Maps for Lost Lovers

where he is except that he stands far from any friend. His eyes travail until his sight is sore and strained: his vision fails and he sees no new world in the vasts of the darkness. He knows humans are mere shadows across the face of time, stuff to fill graves. He feels he’s walking along life’s road with a thumb extended to hitch a ride on a hearse. And no one has ever reported looking into a grave and seeing a door to another world in one of its sides; in any case, if it exists nobody living may be said to have the key to it.
    While the girl was being buried today, someone’s raised voice had brought to a halt the shovelfuls of earth that were being thrown on top of the white-shrouded form lying in the pit: the news had been brought that the dead girl’s fourteen-year-old sister had placed a letter within the folds of the shroud, a message of love for her departed elder sister to take into the next world. Since Islam forbade such a practice—nothing may be buried with the body—Shamas had watched with terror as the men climbed down into the grave and pushed aside the earth to uncover the body. They exposed the soiled shroud to the haze of the afternoon, while the air flowed a sad amber and the bees hovered noisily around the bouquets and wreaths of flowers that were lying around waiting to be placed on the filled grave. The funeral resumed only when the letter had been discovered. “Minions of Satan!” said some of the men through clenched teeth when everyone was walking away from the grave later: the letter wasn’t from the dead girl’s sister—it was from her secret infidel Hindu lover, who had persuaded one of the women who had bathed and prepared the corpse to secrete it into the shroud. “Women and infidels: minions of Satan both!” The letter was passed around, a whole page filled with neat handwriting: “Such filth—what would the angels have thought had they found this upon her person in the grave?”
    You, who have gone gathering the flowers of death,
My heart’s not I, I cannot teach my heart:
It cries when I forget.
    Shamas caught sight of these words before one of the grave robbers tore up the letter into several pieces and threw it into the lake like a handful of white blossoms—a garland stolen from the dead.
    He must stop thinking about death. He needs to touch Suraya, her youth, the life in her, feel her living breath on his face. His eyes search for her now among the members of the audience, but he cannot locate her. Oh, cut off the beak of this bird that says . . . beloved . . . beloved . . . She is a believer and must feel that it’s wrong for her to meet him: occasionally during their meetings he has seen a war raging in her expression, a wild internal disorder, the dinful strife of faith and disbelief.
    He changes his position several times within the enclosure but has definitely lost her.
    Outside, as he walks out of the marquee, past the roses’ stare, the dark-blue night air is stroking the lake’s surface, the ripples washed with moon’s pale silver light. At dawn the reflections of the sunlit ripples would be projected on to the bellies of the birds that would fly above the lake. Where is she? He is walking away, along the moonlight and glinting water of the shore, Nusrat’s voice becoming dimmer with each step, singing of wounded lovers, dancing proudly in the face of death and ruin. No clear path is available to him in the darkness and the trees creak like ships’ masts around him. His knees touch past tall wild flowers and grasses as he walks on. Where did she go? Only occasionally does he find a curved path that lies like a dismembered limb almost concealed by the tender cirri and tendrils of growth. Like hurrying skateboarders all around him, gusts of wind arrive occasionally, swerving, landing, gambolling and taking off here and there, all weave and waver. He has arrived at the edge of the cemetery, the graves outlined by foot-high fences, scrolling delicately like musical stands. Isn’t it in one of these dreaming clusters of trees that the two ghosts roam, calling out to him without opening their mouths?
    He stops because there is movement nearby, and he hears his name being spoken.
    “Shamas-uncle-ji.”
    The dead girl’s lover steps out of the shadows ahead of him. “Uncle-ji, I am lost. Could you please guide me to her . . . to her . . . grave . . . her resting place.” He’s holding a bunch of orchids in his hands. “I’d like to give her