Blue Dust by Ayesha Salman

Author:Ayesha Salman [Roli Books Pvt. Ltd.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788174369062
Publisher: Roli Books
Published: 2012-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Although Devi and Zaib were writing to each other regularly, it became more and more difficult for Zaib to stay away from Devi for long periods of time, and she frequently visited her in Lahore. She and Hassan had started talking less at dinner though they often wondered what the other was thinking. One night as she lay beside him she thought of Larkin’s poem “Talking in Bed” and the lines resonated in her head over and over, “Dark towns heap up on the horizon…. At this unique distance from isolation it becomes still more difficult to find words at once true and kind, or not untrue and not unkind”. Her need for him was growing and so was her love, yet the loneliness multiplied everyday heavy on her chest like dead air. One morning she woke up in a submarine looking out of an oval window at rainbow-coloured fish and felt she had been buried alive. But then there were days when Hassan would cover her feet with a blanket in the winter, just before leaving for work on tiptoes.

Devi wrote to her again, five months after the last letter.

Zaib

I am sorry it is always so long between letters. It has been so hectic with the boys at school. Asad has been missing classes and his teacher called me to the office. It was so embarrassing. It’s all because of their father you know. He is never home. I can’t discipline them on my own. I feel so powerless sometimes. But then sometimes he is good to us. We are well provided for and he is never nasty to me. Well, that’s life. It’s all written for us Zaib. (Yes, thought Zaib, it is all written, all pre-ordained, all decided, as if we were vegetables, or worse still animals for the slaughter, caged, impotent.) How are you both? The desert is very exotic; you must make the most of it! Come and visit when you get the chance, both of you. I will write again soon. In the meantime don’t forget it is my husband’s birthday on the 3rd of next month, don’t forget to send him a card.

I love you. Look after yourself,

Devi

Devi’s face looked sad. A sad face of acceptance. She killed her over and over again in her mind.

‘Daddy, she is so subservient to that monster, she even wants us to send him a birthday card!’

‘Zaib, we all are weak in one way or another. Just don’t send the card.’

But she could detect the signs of misery in Devi’s letter because she knew her sister, she knew her sister like she knew her father’s mango trees, every tremor, every ache, every new beginning. She told Hassan she had to go to her immediately. As she was leaving for the airport she looked back at him. ‘Never stop loving me.’

He hugged her, ‘Zaib, I will always love you. Just come back soon ok?’

And he did. He always loved her.

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