Chapter 14: Grave ki Tayaari
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The noon sun was a white, hammering thing, bleaching the color from the world. It beat down on the small gathering at the Muslim graveyard, turning the black chiffon of Zarine’s dupatta into a stifling shroud. A few feet away, the freshly dug earth of Usman’s grave looked like a raw wound in the dry ground.
The maulvi’s voice droned on, a familiar, rhythmic Arabic that spoke of return to dust and the mercy of Allah. His words seemed to evaporate in the heat before they reached anyone’s ears.
Suhu stood beside her mother, looking disarmingly demure in a simple salwar kameez, her hair pulled back. She hadn’t cried once. To her right, Soni shifted his weight from one foot to the other. His cheap polyester shirt was soaked through with sweat, dark circles spreading from his armpits. His eyes, bloodshot and frantic, kept skipping from the grave to Zarine, to the maulvi, to the distant gate.
He jumped when he felt a hand slip into his. It was Suhu’s. Her fingers were cool and dry, intertwining with his damp, trembling ones. She didn’t look at him. She kept her gaze forward, on the maulvi, her expression one of pious grief.
Her thumb began to stroke the back of his hand, slow and deliberate. “Nervous, Soni Uncle?” she whispered, her voice barely a breath.
He tried to pull his hand away, but her grip was like steel wrapped in silk.
“Please,” he whispered back, a pathetic, choked sound.
The maulvi raised his hands for the final dua. Zarine let out a soft, practiced sob, bringing a corner of her dupatta to her eyes. Behind the fabric, her eyes were dry and sharp, fixed on the bulging strain at the front of Soni’s trousers. A cruel, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips. The man was terrified, yes, but the old, base instinct was still there, poking against his zipper. Disgusting. Useful.
As the assembled few murmured ‘Ameen,’ the ritual broke. A couple of distant relatives offered Zarine stiff, awkward condolences before hurrying toward the shade of the neem trees at the edge of the cemetery.
In the sudden, intimate silence that followed—just the maulvi packing his Quran, the gravedigger leaning on his spade—Suhu tightened her hold on Soni’s hand.
“Ab aapki baari hai, Soni Uncle,” she said softly. Now it’s your turn.
She didn’t pull him toward the gate. She pulled him closer to the grave. The scent of upturned soil, damp and deep, filled his nostrils.
“W-what? No, bitiya, I…” he stammered.
“You need to pay your final respects,” Suhu said, her tone light, conversational, as if suggesting he try a sweet. “Properly. You were his best friend, weren’t you? The one who found him.”
Zarine drifted over, a phantom in black. She placed a comforting hand on Soni’s other arm. Her touch made him flinch. “It’s okay, Soni bhai,” she said, her voice a soothing murmur. “We’re all family here. He would want you to… connect.”
Soni’s bladder felt dangerously weak. He looked from mother to daughter. Their faces were masks of somber sympathy, but their eyes held the same flat, patient hunger he’d seen in the hallway. He was trapped between the open grave and the two women. The gravedigger had turned his back, lighting a beedi. The maulvi was already walking away.
“Just a moment,” Suhu coaxed, leading him right to the very edge. The mound of loose earth threatened to crumble under his feet. “Look at it. That’s where he is. Cold. Alone.”
She released his hand and, with a casualness that froze his blood, she reached down and placed her palm over the front of his trousers. She gave him a gentle, squeezing stroke. He gasped, a mixture of terror and unwanted stimulation jolting through him.
“See?” Suhu whispered, leaning in so her lips were almost touching his ear. “You’re not sad at all. You’re excited. You were excited when he died. You were excited while he was still warm in his bed. You’re excited now, standing on his grave.” She applied pressure. “Aren’t you?”
Zarine watched, her pretended weep now a distant memory. “The chai that night was very good, Soni,” she remarked idly, as if discussing the weather. “Strong. You must give me the brand.”
He was crying now, silent tears cutting through the sweat on his cheeks. He was hard under Suhu’s hand, a traitorous response to utter annihilation. He hated himself more in that moment than he had ever thought possible.
“What do you want?” he sobbed, the question aimed at the sky, at the women, at the corpse six feet below.
“We want a friend,” Zarine said, her hand moving from his arm to the small of his back, a gentle, pushing pressure. “A helpful friend. Omar is coming back from Dubai tomorrow. He will be grief-stricken. He will need support.”
“And we,” Suhu said, removing her hand with a final, patting squeeze, “will need entertainment. The house will be so dull now, with Dadu gone.”
She took a step back, brushing the dirt from her pristine kurta. The switch was flipped. The intense, intimate menace evaporated, replaced by a breezy normalcy. “Come on, Mama, it’s too hot. Let’s go home. Soni Uncle, you’ll come for dinner tomorrow, yes? To support Papa?”
They turned and began walking toward the gate, leaving him standing at the precipice. The heat shimmered around them. Zarine linked her arm with Suhu’s, their hips swaying in unison.
Soni looked down at the dark soil. He thought of Usman’s surprised, dead face. He thought of Zarine bent over the wicker chair. He thought of the cold, calculating look in Suhu’s eyes just now. He understood, with a clarity that was its own kind of death, that the grave was not just for Usman.
It was a placeholder. And his name was already written on the next stone.8A dry, hysterical laugh bubbled in his throat. He fumbled with his trousers, adjusting himself, tears still streaming. Then he turned and stumbled after them, his shadow stretching long and thin across the other graves, a man already following his keepers home.