Raufa stood with her back towards me. Her blonde hair caught the afternoon light, making her look like an angel. She turned around and the angel promptly disappeared.

“And what if he turns out to be some sleazeball? Who tries to take advantage of me?”

“I thought sleazeballs were your type,” I said, my nose stuck in a newspaper.

Raufa threw back her head and laughed, “Very funny. I have some self-respect, you know. No fooling around on a first date. Men never respect girls who give it up on the first date.”

“But they treat the ones who give it up on the third date like their own mothers and sisters.”

“They can all go to hell as far as I care. Come here and hold this mirror for me, this stupid dressing table is so far from the light.” She had spent the past ten minutes trying to pluck the hair from her upper lip.

I was saved by Lisbeth who chose that exact moment to poke her head in and ask if Raufa baji needed anything.

“Lisbeth, hold this madam’s mirror for her,” I said, happy to see her for once. I should have guessed she’d be hanging around, waiting for an excuse to come in and see Raufa get ready. Rushing in, she held up the mirror as Raufa continued to scrutinise her upper lip. When Lisbeth pointed towards a hair Raufa had missed, she was rewarded with a grateful smile. Partners in crime, I thought to myself. Raufa made sure to tip Lisbeth generously and gave her the clothes she no longer wanted, as well as old sandals and half-finished tubes of lipstick. No wonder Lisbeth was always sweeping so close to our room!

We had been sharing a room at the Working Women’s Hostel in Islamabad for the past few years. When I was first hired by a girl’s college as a lecturer, I moved from Lahore and was obliged to stay with my khala. One day I was coming of a bookshop when I saw a girl sauntering down the street, her blonde hair glimmering against her black shirt. When I saw her face, I recognized her. It was Raufa, my classmate from university.

“Hey bombshell! Where are you going?” I said once she caught sight of me.

She cackled and gave me a hug, clearly pleased by my comment. Ducking into the nearest fast food place, we ordered coffee and spent an hour catching up. I hadn’t seen Raufa in years and we were now well into our thirties. Three years ago, she had divorced her husband. Having been unlucky in love on more than one occasion, I was still unmarried. When Raufa heard I was living with relatives, she insisted I come and stay with her at the hostel. I hesitated at first, then promised her it would be a temporary arrangement. Some years later, here we still were. My lecturer’s salary didn’t amount to much and supporting Raufa’s vanity was a small price to pay for her generosity.

Freshly plucked, Raufa sat at her dressing table and looked at herself in the mirror.

“I’ll tell you something. These girls in their twenties can’t compete with women our age. Our elegance and composure guarantee that men of all ages will be fascinated by us.”

The man, or should I say boy, she was getting ready to go out with today was fresh out of university. When they met, Raufa refused to tell him how old she was. Promising her a job at an international agency, he asked to see her ID card.

“That bastard just wanted to know my age,” she told me, grinning a little at his audacity.

I drew the newspaper closer till it hid my whole expression.

“Where has my concealer disappeared?” she grumbled, searching for it on her dressing table and knocking over all the makeup and curlers so carefully arranged by Lisbeth.

She’d spent half the day getting ready and now I wanted nothing more than for her to leave.  All morning, the smell of wax and powder filled the room and the scent of her perfume made it difficult to breathe. Hoping for some respite, I closed my eyes for a little while. When I opened them, she stood before me. Clad in a red outfit, her blonde hair curled to perfection, she dabbed on another layer of lipstick and picked up a tiny silver handbag.

“How do I look?” she asked.

In truth, her lips were overlined to the point of being comical and the outfit was too loud for my taste, but I rarely risked hurting her feelings. Managing a smile, I said she looked lovely.

In the evening, I went to dinner at a colleague’s. I left promptly at eight pm and went to the market to pick up some groceries. By the time I got to the hostel, Raufa was still not back.

“Someone’s having a good time,” I thought to myself, grateful to get a couple more hours of quiet.

Raufa didn’t come back until half past ten. By the way she sashayed into the room I could tell the date had gone well.

“He turned out to be a sly bastard.” A smile hovered above her lips as she started undressing. “When he saw me, he insisted we go somewhere quiet to talk. His friends had a place, he said. When we got there, it was empty! This is the problem with these young ones, they are so forward. Uff but I’m so hungry, have you eaten yet?”

“He didn’t take you out?”

“Yes, yes he did for lunch, but that was hours ago. It’s almost eleven now! We went to Jung Ho and his friends were there too so they joined us. We ordered sizzlers, prawns, Thai soup. Everything was so good! Worth spending half my salary.”

“You paid the bill?” I asked, now truly shocked.

“Who else? He was going to pay for us, but then his friends showed up. How could he pay for everyone, poor thing? They’re all basically students anyway. I mean, he just starting working so his earning isn’t much.”

“Poor thing! While you get thousands from your lands every month.”

She gave me a scornful look.

