Page 131 of A Thousand Painted Hours

One late morning, I helped Channan downstairs for a rare luncheon appearance. She’d been feeling well, and I helped her settle in a wide, soft chair she loved in the parlor. Finishing his durbar of the morning, Tanveer walked into the corridor outside the room, trading jokes in Punjabi with a local man, both of them taking pleasure in the kind of one-upmanship so many men seemed to enjoy. Tanveer abruptly laughed, a sound as large as the sun. Channan and I both looked up. Tanveer slapped the man’s back and led him to the gate.

“I have not heard him laugh so much,” Channan said. “He is so much happier with you here.”

“Oh, I am quite sure that is not true.”

She looked at me quite seriously. “I assure you that it is. I have never known this Tanveer.”

I sat next to her, smoothing my salwar kameez, for I had taken to wearing the simple outfit. The style was as comfortable as my brother’s trousers, if not more so. “How so?”

She gathered her hands to herself. “He has ever been kind and good, of course. But never particularly happy.” She shook her head. “And never playful.”

I hardly knew how to respond. It seemed an intimate observation of a wife about her husband, and I did not think it my right to comment. I remembered him as a boy, full of energy and light, as a young man, teasing and alive, in England, and then the sorrowful man he’d been after the war. But I could not offer those memories here. “Perhaps it is simply that we are connecting to our childhood selves.”

“No.” She took my hand, a little smile on her mouth. “You must listen, Elsie.”

I opened my face to show I was receptive.

“My father was a forward-thinking man, just as Tanveer’s father was, and he saw to it that all his daughters were well educated. I speak six languages, and read four with some proficiency.”

“Like Gurdaya,” I said, smiling. “Do the two of you trade Latin asides?”

She gave an appreciative chuckle. “She is even more accomplished than I. My Latin is poor.” She passed a thumb over my knuckle, back and forth. “No, but I do read Arabic, which you may not know is very close to Urdu script.”

“I have only recently learned that, when I was in Cairo.”

“I do not think Tanveer quite realizes.” She swept a hand over her skirt, brushing away a leaf that had fallen in her lap. “He writes ghazals in Urdu,” she said. “Poetry. All of them are about you.”

I flushed deeply, and could not think what to say. At last I managed, “Perhaps he did at one time,” I said softly. “But it must not have beenfor many years.” And that seemed not quite right, and I added, “I am so sorry if that caused you pain. We met long ago.”

“It did not cause me pain,” she said in her sensible voice. “From the beginning, our marriage was a clear agreement.” She pressed her lips together. “My injuries caused more damage than my face. I was scarred within, as well.”

The implication of that simple confession burned through the core of me, but I would not insult her dignity with overt emotion or even a whiff of pity. I covered her hand where it rested on the chair.

“We will not speak of it again. Not even Gurdaya knows, or any of the servants. But I would not let Tanveer marry me until I told him, for not only will I never have children, Elsie, but I cannot participate in the acts that will create a child, either.”

I swallowed hard, willing myself to simply be a witness.

“He married me to give me a good life. My dowry was helpful, but it was not enough to make even a splash into this”—she waved her hand toward the ceiling—“crumbling place.”

At that, I could not help the tears that spilled from my eyes. It seemed a very quintessential Tanveer act, not a sacrifice but a stand.

“He told me at the time that his heart belonged to another, so we have been very honest with each another,” she said. “The ghazals are not old. He is laughing and alive in this new way because he is alight with you here.”

My heart beat too hard, too loudly. I did not let go of her hand.

“He loves you. I believe you also love him.”

Again the flush rose in my cheeks. “There has been nothing untoward between us, Channan. I would never betray you, nor would Tanveer.”

“I do know.” She took a breath. “What I am saying is that you will not betray me.”

A small low trembling began in my legs. “What do you mean?”

“Allow him to love you. Love him in return. A man should not be so long without a woman in his bed.”

My breath disappeared, and for a long, long moment, I had no air in my body. My vision prickled at the edges, and I tried to imagine what this could mean, how it would even be possible when both Tanveer and I loved Channan, and we had found this peaceful, loving existence.

And yet, a song began to hum along my nerves. What if? What if I could kiss him again? Touch him again? Lie with him?