Temporary Bride

No one ever goes up the dark stairway in the corner. Mine is the only room this way. I sweep my own floors and make the bed each morning. No one checks on me to see how I am getting on. The pitch black silence now tells me nothing; whether anyone has recently climbed the steps. Maybe courage has won tonight and he is already waiting for me. 

Pressing my hands out I grope along the walls, feeling the cold stone beneath my palms. I reach out, taking swipes with my fingers, hoping to feel his torso, his familiar thick hair. Stumbling blind, forward, I strike upon something hard, then arms come around my waist and he pulls me close. “Joonam azizam,” he whispers and I recognize the term of affection his mother often uses with him. We hold still, his warm, damp cheek against mine, listening for the sounds of something; we aren’t sure of what. For the sounds of men hurrying, shouting ‘They went this way!’, pointing at a boy and a girl who went up a darkened staircase together. 

I feel for the cold, metal padlock that holds my doors shut and Vahid uses his cell phone to shine light on it for me. The creaking of the doors is the last thing I hear before we cross the threshold, locking the bolts again from the inside. At first we stand shyly, blinking in the darkness, unsure of what to do with ourselves. The emptiness and total privacy before us feels shocking, the two small, warm beds, the neat row of rubber flip flops on the floor.

Everything has changed now that he is in my quarters. It is me that offers him a place to sit and pours him water from a plastic jug. One of the cups has a thin layer of dust on its surface, overturned for the first time since I arrive. He looks around at my things, picking up books, the plastic arm bands and exercise dvds I haven’t touched. Each item he carefully folds and replaces as though nervous to leave any evidence of his presence. It is in this way he approaches me, placing a hand on each of my shoulders and pressing his forehead to the back of my hair.