There was another girl at Mai Jeeva’s place, one who, before she joined the profession full time, used to roam the streets and markets begging for a living. She had been in Mai Jeeva’s establishment for a year now, in a house where this business was being transacted for the past eighteen years. The girl used to cover her face with powder and rouge. Javed would think about her, too, sometimes: ‘Her rouged cheeks must be like bruised, slightly rotten apples … that everyone can afford.’
Of the four or five women, Javed didn’t have any particular one in mind. ‘I don’t mind which one I get. I want to hand over the cash, and voila! … A woman should be handed over to me. There shouldn’t be a second’s delay. There shouldn’t be any idle chitter-chatter. Not the slightest polite conversation should escape anyone’s mouth, only the sound of approaching footsteps, the creak of the door as it opens, and the clink of money exchanging hands. A few sounds can be heard but mouths should stay firmly shut. And if any voice is heard, it should not be a human voice. The meeting should be one of beasts. And for a short while, when such a world comes into being, the delicate senses of smell, sight and sound should become as dull as rusty razors.’
Javed became restless. A tumult rose within him. He had made up his mind to such an implacable extent now that, even if there had been mountains blocking his path, he could have removed those too. But the nearly dim lantern put up by the Municipal Committee, which could be snuffed out by the smallest puff of wind, presented an insurmountable hurdle before him.
A paan shop was still open nearby. It was lit by a strong light; in its blinding glare, the variety of things stacked inside could not be made out individually. Flies buzzed around the naked bulb as though their wings had become leaden. Javed looked at the flies and his irritation grew; he did not wish to see any slow-paced creatures. The resolve, to ‘do it’, with which he had set out from his home clashed, again and again, with those flies. The impact of that collision troubled him to such an extent that a storm began to swirl inside his head. ‘I am scared … I am terrified … I am scared of the lantern … It has destroyed all my plans … I am a coward … I am a coward …I ought to be ashamed of myself.’
He cursed and admonished himself in many ways but the desired impact failed to take effect. His feet did not move forward. The courtyard paved in a criss-cross fashion with hand-fired Nanakshahi bricks lay spread-eagled in front of him.
It was summer. Half the night had passed but the wind had still not cooled. The crowds in the bazaar had thinned. Only a handful of shops were open. Everything was wrapped in a sheet of silence. Though, occasionally, a gust of warm wind would carry a snatch of tired music from some brothel that would soon dissolve into the dense silence.
Some signs of life were still visible in front of Javed, that is, on the other side of Mai Jeeva’s hovel, in the rows of brothels lined above the shops in the big bazaar. Directly in front of him, a black-as-coal woman sat by a window, fanning herself in the sharp glare of an electric light. A naked bulb hung directly above the whore and looked like a white-hot ball of fire that was slowly melting and dripping over her head.
Javed was about to seriously begin thinking about that coal-back woman when he heard some coarse voices shouting the most obscene slogans from the far end of the market, the end that was not visible to him from where he stood. A short while later, three men appeared — dead drunk and swaying on their feet. The three planted themselves under the coal-black woman’s window and Javed’s ears heard such obnoxious things that all his plans shrank into a tiny ball inside him.
One of the three drunks, who seemed more drunk than the rest and could barely walk, snatched a kiss from his moustache-coated lips and flung it towards the coal-black whore with such a graphic obscenity that it shattered whatever little remained of Javed’s determination. In the brothel, the coal-black woman sitting in the light of the naked bulb, laughed, her lips opening in a horrific cackle. She returned the lewd remark tossed at her by the drunken man as though she was flinging down a basketful of filth. On the street below, a fountain of coarse laughter erupted and Javed saw the three drunks climb up the brothel. In a matter of minutes that space where the coal-black woman sat, became empty.
Javed began to despise himself more than ever. ‘You … you … you … what are you? I ask you … after all, what are you? You are neither this nor that … you are neither human nor beast … your education, your intellect, your ability to tell good from bad — it has all come to naught. Three drunken men arrive. Unlike you, they have come with no clear plans. But without any fear or hesitation, they talk to the whore, they laugh, they cackle and they climb up to her den, as simple as that … as though they are going up to fly a kite. And you … you … you who know well enough what you should do, stand like a fool in the middle of the bazaar scared of a lantern! Your intention is so clear and transparent, yet your feet refuse to take you forward … Shame on you!’
For a minute the thought of taking revenge upon himself rose within Javed. His legs shook and he moved, crossed the sewer in one leap and began to move towards Mai Jeeva’s brothel. He was about to reach the stairs when a man came down. Javed stepped back quickly. He tried his best to hide himself but the man coming down the stairs paid him no heed.
The man had taken off his mulmul kurta and placed it on his shoulder. On his right wrist he had wound a string of fragrant motiya flowers. His body was drenched in sweat. Unaware of Javed’s existence, the man hitched his tehmad up to his knees with both hands, crossed the brick-paved courtyard, leapt across the sewer and went away. Javed began to wonder why the man had not even glanced in his direction.
Meanwhile, he looked at the lantern that seemed to be saying to him: ‘You will never succeed in your plans because you are a coward. Do you remember last year, during the rains, when you had tried to declare your love to that Hindu girl, Indira, how your body had lost every ounce of strength? How scared you had been and how you kept imagining the most terrifying things? Remember, you had even thought of Hindu- Muslim riots and how that thought had scared you? You forgot all about that girl because you were scared. And Hamida … you could not love her because she was related to you and you were scared that your family would view your love with distrust. The things you would imagine and the illusions you laboured under! And then, you had tried to love Bilquis but one look at her and all your hopes were dashed and your heart remained a wasteland, as always … Do you not realize that you have always viewed your own innocent love with distrustful eyes. You could never fully comprehend that your love was pure and good … You have always been scared. You are scared now, too. There is no question of girls or women from good families here. Nor is there any fear of Hindu-Muslim riots in a place like this. Yet you will never be able to climb the stairs to that brothel … I shall see how you drum up the courage to do so.’
Whatever remained of Javed’s resolve dissipated. He began to feel that he was truly a first-class coward. Past incidents began to flutter through his mind, like the pages of a book in a sharp gust of wind and for the first time he realized with utter certainty that a certain irresolution lurked in the bedrock of his very being and that had turned him into a pitiful coward.
The sound of someone coming down the stairs shook Javed out of his reverie. The same girl, the one who wore dark glasses and the one about whom he had heard a great deal from his friend, stood on a platform at the foot of the stairs. Javed became flustered. He tried to sidle away when she called out in a coarse voice, ‘You, there, won’t you stay for a bit … Don’t be scared, my love … come … come.’ And then she called out, louder this time, ‘Come on … come on.’