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Translated from the original Tamil short story vēli (வேலி) from the 1992 collection of short stories titled makkattuc cālvai (மக்கத்துச் சால்வை) by S.L.M. Hanifa. The original collection is available at noolaham.org.

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Darkness smothered the sky in clumps. It seemed as if the vanguard of the night was spreading its tentacles while murmuring a lullaby song under its breath.

“Chē! After all, I shouldn’t have been so late.”

The thorn of guilt pricked at her heart. She was sweating profusely. She stepped over the threshold at the main entrance into the front yard and glanced at the hut. Having acquiesced to the beatific silence of the night, it lay there listlessly, like the life of a widow.

The passionate, youthful feelings that had lain dormant all this time broke through the sentiments of pity and snowballed into something greater.

‘At least for today, let this lamp be lit in the hut,’ her heart resolved.

As her footsteps drew closer, a voice stirred to life from within the hut.

“Is that you, Rāyilā?”

“Yes! Yes!”

“Why so late today?”

“What can I do? How can I always come home early? Do I have a husband who’s gathered and bundled the firewood for me?”

Rāhilā snapped at him. The man who was curled up in the plain straw mat regretted asking.

He struggled to bury his hurt deep within his chest, only for it to erupt as a red-hot sigh.

Rāhilā took the edge of her saree to dab away the beads of sweat on her face. The nagging feeling that her response had been tainted with unnecessary cruelty played hide-and-seek within her.

With a sense of duty, she lit the lamp, and a dull light spread within the hut. In that light, Rāhilā’s eyes searched for the curled-up figure. It was not an unfamiliar figure. It was the figure that occupied the place of ‘Rāhilā’s husband’ for the past five years.

The wellspring was breached;

Compassion trickled forth!

‘The poor soul,’ her heart was anguished.

“Are you ok?”

The conversation they just had completely slipped from her mind. His heart became light as a feather; he was like a toddler scrambling into its mother’s lap after being punished.

“Rāyilā! I think I have a fever today. My chest feels tight, too, and I feel weak. Make me a little porridge with some broken rice.”

It took a Herculean effort for him to finish uttering these words.

Immediately, he was stricken by the thought of being on the receiving end of her sharp tongue with a retort like, ‘The Lord and Master demands porridge now, does he?’

For the past six or seven months, snapping at him no matter what he said had become second nature to Rāhilā. But today was different. Without a word, she complied with his request and began making porridge.

The clay stove caught the spark from her matchstick and began belching smoke. Rāhilā puffed up her cheeks and blew into the stove, wiping the smoke from her eyes. Her efforts were rewarded when a flame abruptly leapt up and spread.

Rāhilā’s husband thought her body shimmered like gold in the light of that little flame.

He was sitting up with his back against the hut wall, his solitary leg stretched before him.

The pain weighed heavily on his chest, making him pant.

The pillow that supported his neck and head brought him comfort, but gazing at the exquisite beauty of his wife from this new angle sprouted a thorn bush in his heart.

As the fire took hold in the stove, Rāhilā walked back into the living space of the hut. The flowery silk saree and the velvet blouse they had bought for her wedding lay abandoned in the storage box. She picked them up with newfound fondness and laid them out to air on the coir clothesline.

A soft light began to spread, heralding the rise of the crescent moon. In her heart, too, an unfamiliar dull light began to spread. Rāhilā returned to the clay stove and crouched before it. They did not exchange a single word but these two hearts often communicated more in silence than in words.

Rāhilā rinsed the rice in the arikkimilā, the metal pot for cleaning rice, to remove gravel, then poured it into the pot on the stove, and began mixing it.

He could not take his eyes off Rāhilā.

One cannot just introduce Rāhilā merely as a woman. She possessed the allure of a mango that had ripened on the tree amidst a cluster of others. When she smiles, it is impossible to take one’s eyes off the beautiful dimple that forms on her left cheek. He always thought she was the desert flower upon which God chose to imprint His unique stamp of beauty.

She was his cross-cousin, which meant she was an eligible match for him in a society that permitted such marriages. Beguiled by her beauty, he courted her persistently. When he finally won her hand, he felt the pride of having all the world’s riches heaped at his feet.

He felt a few inches taller, his chest fuller. As a lumberjack, when he walked to and from the jungle carrying small woven baskets full of snacks — the hallmark of a new groom — he exuded a unique majesty, like an emperor surveying the domain of his heart.

It was like the captivating light show of a rainbow, or the exquisite beauty of a water droplet shimmering like a pearl on the edge of a blade of grass… yet he was a simple, uneducated man, lacking the poetic imagination or the eloquence to describe the incredible life he had been gifted.

One day, he returned from the jungle, hobbling on his right foot. He laughed it off, saying a branch had struck his knee while he was chopping down a tree. Perhaps he believed that Rāhilā’s charming smile would be the soothing balm to heal his injury. But reality grabbed that belief by the horns and shook it mercilessly. The wound festered, dragging him to and from the Puḷiyantivu hospital for months, until his right leg was amputated, leaving him confined to the straw mat at home as a permanent patient. In the process, their meager possessions and the few pieces of gold that once glittered on her body all vanished.

Rāhilā built a hut on a plot of sandy, barren, government land and began her life, hoping to find fulfillment by being there for her husband and caring for him.

The satisfaction she once found in realizing the dreams of her youth vanished into thin air, like a dream itself. Her youthful yearnings left her feeling exposed, with a bitter taste at the back of her tongue. She wore her status as a wife like armor and joined the ranks of women who earned a living on their own by collecting and selling firewood.

This arduous life continued for a few years, withering the flower of her life, petal by petal. But today, the fangs of the problem have risen up like a giant apparition.

