The little roadside dhaba, a short distance outside the city, was nothing short of paradise for travellers. People were always stopping there to rest. Gentle sips of tea, quiet disagreements and murmured discussions made the atmosphere all the more pleasant. I glanced at the tourists, dark-skinned and fair, and stepped inside.
May those red lips of yours
Never speak of parting now.
May every heady evening of mine
Be spent close to you.
O wheat-hued girl,
At every moment, before your radiance,
My love stands pleading—
O wheat-hued girl.
The words of the song playing on an old radio whispered into my ears. The lamps of memory blazed into life, and by their light I made my way along darkened paths into the beautiful palaces of the past.
Every so often, the sea’s mischievous waves interrupted our thoughts. She sat motionless on a high rock beside the shore, carrying something of the mystery of the Mona Lisa. Even the wind seemed to hesitate, as though it longed to draw into its embrace that figure God had painted upon His canvas in such deep colours.
One after another, the waves leapt forward, each eager to outstrip the rest, then bent their knees in reverence before her. They kissed her feet and withdrew along the same course. For a long time, I had been delighting in this display of royal ceremony.
Suddenly, her lips, faintly tinged with grey, moved. The still moments circling that statue came to an end.
“Listen. Can you entrust feelings and emotions to pen and paper?”
Her question did not surprise me. Perhaps such philosophical thinking had been mixed into the very first nourishment she received. Every day she asked strange questions for which I had no answer. In response to my silence, she would invariably put on a deep, lingering smile. That smile left me spellbound for several moments. Not only me: perhaps everything that witnessed her gestures stood still.
That was how she was: a wheat-hued face, a straight nose, and a shining black beauty spot beside the diamond nose pin that adorned it. Her deep black eyes, full of wonder, were generously outlined with kohl. Above them stood thick, proud, long lashes, which she lowered with such shyness that I remained imprisoned by her charm. Her eyebrows curved like the fine furrows of a field of ripened wheat, disappearing into the slopes at the corners of her eyes.
I fell more deeply under her spell whenever a few strands escaped her gathered black hair, rebelling in their desire to brush her lips and cheeks. She would defeat them and put them back in their place. A few minutes later, the struggle would begin again.
Once more, a faint, bright jingling arose. She swung her feet in the water in such a way that the chime of her anklet stirred the timid waves. Then, still thinking, she turned towards me. Many questions had gathered in her enchanting, philosophical eyes.
I could read them. Anyone could have read them, even someone unable to hear. Yet such a person would have been deprived of the effect of those sweet words, for which even wine could offer no substitute.
“I laugh at lovers who have no reason, no capacity to think.”
There was a trace of agitation in her voice.
“Why?”
She lifted her wheat-hued face towards the sky. The starlight had grown clearer. Reflected in the sea’s waves, it formed a luminous halo upon her face. There was no sign of the moon anywhere. After gazing upwards for a few seconds, she spoke to me.
“I don’t know why people compare their beloved to the moon. Some worship the Eternal; others worship the beloved. Just as setting up a partner beside the Eternal, or comparing Him to anyone else, is a grave wrong, I believe comparing one’s beloved to the moon is a kind of shirk too.”
After a long pause, she spoke again.
“Listen. You’re a writer, aren’t you? Shape my character in your story like this: a helpless girl, weighed down by worries, with the haze of unfinished sleep in her eyes and the burden of countless unfinished dreams upon her. Even that would be an incomplete character. It would be impossible to complete me, impossible for pen and paper to bear those words, because no one can write all that I feel.
“My journey has been full of obstacles. Depression, anxiety and restlessness have held on to me through everything. But now I want to hold on to courage, and you are my courage. I do say ‘if only’ about the time that has passed, but I also keep hoping for the next destination.
“I’ve heard that, at the end of a story, everyone leaves. I don’t want to reach the end of this one. Couldn’t you break the pen so that it would never dare write anything more? Tear up the pages so that nothing more could be inscribed upon them, and our story could simply go on?
“Will you stand beside my character in this story?”
There was hope in her tear-filled eyes—so much hope. Hope of setting out with me on a long journey, in which she wanted me beside her as a central character.
I had never understood her logic. She carried around her own elaborate conjectures, built from apprehension and imagination. That wheat-hued girl had nurtured such tightly knotted confusions that I was caught within them almost to the point of ceasing to exist.
Your simplicity lives only in imagination;
What cruelty, that no page can contain you.
The red glow continued to spread across the horizon, as though it were smiling upon the two of us. How extraordinarily beautiful these dusky girls are. Every colour suits them. She was accustomed to wearing white, and I wore black. Whenever we were together, it seemed to me that the moon was playing hide-and-seek behind dark clouds.
Our footsteps were being written into the soft, damp earth of an old farmer’s field. Holding my hand, she was moving towards a destination unknown to me. Living beside her, I too had learned to make conjectures. Now I was trying to fathom someone whose conjectures could defeat even the wisest. Around us, waving fields of wheat dazzled the eyes.
“Sir! Your tea—the wheat-hued one.” He put particular emphasis on “the wheat-hued one.”
I came out of my thoughts to find the waiter standing before me, holding a china tray with a single cup of tea.
“Oh, yes. Thank you.” I quickly turned my solemn expression into a smile.
“Sir, I would like to ask you something.”
He set the cup on the table and respectfully crouched beside it.
“Yes, go ahead,” I said, taking a long sip.
“Sir, you’ve been coming here for a long time. Every day you order a cup of wheat-hued tea, but you drink only half and leave the rest unfinished. What is the reason? Or is it…?”
Without completing his question, he fixed his curious eyes on me.
Who knows what there is in that wheat-hued beauty, that even Adam was drawn into its spell?
“Sir!”
His voice brought me back from the valleys of thought.
“She is an essential part of my life, as tea leaves are to tea.”
“Then where is she now, sir?”
“In my diary.”
Half my tea remained. I set the cup down with a delicate tap and walked out of the dhaba, leaving him bewildered. Outside, every lifeless thing was washed in a wheat-hued light.