Maps for Lost Lovers

continues: “I know without you having told me that your wife is the most important fact of your life. I made decisions in a dazed state just like you.” She continues in a more amenable tone: “Shamas, you know that a man can have more than one wife . . .”
    Yes, he knows that. A man came to Muhammad and said he was unhappy. The Prophet advised him to get married. He returned some time later, married, but still complaining of unhappiness. Muhammad said, “Get married again.” The man was back after a while, twice married—and happy.
    “I know you are angry, Shamas. Don’t think I didn’t care for you—I haven’t slept with anyone besides my husband.”
    “I am just trying to understand what you were doing. How were you hoping to have me divorce you after the marriage?”
    “I didn’t think that far ahead. I didn’t know what I was doing then just as I don’t know what I am doing now. I close my eyes and wish all of it into non-existence, beginning with me going to the house of the enemy that day in Pakistan. I walk around missing my son, my husband, mourning my mother, begging forgiveness from Allah for committing sin with you, and, yes, I ask Him to forgive me for deceiving you.”
    “I don’t think you are to blame. And don’t forget you went to that house to save that young girl’s life.” He turns towards her where she’s lowered herself onto the rug beside him: he touches the edge of her veil.
    “I wonder sometimes about my motives. It was perhaps all vanity on my part. I wanted to be the centre of attention in that small restricted place, wishing people would think I was brave enough to save a girl’s life, exposing the criminal acts of her uncle, and, perhaps, even bringing an end to a decades-old feud. Maybe all this is Allah punishing me for my pride and vanity. I was so tired of living in that little place, I wanted to be looked at, appreciated, wanted stimulation.”
    “These are very human failings. Don’t feel bad.”
    She talks on in a low monotone: “I could speak English, I was quite pale-skinned, I had more knowledge of certain things than anyone else in that village. I pretended to be superior at times. That my mind had access to the higher secrets of life was, of course, a charade, a pretence.” She gives a little laugh to ridicule herself. “Knowledge! I was corralled up in that wretched third-rate Islamic school for most of my learning years, committing to memory the names of all the Prophet’s wives. I know how pedestrian my intellect and my understanding of life really are, how basic and limited my knowledge of life is. I was— am —terrified of having my ignorance exposed whenever I talked to someone who is really educated, someone like you.”
    “I don’t know anything.”
    She ignores him again, “Of course I could have been something. But to become that would have required long demanding work, a life dedicated to the pursuit of it—”
    “And even then nothing is guaranteed.”
    “I liked the look of awe and admiration on my husband’s face when I quoted—not always accurately—something from one of the poems I knew because, yes, it flattered me a little, and then the very next moment I was filled with shame and disgust, because I know no one acquires real knowledge because of vanity. ”
    “Don’t torment yourself like that.”
    “Do you know what the matchmaker said to me back in spring, after I rejected every prospect she had presented me with? I said none of them were good enough for me, but she smiled and said, ‘On the contrary, my haughty and proud beauty. I have a feeling that you want someone to whom you could feel superior. You feel that these are too good for you.’ I wonder if there was an element of truth in what she said.”
    “Forget about all of that and try to think reasonably about the future now.”
    “The future? I fear that if I stay away from my son for too long one day I’ll be told that he remembers me only when he is reminded of me by others, coaxed into thinking about me.” And then she says suddenly, “My Allah, Shamas, why didn’t you stop me just now when I was talking so disrespectfully of Islam? What is wrong with me sometimes? And you make it possible for me to think and talk like that: now I know what your wife means when she says your talk led Charag, Mah-Jabin, and Ujala astray.” She buries her face in her hands. “What would Allah think of my disrespectful talk? My being apart from my son and