Page 89 of A Thousand Painted Hours

“Elsie, is there no world in which you would forgive me?” He leaned into my neck, and I stiffened. “Make love to me?”

I did not move, aware that there could be danger in moments like this, when he allowed himself to reveal the truth of his yearning. I waited, still as a stone, as he moved his hand to my belly, and simply rested it there. “I have never stopped loving you.”

Still I did not speak. Another silent moment passed between us, and then he said, “Never mind the painting,” and left me.

I stayed where I was for a long moment, my heart beating unnaturally fast. My education on his mercurial moods had been far too thorough during our time in Cairo. He’d been moody, prone to fits of fury, often drinking far too much.

This felt like that.

I should have to be wary, especially in light of the instability the bombings could bring to his shell shock.

—45—

November 3, 1940

Talwarpur Palace

[In Urdu]

Dear Elsie,

Do I remember the day at your art school?

I remember the light pouring from your skin as you stood in the ballroom, looking for me, and the blaze that shot from your eyes when you saw me. I felt I had been born for that very moment, when I knew it was going to be all right, that you still loved me. We kissed in the garden, and I thought I might dissolve entirely.

I remember the siren lure of you looking so closely at me as you painted, the delicious anticipation of that hour and the kisses we shared in the courtyard afterward.

I remember the storm at the party and the rain pouring down as we met that evening, alone, and burning. Have there been two lovers more in love than we were then? I cannot believe there ever have been.

What I also remember from that weekend was the terrible picnic, the colonial hysteria of the tent, the absurdity of the mix of decorations, some of it India, some of it Africa, none of it real, and the man (what was his name? Payton?) drawling his superiority into what could have been such a good day. It spoiled my mood, and I regret that deeply. If only we had known that we had so little time, I would have used it more thoughtfully. But isn’t that how it always is? “If only we’d known” must be one of the oft-used phrases in the world.

Never doubt I remember. I remember all.

Stay whole, Elsie. Stay alive. I worry about you every day, every hour, thinking of the blitzkrieg raining down on you and your dear mother and all of beautiful London, destroying it.

Tanveer

PS: One small beauty is the camera I bought Channan. She has taken this photograph I think you will like. Gurdaya says he looks exactly like me at that age, which you would remember, too.

PPS: I remember you reading to me, to all of us in the hospital. It might not have seemed to have made much difference, but it was a great kindness. I remember the flowers, too. You brought them from a garden and set a little vase on each soldier’s bedside. I am sure there are men from that ward who still dream of you,jaan. I am among them.

[Enclosed photo of Kirandeep, age 13]

A Telegram from India

Spring 1917

Herewich

—46—

Rocky was killed in action in France on the nineteenth of January 1917. He survived the Battle of the Somme only to die at the hands of a sniper in that brutal winter. The news reached me on a dark, rainy February day. I doubled over in pain as Nina told me, holding my hand tightly, a handkerchief in her hand. We wept together, not even able to trade stories of his beauty, his extravagant pleasure in life.

The loss was too much for either of us to anything but cling together in our grief.

His death came on the heels of several others among our set, including Grayson, and Nina’s younger brother Oliver. One did not grow accustomed to it, the erasure of one young life after the next after the next. I, who had never had a minute of religion, prayed for the end of the conflict before more were sacrificed.

More, in this case, embodied by Tanveer in my mind. We continued to exchange letters, but they were the letters of friends these days, no more.