The Other Side – No Rain

That night, she turned off the lights and pulled back her curtain again. 

It was raining. 

She curled up, bringing her legs close to her body. When the music started up, she closed her eyes, imagining them dancing, holding each other close. Were they married? Maybe that was it. Maybe this was a couple, and she was intruding in their personal life.

She gritted her teeth and moved away, suddenly feeling the weight of what she was doing. She climbed off her bed and pulled out her prayer mat, wondering briefly if her voyeuristic behaviour negated her ablutions. With a shrug, she started her prayers, resolutely keeping her eyes away from the window. 

She was becoming obsessed, and she needed to break the pattern.

She went again, the next morning, to the house, ringing the bell and waiting for a response that she knew wouldn’t come. It looked empty, and a neighbour confirmed it.

“No one lives here.” He said, wiping the sweat from his face. It was October, the hottest month of the year in Karachi, and a few minutes in the sun was all it took to start sweating.

“Uh, yes they do. There’s a man and a woman in the back room. I can see them through my window at night.”

“This house has been empty since we moved here two years ago. No one lives here,” he repeated.

Saraab walked to the end of the narrow street, counting the houses. “One, two, three, four.” Four houses from the road, just like their own house on the street behind this one. This was the right house. Maybe the couple were squatters? 

No, that didn’t make any sense. They were too well-dressed, carefree, to be squatters. Besides, the furniture in the room didn’t look like discarded furniture. It was the kind of furniture she had seen on TV, in dramas about rich people in elegant homes.

She walked into her house and pulled off her burqa, deep in thought.

“Saraab!”

Saraab jumped. Ammi was standing in the open kitchen doorway. “Where have you been? You went out without asking.” Ammi rarely yelled, and she wasn’t yelling now, but her voice was raised. “What has gotten into you?”

“Sorry, Ammi. I thought I would see if the people at the back were home.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you, Saraab, but no one lives there. Your father went round last night; the neighbours think you’re crazy.”

“Crazy? Oh, come on, Ammi!”

“Baba told them you had seen someone through the window and they said you must be hallucinating.” She looked at her eldest daughter with serious concern. “Are you?”

“Of course not, Ammi. I’m not crazy.”

“What exactly can you see?”

“Why don’t you come see tonight?.” She regretted it as soon as the words came out of her mouth. What if Silky Hair and the man were dancing again? Ammi wouldn’t be happy about that. But Ammi was already nodding. 

“Yes, yes. Now go water the plants outside. The soil is ridiculously dry in all the pots.”

“Dry? But…” Saraab stopped. It rained last night, didn’t it? She turned, went outside. The soil was dry in the pots. Was she going mad? She was sure it rained last night. She had heard it, seen the drops falling on her window sill. She looked up at the sky, and thought of the walk round to the street in the back. The roads had been dry, no puddles, no random greenery pushing its way towards the sky. What was going on here? she wondered.

***

There was no dancing, no light, no movement behind the window that night, though they waited in tense silence until midnight. When Ammi finally left, she kissed her daughter tenderly, the look of concern etched deep into her face. “It will be alright,” she said, gently.

As if I was dying or something, Saraab thought, angrily. She shut her bedroom door a little forcefully. She pulled back the curtain completely and opened the window. She was pulling up the bolt on the frame of the mosquito netting when the light from the other house hit her window sill. Saraab looked up, intending to call her mother back. The shout died in her throat.

Silky Hair stood at the window in a blue shirt and time froze. Saraab heard a sound in the distance, like a giant wave growing louder and louder as it came closer and closer.

The whooshing sound burst through her eardrums, and she looked at herself standing at the other window, looking back at herself.

She jumped back explosively, yelling in shock, “Who are you? What are you?” She closed her eyes and the orange rectangle burned blue against her eyelids; she opened them in a blink. The window was dark and Silky Hair was gone. “I am crazy.” Saraab was sweating, the gushing wave pulsing in her ears.  Crouching at the bottom of the bed, she shut her eyes and started reciting the Kalimah out loud to drown out the waves. She felt a sudden, irresistible desire to open her eyes because she knew, knew, that someone was in the room with her. Her voice rose, there is no God but God, there is no God but God, please, please Allah.

Wrapping her arms around herself, she gave in to temptation and opened her eyes.