She had had to sleep with her husbands on the first nights of her two earlier marriages. It was customary for the groom to bring the bride home on the very day the marriage was solemnised. It was routine for the newlyweds to bolt the door and sleep together. However, the night of her third marriage was different. When he did not bed her on the first night, she considered the third husband impotent. That he might be a paagol – not quite right up there – had not really occurred to her. Given her prior experiences, it would not have been easy to make sense of this. Rehana’s family, too, had failed to comprehend that the groom was soft in the head. That’s mysterious, though. The crackpot groom not being discovered, or instead of getting pummeled, making it through the ceremony in broad daylight, and getting the bride home, all in all, were unquestionably peculiar. Rehana enjoyed the strangeness. She was even pleased by her husband. Why?
How wonderfully did the groom’s family cover up his madness during the wedding! Still, think about it, hiding the man would have been easier than hiding his madness. The credit for this success must go to the man himself. After all, concealing such things is hardly a joke and would not have been possible without his compliance. A madman marrying in public without anyone getting so much as a hint of his condition is unthinkable. He must be a unique paagol whose nature was passive and soft as halwa. Thus, on the first night of her wedding, Rehana slept alone. Her nandaai – sister-in-law’s husband – snuck up behind the window trying to make advances.
Rehana still had no idea about her husband’s mental state. After spending a day at the in-laws’, she was to visit her parents with her husband, his family and friends in tow. But he did not come. Instead, Rehana’s nandaai escorted. Still, she hadn’t figured it out. No proven conjecture declares a husband to be mad if a brother-in-law accompanies the bride on her first homecoming and fabricates a report of diarrhoea to defend the groom’s absence. The imagination played by its own logic. Rehana wondered if she was now to sleep with her brother-in-law instead of her husband that night. She expected to get laid, but why did her husband let the chance pass? Why did he do nothing on their first night as a couple? However, neither her brother-in-law’s indignation at the door on the wedding night nor his coming with her to her parents led her to conclude that her husband might have been crazy. Instead, she felt she might have to treat her brother-in-law like a husband. In her previous marriages, both on the nights of the nuptials and the first one back at her parents, all that her husbands wanted was to bed her. And so, her only thought now was of being laid. Everything that had happened in her second marriage was in line with the experiences of the first. But the third threw her out of gear. The first two marriages still echoed within. She might have to give in to the brother-in-law now that he, instead of the groom, had escorted her.
After a few days at her mother’s, the nandaai brought her back on the excuse of the mother-in-law’s illness. Rehana wondered again if she must now sleep with the nandaai. She was confused. Had she been married to the brother-in-law instead of that husband of hers, would she have refused to sleep with the former? Utterly bewildered, she returned. Her 12-year-old sister, Momena, came along.
When Rehana entered her husband’s room and looked at the bed, the first thought that crossed her mind was about sleeping with him. Flushed, she readied herself. She sat on the bed, imagining him standing close behind. Her memories from her two previous marriages guided her fantasies.
She waited on the bed at night with only half a veil over her head. She left the door ajar in case the husband sought intimacy, showing up from behind. His first touch! Her body awoke, ready to tremble with desire at his touch. The lantern burnt brightly. Rehana knew that its luminescence flooded the veranda. She was aware that one could see her from the outside, and if he set his eyes on her now, he would come alight with desire.
Late that night, a hubbub rose behind her door. Rehana discovered her husband’s insanity. His mother and sister had come to see him off at her door, but he refused to enter. When he started bawling, they ran away, leaving him there. From her position on the bed, Rehana wanted to turn her head to acquire a certain cognisance of this man, this paagol husband. If she didn’t, her brother-in-law or some other person might attempt – or very well succeed in – sleeping with her by simply faking madness.
At that moment, in that life married to madness, Rehana experienced an intense urge to know her husband, even though he was mad. She could only manage a glance. It had to suffice. Had she not had the chance to see him that night, anybody pretending to be mad could have come and slept with her. She could not refuse a second man if she had consented to the first. All this would be because he was what he was, and she had no clue how he looked. If she hadn’t made an effort, she wouldn’t have been able to refuse a third person either – in fact, she might have had to give in to the fourth, fifth, sixth, and many more.
When she realised she would not have to sleep with any madman, not even her husband, she bolted the door, dropped her veil, and relaxed on the bed. She dimmed the lamp and relished lying husbandless in the softly luminous bed. Sleeping with her two earlier husbands had left her vexed. Now, she was able to sift through her fantasies gently. The thought that she might have to accept her brother-in-law in bed stopped bothering her. Even though she could feel that he was lurking right outside, awaiting a chance to invade the chamber of his mad brother-in-law.
Rehana held on to her consciousness, oscillating in and out of drowsiness. She could sense every detail of the nandaai sneaking up on the other side of the door and window. It was quite late, but Rehana knew that the later it was, the more opportunities her brother-in-law had. The rest of the family was asleep. Her own husband, who was a paagol anyway, was probably dozing off somewhere. The circumstances did not allow Rehana to relax. Now that she knew the madman was her husband, she did not have to open the door to nandaai mistaking him as the husband. She must now be cautious not to let the nandaai break in. The lamp must be released from its dim permanence and turned up in a sprightly glow. The room must be brightened. And she, reclined on her bed, should be visible from outside the window.
There was only one reason for her to brighten the flame and allow herself to be seen from the window. Lying on her darkened bed, she could see them – the faces of her husband and nandaai alternating. Her mad husband was not asleep after all. He did sneak up to the window now and then to peek at his new bride. This was another kind of madness! Between his visits, the brother-in-law made his appearances. Rehana suspected that nandaai was afraid of her husband and did not wish for him to know that he too was there doing the same. When the lamp was brightened, it illuminated the veranda and made the two men visible to each other. The husband’s surreptitious efforts made her believe he felt somewhat possessive about her. It would not be improbable if he bumped into his brother-in-law. The madman might do something uncourteous if that happened. He may not have the courage to come near his wife, but if he discovered another man eyeing her, he might not let him go easily. Even if he didn’t come to his wife himself, not allowing another man to come near her was perhaps not an odd thing for a lunatic.
Excerpted with permission from Qissa of Bibi in Black Burqa and Forty Men, Afsar Ahmed, translated from the Bengali by Kathakali Jana, The Antonym Collections.
