The adulteress

The adulteress 

Anwar Rashid flipped open his pocket diary and placed it on the table and carefully kept his pen next to it. “Tell me, sir,” he said. 

I hunched over the table and drew myself close to him so that he could hear my whisper. “Anwar,” I said in a low voice, “You must understand that this must be done very discreetly. Nobody should get a whiff of what you are doing. Understood?” 

“Perfectly. Don’t worry.” 

“Ok. Her name is Aashna. Her husband’s name is...now, what is it?” I searched my memory. Failing, I whipped out my mobile phone from my pocket and consulted it. “Her husband’s name is Ahmad Soltanieh. They live in Bandar Abbas.” 

Anwar noted down these details. “And sir?” he asked. 

I took a deep breath. “Well, she is about 27 years of age. She has a...” I checked myself in the nick of time. “She is Afghan. She is very beautiful. Her husband is short, stocky, broad-nosed, combs his hair backwards and has a receding hairline.” 

“And?” 

“That’s it. I know nothing more,” I tell the private detective. “I want you to find out where she is.” 

Anwar looked at me in disbelief. “With just these details you want me to find out where she is?” 

“Well, yes. I know I haven’t given you much information for you to go on with, but regrettably, that’s all I have. Can you find her for me?” 

“Of course, of course, yes, it is difficult, but I will find her for you.” 

“Good. You were recommended to me by Inspector Clark, who speaks highly of you.” 

“Ah, Inspector Clark. Good man,” Anwar said. He shook hands with me and left, quietly disappearing into the milling crowds outside the Kabul airport. 

I looked at my watch. I had two hours to kill before I board my flight to Bamiyan. I picked up a cup of tea and let my thoughts wander over the call I got last week. The call was from a member of the Iraqi underworld. A business friend of mine. 

                                                   ***** 

My name is Joshua Wright. I am an art dealer and an art critic. I come from a family of artists. There have been generations of artists in my family. I too started off as a painter, but I gave it up early. There is more money in dealing in art, but very little in producing it. From a penniless painter, I became a millionaire art dealer. That I am a millionaire at the age of 32 is thanks largely to the underworld. They send me a steady supply of art, mostly stolen. In the developing world, curators of museums themselves replace the original with fakes and sell the originals into the underworld market. I sell such stuff mostly to billionaire art collectors in France and Belgium. The legally procured art, I sell to investors. Art seasons like wine. Buy today, sell ten years later, you make a profit. 

Last week I got a call on my satellite phone. The caller wanted me to catch a flight and come to Bamiyan, Afghanistan. He insisted that he had something big for me. Though it was a call on my satellite phone, he wouldn’t tell me what it was—except that it was very big, unique deal awaiting me. 

Generally, I do not fall for such baits. But in this case, I readily accepted. For about a year, Afghanistan has been on my mind a lot, for an entirely different reason. 

A year ago, I was sitting by myself in the restaurant of Clyde Hotel, Glasgow, tucking into a beef sandwich. Deep within myself I felt a tingle. I felt I was being watched. 

I looked across the hall, where a dozen or so early breakfasters were having their tissues restored. Some others were pottering around the buffet table. More were streaming in. I scanned the room, which was bustling with activity. 

Then I saw her. Our eyes met. She was looking keenly at me. She was seated about ten meters away from me, by the window. She had a coffee cup in her hand, which was raised up to her nose and she was looking directly at me over the top of the cup. Her forehead was partly hidden by her black hijab. Between the hijab and the top of the coffee cup were her penetrating eyes. Even from a distance I could see they were brown. 

Our eyes were locked, but she didn’t take hers away immediately. She slowly brought her coffee cup down—OMG! What a staggering beauty! She looked so incredibly sweet, like she had been marinated in caramel. 

The way she was looking at me was different than a look an interested girl would give a man. There was intrigue writ on her face, as though she was saying, “Where had I seen this man?” That was quite something, because I was just thinking the same. She seemed vaguely, somewhat eerily, familiar. But I was absolutely sure that I had not met, or even seen her before. It was not a face one could forget. It was a face that burrows itself into your memory and colonizes it. 

A stocky man detached himself from the buffet table and began walking towards the girl. Her eyes turned from me to him, and I caught a flash of fear in her eyes. 

He sat opposite her, with his back to me. She never looked at me again, except once, when the waitress came to their table to ask him if he wanted coffee, and he turned towards her to nod ‘yes’. In that fleeting moment, she shot me a look. 

The man—I assumed her husband—seemed menacing. I could tell even from behind, for he would wag his index finger at her every now and then and, whenever he did, she would cower. Clearly, it was not a happy marriage. 

The left. I watched them get out of the hotel and get into a tourist taxi. A little enquiry revealed that the taxi was going to Loch Ness. I took the next taxi and told the driver to take me to Loch Ness. 

