Of Smokeless Fire A.A. Jafri (books to read to improve english TXT) 📖

Talat also enjoyed Mehrun’s company, especially her stories. Mehrun, too, liked her mistress and was touched by her kindness; Talat was so unlike Farhat, whom she found icy, aloof and insulting. One day, as they exchanged stories while she cooked, Mehrun casually mentioned her desire to learn the English language. As if it was the most ludicrous thing she had heard all day, Talat chuckled at the idea.

‘You want to learn English?’ she asked. ‘What will you do with it? Make pickles?’

Mehrun shrugged. After a pause, Talat continued, ‘My husband teaches English at the university.’

‘Oh, really?’ Mehrun feigned surprise. ‘Do you think he will teach me a little?’

‘I don’t think he has the time.’

Mehrun devoted most of her time in the Mirza household to dusting the books in the professor’s modest library. It was her downtime, caressing all those neatly bound titles that lined the bookshelves. It was there that she could leave behind her wretched world entirely and lose herself in the presence of books. All the writers on the shelves were strangers to her, and she could not even dare to look beyond the covers of the books, afraid that the professor might get angry and whip her, Zaidi-like, but one day, she finally succumbed to a tempting volume while dusting the room.

Pulling out the ornately bound copy of Oliver Twist, she wiped off the dirt, savouring the smell of old leather and buckram. Just sniffing these musty volumes made her giddy. Mehrun knew about Oliver Twist because the professor had gifted an illustrated edition of the book to Mansoor on his birthday. And Mansoor, after finishing the book, had recounted the tragic tale to Mehrun, reading bits and pieces from the book to her and showing her the illustrations. Now, with trembling fingers, she opened the book and started to go through the illustrations, searching for the sketch of Nancy’s murder. There it was, in the end, with Bill Sykes, the cold-blooded murderer throttling her. How she had longed to learn how to read the story for herself, and then Mehrun’s mind flashed back to that horrid day when Zaidi beat her ruthlessly—the pain still raw; the banishment still hurting. She dropped the book as her heart shuddered with fear. Tears rolled down her cheeks and trickled on to the hardcover. Why did Zaidi have to insult her? Why did Noor Sahib kick them out? And Mansoor, why did he not come to her defence? Lost in her thoughts, she brooded over that terrifying incident, and then she felt a heavy hand on her shoulder. She jumped.

‘Sadiq Sahib, I’m sorry, I was just . . .’ She shuddered, wondering if history was going to repeat itself, and braced herself for more indignities, more drubbing. But that did not happen. To her surprise, the professor seemed compassionate. He made her sit and then asked her why she was crying. And Mehrun found herself recounting the violent encounter with Zaidi, the ruthless beating she had received, the abuses she had heard, just for asking him to let her be there with Mansoor Babu during the tutoring session. The man had even called her harami, the worst profanity anyone could throw at a decent human being. Sadiq put his hand on her head to comfort her, as Mehrun dried her tears with the sleeve of her kurta.

After a moment, she turned to the professor and said, ‘I know the story of Oliver Twist.’

‘Oh? Have you read it?’

‘No, somebody narrated it to me, but I would like to learn English so that I can read it myself. I want to speak the language fluently.’

‘Don’t they teach any English in government schools?’ he asked.

‘They do, but it is simple English. I would like to speak English fluently, like Mansoor Babu.’

‘Then you must. I will not only teach you to speak and read English, but I will also teach you to see life through books.’

And with that, the professor left the room, leaving Mehrun puzzled about the last thing he had said. Not knowing what to make of either that or of Sadiq Mirza, she shrugged her shoulders and resumed her dusting.

*

Sadiq Mirza, a portly man in his late fifties, felt smothered by his family life. As was the case with most of his close friends, his marriage to Talat had been an intellectual disaster from the very beginning. It had been arranged by his parents when he was only twenty and she was sixteen. They were on a different plane when they started their married life, and with time and age, they had wandered further away from each other. Tethered together for thirty-seven years, they continued their life journey without any spark of love, without any bond of empathy between them. The longer they stayed together, the more detached they became. It wasn’t a contentious marriage like Noor’s by any means. Far from it, it was placid—their whole existence too unruffled for Sadiq’s taste. He often reflected on a line from Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, which he had underlined: ‘. . . there was scarcely anything left of body or mind by which one could say, “This is he” or “This is she.”’ He felt bored in this togetherness, just like Mr and Mrs Ramsay did. Their only common link, the one that made them feel alive, were their daughters, but they too had got married and moved on. But Sadiq was not an egotist; he was not Mr Ramsay, for he did attend to Talat’s needs; only, he did not love her. Like Noor, he too experienced solitude in marriage.

*

After she had finished her work for the day, Mehrun headed towards the bus stop. The thought of going home and making dinner for her parents made her feel exhausted. As she sat on the bench at the bus stop, she yawned and closed her eyes. To veer her mind away from all thoughts of the drudgery that awaited her at home, she began dreaming about her future again. Next year,