Tahirul turned the light off and said in alarm, ‘I can’t understand what you are up to!’
‘There’s no need to understand. Understand just this, that your Riziya wants to live. She wants to live with her head held high. I’ve come with a lot of trust, Hujur. Accept me. Today itself. Or else your Riziya will be washed away in some sea.’
Tahirul was utterly confounded. His heart was thumping like a galloping train. He exited the room, he looked all around. He looked at the clock on the minaret of the mosque and saw it was two o’clock. Returning to the room hesitantly, he said, ‘Rizi, go back the way you came. I shall go to your house in the morning. We’ll talk then. I beg you to leave now. It’ll be a terrible scandal if anyone sees us. Leave now.’
Riziya inhaled deeply a few times and said emphatically, ‘No. I’m not leaving.’
‘Why are you acting like you’ve lost your mind? What do you want me to do?’
‘You have to marry me.’
‘Marry? Isn’t it Raqib…’
Riziya was shocked. Had Hujur figured everything out!
‘What about Raqib?’
‘Your marriage to him had been fixed. And now you tell me…’
‘Don’t you know Raqib’s not around? It’s been a month and thirteen days since he ran away from here.’
‘Wow! I see you remember what day and date it was. Have you come to me because he’s gone?’
‘No, Hujur. I love you. Take me to your house in the Sundarbans. I want to live there. I feel suffocated here in Sadnahati. Please rescue me from Sadnahati.’
The two of them were standing in front of each other in the tiny room. Riziya was weeping. Tahirul was covered in perspiration, his throat was dry with fear. Had Riziya really lost her head? Didn’t she realize what a terrible disaster it would be if someone spotted her! Tahirul wanted to lead her subtly towards the door. With utmost calm he said, ‘Sit down. Let me go out and think about it a bit.’
But Riziya was at the door in a flash. She stretched out her arms and began her crazy antics again. ‘No, you’re not going anywhere. I don’t have any time at all, Hujur. I have no option but to take my life now.’
‘What rubbish are you talking! You are being impractical, Riziya. You have to fight to survive!’
‘Then run away with me today itself, Hujur! Let’s leave Sadnahati far behind. We’ll never come back here again.’
Riziya sat down after she said that.
Tahirul, Sadnahati’s eminent imam, was losing in the face of Riziya’s obstinacy. What a terrible irony! He shut his eyes. He prayed to Allah for help. Prophet Yusuf had fallen into such a predicament. It was in just such a room that Zuleikha had confined Yusuf. He had sought Allah’s help. The walls fell apart. Yusuf escaped from Zuleikha’s clutches. But he did not escape from the slander that followed. It took him fourteen years to erase the slander and establish the truth. But Tahirul was just an ordinary man. What ought he to do at this difficult moment? Should he run away, like Riziya said? Why was she in such a terrible hurry? Tahirul said, ‘Get up, Riziya. It’s only you that I will marry. After Eid. I had already planned to do that. Please leave now. No one will know if you leave now. Don’t take the road in front. Please think about my situation.’
‘Do you love me?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Do you trust me?’
‘Don’t talk about all this now, go away from here.’
‘No. First tell me, do you trust Riziya?’
‘Achchha, yes, I do. Please go, Rizi. I’m asking you with folded hands, go.’
Bakri Eid was the next day. The excitement that people felt on the day before the Eid at the end of the month of fasting, Eid-ul-Fitr, was absent at this Eid. There was none of the anxiety over purchasing gifts, none of the kids’ demands for clothes. It was the joy of unostentatious renunciation. But Sadnahati was abuzz now. In every nook and corner, there was only astonished conversation, whispered gossip.
Someone had observed a young woman departing silently from Imam Saheb’s room in the dead of night. But who was the girl? Before that could be ascertained, she seemed to have vanished. And that was the source of the mystery. Was it really a woman of flesh and blood? His adherents said it was Hujur’s supernatural powers. It could be a jinn, or a fairy too. After all, they could take on human guise. The critics squinched up their eyes, turned their faces away and sniggered. That prompted other critics to begin reciting epic verses on love.
