The generator ran on. The caterer’s boy
came round with the same six things.
An aunt asked, twice, when it would be her turn.
The band began. A child was crying somewhere
near the shamiana’s edge.
He stood near the door in a white kurta,
holding a plate he had not touched.
His left hand was in his pocket all evening.
He said, I have no ambition,
as a man might say, I have no fever,
or, I have not been to Ajmer,
as if it were a fact about the weather
and not a fact about the man.
In the city of the summoning, she had been
summoned. For the wedding. For the sitting.
For the fourth day. For the rites
that require a daughter and no son.
She watched his left hand in his pocket.
She thought, there is a man who will not call.
She thought, there is a house with no bell.
She thought this and was quiet
and married him in the spring.
He left before the food.
He walked her to the corner of the lane
where the streetlight has been out
since I do not know when.
He did not wait for the door.
He said goodnight. His hands were in his pockets.
She watched him go and read it as a mercy.
It was a mercy. It was also a leaving.
These are not the same, and they are not different,
and she would spend the years learning which.
A man who wants nothing wants it
in the morning, and at the table, and at night.
The plate stayed on the windowsill
till the sweeper came. She never told him
she had watched it stay.
Years later, in a kitchen in another city,
she saw a plate put down untouched
and cleared it, and did not say anything,
and went on with the evening, and the water
boiled, and the light went on, and the light went out.
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