“You’re a mum. You can’t wail like this.” My mirror howls at me when I look at it to search for the acnes that occasionally grow on my face. Specifically, the days of insomnia are the worst. Red, blown skins peep through the nose creases.
“You’re a mum. You can’t shake like this.” My mirror still shouts even when I am not listening. ignoring. picking my big acne. irritated at the action of the magical mirrors in the world.
“Hey, self-absorbed narcissist, how long would you derail women by offering them false, unethical information? Weren’t you the one who used to solve riddles about the most beautiful woman in the world and ensued mistrust, confusion, or battles among bodies placed across the world?”
“Damn you. This time…no hanky-panky…no fuss about the person about me who does not even bother to ask you a question?”
I have removed my eyes from the cheap, long yet handy mirror that stands behind the side table. This is a Target mirror, a simple mirror with a white frame. I bought it from Indooroopilly Shopping Centre. You can place the mirror anywhere on its legs, but I folded the legs and pushed it behind the side table so that I could use the side table as a platform to array my daily grooming kits.
This attempt to push it behind the side table covered half of my mirror. But that does not deter her voice. She would throw questions, ramble inquiries, pour anecdotes, and shower ethics on me whenever she found the slightest opportunity.
“Damn you. I don’t need you. I would rather do whatever I like. No more fabulous love for you!”
I not only moved my eyes from the mirror but my whole body as if no part of me came to her purview. I wiped my eyes with a used gamcha, a lightweight cloth we use in place of a towel for a shower. The sobs are still heaving in her heart and body; occasionally, they tear through the sighs.
***
Morning slips towards ten o’clock with these personal dramas. Nowadays, it is my routine. The last ten years were not like this. I have been the happiest person in the world if happiness means being happy with what you have. I do not have many of the things my people, who have migrated from Bangladesh to Australia, have, or the things they usually consider signs of affluence. I do not have a stable job. All week, I work casually and spend my weekdays doing household chores, visiting families, and attending community gatherings. I don’t even have a house of my own, unlike my friend Rakhi, who has already bought two houses in Brisbane’s North. On loan definitely. But still…poor people do not get huge loans, right?
When Rakhi held a housewarming party after moving to the two-storey second house, I visited her. I have seen something I rarely see: a gravel-laden open porch, wooden stairs, a huge living room, expensive showpieces, and everywhere…everything is white and white…the curtain, the wall, the kitchen. After a few days, when she sent me a photo of her new 0-kilometre Tesla, I was mesmerized by the beauty of the red car beside the white house. I appreciate that, but did I long for the same affluence?
I am not sure.
Okay…I am not showing off myself as a Sandhu without any passion for worldly life. I am not even claiming that I am free from the human foible of envy, even knowing that envy eats the good deeds as fire eats the wood. What I want to say to you, readers, is that a deep sigh passed through my heart and nostrils, watching how matters matter to make differences.
But…after a moment, as I began reflecting on my life’s achievements, I realized that most of them were, in a sense, immaterial. People cannot see them. People cannot feel mesmerised by them. So elusive they are! But after that reflection, I began to feel settled in my own life. The parts that had momentarily become wobbly realigned with their puzzle curve and were set in place. Happily. Joyfully. Longingly. I have love. I have peace. I have satiety.
But that realignment has been wobbled again, vehemently and tremendously, on a Sunday morning. Tired I was that day, like a donkey after carrying loads for a semester. On that day, rain had been pouring since dawn. It was cleaning the city’s face with the foamy cloud bar. A white facemask with a yellow sunray occasionally covered her face, too. She looked amazing! I finished my early morning prayer on time and am just fiddling around on the computer lazily.
Shawan came to me.
“Are you busy?”
I looked up from the screen to his face.
“Nope.”
“Let’s go to the bedroom. I have something to tell you.”
“Tell here. What happened? Let’s have our breakfast and talk over it.”
I went to the kitchen and picked up breakfast: simple, bread, and a banana. Not too hungry today due to yesterday’s invitation. In Brisbane, an invitation means at least ten items, including or excluding desserts. So, if you are not voracious food lovers, you can survive here by eating less for at least one day after any invitation.
“Do you want a poached egg?” I asked Shawan. He likes bread, egg, and cheese for breakfast.
“No,” he said with eyes to the floor.
My heart was beating. Last night, when I went to bed, I found him open-eyed. Quite unusually. The katha pulled till the nose, and the uncovered eyes riveted to the while celling with curved floral patterns. He had not been in the room at all; no motion with the movement of my resting body.
I arranged the dining table, and we sat together. Halfway through breakfast, he started,
“I have never been with any other woman except for you in my whole life.”
“What do you mean by that? Are you with another woman now?” my voice flat. Numb. Resigned.
“I failed a test recently. With Naina. I have no idea how that happened. She called me one day, a few weeks ago…ever since, while we’re talking.” His voice trembles. Hoarse. Coarse. Unusual. “Believe me, I haven’t had sex with anyone except for you till this moment of my life, but…”
“But…Did you do so with her? Did you sleep with her? Did you lie in bed with her? Did you make love with her?” My voice started to race and rise, repeating the sentence from different angles and wording, attempting to make out the real meaning of his words. My heart shook to the core. My body betrayed the usual calmness and serenity. The yellow banana peel slips away from my hands. Breadcrumbs are all over the place. The clear glass with pure water stains with my dirty hand marks.
