Maps for Lost Lovers

Khomeini following the Iranian Revolution to ask him to reconsider his zeal, quoting from the Koran and the sayings of the Prophet, peace be upon him, against his excesses.
    She accused her father of not checking what kind of people he was handing over his daughter to: surely, the clues were everywhere if he had cared to look. Just after the engagement, Shamas’s mother had wondered whether Kaukab would like to rub bird shit into her face, claiming it would enhance her complexion, and she sent her a cage of Japanese nightingales which Kaukab kept just for their song!
    Charag, after giving her the devastating news, stayed for less than an hour, leaving her alone with her grief and tears.
    She wept as she prepared the food in honour of Jugnu’s white woman—a feast celebrating the fact that they were sinners! The two guests would come after eight, around the same time as Shamas, who had a Communist Party meeting that night; and since Ujala was staying with a friend, Kaukab was alone in the house, alone in the house just as she was alone in the world, alone to let out a noisy sob whenever she felt the need, and as though in harmony with her own state the sky darkened around six and it began to rain noisily. It was just after seven that she happened to see herself in the mirror: the whites of her eyes were veined with blood, her face was red, her eyelids were swollen, and her hair was in disarray (she had beaten her head with her hands several times in a fit of grief ten minutes ago).
    She did not have the energy to clean herself up—let Shamas come home and see what he and his family and his children had done to her— but she washed her face nevertheless and oiled and combed her hair because the white woman was coming.
    She sprayed perfume into her armpits, and rubbed moisturiser into her flaky grey elbows. She had never met a white person at such an intimate level as she would tonight, and for several days now she had been wondering which of her shalwar-kameez s she should wear, settling on the blue one that had a print of white apple blossoms. She clicked open the lid of the face-powder container for the first time in ten years and the smell the cracked pieces of powder gave off took her back to her younger days. Delicately, she patted the fawn-coloured powder over the eyelids, to hide the dark circles and the wrinkles, to bring out the eyes that had sunk into her skull over the years. Allah, the pores on either side of her nose were deep enough to lose coins in. She plucked hairs out of her eyebrows. (Must remember to take out exactly the same number from the other brow.) She wondered which earrings she should wear as she painted her mouth with the pale reddish-brown lipstick. Too much? She wiped it off and started again, and wondered whether she should try eyeliner and just the smallest hint of mascara, wishing her daughter was still living at home to provide guidance on such matters. She struggled hard not to cry at that but failed; in the end, however, she had to restrain herself because she had also to practise her English in the mirror. And it too was hopeless: what was a person to do when even things in England spoke a different language than the one they did back in Pakistan? In England the heart said “boom boom” instead of dhak dhak; a gun said “bang!” instead of thah!; things fell with a “thud,” not a dharam; small bells said “jingle” instead of chaanchaan; the trains said “choo choo” instead of chuk chuk . . . The eyebrows were still a little unruly, she decided towards the end, and rummaged in the cupboard where Ujala kept his things: she managed to locate the jar of hair gel and smoothed a little of it on each brow to tame the hairs. Shouldn’t she take some of the powder off her face: the layers looked so thick she could’ve scratched a message on her forehead with a nail. After she was ready, at last, there was just enough time to attend to the few last details of the meal: she went into the back garden with her sewing scissors to clip leaves of coriander to sprinkle over the mung dahl. And that was when a ten-year-old girl from the neighbourhood saw her from the other side of the lane, crossed over, looked at her contemplatively for a few seconds, and then said quietly in the flat tones of one making an innocent observation:
    “But surely, auntie-ji, you look like a eunuch.”
    Shooing the child away, who must have seen eunuchs dancing at a wedding during a visit to Pakistan