Free Love Across Borders by Naheed Hassan, Sabahat Muhammad Page B

the family could not wait; they went ahead with the
burial, presenting her with a garlanded photograph
later.
    She took back the photograph and
the plate in which he was supposed to have had his last meal,
embraced his mother at the airport, promising to return, not
knowing that it wasn’t really expected of her at all. So every May
when she called them with her arrival date and flight time, they
sent Shambu to receive her and planned sightseeing tours to
Golconda, Shamirpet Lake and Chowmahalla Palace, hoping the
overeager driver would compensate for their detached hospitality.
Munira didn’t really mind. As long as in the evenings, she could
sit in the kitchen, memorizing the walls Salim had known, inhaling
the aromas that had wafted around him, she really didn’t mind.
    And now Shambu was walking
towards her holding cups of chai and pink
candyfloss.
    She took the chai and
raised her eyebrows at the florescent sugar.
    “Shambu, this is for children.”
    “I’ll eat it.”
    This was supposed to be endearing,
he thought. A grown man in sensible shoes with a sticky, sweet,
pink moustache. In his mind, the image was cute but she wasn’t
smiling. First the banana and now this candy; maybe she thought he
was weird with food.
    “We should be like children
sometimes, you know,” he explained to redeem himself.
    “Why are children always supposed
to be sweet and innocent? They can be cruel too.”
    Shambu probably knew more about
this than her, what with the two adolescents whom he ferried to All
Saints High School every day, but he didn’t say anything. Once,
they had spent the ride home digging their heels into his backrest,
pushing to see if he would object. He hadn’t said a word. Another
time, just after he had cleaned the car and dropped them to school,
he found the backseat littered with peanut skins, all arranged to
make a smiley face.
    But still he said, “They laugh. At
least they laugh. Maybe that is worth all the trouble they
cause.”
    He wouldn’t have dared this kind of
familiarity with the rest of the family but he reasoned that since
Munira hardly seemed to register him, he couldn’t really offend
her. In the house, he sat on the floor or stood on the veranda if
he was offered tea. With her, he could dare to plonk on the same
wooden bench, his buttocks at the same level as hers, even daringly
close to hers.
    A few hours earlier, driving out of
Himayat Sagar, they had completed the itinerary for the day. But
the trip had been shorter than expected and he did not want to her
return to the cold house and their curious stares. Hence this
strange detour to the zoo. He lied about the exotic animals so
passionately, that eventually she gave in and they stood behind a
line of schoolgirls to buy tickets.
    He often told himself not to think
of the quietly bold woman, the educated, petite, pixie-like widow
who was left in his care once a year. After all, he had served the
woman’s husband. Shambu had been much younger then, a mere errand
boy, but the family had paid for his driving lessons and he soon
took over his aging father’s place at the wheel of the Honda Civic.
Now Shambu had a bride-to-be waiting in Lucknow; they were to be
married in December after which she would join him as nanny for the
child that the youngest daughter-in-law was expecting.
    And yet, on the hard bench of the
zoo, Shambu found his gaze drawn towards Munira’s eyelashes. The
way she constantly adjusted her headscarf, the way her loneliness
spread around her like an aura, like a shield, refusing to allow
anyone access. Would she ever move on? But then she’d never return,
would she?
    He shook away these conflicting
thoughts and focused on the tea. It was very hot.
    “It’s very hot, no?”
    She nodded and said, “Yes” and
gently blew on the tea before taking a tentative sip.
    The sun emerged softly from behind
a cloud and lit up the bench. Munira looked so beautiful then, her
cheekbones highlighted, her earlobes translucent,