’t give up being a
bou
even if I took a job,” I said.
“But can’t you see how short of time I am? We married in such a rush! And now I barely have the time I want to devote to you!” Stroking my hair as we lay in bed, Haroon continued to speak, his voice tight with emotion. “This house is yours! You must look after it and arrange everything so it runs smoothly. There’s so much work here and you say you have nothing to do!”
I sighed and then Haroon sighed, and then he changed his tune. “Okay, if you are so eager to get out of the house, go shopping with Dolon! Take the car and buy anything you want. I’ll leave money for you with Amma.” He was trying to pacify me as if I were a child.
But I did go shopping with Dolon. I bought clothes and pots and pans. And that night when Haroon asked what I’d bought, I showed him. “Wonderful,” he declared, beaming. “At last you’ve become family minded.” I showed him the pajamas I’d bought for Abba, the sari I’d chosen for Amma, a sari I’d found for Ranu and a cute little dress for little Somaiya.
“And,” said Haroon, pouting.
“And a fatua with embroidery for you.”
“And—”
”And shirts for Hasan and Anis.”
“And—”
“That’s all.”
Haroon kissed me on both cheeks. “You’re an angel. No one can vie with me for the best wife!” I couldn’t believe that the simple purchase of an embroidered shirt could alter my husband’s mood.
“Who can say now,” he declared happily, “that I’ve been tricked into marrying!”
“Has someone said that?”
“Of course not,” he said, chuckling.
That night in bed, he got entirely carried away, but it seemed to me as if he was making love to his family. I felt erased rather than embraced by his tumble of kisses.
From that day on, Haroon filled up my hours, leaving a list of tasks in the house when he went to work. Not only was I cooking, I was supervising new upholstery for the parlor and new curtains for the bedrooms. I realized that my lot in life was to spend the rest of my days in service to his
family. I was no longer Jhumur, Haroon’s wife, but Habib, Hasan and Dolon’s precious sister-in-law and
bou
to Amma and Abba. I couldn’t imagine how I was going to have any life of my own, now that I was compelled to merge my own sorrow and happiness with theirs, drowning my separate self in a stream of household chatter.
Right after we married, Haroon had taken me shopping one day when I was feeling a bit insecure. He chose a beautiful rose and gold sari for me and said, “How can you be sad? How can you imagine that I don’t love you?”
I’d put aside what I’d thought then, that the gift of a sari, a material thing, can hardly measure up to what the heart desires. Haroon gave saris to his mother and sister and to all the women servants. Was there no way in which he distinguished me from the others? Was I different because I went to bed with him? Perhaps not. Most men bed many women; some frequent houses of prostitution when dusk descends, choosing a new woman each visit. What does such a man feel when a woman whom he will never see again rises to his touch?
4
H
ow can you have conceived in just six weeks?”
This was Haroon’s new harangue, and he repeated it so often I became fraught with anxiety. What was wrong with me? If I wasn’t pregnant, was I suffering from some dread disease? Though I was convinced I was with child, I was not given to counting days—I’d always been surprised when blood appeared on my underwear, and with the excitement of the wedding and the disorientation of moving into my husband’s house, I could hardly be expected to keep track. But I had never experienced the nausea that now afflicted me every morning. Haroon watched me closely and finally one day, suddenly dragged me, ghost pale, to a doctor nearby.
I gulped down a cup of water as Haroon and I sat waiting outside Dr. Mazundar’s examining room. Haroon was reading a magazine, and though I held one in my hands, I was too nervous to focus. When it was my turn to see the doctor, Haroon seemed reluctant to stop reading, as if he preferred we not consult Doctor Mazundar at all, as if the problem were all mine.
“What’s going on?” the doctor asked.
“I vomit every morning,” I replied. “I feel nauseated most of the time.”
“When did you last have your period?”
“I can’t remember.”
“You can’t remember! You look like a sophisticated woman.”
“I prefer to be surprised,” I said.
“Do you have any children?” she asked.
“No.”
“We were married only six weeks ago,” Haroon interjected.
“Have your blood and urine tested in the next room,” the doctor said. “I’ll call you after that.”
The doctor soon sent for us, but before she could utter a word, Haroon said, “Give her something to stop her from throwing up!”
Doctor Mazundar laughed. “Of course I will,” she said, then she laid me on the examining table in a curtained area of the office. “You’re doing fine,” she said afterward, when we sat, each in a chair in front to her desk. I felt a wave of relief and I could see that Haroon seemed heartened as well. Writing out a prescription, the doctor said, “I’ll see you in three months.”
“Why three months?” Haroon looked disturbed.
“There’s nothing to worry about. Normally I examine a patient after an interval of three months. After that I’ll need to see your wife once a month.” Doctor Mazundar pushed the prescription toward Haroon. “Give her good food. She must eat well.”
“I don’t follow you,” Haroon said.
The doctor laughed merrily “You’re going to be a father,” she said. “Go home and celebrate!”
I left the clinic, my eyes tearing with relief. I thanked Allah that I was pregnant and not suffering some mysterious malady as I had feared. I stepped out of the sunlight and into the car wrapped in a cloud of dreams. I looked at Haroon, but his face was grim. I knew in my heart that he was not playing a trick, as he had once when I told him it was my birthday, before we were married. He had not responded, and I was mystified, even hurt; then, as now, he’d kept his eyes on the road, a solemn expression on his face. But that day, before you could say “Jack Robinson,” we arrived at the Sonargaon, a five star hotel, and he’d taken me by the hand into the dining room, thrust a huge bouquet of flowers at me, and, after a sumptuous feast, lit all twenty-four candles on the huge cake that a uniformed waiter wheeled to the table. After dinner, there was another surprise. When we reached my door, he presented me with a package, and an exquisite Kancheepuram sari fell from the wrapping, its molten gold embroidery flickering in the dark light.
I did not think Haroon was going to surprise me today. Even though we had news of our first child’s arrival, I knew I could not expect another restaurant, another glorious present.
“Why are you so silent?” I asked as he drove. When he didn’t reply, I looked at his sullen face. Was it possible he didn’t want children? I’d been told it was normal for a man to resist having a child so soon after marriage. Men don’t like being tied down—they want to remain unencumbered,
to have fun, to go where they wished. But surely, if that were the case with Haroon, he would have been more careful or asked me to take birth control pills. I turned toward him once again, but his face remained stony and impassive.
In his silence, my eyes took in the road, the familiar streets—and I felt the extent to which my ties with the world were severed. Would I ever walk these streets again, run barefoot toward my parents’ house, lose myself in play?
Haroon was still glum as we entered the house. He sat down and pulled at his hair, cupping his face in his hands. There was a look of deep distrust in his eyes but also sadness. I so wanted him to be happy! I sat down beside him, but he looked away. I took his hand, but he ignored the gesture. I asked him why he was so sad, but he kept silent. Then he got up, unlaced his shoes, and undressed, preparing to go to bed though it was still early. I didn’t give up.
“Tell me what’s bothering you! Why are you behaving this way?” Getting no response, I was silent. Because he refused dinner, I said I wasn’t hungry when Amma called. A wife can’t eat if her husband does not.