Unborn

Shabbir

‘Don’t do it, Shabbir!’ She slaps his moving hands. ‘Give it to me!’

Shabbir’s voice trembles like a river losing its way among sand dunes, ‘Please, my love, please.’

‘This is the one I hid last time na?’ She punches him in the chest and grabs his fist. ‘Caught you.’ The instant Rui throws her head back shrieking in victory, blood surges to his groin. Isn’t this what he lives for, her laughter, that takes him places? Starlit places that don’t rely on the moon’s phases, where his Abbu, still alive, pulls deeply from his hookah? Quiet places far from cold prison gates that forever clang shut on him?

Inhaling the fragrance of her hair, he feels lightheaded, and his resistance falters as she pulls the condom out of his loosening fist to toss it away. They consume each other. His amulet hangs over her glistening clavicles. He aches for her even as he enters her. He aches for her even as he sucks the juices greedily from the wad of chewing tobacco tucked under her lower lip. At this her laughter bubbles up again.

She digs her nails deep into his back and draws blood. He doesn’t hit her. No sudden slaps when his calloused hands squeeze her breasts. No bloodthirsty strangulation when she is caught in her final screams of frenzy, eyes rolling back, nails clawing at his taut brown skin. Shabbir only gazes deep into her eyes, both the good one and the bad, as he beats helplessly to the rhythms of their hungry, thrashing bodies. What kind of man doesn’t hit, throttle or knife his woman? The kind I will never trust, she tells herself.

He smokes a handmade cigarette, blowing out over his chai, a moment of perfect languor, when she steals over and slaps him across his bearded, pitted face. His nostrils flare, his large, blacklined eyes redden. He bares his teeth and spits in a projectile hitting the floor very close to her feet. Not onto her feet, though. He has never even spat at her. Once he resumes his smoking and tea-slurping, he stills her with his glazed eyes, and slurs hypnotically:

Phir kho na jaayein hum duniya ki bheed mein / Milti hai paas aane ki mohlat kabhi kabhi

Let’s not lose each other among the crowds of the world / Very seldom do we get this respite of closeness

‘You think I am Mumtaz and you are Shahjahan? Keep your fancy Urdu for your burqa clad beauties. With me you dance to

Choli ke pichhe kya hai, choli ke pichhe?

What is behind the choli, behind the choli?

Thrusting her small breasts out, and singing shrilly, she winks with her bad eye turning it into a tiny knob.

Asha

With the scent of Shabbir’s chai and cigarette smoke still clinging to her, humming choli ke pichhe kya hai, Rui enters the gleaming expanse of her employer’s kitchen – chrome steel, granite and glossy tiles – through the servant’s entrance. Putting aside her faded Louis Vuitton bag, she takes a quick look around. Upon finding Asha’s Mirinda bottle and sniffing at it, she pretends to gag and empties its contents into the sink. Refilling it with drinking water she chuckles, ‘Asha, how many times have I told you, water bottle must carry water only na.’ Checking under the lids of the simmering pots she finds a dish of chicken curry, nearly ready. Snatching a succulent cube from the burbling brown gravy with a spoon, she blows on it, and places it on her tongue with her fingers. After gulping down another glorious chunk she hurries into the servant’s bathroom to change into her work clothes, scrub off her makeup, and don her pale pink canvas apron.

In the dining room she pulls out the Sunday china from the fluted glass crockery cupboard, cutlery from the lacquered sideboard and two shiny place mats of Chinese silk. Cocking her head to catch voices if any, she is relieved to find no polite murmurs, no music from Alexa. This is very good. She feels exhausted after the long day and night of rumpled lovemaking with Shabbir. Exhausting, but never enough. She bites her lip at the memories of their shared frenzy.

Asha walks in with a fragrant pot of steamed basmati rice. She brightens up as she sees Rui, but hisses, ‘You are late again! Madam was asking about you.’ Then in an intimate whisper, she says, ‘Your lip – what happened to your lip? Did someone hit you?’ and pulls the edge of her dupatta to Rui’s lip.

For an imperceptible moment Rui leans into Asha but then jumps back, ‘Hey you, take your hand away. I am fine. Why do you always have to touch me? Mind your own business. What are you, a bitch permanently in heat?’

Asha’s whispers turn hoarse, ‘You are treating me like that again? Why are you always such a bitch? Every time a man fucks you, I turn into last month’s chicken fat from the dumpster?’