“These petty things don’t matter to me. What difference does it make who pays and who doesn’t?”

She tossed her silver bag onto the bed and began to get undressed in silence.

“Did you mind what I said?” I asked, fearing I may have gone too far.

“Not at all.” She threw her dressing gown to one side and put her arms around my neck. “You’re my only friend!” For a moment she looked like a little girl and not like a thirty-seven-year-old woman returning home from having sex in some stranger’s dirty room. I extracted myself from her grasp, saying it was late and I wanted to go to bed.

At the time, the Nizam-e-Mustafa movement was gaining popularity much to Raufa’s dismay. Pacing our room, she railed against the uncivilized state of the country. According to her, no decent person would be able to live in Pakistan for much longer. She acted like she could be lashed at any time, as if there were people lying in wait to catch her doing something characterless before sinking their whips into her behind. Raufa’s paranoia was so great I couldn’t take it seriously. To rile her up, I told her the Nizam-e-Mustafa offered an alternative punishment to lashes, being stoned. She took some time to consider which of the two would be more painful, before going back to lambasting the nation that forbade innocent pleasures. If only she’d been born in New York or Moscow, Raufa lamented. Every year she applied for job opportunities abroad, swearing that the moment she was accepted anywhere there was no looking back. In the meantime, she told her boyfriend to drop her off at the nearest market instead of the hostel gate. Once, as she was getting out at the market, she caught a man staring at her.  Convinced that he would report her to the Nizam-e-Mustafa followers, she spent half the night unable to sleep with fright.

Raufa began to see her new boyfriend no more than once a week as she felt this to be a decent gap between dates. Every week she would spend hours getting ready and come back late at night, brimming with stories about where they went, his kindness and modesty as well as how handsome he looked. He was so manly, she tittered as she lay on her bed, eyes closed in ecstasy.

A few weeks went by like this and then, one evening, she came back from meeting him with a strange expression on her face. Offering no details of the date, she turned away from me and started to undress.

“What happened?” I asked. “Did you get into a fight?”

“Oh no!” she said, now taking off her makeup. “Why would we fight? You know how well we get along. He was saying how he wants nothing more than for me to spend the night with him. But getting a hotel room is so risky these days. The other day he even said he wants me to meet his sister. I think he’s planning on proposing soon.”  

“Then why are you sulking?”

She paused a little and then went on. “Today when he was dropping me back, we stopped at the petrol pump. He said it wasn’t nice for us to borrow someone’s car and return it without filling the tank. When it was time to pay, he asked me for the money. I didn’t know what to say so I handed it over. Two hundred rupees!”

“You’re the one who said it doesn’t matter who pays for these petty things.”

“But I’m not done yet. When we got to the market and I was about to get out of the car, he said his father was going to be discharged from the hospital tomorrow. He desperately needs five hundred rupees. Now you tell me. I just paid two hundred for petrol. What will I live on for the rest of the month if I give him five hundred more?”

“Don’t give him anymore then.”

She screwed up her face. “It’s not right to say no just like that. It must have been hard for him to ask such a favour. And I have some savings in the bank. After all, we’re in love so what does it matter?”

Unable to comprehend how someone could be so stupid, I turned away from her and began to prepare my lecture for the week.

A few days later, she brought up the engagement again and I pointed out that by the time he was thirty-five she would be fifty years old. Didn’t that bother her? She looked at me as if I was an idiot for even asking.

“We’ll see when the time comes,” she said, turning away from me.

Their weekly meetings continued and I stopped trying to give Raufa any advice. One afternoon she came to me with a perturbed look on her face and said his birthday was coming up. She wanted ideas for what to get him. I suggested a pair of cuff links or a new tie, but shouldn’t have wasted my breath. It turned out he’d already mentioned something to her in passing. He’d wanted a real gold chain for years. Apparently, he was the only one out of all of his friends who didn’t have one.

“So, you’re telling me that you’ll be the one putting the gold chain around his neck?” I said, unable to suppress a smirk.

“I can barely afford it but what can I do? It’s the first birthday since we’ve been together,” she said, chewing on her lower lip a little nervously.

I did a double take. “Your birthday passed just last month!”

“Oh, I didn’t tell him. It looks cheap to mention your birthday like that. By the way, you’ve never even told me what you think of him. We could be married in the next few months. I want your honest opinion.” She looked at me in anticipation.

“Well,” I paused. “I think he’s bit of a brat.”

“Meaning?”

“I mean, he’s just a sugar baby.”

“What’s that?” she pressed on.

“You know,” I said. “The gigolo type.”

I expected a tirade in response, but all she did was purse her lips. A moment passed between us and she got up from her chair and headed towards the door.

“You’re aren’t being fair,” she said before she left.

