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on 28-04-2003 00:32
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By Haroon Moghul
When Dr. and Mrs. Sultan arrived at Dr. and Mrs. Khan’s home, it was late in the lull of a winter night, bitterly cold with a biting wind on top of that. The two guests thawed and were soon seen to the sitting room, seated, and removed of the burdens of their now unnecessary jackets and scarves. Mrs. Khan promptly offered chai [tea], which of course all in the room eagerly accepted, except for her husband, Dr. Khan, who suspected this would be yet another round of tea served with the same inferior sugar his wife was so prone to selecting.
Mrs. Khan returned a few minutes thereafter, balancing on a tray three teas and a cheeni-dan, a sugar-pot, with a silver spoon standing tall in the midst of fine white crystals. On seeing this, Dr. Khan was horrified. He attempted to gesture to his wife without words, to indicate to her that this chai should not be served with that sugar, but to no avail. Bolder measures were called for, lest the evening produce only disaster.
Mrs. Khan was just about to ask their good friends how much sugar they wanted in their teas, whereupon Dr. Khan rushed to his feet and stepped between his guests and his wife, staring at her.
"Samina, you cannot serve this sugar!”
Mrs. Khan was shocked that her husband would have the nerve to so embarrass her – especially by this challenge most of all – in front of old and true friends that she knew would never be offended by something so inconsequential.
Dr. Khan continued, “I’ll go to Masdar Bhai’s house right away.” That is to get the flavorful brown sugar which he preferred by leaps and bounds to this other sugar. “It’s only two blocks away.” He said this as he was approaching the coat closet, pulling on his long black overcoat and moving towards the mudroom, leaving behind guests perplexed and also ashamed to see such unexpected quarrel on such an otherwise casual occasion.
Dr. Sultan stood and addressed his friend by his first name, indicating the increasing seriousness of the situation: “Taymur, really, you don’t have to go so far. I’m sure Samina Baji’s chai is as excellent as always.” He paused and tried to smile, “Besides, it’s frightfully cold outside. Don’t make yourself sick over this.”
“Nonsense!” Dr. Khan replied. “It’s but a short walk and I’m sure you’ll see, once you taste the better tea, that it was more than worth this little effort.”
And he was out the door just like that, leaving a bewildered Mrs. Khan still holding on to her tea tray, her small hands shaking but in balance, preventing the drinks from spilling. She had no idea what to say to such offensive manner, no idea how she could possibly excuse her husband, so she only remained where she was as Dr. and Mrs. Sultan feigned other pressing business, leaving only minutes after Dr. Khan had left, knowing it was better to let this one run its course without their intervention.
When added to an already spoiled evening, her guests’ hasty departure convinced Mrs. Khan that she could not forgive her husband. How could he have had the audacity to dare suggest that her sugar was no good and in fact so bad that it necessitated a trip outside in uncharacteristically cold weather?
When Dr. Khan finally returned to his house, sugar in hand, he saw that his friend’s vehicle was gone. Inside, the tea was sitting cold in its cups while his wife angrily shoved a few stray dishes into the dishwasher and glared at him with venom. Having spent years in the army, Dr. Khan knew it was best to flee and beat a retreat, regrouping in the mountains (actually, upstairs, in their bedroom). But Mrs. Khan said not a word to him there either, only building in her mind the scope and ambition of all her furies, her unthinkable frustration at a husband who put his satisfaction over his wife.
Except when Mrs. Khan awoke that night to pray, she noticed that Dr. Khan was shivering. On touching his skin, she pulled back in worry, for it had turned cold and clammy, wet like a towel left in the snow. Alarmed, she turned up the heat, adding blankets to the bed and rushing downstairs to make him soup and then some tea, which he promptly devoured. His voice was all but gone, but he would have thanked his wife for these gestures and apologized to her were it possible.
As the hours stretched on, he reached upon what he believed was a good explanation which he would deliver when it would not harm his body to exert effort in speech: He loved her with all his heart (though of course he could not say love), but he had been so obsessed by satisfying his friend with the best he could offer, and at the same time, so infatuated by that lovely brown sugar that he could not see well enough to appreciate the blessings granted to him by God.
