Maps for Lost Lovers

and hers are never in the kitchen.
    The extractor fan has been on for over an hour now and will continue to work into the evening.
    She wonders if she should ring Shamas at the office and let him know that Ujala has arrived. But she is still a little apprehensive about the telephone because two days ago, when she had dialled a wrong number, she was told to, “Get off the phone and go back to your country, you Paki bitch.” She is glad Shamas doesn’t drive: accidents happen, and you never know what kind of person you would have grazed the vehicle of or offended with your way of driving, what kind of name he or she would choose to call you in public.
    From the floor she takes up the glove that had fallen out of Ujala’s coat pocket and places it on top of the coat next door. The wool is bright green, vivid red, a deep yellow reminiscent of linseed oil. Children’s primary colours. In winter the tiny mittens and gloves are all across the town centre, lone and lost, along with dropped mufflers and misplaced pompom hats. It is almost as though there is a conspiracy among the toddlers to replace the colours now that the hanging baskets containing the annual flowers have been taken down for the year, the wrought-iron brackets affixed to lamp-posts remaining empty until next summer.
    She had turned off the cassette player when Ujala arrived, but now she switches it back on: so as not to disturb him, the volume is turned low, like the faint whiff from a long-empty scent bottle. She cuts the cauliflower into florets, and as she washes them in a basin her hand becomes a starfish, the florets among which it moves appearing like a coral reef. Getting the mutton-and-potato and the pea-and-cauliflower curries started and kneading the dough for the chappatis takes her to one o’clock. Turmeric has dyed the tips of her fingers golden as though with the yellow dust of lotus blossoms. She wipes the table until it is as wet and clean as an eye. It is time for the noon prayer, but before that she tiptoes upstairs and, asking herself to be courageous, goes into the room where Ujala is asleep and carries away the jar of coins. She hides it under the sink, his comment about the suicide flying inside her head the way the silver ball zigzags inside a pinball machine. She had heard somewhere that one Japanese emperor had taken his life by inhaling gold leaf, and she wonders whether the edible gold leaf could be used by someone for similar purposes. Having performed her ablutions, she says her prayers on the velvet prayer-mat, bending and straightening with immense pain, and afterwards she opens the front door to see if there is anyone outside the church—in order to ask them to go in and see if a Song of Solomon cake can be bought: it has all the spices mentioned in that Christian poem and it has been a favourite of Ujala ever since he tried it at a school fair. She doesn’t have time to look in the direction of the church because she finds Mah-Jabin sitting on the doorstep, a bunch of Madonna lilies—coned-up in red paper—held against her breast like an infant.
    “I rang the bell,” Mah-Jabin says as she gets up.
    “I was saying my prayers. I didn’t hear anything at all.”
    “I hope I didn’t disturb you. I knocked too,” the girl says apologetically, placing the lilies on the table.
    “My mind wandered during the prayer twice. There is nothing that torments Satan more than the sight of a faithful in prayer. He succeeded in distracting me today. I began wondering about what kind of gold leaf the Japanese have?”
    Mah-Jabin smiles. “Are we having vermicelli for dessert?”
    “I was just asking Ujala if he remembered calling them ‘princess’s hair.’ ”
    Mah-Jabin, unwrapping the lilies, looks at Kaukab. “He left before the rest of us were up. When did he come?”
    “He came around ten. Mah-Jabin, he looks so thin.”
    Ujala is as healthy as a footballer, as a ballet dancer, but Mah-Jabin doesn’t wish to contradict Kaukab so early. She goes into the sitting room to get the vase. The pink tulips had turned violet as they had dried up in dying, a petal here and there leaning away from the cup of the others like a resting insect that hasn’t quite succeeded in shaking its wings into perfect order upon alighting.
    After the lilies, Mah-Jabin goes upstairs to the bathroom (where all those years ago she had sat with a knitting needle, not knowing how to proceed). She takes off the silk scarf and hangs it from the