Majid disappeared from the house one day like a wisp of smoke lost in the sky. Ever since he got up in the morning, up until noon when he left, Malka had no inkling he was about to do this. He’d woken up as usual and asked for some cardamom laced tea. Then he’d sat by the jasmine in the courtyard, sipping as he read the paper. In the meantime, water for his bath was being heated on the charcoal stove hastily put together with three bricks, out there, in front of the bathroom. Malka looked at the thin wisp of black smoke rising, from where she sat inside. She’d have to do something about the brass bucket that had turned quite black, all because of this daily ritual.

Majid went inside a little later and dragged out a three-legged stool on which he balanced a small mirror, and began to shave slowly. He often shaved out in the open, because it was dark inside the rooms. He moved the razor carefully, wary of nicking the silken smooth skin of his cheek. He slung the towel over his shoulder when he finished and asked Sudershan to carry the hot water into the bathroom. He did all this with his usual calm, he displayed no haste; there was nothing in the way he moved that might have led Malka to suspect that he was about to go away for seventeen years.

He came out of the bath and put on a white shirt and a beige coat over it. There was a strand of curly hair on his forehead, he looked young and handsome. Malka was gazing fixedly at the sari on which she was embroidering horses and elephants. She looked up for a second and then concentrated again on the embroidery. Majid pottered about the room for a while. He thought Malka’s face was like an ironed out sheet, nothing on it betrayed what she might be thinking.

“I’m just going up to the court for a bit,” he said in a voice that seemed to Malka like a weak thread that would snap at the least pressure. She said nothing.

This was how it had been with them for the last year or two, ever since the Shammo incident. They seemed to have no words left. Malka never replied to what he said, which was usually brief, anyway. Since the Shammo incident, a thick silence devoid of words had fallen between them. Majid had tried to unravel the layers of this silence, but Malka cut him short, right at the beginning. Majid didn’t return that day, nor the next or the day after. Malka waited for him for a few days and even tried to find out where he could be. Then she got accustomed to his absence, and it was not as if they’d had much to say to each other. In fact, it was largely because of her that the silence had continued unbroken. She hadn’t much cared whether Majid was at home or not. And now it was seventeen years since he’d gone.

She examined the little bottle on the dressing table that had held khus, which was now empty and she hadn’t had the heart to throw away. She sniffed at it and put it back on the table. The lingering fragrance carried her back to the past and she stood there, musing. She felt like an outsider with no connection to the incidents of the past that seemed to float in a damp emptiness quite separate from her and what she was, today. It was as though she gazed at the yellowed pages of an old photo album whose pictures would disappear as soon as she turned the page. Those large and empty rooms, redolent with the scent of khus, the languor of the afternoons, the blue curtains and ornate water pot, the blazing heat and searing wind outside. She heard Shammo’s whispered words, when she had suddenly opened the door, “Baji’s looking!” and Majid’s guilty face.

A wave of hatred washed over her as soon as she thought about Majid. She remembered his small round ears that were so close to his cheekbones, which she’d always found strange, his luminous eyes fringed with a curtain of thick lashes, his tall figure and curly hair. A scent of his aristocratic family seemed to waft from his entire bearing, the old family into which her parents had chosen to marry off their only daughter. It was easy to see why Majid agreed to marry Malka, the daughter of a penniless lawyer. Malka’s shining eyes and sprightly figure, her habit of suddenly breaking out into laughter, like a fountain leaping into the sunlight. It was as if there was a magic circle drawn around her, into which Majid felt himself drawn irresistibly.

Quite early on in their marriage, Malka had begun to test her power on Majid. His submission appeared to keep pace with her domination and soon she began to enjoy looking at his suffering face. He seemed to fan her cruelty and she surprised a desire in herself to tear him apart, to draw blood. Majid squirmed at her acid verbal attacks on him, but still gazed at her with those innocent eyes of his, drowning in love, looking as though they yearned to swallow her up.

