Legends of love

Every time she thought of her plan, she wept because nothing could be more wretched than the fate of a woman who was ignored in love. She has waited for a lifetime, hoping that someday his mind was going to turn to her. She prayed to god, offered sacrifices, and resorted to spells and charms, her mind unwaveringly seeking recognition for her undying love.

Although she lived without him, he lived within her. She felt him in her husband's touch, sniffed him in her husband's smell and heard him in her husband's voice, her marriage being a vicarious experience for her missing love. She lived with one man, but longed for another, slept with one man but dreamt of another, and looked at one man but saw another.

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But all these years that other man never cast an eye on her, never took time to look at the lump of flesh that lived and breathed for him. She thought he was shy, so she wrote to him. She thought he was scared, so she talked to him. But she wasted her love all that time like rubbing a matchstick on the damp surface. She struck again and again without being able to produce any flame.

Then she got married on a rainy day, choking on tears she couldn't shed. She sat on the bridal stage, looking at the stream of guests through her veil, her wistful eyes searching for a single face in the crowd of men. When her husband took her hand in his hand for the first time, she prayed for a lightning bolt to strike her dead.

She once wrote to him on a chit, asking if he could borrow one of his books. She expected him to write back or bring the book in person, giving her the opportunity to start all over again. But the thickhead he was, his servant came with the book like a home delivery boy. She searched the book from page to page, looking for a sign if he was thinking of her.

She came across him several times, the same reticent man who looked as if nothing in life could stir his mind. Her friends tried to tell her that she should forget him, that she should let go of his memories as a fling of youth and concentrate on the marriage. But she could never stop thinking of him through the nights and the days and his name echoed in the murmur of her blood as the heart pumped out fumes of love rotting in vain.

The river of life flowed meanwhile, and she bore two children. She would utter the words of Bernard Malamud from time to time that life was a tragedy full of joy. The man went abroad during this time for higher studies, and she felt a strange desolation in her heart as if all the people had left the neighborhood. In her rage she asked a friend how could a man learn anything abroad if he couldn't read the love of a woman at home?

She fell ill and waited many dreary nights for death to come. She suffered from splitting headache and anemia, and a mysterious pain would numb her body from time to time. When doctors couldn't diagnose her problem, she blamed it on her wretched fate. She prepared to die, because, while she was suffering in her mind, she couldn't bear to suffer in the body as well.

But she recovered soon, her body reviving like a garden in the spring. Soon love bloomed again in her heart, and she started to miss him. She was happy to live again, but wished she had died because how could she go on suffering the absurd grief of craving for what would never come to her!

The children had grown up by this time. Her husband lost money in business and started to spend more time at home. He worried about the future, and she worried about him and the children. She took to prayers for their wellbeing and thoughts of that man started to recede in her mind. It was God's punishment, she thought, for harbouring the memories of another man, for not settling down with the family that God gave her. She was now angry and disgusted with that man, who must have been busy sowing his wild oats in a foreign land.

When his father died, she went to his house and heard that he was going to come for the funeral. His mother asked to find a suitable girl for him and regretted that her son never agreed to get married while his father was still alive. She said to herself that she wasn't going to do anything with this man. She would ruin the life of a girl by giving her hands to a man who didn't know how to love.

He came to her house a few days after the funeral, and her heart sprang like a leaping frog when she opened the door. The agonies of a lifetime stood in front of her in human shape and she wished that the ground below her had split so that she could fall through its crack. She motioned her hand to wave him in, because tears and words collided inside her while she couldn't speak.

The dazzling sun had poured into the living room where she sat with him. She looked at his face and saw the streaks of gray in his hairs, which added lustre to his glowing face. Soon her husband and children joined them, and he exclaimed how her children had grown tall like reeds. She told him that she was married for twenty-seven years, lest he had forgotten it.

He said he came to say goodbye, because he was going back abroad. She told him what his mother had said to her and wanted to know if he was planning to get married soon. He heaved a sigh and pouted his lips, while she eagerly waited for him to say something. After a long silence he got up and said that he would let her know once he could make up his mind.

For many weeks after he left, she thought of her plan and wept. Once again he came and disrupted her life just when she was gathering strength to go ahead with it. The phone rang one morning and his voice came drifting from the other side. He said he was calling to let her know that he couldn't make up his mind on anything for twenty-seven years.

There was silence on both sides and the phone went dead. Ever since then she has been thinking to write to him sooner than she thought.

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.