Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Portrait of a Woman

Azra Abbas

The first time when I knocked on his door, he opened it himself. He was an artist, and a well-known one. I used to go to his painting exhibitions often, but had not had an opportunity to meet him earlier. One day I called him up and made an appointment to see him. He was at the door. ‘So how are you? I’ve seen you somewhere,’ he said, standing at the door, as he combed his fingers through his hair and signalled for me to enter.

‘That’s right! At your paintings exhibition … I go often, very good strokes… your colours are very lifelike … it seems as if the strokes are applied involuntarily. But the movement in them indicates your skill. Each stroke is full of life … then your landscapes … it’s as if one is standing inside what you have painted.’

As I said this, I found a place to sit in his drawing room. He smiled and lit a cigarette, and gave me a cushion to put behind my back. I looked around his room intently. How fine all his paintings looked hanging on the walls. But one painting among them was very unusual!

‘Whose portrait is that?’

‘This … it could be anyone’s. If the one who drew it is alive he can tell; once he dies it will simply become a masterpiece from the artist’s easel. The one which startled you so … yes, whoever’s it is, it is very beautiful.’

The face in the painting was a woman’s but the features were so tangible and distinct, and the effect that spread across them showed that the artist had used all his craftsmanship to create it. It was a living, breathing painting.

‘But you can tell about it now… that…’ I asked swallowing hard, moved by the beauty of his painting….

‘Yes …. my wife…. was…. was…. that’s right….’

My ears perked up ….

‘Where is she?’ I asked with great trepidation because I could see a dark shadow coming over his face. He had lowered his head and was staring at the space between his feet.
‘The fact is that she did not want to live with me. That’s why she has started living with other people now.’

‘So she wanted to live with other people then.’ The ridiculous question slipped off my tongue.

‘No, another person wanted to live with her.’

‘So you didn’t want to live with her.’ I opened my mouth, and asked the question without even meaning to.

‘That’s not how it was earlier. Initially, she was the only one I wanted to live with. But gradually she started losing significance for me. Actually I consider a wife to be an insignificant thing, whoever’s she might be. When I got to know this woman, I had thought I couldn’t live without her. But as soon as she became my wife, I started to see her as just one of the many things around the house that I had acquired to meet my needs. A wife’s place seemed the same as the rest of them. One who would be there to fulfill my needs whenever necessary. That was it. My emotional relationship with her had come to an end. But she had also become aware of the value that I attached to her. Very slowly her attitude also started to change, although I would see her completely involved around the house. She would look after my patrons and even took care of all my own needs promptly. In her own mind, perhaps she was ready to go on living in this way, hence she very calmly went about keeping herself busy in the house. At the same time, she quietly endured all the activities where I would get romantically involved with other women. She made this part of her regular routine. I had observed her resignation to my activities and felt that if she wanted to continue living with me she would have to endure all that. But she would scrutinize every step I took. She was certainly not oblivious to what I was up to. Although she would do certain things to make me aware of her presence, I looked upon her as being unimportant to me, so that her only association with me was that she was my wife and a wife whose place was among the other items I needed around the house. Meanwhile, I would take interest in any woman who could not become my wife; whoever she might be; even if she were someone else’s wife. I would quickly get rid of any woman who approached me with hopes of becoming my wife. On occasion, this flirtatious habit of mine placed me in a dilemma, and when some women sacrificed everything for me and tried everything in their power to take my wife’s place, I would push my wife forward and she would take them away from me with great equanimity and occasionally some cunning. But it wasn’t as if she wasn’t upset by these actions of mine. There were times when she tried to make me realize and punish me for this behaviour by not coming to me in bed. But this method often did not have any effect on me. Sometimes, apparently unaware of it, she would start cavorting with me in such a manner that would leave me completely bewildered. Thus, gradually our relationship was taking on a strange dimension. She would sometimes become my friend and sometimes be a stranger to me, and sometimes she would be there for me when I returned home without having satisfied my sexual needs. She could tell when things were thus, and would yield to me with all her energy. I also felt as if she was telling me again and again that she was not unimportant. That she was not just my wife whom I could simply place alongside the other articles around the house and forget.

And then one day, when an admirer of my work, like you, came to see me, my wife looked after him as was her norm, because it was part of her daily routine to be hospitable to all my patrons. ‘This is my wife.’ I had introduced her with my characteristically exaggerated aloofness. That was how I always introduced her to strangers. ‘Okay go and get some tea.’ And she would run to go and greet my patrons laden with goodies, like a dutiful and obedient wife. The same thing happened that day.

