Free Revenge by Taslima Nasrin Page B

spite of myself, I began to hate him.
    That night I asked him about investing in Anis’s business. “That is a complicated affair. You would not understand!”
    “Why not? Anis has told me about the business in Chittagong. You have taken the rest of your family into your confidence. Why can’t you tell me? As your wife, shouldn’t I be the first person to know?”
    “What good would it do for you to know?”
    “Do you think me so stupid that I wouldn’t understand?”
    “Who says you are stupid?” Haroon’s eyes were glittering. “You are clever as a fox—or else you wouldn’t have landed me in such a spot!”
    “What have I done?”
    “You rushed me into marrying you.”
    “You had no desire to marry me?”
    “Of course I had. But not so soon.”
    “I was in love with you—I wanted to be with you!”
    “Come on! Don’t try to outwit me!”
    “What are you talking about?”

    Haroon calmed down. “The truth of the matter is that I love you and you only and I don’t believe any man in the world would do for you what I do for you, but please, I beg of you, don’t try to deceive me anymore.”
    And that’s how it was. I wasn’t allowed to go to see my parents lest I deceive Haroon. I was not allowed to step outside the house lest I deceive Haroon. His jealousy had built a cage around me, chalked out my limited existence. His jealousy was so deep he had destroyed his own child, but convinced himself he still loved me despite my “deceit.”
    Anis’s suggestion that we take a few days at the sea had been excruciating. How could I enjoy the world when I saw it only from the corner of a balcony or through a car window? How could I, who was no longer allowed a glimpse of the open sky, remain truly alive?

8
    A young couple rented the ground floor of our house, and the wife, who was a gynecologist, now often came to see me. I hadn’t told her about the abortion, but she could tell I was not feeling well and brought me all kinds of remedies. As time went on, Sebati and I became friends and talked of many things, though, as good faithful wives, never about our personal lives. She and her husband, Anwar, who ran a nonprofit organization, had recently traveled to Sunderbans, to the tiger reserve there. Tigers are solitary animals, Sebati told me. A tiger moves alone rather than with a family as lions do. The female tiger and her mate come together during the mating season, but move apart when she produces a cub, otherwise there is danger the male may devour his child. Sebati could not know how sorry I felt for the tigress, how intimately I understood her loneliness.
    Sebati worked at the medical college, and because Anwar so often traveled, she was free to come up to our place on days she wasn’t on call at the hospital. Everyone in the family liked her, especially Amma, who carried on to her about all her aches and pains and about Abba’s arthritis. The family
was so grateful for her free medical advice that no one objected to the frequency of her visits. She wrote prescriptions for everyone in the house, and whenever she came to see us, Amma prepared tea and toast, serving her as if she were an honored guest, coddling her as if she were family.
    One afternoon, as we drank tea in my room, Sebati looked at me and said, in a lowered voice. “Why aren’t you having a baby, Jhumur?”
    “I’m going to. Haroon cannot wait—”
    Pulling closer, she asked, “Do you have sex regularly?”
    I blushed and turned my face away. Sebati had no inhibitions. “Are you getting your period on time?” she asked.
    “Of course.”
    “I get mine regularly too. Lets see who gets pregnant first! Listen,” she said, her eyes glistening, “you must not miss having sex on the thirteenth day, even if you feel like abstaining on other days.” I was still blushing, but Sebati went right on. She told me how Anwar came home to make love to her every afternoon following the tenth day of her cycle. “I rest during the