Feeling guilty about what I’d said, I offered to go with her to buy his present the next day. First, we went to the bank so she could take out enough money for the chain, then we went to the jeweller. After some hunting and bargaining we managed to find a gold chain within Raufa’s budget. She didn’t want the plain box it came in so the jeweller went into the backroom and emerged with a flamboyant red box that she loved immediately. At the stationary shop she chose red and gold wrapping paper to match the box. In the evening, she wrapped the box with utmost care and eyed it with satisfaction for the rest of the night.

On the day of his birthday, Raufa brought out a black silk dress with French lace at the neck and sleeves. Tiny silver stars in the lace gleamed at me from across the room. She’d had a set of new red acrylics put in just for the occasion. Fussing over every small thing, Raufa spent longer than usual getting ready. When she was finally done, she picked up her tiny silver handbag and turned to face me.

“You’re looking beautiful! So glamorous.”

Letting out a little giggle, she twirled on her pencil heels and said she wouldn’t be back till late.

Throughout the rest of the day, I found myself thinking of Raufa. I wondered what the present, the new nails, the silk dress had all amounted to. By my estimate, she wouldn’t be back before half past ten at least. Around a quarter to nine I heard the tap of pencil heels in the corridor. A few seconds later, Raufa appeared in the doorway. The light from the hallway fell on her crumpled face and I realised she was crying.

“That pig has insulted me like no other!” she howled.

“What happened?” I panicked. “Raufa, did he try to take advantage…” The thought of Raufa locked in a room with all those boys and no way of getting out passed a shiver through my spine.

She blew her nose into a tissue paper and shook her head. Leaning against the doorframe, she took her heels off and threw them against the wall. Then she came over and sat on my bed.

“It was all going so well,” she said. “I set everything up for the party and his friends came around five o clock. They brought a cake but there was no knife to cut it with so we used a spoon. He fed me cake with his own hands in front of his friends, which I didn’t approve of, of course.” She tried to stifle a sob and then went on. “I brought out my gift and his friends applauded. He was so pleased by the chain when I put it around his neck, he even kissed my wrist! Then I cut slices of cake for everyone and got cream all over my hands because of that stupid spoon. When I was in the washroom fixing myself, I overheard one of his friends saying, What a chain yaar!” She blew her nose into the tissue paper again and dabbed her eyes.

“And then?”

“And then he said, these are the bonuses of having an aunty around! They all laughed so much, I even heard a couple of them clap him on the back. I didn’t know what to do. I washed my hands for five whole minutes and even flushed twice, though you know I never use the washroom at a man’s place. Aunty. Can you believe that pig called me an aunty?!”

“Raufa dearest,” I said. “You should have stormed out of the washroom and beaten the daylights out of him.”

“Slimy bastard. How I hate him.”

“It’s good you found out now, before things became too serious.”

“But…but…I want to expose him for what he’s done. He’ll regret trying to make a fool out of me, mark my words.”

“Just forget it, Raufa. Be thankful you overheard him today and move on.”

“Tomorrow I’m going to call him and when he picks up, I’ll say, this is your aunty speaking. What do you think? He’ll piss his pants in shock!”

She got up and paced around the room. I watched as her eyes became manic.

“Or…or… I could buy him another present. A white shirt. And I’ll stick a card on the box with ‘from your aunty’ written inside. Then I’ll throw the box at his face and never see him again.”

She clenched and unclenched her fists as she spoke and I noticed one of her acrylic nails was missing.

“Where’s your nail?”

She looked down at her hands and realised it was gone. “Just great,” she said, bitterly. “It must have fallen off God knows where.”

“Go to bed,” I said, switching off the bedside lamp. “You’ll feel better tomorrow.”

She nodded and crawled into her bed, still in her silk dress. I heard her crying to herself even as I drifted off to sleep.

In the morning, Raufa seemed more collected. We went to have breakfast in the dining hall as usual and then came back to the room to get our bags. She tapped me on the shoulder just as I was about to leave for work.

“Do you have a minute?” she asked.

We sat on our respective beds and faced each other.

“I was up all night, thinking.” She looked down, searching for words.

Convinced she was going to tell me about another ridiculous breakup plan, I told her I was getting late for work and to please hurry up.

Raufa cleared her throat. “I realised I’m being foolish. I’m not looking at the facts of the situation. The fact is that I’m almost thirty-eight years old. The fact is that what I heard yesterday was not meant for my ears. The fact is that he has his faults, but he isn’t a bad sort at all. The fact is if I break up with him today, he will have a new girlfriend by tomorrow, but I will be left with nothing…”

She spoke in a strange monotone and I found myself unable to look at her as she veered off these facts about her life. Averting her gaze, I spotted something shiny underneath her bed. I had to squint before realising what it was.

“Isn’t that your nail?”

She leapt up at once to retrieve it, “Oh thank God!” she said. “You found it! I thought I’d have to buy a new set.” She blew some dust off the nail and examined it. Turning towards me, she threw her head back and laughed as she said, “You can’t even imagine how happy I am!”