The Complete Short Stories

tree and decided to spend the night in the masjid. A ragged mat lay there, and he dropped down on it. Exhausted by the day, he fell asleep the moment he lay down. Who knows how long he slept. Suddenly, startled by a sound, he woke up to find an old man sitting near him and offering namaz. Nadir was astonished to see someone offering namaz so late into the night. He had no idea that the night had passed by and it was the namaz of dawn. He continued to lie down and watch. The old man completed the namaz, then raised his hands in invocation. Listening to those words, Nadir’s blood ran cold. It was a sharp, genuine, constructive criticism of his reign, one that he had never heard before. He had been given the opportunity of hearing of his disrepute in his own lifetime. He knew that his reign was not exemplary but he had not imagined that the problems had become so intolerable. The invocation went like this:

‘Oh God! You alone are the saviour of the poor and the support of the needy. You can see this cruel emperor’s tyranny but your wrath has not struck him down. This faithless kafir is so enamoured by a beautiful woman that he has forgotten himself; he neither sees with his eyes nor hears with his ears. When he sees, it is through the eyes of that woman, when he hears it is through her ears. This hardship can no longer be borne. Either you send this bully to hell or take us needy people away from this world. Iran is fed up of this oppression and you alone can save her from this calamity.’

The old man picked up his staff and walked away but Nadir lay there like a dead man, as if he’d been struck by lightning.10

For one week Nadir did not go to the durbar, nor did he allow any official to come near him. Day after day he stayed inside and wondered what he could do. Just as a token he would eat something. Laila would go to him every now and then and, sometimes with his head upon her lap or her arms clasped about his neck, ask, ‘Why are you so sad and worried?’ Nadir would look at her and weep but would not utter a word. The people’s respect or Laila, this was the tough choice before him.

A fierce battle raged in his heart and he could resolve nothing. Fame was sweet but Laila sweeter. He could live with infamy but he could not imagine life without Laila. Laila pervaded every pore of his being.

Finally he decided—Laila is mine, I am Laila’s. Neither of us can bear to be separated from the other. Whatever she does I own, whatever I do she owns. Is there any difference between what is mine and what is hers? Monarchy is mortal, love, immortal. We will be together till eternity and experience the bliss of paradise. Our love will remain like a star in the sky till the end of time.

Nadir arose with happiness. His face was aglow with the light of triumph. His eyes brimmed over with valour. He was going to drink from the cup of love for Laila, the cup he had not brought to his lips for a week. His heart leapt with the same joy that had bubbled five years ago. The flowers of love never wilt, the elation never fades.

But the doors of Laila’s sleeping chamber were shut and her tambourine that always hung on a nail outside her door was missing. Nadir’s heart skipped a beat. The closed doors probably meant that Laila was in the garden, but where had the tambourine gone? Maybe she had taken the tambourine along to the garden, but why was there a pall of gloom? Why does this yearning overwhelm me?

Nadir opened the doors with trembling hands. Laila was not there. The bed had been made, tapers had been lit, the water for ablutions was there. Nadir’s legs shook. Had Laila not even slept there at night? Each and every object in the room carried Laila’s memory, her stamp, her fragrance, but Laila was not there. The house seemed desolate, like unseeing eyes.

Nadir’s heart brimmed over. He could not muster the courage to question anyone. His heart was torn apart. Like an insensate he sat on the floor and wept inconsolably. When his tears stopped he sniffed the bed so that perhaps some palpable smell of Laila would arise, but save for the odour of musk and rose, there was no other fragrance.

Suddenly he saw a fragment of paper sticking out from beneath the pillow. With one hand on his breast he drew out the fragment and looked at it with wary eyes. At a glance he understood everything. It was the verdict of Nadir’s destiny. Nadir cried aloud, ‘Oh Laila!’ And he fell upon the floor senseless. Laila had written—

My beloved Nadir, your Laila is going away from you forever. Don’t try to look for me, you will find no clue. I was a slave of your love, not hungry for your crown. For the last one week I have observed that your gaze looks elsewhere. You don’t talk to me, don’t lift up your eyes to look at me. You seem to have tired of me—you cannot imagine the desires with which I go to you, and how forlorn I return. I have done nothing to deserve such a punishment. Whatever I have done is only with your welfare in mind. I have spent an entire week weeping. I have begun to feel that I have now fallen in your eyes, been banished from your heart. Aah! These five years will always be remembered, will always torment me! I brought this tambourine with me when I came, I’m now taking it away with me. After enjoying the pleasures of love for five years, I now leave branded with a yearning for