Shawan got up and made a hand gesture to lower my voice. The kids were sleeping in their rooms. They would hear us talking. A secret that can destroy their emotional world. A sound that can smother the home we created with love and care.
My beautiful buds! Tears gushed in my eyes.
Shawan came to my chair, helped me stand up, and led me to the room. He closed the door behind. I sat on the bed. He took a chair.
He began to recount the entire narrative of his contact with Naina. A long list of dates, times, and events. I was listening and not listening. Words were mumbling and swirling in my ears. I cannot organise them into anything that makes sense. I was fumbling through every crease of my heart to see why that happened and what his motives were when he advanced towards her, or as he said, what her motives were when she advanced towards him. I was looking at him, beating him with my hands, digging my nails in his arms, bruising…
“Hey, why did you talk to her? Why did you go to her? Hey, cheat, hey, betrayer, hey, rascal, hey, badmash, hey, beyadap. You two…”
Readers, what is the point of telling you when and how they came closer to each other? Every story of extramarital affairs has some similar lines of events—talking, intimating, dating, mating. Just the characters, settings, and events are different. The same story of love and sex. The same story of unfulfillment and fulfilment. The same story of rights and revenge. The same story of anger and anguish. What’s the point of hearing the story in detail? Isn’t it enough knowing that I became a wailing mother since that Sunday morning when the foamy cloud was cleansing the face of my city? The day Brisbane looked grey and gorgeous?
I start wailing every time I see my kids. I assure you, they are incredibly cute. Since their childhood, whenever I stared at their face, I immediately removed my eyes from them, lest I harm them with my Nazar, or black eyes. In Arabic, it is called Al-Aain. Yassir Qadhi has a long lecture on that. Not so religious myself, but one day while scrolling, I came across that lecture and listened to it.
I start wailing, yes, when I visualise a future in which my kids and I are alone, and Shawan is nowhere in the scene. My son and my daughter are missing their dad and plunging into a deep whirlpool of sadness and trauma. How can they accept the truth that their mum has become someone too archaic, too ancient to love, to live together? I visualise my kids isolated from my community. Everyone is tickling their tongue or raising their brows in a certain way, reminding them of their pitiful situation.
I also start wailing whenever I pray. I visit the mosque. I visit the office. Between my busy working hours, I go to the bathroom to weep, then wash my face with plain water, and I practise smiling as I look at myself in the mirror. I beg the mirror,
“Oh, friend, can you make me jolly to run the class?”
I keep asking for the same thing every day, looking at my image. Opening the BB cream clump, I rub it onto my skin and check how shiny and glossy my skin looks. I also open three colours of lipstick and rub them on my lips. Multicoloured dance will cover the dark shadow and weeping swelling.
So my mirrors replaced Shawan. Since my wedding, he was my mirror. I used to wear a saree and make-up, and stand in front of him,
“How am I looking today?”
He used to hold the plaits of my saree, fold them neatly, and make lovely comments. Gorgeous! Sometimes, a shawl of kisses was draped on me, making my saree crinkled. Sometimes, flying kisses sounded like the drone show copters over the Brisbane River.
But alas, my mirrors cannot love me as he does. Cannot kiss me like him. The most irritating thing is that my mirrors have turned into pathetic moralizers. Nowadays. Ufff, unbearable!
***
Walking and wondering and thinking, I fell in front of my mirror, suddenly, absent-mindedly. The moment it catches a glimpse of me, it starts its moralising lecture:
“What is worthwhile in the world? Suffering alone or suffering together? If you share all these things with your family and friends, they will suffer along with you. But will that lessen your suffering? Will you stop wailing after that? I don’t think so. You will keep wailing, and they will all wail in their places. You will know. Sometimes you won’t know. They will act for themselves or advise you to act.
What action do I mean? What decision can you take? Can you go to your children and tell them that you are leaving? After that, what will happen? Will you go away? Rent another house? start living alone? Then you will find another person, fall in love, remarry, and live happily ever after?
Loyalty is a word written upside down in men’s dictionaries.
In some women’s dictionaries, too. Huh!
The world has been created via unloyalty.
Didn’t he confess to you that he had done something nasty? Did he not regret his actions? Did he not cry and wail like you and visit mosques to rid himself of his sins, which he had never done in his life? What else do you want? Look, you are a mother; You are the wife; wipe the event out of your life. Don’t deprive your kids of their dad’s love. Don’t let them fall into a vacuum…”
Like the monotonous drumming in the school assembly, the words from the mirror trail. I cannot take them and shout,
“I would do whatever I like.”
How does my mirror know a lot, I wonder. The days of fables and miracles did not pass away, then. It is still the digital age when you can stand in front of your mirror and ask her,
Mirror, mirror, magical love, can you tell me
Who is the worst sufferer in the world?
I assure you, your mirror will read you rightly and will reply with a sweet voice:
Lovely, lovely, loving love
Whose lover betrays her, though a gorgeous dove!
A Gemini voice. An awakened screen. Your assistant, though.
=================x=================
Dr Umme Salma, 29/01/2026
Salma Seclusion 