This was why the Shammo incident hit her so hard. A feeling of deep humiliation went seeping through to her bones. The next moment she was numb with fury. How dare he? Not for one moment did it occur to her that she might have driven Majid to this, with her bitter tongue and tormenting ways. As the months went by, a cold anger settled deep within her, an icy hint of which was visible in her eyes. Shammo didn’t turn up for work the next day, nor did Majid try to give an explanation for something that seemed so obvious.

Malka went to the door and threw away the empty khus bottle with a flick of her wrist. Then she stuck her head out of the door and sniffed the air, much like an animal that smells danger. She looked up at the sky, shook her head and came back inside. The sky seemed to be a face burning with anger, its silence menacing, as though it had sworn not to speak a word. It had been murky since morning. A wayward wind had blown in from afar, from where the earth and sky seemed to meet, shaking the dust-laden leaves on trees.

“The wind will blow away the rain!” Malka was speaking to herself. She often said her thoughts out loud. Panna squatted in a corner of the room rubbing a teakwood table with a rag dipped in mustard oil and water. The whole room smelt of mustard oil.

“Begum Sahib, did you say something?” he looked up and asked.

“I said the wind will carry away the rain,” Malka repeated what she’d said.

“It’ll be as He chooses!” said Panna, sighing deeply.

This was what happened in the morning. Then the wind stopped suddenly and a heavy weight seemed to drag down the sky. The restlessness persisted the entire evening. The first drops fell at eleven in the night. They were fat drops that made a pattering sound and hissed as they touched the parched soil.

When Malka lay down after shutting the doors and switching off the lights, the sensation of rain drenched her like a flood. She knew it was raining, even though she could see and hear nothing from where she lay, on her bed. Soon she got the scent of wet earth and her heart began to dance. She turned on her side with some difficulty and got up, resting her elbows on the bed. She swung her legs down the side of the bed and her face puckered with pain. She always felt the first effect of the rain in her knees, the pain making it hard for her to walk.

She got up nevertheless, and stood by the open window. The first rain of the season made her behave oddly. It was as if a peculiar greed took hold of her. She couldn’t have enough of the rain; seeing, hearing and smelling it did not suffice to slake her thirst for it. She would have liked to gulp it down and hold it deep within her, do other things she hardly knew or understood. In the old days when Majid was still at home, she’d run out of the house in the rain. Soaked to the skin, she’d look at the glistening stream of rain flowing from her hair and laugh as one possessed. Her body felt light as air, capable of flying off any minute.

Majid would look at her, subdued and a little surprised. She was quite beyond him. It wasn’t as if he disliked the rain. He’d go out for a walk when the rain stopped, taking his black umbrella with him. The clear sky and washed green trees sent a wave of happiness through him. But Malka? Why did she jump into the rain like that? It made him uneasy. It was unseemly, the kind of wild abandon she displayed, as if she’d been starving for years. He felt plagued by inadequacy, not at all up to the task of fulfilling her yearnings.

The sky outside the window was quite dark, but a pale light streamed out from under the aluminum shade of the electric bulb. There seemed to be a grim determination about the falling rain, as though it had made up its mind never to stop. The silvery light made the drops glisten, creating the illusion of thousands of silver needles raining down. Rivulets of water flowed out from under the eaves of the house. It was just last week that Malka had got the roof cleared of dry leaves and grass that sprang up in between the bricks. The roof of the old house began to leak with even a little rain.

Clearing the roof before the rains had become something of a ritual with her. Hot winds blew hundreds of dry leaves onto the roof throughout the summer, which if not removed, absorbed the rain that in turn, seeped through the ceilings. By the end of the rains, there’d be a grey-green layer of moss on all the walls that disappeared only when the house was white-washed. This too, was no small task. It took several months, in which workers and the cutting smell of lime would be all over the house. Once completed, the white-washing left the house shining white, like a swan’s wing.

There were other things that needed to be done around the house. The garden became choked with weeds, snakes and scorpions had the run of the place. Just before summer set in, dry leaves had to be gathered up and thrown out. She’d observed that there was an order in nature and the trees did not shed their leaves all at once. Starting out with the neem, the ashok trees were the last to shed their leaves. So work in the garden went on for a long time. Every season had different demands and she looked after the house as if it were a child whose needs changed with each passing year. If someone commented on the patience and efficacy with which she did these jobs, she’d say, “It’s just a way of passing the time.”

