A Long Day's Rain

And so, the longest day in Mogali's life would end up being the shortest. Every now and again, she heard the metallic tinkle of her little trigger-ring play against the explosive payload of her suicide vest. It sounded almost musical, like the childhood dominoes she remembered from long ago.

Just across the main intersection of Zaibunnisa Street, three women were drinking chai, chatting something about school, something about a boy, something about the monsoon rain being very late. It was a busy day in Karachi, but to her, it was the very loneliest of cloudy afternoons.

"You're going to get yourself killed standing in traffic like that". The voice came out of nowhere, and yet seemed to come from everywhere at once. It was clear and forceful, a voice of subconscious command. It had the effect of somehow inducing the same voice in herself. Critically, she paused before reaching for her trigger.

"Tea?" the young lady - her gaze was like being shot through the head with bullet - now asked so calmly, pushing the hot teacup into Mogali's hand.

"I'm sorry if I'm being strange, but there was something...I don't know, unusual about you? I just felt I needed to say something."

"He didn't come, did he," Mogali blurted out, almost automatically. The woman, pulling her off the street corner, sat her down on a metal chair, and regarded her intensely. She wasn't wearing a burka. Her eyes were dark, and one eye was lazy, drifting left, toward the street, but the other held something like a vicious or hating force of will, an animus that felt complementary, even duplicated to Mogali's own. It held Mogali in place like the cold muzzle of an AK-47.

"No... I suppose he didn't," she said. Mogali noted the woman's young face, fair like a film star, and her necklace that paired what looked like sapphires with some sort of orange gemstone, laid in silver.

"What is -"

"Deepika," she replied. The name given to her by D-Company was Mogali, but supposing it would never be spoken again, why not use her birth name, in the face of this mysterious communication?

"I'm Anjali" the woman replied. Anjali took Deepika's now shaking hand and held it. The feel of this person's soft skin, her warmth, the touch of her soft fingers gently holding Deepka's knuckles between the thumb and index finger, like one lover might hold another, sent a strange compunction up her spine, like the chill of a fear.

"I must go," Deepika said.

"I don't know how I know," the woman interrupted, "but I know what you're going to do, Deepika".

The moment was now to end it. Deepika - her name was now spoken for the last time. The warmth of this hand had penetrated her enough. She had sipped her last tea. And yet, what was this clear voice that spoke to her of tea and names? She wanted that necklace more than the glorious reward the cleric had so temptingly, so certainly promised. It glittered beautifully in the cast of sunlight through the veranda.

“I’ve killed people too”, Ankita blurted out, almost like an accusation. Her grip strengthened on Deepika’s hand.

“I don’t know who you are, but I think we understand each other. I don’t understand why. She was my sister. She was a lying thieving [...\ and I hate to say it, but I think she deserved it. I was to be married in a week, and I knew it was the last chance I’d have. I lured her out to an old film studio with the promise of a box of costume jewelry I told her I’d found hidden in one of the sets. I told her she was going to die. I knew she’d laugh in my face, and when she did, I beat her to death with an iron bar and loved it more than anything else I’ve grown to love. More than my own life even.”

She paused her story. “And I still hate her. I still hate her, even though she’s dead,” she said again, before going silent.

“Pleasant story for our little tea party, huh,” she concluded.

Deepika was not shaken, but rather strangely calmed by this sudden, disturbing, outburst. The experience may as well have been identical to her own, though it shared nothing in common with her own experience. The murdering double's confidence seemed baffling in light of the impending explosion a finger's reach away from Deepika’s free hand.

“It’s a beautiful necklace” Deepika finally admitted.

“I stole it,” Ankita said. “And I thought the same thing – it’s beautiful”

“Were you waiting for your husband?” asked Deepika,

“There’s a smuggler,” said Ankita, “who is supposed to accompany us on a bus to Wagah and past the border, and from there we'd be making our way to Pune, where my brother and his wife live. From here we're taking a bus to Wagah"

Ankita took another sip of tea, and then Deepika did as well. The sky had turned overcast since they started their conversation, the light fading.

“But it appears...he didn't come,” Ankita said.

“You said our -”

“Children,” replied Ankita.

“Deepika and Ajul. They’re waiting for me inside the store."

“Deepika?” said Deepika.

“Yes, you have the same name as my daughter”.

“They’ll be coming for me soon,” Deepika said.

“There’s a remote detonator in case something goes wrong. Usually, they’re standing by. I’m not sure why it hasn't gone off.”

“The smuggler took all our money. Everything we had, except for the bus fare to Wagah,” said Ankita. “There’s nothing left for us.”

“And yet -” Deepika said

“It doesn't seem so bad now” – spoke both of them at once. The silence that followed was filled with the voices of passerby, which swelled into nothing between them. The desolation of the psychic twins was nothing compared to the something. What that something was, was a mystery.

And then it began to rain. Perhaps the monsoon has arrived. Deepika pulled her hand away to walk out, and into the street. The monsoon would wash away the dirt, refresh the land, certainly kill a few people, as it did every year, and as it drenched her burka, and her abaya, she thought, maybe, just maybe, it would drench the explosives strapped to her chest as well. They had been insulated with cloth only, bags of some sort of cheap burlap, which, Allah permitting, would permit the moisture to contaminate them.

"You must take the bus," Deepika finally said. She must have looked wild standing in the rain with foolish disregard for her clothing, Anika nodded imperceptibly. Nothing more was needed.

Deepika pulled off her burka to feel the rain. To Ankita, her face was rough-hewn like a worn sack of wheat, with marks and patches like a rocky desert. It reminded her of women much worse off than herself, who looked nothing like herself, and yet those murdering eyes shared an uncanny resemblance to her own.

The bus pulled up.

"I suppose you're not coming with us," Ankita said.

"If I live, I will, but where would I get the money?"

"Take the necklace," Ankita said. She took it off and gave it to the other girl.

"Pray the explosives are badly made, and the monsoon rain falls on both the righteous and the wicked."

"And which one are we," said Ankita.

"The wicked," Deepika replied. Ankita chortled, and Deepika did so as well.

Perhaps they were regarding each other for the last time, these strange two. Ankita's children stared, like bewildered children do, at the woman standing in the rain. Little Deepika's face was wrought with fear, fear, fear. She called out to her from the bus, while it was driving away into the distance, "You'll get cold!"

"Allah have mercy on us," Deepika said. She reached into her burka and pulled the trigger.