No one had the audacity to ask Maulana Tahirul about the matter. But the person who had spotted the woman was shocked and at an utter loss all through the day. What a fall! Had he really caught a glimpse of something? Father and son had stitched garments all through the night to meet the boss’s order. And after that, Asmat Chacha stepped out on the road. The bundle of goods was on the bicycle’s carrier. Just as the wobbling bicycle turned at the crossing in front of the mosque, he thought he saw a person, a female form, in the darkness, standing in front of the Imam Saheb’s room. He was stunned. There was a heavy bundle behind him. As soon as he slowed down the cycle, the bundle tilted. Fearing he might fall, he got off the bicycle. He tightened the fastening around the bundle. He was inattentive for only that long. And then when his curious eyes returned to the room, he was astonished. The girl seemed to have vanished. Sure, he didn’t recognize her, but it was clearly a woman.
This eyewitness was an adherent of Imam Tahirul. He had abundant faith in Pirs and darbeshes. He announced exaggeratedly in the morning, at Chacha’s tea shop beside the majar, that he had seen something supernatural. And ever since then, many people visited him in secret to find out. ‘Tell us properly, what exactly did you see? Could you make out which family she belonged to?’
At first, he only said what he had seen. But observing the curiosity of so many people, he began to have doubts; was Imam Saheb falling in esteem as a result of what he said! Why did they all eventually ask, ‘Where was Hujur then? Did you see whether his door was open?’ So it seemed that it was towards Hujur that the finger of blame was moving. Thus Asmat Chacha turned silent. He became cautious. He sealed his lips.
But although he was silent, the wind didn’t stay still. Carried by the wind, the colourful abir of the chimerical calumny began to spread at great speed. That colour traversed the tap-side, the bel-fruit grove and the steps at the pond bank, and reached Reshma Bhabi’s ears too. Nazir had gone out at night. When Reshma heard that he, too, had spotted a girl in their courtyard, she became perturbed. Because she knew very well that it was a person of flesh and blood. She was no jinn or fairy. Had the girl gone mad? Going to Imam Saheb’s room in the dead of night! Was this a trivial matter! After all, Imam Saheb was only a man. What was this brazenness! Reshma Bhabi was anxious. She dropped whatever she was doing and rushed to Riziya.
Reshma was certain that Riziya had gone berserk. If that wasn’t the case, would anyone sit on the roof terrace in the afternoon, under the blazing sun? Riziya had neither bathed nor eaten, she was sitting all by herself on the terrace. She was drenched in perspiration. Her fair-complexioned face had turned completely red. As soon as Reshma spotted her, she screamed out, ‘What’s happened to you? Do you want to die sitting here like this? Get up, I need to talk to you.’
Riziya was startled by Reshma’s loud voice. But she was unruffled. As soon as Reshma went near her and pulled her by her arm, Riziya said angrily, ‘Will you let go of me, Bhabi? Pay attention to your own family. No one has to worry about Riziya. You can go, I’m fine.’
Reshma could have felt hurt at her words, but she paid them no heed. She said tenderly, ‘All right. I’ll go. But come downstairs for a while. I have lots to tell you.’
Like an obedient girl, Riziya went downstairs with Reshma to her room. She sat down on the cot. Reshma switched on the fan. Sitting under the breeze of the fan, Riziya asked Reshma peaceably, ‘What do you want to say, Bhabi?’
‘Will you tell me the truth?’
‘Yes, I will. What is it you want to know?’
‘Where did you go last night?’
Riziya was silent. She had been full of remorse since morning. She was aware of how terribly inappropriate it was of her to have been overcome with emotion and ventured in the middle of the night to knock on Imam Saheb’s door. But who spotted her on the desolate street? Was it Tahirul himself who had told everyone after rising for the Fajr prayer? If he had, then she was done for. People would kill her! Riziya was terrified. But she believed that he would not tell anyone. Riziya replied to Reshma, ‘Why? What happened? Did someone tell you anything?’
