The Rose

“All right, tum, if you insist,” she smiled. “Tum—all right.”

This was all so strange, so unforeseen. For he remembered all that time very well. He had lost all sense of direction. In the evening he would wander around alone on deserted streets for hours, and then he would go over to her house and just slump down into a chair. Sometimes, when the desire for company became very oppressive and she happened to be all alone in the house, he would lift his head up and say something to her, just anything, like: “Sarwat, do you have any idea where I was roaming around before I got here?” Or, “Come, talk to me … I’m tired.” Or, “Why are you always working—crazy?” And still working away in her slow, impersonal manner, she would make some gesture or merely utter something; putting him back into the state of peace he had been desperately seeking. And then there was that time later on, just after his marriage. He asked her, “Sarwat, how do you like Bilqees?” and she had replied, “Bhabi is nice. I like her a lot …” in a tone which he still remembered vividly, a tone which sent a chill through his body even now when he thought about it, not because it was tinged with envy or sadness, but because it sounded so aloof, so metallic. It was so unexpected. And then there was also the time when his wife—the only person besides his mother he could get close to—had died. The incident had left him broken, lost. Sitting by her one day, the words just spilled out of his mouth, “Bibi, you tell me—why?” And she had replied, “Be patient!” Just about everyone had parroted these words to him—these words devoid of meaning and packed with utter indifference. They hurt a lot coming from her, too. Yes, these times and the many others before and after in which he had thought that they had met as equals; they were still alive in his memory.

“These things you say, Bibi, they’re all so shocking.”

“Bibi, Bibi,” she exploded, “Bibi?”

“What?”

“Am I a sheep, goat, or what? Don’t I have a name? Don’t I—”

“Sarwat!”

“That’s better. Sarwat … that’s my name.”

“Sarwat!”

“All my life you have never called me by my name, or acknowledged my existence, or considered me worth anything … anything at all.…”

“Anything at all?” his mouth hung open in mounting disbelief.

“You have gone on pronouncing my name—mechanically, that’s all. But you’ve constantly ignored …”

“Ignored—what?”

“Me!” she screamed. “Me!”

“I don’t understand.”

“You never gave it a thought, did you, that I, too, am a human being, like you, like everyone else. That I see, think, feel, and have an existence all my own. Just as you have, just as everybody else has.”

“But Sarwat, I have always …”

“Cared for me? Right? Have been around me—always? Oh yes. Have been familiar and close? Yes, that is also correct. But totally indifferent all the same. How terribly indifferent—have you ever thought about it?”

“Wrong. Absolutely wrong. It’s you who have been indifferent.”

“My misfortune, Naim, is that you know me from the time when I was a mere toddler who ran about barefoot in the alleyways with nothing on but short pants, while you pulled my hair. Oh, yes—you were very familiar with me, but equally unmindful of me. You’ve always been. And if I’ve been indifferent, blame it on that familiarity which drew a curtain between us, making me too shy for words.”

“That was your mistake.”

“Mistake? More like my helplessness.”

“I don’t understand. You draw the wrong conclusion from our childhood friendship.”

“So should I draw one from childhood enmity instead? Enmity means nothing. Enmity is foolishness. Friendship is what hurts. Look at me. Take me in—all of me. There, take a good look at me. You’ve never ever really looked at me. I am a woman, a person … has that never occurred to you?”

“I’ve never been unmindful of you.”

“Oh, yes. You have always been mindful of me, but in exactly the same manner as you have been mindful of this chair, or that table, or that date palm over there. But have you ever considered me for what I truly am?”

“I have always considered you as Sarwat. Jawed’s sister. A very dear person. A reasonable, decent girl …”

“Do you even know what ‘reasonable, decent girl’ means?” she said, throwing her hands up in the air indignantly. “Where we live, a ‘reasonable, decent girl’ is another name for a cow—a mere chattel, counting for nothing, always taken for granted, accepted, and ignored, yes always ignored.”

“Aren’t you over‑reacting … a bit? Think with a cool head …”

“After a lifetime of sheer torture, who can keep her head cool? One cannot even think. You men … you treat us so badly.”

“We men?”

“Yes—you men.”

“Oh, Sarwat,” he said, feeling utterly tired, “am I really to blame for it?”