The porridge boiled on the stove. The events that transpired earlier that day also smoldered and spread their tentacles.

Rāhilā had gone to the water’s edge to wash up. When she returned, carrying a bundle of firewood, the horizon was decorated in crimson to bid farewell to the sun.

Her first thought was, ‘Today is the day to deliver firewood to the village headman Ali’s house.’ The thought of that house made her shiver involuntarily from embarrassment and shyness.

She threw the bundle of firewood by the kitchen and drew water from the well to quench her thirst. Just then that village headman’s driver, Karim, appeared from the direction of the garage. Over the past eight months, it had become customary for him to await her arrival, and for her to await his. They both knew this, but neither expressed it in words.

The light that shone through the gap in the open garage door painted Rāhilā in a golden hue. She squinted and asked, “Have they gone somewhere?”

“Today is their nārisā at the mosque, offering free meals to the faithful. That is why the boss and his wife are out.”

As his mouth answered mechanically, his eyes lingered on her blouse, taking in the sight of her youthful, buxom figure that the fabric struggled to contain.

The complete self-realization struck her like lightning. She regarded her own body with newfound fondness. For four years, her husband had not been able to worship this body — the body that resembled a freshly bloomed flower, made firmer and stronger by the hard daily labor…

Shyness and modesty; Fury followed instantly!

She felt that the way he was undressing her with his eyes was obscene. Yet at the same time, a certain titillation tantalizingly tickled her.

In that moment, their eyes exchanged the timeless emotions surging within them.

The ecstasy born of forgetfulness was shattered by the birth of a sudden realization.

The faint memory of her husband lying in the cottage.

“Tell the headman that I have brought the firewood. Please give me some money if you have,” she mumbled each word hesitantly.

“OK, come inside!” Karim closed the door further as he went back into the garage.

Rāhilā’s suppressed emotions, long resigned to regarding the corporeal pleasures of youth as a mere mirage, began to bubble up whenever she saw him. In the beginning, her husband’s kind face and his disability joined forces to steady her wavering resolve.

But as time went by…

Whenever she lay down with her husband, Karim’s handsome face and his constant smile began to weave through her imagination as cross threads.

Eventually, the fortress was completely breached. The silent pleasure of offering her body to Karim in her imagination had begun to pervade her entire being.

She realized that Karim was inviting her in to take advantage of this rare opportunity for them to be together alone. She followed the footsteps of his desire and entered the garage.

Inside, a beatific silence connected them. They were so close that they could feel each other’s breath. He looked at her as if overwhelmed by the urge to drink in her beauty with his eyes alone.

“Are you going to swallow me?” she teased him with a smile.

“Rāyilā! I know your situation. I tried to talk to you so many times. But today I finally got the opportunity. Tell me if you agree.”

Until now, it had been Karim’s gaze that gave her the impetus to want to escape the prison of her anguished life. Now the third person has become the second person, speaking to her directly. A desperate hope budded in her heart and slowly began to grow.

“If you promise in the name of Allah that you won’t forsake me, I will follow you.”

The words burst through her lips, surprising her.

“Rāyilā!” he exclaimed as he embraced her tightly fulfilling his long-held desire. She lost herself in his embrace, powerless to resist his hands that were moving downwards from her waist. Muffled voices from the street outside reminded them that the garage they were in was not isolated from human habitation.

“What if the headman returns abruptly?” she hesitated.

“I, too, forgot. It is indeed time for them to return. Take the money for the firewood directly from him. We don’t want to arouse any suspicion. But keep this!” He thrust a five-rupee note into her hands. She hesitated again.”

“From now on, everything I earn is for you,” he forced the rupee note into her palms. She relented and took it.

“Rāyilā! Don’t forget. I’ll wait for you by the banyan tree just as the early morning train blares its siren.”

Until now, throughout this interaction, she had remained like a motionless statue. Now she hung her head to indicate agreement. Her legs started walking away.

Rāhilā took the porridge off the fire, poured it into a bowl and began cooling it down. The siren from the paper mill blared, filling the entire area with its shrillness. Rāhilā looked at her sleepy husband and said, “Here, it is almost ten o’clock. Get up and have some porridge before you sleep…”

He slurped the porridge while leaning against the thatched coconut-leaf fence — “Rāhilā you suffer because of me. But God will not make you suffer forever. One day you will see your dawn.”

He washed his hands and curled up on his mat once again.

The oil lamp belched thick smoke. A cluster of dark clouds slowly consumed the moon, which had reached its zenith.

The mist covered everything, as if a white silk awning had been draped over the world.

Rāhilā could clearly hear the first notes of birdsong welcoming the auspicious dawn.

She went to the well to do her morning chores.

The image of Karim waiting for her by the banyan tree filled her mind, spreading like a wall-to-wall carpet.

She retrieved the flowery silk saree and velvet blouse from beneath her mat and put them on, admiring the completeness of her own beauty.

Finally, out of habit, she glanced through the gap in the door — her husband’s hands, anemic from the disease that was consuming him, lay facing upwards in desperate appeal to God.

Teardrops welled in his eyes and slithered down his cheeks like a necklace of pearls. His dry lips parted…

“My creator! Forgive the sins I committed knowingly or unknowingly and save me from damnation, Rahumān! Have mercy on my wife, relieve her from the trials and tribulations she suffers because of me. Grant a good life at least to her, Rahmān!”

Rāhilā felt unable to move, as if her feet had sunk roots into the ground.

She thought of her husband who, despite being reduced to the state of a worm squirming in the mud, still showered her with love and compassion…

A newfound courage and resolve enveloped her.

She secured the five-rupee note in a knot at the edge of her saree. If she went to the village headman Ali’s house, she needed to return it to Karim.

An old pot climbed on to the new fire she made on the stove.

1970