Syeda Nafisa Tarannum
Sheren looked around her picturesque, humble abode. Despite the modest setting of the not-so-spacious apartment, she ensured that all was prim and proper, everything placed where they were supposed to be, resulting in a vision that could easily be a cover for the coming week’s issue of Architectural Digest. Every single thing looked perfect, just the way her husband had taught her. Twenty years of marriage with Urshif had conditioned Sheren to believe everything had to be immaculate, there was no excuse for imperfection. She felt a tinge of pride imagining how the people she expected later would walk through the apartment, and fail to hide their admiration for all its spick-and-span nooks and crannies.
She fluffed up the already “plushy to the core of every microfibre” cushions, slid her dainty fingers across the tabletop she had spent hours scrubbing until it reflected the light gleaming above, admired her recently acquired mirrors, only to pause before the heavy metal frame she had been meaning to avoid. Still crooked. Still not sitting right. It enclosed a beautiful still from their wedding night - Urshif seated on a high chair, looking deviously handsome, with Sheren standing behind him still resembling the teenager she had been just two years prior to that night. Perhaps she could try one more time to budge the frame into symmetry before people arrived, but she had been unsuccessful before and doubted she had any strength left in her to attempt it again. She stared at the rare sign of distortion in her house- the askew frame- for a minute or two, sighed and moved on.
As she walked across her pantry, she flinched at the sight of her freezer, which had been struggling since the day before yesterday, had now completely failed her. It was now emanating the kind of smell that no amount of lemons, vinegar or baking soda could get rid of. Pinching her nose and she walked towards the freezer, and was content upon ensuring that, functional or not, at least the freezer looked spotless on the outside. “Good”, she thought to herself, she was sure that certain things would eventually lead people to this freezer and she had to make sure they would admire how neat it looked from the outside. Almost as if it had been bought just yesterday.
Urshif believed that no paid help would ever care for the house as if it were their own. He trusted only Sheren to be capable of keeping the house spotless. She took upon the job with fierce intensity, going over every sweep, every brush, every scrub twice. Urshif needed her to be on top of things, she had been after all entrusted with the responsibilities of keeping everything- perfect. The wobbly stool in the corner of the room caught her eye. The same stool which had once escaped her sight , allowing the dust resting on it evade her duster. Urshif had walked into the room and noticed the unclean surface while trying to grab something from the shelf beside it. Six legs suffered that day. Five endured the pain, but the sixth leg—one of the legs on the four-legged stool—bore the brunt of his wrath and broke.
Urshif decided to not discard it, as keeping it around would serve as a reminder to Sheren. She would never ever be negligent again.
Sheren had only ever cooked rice when she was living with her parents. Urshif was disgruntled when he learnt that she did not know how to prepare half the dishes he had been listing down for his wife to concoct at his command. Her mother once detected the strain in her voice over the phone one night after dinner, and through call after call, she had mentored Sheren until she turned into the most skillful cook her son-in-law claimed he deserved. Not that this prevented the occasional outbursts, which may or may not have resulted in a scar across her right shoulder after a hot bowl of curry was thrown at her. Nor did her precision in measuring the spices or elaborating the cooking techniques spared her from scornful criticisms in the presence of guests.
Today, after what felt like years, she was taking a break from cooking, as for the first time since she had started living here, she would not have to entertain the people coming over.
Throughout the initial years of their conjugal life, Sheren tried her utmost to please her husband who seemed unimpressed by everything she embodied. Urshif made certain that she knew he had married below him, having compromised when it came to her looks and complexion, solely because he wanted a “simple” wife. He was downright disappointed by the fact that Sheren’s father, who should have been on cloud nine at having successfully snagged a true gentleman for his daughter, had not offered him certain “gifts and presents” that any other parent would have given out of elation.
The years that followed were laced with painful miscarriages, which were, of course, perceived as failure on Sheren’s part. Urshif the kind and generous, upon learning after her fifth miscarriage that she can never conceive again, did not choose to leave her and remarry. Why she was not always worshipping the ground he walked upon baffled him, for she had failed him while he had given her a life, which warranted a level of gratitude she could only repay by serving him eternally.
Twenty years in, Sheren had been moulded into a mute, numb entity. Just the way it should be in Urshif’s world. However, she had shown a sign of inefficiency- she could not fix the lopsided frame. It required some hammering, an expertise she had unfortunately failed to establish in her two decades of training. He begrudgingly took on the task, but the problem, apparently, was neither in the frame’s structure, nor the placement of the hook, or skills of the expert holding the hammer. It was her father’s. The same father whose death anniversary was just the day before, whose voice had been ringing in her ears for weeks leading up to the anniversary, whose memories had been burning her insides all over again as the date approached. The father who had not been a generous father-in-law.
Had the apartment he had invested his life’s savings in been given to Urshif, all would have been well and such a disastrous inconvenience would never have befallen him.
Not realising that words were escaping her mouth, she had uttered a begging for not bringing her father into the matter. Thanks to sheer luck, the hammer that flew towards her narrowly brushed past her left ear. Urshif then stomped across the room to sit in front of the television, because his mood had been ruined and now he needed to relax and regain composure.
Sheren stood still for a long time. Urshif, displeased as usual, did not look at her or care to see where the hammer had landed. The television continued to play. Then, with abnormal calmness, she grabbed the hammer with her unusually steady hand and struck the back of Urshif’s head. Thrice. Urshif’s heart that she had clogged with calories over the years by serving him endless successions of delicious treats, finally returned the favour and gave up without much of a fight. Chopping him up and fitting his body parts into the freezer did not take much effort, as she had spent years organising months’ worth of meat supplies in that very storage space. It took two full days of relentless hard work to clean up all the mess. But the smell had been growing increasingly intense as the freezer struggled to contain her secret.
It had now wafted out of the apartment and would soon attract the rightful attention of her neighbours. People would soon be here - people in the neighbourhood who smelled something fishy, people who had noticed Urshif’s absence, the police, the journalists. Everyone would come and see what a perfectly beautiful home Sheren had maintained over all these years. Everything neatly sorted, cautiously organised, carefully maintained. Even her beloved husband’s body, cleaned and packed with delicate dexterity. Just the way Urshif had taught her, every single thing was just- perfect.
