Mehrunnisa:

A love story from Lahore

By Zeenat Mahal

Chapter 20

Mehru woke up beside Jamal the next morning. She blinked when she saw him lying beside her. Her heart skipped a beat. She was in love with her husband. She smiled. He must love her too. After last night, she had no doubt about that.

‘Good morning,’ said a sleepy Jamal.
‘Subh b’khair,’ she replied. ‘I’ll go arrange for breakfast.’

She got up and vanished into the bathroom. She got dressed, taking extra care with her appearance. Then she went downstairs, still smiling, humming to herself. Telling the cook to get tea and breakfast ready, she went to her study.

Happy

She was happy. Jamal hadn’t said he loved her, but so what? He’d shown her he did. When she came out of the study after writing a few quick lines, he was already there.

‘What were you doing in there?’ he asked.
‘Nothing,’ she smiled back.

Jamal gave her an inscrutable look and said, ‘You don’t have to lie anymore. I know already,’ said Jamal.

Confused, Mehru asked, ‘What do you mean?’

Smiling, Jamal said, ‘I know that if Ami Begum were to read that novel you’ve written, she’d change her mind about you. You’re very like her.’

For a moment everything was the same. She was happy, with her doubts and fears at the back of her mind, still thinking that he hadn’t quite said that he loved her…and then as his words registered. She stiffened. She hadn’t told him about her writing.

‘What novel? What do you mean?’
‘The novel you’ve just got published.’
He said it casually as if it was common knowledge.
She asked faintly, ‘What do you know about…?’

With a chuckle, he said, ‘Everything. I know your secret. I’ve known for a few days now.’

A dark shadow was beginning to drown the joy in her heart.

‘How? What do you mean?’ She sounded strange even to herself. This was her secret. This was what she had been afraid of, that he’d know and still not respond to her love. It was already done.

Jamal’s smile faltered and his voice changed too. It was almost cool, ‘That day when Mallo Apa spoke about the new writer she admired, you became very agitated. There were others clues. So I did a bit of investigating. I put two and two together. I got the spare keys to your study and…’

She pulled away from him, horrified, ‘You spied on me?’

Indifference

Jamal didn’t look at all embarrassed. His face closed up though, became a mask of indifference and he answered with a shrug, ‘I did what I had to. I couldn’t trust you…and when I started reading, I was interested. Your writing is exceptional.’

Mehru stared at him in silence.

He stared back at her, and then he said very stiffly, ‘Mehru, I’m not going to apologise for what I did and what I believed then—and still do—was my right because of what you did to me.’

‘How can you say that? You violated my privacy…you violated my very being.’

Jamal moved away from her then and said with barely controlled anger, ‘You’re one to talk of violations. I didn’t mislead you in any way. I didn’t force you to choose between what you believed to be right and me…and then abandon you to your misery because I had a thirst for vengeance. That was you. You did that.’

She was trembling now. She could feel her world crumbling around her. She whispered in a shocked small voice, ‘Choose between what is right and…me? I’m…wrong?’

Argument

Jamal frowned and said with a visible effort at control, ‘You know very well what I meant. I’d agreed that I’d marry Sania, and then you came and you…’

‘Ruined it for you? I usurped Sania’s place?’

Jamal looked at her and said softly, ‘Mehru, our truce is too fragile for this kind of argument. I don’t think my feelings over the matter…of us…are any secret. It’s not easy for me to forgive what you did to me but I’m trying.’

Could he hear himself? He was so self-righteous…as if he was still the wronged party. Mehru felt the fiery licks of betrayal singe her heart. She felt exposed. Was this what he’d felt like? It was horrible. He’d read her most private thoughts and yet he hadn’t forgiven her. She’d written everything, her feelings, her fears…and he’d still not forgiven her…not even after reading all of that? This was her worst nightmare.

Sacred

He knew everything; the way she’d written about him as if he was some hero. She’d been seeking his forgiveness and all the while he’d been spying on her and doing everything that his code said he never could. He was a hypocrite. This was not the man she’d fallen in love with.

Her brand new love, all shiny and new, felt tainted and dirty to her now.
Tentatively, Jamal came closer, ‘Mehru…’
She shook her head. He stopped in his tracks.

Her pain was far too much for tears. She was dry-eyed. This man, who’d taken everything she had, as if it was right to do so, as if he was taking something that belonged to him, would he now after their sacred bonding tell her that he loved her too? For her, it had been something sacred. It was time to find out what it was for him. She wanted to know what she was to him. It was time for the final curtain call.

Looking at him with a calm resignation, she said, ‘Jamal…I told you I love you.’

She was watching him. He knew she’d said it on purpose to test him. But he couldn’t say it. Not yet…he couldn’t say it and she was trying to force him after having said she wouldn’t. She had no business taking this high moral ground with him after what she’d done. He wasn’t ready.

He wasn’t going to be pushed into it. He still couldn’t trust her. She had not told him about her writing herself. Not even now. He’d had to confront her. He wasn’t angry any more, just cautious. That wasn’t wrong. She couldn’t do this to him.

Quietly he warned, ‘Mehru, don’t.’

She gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Even now? Even after all this…if you can’t say it even now, then you don’t love me. Maybe you never did.’

‘That is a lie,’ he roared. ‘I loved you. I loved you so much I gave up everything I’d held on to all my life. I defied my family for you.

I gave up my home for you…and you’d never loved me. It was you who lied. You are still lying.’

‘You’re right. It was me who lied then. Who’s been lying ever since? You don’t love me anymore, do you? I’m not lying.’

Mirage

She sounded detached. She felt as if she’d dreamed it all. Their laughter and their lovemaking was all a mirage that she’d dreamed up for herself. This was reality.

This, his inability to forgive and therefore love, was true.
‘I told you…I need time.’

She nodded and said, ‘Yes.’ Her voice sounded dull when she said, ‘Maybe you should go now and take the time you need.’

He raised his eyebrow and replied coolly, ‘I beg your pardon?’

He wasn’t the romantic upright hero, the wronged noble husband anymore. He was a two-faced liar with double standards. He’d violated her in every way.

‘You’re asking me to leave now? After declaring your love for me…again? After all that just happened between us? Am I a joke to you? Who do you think I am? What do you take me for? You can’t throw me out of my own house.’

Mehru got up and faced Jamal. She looked pale and gaunt. There were already shadows under her eyes.

Grudge

‘I hurt you, I know…and you’re still holding on to a grudge while you breached my most private thoughts, a secret that was mine to keep or declare.

While you were violating my privacy, did you think of forgiving me? Did you think of it while you were in bed with me?’

Jamal narrowed his eyes at her but didn’t speak. As she looked at him she realised that she didn’t really know him.

‘Be careful, Mehru. You’re treading on thin ice.’

Mehru laughed. She had tears in her eyes. She felt weak and exhausted.

‘You’re not the man I thought you were. Maybe, neither one of us is what we expected to find. We made a mistake. You were right.

Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.’
Glossary of terms:
Subh b’khair:
good morning

Apa: older sister

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