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The hollow mirror

Cross talk

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan
***But for woman it is showtime whenever she steps out of the house; even at home she has to maintain herself in a woman-like manner. She has to brush her hair when she wakes up in the morning, put cream on her face, rub lotion on her hands and feet, and gel on her lips. Then she has to massage oil in her hair, do facials, clip her nails, shave her legs, pluck her eyebrows and hairs above her upper lips, put foundation on the face, then make-up, lipstick, nail polish, deodorant, breath freshener, and what not. At night it is again the combing of hair, cream on the face, lotion on the arms and legs, gel on the lips, everything squeaky clean, everything ship-shape.***
SHE sat down in front of the mirror, holding a comb in one hand, while using the other to pluck tangles of hair caught in its teeth. Nothing gives without taking, she said to herself as she raised her head to look in the mirror. The comb ran in her head to straighten her frizzled hair, but took its due by tearing away a few strands of her silver hair. Her head, which once looked like a thicket in the summer, now looked desolate like a bush in the winter.
For a while she wondered how a glass transformed into mirror with a coat of amalgam in the back. The obstruction of light brought depth to a surface, which reflected everything in the world. The mirror, she thought, had solved one of the greatest riddles of mankind. She could not have seen her own face without it, even though she could have seen the rest of the world.
She got used to sitting in front of the mirror ever since her mother told her it was always important for girls to look proper. She also envied men ever since, thinking how carelessly they went about their looks, how they fixed their hair with a stroke of the comb, and then cared only if the shirt buttons were in the right holes and the zipper of the trousers was closed.
But for woman it is showtime whenever she steps out of the house; even at home she has to maintain herself in a woman-like manner. She has to brush her hair when she wakes up in the morning, put cream on her face, rub lotion on her hands and feet, and gel on her lips. Then she has to massage oil in her hair, do facials, clip her nails, shave her legs, pluck her eyebrows and hairs above her upper lips, put foundation on the face, then make-up, lipstick, nail polish, deodorant, breath freshener, and what not. At night it is again the combing of hair, cream on the face, lotion on the arms and legs, gel on the lips, everything squeaky clean, everything shipshape.
She estimated that all her efforts put together to keep the bounce in her hair, the shine and tone in her skin, the fragrance in her breath, and to wear the air of a woman on her person, was enough to paint her house twice in a week. It took so much attention to detail to be a woman, as if eternal vigilance was the price of beauty. She ran the comb through her hair again, feeling the tug at the skin of her head where the comb got stuck in the knotted hair like a car stalled in hopeless traffic.
Her eyes were still fixed on the mirror, the wavy reflection of the face convincing her that the quality of the mirror was poor. But then she did not feel the urge to change it because it no longer mattered how she looked since she was now past her youth. Old age was like a death row prisoner in the condemned cell. It was nothing but an uncertain wait to finish what had certainly come to an end. She felt like a dream confined in nightmare, like the ruins of an edifice haunted by its ghost.
Age feeds on a body like termites on wood. How she grew old without noticing it, how the skin loosened, eyes dimmed, hair thinned, and the mind wobbled. She pulled out the comb and ran it again like a plowshare splitting soil. As she pushed back the comb, she realized that her hair had shortened like a poodle's tail. She looked in the mirror, sitting face to face with her lonely self. Old age was a tragedy for which there was nobody to blame.
There was a time when beauty used to glow on her skin like flames on the burning coals. Every way she looked, moved, talked, yawned, even spit, she could send a thousand hearts throbbing hard like a blacksmith's hammer hitting an anvil. When she turned her head, her long black hair swept in the air like a dark patch of cloud cruising in the sky. When she smiled, the sun beamed in her face and the fragrance of yogurt drifted in her breath. She had music in her voice, as her suitors often said. She was nimble and graceful like a gazelle in the wood.
It had been a long time since she had a chance to think of the past, because life sped like a mad horse, galloping night after day, day after night, the body burning in the friction of living as if to create the energy to push forward. It happened before she knew, the frenzy of life turned into habit, all its surprises leavened into a monotonous repetition of pleasure and pain.
It has been long since she thought much about love, the passion of youth, that big fire which blazed in the heart. What happened to it? She looked in the mirror as if to throw that question at her image sitting on the other side. What happened to that wellspring of emotions, that radiation of feelings, which, like a summer storm, spewed both hot air and cold breeze? Little did she know that love, like a treacherous virus, could hide in the muscles of her heart, and attack in old age, when she was already exhausted in the struggle between life and death! Human mind could be like that cheap mirror, wavering in its conviction in absence of clear reflection. She did not know what she wanted, she never looked inside her heart, because she believed in what she was told, that the specter of love rushed through the window once the demon of hunger came through the doors. So, she got married to a fairy, which brought her wishes, food on the plate, more creams, more lotions, more fragrance, clothes, car, house and jewelry. She got more time to be a woman, more bounce in the hair, more tone of skin, fresher breath and lustrous look.
Marriage is when love is shifted from heart to stomach, when man and woman oblige each other with care and concern, duty and devotion, not because there is any attraction between them but because they get used to each other. She sat many nights in front of the mirror while her husband slept like a fallen log, snoring in the silence of night that wrapped around her like a shawl of sorrow. She harboured it like sacrilege in the soul of a saint. She knew that she never loved the man she had married.
She lifted her hand to comb her hair one last round for the day, her eyes fixed on the mirror where she could see the reflection of her darkened face. Why did she want to recall the radiant morning at the time of sunset? Life is many mornings and many nights put together in a single day, and there is no sunrise when that day goes into the final darkness. She looked in the mirror and thought how she watched the passing of that day on this slab of glass that was only few millimeters thick, yet held everything in its reflections, in entire depth!
Life evolves in a woman, and so does she in the mirror. While parting her hair with the comb, she realised how she and the mirror were intimately involved. Men do not bear children and they do not sit in front of the mirror. She envied them for all their freedom, except for one man who was different. Only the mirror knew about it, because she lived for him in its hollow chest.
Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.