Mrs. Khan, meanwhile, lessened in her anger, more concerned by this horrible flu that had been visited upon her husband. Day stretched into night but nothing healed him. He could not talk and then he could not stand. He could not swallow and then he could not sit. By the second night, Dr. Sultan had come to visit, administering heavy prescription medicines, heat packs, and moist towels. It was so bad that Dr. Khan lost weight all over his body, such that even his face began to droop and sag, and an otherwise vigorous Punjabi man was now but a shadow of his former self.
Mrs. Khan was hopelessly despondent. She wished to call her children in school, but she knew her husband would be upset by this – to him unnecessary – interruption in their studies. So she held vigil by his bed each and every night, as he slipped farther and farther away from her. She held bottles of medicine in her hand and then the Qur’an, reading and reading, pleading that God spare her husband even though his desires tempted him to great folly.
On the seventh day, Dr. Khan showed welcome strength, rising out of bed on his own and even taking to the shower by the evening, though his wife had to prepare the water beforehand and help him maintain his balance. Then he was well enough to pray in a chair, and by nightfall, he was well enough to utter a few words, barely coherent mumblings of thanks. At night he slept well and good, enjoying a deep and potent rest, a wonderful serene nothingness not interrupted by the morning but rather greeted and honored by it. He stood from bed and all was well, his legs a little wobbly but still rather firm beneath him, his voice now softer as his throat grew gentler upon his breathing.
He praised God and turned to thank his wife, and apologize for his unseemly behavior, only to see her face buried in the pillow. He was scared immediately: Samina never slept as such. Tentatively, he reached forward, touching his hand to her skin, only to find it sickly icy, moist and cold like an old cup of tea mixed with too much milk. Her breathing was slow and labored, and her body did not move even as he grasped her arm and shook it with earnest. He knew within seconds that this was the same illness that he had passed on to her, but the symptoms had appeared more swiftly.
Dr. Khan did not realize it at the time, but it was because his wife was so frail. That is, when he had become sick he was fresh and healthy otherwise, whereas his wife had been made frail by her unending hours of care and concern, to say little of the horrible burden his illness had on her mind, thereby making her an easy target for a vicious virus.
Mrs. Khan was devoted to her husband as he could never understand. Though surely he enjoyed her company, sacrificed for her and looked out for her, working all his life to make hers more comfortable, he made her devotion into obligation, he turned his appreciation into inattention, for so long that he no longer figured her into equations that would harm her or affect her, but rather acted on his own brash and stupid initiative.
By that night, Mrs. Khan’s condition seriously worsened. Dr. Khan was obliged to take her to the hospital that night, leaving her in the most capable hands of Dr. Sultan – who wished her husband not to take part in the treatment, seeing as he was too emotionally involved to make the right decisions.
So Dr. Khan was relegated to the waiting room, for all his education and preparation he was no better than any of the other waiting relatives, helpless and some even hopeless. Slowly he felt himself of the latter. When Dr. Sultan returned to the waiting room, he called his good friend to speak with him in private.
“Taymur Bhai…” Dr. Sultan whispered.
Dr. Khan knew all from this, as in his career he too had been forced to wear it. Only know did he see how much he hated it. It scared him and he wanted to run back in time, to drink down all those cups of tea with sincerity, to show his wife that her sugar was more than enough sweetening for him.
Dr. Sultan continued with faltering tongue, “Really, Taymur Bhai, she was so very delicate.” This Dr. Khan knew and this was why he had begun to cry, with tears from where he did not know. But still he let them fall. “The poor woman, when the disease came, she was unable to fight it.” Dr. Sultan gripped his brother in his arms and held his head against his palm, holding his gaze to his. “But know that we are doing everything to make her comfortable.”
“Is she awake?”
Dr. Sultan nodded. “She is only mumbling your name. She only calls for you.”
She is not angry with me though I have killed her. Dr. Khan was sobbing inside and he knew not how he might speak to this with any worthy response but to beat his chest in anguish at the ugliness he saw in himself. For when he had been sick, never once had he struggled to say his wife’s name, but rather he had decided not to, for it was best to conserve energy.
“Come, Taymur Bhai,” Dr. Sultan urged, tugging at his friend’s arm. “Come and hold your wife’s hands until God pulls her away.”
Last update : 28-04-2003 00:32
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