There were times when she grew tired. Then the question that she’d pushed to the back of her mind, suddenly confronted her. Did her life amount to just these little chores? Why did she do them? The answer came from a distant corner of her brain – it was because she knew Majid would come back one day. It was not that she waited for him or had any desire to please him. The truth was that her overwhelming pride forced her to keep the house in order. She didn’t want Majid to think that in his absence her life had become a ruin, just like the house.

Malka stood there, lost in thought. It was raining continuously. The electric bulb went out and it became dark all around. There was the sound of falling rain in the dark. She groped her way back to the bed. She lit the lantern near her bed and the darkness filled with shadows. She could see the puddle on the floor where the skylight pane was broken. It looked like there’d be a river in the house soon. She reminded herself to get the broken pane fixed the next day. She got up again and put a brass vase in the place below the broken pane. She came back to bed just as the old clock in the drawing room struck two.

The sound of water dripping into the vase kept her awake. There seemed to be a rhythm to it and quite unwittingly, she started counting the falling drops. They had the endlessness of numbers and she had a vision of herself lying there, counting till eternity, quite alone. Her thoughts strayed to Majid. Time had dulled her anger and she could look at the past now as though it were a movie she was watching. She wondered where he was. In the seventeen years that had gone by, she’d had no news of him. There’d been rumors, of course, that someone had seen him, or that he had gone abroad and once she heard that he was dead. She knew this meant nothing and did not believe a word of it. She knew nothing about these years of Majid’s life. Sometimes she thought of them as the empty pages of a book in which she could write anything she pleased, she could make Majid do her bidding.

There were other times when she envied him. Majid had gone out into the vast and magical world. And Malka, who had experienced the thrill of flight when it rained, remained behind in the empty house. Could she ever have done what Majid did? She felt resentment seethe within her. She lay there thinking and remembered a misty childhood morning at a seaside town. There’d been a steamer there, with people walking about on the deck. It would sail as soon as the sun came up, she’d thought with restlessness.

She slept late that morning. Normally there’d be street sounds to wake her, dogs barking, film music on loudspeakers, the morning azaan or the monotonous chanting of Sri Rama Jai Rama Jai Jai Rama. But today it was very quiet. Had the rain silenced the sounds or had she simply slept through them? It was all very quiet. She felt she was in a train that had stopped in the middle of nowhere. She got up with a jerk and looked out of the door.

The rain had stopped but she could hear raindrops dripping off the trees. The sky was still overcast but a slice of blue was visible in the east, where a watery sun was trying to come up. Suddenly she looked hard, closed her eyes tight and opened them again, to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. What she saw was something she’d never seen before. Across the sky, etching out the border of the clouds, stretched a rainbow, and above it, as though the colors had echoed like a sound, was a second rainbow. She looked at it in disbelief. It reminded her of a child’s careless drawing in which nothing seemed improbable or out of place. She remembered drawing two suns in the same sky as a child, but she had never imagined two rainbows appearing simultaneously. Once she’d dreamt about two moons – one a sickle-shaped golden new moon, and another finely carved milky moon nestling within its curve. For a long time she’d wondered what the dream could have meant.

But this was no dream. The rainbows were real. Suddenly she felt carried away by a wave of elation. She forgot about the pain in her knees and flung wide all the doors and windows, as though inviting the rainbow colors to come in. Maybe it was her imagination, but she thought the dark corners of the house lit up. She bathed and put on a yellow sari she hadn’t worn for ages. When she walked out, she felt the caress of the rain-drenched breeze on her skin, and it seemed to her that she was walking in a field of blossoming yellow mustard. She summoned Panna from his room and told him the house had to be cleaned thoroughly today. No dust or cobwebs, crinkles on the beds or smudges on the furniture should be visible, as today was a special day. The master was coming home after seventeen years.