Although Rui still hates the matriarch from her first domestic job, she had learned a lot from that old, shrivelled hag. Even with her back bent with age she was always dressed in unwrinkled expensive beige cotton Banarasi sarees and smeared sandalwood on her forehead. She would screech at her only son, ‘As the man of the house it is your duty to keep the woman and servants in their place.’ Rui knows now to keep Asha in her place! Crazy lesbian, roommate, and the keeper of her secrets, Asha knows all the stories that could cost Rui her job, and make every maid-employment agency wash their hands off her. But Asha will never squeal. Asha is in love with her. But then who isn’t? 

‘You fucking bitch! Rui!’ Asha hurls from the kitchen, and sloshes the bottle full of water into the sink. Rui catches herself just in time, so her cackle is truncated into a half-hoot. Grabbing her stomach with one hand wiping laughter-tears with the other she leans on the sideboard to prevent herself from falling while also managing to grab a delicate porcelain bowl that she has knocked with her elbow.

Later that afternoon the two women sit facing each other on the kitchen floor, bowls of chicken curry, leftover basmati rice, a platter of sliced onions, and a clutch of dark green chilies placed between them. Asha scoops a ball of rice mixed with curry into her mouth and then chomps on a chili. Beads of sweat appear on her upper lip. Rui’s laugh lodges itself at the base of her throat, always ready to burst forth. The Mirinda bottle empty and uncapped, wobbles and rolls. Asha’s nose is turning red, her nose ring trembling. Rui lets her hooting laughter loose, but Asha continues to eat without appearing to pay heed. Both women’s faces are tear-streaked by the time their lunch is over; one still smarting from the loss of her fine imported alcohol, the other simply from laughing too much. Pulling out her green plastic box of chewing tobacco she first offers it to Asha before tucking some under her lower lip and settling into a nap.

The Lockdown

She knows this city, its rhythms, its lanes, and especially its most obscure parks and the most hidden bushes in those parks where even the most proficient hawaldars’ batons can never reach. Long before falling in love with Shabbir, she had fallen in love with the shadows, the rare pockets of stillness in this city that never slept, this city she thought she knew better than a lover’s body. But one day, something goes wrong. Someone hits pause catching the city in mid-heave, imprisoning everyone within their own homes. What happens to the homeless millions who sleep on footpaths, she wonders. But that isn’t her most pressing problem – Madam’s horrible midget of a boyfriend with an ugly greying French-beard is stuck right here in this house, their house. Madam is constantly on her computer and is constantly instructing Rui and Asha to spray surfaces with sanitiser, insisting they all wear their masks even within the house.

She watches the empty, dusty roads and thinks of Shabbir. Phone sex is not the same, she sighs. Asha tries hard to distract her from the thoughts of her male lover. She tells jokes, sings her film songs. ‘And Rui, this is new – the American President has recommended drinking bleach to kill the coronavirus!’

‘You know who must drink some bleach? This horrible man, the freeloading bastard, forever drinking, forever groping and forever barking at us to get the ashtray, to get a hot towel, to vacuum,’ Rui reacts tartly. The foul-disgusting-ugly man had even robbed Rui of her tobacco supply. Since the goddamned cigarette shops were shut, and he was craving nicotine so badly, he had begged Rui to sell him all of her tobacco. And he had paid so well, that she gave him her whole stash. ‘But you know what,’ she tells Asha while counting her rupees, ‘Madam deserves better than this bastard.’

Rummaging through discarded masks and empty packs of sanitiser, Rui picks out a used stapler pin from the dustbin in Madam’s study, straightens it painstakingly before sewing it very finely into the gusset of the underwear in her hands. It belongs to Madam’s-midget-of-a-bastard-of-a-boyfriend. It takes her nearly half an hour. It is perhaps the longest she has concentrated on something to do with sewing, but this needle is not a demure housewife’s domestic implement, this is Rui’s weapon of choice – sharp, near invisible, and it will make sure that its intervention is felt at all times. ‘This stitch is for grabbing Asha’s left boob, this one for pinching my ass – twice, this because you moved out of the way before I could spill the steaming cup of your favourite Darjeeling chai onto your crotch,’ she mutters, ‘and this is because my Madam doesn’t know what a filthy, disgusting cockroach of a man you are.’ Before she allows herself to admire her skilled, near invisible sewing and before stretching out her needle-worn fingers she irons the underwear, steaming it both front and back, folds it and places it almost lovingly in its drawer, right at the top. She manages to leave the room before bursting into delicious chuckles of anticipation. Revenge is a dish best served stapled and sewn.

