Maps for Lost Lovers

given no indication that he knows of the newspaper reports—he can’t read English very well and, even if he did, he would think buying The Afternoon an extravagant waste of 45p. He is insecure about—if not frightened of—talking to white people, so if he hears about the story it will be from an Urdu- or Punjabi-speaker. From now on they must make sure he doesn’t talk to Pakistanis and Indians. They must frighten him into not contacting anyone about anything: Some careless word of yours could easily reach the authorities and have you thrown out of the country — without you first having earned the money our plan will bring you.
    She leaves the door to continue the work she had interrupted to serve the early customers, the sound of her granddaughters reaching her through the ceiling as they get up to begin celebrating the festival—this dard di raunaq, this Eid of unhappiness. But five minutes later and it’s her daughter-in-law that has come down the stairs, pointing at the shop’s entrance as she rushes towards it, shouting: “She’s outside. Open the door and stop her.”
    “Who?” she asks her, but the daughter-in-law—her breathless haste upsetting a stack of Metro Milan joss-stick packets, which tumble to the floor from the shelf in a fragrant primary-coloured heap—is struggling with the door.
    “ Who is outside?” she repeats and then the olive-green boxes of Kasuri methi fall from her own hands: Chanda? “My Chanda? Where?”
    She runs to the door—murmuring, “My Allah, does Your kindness towards Your creatures know any limits?”—and follows the daughter-in-law outside. The road is empty, and the daughter-in-law is looking around, now rushing to stand in the middle of the leaf-strewn road, now coming back to its edge.
    “You saw my Chanda ? Where? Just now?” Some hours are potent beyond measure, making wishes—uttered by heart or tongue—come true, regardless of whether they are genuinely meant.
    Instead of answering, the daughter-in-law whispers to herself: “But she was right here, a moment ago.” And to her mother-in-law she finally explains, trying to keep exasperation out of her voice, “No, not Chanda, mother-ji. It was the girl who came here back in the summer. I told you about her. The illegal immigrant.” She goes to stand in the middle of the road again. “Where has she gone? She couldn’t have gone far in the time it took me to come out here. She wears one of those lockets containing a miniature Koran.”
    Chanda’s mother lowers herself onto the front step, moving aside to let the daughter-in-law go back into the shop. The young woman mimics in passing what she had said earlier: “ ‘You saw my Chanda ? You saw my Chanda ?’ ” And hisses: “For God’s sake! She’s dead. ”
    Chanda’s mother stays on the front step for five minutes, looking dazedly ahead but then the daughter-in-law comes back down full of remorse and places a hand on her shoulder, telling her to come in out of the cold. “I am sorry, I forget sometimes that things have been just as bad for you. If not worse. I am losing a husband, but in your case it’s two sons and a daughter. I am sorry.” She tells the daughter-in-law not to worry about her, sends her up to dress the little girls and begins to rearrange the joss-stick packets on the shelf, mechanically picks up the olive-green Kasuri methi.
    The light of the world has gone out. Above all she has to beg forgiveness from the souls of Chanda and Jugnu, for the elaborate lie she has helped construct in order to save her sons. If only there was a grave: she’d go and bury her face in the earth where they lie waiting to be questioned by the angels on Judgement Day.
    She stands in the shop, holding a dozen bottles of rosewater, and brings Chanda’s face before her eyes. How to explain the bond she had with her daughter? There she was, thinking that she had had her last ever period more than seven months ago, that that was it now as far as menstruation was concerned—her breath changed odour, her heart palpitated, her hands and feet became chilled—but then one night she dreamt of Chanda and woke up to find herself flowing again from down there, the place that, in her case, had proved to be the portals both of life and of death: Chanda came out of there, as did her killers.

WINTER

A THOUSAND BROKEN MIRRORS
    December; and today was the last day of the trial. It lasted a total of five days and the jury returned the verdict two