Dead: A Ghost Story

DEAD: A Ghost
Story

Mina Khan

http://minakhan.blogspot.com

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This is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events,
or places is entirely coincidental.

Thank you for reading!

Nasreen watches in shamed
silence as her husband and the Hispanic woman have sex.

He is on top, eyes
scrunched shut, thrusting, plunging in and out as if driven by hard
fury. Matin’s flabby arms shake under the strain. A series of short
grunts mark his efforts. Maria lies under him with her legs
sticking up in the air in a wide open V and red nails digging into
his pale, hairy back. She lets loose long guttural moans from time
to time and a few feverish “Ay, Papi!”-s, all the while watching
the flickering television over Matin’s shoulder. His belly slaps
into her body, over and over again. Slap, slap, slap.

Finally, their faces
freeze in ugly grimaces. They let out joint yowls and collapse in a
tangle of limbs in different shades of brown. The sour smell of
sweat and sex bloats the small room.

Hovering above them,
Nasreen sees Matin’s bald spot sticking out like an egg in his nest
of unruly black hair. Her gaze traces the age spots flecking
Maria’s arms and thighs and notices the faded pink flowers in the
twisted sheets that hadn’t been changed since she last slept in the
bed.

In disgust, Nasreen turns
away and finds herself swept up to the rafters. She still isn’t
used to being dead and without the weight of her body. She swirls
around, despondent and unsettled.

Watching the animal
rutting brings back bad memories of all the times her husband had
demanded his “rights.” Even now, she wants to scratch and kick at
him, scream her hatred. She’d tried. Instead of satisfying impact,
her fists simply went through Matin. Her mouth moved soundlessly
when she’d tried to hurl accusations at him. They don’t see her
now, standing there glaring at them. She doesn’t even cast a
shadow.

A shudder of regret passes
through Nasreen. Why did she exist as a mere shadow when she’d been
alive? Why did she swallow all those bitter words in the name of
family peace? Why didn’t she use her God-given legs to simply walk
away? Now she is of even less substance than the fragile and
forgotten cobweb hanging in the darkest corner of the house. The
thought makes Nasreen’s eyes burn with hot, stinging tears. Loud,
heavy sobs wrench out of her as she realizes that in death, as in
life, she’s nothing.

In bed, both Maria and
Matin tense up. Their eyes fly open, they lie very still, holding
their breaths.

“
What was that?” Maria
whispers. “Did you hear it?”

Matin, silent for a few
heartbeats, shakes his head. “It’s the wind. Just the
wind.”

“
It sounded like a woman
crying,” Maria says, as she snuggles deeper into his soft chest.
“Such a sad sound.”

Nasreen stops crying and
stares. Did they hear her or was it really the wind? She shouts,
“Matin, you selfish bastard!” Her words fall soundlessly into the
room.

Disappointed, she sinks
down, through the floorboards, into the living room with its orange
shag carpet. The hum of the window unit fills the silence. The
smell of old cooking— laced with chilies and turmeric and cumin—
hangs like an oily curtain in the air. Nasreen winds her way to the
kitchen, her hand brushing against the peeling blue wallpaper with
its orange and white flowers. A whisper soft Shhhh-shhh-shh
accompanies her progress. Hope ignites inside like a candle,
already melted into a short stub. She plucks at the paper. But her
ghost fingers can’t grasp, can’t hold on. If only she’d torn the
paper off the walls while she’d been alive and able. With a sigh, a
last touch, she leaves the wall behind.

She stands in front of the
kitchen sink looking out of the single window -- a familiar stance,
a familiar view. The sky is white hot. The earth, flat and dusty,
dotted with scrawny shrubs. The kiss between sky and earth is dry
and parched. The panorama stretches, unraveling, as far as Nasreen
can see, just like it had the day she’d arrived in Sand Lake,
Texas, seven years ago.

Matin had bought a
second-hand station wagon, piled Nasreen and all their belongings
into it and driven them all the way from New York.

“
It’s going to be a new
opportunity, a new beginning,” he’d said. “We’re going to be hotel
owners!”

She should’ve known
better, known that like all of Matin’s promises, this too would be
overblown and full of holes. Reality had been a motel, with peeling
gray paint and dead weeds dancing in the wind. A faded sign,
proclaiming “The Grande Motel,” squeaked to and fro above the front
office door. The sulfur smell of rotten eggs filled the air,
proclaimed it oil country. Bill’s Feed Store and the notary
public’s office flanking the motel had closed for the
day.

Desolation pressed down on
Nasreen, hot and oppressive. She’d stood in her blue cotton sari
and flip-flops —her concession to summer—in the cracked asphalt
parking lot, empty except for their station wagon, and
cried.

Until Matin shot a glob of
spit right at her feet. “Shut up and help me unload.”

Nasreen had stared at him
as if he was a part of the strangeness around her. She drew in
long, sob-laced gulps of breath. Her slippers, her sari,
everything, felt wrong.

Nasreen trembles gazing at
the land, so different from the land she’d known growing up. In
West Bengal, especially during the monsoon season, everything was
green. The trees, the grass, the vines --all came in so many
different shades of green. Greens that seemed to breathe, grow and
brighten with every beat of her heart. Once, she’d taken all that
life for granted. Now her eyes itch as the Texas heat sucks dry
every blade of grass, every clod of earth, every bit of
moisture.