As his hands keep flying to his crotch, as he jumps around on sofas and keeps checking the seats of dining chairs, Rui can see Madam’s mounting disapproval in a light frown on her clear forehead. The idiot is even squirming while walking to the bathroom to check if an insect is biting his precious jewels! Rui stuffs her fists in her mouth to quiet her bubbling gurgles of laughter before skipping off to find Asha and tell her about her genius artistry.

In spite of such fun times the lockdown is not bearable. ‘This is sheer madness. People have gone mad – the ministers, the public, everyone,’ she fumes. They are standing on their balcony beating steel plates with steel spoons to defeat the virus. She grins helplessly when she imagines the look on Shabbir’s face if he could see her now. Just then a bubble, a different kind of bubble rises up her throat. This one is green and sour. After managing only a couple of ridiculously loud steel clangs she rushes to the bathroom.

‘Fuck,’ she mutters wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. A tingle rises from her belly and blooms softly taking the shape of two glazed, blacklined eyes. Something settles in the middle of her chest. Fuck! She holds her head in her sweaty hands.

This is not going to be like those other times. No one is going to beat her, call her a dirty whore and drop her at a filthy clinic hidden in alleys where even stray dogs lose their way. The first time had been almost too easy – the grandmother from her first job had got a nurse to clean her up before firing her from the job and sending her away. The next time she found herself on a grimy stretcher with a masked man – no, doctor – no, who knew – who would never raise his eyes. The third time the bleeding went on for days. No, this time was going to be different. What was it going to be – a two-penny-cinema story? Shabbir will again start all about the damned nikaah. ‘Marriage,’ she spits viciously. The baby she could get rid of – she had plenty of practice, but how would she get rid of Shabbir?

She is sleeping a lot, and her clothes are getting snug. Thankfully Madam has been cleaning her cupboards, discarding clothes, cosmetics and shoes. Rui lies in bed trembling from her violent vomits. Asha wipes her brows with madam’s leftover cologne and massages her temples. When Rui wakes from a nightmare, Asha crawls under her sheets to hold her close, and strokes her hair. Rui eases into the warmth of Asha’s body, burying her nose deep between her breasts, breathing in Madam’s vodka in the impossible softness of Asha’s skin.

The image of the purposeless empty plastic Mirinda bottle makes Rui laugh again. The laugh grows and rumbles. She imagines the thing within her squirming. A slurping fills her ears, slips down her chest, settling in the same place where Shabbir’s glazed eyes had settled after her first instance of nausea. But it is Rui herself who is suckling hungrily, like a newborn, at Asha’s breast, as though her life depends on it. Asha gasps from the pain that Rui’s teeth and knuckles cause, but she continues to cradle her head. ‘Not again, Rui, please.’ Rui shuts Asha’s mouth with one free hand and continues to knead her breasts. ‘Rui, please,’ she whimpers into the palm of her hand, ‘we can raise this baby together.’

‘You fucked up whore! Did I ask you to raise this child with me? You want me to birth and raise a bastard child. You want to live with me, and then marry me, you unnatural, shameless bitch!’ In moments like these Rui can’t believe her own strength as she pushes Asha whose head bangs into the wall with a crack. Asha pulls at her clothes, turns towards the wall and lets out a wail. Rui makes no move to comfort her. She is still shocked at the force with which she has shoved Asha.

In this cupboard-sized room that they share, adjoining Madam’s two thousand square feet flat overlooking the Arabian Sea, this is all the dignity and space their fight can afford. Windowless air churns from a fan only a few feet overhead.

The filthiest of clinics would be shut, even if she somehow manages to sneak out. She knows she has to run away before the unborn bastard in her belly starts to show. But how? Her friends had waited and waited for a train that never came. They wouldn’t have left the railway station had they not been chased away by police batons and tear gas. Unknown to her, her hand slides down to her belly.

What a strange time to be in – this time outside of time. What a bizarre city to live in – this city she thought she knew so well. But above all, what a predicament – carrying a Muslim man’s unborn bastard in her womb. In her graveyard of a womb, she corrects herself. How many unborn babies has she killed so far? Three? Five? She needs to run away from Shabbir – that marriage-crazy Mussalman. She must put an end to Asha’s billowing pangs of motherhood – that fucking drunk of a lesbian. She needs to figure this one out. She counts the money she has made from selling her tobacco. The morning sickness is easing. She will figure this out.

