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Merry Time (continued from preceding page)
I felt David watching me from the sofa as I collected remnants of his time with Haider onto a tray: two whisky tumblers, one of which was slightly chipped at the rim—I wondered how this had escaped Haider’s notice for he was so particular and precise in how
he wanted things to be that a chipped glass would’ve surely incensed him; a blue-and-white ashtray filled with cigarette butts made from glazed tile found in the mausoleum of Shah Rukn-i-Alam in Multan, gifted to Haider by yet another business associate; strewn peanut and pine nuts shells; and an unused wooden bowl I had specifically placed on the desk for discard- ing of the shells.
Perhaps this straightening up took a minute, maybe two, but it felt much longer; as if time itself had surrendered so I could spend more moments than appropriate with a man whose face never left my mind. I was ashamed of my thoughts. Even in my sleep, I dreamed of David. Sometimes, we were in
a tree house up in the hilly plantations of Assam where David stoked a fire over which I made chai for us to enjoy as we watched the Brahmaputra valley
at dusk. In other dreams, David was situated at the dining table with Rumana, helping her with alge- braic formulas beyond my comprehension while I watched the two of them from an arched doorway. These domestic scenes always ended the same way: with David holding my hand in his, leading the way into a bedroom where the only light illuminating its walls came from a lantern on the bed. It was filmy. I woke up from these dreams sweaty, my heart racing, and the threat of an all-consuming fire on my mind as I turned to a snoring Haider to check if he detect- ed my fantasy betrayal.
Maybe I beckoned David to me, or maybe I walked over to him. I can’t say for sure how it started, but
as soon as I was in his arms, all my notions of being dissipated. In David’s embrace, I wasn’t Tarannum Haider, wife of business mogul Hafeez Haider, nor was I Tarannum Hassan, daughter of Iqbal and Afshan Hassan. I also wasn’t Bibi jee, manager of the house- hold who doled out instructions to Aziz, Biju and Lala, and I most certainly was not Mama, mother to Ru- mana who was born, red-faced and screaming, within the first year of my marriage.
David held me close, his arms around my torso, a hand gently caressing my nape, allowing me to rest my head on the flat plains of his chest with my eyes
closed, listening to his steady heartbeat. I was just a woman filled with lust for a man I was never des- tined to be with.
Several minutes passed as we stood there, silently entwined, breathing each other in. When I opened my eyes, the room spun and I stepped back, reestab- lishing a distance between our bodies that my Ami would have approved of.
“Tara, I’m sorry, I-I-I don’t know what came over me.”
“No, David. Don’t be sorry, please.” I leaned back on Haider’s desk, perching on its teak wood surface. I was dizzy. Was it from a rush of adrenaline or was it guilt?
“I have great respect for you and your husband. I meant no harm.” He held up his hands and shook his head as he spoke. He took another step back, away from me.
“David, I like you.” The words left my mouth as if by their own volition. “I cannot explain it, and it’s dif- ficult to think about, because it feels wrong for me to hold onto these emotions. But I am telling you this because I’m complicit in whatever this is.” I looked at David and waited for a reaction to my confession.
“Oh, Tara.” This was all David said as he hurried back to me and cupped my face in his palms. The sensation of his hand on my cheeks made my feet tingle. His pinky fingers grazed my jawline as he drew my face towards his and kissed me deeply. Was I still half-seated on the desk, or was I stand- ing? All I remember is the taste of David on my tongue, the fit of our locked lips, and the feeling of being rearranged somehow, like before the kiss,
I was a puzzle with misshapen pieces carelessly welded together and now I had come undone, bro- ken and put back together again in a way that finally made sense, the pieces joining seamlessly and easily to accommodate another me. Before I became a sta- tistic in the war, a forgotten name on a bureaucrat’s list of body count, I was Tarannum Haider, adulter- ess, lover of David.
Sakrani is a Pakistani-Canadian writer living in Memphis, TN, with her husband and two dogs. Her work has appeared in Noble Gas Quarterly, Rusted Radishes, and won the 2018 Tiferet Writing Con- test. She works at Wunderman Thompson and holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts.
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