The Good Wife

When Sharif Din felt a strange ache in his knees, he attributed it to old age. "I'm not as young as I used to be," he said to his wife. She silently squatted over the choolah and stirred the pot of simmering salan with an old, charred spoon. He thought to himself that he had never heard his wife speak a full sentence in all the forty years they had been married. One day all the words she had stored up over the years might some day burst out, like a broken dam, and spill all over him, drowning him in a flood of unexpressed emotion and hidden thoughts.

Sharif Din had labored in the fields all his life. Now, at sixty, he had four strong sons that could take over his duties. It was time for him to sit back and relax. He was particularly blessed; unlike other men, who had to worry about marrying off troublesome daughters. It was, he thought to himself, one of her strong points.

He chewed on the end of a betel leaf contentedly, watching her as she cooked. She had a touch with food, preparing the most interesting dishes out of the most rudimentary of ingredients. While other men lived on plain flour chapatis and cooked lentils, she managed to procure meat and vegetables for two solid meals a day, and mangoes and a bit of buttermilk in the summer. He was the envy of all his friends; they clamored for an invitation to share a meal, which he granted with the generosity of a Mughal king inviting his courtiers to sup at the royal dastarkhwan.

She was not the most beautiful of women, but he didn't feel guilty admitting it. Beauty only caused trouble in these parts. Like his unfortunate cousin Aman Din, whose wife, Khadija, had been so beautiful that she had attracted all sorts of unwanted attention. One neighbor, a particularly badmash fellow by the name of Allah Bux, insisted on hanging around the house when Aman Din was away in the fields. He came home one day to find them both talking while she washed the clothes in the nearby river. She was laughing at Allah Bux, her white teeth flashing between her red lips. Aman Din had no choice but to avenge his honor. Allah Bux escaped only by diving into the river and scrambling for safety on the other side; Aman Din, unable to swim, could not chase him. They buried Khadija in an unmarked grave, and Aman Din spat on the freshly upturned earth, then turned his back and walked away, like a man should.

No, Sharif Din's wife had never done anything to cause him shame. She looked after him and their four sons, washing, cleaning, cooking without complaint. She had never even asked for as much as a radio to listen to. Not like those other girls in the village who insisted on being allowed to go to school. Why, the thought was ridiculous! Girls going out in front of strange men, where anything could happen to them while they were out of the range of their menfolk's protection. What would they ask for next, a car so they could drive? He shook his head in wonder. You had to know how to keep your woman under control: that was the key to life here.

Sharif Din's wife, squatting over the choolah, glanced at her husband, who lay on his back on the charpai, gazing up at the blue sky. He was a good man, Sharif Din. He had treated her well, in spite of the occasional beating, the hard life in the fields, the difficulties of childbirth and raising four mischievous sons. She knew, too, the secret to their harmonious life: keeping quiet, never raising your eyes, let alone your voice, in front of another man, never saying no, no matter what your husband asked of you.

And another secret which she would never have revealed to anyone: the attar, or rose oil, that she prepared and dropped into the cooking pot every day, without fail. It was a recipe to induce love between a husband and wife, or if not love, at least a strong affection that did not depend upon youth or beauty.

But on the day that Sharif Din ever displeased her, she knew exactly what to do. She would replace the rose oil with a small amount of Turks' Cap, or wolfbane, which she kept in a small bundle buried under the cooker, along with a stash of money, and a small photograph of her daughter, who had died when she was only eight. When her sons and the other villagers found his body, she would only shrug. "He wasn't as young as he used to be," she would say. And they would all nod in agreement over the cruelty of life.