I spent a long time talking to my guest. My wife kept coming in with water, tea and snacks. But in the meantime I don’t know what happened and how his attention focused on my wife. I was watching too. She also started coming into the room more frequently. My guest would sneak a glance at my wife. Who knows what that look was. That made my wife aware of being watched. Then that patron started coming to my house very frequently, but now my wife was included in his admiration. He would pass some comment praising her cooking, her clothes or her gait every time. At such moments, I would see her blush in the same manner as she used to, at the beginning of our relationship, but I still did not attach enough importance to my wife, to put an end to this interaction. In my eyes she was a good hostess. But I was shocked out of this spell one day. That day I watched my wife greet and entertain my patron in a different manner. She wasn’t wearing her everyday clothes that day; instead I found her all dressed up and carefully groomed. I didn’t make much of this initially, but then I saw that when she bent down to hand my patron a cup of tea, she made a conspicuous but unsuccessful show of hiding her breasts. She was discovering a new manner of exposing herself, and I could see the same glimmer in my patron’s eyes that came into mine when I beheld other women. I was looking at all this apathetically. All this was also insignificant for me. I had been in similar situations so many times. Additionally, I no longer saw my wife like this myself. She was not a woman, she was a wife, and a wife who was an object for me. Even my sexual relations with her, as I have described before, had become as much a part of my daily rituals as brushing my teeth or changing my clothes. My paintings got more attention than this. She had also got used to this treatment from me. When physical necessity took me to her bed, she also took off her clothes in the same way as she would give money to a persistent professional beggar to be rid of him. I never remonstrated against this behaviour either. Because her body no longer gave me the scent of romance that I could smell on other women, regardless of how far away they were standing. Only to fulfill a need. Once in a while when a flirtation with another woman did not happen to culminate in a sexual encounter, I would satisfy my sexual desire with my wife’s body, and unawares or not, she always fulfilled this need. That day I could see her body desperate to expose itself. Every coquettish gesture she made showed that she was making a futile effort of covering herself, and even my presence did not bother her at that point. At first it felt as if I had already seen that scene repeatedly, but then suddenly I discovered that this was the first time I was witnessing it myself, as an outsider. This was not someone else’s wife and that was not me. That was my patron. And this was my wife here. But I was looking at this scene in the same way as I would look at the strokes of someone else’s painting, trying to find new strokes that might be different and apart from my own strokes.

Then this scene disappeared from my sight. My wife was back in her old everyday clothes and got busy around the house following the same routine as before, and I was again forced to see her as an insignificant object at the dining table, the bed and in the studio. I saw the same expressionless look in her eyes once my patron had departed. She didn’t even give any justification for the fervour that she demonstrated in his presence. As if nothing had happened at all. In order to blur this scene, I also started to look at the strokes of other paintings. But this started happening repeatedly; my patron’s visits became more frequent. And every time I saw a heightened intensity in this scene. They were no longer bothered about whether I was present or not. And a new change was coming over me as new strokes were introduced to this scene. It was a very strange feeling. When he came to my house, I would stay in the same room where my wife was bent upon entertaining him. Something new was revealed in every new gesture and manner of hers. I would see the admirer fawning over her. Suddenly I felt as if I were that admirer. And she wasn’t my wife, she was some other woman. This sensation started to grow within me. As soon as the admirer left, I would grab my wife. I wouldn’t interrogate or question her; instead I would throw her on the bed and take the romance that she had started with the admirer to its culmination in a strange manner. This was no longer insignificant to me. She was also not my wife to me at that moment, the wife whom I used whenever the need arose and who cooked my meals for me, washed my clothes and looked after the affairs of my household. Now she was some other woman. But all this would suddenly end as soon as we had had each other. I would be the same as before once again and she would go back to being the same wife. Now I started enjoying this game. I started being restless for that admirer’s visits. And on the occasions that he was due to arrive, I would simply stay out of my studio. When he arrived, I wouldn’t open the door. I’d ask my wife to open the door. He would come and sit in the drawing room, and I no longer went to meet him as soon as he came in; instead I would look for ways to quietly enter the room where I saw my wife flirting with her admirer in a completely new persona. I would be thrown into a fury of excitement at every gesture of hers. I would look at all this secretly, as if she were putting up this entire show for my benefit. I would feel a wave of love rising within my body for her, which was the same as when I was trying to attract the attention of another woman. My heart would be ready to burst with love, happiness, grief and much more. All this was the same as the tumult when, while working on a new painting I would play with the colours and brushes for a long while. But all this while, the entire game would start only with the arrival of the admirer, and come to an end when I brought my wife to bed and concluded the game there and my wife remained exactly as she had always been.

But one day when my patron was due to visit, I had to go out for some important work. I tried very hard to be back in time but was unable to do so. All the while, I kept visualizing the romance between my wife and the admirer in all its splendour, and kept feeling all kinds of unknown sensations spreading across my being, and then I knocked on the door with great desperation and restlessness. My patron opened the door. I saw my wife standing behind him, looking at me as if I were a stranger, an intruder. I virtually pushed past them to get in, and ran towards my studio. Putting down the things I was carrying, I went towards the bed and called my wife in the admirer’s presence. She looked very different to me that day. An object of great value and importance. She came and stood holding the door. I stepped towards her in a sea of emotion. Come. But she looked at the bed and at me in a manner that showed that both had lost their significance for her. I tried to call her again. My whole being was ready to explode. But she had left the door and gone and was busy looking after my patron.

As I lay there, a strange notion entered my mind, an idea, a flood of such great intensity that it crushed my spirit. I wanted to see my wife in my patron’s house, and myself in his place. I got up with a start and went to my studio. That day I painted this portrait of my wife. That day, that insignificant woman had seemed very important. And the next day I told my wife of my decision.

She is living with my patron as his wife now. The two of them are not in this city any more.’

I kept looking at the artist’s portrait for a long while; at the radiance the artist had captured from her face and hidden in this portrait; that couldn’t be forgotten once you set your eyes on it. It was the face of a woman who was smiling after having become aware of her glory for the first time.

Translated from Urdu by Samiya K. Mumtaz

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