IN ONE of his stories, Maupassant writes that if you are asked have you ever been in love and your answer is ‘yes many times’, then you have never been in love. He further retorts that it is only a married woman who falls in love. As it is not my aim to relate what Maupassant wrote in his story. My story also concerns a married woman who fell in love.
You ask a married woman here if she has ever been in love, the usual answer will be that well we knew each other but then we were married off with the consent of our parents. For those who take lying as a serious offence, instead of weaving sentences in their defence, they look sheepishly at their husbands. Even those who marry men of their choice after eloping, take the question as an offence.
Nobody should be averse to this attitude, as generally women are not supposed to fall in love. They are to be loved. And if they walk on the wrong side of the fence, then you come across what I came across a few days ago. I found a woman who had fallen in love and as a social consequence, was broken into pieces.
On my usual evening walk, I saw from a distance what seemed to be a pile of human limbs. They looked like broken parts of a mannequin used for displaying clothes in boutiques. When I approached the spot, the limbs were quivering and I could hear a faint moan sound of a woman. As I have great regard for human dignity, I decided to put together the poor soul, who had not yet lost her life. Putting off my compulsory walk for some other time, I tied all that I could assemble of her in my large scarf, and brought her home.
I had a big task ahead of me. It was of making a person out of a jumble of human parts. As a student of philosophy and a writer on art and other sweet and sour things of life including politics, I was sure that I would be able to make something out of it. I started with the bigger parts of her body. At the end of the day, I found that I managed to fix a foot to her wrist and as she had only two feet, I had to stitch her hand to her ankle instead. Actually, women should have the foot attached to their wrists as a birthright, as it is a social requirement. While conversing most women make use of their hands, if they had a foot at the end of their arms instead, it could be used as a protective measure against uninvited situations.
It was all quite a task as some of her vital organs were missing. I looked her up side down, as well as inside of her, but failed to find her heart and brain. As for the heart, I did not care much. She had been in love once, and hopefully, for all. She did not need a heart any more. Come to think of it, in a utilitarian society, who needs a heart? But it was her empty skull that was bothering me. She had to have something there as a brain. I thought of putting her stomach in her head, but then I could not be so callous to a woman who was an idealist in her youth. With a stomach in her head, she would have been classed with those people who claim that Pakistan was created to be eaten up. She had never in her precious life claimed that she had opted for Pakistan because she needed it for her stomach. Putting a stomach in her skull would have been murder by broad daylight. And if I had put her tongue in her head then it would have been murder for society.
Without a brain she could be a useful member of our National Assembly with a bright future. She could be appointed a minister for education or information. I consoled her that she would live a more intelligent life without a brain as I had fixed her with a sixth sense in her head. Nobody wants to have an intelligent woman around, if she is to be loved. For her survival, she could use her sixth sense, which is unmistakable.
Half-heartedly, I offered to take her to a home for destitute women but she chose to stay with me. I did not mind her staying with me for various reasons. Visitors to my house were amused to see her. They took her as a kind of a joke. Some of them thought that, I had brought back a robot from Japan to help me with my household chores. A few of them believed that writing on art and sculpture had developed the taste for sculpting in me and I had sculpted a figure according to my perceptions of a woman.
For me, she served as a good reminder to keep me faithful to my pragmatic convictions. Instead of adopting a softer tone, let me put it bluntly, her foolishness charmed me. There was a kind of innocence in her naivete. When she hopped around the house on one foot and one hand, she made me smile. And when she asked me the reason for my smile, I told her that I was so glad that she was still living.
I am glad that so far she has not asked me if I have been in love. Though I have a ready answer for it that I have no time for it, the day she does so, it will be the day of parting day for the two of us.
IN ONE of his stories, Maupassant writes that if you are asked have you ever been in love and your answer is ‘yes many times’, then you have never been in love. He further retorts that it is only a married woman who falls in love. As it is not my aim to relate what Maupassant wrote in his story. My story also concerns a married woman who fell in love.
