The news came early the next morning. Someone had murdered Mirza Saeed. His body had been found in the summer house of the garden. He had been shot in the chest. The next piece of news came at nine. Zarina, too, had been murdered that night. Her head had been severed from her body. Later, investigations revealed that it was Saeed who had carried out both the killings. He had killed Zarina first in her own house, after which he had come home and shot himself in the chest. This typically masculine sense of honour revived the love in my heart for Saeed.
I returned home that evening. It had barely been four days since I had left it but it seemed as if it had been ages. The entire place had an air of yearning hanging over it. Saeed’s smiling countenance rose before my eyes involuntarily as I stepped into the house. A sigh escaped my lips. It was not that I was grieving over Saeed’s suicide, for I could never forgive his criminal insensitivity and masculine woman-chasing till even doomsday. What I regretted was the fact that the craze for this woman had got the better of him. I can judge by the condition of my heart at present that the wounds of Saeed’s infidelity and cruelty will heal in due course, and I might even forget about my gross humiliation. What will remain, however, is the mark of his short-lived love, which is now the sole anchor of my life.
Translated from the Urdu by Baran Farooqi
The Bookbinder1
In my office, there was a bookbinder named Rafaqat Hussain. His salary was ten rupees per month. He could also earn two or three rupees extra doing odd jobs. This was his total income and he was content with what he had. I don’t know what his actual financial condition was, but he always wore neat and clean clothes and looked happy. Debt is normally an integral part of the life of people belonging to this category, but Rafaqat escaped its magic spell. There was no trace of artificial politeness in his way of talking. He was forthright in his views. If he saw any fault in his colleagues, he would point it out to them in a direct manner as he was very straightforward. Thanks to his straightforwardness, he earned much more respect than the people of this status normally get. He had a deep affection for animals. He owned a mare, a cow, a cat, a dog, many goats, and a few hens which he loved more than anything else. Every morning, he would get green leaves for the goats and grass for the horse. Although he had to visit the animal shelter almost every day, his love for his pets never diminished. People used to make fun of his love for animals, but he never paid any heed to what they said. His love for the pets was selfless. Nobody saw him selling the eggs laid by his hens. He never sold any of his goats to the butchers. His mare was never bridled. The cow’s milk was consumed by his dog. The goats’ milk was meant for the cat. Rafaqat would drink only the leftover milk.
Luckily, his wife was a virtuous woman. Although her house was very small, no one ever heard her voice outside the house nor saw her standing at her doorstep. She never gave her husband sleepless nights by demanding jewellery or clothes. The bookbinder worshipped her. She would collect cow dung, feed grass to the mare, and make the cat eat sitting next to her. She loved the animals so much that she did not mind giving a bath to the dog.2
One day, during the rainy season, when the rivers were in spate, Rafaqat’s colleagues went fishing. Poor Rafaqat also accompanied them. The whole day, they enjoyed fishing. In the evening, when it started raining heavily, Rafaqat’s colleagues decided to spend the night in a village, but Rafaqat left for his home. As it was very dark, he lost his way and kept wandering the whole night. When he finally reached his house in the morning, it was still dark but the door of the house was wide open. His dog came towards him moaning and lay down at his feet. A shiver ran down his spine on seeing the door wide open. Inside, it was unusually quiet. He called his wife twice or thrice, but there was no response. There was a ghastly silence. He checked both the rooms and did not find her. Finally, he went to his stable trembling with an unknown fear as if he was entering a dark cave. In the stable, he saw his wife lying on her back. Her face was covered with flies. Her lips had turned blue and her eyes had turned into stone. The symptoms indicated that she had died of a snakebite.
The next day, when Rafaqat came to his office, it was difficult to recognize him. He looked as though he had been sick for many years. Completely lost, he sat in the office as if he was in a different world. In the evening, he got up and went straight to his wife’s grave and sat there in the light of an earthen lamp till midnight as if waiting for his own death. God only knows when he returned home. From that day onwards, he would go to the graveyard every morning, sweep his wife’s grave, place garlands of flowers on it, light some incense sticks and recite the Koran till nine o’clock. In the evening, he would