If Panna was surprised, he didn’t show it, nor did he try to find out where she’d got this information from. He knew she didn’t like nosy questions. He’d been with the family for ages, but it would still be bad form to display curiosity of this kind. Once long ago, he’d remarked that Majid was “flying high just now, but he’d have to come down to earth sooner or later”. Malka couldn’t possibly have heard him say this, but she’d come to know and was furious. So Panna knew better than to ask questions.

It wasn’t as if Malka understood why she had spoken with such certainty about Majid’s return. It was only after she’d spoken that she realized she’d given voice to something that could only have been a hunch of hers. As soon as she’d said it out loud, her conviction began to gain strength. It made her restless, rather than happy, as though she were waiting for a guest who must see everything in the best possible light. No flaws or oversights would be permissible. It was almost as if she were being called upon to give an account of her life; that it had not fallen apart in Majid’s absence. Majid may have made another life for himself, but she was rooted in this place, irrespective of anyone else’s being there or not.

Some long past childhood time surfaced in her memory, when she’d push through a jungle of prickly bushes and weeds to gather up armfuls of “sticky grass”. There’d been the danger of snakes and she’d cut her hands on blades of grass, sharp as a knife. But she emerged triumphant, carrying the grass bundles that she stuck together to make houses, chairs and baskets. These objects filled her with pride, and then there was the ritual of floating them downstream in the little canal under the lime trees. She watched the houses float away with a strange sense of freedom that she breathed in, lying there beneath the lime trees. She yearned for that today.

She made her way to the drawing room. She found a little pile of transparent moth wings there, on the tiled old mantelpiece. These moths, attracted by the light, flew inside in their hundreds on rainy nights. Their life was short, Malka remembered, as she saw the pile of wings. She must remind Panna to clear them away. She dreamt during her siesta. Thousands of petals came blowing on the wind and changed into yellow butterflies brushing against her cheeks.

She woke up to a loud sound. She looked out and found a green jungle waving before her eyes. Her mind fuzzy with sleep, for a while she understood nothing. It was the tamarind tree; last night’s rain had loosened the soil around the roots and the tree had fallen. It was a very old tree, as was clear from the spread of the roots. It could have fallen on anyone, there were people walking about all the time and children often played under it. It could even have fallen on the house. But the tree caused no damage, just as if it had simply lain down to rest.

A labyrinth of green leaves had been created between its branches. The sun came up and Malka could feel a steamy, moist heat emanating from inside the labyrinth. It was almost as if a tropical African forest had grown suddenly at her doorstep. Children soon started playing there and she could hear the rise and fall of their young voices. They were singing a nonsense rhyme she had taught them herself and she was surprised they still remembered it. The last meaningless syllable floated on the air like a bubble and soon faded away. She had half a mind to scold the children and send them packing, but she kept quiet.

It rained again as evening fell. The illusory light of dusk played tricks with her eyesight and she felt as if the drops were not falling but rising from the ground. Creatures that lived beneath the ground, earthworms, centipedes and slugs, had emerged near the door. And in the grassy patch further ahead, the pretty birbahutis with their coats of bright red velvet surfaced in large numbers. It was all quiet again and Malka, sitting inside in the yellow light began to think of going to bed. Suddenly there was a blackout and Malka moved closer to the lantern. Panna had thoughtfully remembered to leave it burning.

It was then that she heard someone outside. There was complete darkness there, just the sound of rain steadily falling. She stuck her head outside and asked, “Who is it?”

It was unnecessary to wait for an answer, though. She went out, holding the lantern aloft and saw him standing there, in just the same place where she’d seen the creatures in the evening, as though he too, had emerged because of the rain. She lifted the lantern and looked at Majid silently. Time in passing, had chiseled the bones of his face and in the uncertain light Malka could see that he was quite grey. They stood there looking at each other quietly.

Majid, when he spoke, had the same voice that sounded as though it might snap at the least pressure. “This is the life that I have to live,” was what he said.

Maybe he was waiting to see what she would say. Malka said nothing. She stepped back from the door to let him come in.

(Translated from the original Hindi by the author.)