Footsteps echo on the
stairs and Nasreen drifts over to watch Matin and Maria descend.
They are holding hands. She wonders how long their affair has been
going on. They look comfortable with each other, familiar, no
self-conscious fumbling and stumbling. Nasreen shakes her head as
she remembers the awkwardness of her first encounters with Matin,
with sex and physical intimacy, with being a wife.

The first time they met,
Nasreen had been nineteen and Matin thirty-six. On holiday from
America, he visited Nawabpur, his mother’s paternal village. His
mother’s grandfather, Alok Chowdhury, and his ancestors had owned
the entire village once upon a time. However, much of that
ancestral wealth had disappeared. Matin’s cousins turned to
business and trade to eke out a living. But the memory of the
family’s grandeur remained, shimmering like a fantastic mirage,
mesmerizing all.

Nasreen’s father was the
mathematics professor at the local college. His government job
provided him a small house and an even smaller salary, adequate for
the widower and his only daughter. Then one evening, Sayeed
Chowdhury -- a comfortably middleclass businessman and direct
descendant of Alok -- brought his American cousin for a visit. They
claimed to have come for intellectual conversation. Nasreen served
them tea.

Matin was immediately
taken by her. He’d told her later that her shyness had stirred his
loins. Her long hair, a silky black curtain down her back, fueled
his fantasies. He sent a proposal before the end of the
week.

Nasreen remembered Matin’s
heavy jowls, his pockmarked skin and the potbelly stretching his
shirt and said no. Her father sighed.

“
Ma, be reasonable,” he’d
said. “I’m growing older every day and I would never forgive myself
if I were to die without marrying you off. Your husband will take
care of you after I’m gone.”

The professor said Matin’s
proposal was the best that she, a poor teacher’s daughter, could
expect. In fact, Matin was better than what could be expected -- a
successful businessman from America and of Chowdhury blood. Her
father borrowed a book of maps from the college library and pointed
out New York to Nasreen. It seemed so far away, so unreal -- a
small blotch of color on a page that could be turned and
forgotten.

Matin visited almost
daily, carrying sweets and books. He told wonderful tales of
America with its shiny buildings stretching to the sky; clean,
air-conditioned shops that had more things than could be imagined,
like sweaters for dogs and socks with bells; and underground trains
that carried millions of people. He laughed and spoke of being a
lucky man. He’d won the American visa lottery, after
all.

Her friends were envious,
she was going abroad, to the land of plenty where no one went
hungry or wore threadbare saris. Every one of them had heard
stories of America from a lucky relative who’d made it to that
distant land. One of them noticed her sadness and remarked, “Eeesh!
I don’t know why you’re pretending such sadness? My sister’s
husband’s cousin’s son says anything is possible in America. You
should see his car, tomato red and shiny, with no roof. Brand new!
I saw a photograph he sent back.”

But when two fat tears
rolled down Nasreen’s face, the other girl had softened. “Don’t
worry so much,” she’d said. “With a new husband, and a new home
--you won’t have time to miss this old place.”

Matin and Nasreen married
within a month. Her father used most of his savings to buy three
sets of gold jewelry as her wedding present.

“
I wish I could do more,”
the professor told Nasreen. “But at least now the Chowdhuries will
know they are getting a girl from a respectable family.”

Nasreen floats in front of
the framed wedding picture, prominently displayed on the fireplace
mantle in the living room. Matin is wearing a long white groom’s
coat with gold embroidery and loose pants. A pink, silk turban sits
on his head and a thick flower garland hangs on his neck. She is
dressed in a red and gold
benarasi
sari, a matching flower garland and almost all her
gold jewelry, standing next to him.

Or rather, she’s almost
hidden by his bulk. His thick lips are split in a
self-congratulatory smile as he clutches her hand, while she stares
at the camera in wide-eyed panic.

“
I don’t like that
picture,” Maria says, startling Nasreen out of her
thoughts.

Matin laughs. It sounds
coarse and rude. “Why? Are you jealous?”

“
No,” she says, barely
suppressing a shiver. “But your wife seems to be staring at me,
watching me.”

Her words, feathered with
fear, make Nasreen smile. A small flare of petty pleasure launches
through her. Part of her feels guilty. But then some days that was
the only kind of pleasure to be had.

“
Don’t be silly,” Matin
says, stomping away. “Make us some lunch. I’ll be in the front
office for a bit.”

He leaves Maria sitting on
the lumpy brown couch still looking at the picture. After a while,
she shrugs her soft, round shoulders and pushes to her feet. She
walks from room to room whistling a tune.

Nasreen follows, close
enough that if she were breathing Maria would have felt the puffs
of air on her neck. She watches the woman rifle through closets and
drawers, peek under the mattress and bed, and even search inside
Matin’s shoes. Nerves prickle through her.

Maria pulls out some cash
from an old dress shoe in the back of the closet, counts it and
carefully puts it back. Nasreen’s right hand flies to her mouth.
Why had she never thought of doing this? God, she’d been nothing
more than a placid cow until led to slaughter.