Home

It takes a week of hiding in trucks, filled like cattle with people, hanging onto overfilled autos, and three whole nights of walking before she reaches her village which is located right in the centre of her country. ‘Social distancing, my ass,’ she mutters before finally throwing away her masks and sanitiser to lighten her luggage when there was nothing left to do but walk towards home.

‘What a whore I have birthed, what a whore. What a whore,’ Rui’s stupor is punctuated by the same slur every few hours. One hand on her belly, Rui pulls out a crisp currency note from her blouse and flings it at her mother. Tara’s unfocused gaze considers the money, her eager, trembling hands pick it, and she shuffles away. Rui is home. Home means alcohol; home means, death by alcohol. This is the same room where her Baba had choked on his own vomit after drinking for six hours straight on the very same night that they had buried her younger brother who had died of TB.

Survival is a guilt, an inheritance, and the only thread that binds Rui to Tara, the woman whose vagina had spat her out nearly three decades ago. Tara had buried her mother-self with the cold remains of her man within a day of burying her son – her only son. The living are never held in garlanded frames of memory. And daughters never measure up to sons. Rui knows she is no longer Tara’s child, but a blank cheque, an endless supply of alcohol for Tara would ensure a place to stay. Tara would, in a few weeks’ time sell the thing growing in Rui’s belly for a few thousands to build a pukka house. ‘More like build a distillery for country liquor,’ mutters Rui.

 Rui’s silent phone flashes through long days of insufferable heat. Incoming calls: Shabbir, Shabbir, Shabbir, Asha, Shabbir. But Rui only cares to pick up Madam’s calls, ‘Yes, Madam. My mother is getting better, Madam. This is second time corona, Madam. I will come right back, Madam. Sorry for causing you all the trouble. Thank you, Madam, thank you.’ Rui exhales. Madam pays well and doesn’t approve of unplanned long leaves. But Rui can’t show up to work with her belly the size of three ripe jackfruits. She knows Asha will save her job. Shabbir is the real problem. Why must lovers be so obstinate?

be piye hi sharaab se nafrat / ye jahalat nahi to phir kya hai

Such hatred for alcohol even without drinking / If this is not ignorance then what is

She could never tell Shabbir about Tara. Or her Baba. Why must he be so curious!

She thinks of a possible solution – Rui could ask Asha to murder him. In fact, if Rui gave away his true identity, Asha would certainly consider murdering him. Lucid as daylight, a scene bursts into her head: Asha, all of five feet, wearing her pale pink apron, with her smooth moon-like face is standing over Shabbir’s stabbed body. Gloating in victory, she flashes her slit-like eyes before chugging Madam’s vodka from her plastic Mirinda bottle and declares, ‘I will raise the child with Rui.’

Rui’s helpless laughter jiggles her belly. And the baby kicks. She touches the spot still laughing and mumbles softly, My baby, my bastard.

Tara returns bringing in the unbearable stench of country liquor, one that the distillery brews with acid from expired motor batteries. Nauseated Rui pulls herself up slowly placing her palm over her protruding navel and walks out of the room. She settles herself in the shade of the jackfruit tree she had once planted with Baba.

A few houses away she sees the woman in the torn saree, the same one she had seen yesterday and the day before. The one who sits outside the half-thatched house. The woman who had lost her newborn last month. ‘COVID-19!’ the exhausted compounder had yelled from behind a mask hanging below his chin. No one ever got to see the child’s dead body.

Rui stares at the woman’s gaze emanating from two vacant pools. If eyes were the windows to the soul, hers were pits of quicksand sucking Rui into nothingness. Rui’s hand touches her belly, the soft space of so many absences. Her aching legs drag her forward. Dust rises from the feet of scampering chicken, bleating lambs, dashing children, and Rui’s own swollen ones. The woman’s eyes move towards Rui, slide down and come to still at her middle. Rui clutches at her belly, her eyes fill, and for an impossibly long, blurry moment she can see nothing.

At once she sees absence, all around her, in the lushness of Baba’s jackfruit tree, in the stench rising from Tara’s rotting nostrils. What had she been running from? Why must she still run? The baby moves again bringing her shuffling to a halt. Her toes clench in the dust, her back gives and she sinks onto her haunches. For once held by the stone-like gaze of the bereft mother Rui is too exhausted to run. Or to laugh.