I saw her again in Nessie, the souvenir shop. There was a row of rotating display racks in the middle of the hall, and we were on the opposite sides of the row, barely three feet apart. She was considering an earring when she saw me. A flash of surprise and then a small, fleeting smile. The next instant, she turned and walked away. 

I waited outside the shop, my mobile phone glued to my ear. In a couple of minutes, her husband and she walked out. As they walked past me, I said loudly into the phone, “I will be at breakfast at 6:30 sharp tomorrow.” 

Her head moved up and down almost imperceptibly. I could be mistaken, but I think she nodded. 

I was the first to enter the restaurant the following morning. She was the second. She was wearing no hijab. She put a couple of croissants on a plate and silently walked to my table and sat opposite me. 

“Hi,” I said. 

“Good morning,” she said, looking directly into my eyes. 

Her upper lip was slightly swollen. Her chin had bruises. Her hair was unkempt. She looked tired. She had been forced into sex the previous night by the drunk husband. He must have passed out after excessive alcohol consumption, or else she wouldn’t have dared to come down to me. 

“Have we met before?” I asked. 

“I don’t think so. But you do seem to be familiar,” she said. “Were you a part of the military operations in Afghanistan?” 

“No.” 

“Have you been in Iran? 

“No, I am an art dealer. I have never been to that region.” 

She looked out of the window pensively. 

“I came to the UK last night,” she said. “This is the first time in my life I am in any country outside of Afghanistan and Iran. I am very, very sure that I have never seen you before. Yet, your face looks familiar.” 

I told her that I thought exactly that. We agreed it was strange. I introduced myself, without offering my hand. “I am Joshua Wright. I am, as I said, an art dealer. I buy and sell art. I am also an art critic. I write articles on art in newspapers.” 

She introduced herself. Her name was Aashna. She was born and raised in Afghanistan, educated in an American school in Kabul. Last year, she was forced into marriage with an Iranian businessman. Her husband, Ahmad Soltanieh, ran an automobile dealership. 

I asked her if it was not true that in Muslim marriages, the girl’s acceptance is insisted upon. She responded by raising her eyes high within the sockets and letting out a sad, bitter, little laugh. 

We chatted a little about life in Iran. She said she was happy, but her tone betrayed that she was not. 

I had been talking, resting my hands on the table. Suddenly, she put her left hand on my right. “I don’t know why, stranger, but I like you a lot,” she said. 

The touch made by body shiver a little. I closed my eyes. 

Call it epiphany. Call it clairvoyance. Or whatever. Some kind of extra sensory perception. Maybe her touch triggered it. I have no idea. The words that emerged out of my mouth were sudden, not preceded by any thought. They were as though they were not even mine. I said, “Aashna, is there a brown mole on your upper thigh?” 

She sat up jerkily, eyes wide open. The coffee cup slid out of her hand and messed up the table. 

“Yes, I do,” she whispered. “How on earth could you know that?” 

Only then did I realize what I had said. “I...I...am sorry. Please forget the question. I don’t know why I said that. Honestly, I don’t.” 

“But how could you know that?” 

She stared at me incredulously for a long time. Then, suddenly she began to cry. She sobbed silently for about a minute and looked at her watch. “I must go. He could wake up any time.” 

“Aashna, how long are you here?” 

“We leave for Edinburgh tomorrow after breakfast. Today, we go for a tour of Glasgow.” 

I felt a pang. Would I never see her again? As she stood up, I said, “I am in room No.2247.” 

She turned and departed without a reply. 

                                                ******* 

The doorbell rang. The digital clock showed 4 am. I opened the door. She was standing there, in her night dress. She hurriedly rushed in. 

“I have come to show the mole on my upper thigh,” she said, breathing heavily. The next moment, she flung herself upon me like a hungry wolf on a rabbit, kissing me passionately, giving me sensations that I had never experienced with any other woman. 

The love making was crazy. It was more than physical. I sensed that the hunger in her heart was more than between the legs. An explosive cocktail of passion and frustration blew up in the bed. The orgasms couldn’t have been more explosive if they had been caused by a thermonuclear device. 

She showed me the mole. It was on top of her right thigh, nice and brown, about the size of a pepper, just an inch below her succulent pleasure blossom. 

An hour later, she kissed me goodbye and left. 

                                                 ******** 

All through the flight from Kabul to Bamiyan I had been thinking of Aashana. Anwar Rashid would find her. Then? What would I do? I had no answer. 

As the plane touched down, I shook the thoughts away. There were more pressing business matters at hand. 

My contact, Akthar Mansour, was there to pick me up. As we drove to the hotel, Mansour plunged straight into the subject. 

“Mr Wright, see, this is big. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I want two million dollars for it.” 

“Oh, really?” I said, without showing interest, for I knew the language of negotiations well. 

