Translated short fiction: An elderly couple looks after each other with ulterior motives

On one side was a small child, pulling a bundle filled with sand by a long string. On the other, a girl of around nine or ten was trying to work the spinning wheel. A boy of the same age walked unsteadily, one step at a time, as if for the first time in his life. Near a washbasin full of water was a child trying to grab the toy duck floating in it but failing because the nurse kept pushing the duck away. The duck would return to the child on the ripples created as he moved his hands in the water, but the nurse again pushed it away. There were many tricycles all around on which children were attempting to pedal furiously.

The room looked as if it was part of a nursery school. In reality, though, it was the section of a hospital meant for exercising the weak parts of the body, the physiotherapy section. Toys, spinning wheels, steel plates, wooden blocks, small cars, and cycles with strange tyres and pedals constituted the equipment for the exercises. Everyone using the equipment had an issue with some body part, and all of it was designed to fix such issues.

I often visited a particular section of the hospital for my blood tests. On the way, I would always pause in this particular room. I was very fond of the young and efficient supervisor. I was also deeply affected by the astonishing environment of pain, helplessness, strength, effort, and hope that I saw there.

I was particularly surprised when I saw an old woman on a high cycle in that room one day. A grey salwar suit of cheap silk, a dark blue dupatta, scuffed gold bangles on her wrist, nearly all her hair stark white, a completely wrinkled, dusky face. She wore glasses and the small eyes peeping out from behind them were as bright and energetic as those of the young. She had black shoes on, one of which was specifically made for the handicapped foot. The cycle she rode had three tyres, and she looked a bit odd sitting on the high seat.

Softly, I asked the supervisor, “Do people of this age also come here, doctor?”

She smiled. It seemed that perhaps all the helplessness that she had seen around her had imparted a kind of sadness to her smile. “Yes, sometimes they do.” Lowering her voice, she added, “Her foot will not get better, but she and her husband insisted so much that I thought why not, let them try it for a few days. She comes every day.” Then she addressed the old woman: “So, mataji, are you not doing your exercises?”

The old woman tilted her head straight up, as if the prescription to cure her helplessness was written on the ceiling. Then, lowering her head a bit, she said, “He has gone to get the oranges, na.”

Just then the door opened, and a very old man walked in. Average height, stocky, wearing a stark white, well-starched cotton shalwar with a striped shirt with rounded bottoms and a tennis collar, equally white. Teamed with the shirt was a black waistcoat, half undone, boasting fine zari embroidery. Well-polished sandals on his feet, nothing covering his head, neatly trimmed white hair, fair complexion, big eyes, a bag of oranges in his hands. Looking at him now, in his old age, one could imagine how handsome he must have been in his youth. He went straight up to his wife and squatted near her feet. The moment he did this, the old woman started trying to pedal, and he started assisting her by giving support to her foot. She tried to pull her foot forward, and he, holding her ankle and shoe, pushed it to enable her to complete the circle. After a while, he started to pant with the effort. I watched as time passed, but the old woman did not stop. On the contrary, she got irritated with her husband from time to time. A couple of times, when he couldn’t hold on to the pedal, she had a few sharp things to say to him. She even called him lethargic. The supervisor and I stood and watched. She looked at me and smiled. I smiled back, biting my lips. Both of us were wives, had husbands – and this looked very odd.

I left to get my blood tests done. On my way back, I wanted to look in and see what was happening in the physiotherapy ward. I did not enter the room but, while crossing the gallery, tried to look and see if the scene was still the same.

Every now and again after that, I would stop while passing that room. The old woman and her husband started to recognise me. We began to talk about each other’s well-being. But sometimes both of them were so busy with their work that I didn’t think it was appropriate to involve them in conversation. The thought of speaking with them individually did come to my mind, though, and one day I got the opportunity to do so.

Passing by that room on that day, I noticed the old woman’s husband wasn’t around. She was sitting on her bicycle, eating her orange. I couldn’t stop myself. I went up to her and asked, “Mataji, has your husband left?”

“No, beta, how could he already leave? I leave here at two, so he will leave with me. He’s gone to do some work.”

“How do you go?” I asked her.

“Until the gate of the hospital, I go by wheelchair, and then he gets an autorickshaw. We come together and leave together.”

Impressed, I remarked, “Your husband is a good man. He takes care of you. No other man would be able to do it like that.”

She peered intently and quizzically at me from behind her glasses. After remaining silent for a moment, she said, “Now, I don’t know about any other man, beta, but I haven’t stinted in taking care of him. I was fifteen when he married me and brought me here. I did the dishes in his house, swept, cooked, made rotis for fifteen to twenty people, and washed all the clothes. I made and sold papadams, badiyan, pickles. First, his mother pocketed the money, and then later on, he did. All the sweets, fruits, nuts that my family sent me were eaten by his family – for fifty years!”

“For fifty years?” I was taken aback.

She smiled. “Yes. For fifty years. I also delivered many children for him, among whom only two boys and one girl have survived. He still cursed me. He even had affairs with other women, and I would wait up until one at night to open the door for him. He would come home drunk and many a time even beat me up.” Seeing doubt colour my face, she smiled again and said, “He was very handsome, fair-complexioned, and I was a little dark.” Sighing, she added, “Actually, he has never loved me and sometimes I even wanted to kill him, but then where would I have gone? So I continued to take care of him and people thought that I was a Sati Savitri.” She continued to smile.

“No one would guess that he used to beat you up.”

She laughed. Her mouth opened wide and the half-eaten piece of orange in it was visible. “He is old. How will he hit me now? No other woman will give him any attention. The sons have moved out of the house with their wives. He has now understood that I am his only companion.”

I felt bad. I said, “Don’t speak like this, mataji. He loves you a lot now.”

She heaved a sigh. “Everyone says this, and I nod along. People make assumptions based on what they see. But that is not always the truth. As long as people are saying good things about him, it is fine.” She went quiet and again started eating her orange.

As I stepped outside, I saw her husband entering the hospital. I said to him, “You are a remarkable person, bhaisahab. You take very good care of your wife. No other husband would sit holding his wife’s foot for hours!”

Initially, he looked at me with surprise, and then he responded, hesitantly, but with a smirk, “Actually, the real issue is that even though I have two sons, two daughtersin-law, a daughter, a son-in-law, and grandchildren too, nowadays – and you must be aware of this as well – one can’t really trust one’s children. Who will support me apart from her? So, however dark she may be, I take care of her. I hope she recovers completely, that her limbs start working again.”

I began to feel angry at the old woman. Here was this man, nursing her with such a pure heart, while she was mocking his old age! I said with great respect and sympathy, “You are doing a great job, bhaisahab. This is how it should be.”

He replied, “The thing is, I myself am touching seventy-five. I could be bedridden any day. Then she’d be the only one to take care of me, wouldn’t she? If she doesn’t, what will happen to me? You tell me – can I make anyone other than her look after me?”

The wheels in my head started to spin so fast that I felt unable to make up my mind about the question that arose in me and will therefore leave it to you to decide: who was the bigger trader between the two?

Excerpted with permission from ‘Who is the Bigger Trader?’ in Darkness and Other Stories, Razia Sajjad Zaheer, translated from the Urdu by Saba Mahmood Bashir, Zubaan Books.