The Weary Generations by Abdullah Hussein Page B

laughter they had suddenly become aware of one another as never before.
    â€˜You haven’t even washed your face today,’ Azra said to him.
    â€˜How do you know?’
    â€˜I have good eyesight. Wash it in the fountain. It’s clean water.’
    Naim put his hand under the fine drizzle of the arcs the fountain made and wiped it across his face. He went and lay down on the grass beside Azra’s chair and realized that he had walked out of the house wearing onlyslippers on his feet. Surprisingly, it didn’t bother him. He closed his eyes and felt the cool of the grass through the thin muslin shirt on his back. Behind the dark eyelids he saw, unaccountably, the image of a mountain lake he had never seen.
    â€˜Come here,’ he said.
    Azra kept looking at him intently without moving. Resting her elbows on her knees and her chin on the heel of her hand, she sat leaning in her chair in such a position that the wind blew needle-tip drops from the fountain on her face, where they flickered like tiny stars. Naim put his hands on the grass and sat up.
    â€˜Have you ever seen a harbour?’ he asked.
    â€˜No,’ she said.
    â€˜It’s wonderful. Thousands of lights swimming in water.’
    â€˜I wish I could go and see them.’
    â€˜I want to go and live on a ship,’ Naim said.
    â€˜How can you live on a ship?’
    â€˜I can join a merchant ship. What I really want to do is join up with the Navy.’
    â€˜Oh, but –’ Azra checked herself.
    â€˜Will you come with me?’
    â€˜Where?’
    â€˜When I join the Navy?’
    â€˜Women can’t go and live on a ship,’ Azra said. She took out a pen and began to draw lines with its tip on her fingernails.
    Roshan Agha appeared in the veranda from the left wing, glanced at the two of them and passed through another door a few paces down.
    â€˜Roshan Agha is unhappy today,’ Azra said.
    â€˜What about?’
    â€˜Pervez’s marriage. Everybody wants him to marry Jamila. He says no.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜He doesn’t say. Except that he has known Jamila from childhood as a relative and not as a wife.’ She uttered her short laugh and went back to the pen on her fingernails.
    With the nightfall the delicate, slim-fingered leaves of the shreen tree had closed up around each other and hung limply like an empty glove, the heavy, damp fragrance of its flowers spreading the feel of summer in the dark. Out on the road, behind the tall hedge of the lawn, a bullock-cart was passing on its slow journey, the lazy-toned peasant voices of its passengers rising above the creaking of the cart’s wheels. The wind passing gently over the wet grass was pleasantly warm. ‘Will you?’ Naim asked.
    â€˜Will I what?’
    â€˜Come with me to the sea?’
    Without looking up from her nails, Azra paused before speaking. ‘Will you go to Roshan Pur?’
    â€˜Perhaps,’ Naim replied.
    â€˜You’ll go to see your parents.’
    â€˜Maybe. Why do you ask?’
    â€˜I just ask. What’s the harm in that?’
    â€˜The harm is that you haven’t answered my question.’
    â€˜I can’t.’
    â€˜Why not?’
    Azra looked up, her eyes widening blankly. ‘Auntie told me you cannot join any government service.’
    The fingers of Naim’s hands, white and fragile, paled suddenly and spread out on the grass as if pulled apart by strings. A servant appeared by Azra’s side, bearing a message from Roshan Agha that she was to come inside the house.
    â€˜I’ll be a minute,’ she told the servant.
    Naim lifted himself off the ground and started walking away.
    â€˜Will you come tomorrow?’ Azra called after him.
    He didn’t answer. Azra kept looking at his receding back until Naim walked out of the house. At the gate the chowkidar said something to him. A heavy, foul-smelling object had settled in his stomach like a clenched