“You can easily sell it for five million, we share it 40-60.” 

“Ok, tell me about the painting.” 

“Well, for starters, it is over 200 years old.” 

I felt an upsurge of interest, but I kept a poker facet “Is it in good condition?” I asked. 

“Anything but good condition,” replied Mansour. 

I gave him an austere, questioning look. 

Mansour continued, “The value comes more out of where the painting came from and how it was discovered rather than the painting itself.” 

I demanded explanation. 

Mansour stopped the car by the side of the road. He reached out to his briefcase in the backseat and opened it. He pulled out a large manila envelope and nonchalantly tossed it onto my lap and resumed driving. 

I opened the envelope. A bunch of photographs spilled out. 

What they showed almost made me faint. 

The first picture showed a full human skeleton, standing, embedded in a stone wall. Its bony hands embraced some kind of rolled stuff, a meter long. There were more pictures like that. Some showed the skeleton being chipped out of the wall and laid on the ground. 

Mansour explained that the authorities were broadening the road and a part of the broken compound wall of the old, dilapidated Amin Palace came in the way. While they were demolishing it, they found this skeleton. 

It was a cavity wall—two stone walls with masonry in between. They had made this person stand between the two walls. It was a gruesome death for the person, buried alive standing. 

Mansour drove me straight to a nondescript house. Two men emerged from inside to welcome us. The doorway was small but inside it opened up and was quite spacious. They took me to a room. 

The skeleton lay inside an inverted wooden bench. I examined it. I am no expert on skeletons, but I know a few things. From the wide and short sacrum, the wide pelvis and the less pronounced brow ridges, I knew it was a female. Poor woman. Buried alive, eh? Must have been for adultery. 

“Where did you find the painting?” I asked. 

“Sir, the painting is the rolled stuff that was in the hands of the skeleton,” said Mansour. 

I felt dizzy with excitement. Indeed, with a backstory like that I could sell the painting to Bernard de Monteferrand or Thierry Girard for ten million. Or to Kusters Goossens for twelve. Goossens went for this kind of stuff. 

“Show me the painting,” I said. 

“I must warn you that it is not in good condition. Don’t be disappointed,” said Mansour. 

They brought it and unrolled it. It was a portrait of a naked woman on linen. I examined it with my magnifying glass. 

Paint had flaked off around her cheeks, lips and breasts, but from the navel down it was better preserved. I brought the lens further down. 

The magnifying glass slid from my hands. I clutched my head. 

I’m not clear about what happened in the next few minutes. All I remember is, I was lying on a mattress and Mansour’s men were fanning me and Mansour was sprinkling water on my face. I slowly regained consciousness. 

One of the men were suggesting that a doctor should be called. 

“No,” I said. My voice was weak, but firm. “I want to see the painting again,” I said. They brought it to me. 

There it was. A nice little brown mole on the upper thigh. I examined the face again. Now I saw that the features had a striking similarity with Aashana’s. 

I kept staring at it for about a quarter of an hour. 

The painting was unsigned, undated, but I was not to be fooled by that. I called for some kerosene oil and dipped the corner of my handkerchief in it. With the cloth, I slowly rubbed off the painting at the bottom right corner, revealing the ground layer. Little by little came the revelation. 

                             “Queen Aashna Rahman Faysal, by Joshua Wright, 1796” 

I bought the painting for two million dollars. 

                                                ****** 

The answer to the question, “After finding Aashna, what?” was now clear. I would show her the painting. I would tell her to elope with me to the UK. Or somewhere else. Brazil. Bora-Bora. Pago-Pago. Samoa Islands. We would disappear into obscurity and live happily. 

If she refused? Well, I’d kidnap her. 

I had to find Aashna. I started to look for her out of curiosity. Now it became urgent and important for me to find her. I waited anxiously for Anwar Rashid’s report. 

After two agonizing days, I got his call. 

“Ah, Anwar! Could you track her down?” 

“Yes,” he said. 

“Where is she? Give me the address.” 

“Mr Wright, I said I tracked her down. I didn’t say I have her address.” 

“What do you mean?” I yelled. 

“Last month, while giving birth to a baby, Aashna died.” 

“What!” I cried. My legs shivered. “Died while delivering a baby? In this day and age? That can’t happen. I felt tears welling in my eyes. 

There was a brief pause at the other end. Then Anwar said, “You are right, sir. The official version is that she died while delivering a baby. But the truth is, she was taken to Khang village in Afghanistan and stoned to death.” 

“ANWAR! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU SAYING?” 

“Yes sir. She gave birth to a white, Caucasian baby. Both Aashna and the baby were stoned to death together.” 

I was incapable of speech. I groaned in agony. Anwar continued. 

“The bitch deserved it. She was an adulteress. If only I knew the father of the baby, I’d strangle him myself with my bare hands,” he said. 

--ends--